Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m a 43 year old truck driver. I’ve been writing stories in one form or another since 3rd grade and in the last couple years started publishing on all the usual suspect sites. I currently have two novels and a short story collection published.

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My latest is Nine Months Abroad, a coming of age story set in Germany in 1982. I’m an army brat and lived with my family in — surprise, surprise!! — Germany in 1982. That experience is the inspiration behind the book.

Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I HAVE to write to music, usually related in some way to the material. For example, Nine Months Abroad takes place in 1982 so I listened to Billboard Top 100 lists from 1981-1983. During the writing of the sequel, Glory Days [which takes place in 1988], I listened to hard rock and metal from the mid-80s. I’ve tried to write music-free, but it just doesn’t work for me.

What authors, or books have influenced you?
Stephen King, first and foremost. Particularly IT and The Body. I love the way he writes kids.

What are you working on now?
I’m working on two projects at the moment: 1 – Class of ’89, the sequel to Glory Days; 2 – an urban fantasy/superheroish book under a pen name.

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
At the moment, it’s pretty much all Twitter and Facebook. I’ve just now started getting into actual promotion sites.

Do you have any advice for new authors?
1000 words a day wins the race.

What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Heinlein’s Rules. Learn them, love them.

What are you reading now?
Endi Webb’s Chains of Destiny (book two of the Pax Humana series). Darned good space opera.

What’s next for you as a writer?
Launching my UF pen name. And then finishing and publishing Class of ’89.

If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Stephen King’s IT
The Lord of the Rings (it’s one book, sue me)
The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

Author Websites and Profiles
Patrick Szabo Website

Patrick Szabo is a post from Awesome Gang

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I am an extraordinarily shy girl and trying to fill out a personal profile or write a short description of myself is a huge fear of mine. I don’t have much of a colorful picture to paint about my life currently as it is pretty boring. I’m a fairly reclusive person, I keep to myself and I spend a great deal of my time daydreaming, writing and working on my art.

Currently I have self-published seven books. I have a novel, five short poetry books and a short story related to my novel available. I have a lot of other work in various stages of completion including three finished short stories. I plan on publishing one of those stories in the very near future but more on that later.

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
The name of my latest book is The Sunset Script and elements of my life, specifically my ongoing battle with severe depression, is the inspiration for it. It is a book about pain and it is a book about bringing things to a close. The book address a variety of issues including depression, death, violent crime and the abuse of drugs and alcohol. Some of those issues hit very close to home for me while other issues are things we all see and hear in the news every day. Thee issues affect everyone in some way, shape or form and for a lot of people there is no easy way to overcome those issues. I will admit the book may be a tough book to read but it was also a tough book for me to write.

Do you have any unusual writing habits?
The most unusual writing habit I have is writing in the dark. I would not recommend that practice to anyone but for some reason the motivation for me to write often comes right as I am trying to fall asleep so I find myself writing either by flashlight or from the glow of my laptop. I also write everything out by hand first because the words come to me a little easier that way.

What authors, or books have influenced you?
Hands down I would say Zora Neale Hurston is my biggest influence. I am still in awe of her colorful way of writing. I love the unique dialects she applied to the characters in her stories and I have a great appreciation to how raw and real her stories are. Not every story is a journey of magical happiness. People experience hardships, people have struggles and some of those struggles are more than enough to cripple even the toughest souls but we can learn to put our lives into perspective and attempt to gather strength from them.

What are you working on now?
Right now I am working on my novels and my short stories since they are all related to each other and it is a highly expansive world that I have spent nearly the last fifteen years daydreaming about.

The novel I am working on is book two of my In Search of Infinity Series. To give a brief synopsis of the first book, In Search of Infinity: Living Through the Glass, I would have to say the first book is about a psychic, paraplegic Goddess who is shunned by her family for her disability until a younger relative suffering from his own personal demons shifts the balance of power in his favor and forces our main character to use her powers to figure out what led to not only the deaths of her caretakers but how to stop the chaos surrounding this relative’s messy lifestyle.

Book two of this series is told from the perspective of this male relative. From the first book we learn he was punished for being a flighty womanizer and instead of using his punishment as a means to change his ways for the better, he finds himself falling into a dangerous cycle of anger and dementia that drives him down a dark path of becoming a murderer in the name of freeing himself from his punishment. However, the fallout from his actions may not necessarily signal the end to his suffering.

