My guest post is up already too and you can check it out at Allison Bruning hosts Anjie Harte.
Anyhow, without further delay I present to you: Cathy Brockman and her many muses.
Why I write and what inspired me.
Hello! My name is Cathy Brockman and I am
a writer. Well, actually I can truly say I am an Author, since I published my
first book (though it is under my other personality ... *
Cathy Boyd - meet childlike muse. She waves* Luke’s Dragon; book
one of the Dreamworld series. I have many other books started but that is for
another story.
Today we will talk about why I decided to
write. I didn’t just wake up one morning and say “hey I think I am going to
write a book”. *muses give me the evil eye.*Well
I guess it did kind of happen that way. Here is the whole story. It’s kind of
long so you better sit down. *muses
offer up a comfy chair and a tray of assorted teas and water. Sorry no coffee
since its 9 pm here. Oh! Ok for the ones in the UK and other places where it is
morning we will bring in the coffee pot. *sweet muse smacks my hand as I reach
for it and hands me the bottled green tea*.
It was about a year ago in mid-April. I
had recently retired from my job at Wal-Mart of 19 years due to a damaged
nerve. I have chronic pain and seizures now and fall unannounced so I can no
longer work and basically have to have someone around. I’d been lying about
doing nothing but a little crochet and a lot of reading when the pain meds
didn’t have me knocked out. I had gained a lot of weight. I was the heaviest I
had ever been (yes I will admit I topped 200 and I’m only 5 feet.) I also
became very depressed. About all I could do was read. I read both of Laurell K
Hamilton’s series; the Anita Blake vampire hunter ( lots of books and the Merry
Gentry ones also a lot), after I had read
the four twilight books and the entire collection of Sookie Stackhouse
books by Charlaine Harris. I moved on to
Kim Harrison’s Hollows series. After I finished it, I read Patricia Biggs and
Caitlin Kittredge’s entire series. Then in February, Kim released Pale
Demon. Yes, now we are getting to where
my inspiration came from... (I
know I ramble)
I had read Pale Demon twice; I loved it
so I was obsessed. I daydreamed (well evening dreamed as it was mostly at night
when I was relaxing in a nice hot tub with my Mp3.) This night in particular, I
was just about ready to bring in my fantasy when Paralyzer came on
the Mp3 player. Instead of Trent from Pale Demon showing up in my fantasy
world, this tall hunky werewolf shows up
dancing (imagine Joe Mangenello with auburn red hair, pulled back in a ponytail ,tucked into a
shirt buttoned down low…(I ramble again.) I’m thinking wow… my own character.
How cool is that? So for the next few
nights I had my own set of characters.
This was about a week before this April morning decided to get a grip on
myself and lose some weight and cut way back on the pain pills.
One morning early in April, rejoined
Spark people a weight-loss group sight, and was doing a spring boot camp to
lose weight. This particular morning I got on to log in my calorie count, when
a pop up popped up. It said. “Have you
ever thought of writing and selling your own book?” How odd. (You probably
think not odd, happens all the time… except we have a good pop up blocker and
don’t get popups and I haven’t gotten any more in a year now.. And yes it was a
vanity ad for Iverse publishing. Anyone can write a book and buy a package and
you have books.)But that was my plan at the time. Daughter had a birthday
coming in July and I thought I’d write a book for her birthday. How cool is
that? A book by your mom?
I
got out a stack of composition books and a pack of pens and got busy. I started
designing my characters. Then I realized
the story was off. How did these characters get to where they are? So I started another story, a prequel but I
hate prequels. So I decided that book one; the original book, one would be book
two. Suddenly a new storyline, and I had
the makings of book three. Then
something crazy happened at the end of the third outline leading to book four.
I had a series.(and I ramble again..) Back on track. I found out there was a
lot more to quality writing than sitting down and writing words on paper.
