Apropos of Nothing: Susanna Catherine Mahoney Answers 5 Questions

Raised in the Bronx, Susanna is the daughter of an Irish-American family and enjoys helping others with services or concerns. She graduated with a college degree, became a mother of three children,  and worked with the homeless. When circumstances forced her to retire early from her lifelong career, she decided to follow her passion to write spiritual fantasy books and promote Indie Authors, creating a Facebook page for authors, artists and readers. Her motto for all is: dare to dream and follow your heart.

How does TV advertising affect your buying habits?
Depending upon the product and need, I may research the product and decided to purchase it.

How do you act when you want to avoid doing something?
I become restless and start doing household chores or surf topics and socialize on social media sites like Facebook and do research for books I am thinking about writing to avoid responsibility and talk myself into completing it.

Give 3 reasons why you like yourself.
People have told me I am caring, friendly and funny. I like to help others, I like to connect with others and I like to make people laugh.

If you could watch only one hour of TV this week, what would you watch?
Depending upon my mood, TBN Christian Television, Life-Time Movie and/or the Discovery Channel.

How do you feel when a TV program is interrupted by a special news bulletin?
I just listen to the report and digest the news and wait for the show to come back on. If it is boring I will change channel, turn off the TV, or go to my reading list and start reading a book.

To learn more about Susanna and her work, please visit:

Her Facebook Page for Writers, Artists, and Readers

Her Book Review Blog

Her Writing Blog

Great Minds Think Aloud

Her Amazon Author Page

Thanks for stopping by, Susanna. I think Facebook and other social media sites are the most popular distractions among the writing crowd! Very few of us seem prone to doing household chores, though...

On July 7th, my guest will be Valerie Douglas. Please stop by again!

Apropos of Nothing: LB Clark Answers 5 Questions

LB Clark is an independent author, editor, and publisher living in East Texas.  She is the author of the urban fantasy/romance series, Jukebox Heroes.

When do you feel most confident?
When I’m expressing myself in writing, whether in a novel or a blog or a Facebook post.  I know that the written word is my friend.

How does music affect your life?
The shorter answer might be, how does music not affect my life?  Music is a huge part of my world.  I love live shows, and I once drove from East Texas to California just to see the debut performance of a band.  I use music to help set the mood when I’m writing, or to get past writer’s block.  I write about music and musicians.  And when the world crashes in on me, I hop in the car, crank up the tunes, and drive until I feel better.  I’ve had songs pop up on my iPod or the radio at random as if Someone somewhere was trying to send me a message, and more than once one of those ‘coincidences’ has changed the course of my life.

How do you decide between right and wrong?
In some cases, there is no right or wrong.  In others, it’s pretty clear cut.  Essentially I try to make sure my decisions don’t hurt anyone, myself included.

How do you act when you want to avoid doing something?
It depends on what I want to avoid doing, I guess.  Mostly I find really mindless things to do instead, like play Facebook games.

Talk about your eating habits.
I’m a foodie, and I don’t mean one of those people who thinks only gourmet stuff is good.  I mean I’ll try most things once, and I love to experiment with food.  I also have some very strange tastes.  For instance, I love Vegemite, even though I’m not Australian.  It’s really good with Provolone on a toasted cheese sandwich or stirred into boxed white cheddar mac ‘n’ cheese.

To learn more about LB and her work, please visit:

Her Blog

Her Facebook Page

Her Website
Music Speaks

Thanks for stopping by, LB! I'm right there with you on the foodie thing, though I've never tried Vegemite. I ate sushi once though...

My next guest will be my publisher, Inknbeans Press! They're quite a great bunch of beans over there, and I'm not just saying that because of their excellent taste in writers. 

Apropos of Nothing...

Not long ago, a childhood memory pushed its way through all the other muck in my brain and beached itself on my frontal lobe. You see, I was an only child and, as such, my parents had plenty of money to stock our hall closet with games. I had just about every board game out there: Monopoly, Clue, Careers, Scrabble, etc. I even had the electronic games like Simon. I never had Operation though; I think that one must have freaked my mom out.

Anyway, the board game that attacked my brain the other day was called the Ungame. This “game for all ages” was like therapy group in a box. The cards were all open-ended questions meant to get people talking. As strange as it seems, my best friend and I played this game until the cards were frayed. Until my mother invested in another set of questions. Until we could predict each other’s answers. That game is probably the reason LeAnne and I are still friends: you don’t lose touch with the person who knows all your secrets.

So, I found the Ungame on eBay. It’s not the same as it was back then; it has morphed into a card game, which actually makes a lot more sense. I bought myself a set, and they arrived yesterday. Reading through the questions made me curious: what if I interviewed other creative types using these cards? What sort of results would I get? I went to my favorite Facebook group, the Book Junkies, and found some willing volunteers for this experiment. I hope you’ll enjoy their answers as much as I have. Look for the answers from the first interviewee, M. Edward McNally, tomorrow.

