Paul Doucette is Visiting and Talking About Who He Was Before #MFRWAuthor #BWLAuthor #seaman #photographer

My life before writing.

            I have worked and lived in many countries throughout a varied career in International Transportation. In my youth I served as a merchant seaman for twelve years. These life experiences have contributed greatly to my world view and understanding of humans.

            Later, I had the opportunity to explore my artistic side,enjoying a short career as a fine art black and white photographer with modest success. Now retired I have decided to pursue a new career as a writer.

My genres

            I remember a credo espoused by my English Profeeor: WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW. I have always enjoyed reading mysteries and suspence novels as well as fantasy. I opted for the former as my genre to write in.

            I have written three series to date:

            The first is a about private detective named Matt Murphy set in Greenwich Village

            during the 1960s  (7 stories);

            the second, the Red Sun Series (3 stories), set during the Second World war in the

            Pacific and follows the missions of Paul Jarvis, an agent with the Counter Intelligence

            Corps and,

            the third series follows a police detective named John Robichaud (3 stories) set in

            Halifax, Nova Scotia during WWII.

            I am presently seventy-two years old and live in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Latest release

            My latest release with BWL is titled: The Evil Men Do – A John Robichaud Mystery

Next story

            I am presently working on the fourth Robichaud story, titled: The Body In Room 103.

Influences

            My main influences have been authors such as: Robert B Parker, Stuart Kaminsky, Mickey Spillane, James LeeBurke, etc. I favor stories that are dialogue and character driven, hence my writing style which relies on these features and less on narrative. I think that this method is best to invite the reader into the story as a mute member of the cast.

How to reach me

            I can be reached by email at – doucettepaul91@gmail.com. I am also on the BWL Facebook network as set up by Betty Anne Harris.

Friday Edward Yatscoff is Visiting and Talking About Who He Was Before #NWLAuthor #MFRWAuthor #Mystery #Suspemse

What Were You Before

Day 1

1. What were you before you became an author? Did this influence your choices as a writer?

I had many jobs from assembly line worker to construction to sales to working on a mink ranch to supermarkets before settling on a fire rescue career where I retired after 32 years.  My three BWL firefighter series books (tentative release dates) and one other self-published work on Amazon were big influences. They were initially self-published and were the first firefighter fiction in Canada.  

2. Are you genre specific or general? I don’t mean major genres but subdivisions or romance, mystery or paranormal.

I enjoy writing suspense/action/crime novels for adult and young readers. I have also sold travel articles, a how-to, and won competitions for short stories fiction and non-fiction.  My website has them posted.  Yatscoffbooks.com

3. What is your latest release?  THE RUMRUNNER’S BOY is an historical fiction crime novel for all ages.  It was a finalist for an Arthur Ellis Award by the Crime Writers of Canada.  

4. What are you working on now?  SERVICES RENDERED is into it’s 17^th chapter and is hard-boiled crime and action. Need a problem tenant evicted?  A neighborhood menace banished?  If the cops and courts can’t, or won’t, do it Ritchie and Arlan can.  One’s an ex-cop and ex-MP and the other is a fearless streetfighter who never backs down. The men are tradesmen by day and monitor Crime Stoppers and police wanted websites, regularly cashing in the rewards.  But cashing in Somali criminals brings a gang down on their heads and now it’s them who are being pursued.

5. Does your reading choices influence your choice of a writing career?  Yes, very much.  Lately, I have been reading more non-fiction and mid-list fiction and have found some good writers.  I also love historical fiction.  But still a good hard-biled mystery or detective story is the best.

6. Where can we find you?  You can find me in Beaumont, Alberta. During the winter travelling, or at home in the  pool/gym or the pickleball courts. In summer, out camping, fishing, floating the North Saskatchewan River, and gardening.

Friday - Herbert Grosshans is visiting and Talking About Who He Was Before #MFRWAuthor #Writing..#Sword and Sorcery #Mystery

Interview with Herbert Grosshans, Author

January 10, 2020

1)       What were you before you became an author:

To answer that question accurately I’d have to say I was a student. I’ve been writing stories since I was in my teens. At first, it was only short stories. I finished my first complete novel when I was 20. It still sits in my closet somewhere. Of course, besides writing I was also an avid reader. I read pretty much everything I could get my hands on, especially when I was a kid. I wasn’t particular what genre I read. Everything was exciting and interesting.  When I was fourteen, I discovered Science Fiction. A friend gave me a novel and after reading it I was hooked. This was in Germany. Science Fiction was in its infant shoes and not much Science Fiction was published. I joined the Science Fiction Club Deutschland. That’s when I met other ‘crazy’ guys that believed someday we would go into space. We exchanged ideas and stories and dreamed about traveling to the stars, to exotic planets and to meet alien intelligences. When I emigrated to Canada, I had to learn English. What better ways to learn a new language than to read and write? I became an Apprentice Electrician and later I started my own business as a Contractor. It allowed me more freedom to follow my passion: reading and writing. I did that during my lunch breaks. I sat in my vehicle and wrote into a scribbler. When I got a chance at home, I transferred my scribblings onto legible pages with my manual typewriter. Everything became so much easier once I got a computer.

