Ask the Author: Joni M. Fisher
Answered Questions (14)
Joni M. Fisher
I would love that, but I have not submitted it to my favorite director. Am too busy writing the next book in the series. Will send him the series when complete.
Joni M. Fisher
Ooooo. Fun idea. I would like to experience life as Sherlock Holmes, brilliant, decisive, and solving crimes. Oh, to be as observant as he!
Joni M. Fisher
A trail of blood began on my driveway and continued into the woods. I followed it into the woods and found a body that looked like mine.
Joni M. Fisher
Thank you readers!
Joni M. Fisher
Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, books 18 to 21. Kristan Higgins The Next Best Thing. Susan Drake's re-release of Hear No Evil. And whatever else I can wedge into my evenings after working on the third book in my Compass Crimes Series.
Joni M. Fisher
I wasn't a military brat, but we moved about twenty times in my childhood because my mother helped set up offices at hotels before she became a lawyer. My husband brought me into aviation when he earned his pilot's license. Here are two essays I published about earning my pilot's license: http://www.jonimfisher.com/rocket-mom/ and this one from Christianity Today http://www.jonimfisher.com/articles/t...
Valerie, were you a military brat? Are you in aviation?
Valerie, were you a military brat? Are you in aviation?
Joni M. Fisher
What my biological father was doing and where he was living for sixteen years after he divorced my mother. I met him at age 21 when he was dying and he was not quite well enough to ask. I believe he asked us to come see him for forgiveness. I forgave him, of course.
Joni M. Fisher
Tristan and Isolde are my favorite fictional couple because they embody the depth of love during times of war. I think this couple inspired the writing of Romeo and Juliet.
My second favorite fictional couple are Jamie Fraser and Claire Randall from Outlander. Sexy, adventurous, and again they remain fiercely protective of one another during wartime.
My second favorite fictional couple are Jamie Fraser and Claire Randall from Outlander. Sexy, adventurous, and again they remain fiercely protective of one another during wartime.
Joni M. Fisher
I am inspired to earn money. Since earning $50 on a poem in high school, I have steadily earned a living while learning the craft of journalism and fiction writing. I worked on my college paper, so inspiration often came in the form of an editor barking out assignments, or offering free tickets to an event. Since then, I have written for a Fortune-500 company while helping support myself and my husband through his graduate school. Then he supported me while I did more magazine work and started learning how to write fiction. As long as someone is willing to pay for my writing, I will keep publishing it. Maybe after I die, my daughter and grand kids will read my journals and laugh and remember events in their lives.
Joni M. Fisher
It started through a creative writing habit I learned from Julia Cameron's book The Artist's Way, in which you begin your day by writing, filling a few pages in longhand with whatever ideas, fragments of sentences, images, or whatever comes to mind. By journaling dreams and ideas first thing in the morning, your subconscious mind comes out to play. Cameron calls it writing morning pages.
One image sparked an entire book, and from that a series. That image happens at the climax of the second book in my Compass Crimes Series when one character faces another at gunpoint in a dark alley. They know one another and love one another, but in the heat of solving a crime, one mistakes the identity of the other.
The image and emotion of that moment rocked me and forced me to answer how that moment came to be.
One image sparked an entire book, and from that a series. That image happens at the climax of the second book in my Compass Crimes Series when one character faces another at gunpoint in a dark alley. They know one another and love one another, but in the heat of solving a crime, one mistakes the identity of the other.
The image and emotion of that moment rocked me and forced me to answer how that moment came to be.
Joni M. Fisher
Read great fiction and poetry. If you aren't a voracious reader, you cannot be an accomplished writer. Learn from the masters of the craft and your writing will improve. Turn off the television. I did that for a year and wrote much, much more than I thought I had time for. I also read over thirty more books that year than in the previous year.
If you don't know how to write dialogue, read Elmore Leonard, Irwin Shaw, Mark Twain, Richard Price, Tobias Wolff, and Janet Evanovich. Listen to great dialogue in any Joss Whedon production such as, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Dollhouse," or "Firefly."
For lessons on how to craft description buy a copy of Rebecca McClanahan's Word Painting: A Guide to Writing More Descriptively.
For plot guidance, read books by James Scott Bell and Donald Maass.
And write. Get that first million words out of your system before you attempt to publish a novel.
After you write that first draft, find serious writers in your genre to swap critiques. Not hobbyists. Avoid the social writer's groups in which no one is ever published. They are like garden clubs in which no one actually gardens.
If you don't know how to write dialogue, read Elmore Leonard, Irwin Shaw, Mark Twain, Richard Price, Tobias Wolff, and Janet Evanovich. Listen to great dialogue in any Joss Whedon production such as, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Dollhouse," or "Firefly."
For lessons on how to craft description buy a copy of Rebecca McClanahan's Word Painting: A Guide to Writing More Descriptively.
For plot guidance, read books by James Scott Bell and Donald Maass.
And write. Get that first million words out of your system before you attempt to publish a novel.
After you write that first draft, find serious writers in your genre to swap critiques. Not hobbyists. Avoid the social writer's groups in which no one is ever published. They are like garden clubs in which no one actually gardens.
Joni M. Fisher
Every experience, wonderful or hideous, is material for writing because life evokes emotional responses. Great fiction evokes emotional responses. Writers can write anywhere--low tech pen and paper, high-tech dictation to text, wherever we are we can work. We aren't trapped in cubicles or stuck producing work at times dictated by others. In the research stage, we meet fascinating experts and learn new things. Writing is capturing life, recording the human condition, and trying to glean meaning from it. What's not to love?
Joni M. Fisher
I don't get writer's block. I schedule time to write and I write. I have trained my muse to show up at regular times. Years of working on deadlines as a journalist taught me to use time as if it is running out. After a dear friend died before her book was published, I don't allow myself to put off writing. Time is precious. We only get so much of it.
Joni M. Fisher
Book 2 in the Compass Crimes series is actually a prequel to South of Justice. It tells how the characters met Nefi Jenkins and the crime that brought them together. The working title is North of the Killing Hand.
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