Going on to aver that writing is a career for him even if he does not make a living at it, Mr Link, who has studied Spanish, Japanese, and Brazilian Portuguese, tells us he thinks authors get too tied to the financial aspect of writing, and that’s not the bar he sets for his success. āI want to reach people so they’ll read my stories and enjoy them, not so I can quit my day job. That’s one of the reasons I love Kindle Unlimited. People can read me for free,ā he says.
Author Barbara Avon has written with zest and fervour since she was young, beginning her writing journey with poetry riddled with teenage angst. Quite interestingly, when her first assignment in Grade IX was to write a short story, it earned her an A+, and she knew right off the bat that she was meant to write. Speaking to The Literary Juggernaut in an exclusive interaction, the author, who tends to write all the time, constantly emailing herself notes, ideas, phrases and words, says she will even awaken at three in the morning just to send herself an email! āWriting, to me, is the same as breathing. It’s a part of me. I don’t think I could be happy doing anything else,ā she avers.
Author Robert Stubblefield started writing around the age of ten. As a matter of fact, he began composing poems at the time as a way to cope with the loss of his grandmother. Speaking exclusively to The Literary Juggernaut, the twenty-eight-year-old American author and poet, who is currently residing in Maryland, the US, says poetry has always helped him express his feelings towards the world around him. Emphasising that he usually writes when he has the urge to pen down his thoughts and whenever he feels low, Mr Stubblefield, who holds a bachelorās degree besides two masterās degrees, says he composes poetry so he may articulate the deepest of his thoughts in ways he cannot do when he happens to be speaking.
Author T C Weber is a morning person, and he begins his day with what he loves doing most: writing. In an exclusive email interaction with The Literary Juggernaut, Mr Weber, who is a member of Poets & Writers and the Maryland Writers Association, says when working on a novel, his goal is to write one scene each day, schedule permitting. āI ensure that I write something every morning, even if itās just random thoughts or a few paragraphs. Long scenes may take several days,ā explains the author, who also knows to speak Spanish besides a bit of Russian and Japanese.
The author, who can speak a bit of Spanish and Welsh besides swearing in Punjabi, thanks to his Indian friends at school, also stresses while accepting the reality might be hard, if one does accept, then it will take the sting off the inevitable rejections and negative reviews that all authors get. āWith rejections, try to be level-headed when they land. First consider whether they are sincere, or whether they are just a form rejection with little thought or substance behind them. If they are sincere, then study them carefully, take on board the comments and try to learn,ā he explains, adding, āThis is especially important if those rejections go into specific detail about what did and didnāt work. Try and see this as honest advice from top people within the industry, which, in any other scenario, you would probably be paying good money for.ā
Besides, Mr Frankel shares with us that being an English coach and editor, he has to make time for other essential activities as well. While he usually writes at night for a few hours and takes breaks every fifty minutes or so, we learn that during the day too, he gets interesting ideas, which he more often than not jots down immediately. āDuring the day, however, I teach ESL (English as a Second Language) besides editing other writers’ works. Then, I do my own thing, which is writing. When I want to relax, I listen to music, read, or try to sleep. Most writers are sleep deprived at one point or another, and sleep is imperative to being creative.ā
Talking about āThe Mayor’s Daughterā, which was self-published last November, Emma CrowE says it is a YA LGBTQ+ Contemporary Fiction novel. ‘It follows the lives of seventeen-year-olds Chloe Carp and Ash Martin, and the story alternates between the two POVs,ā states the author, who dwells in Wenatchee, a city in north-central Washington.
A former politician who has written op-eds for several large publications in the United States of America, the fourty-year-old, who is currently residing in the Rocky Mountain Area, the US, tells Stavyah Vatsarah, the roving editor at the Literary Express, in her response email that she worked full time until she got laid off in 2019. In the email, she writes about everything under the Sun – her published works, her hobbies, her family… Quite interestingly, she goes on to state that her first erotica entitled ‘Becoming Monsters’ has zero profanity because she is not too fond of using profane words. ‘If you can’t find something good to read, write it,’ she states.
