Nicki Elson's Not-So-Deep Thoughts

Optional Question: What started you on your writing journey? Was it a particular book, movie, story, or series? Was it a teacher/coach/spouse/friend/parent? Did you just "know" suddenly you wanted to write? I love that this question came right now. I was just reminded of the very first novel-length story I ever wrote and why I wrote it. But first---how did I come to write it? My journey to writerhood was the result of 3 major factors: 1. I've always been a daydreamer. As a small child I'd spend hours rocking in the La-Z-Boy with my parents' easy-listening radio station playing in the background, just thinking and imagining to the likes of Olivia Newton-John and Barry Manilow. The clouds are still my favorite place to put my head...but I listen to better music now. 2. I dig words. I'd always thought of myself as more of a numbers person, but as I forged a career as an investment analyst and my (tor)mentor beat me down until I finally mastered the wr...

Happy December, everyone! I hope this holiday season finds you in a happy whirl that doesn't spin too out of control.This month, the leaders of the Insecure Writer's Support Group gave this suggestion for a post topic: IWSG: Let's play a game.  Me: Okay! IWSG: Imagine.  Me: On it. IWSG: Role-play.  Me: Oooh...with costumes? IWSG (ignoring my silly question---because OF COURSE costumes!):  How would you describe your future writer self, your life and what it looks and feels like if you were living the dream? Okay, well, you said the dream , so here goes....I'll take you back to a picture from a couple of posts ago. Image by   jeremynelms  from  Pixabay That's where I live now (in the dream). Not in that exact building, but in the town below these ruins. Ollantaytambo, Peru . You see, on a fluke, one of my self-published novels hit the big time. It topped all the best-seller lists, and the rights were purchased for major moolah...

Hey there! Entering the room Kramer style for this month's IWSG. So we're getting right to the hilarious question: What's the strangest thing you've ever googled in researching a story? As writers, we've got the craziest search history ever, right? It's funny to see what ads pop up as I roam the internet and Google tries to figure out who I am and what I'm about. I know I've been led to some really unexpected links during online searches, and I'd love to tell you about them, but none are coming to me right now---perhaps I've mentally blocked them for my own safety.  To answer this month's question I'm going with an old standby: poison. I needed it tasteless, odorless, and undetectable when added to food, see?  And I needed an antidote, too. The shadier the characters associated with the poison, the better. Now stop askin' questions. I've already told ya too much. Hope your Novembers are off to a smashing s...

Hola, mis amigos! I hope your September is off to a smashing start.  Mine actually began with... Ta-da! I actually finished a first draft. Pop zee bubbly!!! Now I need to actually read the thing, tear it apart, and rewrite it before getting input from crit partners and rewriting again, and then I'll let the editors have at it along with all the other nightmares of actual publication...but I began working on this sucka in early 2018, so please allow me a moment to celebrate before we jump into all of that. This month's IWSG question happens to be intertwined with my last month or so of writing this draft...  If you could pick one place in the world to sit and write your next story, where would it be and why? Interesting question. I've actually been doing the opposite---sitting in one place writing about another place in the world ( see my latest author email for evidence ).  I was thinking about how to answer this question, and honestly, I think ...

Happy August! Hope you're all doing well. Going to get right to the IWSG question of the month: Has your writing ever taken you by surprise? For example, a positive and belated response to a submission you'd forgotten about or an ending you never saw coming? Ah yes, the ending I never saw coming. I'm pretty sure I wrote about this here back when it was happening...or maybe soon after I recovered from it. The year was 2013, and I was getting lots of push-back from my publisher during the editing of my angel story . I dealt with the blows as they came and made the edits, overall feeling like the process was going well. Nothing important to me was lost, and I knew my editor was helping me better speak to a romance-reading audience. But then, after telling myself repeatedly that it was all going to be okay, at the 11th hour, I received a HUGE, dastardly email from the small pub's owner. She explained that the book's publishing "team"---of which I wa...

Happy July! Y'know, this monthly meeting of the Insecure Writer's Support Group really puts the ol' highlighter to how quickly time moves. I hope you're all have great summers - or winters, depending on which hemisphere you inhabit. Here's a picture of what's going on in my corner of Illinois. Yes, that's yet another storm rolling in from the west. WHATEVER! An update for those of you who remember the tadpole video from last month: the tire tracks have dried up but I see no evidence of dried up frog babies, so let's all assume they grew their little legs in the nick of time and hopped off to live full, rich lives, okay? Now, onto the IWSG question of the month... What personal traits have you written into your characters?  Most of my female main characters have difficulty fully trusting people---the leading man in particular. They get that from me, and it's what ends up causing  the most conflict in their relationships. From the ...

Happy June, everyone! We're FINALLY getting some warm weather here in the Chicago 'burbs. A bit rainy still, but sunshine shows up every few days, and I'll take it. All the rain makes for interesting discoveries at the restored prairie by my house. Look where some crazy frogs decided to lay their eggs: But we're not hear to talk about amphibious parental decisions. We're here to talk about writing! Onto the optional question of the month. Optional IWSG Question of the Month: Of all the genres you read and write, which is your favorite to write in and why? Wellll, it seems like the answer to this question would be Chick Lit/Romance because that's the category my novels and my current WIP fall into, and I do so enjoy writing contemporary, realistic fiction. BUT I have to admit that I've had wicked fun straying from this genre and dipping a toe into darker, Supernatural passages - like in parts of Divine Temptation and Hans and Greta  - and into Ma...