I am having knee surgery on March 4, 2013, so my other site will be stagnant until I recuperate.
Thank you for your patience and best wishes to all.
Marilyn
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Hold It!
This blog site will be on hold for a while until I figure out what to do with it. I have another blog site here to promote my novel, Like Father, Like Son and other random thoughts.
I hope you check out my new blog site and let me know what you think. And don't forget to read the reviews on my novel page. All 5 Stars plus one 4 Star. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to see if I'm dreaming.
I am having knee surgery on March 4, 2013, so my other site will be stagnant until I recuperate.
Thank you for your patience and best wishes to all.
Marilyn
I am having knee surgery on March 4, 2013, so my other site will be stagnant until I recuperate.
Thank you for your patience and best wishes to all.
Marilyn
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Cloud 9
Many years ago I decided to start my own business because I was tired of working for someone else. I was wasting away, mentally and physically. I needed to be creative, to do something creative, so I bought a computer from a friend and opened an editorial service. Clients were teachers, lawyers, artists, students, general walk-ins, some wannabe writers. I quickly discovered that this kind of shop was not what I had in mind. I was working all hours to meet their deadines, and everyone had one, especially the court cases of which I seemed to have more than my share. There was only one me and many, many clients. No, sir, this was not what I had in mind.
What did I love doing? I loved to read novels. I could edit novels! I had learned to edit at various daily and weekly newspapers where I had been employed for many years. I loved working at newspapers. The creative energy was amazing. The people were amazing. So was the pace. After a couple of years at that pace, burnout set in and it was time to move on to another paper. A new challenge. After another paper, another burnout. I wasn't getting any younger.
The day I decided to edit novels, I pulled my editorial service ads, finished up with my clients, and closed the door on that business. If I'm going to edit novels, I thought, I'd better write one. So I did. I took it to the Santa Barbara Writers Conference and had a conference with a former editor at Bantam Books, who had read my novel before the conference started. He liked it and suggested some changes. I was on Cloud 9. I went home bursting with the knowledge that my novel was basically good, it just needed a little more work.
I made changes, fleshed out a couple of characters, rearranged some sections, edited some more, changed this, deleted that until I eventually broke it. I could no longer recognize it as the novel I had written. I put it in a drawer and there it sat for a few years. I was too busy with other writer's novels now to even think about mine.
I loved editing novels. They were my passion. Some very good Bay Area writers came through my door. I also had a small publisher as a client, and they kept me quite busy. By then I had quite a stable of writers. Once again I was on Cloud 9.
My novel sat in my drawer (and on a computer disk) for a number of years. Every once in a while when there was an editing lull, which didn't happen very often, I'd look at my novel and try to fix it a little here, a little there. Then back into storage it would go once I got busy with other writers' novels.
Years went by and I forgot about my novel. I moved to Los Angeles and began working with a literary agent and fell in love with screenplays. Actually, I fell in love with the entire movie business. It was exciting. I loved reading scripts, looking for scripts that would sell. They were few and far between but I admired the tenacity of all the writers who stuck with it and finished a script. I read for a couple of screenplay competitions. I was usually in the second or third round. I mentally marked one or two scripts on my round that I thought were winners. Often they were. Good writing stands out.
So now it's many years later and I'm not doing much of anything very exciting. A few weeks ago I saw my novel on my thumb drive when I was looking for something else. Whoa! Let's take a look. After all these years it will be like reading someone else's writing. I had even forgotten what a lot of the story was about.
I read it and I couldn't believe it. All the edits I made somehow came together and made a novel. It was like reading someone else's writing. It was even good writing! I changed the title and published it on amazon Kindle a couple of weeks ago. It's already gotten a 5-star review!
That Cloud 9 is some kind of wonderful.
Check out my paranormal novel, Like Father, Like Son here.
