Welcome to the sixth edition of Writing Festival Friday here at Perspectives on Writing. This week’s interview is with a seasoned travel writer and feature article writer living in Europe, Annie Duguid. She’s also a novelist!

The winner from last Friday is Devon Ellington! I will contact her for an interview soon. As I’m running a week behind right now, it will probably be two weeks before I can post her interview.

Before we get to the interview, here’s a reminder of how Writing Festival Friday works. This is an opportunity for writers to be interviewed so we can get to know you and what you love to write. Any writer is welcome to participate by leaving a comment - see the comment link at the end of this article. Each week I choose one author to interview - it will be one of the people who commented on the most recent Writing Festival Friday.

Writers of all genres are welcome to participate in Writing Festival Friday, and you do not need to be a published writer - I can always think of something to ask an unpublished writer as well. You can leave your comment at any time during the week, from Friday until the following Friday. Right before I post the next Writing Festival Friday article, I’ll pick a new interview winner.

When you leave your comment to this article, you’re welcome to post your links to your blog, site, books, or whatever you want to share. Let’s get to know one another better!

Annie Duguid

This is a fascinating interview. Annie has a lot of writing experience, and advice to share with aspiring writers.

Linda: How did you get started as a travel writer?

Annie: Travel writing is something I have done sporadically for newspapers in the past but was afraid to specialize in. This year I broke through the fear barrier and pushed myself out there. I am lucky that my visits to Eastern Europe give me an edge at a time when European investors are looking to buy property in countries like Bulgaria. More and more holidaymakers are going there because of the wonderful scenery and low prices so editors are interested in first hand up-to-date information.

Again luckily, I love traveling by train and with the emphasis on green travel, this is now a popular angle.

I’m not a photographer. The larger newspapers source their photos from libraries but my happy snaps from disposable cameras have even made it into local newspapers. I have invested in a much better digital camera now as using my own photos gives me a larger market and better fees.

Online travel writers at Travel Writers and Media Kitty have offered lots of encouragement, leads and advice for which I shall be ever grateful. I read guidelines carefully and try to find unusual seasonal angles six months in advance. Travel writers are remarkably generous in sharing market recommendations and warnings. The British Travel Trade Fair provided more contacts and leads for stories than I can ever use in a year

When I am going somewhere, I pitch storyline ideas to online, magazine and news editors before I leave. I write up everything I do whether it is pre-sold or not. An unsold article used in ten or more low-paying markets still brings in useful money.

And of course you can always be a travel writer without leaving home. I wrote an emergency guidebook on the Isle of Wight (UK) this summer and have another due out next Spring specifically about a local harbor town.

Travel Writing by L. Peat O’Neil is a brilliant book for anyone interested.

Linda: What were some of your most memorable experiences while doing feature writing for newspapers?

Annie: Interviewing the Beatles was fun and I met many celebrities. People who are deservedly famous are invariably thoughtful in their answers and incredibly patient and kind. Some celebrities, however, just think being themselves is enough to entitle them to be rude and arrogant.

One of my favorite stories came from attending a weekend fair in a small French village whose all-bachelor population advertised for single women to marry. I like following up tales of the supernatural too and met families living with poltergeists, ghost hunters and even a composer of well-known TV theme tunes whose home in Portugal was haunted by a ghost that had followed him from a previous house. I had nightmares for months after that.

Nowadays I look for local people who have hidden talents or back story. I find that much more satisfying than hanging about “doorstepping” a celebrity. One elderly neighbor had developed an improved form of wireless communication in World War 2, another had fought as a teenager in the Spanish Civil War.

Linda: What are your writing goals now?

Annie: As a child I dreamed up countless happy-ever-after fairy tales and always expected to write romances. This is far more difficult than I anticipated but I aim to have two completed by the end of the year. They are already first and second drafted. It is still a possibility.

The travel writing and the personal features produce regular writing income. The fiction is my luxury aspiration. I can’t pretend I’m writing a bestseller.

Linda: What advice do you have for other aspiring authors?

Annie: Write every day even if it’s just a letter to a friend. See where your stream of consciousness takes you. If you feel yourself flagging, try another genre or writing discipline just for fun. Push yourself into publication. Even if what you write only appears in a local church magazine or freesheet at first, it will give you some cuttings and spur you on.

Be open to your heart. Ask for advice when you need it and listen. Listen to everyone. Note the tricks of speech that bring them alive on paper.

Join an inspirational writing group with similar aims and ambitions like the Muse Online Writers’ Conference or Freelance Writing Organization International.

Linda: Are you still in Bulgaria?

Annie: I go to Bulgaria two or three times a year and hope to spend longer there next year. There is so much to research and write there. We share the house with a family of chinchillas which have spent most of summer 2007 stripping the wallpaper –perhaps it’s a hint I should be an interior decorator rather than a writer?

