Suz Korb

MY SWEET RESCUE BY A GHOST  In March 2015, on a walk through Chinatown, something astonishing happened. And here's hoping you've known such a moment yourself. Having written and published a dozen novels, I'd learned how to line up my ducks in a row. The time had come to start work on my fourth Boss MacTavin mystery after months of researching and planning. But first I decided to take a short trip to San Francisco. There, I met with an online friend and fan. And in our walk through Chinatown, Rob said that he really liked the MacTavin mysteries—my intended bread and butter—but that he loved the quirky series I called The Fast and The Furies. He felt that in these short stand-alone novels (each less than 40,000 words) I seemed to have written from far closer to my center. After our walk and lunch, I still had a couple of days to myself. The first day I spent brooding, for I'd come to a Rubicon that I had to cross or evade. Already I had the ghost of an idea...

I've been wanting to feature The Lie on my blog since before it was officially released! But I was pregnant and gave birth so I've had baby-brain for the past few years, and that means hardly any reading. Maybe it's a good thing I waited though because I've had time to watch this book climb bestseller lists all the way onto the Sunday Times! Cally is an amazing writer and she's the reason I write novels myself. I remember when Cally wrote her first novel and it was published in 2009. I've received loads of writing advice from her over the years and I'm so grateful for her help. I also remember when she went to Nepal on her own. What a brave lass! She brought back some gifts that I still treasure today. Who knew then her travels would lead to the dark and twisted inspiration for The Lie? Well it's a damn good thing she braved travelling on her own to Nepal when she did, all those years ago. And now I finally get to feature an exclusive interview with a...

The romantic in me wants to believe that most authors suffer from an incurable passion to create. Scenarios, characters, dilemmas, conflicts, resolutions, happy endings, etc. are all aching to get out, to be heard, revised, edited, revised again (and again and again) and then, in due time, to be shared with the world. And it doesn't stop – before one story is done the next is crying to be heard.  It is certainly that way for me. Three novels are complete – each of them an exhilarating experience of which I am quite proud – the fourth is soon to be released and numbers five and six are banging on the door pleading for some of my undivided attention. Therein lies the problem ... time. There is never enough and I can no longer justify spending any of what little I have trying to interest an agent.  For that reason I walk the indie route. Don't get me wrong ... it's not that I haven't tried but after an infinite number of polite rejections and even more unanswer...

The inspiration for The Secret Keepers, the sequel to the award-winning spy thriller Deadly Exchange (2007), came slowly. In fact, it was the urging of readers for a sequel that set the creative wheels in motion. Unlike Deadly Exchange, which was writing itself unconsciously for several years before being put to paper, I had no workable ideas for a sequel. Then, after a prolonged stay in Europe in spring of 2008, a story began to emerge along with new and compelling characters. Key to the story was the new character, Katya Drachovna, who is rescued from a sex trafficking operation by Sara and Frank and the rest of Peter Wellington's elite team (carryovers from Deadly Exchange). This sparks the deeper mysteries within the thriller. Another key to The Secret Keepers was the element of cyber warfare, especially as the next terrorist threat. And that is how The Secret Keepers germinated into a novel. Geoffrey M. Gluckman is an author of stories where "nothing is as it seems...

Hello there! My name is Andrew Seiple, and I'm a fanfiction writer. This is normally the part where you chorus "Hi Andrew!" and I confess my sins.  But a weird thing has been happening lately. I'm not feeling that sinful anymore. See, the popular stereotype of fanfiction for years has been more about the "fan" part of the fanfiction. The stereotype is of poorly-socialized overpassionate zealots pounding out bad stories. Unskilled individuals committing literary sins; poorly written portrayals of popular characters, implausible and silly plots, bad grammar, poor spelling, bizarre punctuation (!!!!!!!!!) and inappropriate pornography. And some of that's true. Some of that's deserved. There's a ton of the stuff out there, and good lord, it gets disturbing. But some of it... some of it's actually pretty good.  It's all about Sturgeon's Law in the end. Sturgeon's Law, if you haven't heard it before, is simple; ninety ...