My short story series entitled The Lost Stories. I settled on that name for the series because I want the focus to be on the lives of all of the characters who appear in my In Search of Infinity novels. The first short story, Ubiquitous Aspirations, is about the family patriarch’s obsession to have a son to leave his creations to. The main character does get his son but it comes with a high price to pay.

The second short story is the story I mentioned earlier. I have yet to come up with a title for it but when that happens I hope to have that published within the next couple of months. This short story is about one of the associates of the family patriarch. He is a man with a fiery temper and he holds wildly different views than his colleagues on how to deal with women, marriage and romance. To dispel notions of his political incompetence to his colleagues, our main character in this story executes a new method of social warfare to try to achieve world domination but a tiny oversight may threaten to derail his master plan for good.

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I am still very new at promotion. I have only joined the ranks of social media this year and after 9 months I still haven’t become very comfortable with any platform. I admit my shyness is a huge hindrance to promoting my books so while I would like to give advice to others about what methods work for me I am unable to because I am still trying to learn about what practice works best for someone like me.

Do you have any advice for new authors?
My advice to new authors is to write what you want to write about. We have all experienced moments where someone told me what we couldn’t do. Writing is open-ended and as long as you have a topic in mind then there’s nothing wrong with going for it and telling the story you want to tell.

What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Someone once told me that everything isn’t for everybody. For every one person who doesn’t like my writing there is another person out there who will like it. It is not my duty to try to get everyone to like my work and it is far less stressful to not think about trying to please everyone and trying not to offend anyone for the purposes of telling a politically correct story. This world needs originality and sometimes that comes with going against the grain.

What are you reading now?
Right now I am not reading anything. I am a person who finds it highly uncomfortable to read another person’s work because I don’t want to feel as if I am using someone else’s work to influence my own work. Also I am ashamed to admit it but daydreaming about my stories takes up a lot of time.

What’s next for you as a writer?
The only thing I am focused on at the moment is finishing my novels and my short stories. I have no idea where that will take me and with bits and pieces of over fifty stories still swirling around in my head. I still have plenty of time to get all of that done and try to figure out my next steps.

If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
I don’t think that could be possible with me. Personally I would prefer a to take a pack of pens and 3 or 4 five subject notebooks but I get bored so easily that if I had a few books with me I would have read them by the time I reached the island and then I would lose the desire to read them again.

Author Websites and Profiles
Lynn Daniels Website
Lynn Daniels Amazon Profile
Lynn Daniels Author Profile on Smashwords

Lynn Daniels’s Social Media Links
Goodreads Profile
Facebook Profile
Twitter Account
Pinterest Account

Lynn Daniels is a post from Awesome Gang

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m a student of class 10 studying in M.P.E.C.I wrote this novel when I was in class 8th. I love singing and writing my own songs. I also Love Biking. I believe in God and the soul which resides inside me, and thanks her for all her support during my struggle period. I’m inspired by my soul and is determined that I should never let it go down. For now I have written One book which got published But I’m soon going to publish my second one.

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My Adventure To The Secret Door and I was inspired to write this by the most renowned authors of the wold, like William Shakespeare, J.K.Rowling and R.K.Narayan. I am specially inspired by a great quote given by Adolf Hitler which says- “One who make success without any trouble is Victory, But one who make success with lots of trouble is History.”

Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Yes, I love writing about Adventures, Realty, Songs and few reports and articles.

What authors, or books have influenced you?
J.k Rowling and Chetan Bhagat had influences me lot.

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?

Have interaction with lots and lots of readers and authors. Always be updated. And share my feelings with audience, and let them share theirs.

Do you have any advice for new authors?
Not Now!

What are you reading now?

Amar Chitra Katha

What’s next for you as a writer?
Something Great. Because Normal is not something I’m Inspire to, I’m a writer.

If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Hitler’s- My Struggle
J.K Rowling- Harry Potter
And few Chetan Bhagat’s Books

Vartika Sikarwar’s Social Media Links

Facebook Profile
Twitter Account

Vartika Sikarwar is a post from Awesome Gang

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I was raised by my loving parents as one of five boys (the middle child) in small town near Albany, New York. I graduated from college in the same state, and after travelling the world a bit afterwards, have relocated to North Carolina. Though I’ve been writing stories since my elementary school days, I didn’t build up the guts to try and publish one until now, so this is my first foray into the exciting world of publishing.