By the way, if you would like to answer five random questions too, send me a message on my Facebook page.

Five New Year’s Resolutions for Writers

Image by joka2000 via Flickr

In just two short days, 2012 will dawn, bringing with it the same promise of every previous new year. Many of us will make resolutions to ourselves and our loved ones: to eat less, exercise more, be nicer, become organized, etc.

If you are a writer, chances are good that by March, most of those resolutions will have gone out the window. When you are stuck on your storyline, that bag of chips or box of cookies will practically jump into your hands. When your creative juices are flowing, who has time to jump on a treadmill? Whether your writing is going well or poorly, the chance that you will snap off the hand (or various other extremities) of anyone interrupting you is close to 100 percent. And, of course, any writer who claims to be organized must be fooling himself.

Therefore, I present to you a few resolutions you might actually keep:

1. Avoid Gloating. That five-star review that’s got you over the moon today? Go ahead and share it. However, don’t assume that every reader will think you are the next (insert most-admired author’s name here). In fact, tomorrow you may suffer the crushing blow of a one-star review. Which leads to…

2. Don’t Lash Out in Anger. Remember, people, the internet is forever. Just because someone doesn’t like your work, doesn’t mean he or she is an imbecile or a monster. If you call him or her that, you are the one who winds up looking like a fool and probably losing readers as a result.

3. Finish that Novel/Novella/Short Story. I understand that not everyone writes at the same pace. However, endlessly polishing your work (yes, I am talking about that manuscript that is now in its fifteenth draft) is just another form of procrastination. It’s done. Publish it already. After that…

4. Write More. We are all proud of our first novels. When we finally put them out into the world, we can’t help but believe our baby is going to shine brighter than any literary star out there. And maybe it will, someday. In the meantime, it’s going to be overshadowed by the brilliance of other works. You know what will help your baby grow brighter? A few siblings. A cluster of stars always shines more brightly – think of the Milky Way.

5. Be Kind to Fellow Travelers. Writing is often a solitary road, even in today’s connected world. Therefore, when you read someone else’s good news on Facebook, Twitter, or anywhere else, take a moment to congratulate them. If someone is down, offer comfort and encouragement. If you know the answer to a question, share it. Try not to trample the dreams of others. That dream might be the only lifeline they have left.

 Happy New Year! Here’s wishing all of you a bright, productive 2012!

Do You Have a Book in You?

Next month, along with thousands of other writers, I will be attempting to write a complete novel for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). In order for me to accomplish this goal, I will need to double my daily writing output from 1,000 to 2,000 words. While this is a challenge, it’s not impossible; I do hope my friends and family will forgive my absence over the coming weeks, though. I hope to pop my head up for a few days around Thanksgiving.

This morning I was thinking about all the people I’ve known over the years who told me they had a novel in them. If you are one of those people, now is the time to prove to yourself and everyone around you that you do: sign up for the NaNoWriMo challenge. Put your effort where your mouth is. Don’t think about the 50K word goal – just write every day for a month and see where you are at the end. NaNoWriMo offers a multitude of peer groups to join; if you need even more support, I highly recommend joining the Book Junkies on Facebook.

From my personal experience, I can honestly say that writing one book has the potential to open your creative floodgates. It took me six months to write The Thief of Todays and Tomorrows. Before I was done with it, though, I had ideas for several more novels. My NaNoWriMo novel will be my eighth book and I’m sitting on at least six more plots.

Stop telling me you have a novel in you – write it down and share it with the world.

#Trust30: Afraid To Do

Today’s #Trust30 prompt is “What is too scary to write about?”

I won’t be posting my response on this blog. It’s too personal and too much “mine” for me to share.

But that does beg the question: how much of ourselves should we put onto the web for others to peruse?

My mother was reading the Facebook profiles of some people she knows and found one young woman who listed herself as “bisexual.” This shocked her enough that she asked me if I had read the same thing. I had, of course. In her opinion, this was a case of over-sharing. I wasn’t so quick to agree.

Sexual orientation has gone from something that was assumed to something that defines us. Most of my generation are sophisticated enough to at least mask our initial surprise when we discover someone is gay. I’d even go so far as to say that most of us aren’t surprised – we’ve learned enough of the code-words, signs, and behaviors to decide someone’s sexual orientation long before they have to tell us explicitly. In fact, most of us would be more shocked to find that someone we think is gay -- isn’t! Younger generations seem even more accepting.

So my question is, what’s left? What tidbits of ourselves do we hide from the rest of the world? And should we?