Ask the Author: Lee Rene
Answered Questions (10)
Lee Rene
Hi Rick, I'll gladly read your novel for free but I am helping another writer at the present time. My email address is francesca.miller@ca.rr.com - it's interesting that you set your novel in 1918. I was going to write one about the great influenza epidemic, but another novelist friend beat me to the punch!
Lee Rene
Hi Eunice, Thanks for asking. Yes, I do plan to write a full length novel about the two of them. I'm working on another New Orleans novel then will start on Lizzie and Nicholas.
Lee Rene
Hi Lorena - Even though I write Young Adult and New Adult novels, I make my female characters as complex as possible. Though I haven't written a Blanche Dubois, I added an element of theatricality to all of them. Like Williams, many of my characters are working class and I don't shy away from their sexuality. I also add poetry to my prose, even the darker, smuttier passages.
Like Mr. Williams, I'm in love with the city of New Orleans and continue to write about it. I just finished a short story set in NOLA and have two longer works with that wondrous city as the setting. though I was born and raised in Los Angeles, my parents were Southerners and that part of the country continues to call out to me.
Like Mr. Williams, I'm in love with the city of New Orleans and continue to write about it. I just finished a short story set in NOLA and have two longer works with that wondrous city as the setting. though I was born and raised in Los Angeles, my parents were Southerners and that part of the country continues to call out to me.
Lee Rene
Years ago I read the memoirs of a woman who'd worked in a sex club in New Orleans as a teen. She'd been thrown out by her parents for being gay and had no one to turn to. Her stories were vivid, sad, yet life affirming. I only told a portion of her story in my first novel, The New Orleans Hothouse, and will tell the rest in the one I'm working on now.
Lee Rene
I've been a story teller since I was a child and tried to write a novel for years. Writing takes a degree of discipline I didn't possess when I was younger, but I've found it now.
Lee Rene
I am working on another erotic romance set in New Orleans in the 1950s. I'm hoping to complete it by the end of the month or in early February. It's part of the St. Marc's series for Loose Id.. I also have two Gothic Young Adult novels I hope to complete and submit to a literary agent. I have one more Young Adult novel that will be re-written as a New Adult novel so I have a lot on my plate.
Lee Rene
Be open to criticism which is the only way to learn. Find a writers' community, even if it's online. Work with beta readers who are also writers and listen to what they have learned. If you are American. familiarize yourself with the Chicago Manual of Style. Most American publishers use it and will reference it every day. It's also important to read novels in the genre you plan to write in. I know that sounds elementary but you'd be surprised at the number of authors who write a novels in a specific genre and don't know the ground rules.
Lee Rene
Most of my writing has been historical and writing allows me to reshape the past. I also find characters historians often overlook and either retell their stories in a different way or in the case where I only have a name, invent a history for them.
Lee Rene
I never get writer's block, I get writer's lazy. The work is there but I don't feel like writing. I solve it by cutting it in half or in fourths and plunging. One possible reason for writer's block is taking on too much. Using an outline also helps because it allows you to muddle through.
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