Inside the Mind of An Author

In the Darkness brought on by a closed room and narrow stairs, I slowly ascend to the top and push the attic floorboard to the side. This stairwell, conveniently hidden in a second floor wall, has been very dusty and full of cobwebs. I’m really not sure what to expect when I go into the attic. I have, however, heard strange noises.

Climbing up into the attic, into the mind of this author, I look around. The walls are cluttered with post it notes, and most of them had small symbols and some writing. There were papers that had fallen to the floor, and the whole area looked like an old bomb shelter.

I’m immediately dodging the many different children who are running around. The voices that each one uses to taunt the others are all different.

I stop one of them. His name is James.

“Are there any others around?”

“Oh, there are plenty.”

“Where are they?”

“Sitting in a corner of the filing room in the back. They’re waiting for their opportunity to come join the fun.”

“What are they waiting for?”

“Why, everyone knows that they’re waiting to be heard. Not all of us characters can be heard at the same time. Sometimes, he listens to three or four of us for a short time, and sometimes he listens to one of us for a long time. But, we’re all here. Waiting for our chance to be heard.”

“So why are you three out here running around?”

“We’ve already been heard. He’s concentrating on us right now, and it’s our chance to play and rest while he figures out what he wants us to do next.”

“How many are in the back room?”

“The last I checked, the room was crammed, and the waiting list was endless. Lots of voices like us want to be heard. We want to tell our stories.”

James escaped from my vision and went back to running around.

When I saw them return, I also saw them carrying long sticks, using them as play swords. I beat a hasty retreat from the mind of this author.

Me vs. God…

Dread Locs on my head
Like snakes on Medusa

Get to close
and you turn into stone

If I were a girl
Then I would be Medusa

Tell Jay-Z and Kanye
Get the f#ck out of my throne

It's the clash of the Titans
It's me vs. God

They're just mad
Because I stole back the fire
Like Prometheus

You see,
Prometheus stole the fire
From the Gods and gave it to mankind…

That's a metaphor for knowledge
Now I'm giving it to you…

It's the same as the apple
In the Garden of Eden

Just take one bite
And you will know that you are God…

From the chapter on freedom
by co-author Charlotte Piotrowski:

“Until such time as we achieve heaven on earth, we must enjoy our freedoms responsibly. Our speech should not be harmful. Our religious practice should welcome those of all faiths (and those without religious faith). Our media should present unbiased truth and facts, rather than one-sided opinion. We must not abuse our freedoms, but rather enjoy them from a perspective of gratitude and wisdom. In doing so, we allow others to enjoy their right to freedom.

While Americans and those of many other nations, especially other democracies, already enjoy basic freedoms, many people around the globe are not equally blessed. Through peaceful means, we must support our worldwide brothers and sisters, as they work to achieve freedom from oppressive governments. We can do this by encouraging the education of all citizens. With knowledge comes power. And with power comes the strength and ability to change. In a heaven on earth, every person will enjoy freedom; and each person’s enjoyment of freedom will only serve for the betterment of the whole, and never to the detraction of anyone else.”

This excerpt is from Chapter 3 of the book. Haley Dubose—a spoiled, shallow rich girl from Southern California—has reacted exactly as you’d expect to the news that, in order to inherit her late father’s estate, she has to move across country and run his company for two years. She threw a temper tantrum and stayed out too late, drinking with her friends.

Now it’s the next day and she’s in the airport, getting ready to board the flight to Amesbury, New York, that will change her life forever…


Haley’s head hurt.

She stood in front of the counter by Gate 7, waiting for the airline attendant to get off the phone.

“May I help you?”

Haley pushed her boarding pass across the counter like a note to a bank teller. “I’d like to upgrade to first class,” she said.

The attendant shook her head. “I’m sorry. We’ve got a full flight. There are no first class seats available.”

“I have miles,” Haley said, but faintly. She wasn’t exactly sure if she’d be able to use Sheila’s miles on a ticket paid for by Marla, the person at her father’s company who’d actually bought it.

The attendant, in any case, didn’t seem to hear. “I’m sorry,” she said again, and then picked up her microphone. “Okay folks, we’re now ready to begin boarding. First class. Anyone serving in the military. People with small children or who need special assistance—you may now board.”

Haley looked down at her ticket. 23F.

The printing pulsed slightly in the fluorescent light. Pulsed like her headache.

And she gave up.

At least it was a window seat ...

She pulled her rollerboard over to the rows of gray chairs near the gate, and squeezed herself into an empty one between two other fliers to wait for her turn to board.

² ² ² ² ²

The plane rose, tipped. Haley watched the red tiled roofs north of downtown shrink and then the plane tipped again and circled counterclockwise out over the bay. The water looked like rippled glass from this height. Still climbing, circling now back over land—over the mountains, the tawny desert mountains that flank San Diego to the east ...

She shut her eyes.

