Zelmer Wilson's Blog

There's this new thing called Kindle Press. Readers (or scouts) to get to decided what gets published (e-book). I submitted my fifth novel, The Distance Between, to Kindle Press and it was accepted. Starting yesterday, its promotion started. So, please click on the link and nominate my novel, The Distance Between.
https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/2JN2...

Reviewed By Natasha Jackson for Readers’ Favorite

Nothing But Trouble is the story of Bobbie Lamont, a recent high school graduate who is about to start the craziest, most tumultuous years of her young life. Especially regarding men. Bobbie falls in and out of love a lot, and living with her parents at that age just makes her life more stressful, particularly her strained relationship with her mother. But beyond Bobbie’s failed attempts at love, Zelmer Wilson’s story is about the friendship between Bobbie and Billie. Theirs was a friendship with staying power, surviving bullies, broken hearts, four hard years of college and moving on. Billie was her rock as she constantly pursued the wrong men in a misguided attempt to forge her own identity.

This story was an interesting coming of age tale that focused on Bobbie and her friendship with Billie. I felt that Billie was an underdeveloped secondary character when her presence was so essential to the story, but when she was in a scene it was more real. The way Zelmer Wilson writes is plainspoken, but it works for these New Orleans based characters. What they say is real and you don’t need to be a master of subtext to get it, which I think is a credit to the author. This was by no means a typical coming of age story, but it was filled with emotions and mistakes and growth, which is what those vitally important four years is all about. I was happy to see Bobbie try to break out of certain molds that had been created for her or self-crafted; it showed real growth that makes you want to know what happens next.

Reviewed By Rabia Tanveer for Readers’ Favorite

Nothing but Trouble by Zelmer Wilson is about Bobbie Lamont. She is not your typical girl. She used to prefer books over boys and she only has one friend, Billie Carver. Instead of going away to college, she decided to stay with her parents and attend Tulane University. After attending an all-girls Catholic school called St. Augustine Academy for Girls, she was very excited to see what life will bring her. That turns out to be Malcolm.

After getting her heart broken by two boys before him, Malcolm felt like a gift to Bobbie; little did she know that Malcolm's love would be short lived as well. Two months after that, he has to leave to attend Columbia University to get his master’s degree. It is an opportunity that he should not miss and he does not want to. Bobbie does not want him to leave, but she has no choice. When the day comes, he kisses her goodbye and walks out of her life. As her life takes an unsuspecting turn, she takes joy in writing and reading. Her friendship with her only friend is threatened after her goodbye to Malcolm. With outside forces trying to break up the two girls and test their friendship, they will have to make the decision to stay or cut each other loose.

Zelmer Wilson wrote a beautifully complicated story. The story had so many facets - at one point we see the friendship problems between the two girls, and at another point we are seeing Bobbie dealing with boys and sexual tension. There is so much happening in the story, but all the elements are well thought out and told through beautiful prose. A job well done by Zelmer Wilson. I really enjoyed it!

Reviewed by Christine Nguyen for Readers' Favorite

Bobbie Lamont is about an author named Bobbie Lamont who has written two best-selling memoirs and is a successful free-lance journalist. She attends her 20-year reunion under the stressful circumstances of the breakup of her twelve-year marriage to her husband, Truman. He has left her for another woman from his office. Bobbie is feeling lonely and depressed, but the year she graduated from Tulane College, the summer of 1990, was a huge year for her – her on and off again college professor lover breaks up with her after graduation, and she meets a younger guy still in high school who she madly falls in love with. Twenty years later, a novel written about her love affair by her former younger flame, Miller Hoffman, sets off a series of events that leads Bobbie to discover her heart again.

Author Zelmer Wilson writes Bobbie Lamont with a naturalness that makes Bobbie a very likeable character, with her chain smoking and borderline alcoholism with vodka tonics. She is a protagonist that many women can relate to due to all her problems in middle age with her life and marriage falling apart. Her daughter, Billie Joe, and Aunt Gina keep scolding her for drinking too much, but Bobbie can’t seem to find a middle ground and is en route to becoming an alcoholic like her mother. This was a very entertaining story that is a light, fun read going down Memory Lane. Bobbie has all the foibles of women, which makes her very relatable to readers. I enjoyed this book and Bobbie.

Reviewed by Kathryn Bennett for Readers' Favorite

Bobbie Lamont by Zelmer Wilson is a fairy tale set in 2010.

Bobbie Lamont is a successful woman who has given up on finding love for herself after a bitter divorce. That is when she discovers a man she dated twenty years ago has written a book inspired by their relationship, a book that ends up unlocking a lot of memories for Bobbie and reminds her that she just may be able to find love again. Not only does she find that she can fall in love again, but she finds herself falling for Miller all over again.

I always enjoy a a good love story and this one hit the spot for me. Going through a divorce myself right now, I felt very connected to the title character. When you go through an emotional feeling like divorce you truly do think that love is no longer on the cards for you. This book has a fantastic flow and you can tell that Zelmer Wilson put a lot of thought into every word. I enjoyed Bobbie's journey and the memories that surfaced from reading the book. I felt engaged with every page and I had a hard time putting this one down. If you are looking for a solid and realistic love story with characters you will grow to love, this is going to be a book you will enjoy. I would highly recommend it.

Many thanks to Gisela Hausmann for tagging me in this blog chain hop on March 31. 
Gisela Hausmann is the author of nine books, including award-winning "Naked Determination, 41 Stories About Overcoming Fear". Her first book "Vienna - Aerial Panorama" was selected as a gift for President Clinton, when he visited her hometown Vienna. 
These days Gisela writes funny life skills books, telling her adventures and pointing out what pivotal approaches helped her to succeed. Born to be an adventurer, Gisela has also co-piloted small planes, produced movies, and globe-trotted almost 100,000 kilometers.  She now lives with her cats Artemis and Yin-Yang in Greenville, SC.