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
Super (Elementary School) Heroes is a series of books I’m currently working on. Book One: Kidnapping in Queen City is the title of the first installment. It’s both inspired by my love of superheroes and the countless stories of being an elementary school teacher to diverse groups of students. There have been a handful of students in my five year career that specifically inspired the characters in my book, and their touching stories, amazing resiliency in the face of all the unfair challenges they face, are what drive my writing. I sat down to seriously get to work on it after years of developing ideas when I realized that the books in my classroom library didn’t even come close to accurately reflecting the students I was teaching.

Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I do my best writing near bodies of water for some reason. I can write for hours on end and finish multiple chapters if I’m outside typing away near a pool, lake or ocean. When I get stuck or bored or hot…I just go for a dip, dry off and get back at it.

What authors, or books have influenced you?
Batman comics were constantly present throughout my childhood – particularly a collection of stories called “The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told,” which I pored over on a nightly basis. But I owe my love of reading and storytelling to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Bill Watterson – two authors whose works (Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Calvin and Hobbes, respectively) I make a special point of introducing all my students to.

What are you working on now?
Right now I’m putting the finishing touches on Book 2: Freedom to Fight back, which will be the second installment of my Super (Elementary School) Heroes series. I also have an untitled picture book finished that I am slowly illustrating, a separate children’s novel in the works, and another planned children’s book series that probably won’t be finished until the end of next summer.

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I’m so new to this world that I couldn’t possibly answer that question. Using Twitter and Weebly to create a website have been the biggest contributors to sales thus far. I’m hoping to start school visits within the next few months, which I hope gives diverse groups of children a chance to see themselves in my characters.

Do you have any advice for new authors?
My only advice would be to put aside any excuses as to why you haven’t done it yet and just do it. I used to think I was too busy to write, but then I just forced myself to do it, regardless of what else was going on. I probably devote four to eight hours each weekend writing and illustrating, and an hour per week night. The thing that has helped me most is that I really, really enjoy the work I need to put in.

What is the best advice you have ever heard?
I used to hesitate when thinking of writing an entire book, because I thought it would be a waste of time if it was never published. But a friend of mine who works in publishing, who I had been pitching ideas to for a while, finally told me to just shut up and write something. We made an agreement that I wouldn’t speak to him again until I had something I could be proud of to show him, and that’s exactly what happened.

What are you reading now?
I just put down The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo and once I finish Neil Gaiman’s latest, I’ll probably read John Boyne’s latest.

What’s next for you as a writer?
I want to have the first 3 books in my series written and published by Christmas before I do anything else. After that, I will put some more energy into developing my other ideas for children’s series.

If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
That’s a no-brainer:
1. The Complete Sherlock Holmes Collection (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
2. The Complete Calvin and Hobbes Collection (Bill Watterson)
3. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendack)
4. To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)

Author Websites and Profiles
Lysander C. Stark Website
Lysander C. Stark Amazon Profile

Lysander C. Stark’s Social Media Links
Twitter Account

Lysander C. Stark is a post from Awesome Gang

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I spent nearly two decades in Japan and Korea, teaching English, before becoming a full-time writer. My first major work was THE IMJIN WAR (2005, second edition Sept. 2014), a 700-page account of Japan’s sixteenth-century invasion of Korea and attempted conquest of China. After two more East Asia-themed history books, I turned to sports nonfiction with SPEED DUEL: THE INSIDE STORY OF THE LAND SPEED RECORD IN THE SIXTIES (2010), which got starred reviews in both Publishers Weekly and Library Journal, and I JUST RAN: PERCY WILLIAMS, WORLD’S FASTEST HUMAN (2011), named one of the five “Best Sports Books of 2011” by the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation).

I’ve most recently been writing fiction. My first novel, BAD ELEPHANT FAR STREAM (2013), is the life story of a circus elephant, told through her own eyes. The thriller HOMEOWNER WITH A GUN is his second fiction effort—and almost certainly not his last!