What did I love doing? I loved to read novels. I could edit novels! I had learned to edit at various daily and weekly newspapers where I had been employed for many years. I loved working at newspapers. The creative energy was amazing. The people were amazing. So was the pace. After a couple of years at that pace, burnout set in and it was time to move on to another paper. A new challenge. After another paper, another burnout. I wasn't getting any younger.
The day I decided to edit novels, I pulled my editorial service ads, finished up with my clients, and closed the door on that business. If I'm going to edit novels, I thought, I'd better write one. So I did. I took it to the Santa Barbara Writers Conference and had a conference with a former editor at Bantam Books, who had read my novel before the conference started. He liked it and suggested some changes. I was on Cloud 9. I went home bursting with the knowledge that my novel was basically good, it just needed a little more work.
I made changes, fleshed out a couple of characters, rearranged some sections, edited some more, changed this, deleted that until I eventually broke it. I could no longer recognize it as the novel I had written. I put it in a drawer and there it sat for a few years. I was too busy with other writer's novels now to even think about mine.
I loved editing novels. They were my passion. Some very good Bay Area writers came through my door. I also had a small publisher as a client, and they kept me quite busy. By then I had quite a stable of writers. Once again I was on Cloud 9.
My novel sat in my drawer (and on a computer disk) for a number of years. Every once in a while when there was an editing lull, which didn't happen very often, I'd look at my novel and try to fix it a little here, a little there. Then back into storage it would go once I got busy with other writers' novels.
Years went by and I forgot about my novel. I moved to Los Angeles and began working with a literary agent and fell in love with screenplays. Actually, I fell in love with the entire movie business. It was exciting. I loved reading scripts, looking for scripts that would sell. They were few and far between but I admired the tenacity of all the writers who stuck with it and finished a script. I read for a couple of screenplay competitions. I was usually in the second or third round. I mentally marked one or two scripts on my round that I thought were winners. Often they were. Good writing stands out.
So now it's many years later and I'm not doing much of anything very exciting. A few weeks ago I saw my novel on my thumb drive when I was looking for something else. Whoa! Let's take a look. After all these years it will be like reading someone else's writing. I had even forgotten what a lot of the story was about.
I read it and I couldn't believe it. All the edits I made somehow came together and made a novel. It was like reading someone else's writing. It was even good writing! I changed the title and published it on amazon Kindle a couple of weeks ago. It's already gotten a 5-star review!That Cloud 9 is some kind of wonderful.
Check out my paranormal novel, Like Father, Like Son here.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
F. Collyer Reed
 |
| F. Collyer Reed ... an author who bears watching |
Reed's life is almost as colorful as his those of his characters. Born in a Nevada brothel in 1949, he was raised by his mother and numerous "aunts." He remembers waking up at times and seeing his mother engaged in her trade. Eventually she married a wealthy miner and they moved to San Francisco. His father died when Reed was eight, at which time his mother sent him to various boarding and military schools. He also attended a British finishing school, a Christian Holy Roller school (his words), and a state reform school.
At 17 he dropped out of everything and hit the road. Some of his characters are composites of people he met or did drugs with while on the road. While his stories are pure fiction, Reed demonstrates an amazing insight into people's emotional demons and their dysfunctional relationships, especially men and women who fall into explosive sexual situations as they search for love in their fractured lives. "Those people had no voice," Reed said, "so I gave them one."
Reed lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his artist wife.
Check out his novellas on Smashwords.com:
Onica . . . $1.99
A young man obsessed with a mysterious older woman gets more than he bargained for when he attempts to blackmail her for sex.
Lester in Love . . . $1.99
A drifter on the road to nowhere tangles with a trucker from hell.
A drifter on the road to nowhere tangles with a trucker from hell.
The Penthouse . . . $1.99 (available soon)
Three old codgers hatch a brilliant plan to lure beautiful young women to their borrowed penthouse.
COMING SOON . . .
The God Game
A novel about preachers, politics, and prostitutes
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)