Blog http://nakeddetermination.blogspot.com

Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Gisela-Hausmann...

Google+ https://plus.google.com/1031712861109...

FB http://www.facebook.com/pages/Naked-D...


Now here are my own 4 answers to the 4 questions posed: 


1.    What am I working on?
I'm outlining my fourth novel, Broken Smile, which will be published next February. I'm also editing my third novel, Miller & Bobbie, which will be published this upcoming August.


2.    How does my work differ from others of its genre?
My debut novel, In the Middle, differs from other coming of age novels in where it is set, in Phoenix, Arizona, and its narrator, Miller Hoffman. My second novel, Bobbie Lamont, is different from other novels about women in their early forties in that the main character, Bobbie Lamont, is both like and unlike most women her age.



3.    Why do I write what I do?

I write fiction because I can be more honest about how I see the world than I could if I wrote nonfiction.


4.    How does my writing process work?

I usually come up with either the main character or the situation. And then I outline, writing a page per chapter. And then I write the first draft, using the outline as a guide.


I’m now passing the Writing Process Blog Hop to the writer. Check their blog next week to read their answers to the Four Writing Process Questions.


Beatrice McClearn


Beatrice McClearn published the hit title Diaries of an Emotional Prostitute in November 2010. Before its release, McClearn served as a freelance writer for various companies, including Examiner.com. 

McClearn and Washingtonian Poet, Journei, released a series of talk shows on YouTube entitled Uncover2Discover in early 2011. The show lasted one season and was put on hold indefinitely due to conflicting schedules. Later that year, McClearn published dozens of short stories to include titles such as Momma’s Touch, The Intruders, Calamity, Abduction, A Lonely Journey, A Psychic’s Craze, Marriage v. Contracts, Coverless Book, The Cursed Addict, A Trip to Macy’s, Six Super Sexy Secrets for BBW, Girl in the Mirror, Cougar Prey, Book Publishing:101, My Final Ode to Him, The Misinterpretation, Destiny’s Revenge, and more. By 2012, the National Black Book Festival named McClearn 2nd Best New Author.

McClearn serves the community by speaking to aspiring authors about the publishing industry and hosting Beatrice McClearn’s Annual College Bound Outreach - a contest that gives high school students the opportunity to apply to colleges of their choice. 

In 2013 McClearn married and gave birth to her first child (a son). Her second novel is set to release in early 2015.

Beatrice's books can be purchased on Amazon

Website:  http://www.beatricemcclearn.com

Twitter:    https://www.twiiter.com/Iwrite_Uread

I'm always writing. My debut novel, In the Middle, became available on Amazon.com and other online bookstores and I didn't stop writing. I wrote a second novel, which I'm currently editing. It's called Bobbie Lamont and it is a sequel of sorts to In the Middle. The main character of Bobbie Lamont is Bobbie Lamont, who was the young lady that Miller dated while visiting his mother and sisters in Birmingham, Alabama in the summer of 1990. She discovers that Miller has written a novel inspired by their relationship. At the end, they are reunited.
After I finished writing Bobbie Lamont, I felt that there was more to the story of Miller Hoffman and Bobbie Lamont. Thus, the idea for my third novel was conceived. I'm calling it Extraordinary and it is both a prequel and sequel to Bobbie Lamont. I haven't written the first draft yet, because I'm still outlining it.
It will have seventy-five chapters and yesterday, I finished chapter fifty. I will be done outlining it on October 17. After that, I will start writing the first draft. I hope to finish writing the first draft on this upcoming New Year's Eve.  And I then will start the laborious task of editing it, which isn't as fun as writing.
I was recently asked how many novels do you want to write? I gave two answers, one short and the other one long. The long answer is that I have, after my third novel, at least eight more novels that I want to write. And the short answer is that I want to write as many novels as I can before I die.
Why?
Because I'm a writer and that's what I do.

Set in the late '80s and early '90s, In the Middle by Zelmer Wilson chronicles the teenage years of Miller, a bright but troubled kid living in Arizona with his father, an Army veteran and his stepmother, Alma, a woman he's secretly attracted to.

A quiet, pimply-faced seventh grader with a troubled past (he's spent time in a juvenile hall) Miller has a difficult time making friends until the next year when he meets Ray and Eli. During the next couple of years, Miller's relationship with his father grows more strained as he tries to keep his attraction for his stepmother carefully hidden. It isn't until he goes back South to visit her mother that he realizes that he wants to become a writer. Even though his attraction to his stepmother seems to be the main premise, it actually doesn't feature that prominently, more of an undercurrent as he encounters different girls. In fact it seems that it is mostly his relationships with the various girls in his life that provide the catalyst for his growth and change.

When I first read the blurb for In the Middle the premise sounded interesting and it wound up being a fairly easy read that did not disappoint. Since it's literary fiction, it has an almost memoir feel to it (White Teeth by Zadie Smith quickly comes to mind) and I couldn't help but wonder how similar Miller was to the author, Mr. Wilson. Of course that merely points to good writing and how realistically Miller was portrayed.

Last Friday, the kindle version of my debut novel, In the Middle, become available to download. The next day, the paperback version become available for purchase as well.

Since then, my cousin, Jessyca Garcia set up a fan page for me on facebook. It is Zelmer Wilson the Author. In just three short days, it now has  39 likes. I also have an author page on Amazon as well.

I haven't quit my day job yet, because so far, only four copies of my novel have been sold. But I'm still excited as well as nervous about this new phase of my life. The only thing that I've ever wanted to be since I was fifteen years old is a writer. And now, my new goal is becoming a successful writer, able to support myself through my writing.