Here’s the second part of our Xlibris Blog article featuring the very promising Xlibris author Margaret Sisu.
Testing New Genres
“Sequels are ‘trending’—they let the audience become familiar with and fans of a character. Such yearning for long term relationships with fictional characters is ironic in a time when not even real-life marriages and Facebook statuses last very long, but it more or less ensures sales of later books.
But no, my second novel isn’t a sequel. I am, however, working otherwise on a short story crime series fashioned on the old pulp fiction detective stories from the 1920’s-40’s which gave birth to characters like Sam Spade and Perry Mason and influenced every fictionalized private detective since, and I’m giving it a twist. Think ‘Magnum P.I. meets Devil in a Blue Dress’.”
Formal Training as a Writer vs. Informal
“My love of writing came from a love of reading since childhood and an inclination to weave stories in my head as an escape and stress reliever. When the opportunity arose, I did spend over a year doing fiction and non-fiction writing courses at Miami Dade College’s Florida Center for the Literary Arts and though it wasn’t a formal MFA, I was taught by the same lecturers of the accredited courses and, they pointed out, much of the same material. It was with that background that I wrote a novel and I believe that irrespective of whether a person’s background is formal academia or not, 99% perspiration is still needed create something good.”
On Writing Habits/Schedule
“When you work for yourself, you work twice as hard”.
“It feels more than twice as hard to me because, aside from being responsible for every keystroke, my self-discipline takes a beating every day. Let’s face it, no one is making me do this and so it’s easy to find excuses when I’m having difficulty with a story or get tired of dealing with the same characters for months on end. Because of that, I make myself write every day, even if it’s only for half an hour or half a paragraph. I’ve tried setting specific hours aside when I write and don’t want to be disturbed but it’s not always practical. Something every day, however, is and that I strive for and usually achieve. When the time comes that I really can’t look at a story objectively anymore (and that always comes for me), I set it aside and work on something else for a few weeks but keep the same ‘write something everyday’ rhythm.”
Background research for your book, and why research is important, even in fiction
“She [waif-like blond romantic heroine, sitting atop a horse, in a Caribbean setting] reached up and plucked a succulent breadfruit and bit into its flesh, the juice running down her chin.”
“As a teenager, I read this in a novel by an author I’d previously enjoyed. My reaction? Slack-jawed disgust, then I snapped the book closed, tossed it, and never read that author again. Ever.
Why? Many of you legitimately wouldn’t know but: 1. A bearing breadfruit tree is more than 20 feet high—no woman sitting on a horse could reach it. 2. The stem on the fruit is one-to-two very tough inches thick and has to be cut with a knife; it can’t be ‘plucked’ unless you’re the Incredible Hulk. 3. Biting into a raw breadfruit will lose you teeth and gum flesh—it’s hard and has to be boiled, only then is it soft and delicious, and 4. The so-called ‘juice’ of the raw ‘fruit’ is a thick, sticky milk that will gelatinize and cling to the skin rather than run down anywhere. And it stains.
The author hadn’t bothered to check her facts; she made assumptions based on hearing the name ‘fruit’. Today, the gaff either wouldn’t be missed, or she’d be laughed out of the book signing.
I research a lot, too, not just to allay embarrassment, but I found that knowing background details added authenticity that, even if I didn’t use what I learned explicitly, found its way in indirectly. I set The Nude in Miami because I’d lived there and knew the layout, atmosphere, and culture. Still, I didn’t know every exit by heart, so I went to Google Earth. I used that, too, to find out how the traffic runs in areas of other cities e.g. in New York when it tied into Gwen following Adam on one of his clandestine meetings. I didn’t want someone to read it and think, ‘Wait, I know that area, and no way can you turn that way on that street—it’s one way in the opposite direction. And driving toward that location won’t take you through SoHo!’
Then, I had a friend—an artist, still living and working in Miami—who became my ‘first reader’ and fact verifier, haivng also been involved with the mammoth Art Basel, Miami Beach expo. She proved invaluable. I also stumbled across a Jeff Bridges documentary on Art in LA in the 1960’s to 80’s. I couldn’t believe my luck! I taped and watched it twice since I couldn’t afford to fly out to LA.
My reference/research notes for The Nude ended up being nearly 100 pages themselves.”
On Meeting Her Creative Muse
“My best story twists, turns, and inspirations don’t come when I’m at the computer. They come when I’m in the kitchen or garden, driving down the street, or now waking up in the morning. I quickly figured out that if I was going to be serious about this writing thing, I had to be disciplined so I have notebooks and post-its ‘on tap’. When an idea occurs to me, I scribble it down so that when I sit down to really write, I have it at hand.
I have accumulated a stack of disjointed characters, plot ideas, quotes in what I call ‘the red box’ (it’s neither red nor a box).
When I finally have amassed enough ad hoc ideas of a similar theme to make a story, I take the ingredients and rearrange them and fit them together to create a feasible storyline. Eventually I end up with a detailed sequence so that when I do sit down and type, ‘Chapter 1’, I know exactly where I’m going.”
We thank Xlibris Author Margaret Sisu for taking the time to share her valuable insights with the Xlibris author community and blog readers. Get to know more about Margaret by visiting her Facebook and Twitter profiles. Read the first part of her Xlibris Author Blog feature here.
More Xlibris authors take the spotlight at the Xlibris Indie Author Roundup. You too can be a successful self-published author! First, get self-publishing tips from the Xlibris Writer’s Workshop.