…

Annie Duguid is an Associate Editor at Freelance Writing Organization, International and can be found at Garden and Hearth - Travel Europe She has umpteen blogs in various stages of disarray and her own jottings website at Personal Features. She also moderates the weight watching Writers’ Support Group at Spark People.

Science fiction, fantasy, and suspense author, Holly Lisle, is offering a one-time-only seminar for twenty novelists. To apply, you’ll have to come up with an impressive question to ask her about novel writing. See this page on Holly’s website for more information: Would You Like to Be A Part of My Writing Seminar?.

Here’s are eight links for writing sites I’ve visited during the past week:

The Writers Chatroom hosts two chats each week. On Sunday you’ll find writers chatting there at 7pm Eastern Time. Here in California, that’s 4pm Pacific Time. The Sunday chat is moderated as there are guest speakers. The second chat takes place on Wednesday from 8pm to 11pm Eastern time, or here on the West Coast, 5pm to 8pm Pacific Time. This is an open chat. Sounds like fun! You might see me there with the screen name, LindaJM, or LindaJo, or something similar. If not, you’ll surely find me on their forum as I’ve been posting there the last couple of days and plan to make it a regular thing.

The Copperfield Review is a quarterly journal for writers of historical fiction. They are currently accepting submissions, and are especially interested in getting non-fiction articles including interviews with writers of historical fiction, essays pertaining to the writing life and historical fiction, and history-related creative non-fiction. There’s also poetry and fiction in the journal. I read quite a bit of The Copperfield Review earlier today and love it. Great stuff!

Forward Motion is a huge writing community for novelists. There’s a heavy fantasy/scifi population there, but all novelists will find it a very helpful and welcoming site. I noticed today the schedule for writing and edit marathons for the rest of the year has been posted. I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of these marathons, and recommend them. There’s also a lot of support for NaNoWriMo writers, and critiques are available. It’s a pretty impressive place.

2nd Annual Golden Coffee Cup - Now suppose you are a die-hard anti-NaNoWriMo writer. Perhaps your writing style doesn’t allow for writing 50,000 words in one month, or you think it is silly, or you just don’t want to suffer that much. Well, there’s an alternative for November: The Golden Coffee Cup competition. Good luck to all who enter!

NaNoWriMo - In case you are one of those people who still don’t have any idea what NaNoWriMo is, I’m putting this link here. I’ve been participating in NaNoWriMo for the last six years. This November will be my seventh journey into novelist insanity. You can see my collection of NaNoWriMo awards here. I recommend it to anyone interested in having fun and writing a novel at the same time. Though a blog I read today inferred that NaNoWriMo writers produce only “incomprehensible words” - I can attest that this isn’t always so. I think my NaNoWriMo novels are worthy of eventual publication, even though some of them are still first drafts and will require a lot more work before I could submit them anywhere. Many authors prefer to write their novels quickly. Whatever works is best, don’t you think?

The 2008 Muse Online Writing Conference is a mailing list at Yahoo. This link is for those of you who missed the recent online conference in October 2007, or for anyone else who isn’t aware of this mailing list. The conference organizer will be sending messages through this list to keep us aware of conference sign-ups and other vital information. The conference is free, and requires only a time commitment. And here’s a secret I’ve been saving to share with you. I’m planning to be one of the presenters there next year. More on this and my topic some other time.

Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Chat Board - This is Verla Kay’s very active and helpful message board for writers of children’s literature. I’ve been posting over there for a few days now, ever since I discovered I’m reconnected to the system. It is a great place to meet new friends and get feedback on all your questions about writing or illustrating for children.

WeBook is an amazing new website where you can contribute your writing and get thoughtful, helpful suggestions on short stories and nano stories (200 words or less). Four advisors who are qualified, talented writers themselves, staff the site. It is a bit like a free writing school where you can find out what works and what doesn’t. You can participate in writing collaborative novels, read posted novels, or contribute novel ideas. The site owners plan to have the novels and stories printed, so you might get your work into a book! It is in Beta testing now and fairly new so currently membership is by invitation only. I have 40 invitations, so leave a message here if you want me to email you one. I think this is a great way for new writers to get lots of productive writing practice.

So that’s it for my writing link roundup this week. I’ll be posting something similar about a week from now.

Welcome to the fifth Writing Festival Friday, posted late on Friday evening thanks to my incredibly busy schedule earlier today.

The winner of the most recent Writing Festival Friday drawing is Jennifer Gladen. I’ll be sending her interview questions within a few days. Congratulations, Jennifer!

Last week’s winner was Mel Trent, a prolific writer of short stories, novels, reviews, and more. Her interview is posted below.