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
It’s a thriller, “Homeowner With a Gun.” It grew from a news item I stumbled across on the web a couple years ago, about a homeowner in New York State who shot and killed two intruders who broke into his trailer in a trailer park. In musing why these guys broke into this guy’s trailer, where there was really nothing to steal, a police officer was quoted as saying something to the effect that “maybe they broke into the wrong house. Happens all the time.” This got me thinking….

Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I find that listening to my “Mind Aerobics” CD before bed helps make me more creative the next day. I don’t use it much, as I think it could be playing with fire. But when I need a jolt of inspiration, something to jump start my creativity, it has helped more times than I can remember.

What authors, or books have influenced you?
Patrick O’Brian (“Master and Commander” series) for historical fiction; Paul Theroux and V.S. Naipaul for good writing; Frederick Forsyth, John Grisham, and Michael Crichton for fast-paced yarns.

What are you working on now?
A alternate history novel, “One Hundred Million Eat Stones,” set in Japan in the closing days of World War Two.It opens on August 6, 1945 with the B-29 Enola Gay crashing on the mission to Hiroshima and the Japanese recovering the atomic bomb.

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I’m still looking for any method I would call effective. Haven’t found one yet.

Do you have any advice for new authors?
Writing is hard. It’s not fun. And it’s lonely. You have to put in many, many long hours, working totally on your own, like a monk in a cell. And you have to sustain that effort for maybe a whole year to get a decent book written. So don’t have any illusions.

What is the best advice you have ever heard?
If you bang your head against the wall long enough, cracks will eventually appear. And then you’ll break through. (Samuel Hawley, 2014)

What are you reading now?
J.G. Ballard’s “Empire of the Sun.” Before that, Ty Seng’s “The Years of Zero,” about the author’s childhood in Cambodia’s killing fields.

What’s next for you as a writer?
Well, I want to complete my next project, the novel “One Hundred Million Eat Stones.” And then I’m thinking of returning to my “roots,” so to speak, with a novel set in Korea and Japan during the Imjin War (1592-98), something along the lines of “Shogun.”

If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Patrick O’Brian’s “Master and Commander”; Paul Theroux’s “Great Railway Bazaar”; V.S. Naipaul’s “A House for Mr. Biswas.” Oh, and The Bible, because on a desert island I’m going to need it.

Author Websites and Profiles
Samuel Hawley Website
Samuel Hawley Amazon Profile

Samuel Hawley’s Social Media Links
Goodreads Profile
Facebook Profile
Twitter Account

Samuel Hawley is a post from Awesome Gang

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’ve written four books. One is self-published, an action-adventure mystery novel, The Garden of Souls, but it is no longer available in paperback, only in eBook. I am presently contracted to a small independent press, GWL Publishing, LLP. in the United Kingdom. The Truth and Nothing but Lies is published through GWL, and my new mystery, which is about to be released, The Night Shadow. It’s sequel will be out in February 2015, The Touch of the Shadow. I’m still working on the third in that series.

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
I am mad about ballet and psychological thrillers. No Blood, Please! I find them much scarier and more atmospheric than ones filled with gore. A particular ballet gave me the idea to write The Night Shadow, a psychological mystery around the dance and its choreographer, George Balanchine. Having been a theologian, I love to paint everything with a broad mystical brush: characters, objects, and places, even the weather. I believe it gives everything around the characters either a menacing quality or an uplifting aspect, adding to depths of the story. It’s only natural that I should believe mysticism speaks to our souls, and it gives that little extra intriguing element in a story.

Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I found that desks are too confining for me and once you setup your keyboard and screen you have limited space for research and writing manually. My desk was our banquet sized dining table, and I shoved it against a wall, with both leaves. Then, I placed three bookshelves on top of the table, and filled the shelves with reference books I use frequently. Because all our children are grown, I initially moved into a bedroom, making it my office, but I found it entirely too constricting. Instead of moving the dining room table into a larger bedroom, I moved my entire office into the dining room. I love it there because I have room to pace, to sit in a big overstuffed chair and read, or to write at the table.