2)       Are you genre specific or general?

I’ve written Mysteries, Sword and Sorcery, and contemporary Thrillers, but my love is Science Fiction. Most of my novels contain Erotica. I don’t know if that could be counted as another sub-genre. My latest novels contain little Erotica.

3)       What is your latest release?

My latest release is SAVANNA, Book 2 in my series Operation Stargate. It was published in June of 2019 by Melange Books.

4)       What are you working on right now?

I took a break this year and finished my autobiography ‘Memoirs of my Life’. I finished writing it and right now I am in the last stages of editing. Then I’ll have it printed. However, that book won’t be available for the public. I wrote it for my family. It took longer to write than I had planned. 82,000 words. As long as most of my novels. As soon as I’m done with it, I will continue with The Aregon Files, Book 3 in my series Operation Stargate. I got the idea for that one in July 2018, but I didn’t start with writing it until spring of 2019..

5)       Does your reading choices influence your choice of a writing career?

I loved Mysteries, Fantasy, Westerns, History, but after reading my first Science Fiction novel I knew then and there what genre I was going to write. That didn’t stop me from writing in other genres, though. I’ve never written a Western. Perhaps someday I will try my hand at it.

I had just started with The Aregon Files in 2018 when my publisher suggested I write a romance novel. I did and I thought it turned out pretty good. My publisher turned it down, and even my wife, after reading it, said the last part was good, but the first half was crap. She suggested if I wrote a completely new beginning, I may have a chance to get it published. Somehow, I don’t feel like it. I spent a lot of time writing the story and to change so much just doesn’t seem right. It would be a different story. It would mean possibly to kill a couple of characters, which I can’t do. They are my creations. So it sits in my closet with my very first novel waiting…waiting…The way it looks, it will wait there forever. Too bad, because I hate to have invested and wasted so much time on something I’m obviously not good at—romance. I will have to leave that to female writers.

Some of my favorite writers are Andre Norton, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Leigh Bracket. I’ve tried to imitate their style, but women write differently from men. They write with feelings a man can never duplicate. It is something I accepted a long time ago. My wife suggested I read a few romance novels to get the feel of it, but the desire isn’t there for me. And so romance novels are not a genre I will try to write again.

6)       Where can we find you?

Website:       http://www.fictitioustales.weebly.com/

Blog:              http://www.hegro.blogspot.com/

http://www.hergros.blogspot.com/

http://www.melange-books.com/authors/herbertgrosshans/index.html

You can also find me at Amazon, Smashwords, and other outlets

https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B009P6R16G

https://www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=Herbert+Grosshans

Friday Reed Stirling Visiting Talking about Who He Was Before #BWLAuthor #MFRWAuthor #English Literature #Professor

1.      Before retiring and taking up writing fiction as a past time, I taught English Literature. Several talented students of mine have gone on to become successful writers.

Did teaching influence my choices as a writer? Absolutely.

When you introduce young minds to the great works of great artists, (e.g., Hamlet, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Portrait of the Artist As A young Man, Gulliver’s Travels, The Handmaid’s Tale), you are constantly challenging yourself to get it right, to understand not only who, what, and when, but also how, and to elucidate on these considerations as discussion ensues. In your own writing, you want to emulate, difficult though it is to do so, but you have to try.

2.      Genres: I lean towards mystery, with romantic entanglement an integral part of the action. Greek mythology and literary allusion underpin plot development. Irony is pervasive. 

3.      Latest release: Shades Of Persephone is my first full-length novel, published with BWL in September 2019, although seventeen excerpts from this work have appeared previously in a variety of publications, in both hard copy and online.

4.      At present I am doing a final revision of Lighting The Lamp, a full-length novel due to be published in 2020 by BWL. Sixteen selections from this work have been published independently, the latest being “Glorious Disorder” in Humanist Perspective (Fall 2019).

Concurrently, I am working on a first draft of a work tentatively titled Séjour Saint-Louis, where the troubles in a contemporary family mirror those of the tragic poet Émile Nelligan.