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Before we get to the interview, I need to remind everyone that the way to enter this weekly interview contest is to make a comment on this article with your website or book links if you have any, and/or information about your writing. I’ll chose the winner next Friday via random drawing. The winner gets interviewed for the following Writing Festival Friday.

You can make your comment any time during the coming week. Comment on the most recent Writing Festival Friday entry at Perspectives on Writing. Writers of all genres are welcome to participate.

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Mel Trent

I’m excited to have a great interview to post today. Mel Trent, the winner of last week’s drawing, has written short stories and novels including The Immortal Guns of Talon Konstantine. She’s also a talented non-fiction author with a book for sale at Lulu, Absolutely, Positively True Stories and a series of detailed anime reviews found online through her page at Piker Press.

Linda: I’ve been looking through your archived articles, fiction, and poetry at Piker Press. Why did you decide to start writing for Piker Press, and how has it changed you and your writing?

Mel: I discovered Piker Press in early 2005 after following a link in a National Novel Writing Month participant’s signature. After hanging around the forums and reading their weekly issues, I decided it was a good place to finally try my hand at submitting my work. I started with a short poem, and in April of 2005, I won a poetry contest. After that, senior editor Alex Queen asked me to write anime reviews for the Press. I’ve been writing for so long without even trying to publish anywhere. It really was past time to get started on it. I don’t think it’s really changed my writing any, but it’s given me a lot of confidence. Because of the response I’ve gotten at Piker Press, I know that I am a good writer and that there is an audience for my work. I now feel that I can move on to bigger and better things.

Linda: What themes can we expect to find in your short stories and novels?

Mel: I think that themes are organic. The characters will tell you what your themes are as you move along. I don’t start out with themes in mind. I like to ask readers what themes they see in my work. That said, the themes I notice in my writing are things like revenge, spirituality and faith versus religion, and relationships, especially non-traditional relationships. I like to explore the dynamics in a romantic relationship between two men or a single father and his daughter or how one person’s secrets can affect his interactions with his entire family. Part of that is because of my own experiences. The rest is because I love observing people. It’s one of my favorite pastimes, behind writing and reading, of course.

Linda: What are your writing goals now?

Mel: My current writing goals are to finish up a short story I’ve been working on for a while now and then concentrate on NaNoWriMo. After that, I will probably look to edit some more recent short stories for another Lulu project and start looking into publishers for the long fantasy novel I wrote for NaNo in 2004. I’m also currently gathering information and resources to possibly produce a podcast about writing early in 2008.

Linda: What advice do you have for other aspiring authors?

Mel: The best thing for aspiring writers to do, I think, is to write. Every day. Write in a journal. Write poetry. Write drabbles. Just write. Practicing the craft is the only way to get good at it. Equally important is to read as much as possible. It’s a good way to explore how so-called “professionals” go about it. Another thing I find helpful is to have a creative outlet that isn’t writing, whether it’s music, painting, knitting, scrapbooking or whatever. You don’t have to be good at it; it just has to be something you enjoy. When faced with a writer’s block, being creative in some way that has nothing to do with writing is better medicine than staring at a blank page or screen and kicking yourself for not being able to write.

Mel has a few novels posted on the web at Talon’s Tall Tales.
Here’s a link to her Lulu Store.

Mel recommends The Literacy Site - a “click to give” donation site that funds free books for children.

Robert E. Howard was one of the greatest pulp fiction writers. He created Conan the Barbarian and Red Sonja, and was a contemporary of HP Lovecraft. (1930s)

Recently I watched a movie about his romance with Novalyne Price. The movie, The Whole Wide World, was based on a book she wrote when she was in her 70s: One Who Walked Alone.

Interesting movie. It showed his writing process, which was like nothing I’d ever heard of before. He apparently sat at his typewriter yelling the words of his stories out loud as he typed. It looked like he really got into the stories, or ‘yarns’ as he called them.

Anyhow, I think the movie is worth watching, for writers, at least. Novalyne Price got in touch with Howard because she wanted advice on her own writing, and he gave it to her, but not exactly as she wanted it.

What an incredible week we’ve been having thanks to author Lea Schizas and her wonderful presenters at The Muse Conference! This is the online writing conference’s second year. It has been overwhelming - like swimming in an ocean of knowledge about writing, trying to pick up tips and ideas, here and there. I’ve met a lot of wonderful people, won one door prize (thanks, Hope Clark!), and tried to take in way more information than I really had time for.

About half-way through the week I decided to put off choosing the Writing Festival Friday (WFF) winner until Friday. That’s today. And the winner is: Mel Trent, from The Piker Press! I will get in touch with her for an interview within the next few hours.

How to be the next winner: It is easy… just leave a comment to this message, telling us about yourself and your writing. Leave links to your writing sites if you have any. What you might win is an opportunity to be interviewed here on Perspectives on Writing. I choose winners by random drawing, so you have as good a chance to win as anyone else, providing you leave a comment.

