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Welcome to the blog of writer M.G. Ainsworth who currently finds her muse to write after nine....

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Follow Friday Blog Hop 5/20/11



Welcome back to the blog hop! I'm excited to be the featured Author this week! A little bit about myself to any one visiting for the first time: I'm a thirty something wife, mother and self proclaimed bookworm who is living a lifelong dream of being an Author. I'm a graduate of Lewis & Clark College and live in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with my family and a menagerie of pets. I write primarily after nine at night and on weekends but hope to someday make writing a full time profession. I am working on paranormal romance and urban fantasy books in both the YA and adult categories. When not writing, reading or working I love traveling and taking advantage of the recreational activities the Pacific Northwest has to offer including camping, hiking, fishing and skiing. I grow champion Walla Walla sweet onions for the county fair and avoid housework at all costs. i have a short story being published this summer in the Dream On Anthology and am working on a young adult paranormal romance, SPF, and an adult paranomal romance, Spiritual Baggage. I hope to publish SPF by the end of the Summer. I had a great question to answer for the hop this week:

What author, dead or alive, would you most want to spend a day with and why?
I consider myself fortunate that I've had an entire week to think about this because it's a difficult decision. There are many wonderful authors I admire and would like to meet. I considered Jane Austen, Dr. Seuss, Edgar Allan Poe and J.R.R. Tolkien as deceased authors and living authors included J.K. Rowling, Charlaine Harris, Nora Roberts and Chelsea Handler who would provide a most entertaining day, I'm sure.

After much deliberation Nora Roberts is the winner. Not only are her books in the Three Sisters Island, Key, Born In, In the Garden and Circle trilogies amongst my favorites, I also admire her work ethic and dedication to writing as a profession. While I don't read all of her books since I am more interested in those with an urban fantasy or paranormal vibe I admire her ability to write books across multiple genres and for different audiences.

She embodies being an Author as a profession. She once stated "you don't find time to write. You make time. It's my job." She spends her weekdays in an office writing and releases several novels a year with great reviews. I dream of being at the point where I am not finding time to write but making time, and I find I am make much more progress when I take this approach carving out hours dedicated to writing.

She has also uttered the words that have inspired me most as a writer both to start writing and to continue despite obstacles from self doubt to exhaustion:

"You can fix anything but a blank page"

I would like to spend a day with her not only because I admire her works but because she has some real insight into the writing process and inspires me as an Author to keep writing.
 
Thanks for following!
 
Melanie

Saturday, May 7, 2011

A brilliant idea

I never know when inspiration is going to hit me. I consider myself to be a creative person but that being said I usually can't pull an idea for a novel out of thin air. I keep a notebook with prospective story ideas for when the time is right but an idea that knocks my socks off and makes me want to drop everything else rarely happens. I am excited to report it did happen around 4 in the morning and I know what my next project will be upon completing SPF. The night had started terribly. I'd been sick in bed with a sore throat, cough, fever, chills and headache - the whole nine yards - since Thursday. In an effort to get some rest I drank some cough syrup before bed. I'd like to think it was my subconscious and not the cough syrup that gave me the idea but like the elusive question of "how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop" the world may never know.

What I do know is I woke up with certainty that I need to write about stowaways - the ghostly kind. My next novel in addition to the SPF series will be about an Investigator named Valerie Chase. You see, spirit's can't leave the cemetery they're bound to by foot.They're too heavily warded. But they can in a car. Poor cemetery planning in the 20th century has led to  roads being built too close to gravestones. When a spirit escapes Valerie Chase in on the case. Her job is to recapture the spirit and bind them or send them on,once and for all, before they can wreak too much havoc. The longer a spirit is free the more corporeal it becomes. Unfortunately for Val she falls in love with one of the deceased she is supposed to recapture  and life (and death) gets a lot more complicated. 

I was so excited I took a break from SPF to write a prologue and create a rough outline. I'm considering "Spiritual Baggage" or "A Ghost's Guide to Hitchhiking" as titles but this may change. So what do you think? I'd love to hear your feedback. 

Thanks for following!

Melanie

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Follow Friday Blog Hop 5/6/11



Hi everyone!

It's time once again for the Blog Hop. It's been an exciting week. I got to see the cover of  Dream On: an Anthology of Dreams for the first time and it gave me chills to see my name on the cover. This brings me to the question for this week's hop. What moment validated you and made you feel like a writer? Hands down it is seeing my name on the cover of a book that is about to be published. I feel very validated having won the chance to be in it with my short story and can't wait to hold a copy in my hands. I am certain I will always remember this moment and how wonderful it feels. There is a picture of the cover, designed by Elizabeth Sharp from 4 Corners Press on the left side of my blog.

Next week I will be the featured Author on the hop. I hope to have a sample from SPF and possibly a cover posted on my blog so it will be a busy week! I look forward to sharing a little snapshot of SPF with you next week.

Thanks for following!

Melanie

If you'd like to participate in the blog hop here are the rules:

The rules
  1. Follow me, Elizabeth Sharp, the originator of this hop
  2. Follow the featured author of the week, VK Tremain.
  3. Copy the image code found below and paste it in your blog. Add your name to the link at the bottom of this post while you are here.
  4. Copy and paste the rules in your blog, as well as this week’s question.
  5. Answer the question
  6. Follow, follow, follow. This is about networking, people, making connections with people in your community. So talk to us. We don't bite!
  7. If someone stops by, says hi and follows you, the polite thing to do is follow back.
  8. Comment here and introduce yourself and you just might find a new follower or two.