5.      Does my reading influence my writing? Absolutely.

Lawrence Durrell’s The Alexandrian Quartet provided the impetus for Shades Of Persephone. John Fowles’ The Magus gave me the Greek setting.

Joyce’s Portrait inspired more than one scene in Lighting The Lamp, as did the philosophical musing of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Marcel Proust plays a part here as well.

The poems of Émile Nelligan are working thematically into Séjour Saint-Louis.

The muse visits me when I read the novels of John Banville and Ian McEwan.

6.      Find me at the following:

reedstirling@gmail.com

My website: reedstirlingwrites.com

Books We Love Publishing, Inc.

Amazon, Goodreads, Smashwords

Friday G L Rockey is Visiting and Talking About Who he was Before Mystery #Romance #MFRWAuthor

1. What were you before you became an author? Did this influence your choices as a writer?

Wore many hats ‑ By way of Carnegie Mellon Drama Department, I earned a B.A. from Michigan State University and pursued a career in the television industry. From Providence to  San Antonio to Phoenix and cities in between, produced and directed a variety of television programs and managed TV station programming. While program manager at KTSP‑TV in Phoenix, represented NATPE (National Association of Television Program Executives) to Germany. Haves a master's degree from Cleveland State University and taught a course there.

Ran a family Steak House for couple years, total disaster.

2. Are you genre specific or general? I don’t mean major genres but subdivisions or romance, mystery or paranormal.

Like a lady reporter/reviewer once wrote, "He writes in all genres."

4. What are you working on now?

 Makes the World go ‘round . . . two family saga-murder mystery

5. Does your reading choices influence your choice of a writing career?

 no

6. Where can we find you?

 www.glrockey.com

Friday Paul DeBlassei III is visiting and Talking about Who He Was Before #MFRWAuthor #Psycologist #Archetypal #Supernatural

1. What were you in your life before you became a writer? Did this influence your writing? It’s my take that I’ve always had the words and books fulminating, churning, and readying for birth. I think writers are born and life hones that calling. So, I’d say by profession I’m a depth psychologist and writer, treating the deep unconscious mind and writing books about archetypal/supernatural happenings for the past thirty-five years. Stories I’ve lived through with traumatized patients have confirmed the workings of an unseen world, a mysterious zone that’s forever been an influence from childhood to adulthood. The magic of the mystic helped my wife of forty-years, Kate, and I to raise our four children – two phantasmagoric writers and two alchemical artists.

2 Are you genre specific or general? Why? I don't mean genres like romance, mystery, fantasy etc. There are many subgenres of the above. As far as genre, my reads are visionary/metaphysical, supernatural/occult, and horror. They got the stuff that pops the top off the rule bound and rigid mind.

3. Did your reading choices have anything to do with your choice of a genre or genres? What I read is laced with visionary intrigue. They’re the psychically titillating stories that whisper to me, tell me things about life and the images and symbols of the dark recesses of the mind.

4. What's your latest release? Goddess of the Wild Thing breaks into the question of love and whether bad love is better than no love. You’ve got a consciousness oriented narrative replete with archetypal themes of the wise-old woman, the witch, and a man and woman struggling to find their way through a complex and, at times, horror-ridden relationship.

5. What are you working on now?  I’m finishing up The Goddess of Everything. It’s a horrifying, visionary thriller about mother love gone bad and the need to break free. It’s got action going from what folks live out to one degree or another, the instinct to be free of stifling parenting, free to live and be according to our own choosing.

6. Where can we find you? pauldeblassieiii.com

Friday Adam Mann is visiting today and Talking about Who He Was Before #MFRWAuthor #Farming #Vietnam #Africa

1.                 What were you in life before you became a writer? Did this influence your choices as a writer?

I have spent my entire professional life working in developing economies with small scale and poor farmer families trying to improve their productivity.  Initially that was in West Africa, and then other African countries, but for the last thirty five years Asia.  A lot of this was working with the farmer families themselves but the practice has changed over the last 20 years.  Now people prefer that I work with the local government staff, they are called extension services, to train them to replicate the work with farmer families in their own villages, areas or districts.

In this way I have met and worked with many village families, both husbands and wives and their children.  But working in such remote areas was not good for my own family life.  I have been married four times; widowed, divorced, marriage annulled as she had forgotten to get divorced herself, and finally happily married for 22 years to a widow and now happily living in a provincial area in South East Asia.

2.       Are you genre specific or general?

My first books were based on Asian history, where I was working at the time, and the details in the book are basically true except that I have to invent the dialogue, and develop the characters, and occasionally invest people like a waiter or in one book a cabin boy, to make the story more appealing.  It struck me, as I was writing that history never recorded the personal life of the people – what did they like to eat, recreational activities, reading and writing, wives and girlfriends, or husbands and even boyfriends. 

