#ThisorThatThursday Interview with Richard Paolinelli

I’d like to welcome author, Richard Paolinelli, to the blog for #ThiorThatThursday!

Things you love about writing: Creating new universes and telling stories that other people enjoy reading.

Things you hate about writing: I keep coming up with scenes while I’m driving or somewhere far away from my computer. But other than that there really isn’t anything else.

Things you never want to run out of: Dr. Pepper and new books to read.

Things you wish you’d never bought: A 1979 Ford Mustang that turned out to be a money pit.

Favorite foods: Pizza and chile rellenos.

Things that make you want to gag: Lutefisk and grits.

Favorite music or song: Voices Carry by Til Tuesday

Music that drives you crazy: Country music.

Favorite beverage: Dr. Pepper

Something that gives you a sour face: Any of the dark liquors. They all taste like paint thinner to me with the exception of Southern Comfort for some reason.

Something you’re really good at: Bowling

Something you’re really bad at: Painting

Something you wish you could do: Paint.

Something you wish you’d never learned to do: Photoshop.

Favorite places you’ve been: Ocean Shores, Washington and North Dakota.

Places you never want to go to again: Little Rock, Arkansas and the Antelope Valley of California.

Favorite books (or genre): Sci-fi.

Books you wouldn’t buy: Erotica and Romance

Best thing you’ve ever done: Married my wife.

Biggest mistake: Not going into computer programing in the mid-1980s.

About Richard:

Richard Paolinelli began his writing journey as a freelance writer in 1984 and gained his first fiction credit serving as the lead writer for the first two issues of the Elite Comics sci-fi/fantasy series, Seadragon. Following a 20-year newspaper writing career, he returned to his fiction writing roots and has published several novels, two non-fiction sports books, and has appeared in several anthologies. His novel, Escaping Infinity, was a 2017 Dragon Award Finalist for Best Sci-Fi novel. He also writes weekly short fiction on his website, www.scifiscribe.com. He is a huge proponent of the Superversive approach to fiction writing and publishing and his most recent novel, Galen's Way, is the first book in a multi-author Space Opera epic series.  

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What I Learned about Writing from Lean IT

Lean IT comes from the manufacturing world and is based on the Toyota Production System (TPS). Key values and processes have been added to the service and technology industries through the years. Recently, I took a class on how Lean improvements can be added to IT’s service delivery, and I realized that the key principles can be applied to the writing world, too.

1. Continual Improvement (in small steps) is one the key principles of Lean. Revising, editing, and critiques are ways that writers can improve their craft. It needs to be a continuous cycle.

2. Focusing on Long-term Goals helps deliver a solid product and involves continuous improvement. Writers need to focus on where they want to be and work toward this.

3. Quality, Delivery, and Costs are key to production. They’re important in the writing world, too. You need to balance your writing, time, and monetary outputs to reach your goals.

4. The Deming Cycle (Plan, Do, Check, Act) is integral to the continuous improvement cycle. Writers plan, draft, review, and then finish/publish. The writing cycle needs to include all the elements for revising, editing, and proofreading to improve your writing process and your output.

5. The principles of Lean center around Customer Value. The output and delivery of the final work is always centered around the reader and his/her experience. The ultimate goals are to sell books and bring readers back for more.

6. Flow is a key component to the manufacturing process. You need to have the right parts at the right time to keep the process moving. I would argue that flow is key to the writing process too. You need to make time to write. It’s often good to write your first draft and then work on the revising and editing stages. Sometimes, writers get bogged down with the first draft if they edit as they write.

7. In the Lean world there are value-add, necessary non-value-add, and non-value-add activities. You want to optimize your value-add work (writing, editing, etc.) while minimizing the necessary non-value-add tasks (building your platform, maintaining your social media sites, keeping accounting records, paying taxes). You also want to look at your writing life and try to remove any non-value-add activities. (For me, I cut back considerably on TV and movie-watching.)

8. Lean philosophies also focus on cutting Waste which results in financial gain. Cutting out ineffective purchases (software, services, retyping handwritten pages, marketing efforts that don’t show results) can help you to focus your efforts on what does work.