My process is to get the germ of an idea from something I’ve read, a news story, or a book, or from a film I’ve seen. Then, I create a character who will be my hero. I like to outline by hand, and then create the villain. The process of writing physically helps me think it through. I also dream solutions, or the direction my story is going to take. I’ve been known to dream up a change in a character or a plot. I believe dreams are important ways to solve problems you’ve been machinating over all day.

What authors, or books have influenced you?
I love the classics. There are a couple of modern writers I do like, but authors like Conrad, Dostoevsky, and du Maurier really resonate in my heart. I believe Daphne du Maurier, Fyodor Doestoevsky, and Graham Greene have influenced me most. I might have to add in Joseph Conrad and Edith Wharton to that list. Some of their books have been quite thrilling for me to read, and they seem to be the ones I refer to, or look to read when I’m stumped for a direction.

What are you working on now?
I’m presently working on the outline of the third book in the Shadow series, and a small literary book based on a vineyard in the Abruzzo highlands of Italy. The second novel, The Touch of the Shadow is in editing, and when my editor returns it to me marked up I’ll drop everything. Once that is completed, then I’ll begin on the third book in the series and complete my little literary novel. Hmm. I think I’ll have a glass of Pinot.

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Probably Goodreads and Book Reviewer sites. A good review is worth a thousand websites. If the reviewer has a following and they recommend a book, it can mean good sales for an unknown author. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of us who are trolling for their time, so you might have to get in line behind us.

Do you have any advice for new authors?
There really is only one kind of advice you can give a new author. Be in it for the long haul. Don’t expect to become famous overnight. That means doing more reading than writing at first. Hone your skills, then submit articles and short stories before you think you want to write the great American novel. Use traditional magazines, and enter contests. But remember, this is a skill that you are not born with, but is learned through hard work, and perseverance. Start writing short stories that are 650 words. That means you will have to really dig to get at the kernel of your story. Then up it to 1,200 words, etc. This is an excellent process of honing your skills.

Not everyone can be John Fowles and write a nearly perfect first draft. You’ll need an editor and a good one. And don’t let your ego run away with you. Keep it in check. That baby should only be let out on holidays, and after you receive excellent reviews.

What is the best advice you have ever heard?
An artist friend of mine said that if you can’t trash or destroy your work, then you’ll never grow. Not only is he right, he’s absolutely right. When an editor tells you something doesn’t work, they are probably correct. So, don’t hang tough about your fabulous prose, let it go, and rewrite it until it does work.

What are you reading now?
I’m rereading Conrad’s The Secret Agent, and Elizabeth George’s Believing the Lie. I’m also researching Paris Communards in 1871. I’m immersing myself into the mindset of the nihilists during the sixties here in the United States. They are the watermelons of today: Green on the outside and red on the inside. Their irrational defense of their belief system hasn’t changed since the 1870s, which also inspired Hitler, and helped him to build the structure of the Volkdom.

What’s next for you as a writer?
I have a couple of ideas for some Historical Fiction stories that have deep personal meaning for me. One is Saint Patrick, and the other has to do with a Revolutionary War ancestor of mine.

If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
This is a nearly impossible feat for me. I’d want to take all my books. Narrowing a list down to 3 or 4 is mind boggling. The only thing I could submit would be the following: The Bible, the Oxford English Dictionary, My Cousin Rachel, by Daphne du Maurier, and The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Both the novels are psychologically disturbing and great literary achievements. The Bible is obvious, for each time I pick it up to read I learn something new. The OED is the best source for researching anything. It has has so many quotations from fiction and nonfictional writings it could be like reading the first paragraphs of thousands of books. Not only is it inspirational to write my own, but it gently reminds me that I don’t know the meaning of a great number of words.

Oh, maybe I might change the list to include Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens. No…

Author Websites and Profiles
Cheri Vause Website
Cheri Vause Amazon Profile

Cheri Vause’s Social Media Links
Goodreads Profile
Facebook Profile
Twitter Account
Pinterest Account

Cheri Vause is a post from Awesome Gang

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m not a professional author – yet. For the time being, writing is just a hobby career. My genre is spiritual fiction. I have written many books, but only one has been (self)published: ‘God Child’, Part 1, The Grand Awakening. This is the first book of a tetralogy.

