Nicki Elson's Not-So-Deep Thoughts

As I've said here once or twice before, I was pretty much a closet writer up until the time my first book was published. As it turned out, I wasn't the only one who'd been holding back---soon after I made my big announcement, I found out that my aunt, Dani Burke, had also been writing a novel!  Since then we've had lots of fun going back and forth about our common passion, and I'm so very proud to announce the release of Dani's debut novel, Highway to Love . I just received my copy from Amazon (also at Barnes and Noble & Indie Bound ) and I'm so excited to get to it, especially after reading her fun answers below.  Le Interview:  1.  What was your biggest inspiration for writing this book---the thing that grabbed onto you and wouldn't let you let it go? Seriously? It was my friend Mary that wouldn't let ME let it go! The first pages I wrote were about four people meeting under unusual circumstances. I kept wanting to know what would...

I was watching the Lord of the Rings--- all of them during an end-of-summer marathon with my son---and I was hit with a miniature epiphany. Heavy on the "mini" so don't get excited. You know how you write a story?  And you know how during the story something bad happens to your main character...for example, the pitiful creature Golem convinces your Frodo that Samwise (who is, in fact, the most wonderful and loyal of hobbits) is a traitor, and then Frodo has a terrible argument with Sam and ends up sending him away?  But then a bit further down the story, your MC finds himself in a pickle...say, a giant spider wants to eat him...and so the thing that seemed like a bad thing---casting Samwise away---ends up being a good thing---because now Sam is free and can save Frodo? Well, that's what life is like, isn't it?  Things that seem bad happen, but in the end they serve a good purpose.  Liiike...okay, like the time the company I worked for decided to close its ...

You've caught me in a perfect state of limbo, the great in-between. School starts next week, and yesterday we got locker assignments, so it's no longer summer but it's not school yet either. I've just finished up a big project for work and won't be able to bring myself to look at the next one until tomorrow...at the earliest. Yesterday I finished reading a great book ( On the Jellicoe Road ) and I want to let it simmer a bit before jumping into the next one.  I've taken my latest writing projects as far as they can go for the moment---wrote & submitted a short story and signed a contract for my next novel ( Yay! )---and I'm taking August off from writing to decide what to work on next. Plus all the familial birthdays and celebrations are past, so there are no parties to plan for a good few months... I'm not used to not being squashed under twenty bazillion things to do so this feels very odd.  But I don't want to start into anything big becau...

Thank you all for your encouraging words before my reading this weekend. It went pretty well, with me not stumbling over too many words (and I now know how to pronounce sang-froid...I think). The art fair itself was set up beautifully as always and that alone made the day worth it. Not too many people wandered over to the reading tent on Saturday---which reinforces my first rule of public speaking: bring your own posse---but on Sunday I had a nice little smattering of listeners and better yet, got to meet some great people from a local writer's group I've wanted to get more involved with AND one of them even writes for a local paper and wants to do an interview. :) This is why I rarely turn down opportunities presented to me---you just never know what else might come of it. The Posse   And on Friday I had another nice little treat---I took the Metra train into the big city to meet up with fellow blogger, Michael DiGesu .  Michael is every bit as wonderful in...

It's the monthly meeting of the Insecure Writers Support Group, hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh , and as I told fellow IWSGer, Jennifer Lane , this month's topic is easy for me. For you see, this weekend I am to speak.  In public. The whole reason I write is because I communicate far better that way than verbally, so it's a cruel irony that a byproduct of writing is being asked to speak.  And yet silly me gets excited every time it happens. I jump at the chance. And this particular opportunity is pretty cool and low key---it's to do a reading at a the annual Art in Your Eye fine art festival in my current home town. It's not until I hit about this point, days away from the gig, that I ask, "What the hell was I thinking?" So please join me in my anti-pscyche-out exercises.  What I do is look at my fears and then find some way to allay them. Fear #1: What if nobody comes?  Well, if nobody's there, then it isn't public anymore, is it? And there...