With her eyes closed she lost any sense that the plane was moving forward. There was only the jiggling turbulence and the roar of the engines humming through her body ... but that was people talking, too? How could their voices be so clear with the engines that loud, she could hear every word they said ... a woman telling someone about her son joining the Navy ... a father promising a child that he’d get the iPad when the seatbelt sign turned off ... now the jiggling and the vibration of the engine made it feel like they were moving backwards ...

I can’t believe my father did this to me.

What had that lawyer told her?

That Richard Molnare’s entire estate was tied up in the company he’d founded. And in two years—provided Haley met the terms of the will—she’d be able to sell RMB, get her money, and go home.

“So what you’re saying is, at that point I get my 70 million dollars,” Haley had said.

But the lawyer had waved her hand back and forth, a gesture signaling not so fast. “Not exactly. RMB generates 70 million in annual revenue. That’s not the same as the value of the estate. You understand the difference, right?”

And Haley had pretended that oh, sure, she’d understood the difference all along.

And the lawyer had gone on for a bit about how the company had been doing well for quite a few years in a row. Something about how it was part of a growth industry, and that a lot of other companies like it were buying each other up, which meant that when Haley’s two years was up, chances were good that RMB would be easy to sell.

“Of course,” the lawyer had continued—the lawyer had talked on and on for hours, it seemed like—“what you take out will depend, in part, on how well the company performs when you’re running it. If you can keep it on its current path, it should be worth more, in two years, than it is today. Several million dollars more, perhaps.”

Whatever.

Haley opened her eyes and leaned forward.

A thick manila envelope protruded from the tote she’d pushed under the seat in front of her.

Everything she needed was in that envelope, according to the lawyer. Including a Ziploc bag with a key inside—the key to her father’s house.

She turned and peered out of the window. The ground was gone, everything was gone, they were inside a cloud—the cloud so thick, so uniformly white that it didn’t seem like they were moving at all—they were suspended, motionless except for that slight jiggling, they weren’t moving forwards they weren’t moving backwards they were motionless ...

She pulled down the plastic shade and closed her eyes again, the sensation growing again that she wasn’t moving anywhere ... she was suspended in the air somewhere, suspended in a box ... in a box over which she had no control, and what choice did she have but to sit here, to let herself be jiggled and vibrated and hopefully go to sleep ...

The “seatbelt sign is on” bell-tone dinged and the pilot came on the intercom to tell them the flight time to O’Hare would be four hours and they’d be out of the turbulence soon and to enjoy the flight.

What was it that Oliver said to me?

She couldn’t remember it—not the words—only that he’d been ugly to her.

The asshole.

Her head hurt.

Have you always enjoyed writing?
I can recall writing short, satiric cartoon stories as a junior in high school. I’d send them around the classroom to my friends who would get in trouble because laughing in class is frowned upon in a Jesuit prep school.

Who is your favorite author?
In fantasy/scifi, Tom Holt, Terry Pratchett, Chris Moore and Douglas Adams. In historical fiction, Bernard Cornwall.

What book genre do you adore?
Satiric or humorous scifi and fantasy. There just isn’t enough of it. I’m attempting to fill the humor and satire gap with my fiction

What book should everyone read at least once?
Catch 22. It’s the greatest work of satire I ever read.

How did you develop your writing?
My stories always start with a character. Then I give the character a plot problem. That's as far as I go until I can figure out the story ending. Once I get the ending, I have to build a path between the beginning and end. After that the story is essentially finished, I just have to develop the characters, the setting and the scenes. Then it's time to write the first draft.

What is hardest—getting published, writing or marketing?
Writing is the easiest. Prepping a manuscript for publication is mostly boring. Marketing is frustrating and often expensive. Being successful is the hardest part of the entire process.

Do you plan to publish more books?
Yes. Moxie’s Problem isn’t the end of Moxie’s journey to become an independent woman in charge of own destiny. I’m writing the conclusion of Moxie’s development. The working title is Moxie’s Decision.

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
Tough question. Rome would be at the top of the list followed by a tie between Paris and Barcelona. Or maybe Quebec City (at least in the summer)

Is it vital to get exposure and target the right readers for your writing?
Exposure is a vital element of a marketing plan, especially for a self-published book. Random exposure however doesn't do much. The exposure has to be targeted to the people who will be interested in your book. If you wrote a romance novel then targeting folks who read gun magazines is futile.

Tell us about your new book What is it about and why did you write it?
Here is the book blurb: Moxie's Problem is a coming-of-age story unlike others in this genre. Moxie is an obnoxious, teen-age princess who has never been outside her father’s castle. Until now. She finds the real world is quite different from castle life and she struggles to come to grips with reality. Moxie knows she has to get a life, but doesn’t know how to go about it.The story takes place against the backdrop of Camelot. But, it isn’t the Camelot of legends. It’s Camelot in a parallel universe, so all bets are off!

As to why I wrote it, I’ve loved the Moxie character for quite a while. I wrote a short story with her as the many character over ten years ago. I couldn’t sell because Moxie is a terrible main character in a short story. She doesn’t have room to grow and to learn important lessons. I’ve been determined to tell her story for some time now and I finally got this project under way and the end is in sighs.