Turning the Spotlight Around

Every week writers visit My Writing Corner to discuss their new books and to tell readers a little bit about themselves and how they began the writing process.  This week I am focusing on the person behind that spotlight. For a writer, one of the best parts of being an author (besides getting to play with all those characters roaming around in our heads and visiting places around the world in our minds) is seeing our work placed before readers so they can share our journey. This week I get to share a new journey with readers as my latest book is available for pre-order. Seeing a new book for sale is always a great day for any writer. 

My newest book, Dead Man’s Treasure, will soon be available to readers so you can also visit the wonderful, complex world I had the opportunity to create. I must admit, for me, one of the best parts of writing is being able to build that special world and then share it with readers. I enjoy transporting them to my fictional worlds where I spend so much time as well as introducing them to the characters who have inhabited only my mind for years (yes, years—no story gets written overnight). 

First let me begin the way I normally introduce my other author guests with a proper introduction. I often like to say that writing has been my chosen way of life for decades. Beginning in my teenage years, fiction books and writing have been a big focus in my life. I began devouring books in my teenage years and spent summers walking to the library every week, checking out at least two books to read. From spy novels to romances to historical fiction, library books were my constant companions.  Even on summer vacations, I would buy a book to take along. At the same time, I began making up stories of my own, scribbling them down in a spiral notebook. (I still carry a spiral notebook for scribbling in my purse in case I get an idea while I am out and about). While I read books in all genres, the stories that I wrote were in the Romance and Romantic Suspense genres, though I had no idea what different genre were. I simply knew I fell in love with the characters in the books I read—from science fiction to mystery to romance. 

The first lesson I learned from all my reading--before I began writing--was that I wanted to see the main characters prevail--no matter what sort of obstacles might arise. In my own writing, I gave my characters plenty of dilemmas as I scribbled away in notebooks of all shapes and sizes or just plain old notepaper. In later years I got my first typewriter and began typing them up. I spent weekends writing fiction. In one of the apartment buildings where I lived, people knew me as the “typist” because they would come by my door on the way to the elevator and I always seemed to be “typing” on weekends. 

Even now, I like to say writing has been my way of life because I seem to be writing just about every day. That way of life began in college where I pursued journalism as a career and got my first job on the college newspaper. We put out a paper five days a week so that meant I had to turn out a story a nearly every day and thus my life began as a daily writer. Weekdays I turned out news stories and on weekends I went to the park or library and wrote fiction. 

That college job also taught me another valuable lesson that would come in handy later—breaking news. It was a period of protests on college campuses and someone burned down the oldest building on campus following a week of war protests.  We all got called in to work and turned out a special edition of our daily newspaper. I still have a copy of that paper and I’ve never forgotten it. In later years, I would have to work other major “breaking” news stories--all the way from the eruption of Mt. St. Helens (I was working Seattle at the time) to riots, several earthquakes and major fires when I worked in Los Angeles.  As a newswriter and even as a newsroom manager, writing or editing stories, was a daily way of life.

My non-fiction life and my weekend life of writing fiction converged and solidified in the past twenty years when my fiction work began to be published. My first fiction (a short story) was published in an anthology and as they say, the rest is history. Writing continues to be my daily way of life, even though I have left the fast-paced world of news. Writing fiction is just as fascinating--and as difficult. Stories don’t just appear—they require hours of work. Still, there is nothing quite like seeing a location or characters come to life in my head and then on my computer screen, then in book form, and hopefully then in the heads of readers. 

Dead Man’s Treasure, is the second book in what I call my Dead Man trilogy. The idea for it took shape from a story I was told in college about this old, deserted building that had been used as a company store in the mountains. The story went that someone had been killed there and left a bloody handprint on the wall and it was supposed to be still visible. Since I was going to college only a few miles from that store, of course, my friends and I had to drive out there and see for ourselves. The windows in the stone building were boarded up but we managed to find a way to crawl in, and sure enough, there was the handprint. I have no idea if it’s still there—or if the building itself still exists, but the idea stayed with me, and now I’m writing my second book with that setting. 

Now, if only so many characters didn’t keep taking shape and clamoring in my brain to come out! From Colorado and New Mexico mountain towns, to the freeways of Los Angeles to the rugged beaches of the Northwest, new characters keep arising and asking for their stories to be told. Hopefully, I get to keep telling them and readers enjoy them.     

 Dead Man’s Treasure and the first book in the trilogy, Dead Man’s Rules, as well as all my books are available at Amazon. If you would like to contact me, or read all my books, here is my buy link and my contact information. Happy reading! 

Buy Links:

Amazon Pre-order:  Dead Man's Treasure

Social Contacts:

Fiction Website: RebeccaGrace.com

Non-fiction Website:  Writethatnovel.com

Amazon:  RebeccaGrace

Does anyone have any questions or comments for me?