From Genesis to Exodus

Today’s guest blogger Deliah Lawrence is an attorney who enjoys creative writing. Her debut novel, Gotta Let It Go, a romantic-suspense novel set in Baltimore, won the 2011 Finalist Next Generation Indie Book Award in the multi-cultural fiction category. She has now completed her second novel, and shares some thoughts and feelings about that experience.

When I wrote my first novel, Gotta Let It Go, a romantic-suspense novel set in Baltimore, I had no intention of writing a sequel  much less a series. But after my family, fellow writer friends and fans started clamoring for more, I thought, hmmm…why not?  So, I set off on generating ideas where my protagonist, a former burnt out prosecutor would dive in head first against the warning of her detective lover to solve the murder of a judge, someone very close to her.  This sparked the genesis of the sequel titled, Gotta Get It Back.

Well, life got in the way and the story stayed dormant for a while… a very long while. The longer I stayed away from the novel, the more I got pestered by folks, via phone calls, text messages, emails, and social media asking, “When’s the new book coming out?” “Aren’t you done yet?” “What’s your excuse this time?” and the list goes on. Of course, I knew it was all done lovingly so that I could get back into the creative writing seat and get it done. But it wasn’t easy.

Some days, the words wouldn’t come flowing like I wanted to. I would get distracted, move onto another project and create even more distance between myself and the storyline.  However, it wasn’t until I decided that I wanted to see my characters again that I became fully committed to finishing my second novel.

Toward the exodus of my novel, I learned a few lessons. First, I told myself that if the motivation for the characters didn’t work, it was okay to start again. Second, I was forced to see what really worked in the story and cut what didn’t. Third, I asked myself the tough questions such as “What is this novel really about?” “Are the voices consistent?” “Are the characters likeable?” “Is it all gelling?” This was all in an effort to ensure I had something readers wanted to get their hands on.

Now that Gotta Get It Back is finished, I look forward to the editing process and then getting it published. In the meantime, I’m imagining new ideas for book number three, Gotta Have It All, so I can take it from its genesis to its exodus. Can’t wait to embark on that ride!

Ms Lawrence is fulfilling her passion of being a writer. You can visit her at www.thewritepen.webs.com.

C3 Conference - polished paneling

When planning the Creatures, Crimes and Creativity conference it was easy to decide what we wanted the content to be in general.  But the devil’s in the details.  The plan calls for a total of 13 hours of panel with three presentations happening at a time.  That means we need 39 different presentations that will be fun and interesting to readers and to writers of seven genres of fiction. 

Filling two of those slots was easy.  Our local special guests, thriller author John Gilstrap and suspense writer Trice Hickman each offered to give a one-hour presentation.  Both these best sellers have had interesting writing journeys and I think their fans and fellow authors will be jump at the chance to get up close and personal with them and ask their own questions. 

We’re saving one of those hour-long slots for a special event I’ll tell you about later.  That still leaves us with 36 spaces to fill.  Luckily we’ve all been to enough cons to have seen dozens of panels, and we know which ones we liked and which we didn’t.  So the group got together and started throwing out ideas.

In conversation we’ve learned that a lot of people have heard of steampunk but don’t know what it really entails.  So a “What is steampunk” panel seemed a natural.

The team is pushing for me to do a one hour class called “Let’s write a mystery” in which the audience will collaborate, with my guidance, to build a story from scratch.  I love the panel idea, but I’m looking for another mystery author to take it over.  We’d also like to see a panel of new writers talking about how their first book came about and what the experience of being a first-time author is like.

Like the previous idea, a panel discussing how to create a strong protagonist can have writers of different genre.  For mystery and thriller fans we’d like a panel on real-life crime fighting and forensics.  And we plan to mix the genre again for a panel of writers discussing where their ideas come from.

Of course this only scratches the surface – the ideas bubbled up out of control.  The real challenge will fall to romantic suspense author Deliah Lawrence who is our talent coordinator.  As each author registers for the conference she will contact them to learn about their genre and their talents.  Then she will place them on a panel or two with others who will provide the right balance of similarity and contrast. 

Honestly, I can’t wait to see some of these panels, and we haven’t even assigned any authors yet.  And we’re still open to ideas so if there’s a panel YOU’D like to see… or be on… let me know!