Of course this led to questions like did they like romance and sex?  That meant that I had to introduce characters either as participants or observers that history had missed.

3.                 What is your latest release?

I have edited several novels for writers living in and writing about the parts of Africa in which they lived, and one was East Africa.  I had previously written my own eBook based in Kenya, but another was further south, and I settled on Mozambique.

The eBook is entitled “The Road to Beira”, and is basically a romance story about two people who met as students twenty years earlier, and in Monique’s case a recently divorced woman with two teenage children.

4.                 What am I working on now?

I’m editing a second novel for a writer who based his story in Rhodesia, Malawi and Mozambique, back in the 1930s.  It is hard work but the story is exciting, as his manuscript was typewritten!

5.                 Are you genre specific or general? I don’t mean major genres but sub divisions of romance, mystery, paranormal.

My historical novels were really a phase that I started about 25 years ago, writing only sporadically between projects, working and days off.

My romance novels I started about five years ago after I had retired as I had more time to develop the plot and characters.  I find that romance without sex is unrealistic.  I have used my own experience a lot to develop the plots and characters, but I have omitted pornography after careful consideration as my stories introduce romance before their sexual activities.

6.                 Did your reading influence your choice of a writing career?

Frankly No. I have had to travel a lot on airplanes, and tended to read novels by writers who wrote adventures, which would last for a ten or twelve hour flight.  As a schoolboy we had set books to read, mainly classics, but probably Lady Chatterley’s Lover had more influence than William Pitt the Younger!

7.                 Where can we find you?

I live and work in Vietnam, not in one of the big cities like Hanoi, but in a provincial area with easy access to fields and rivers.

Adam Mann has written 31 romance eBooks, and published 5 Box Sets of 3 or 4 eBooks each, which encompasses a total of 16 of his romance eBooks.

Website:      http://www.ButterflyBooks9.com

Email:         Adammannauthor@gmail.com

                   sizzlingbooks@gmail.com

Twitter:       @adammannauthor:  https://twitter.com/AdamMannAuthor

                   @ButterflyBooks9:  https://twitter.com/ButterflyBooks9

Author Links:    https://www.amazon.com/author/adammannauthor.com

                         https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/AdamtheMann 

Friday's Guest - Stuart West - Who He Was Before #MFRWauthor

1. What were you in your life before you became a writer? Did this influence your writing?

Thanks for having me back, Janet. I was a graphic artist for the last 28 years or so. I believe the only influence that had on my writing was I never wanted to step foot in the corporate world again! I find a lot of writers are “corporate drop-outs.” Wait, maybe it did inspire my thriller/darkly satirical series Killers, Incorporated.

2 Are you genre specific or general? Why? I don't mean genres like romance, mystery, fantasy etc. There are many subgenres of the above.

 I’ve written a historical ghost story, four young adult books, several horror tales, a couple of thrillers, a children’s picture book and two comedy mystery pseudo-cozies. I believe I even have a romance in my future. So, probably not genre-specific. I like to mix genres up. It helps to keep things interesting for me. Eventually, I’ll probably try to take a stab at most genres except for science fiction and erotica. Science fiction would entail a vast knowledge of science. Which I don’t have. And erotica simply doesn’t interest me as a reader or writer. One thing you’ll find in most of my books, regardless of genre, is humor, usually of the dark variety. Whether or not the books are actually funny is a different matter completely. But I try and write stuff that makes me laugh.

3. Did your reading choices have anything to do with your choice of a genre or genres?

Again, I like to read many authors and many different genres. Lately I’ve been enjoying a lot of Elmore Leonard, some older Stephen King books and a bit of Donald Westlake.

4. What's your latest release?

Why, thanks for asking! It’s Murder by Massage, the second Zach and Zora comic mystery tale.

Blurb town: Zach is back! And he hasn't learned one darn thing since the last time he ended up as the number one suspect in a murder case. But just like last time, big sister comes to the rescue. And what a big sister! Zora LeFevre's a private investigator. The only down side is she's usually got her four kids with her.  Join the laughs, chaos and mystery as Zach and Zora race against the clock. No clue is too big, no clue is too small. Even if it involves dancing cops, ex-radical hippy militants, pompous pastors, or a creepy set of "Furries" (don't ask!) 

5. What are you working on now?

The third and final book in the Killers Incorporated series. Killer King. This wraps up the tale of those lovable serial killers, Leon and Cody, once and for all.

6. Where can we find you?

Usually blabbing away on my blog about whatever’s got me uptight that week: http://stuartrwest.blogspot.com/

Or check out my Amazon author’s page: Stuart R. West

Friday - Who He Was Before featuring Frank Talaber #MFRWauthor

Day one.

