Writers4Higher features JoElle Martin

Welcome to Writers4Higher

The purpose of the Writers4Higher blog: to feature authors in a new light, a fresh look at the way writers use their talents and life energies to uplift humankind. Writers4Higher doesn’t promote religious or political views. Authors are asked to answer three simple questions: simple, yet complex.

This issue, Writers4Higher features

JoElle Martin

                       Hi, JoElle. Welcome to the Writers4Higher family!

                                                

1. Tell me about yourself. Your book(s), your life, your inspiration.

If there is such a thing as reincarnation, then I was a gypsy in all my former lives. I love to wander. I love not having a plan and just taking each day as it happens. To me life is an amazing gift and shouldn’t be wasted. Each day is a promise of adventure, knowledge, and making a difference. Each day is about really seeing the world and living, not just going the motions and existing without awareness.

One of my favorite quotes is from the movie “Tuck Everlasting” (based on the book). Angus Tuck tells Winnie Foster, “Do not fear death, but rather the unlived life. You don't have to live forever. You just have to live.”

My life hasn’t been perfect. I’ve experienced pain, disappointment, poverty, and other unhappy events. But I am thankful that somewhere my family had healthy resiliency and emotional intelligence genes and that they were passed on to me; as well as a dab of storytelling genes.

In school I was told I was a good writer, but I didn’t really know what to do with it. I wrote my assignments and received A’s. I competed in Journalism writing events and won awards. But that was about it. I didn’t keep a diary. I didn’t like writing about me. I liked making up stories and writing about other people.

Shortly after I graduated high school I proposed to my boyfriend and we were married. We are still together. I’ve had a happy married life and my husband and I raised a wonderful son. It was during the time I homeschooled him that I began to think about my writing. I was telling my kid that he could live his dream of being a firefighter (and he did become a firefighter), and that’s when I realized I didn’t want to reach my last day and regret never having written a book.

I began to write. I wrote stories for the local newspaper. I became a writer and regional editor for our homeschool newsletter. I became a staff writer for a bilingual area newspaper. And soonafter that began working on my first manuscript.

While my newspaper and newsletter articles are non-fiction and cover items of community interests, my novels are fantasy, romance, and adventure. My published novels are a four book young adult fantasy series. The manuscripts I am currently working on are fantasy/paranormal romance. I’ve always loved fairy tales and I consider my stories as modern day fairy tales. They take place in the world of today, however the characters are elves, dragons, fairies, witches, and humans too. The stories are mostly fun and filled with adventure. I avoid too much drama. There is enough of that in real life. I like my characters to have a sense of honor and a sense of humor.

My inspiration comes from everywhere. I was driving through the Deschutes National Forest on a clear night with a full moon. The forest looked absolutely magical and that combined with an early childhood memory and I had the inspiration for my first novel ….and that evolved into the four books. Nature inspires a lot of the scenes in my books. My characters are not any particular people I know. But I have had characters inspired from people watching. People are fascinating.



2. Where do you see your writing taking you in the future?

I don’t really think about this. I love that I’ve written not one book, but several. I knew that I had it in me and I feel a huge sense of accomplishment in what I’ve already done. Though my series has not been a commercial success, I feel successful in that the reviews I have received have all been positive. I feel honored that people have read my stories and liked them. Do I hope to be able to quit my “day job” and write full time? Sure. Would I like my audience to be bigger? Of course. I have stories inside my head pushing me to let them out and get them on paper. I do see myself writing until there are no more stories … and that won’t be anytime soon. I have four manuscripts in various stages of completion and three or four more stories waiting inside my head. Oh wait! And many of my series reviewers have said they could see Dreamer’s Forest as a movie. I was told that as they read it, it felt like a movie. I need to look into making that happen.



3. How do you use your talents/time to help others?



I volunteered as regional editor for California Homeschool News for three years. Our family raised a guide dog puppy for a guide dog school and I wrote of the experience in our city newspaper. Actually most of my non-fiction pieces are on community topics. I’d like to do more in the way of volunteering, however between work, school (I will finally get a degree this spring), and family I keep pretty busy. I do try to find gentle ways of helping others (and being kind to animals and the planet) each and every day. I truly believe if you send out good energy it makes a positive difference in the lives of others.