Speaking about her published novella entitled ‘The Unbreakable Thread’ published last year on Amazon, Google Books, and Notion Press, Nissha says it is a romantic fiction in the new adult genre. āIt is based on a Japanese legend. It deals with two souls who are destined to meet each other,ā she shares with us, clearly not willing to divulge more details.
While becoming an author was not something the author had thought of in her childhood, she stresses that because she always possessed a vivid imagination, she could not but put pen to paper. ‘As many ideas constantly swim around my head, it is only natural for me to feel the only way to eliminate the thoughts is to write them down,’ she tells us.
While Mr Mana tries to keep a schedule, writing from 10 AM to 5 PM, with a short break for lunch and several pauses, he concedes that many unexpected events tend to shatter his schedule. āBut thatās life I guess,ā he states. āAlso, I sometimes just sit at the keyboard and write for the fun of it ā without a deadline or a target market, or a contract. Especially when the going gets rough, and it happens, writing is a good way to clear the mind and stop worrying about those things you canāt control anyway,ā he adds.
She wrote the Christian superhero series entitled āScience, Meet Godā while being crippled for four years after having undergone knee surgery at the age of twenty four. āI was on the verge of paralysis before a doctor finally figured that slipping disks had severed my spinal cord in half. I had spinal surgery in 2014. The healing process was slow and painful, and I would like to thank Cliff for being the best nurse a girl could ever hope for,ā she shares with us.
The author tells us that Nevada Noir is a dark, atmospheric trilogy of intertwined tales of greed and temptation in the Nevada badlands. āIn these three dark and brooding short stories, set in and around the US state of Nevada, a cast of disparate characters struggle with greed and temptation and the cursed lure of easy money. An old man goes in search of his son in the aftermath of a terrible storm, a couple down on their luck make a life-changing discovery, and an ex-cop has one last impossible decision to make,ā he explains, adding, āIt’s an action-packed meditation on death, temptation and flawed humanity.ā
Her second book entitled āA Storm of Magicā happens to be a YA Fantasy. Speaking about the book, Ms Laino says, āBeing brought back from the dead is an impressive trick, even for magician Darien Burron. Now he must try and use his sleight of hand to swindle modern-day witch, Mirah, to sign her power away, or end up a tormented demon in the afterlife. Meanwhile, sixteen-year-old Mirah is starting to lose control of her powers. After an incident at her auntās Witchery store, Mirah is sent to a secret coven to learn to control her abilities. While she is away, Mirah meets up with a soft-spoken clairvoyant, a brazen storm witch, and the creator of dark magic itself. The young woman must learn to trust in herself before she loses herself entirely to the darkness that hunts her.ā
I personally found the events transpiring in the Belmarsh prison quite interesting. A kind of friendship blossoms here that one might seldom expect to blossom in the outside world. There are moments when you may end up weeping, but as we have mentioned already, the moments you’ll guffaw will be a lot more.
Author Christian Towers began writing stories at the tender age of nine. That was also the age he began creating short comic books incorporating superheroes and other types of action heroes of his creation. āThis eventually flourished into a love for films and film making. Also, I decided to become a director of films when I grew up at about the same time. Despite opposition from the family, the dream persisted several years. However, as the years passed, and when I entered high school, I felt what mattered to me was not so much making films but being a storyteller in general. That is when being a film director became less important to me, and the author life grew more appealing,ā the Florida-based author, who hails from Puerto Rico, begins, speaking to the Literary Express in an exclusive interaction.
Poet Nirmal Parasharās writing journey began with a quote he had read in the book āThe Light of Asiaā: Leave love for love of lovers. āThis powerful quote has only remained etched on my mind since I read it,ā says the poet, speaking to the Literary Express in an exclusive interaction. He tells us that because he was an introvert, he used to spend more time with books than with friends during his school and college days. āNonetheless, during adolescence, the curiosity to understand the word āloveā became intense,ā he states with a smile, adding, āAnd although I was hardly familiar with this, I was curious to know how it feels to love and be loved.ā
Author Morwenna Blackwood avers she doesnāt recall ever starting to write. āItās just something I have always done,ā she begins, speaking to the Literary Express in an exclusive interaction. She goes on to state matter-of-factly that the first proper story she wrote was about a frog. āAnd that was when I was six years old,ā she tells us with a smile.