Question One.

Oddly enough I began to work on cars and became a auto technician and now own and run a auto repair shop. I had taken a creative writing course in high school that woke up my writing abilities and kept a diary, that sometimes was filled with stories or story ideas. The first day of the course we sat down and got handed our text book. Which was a blank, lined notebook. I immediately asked, "but it's blank?" "Yes, your job was to fill it." We had to develop writing flow. The first few days was brutal and I could barely fill a paragraph. But my the end of the course I was putting down pages of stories sifting through my head. Somehow inside I knew I was a writer by soul. 

If you go to my website you'll see my personal statement. 

Writer by soul. The words born within. Karma the seed. Paper the medium. Pen the muse. Novels the fire.

What really influenced my writing abilities and creative juices, believe it or not, were comic books and my first job as a kid as a paper delivery boy. All of the crazy story ideas and the vivid art of the comic books, struck a chord inside and often I'd be slinging my papers and my head was filled with some wild writing thought. The papers also helped with being able to buy comics at the time, as I was the oldest of seven and didn't have a father in my life to guide me. So we were pretty poor and I have to be a father figure. 

Question Two.

Genre specific. Nope not me. I've written everything from Romance, to Science Fiction to Erotica to Comedy. Science Fiction and Urban Fantasy are my two favorite genres. In Urban Fantasy I love mixing native folklore with modern day life. Similiar to Charles De Lint's novels. Living on the West Coast of Canada in BC, there's a lot of native oral stories floating about and I've involved some of those in two of my published novels, Raven's Lament and Shaman's Lure, both published. 

Question Three

I read some Urban Fantasy, Like Charles De Lint, Robert E. Howard, Edger Rice Burroughs and Alan Burt Akers. But also like to read a lot of non fiction and Science Fiction. While I've read some romance as well, but find the formula to restrictive. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl and somehow they get back together, happy ending and lots of children. Well okay the  kids come in the sequel titled, Me, my lovely wife and two point five kids. With book three being the mortgage payments, cat, dog and me.

Question Four

My newest release is Shuttered Seduction, a modern day romance, that I'd written a long time ago and realized that I had to rethink entire writing sections on the photography industry and digital cameras had revolutionized everything. It's about a successful woman Julia-Rae, that runs her own fashion magazine. While doing a photo shoot in Peru, at Macchu Picchu, she meets this handsome crazy man that sweeps her off his feet. Literally, especially when he later takes her bungee jumping. Although she does get her revenge by taking him to a cross dressing party. Only problem is that his magazine empire is crumbling and he is out to seduce her and take over her business. Both have pasts that keep each other from getting close and threatens to break them up and after Julia-Rae finds out what he's after they do. Do they get back together? Well, ask a grizzly bear at Lake Louise that question at the end and read the book. No spoilers here.

Frank

Question 5

Currently I'm working on two novel projects. One is a three book Science Fiction Series titled "Seeds Of Ascension". The premise being that our planet is being kept in isolation until we pass a series of tests to prove we're worthy of joining the rest of the races in the universe. Roger believes he's always had a guardian angel looking out for him, well that angel is a Pliedian called Sherida. Roger discovers one day that there is a chunk of metal in him as he tries to go through a metal detector on his honeymoon. Only it wasn't there earlier and when he talks to his best friends, Theodore and Fred, they discover the same thing has happened to them as well. When put beside each other the parts merge and they have to assemble all the parts. Sherida is almost killed and realizes that she is being hunted and has to cut herself off from the homeworld in order to continue the Ascension process.  

My other novel is "Thunderbird's Wake" it is the third novel in a series involving the crazy shaman named Charlie Stillwaters. He rigs it up so that he becomes a native elder at a federal jail. The former elder was murdered because a native legend called Thunderbird is believed to be in one of the prisoners bodies and Thunderbird is beginning to awake after being put into slumber by beings called the Wasgo. Thunderbird used to hunt these beings and they'll do anything to make sure the powerful native legend doesn't reawaken. Charlie calls in the help of his former detective partner, Carol, who is your average person, that doesn't believe in native legends or magic. Only she ends up aiding a native spirit in order to avenge her mother's killer.

Question 6

My main website is at

http://twosoulmates.wix.com/frankt-author-blog

and at

http://about.me/ftalaber

Author's site at Amazon:

http://amazon.com/author/franktalaber

I'm also on Facebook under my name and Twitter: @FrankTalaber

You'll find me blogging on 

http://bwlauthors.blogspot.ca/

and at 

https://niume.com/pages/home/index.php

Under my name