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My latest book is God Child, Part 1, The Grand Awakening. It was inspired by monohumanism, the idea that there is only one human. The concept of monohumanism is not new, every spiritual tradition has born witness to it in one way or another. However, monohumanism is by no means mainstream knowledge, it’s not part of people’s common sense, and that’s what I’m hoping to change.

Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Hmm … let me think. I like to write while standing up, not sure if that is unusual. I don’t write regularly. I work on a particular project and drop it until something inside irks me to pick it up again. I follow the secret rhythm of my subconsciousness. Maybe this is unusual: I write very efficiently while going for a walk. Well, I’m not really writing, but whole chapters emerge while strolling in the park.

What authors, or books have influenced you?
I owe all my wisdom to Dr. Paul Foster Case and Dr. Ann Davis. I’m also indebted to Jeff Benner and his mechanical translation of the Torah. Besides that I love to read Carlos Castaneda’s books, which remain inspiring even after having read them for the third time. I should mention the Celestine Prophecies too – one of the best books in the genre of spiritual fiction. Last but not least, I favor Paolo Coelho, although his books are more on the entertaining side of spirituality.

What are you working on now?
I am working on two books right now. The first is the second part of the God Child tetralogy. The subtitle is ‘Dragonslayer’. It’s all about the most human affair: the illusion of evil. The second is a screenplay: ‘The Door’. This is a drama that plays in the afterlife.

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I engage on Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads, but I’m new to the game, so, I cannot really recommend methods yet.

Do you have any advice for new authors?
Write with love. Ignore fame and wealth, just write with love and the rest will fall in place.

What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Follow that single, quiet voice inside.

What are you reading now?
Jonathan Livingstone

What’s next for you as a writer?
I want to rewrite the Genesis and Jesus Christ’s story to boost religious common sense.

If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
My pack of Tarot cards – yes it’s a book if you know how to read it :-)). I’d also take the ‘The True and Invisible Rosicrucian Order’ and the ‘Book of Tokens’ from Dr. Paul Foster Case. And last but not least the mechanical translation of the Torah to continue my archeological research of ancient spirituality.

Author Websites and Profiles
Stefan Emunds Website
Stefan Emunds Amazon Profile

Stefan Emunds’s Social Media Links
Goodreads Profile
Facebook Profile
Twitter Account
Pinterest Account

Stefan Emunds is a post from Awesome Gang

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I am the author of one fiction book and three family biographies.

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
The name of my book is Ashley’s Gift, A Story of Loss and Self-Forgiveness.

Inspiration came through several avenues: A dead end, a friend, and fate. I had been writing nonfiction for years when I decided to take a break because dial up connection became impossible to communicate, to do research, or blog. Several months later, a friend encouraged me to check out a workshop for fiction writers. After two sessions I was unable to continue, but my friend relayed the assignment: Write three pages, creating your first chapter. I was not interested in fiction writing, mostly because I did not think I had the imagination or skills to write a novel. Then I started to have writing withdraws and one day I just decided that I could do the assignment.

I knew I wanted to write a story that would entertain and help people so I prayed and right away I had a mental outline of what became Ashley’s Gift, A Story of Loss and Self-Forgiveness.

Do you have any unusual writing habits?
No, all very ordinary.

What authors, or books have influenced you?
Author Richard Paul Evans’ story of how he got started as an author gave me hope. He had written and printed a small story for his family for Christmas. So many friends shared his book that the bookstores wanted it. Eventually his book became a best seller, and then a movie!

What are you working on now?
A sequel to Ashley’s Gift, A Story of Loss and Self-Forgiveness.

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
So far, my best promotions have been word of mouth through Facebook.

Do you have any advice for new authors?
If you know in your gut that you are meant to be a writer, no matter how rocky the path becomes or how many obstacles you encounter, Never, EVER, give up on yourself. And remember, success is not measured by fame and money. Success is measured by the heart–knowing you have done a job well done and touched others.

What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Never give up on yourself.

What are you reading now?

What’s next for you as a writer?
I want to finish the sequel then write a memoir.

If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
The Bible, a survival book, poison plant book, how to build shelters and tools.

Author Websites and Profiles
Dianne Marie Andre Website
Dianne Marie Andre Amazon Profile

Dianne Marie Andre’s Social Media Links
Facebook Profile
Twitter Account
Pinterest Account

Dianne Marie Andre is a post from Awesome Gang