Today we have a guest post on the inspiration for his book Triad; Sisters of the Storm, Book 1 . Please welcome author Guy Estes. Strong female characters have always been my favorite, but they're a character type that is very difficult to get right and all too easy to get wrong. The result is either a one dimensional – and very unlikeable – character or one that ends up becoming a damsel in distress needing a guy to come rescue her.  When I first started writing Triad, the only women warriors in the fantasy genre were members of the bronze bikini brigade. My main character, Aleena Kurrin, is my attempt to remedy that. The gods designed her to be a warrior, yet she has no desire to dominate or harm anyone. At least, not until she experiences evil first hand.  Triad is an epic fantasy about a young, gifted woman coming to grips with her gift and all of its responsibilities while trying to find her place and purpose in the world. I can't really say that I created Aleena....

I've just begun the initial notes for a new novel. My first novel, a YA fiction about faeries, is out on some agent's desk awaiting a rejection (or acceptance, be optimistic!) letter right now. My second, a novel about ghosts in a hotel, is almost a complete first draft. This third novel, though, feels entirely different. As you can see, I don't focus on one project at a time. I'm way too easily distracted for that, and I switch between projects daily. Eventually, though, they all get completed. In her book “Big Magic,” Elizabeth Gilbert writes that she believes ideas are things of their own, floating through the atmosphere just waiting for the right creator to latch on to, to be their vessel into the physical world. I don't know that I entirely believe in her theory, but if there were ever a moment for me to start to it would be the moment this third book idea came to me. This is the first time a book idea has come to me with a full story arc. I imme...

David Shaffer is the author of The Rifter Chronicles. Book one; Soul Rifters  is available now. His guest post today delves into his life and the inspiration behind his writing. For more from author David Shaffer visit his website . I started Soul Rifters in March of 2012. I was putting together the outline after reading about the Oculus Rift. (Before they sold to FaceBook for 2 Billion). I had some ideas about this type of technology in the form of sci-fi fantasy writing. I since own three Oculus Rift systems. My son is working on his first game in Unreal Engine for the Oculus. This exposure has led me to work in the kids/young adult area. Where it started: It is 2330, Tampa Florida, I am in the Air Force assigned to MacDill AFB, working at my desk at home on a rare cool evening. The events were in the Tampa local paper . I was over my 20 years of service point, I was awarded the Medal of Valor. Things were great. In January of the following year I was hurt i...

The old adage is that writers get asked, “Where do you get your ideas?” And the answer is, generally, “Everywhere and nowhere.” There are times, of course, when a writer can pinpoint the moment the idea for a story or book came to them, but writing is a long process, and as time wears on, the writer’s mind is so enswirled with what he or she is doing, the origin of the book begins to be lost in the fog. I can say this about The Fall and Rise of Peter Stoller : It started as a Sherlock story. At this point, I was still writing the story in my head; I hadn’t yet put anything on paper. I was playing scenes through mentally, which is generally how I work—I envision them, stage them so to speak, and then write them down. And then I realized it didn’t work for a Sherlock Holmes story, that what I had in mind was something else entirely. So I changed the characters, and they sort of flew out at me as if they’d been waiting in the wings the entire time. And once I had them, the sto...

It was May 19, 1999. The air smelled of butter . The marquis glittered with thousands of speckled lights designed to bring you back in time. In this case, not to the 1920's when the Ziegfeld Theater was at its height, but the late 1970's when a seven year old kid was first introduced to Han, Luke, and Leia. In that line, excitement fizzed, it popped, and some people practically goobered. This was Star Wars. This was a chance to go back to our childhood, an opportunity experience something new, and to meet new friends. There was even a cultural connection that transcended nerdiness and nostalgia that transcended the space opera. The originals had become part of our culture in adopted language, phrases, and iconic images.  That was why I chose the Ziegfeld Theater. I wanted to choose someplace historic. Someplace celebratory. Someplace incredibly New York. Several blocks away, my first play would open in an Off-Off Broadway house, but this was worth an opening night. I put as...

The History of Moore Hollow Moore Hollow started out as a joke. It was a pretty good one, if I say so myself. What would be the absurd, fantastical extension of the murky history of dead people apparently voting in elections (I explored some of that over at my blog )? Actually raising the dead to do the dirty work. It's one thing to manipulate paper, it's a whole different thing to create a cadre of zombies to actually cast ballots on your behalf. But a good joke does not a story, much less a novel, make (although many great jokes are, in and of themselves, great stories). So I had the idea, the question was, what to do with it? Moore Hollow was initially going to a be a short story focusing on King Tommy, the corrupt politician at the heart of things. It would be about his bold plan to raise the dead and how it backfired in the most interesting of ways (no spoilers, such as they are). But that straight forward approach didn't really appeal ...