JoElle's Books: A Bridge in the Forest, A Promise in the Forest, 

A Secret in the Forest, and Moonlight in the Forest

Would you like to find JoElle?

Check out the links to this talented author:

JoElle's website

JoElle on Facebook

Be sure to visit the Writers4Higher Market! We have gear for the writer in you.

The Writers4Higher Market

Rhett DeVane

Fiction with a Southern Twist

Writers4Higher blog

Rhett's Website

Rhett's funny Southern Blog

Writers4Higher features Malcolm R. Campbell

 

Welcome to Writers4Higher

The purpose of the Writers4Higher blog: to feature authors in a new light, a fresh look at the way writers use their talents and life energies to uplift humankind. Writers4Higher doesn’t promote religious or political views.

Authors are asked to answer three simple questions: simple, yet complex.

1. Tell me about yourself. Your book(s), your life, your inspiration.
2. Where do you see your writing taking you in the future?
3. How do you use your talents/time to help others?

This issue, Writers4Higher features

Malcolm R. Campbell.

Hi Malcolm. Welcome to the Writers4Higher family.

1. Tell me about yourself. Your book(s), your life, your inspiration.

My contemporary fantasies are linked to wilderness settings because nature inspires me and lends itself very well to magic or to the possibility of magic. I grew up in the Florida Panhandle where I was a member of a Tallahassee Scout Troop that spent many weekends camping at nearby lakes, sinkholes and rivers. This was my first major exposure to the out of doors and it has helped me find connections between my characters and the places where they live. Most of my career has been focused on technical writing, but I always had a manuscript hidden away in a sock drawer. The mega-corporation I was working for laid off our entire division after 9/11. It was quite a blow, but it did change my focus from describing software to telling stories set in places like Glacier National Park, Tate’s Hell Swamp, and the Missouri River.

2. Where do you see your writing taking you in the future?

After Sarabande was released last summer, I wasn’t ready for another long project, so I shifted over to writing short stories. First, it’s good practice, especially when a contest or magazine has strict word-count limits. I’ve been enjoying writing within 500-word and 1,000-word arenas. I love folktales and stories with a folktale-like approach. I’m tempted to head off in that direction. The short stories, whether they ever find a market or not, are allowing me to experiment with a lot of characters, settings and themes that connect magic, personal transcendence, and nature into adventures that could easily happen to anyone, anywhere. I’ve been having fun discovering what it’s like to set a story in my old Tallahassee neighborhood, another on a Florida highway between Tate’s Hell and the Garden of Eden, and another that features a Florida Panther and a Limpkin as its main characters.

3. How do you use your talents/time to help others?

I review about forty books a year on several weblogs with a strong focus on small-press books. This comes under the heading of a “labor of love” because I’m never without a novel on my nightstand anyway, so why not share a little something about the plot and themes with others? While I can’t compete with Publishers Weekly, Kirkus or The New York Times, most small press books never make it to those places. So, I hope the exposure on my blog, Amazon and GoodReads helps. The act of writing walls us off from each other and because it does, I think those of us who don’t have a big publicity machine behind our books can support each other in part by doing book reviews, using Twitter to spread the word about each other’s posts, and from time to time using our blogs and Facebook accounts to discuss writing tips which have worked well for us. It saddens me to see so many talented authors having to fight so hard for support and exposure; sharing the treasures sitting on my bookshelf with prospective readers is important to me as a fellow writer. And, it gives me a real good excuse to keep my nose in a book!

Thanks for inviting me to stop by your blog, Rhett. Now, if only there were a way to have a huge plate of piping hot cathead biscuits while I’m here.

Malcolm

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Would you like to find Malcolm?

Stop by and say hello and check out this talented author's work.

Here are links:

WEBSITE: Malcolm's website

FACEBOOK: Malcolm on Facebook

TWITTER: Malcolm on Twitter

MALCOLM'S BOOKS:

Sarabande: Sarabande on Amazon

The Sun Singer: The Sun Singer on Amazon

Thank you, Malcolm, for your insightful answers. And I'll put those cathead biscuits in the oven whenever you stop by, hon.

Rhett DeVane

Writers4Higher

Rhett's author website

Fiction with a Southern Twist