Writers and Readers discussion

Please welcome, author, Sheila Deeth to our Q & A discussions. Sheila grew up in the UK and has a Bachelors and Masters in mathematics from Cambridge University, England. Now living in the States with her husband and sons, she enjoys reading, writing, drawing, telling stories, running a local writers' group, and meeting her neighbors’ dogs on the green.
Her short stories, book reviews and articles can be found in VoiceCatcher 4, Murder on the Wind, Poetic Monthly, Nights and Weekends, the Shine Journal and Joyful Online. Besides her Gypsy Shadow ebooks, Sheila has several self-published works available from Amazon and Lulu, and a full-length novel under contract to come out next year.

Goodreads Profile: Sheila Deeth

Shelia,

Congratulations on all your accomplishments as an author. I apoligize, I have not read any of your books.

Question: Do your books reflect any of your experiences while growing up in UK?

Anita,

Thank you for hosting this Q&A for Shelia. I am excited to be hosting a live chat whith her on gather as well.

I have always wanted to run a writing group. Does this help when you yourself are writing, is that the same as belonging to one when asking for feedback, or as the person in charge do you just help others find their way?

Shelia,

I have noticed that more and more authors are self-publishing.

Q. Do you think self publishing is the way to go when it comes to publishing today?

Q. Are there benefits over traditional publishing?

Sheila,
Sorry to say, I haven't read any of your work, but I read the outline for Flower Child. It sounds like an intriguing and very emotional book. Also, it's a really unique way to deal with the grief that comes with miscarriage. Does this come from personal experience?

Having read Refracted, I'm curious as to how you came up with the concept behind the story.

Connie wrote: "Shelia,

Congratulations on all your accomplishments as an author. I apoligize, I have not read any of your books.

Question: Do your books reflect any of your experiences while growing up in UK?"

Hi Connie,
My books do reflect some of my experiences, though they're not directly connected with the UK. Some people accuse me of writing with an English accent though. And I have a novel set in the UK that's currently looking for a publisher.

Leslie wrote: "I have always wanted to run a writing group. Does this help when you yourself are writing, is that the same as belonging to one when asking for feedback, or as the person in charge do you just help..."

Hi Leslie,
The writing group runs monthly competitions and the prompts have certainly helped inspire my writing--in fact all three of my Gypsy Shadow books have writing group prompts as part of their inspiration. We have a group critique each month too, and hearing how others read and respond to the same piece of writing, whether it's mine or someone else's, is invaluable.
I began running the group about a year ago, inheriting it from a friend who was moving away, partly to give back having received so much from the members.

Erma wrote: "Sheila,
Sorry to say, I haven't read any of your work, but I read the outline for Flower Child. It sounds like an intriguing and very emotional book. Also, it's a really unique way to deal with th..."

Hi Erma,

Yes, sadly, Megan's grief is drawn from my personal experience. My first pregnancy ended in miscarriage. By the original due date I was already pregnant with our oldest child. Knowing I couldn't have had both, yet still tied to grieving the one, put me in a strange situation emotionally and spiritually.

A.F. wrote: "Having read Refracted, I'm curious as to how you came up with the concept behind the story."

Hi Anita,
I was teaching a Sunday school class and relating the historical background to Noah's Ark. At the same time, our writers' group had a prompt to write something set in ancient history. And Gypsy Shadow had what became the book cover to Refracted displayed on their site as the prompt for a competition. Somehow the picture made me think of the waters flooding over the Bosphorus straits into the Black Sea (one fairly strong theory about where Noah's Ark happened). The first chapter of the story grew from that, and somehow the rest just happened--a character saying "yes, but there's more" and me just writing his story. The ending was a surprise to me when I realized where it was going.

Connie wrote: "Shelia,

I have noticed that more and more authors are self-publishing.

Q. Do you think self publishing is the way to go when it comes to publishing today?

Q. Are there benefits over traditiona..."

Hi Connie,
Good question about self-publishing. I always said I wouldn't do it--it felt too much like vanity press at the time. But I learned at my one and only writers' conference that I really needed an online presence. Write a blog they said, and, lacking anything to blog about, I decided to self-publish my Christian books and write about them. I picked the Christian ones because I thought they'd be the easiest to sell at Christmas bazaars and the like, though I think that may have been a forlorn hope.

I'm thinking of trying to upload some of them to kindle and smashwords now. My impression from other people is that epublishing's really the way to go with self-publishing now, unless you've got access to a lot of potential physical purchasers.

Advantages are that you get to publish what you want, even if the gatekeepers say it won't sell.

Disadvantage--the gatekeepers might well be right, and when you sell at bazaars people want the sort of bargain that means you're paying them to buy your book.

Sheila,

Congratulations on your book! I actually have a two part question. I was asked a question on a radio show last week - "When was it that you considered yourself an author/writer? And, who are some of your favorite author's?

Barbara

Hi Barbara,
I'm going on a blogtalk radio interview at the beginning of November--d'you have any tips?

I think I've always considered myself a storyteller--used to tell them all the time as a kid, and I used to dream of being an author. Everyone tells me if you write, you're a writer, but I must admit I still struggle to say the word--I'd struggle even more to say author. When I got that first acceptance was probably the point where I at least acknowledge it to myself--I am a writer!

Favorite authors? Hmm. I usually refuse to answer that one on the grounds that there are so many. Stephen King, Jane Kirkpatrick, Bernard Cornwell, Jan Karon, Alexander McCall Smith, Ursula LeGuin, C.P. Snow, ... and the list goes on. That's the trouble with reading too much in too many different genres I guess.

Hi Sheila, what do you miss most about the UK?
Or should that read 'is there anything you miss about the UK?'

Hi Julia,
I miss family--my mother and brothers live there, and my husband's father and sister and family. I guess the other thing I miss most is having people around who grew up with the same ideas. As a foreigner you begin to realize how much of what you assume is obvious is really just cultural. But there's no going "home." The England I grew up in isn't the place I go back to for visits.

Sheila,

When asked that same question, our answers were very close to the same! If I could give you any advice about being a guest on the bogtalk radio show it would be this - be yourself! You're doing a wonderful job answering questions here - it's very much the same thing, only live.

Thanks Barbara. It's the "live" bit that scares me--well, that and the telephone and the fear that no-one will understand my accent.

I know you have a new novel coming out soon. Can you share a few tidbits about it?

Sheila,

Yes, please do share something about your upcoming novel!

Divide by Zero should come out next summer with Stonegarden. It's about the tapestry of lives in a small university town where a fraying thread threatens to tear everything apart. I have a gorgeous book cover, from Peter Joseph Swanson, but I'm not sure how to add a picture to a comment.

I've been away from the computer a bit--an optician's appointment took a really long time so I didn't get to check up on messages at lunchtime.

I've just been assigned an editor for Divide by Zero! (Runs round the room delightedly). Suddenly it's all seeming much more real--and scary.

Sheila wrote: "I've just been assigned an editor for Divide by Zero! (Runs round the room delightedly). Suddenly it's all seeming much more real--and scary."

That's great, the first step to see it published.