Things people have asked me about this contest:

Q - Do you have to be a published author?

A - No, anyone can participate so long as you write, will participate in an interview, and are willing for the interview to be posted here on Perspectives on Writing. It is a great promotional opportunity for published authors, but for unpublished authors, there’s no harm in working now to get your name out there, known to the world.

Q - If I’ve commented on another WFF, should I comment again?

A - Yes, because each week I choose a winner from only the names of commenters from the previous WFF posting.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask. I’ll post the interviews here as they arrive back in my email.

I’ve just finished the preliminary work on a new collaborative resource blog for writers of children’s literature. If you write for kids, please check this out. I’m looking for people who want to contribute articles to the blog. Writer’s guidelines are on the site: Literature For Kids.

This is a review of one of the books I’ve read for The Newbery Project. - LJM

I loved reading I, Juan de Pareja by Elizabeth Borton de Trevino. This book, written in the first-person point of view, won the Newbery Medal in 1966.

The novel is based on the real life story of Juan de Pareja, a slave that served a famous painter, Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, in 17th century Spain. The main character is compelling and likable. We meet him as a child living in Seville. Since the book is written in first-person, from Juan de Pareja’s point of view, we get to know him well; he confides his deepest secrets and feelings as he passes through a difficult childhood.

After the first few chapters, Juan de Pareja is no longer a child. To me it seemed strange to read a children’s book that violated a primary rule of writing for children – that the main character should be a child – and that’s one reason I decided the book was more suitable for teenagers than for middle grade aged children (8 to 12). Another reason is that there are many tragic deaths of people around him, including his mother and a young girl. Through most of the book, we read about Juan de Pareja as an adult, living in Madrid, a slave to the painter. He is portrayed as a devoted servant who is happy with his slavery except for one detail: he wants to paint, which is forbidden by law to slaves.

The writing in this book flowed flawlessly so it was pleasant to read, and it took me only a few days to get through it. That’s fast, as I’m normally a slow reader who gets through one chapter per night if I’m lucky. But I, Juan de Pareja fascinated me and at times I couldn’t put it down despite being tired (I read right before sleeping, most nights).

One thing I liked about the book was the philosophy Velasquez expressed about painting. In one scene he compared the drawings of two apprentice artists, defacing the excellent work of one of the boys because he had embellished the truth in order to make a still-life of moldy cheese and dry bread look better. Velasquez said, “I would rather paint exactly what I see, even if it is ugly, perfectly, than indifferently paint something superficially lovely. . . . Art is Truth, and to serve Art, I will never deceive.”

You can find photos of paintings by Velazquez on the internet. The painting included with this review is one Velasquez did in 1650 of his slave and friend, Juan de Pareja.

Kim McDougall, editor of Between the Cracks Digest, is sponsoring a flash fiction contest with a prize of fifteen dollars. Each month she’ll be posting a writing prompt. Use her prompt to write a story between 500 and 1000 words, and maybe you’ll win.

Kim is looking for stories that fall “between the cracks”. Her publication features stories that combine genres.

I’ve been working on a series of middle grade to young adult novels. They are each about 50,000 words in length. After revising the first one several times, it is down to 48,000 words. It is nearly ready for submissions.

The Scribe of Irohila

This is a middle grade adventure about a 12-year-old boy, Raoli, who lived in a civilization so ancient, no historical record of it exists on earth. Raoli sees strangers floating downriver near his village, Irohila. He is convinced his village could benefit from knowing more about where the strangers came from. The novel chronicles his search for the village of the strangers. This novel has been revised six times and is ready to submit.

The Seagull Rebellion

A minor character from the first novel takes center stage in The Seagull Rebellion. Maralin, a 13-year-old girl from the inland city of Halekalo, goes with her father to Valeka, a huge city beside the ocean. There her father’s attempts to study wildlife bring on hostilities from a nearby group of primitive villagers, and Maralin’s life is endangered.

The Legend of Kao Pao

Back in Irohila, Raoli, now age 14, is about to participate in a coming-of-age ceremony called Jakata, but he rebels against the tradition of having to announce his choice for a future wife. Meanwhile Irohila has its first visitor from outside the culture, a woman who serves as high-priestess in the Halekalan temple of Kao Pao, a deity whose earthly messenger, Berendi, was born in Irohila three hundred years earlier. The first draft for The Legend of Kao Pao was completed in 2006.

The Valekan Migration

Maralin, now 15, is forced to evacuate along with thousands of other residents of Valeka. She embarks on a journey north along the coastline, and in the process, redefines who she is and what she will become. The first draft was completed in 2007.

I may write more after this; I’ll have to wait to see how the series is received.