I
started doing a lot of research, joining groups, making friends. I read that you needed to start queries and
social platforms when you first start writing. This was all new to me, and I
had to brush up on basics since I have no training and been out of school a
hundred years. *childlike
muse gasps and dark muse grins flashing fang.* Well maybe not a
hundred. Then one day far into the journey, well that fall, I posted a post
something about a chapter I had written and had sent out a couple for
critiquing. I had a couple ladies talk to me about it. They both were very
helpful and told me how to submit some
queries, and was interested in some ideas and one introduced me to Tasha Turner
to help me get on track
and polish m up. Tasha introduced me to Masterkoda group. From there I
met a sweet lady ,Debra Welch, that also talked to me about the critiquing and
asked to read a bit of my work. Then she asked for samples of all I had so
far. Then she said her and her partner at Saga Books would publish the first book of the
series. Yes I have a contract for the first book and hope to have it out by
year end.
In the meantime; the muses kept showing
up and plot bunnies multiplied. I developed more stories. I decided one night
to do a M/M romance (another story for another time) I call this thing 2 and my
naughty muse was born.*Naughty
muse smiles* Then one day thing 3 cropped up; a contemporary
romance, or Chick Lit (sweet muse was born she curtsies).
I
got involved in a charity project, called the Gage project, and wrote a
children’s story for it. My editor edited it for free for me and she liked it
so much she published it also. So Luke’s Dragon is available on amazon for
$2.99 and also in the Gage project. * And
the childlike muse is born she waves frantically*. You can visit
with me and all my muses on Thursdays when we do our weekly interviews at our
lair at cathybrockman.com., and probably more often pretty soon.
As if all of this wasn’t enough, I got the crazy idea of a story blog and My
short story Love bites and my group Storytime Trysts was born. I developed it
to give people free samples my writing style and to give a few friends the
opportunity also. We have had ups and downs but I have learned a lot. From both the blog and my whole journey.
Speaking of my journey I have an old blog
on blogspot called my journey if you are interested in more details.
I hope I haven’t
bored you to death *muses
go around shaking everyone awake.* this is how I decided to write
and became published. How Kim Harrison inspired me and this is just the
beginning. So stay tuned for more. A lot more!!*muses open three drawers and show you all the folders
of ideas! *Yep a lot more!!We hope you come back soon! Until then,
here is a little about me and where you can find me!
* * * * *
Cathy Brockman
Cathy is fifty years old (Shh! don't tell anyone!!) though she
refuses to act it. She prefers to play with clay and write on the sidewalk with
the Grandies (she has 10 of them). She lives in the hot and sticky mid-south
and dreams of a cooler climates and making snowmen. She retired from her
everyday job of 19 years, selling jewelry at Wal-Mart, to spend time writing
books and creating her own jewelry and other cool stuff.
She likes to garden, cook, sew, and craft.
When she isn't creating new recipes for her home-grown goodies, or making some
cool plastic canvas creation or a pretty piece of jewelry, she can be found
hiding in one of her many garden getaways, creating new worlds and getting lost
in writing and sometimes reading a hot and juicy romance. She also hopes to get
to travel a lot soon to get more inspiration and ideas for even more great
stories to share with all of her friends. If you would like a free sample of
her writing, go see Storytime Trysts for weekly episodes of her latest
short-story.
Storytime Trysts: http://storytimetrysts.blogspot.com/
links: Facebook pages
Facebook: Cats reviews http://www.facebook.com/#!/CatsReviews
Sian and Cathy’s chattime radio http://www.facebook.com/#!/SianandCathysChatTimeRadio
Blogs and websites
and my book under Cathy Boyd my children and Ya page
*Cathy
and muses wave and blow kisses*
What inspires you? Do you have a dream
that you would like to see come true some day? Tell us about your dreams and
inspirations in the comment section. If I can make mine come true so can you!!
Thanks Anjie Hart for inviting us here today!
Thanks for hosting me Anjie!!
ReplyDeleteGreat job Cathy!
ReplyDelete