9. Overall Performance focuses on delivery and the right skills and capabilities to do the job. As writers, we need to make sure that we are learning new things and honing our craft. Make sure to build in time for learning that doesn’t consume all of your writing time. When I started writing, I bought every how-to book on the craft that I could find. I spent so much time reading about writing that I wasn’t doing. I kept a few key books, donated the rest to my library, and started writing.

While the Lean methodology is primarily for manufacturing, it has been adapted and implemented in other industries. Many of the principles apply to the writing world, and they’re good reminders to constantly strive to improve and to reach one’s goals.

Humorous Mystery Series for Your Reading List

I am always on the lookout for funny mysteries. Here are ten (in no particular order) that you need to add to your reading list.

• Misty Simon - The Tallie Graver Mysteries

• Larissa Reinhart - Maizie Albright Star Detective Mysteries

• Spencer Quinn - The Chet and Bernie Mysteries

• Janet Evanovich - The Stephanie Plum Novels and the Fox and O’Hare Novels

• Libby Klein - The Poppy McAllister Mysteries

• Elle Cosimano - The Finlay Donovan Mysteries

• V. M. Burns - The Mystery Bookshop Mysteries

• Kellye Garrett - Detective by Day Mysteries

• Becky Clark - The Mystery Writer’s Mysteries

• Diane Kelly - House-flipper Mysteries

• Ellen Bryon - The Cajun Country Mysteries

Who else would you add to my list?

#ThisorThatThursday Author Interview with J. M. Landels

I’d like to welcome author, J. M. Landels, to the blog for #ThisorThatThursday.

A few of your favorite things: I live for horses, I love swords, and I’d perish without good books.

Things you need to throw out: I really need to shed a lot of books. Especially old textbooks, and books I’ve read and will never read again.

Things you need for your writing sessions: I don’t know if need is the precisely it, but I do my best writing when using The Hour Stories writing cards by Dale Adams Segal.

Things that hamper your writing: Research rabbit holes are my nemesis. If I stop writing to look something up, I’m doomed. That’s why I do my best writing longhand, with my computer turned off.

Things you love about writing: Godlike power over my world, bwahahahahahhhhh!

Things you hate about writing: Tying up loose ends. When I finish a first draft, I have to go back and kill all sorts of lovely scenes that didn’t lead anywhere, patch-up plot-holes, and tidy up after myself. (I hate tidying IRL too, as anyone who’s ever seen my desk knows).

Hardest thing about being a writer: Marketing. I hate marketing.

Easiest thing about being a writer: It’s the most portable job in the world.

Favorite foods: I am quite attached to dark chocolate, and I love duck, whether it’s a lovely confit in cassoulet or pan-fried breasts (rare please). And either way, a good red wine to go with it.

Things that make you want to gag: Shellfish. Quite literally.

Favorite music or song: Too many to choose from, but my favourite bands are L7 and Spirit of the West, and my favourite songs from those two bands would be ‘Shove’ and ‘Venice is Sinking.’

Music that drives you crazy: Country.

Favorite smell: There is no better smell in the world than a horse’s breath.

Something that makes you hold your nose: Axe body spray

Something you’re really good at: Horseback riding. It’s one of the few things in life that just comes naturally to me (probably because I started so young).

Something you’re really bad at: Housework.

Favorite places you’ve been: I keep ending up in France. When I lived in the UK we’d holiday by taking the ferry to Calais or Boulogne, then picking a direction and driving. While we flirted with Switzerland, Germany, and Spain, we very seldom made it out of France. Since moving back to Canada, I’ve taken more holidays in France than any other country. It must be the food!

Places you never want to go to again: An office job.

Favorite books (or genre): It’s pretty hard to narrow down since I love so many genres. I tend to rotate my reading between fantasy, SF, contemporary/literary, and historical fiction. My favourite writers are Margaret Atwood, Barbara Kingsolver, and Susanna Clarke, so that’s a pretty broad spectrum.

Books you wouldn’t buy: It’s judging by the cover, I know, but I avoid fantasy with photograph-style covers. You know the ones, of some bare-chested dude or leather-clad babe, carrying an improbable set of weapons and/or abs.

People you’d like to invite to dinner (living): A fabulous dinner party would include Jane Goodall, Volodomir Zelensky, Claudia Black, Taika Waititi, Margaret Atwood, and Jagmeet Singh.

People you’d cancel dinner on: Putin. The risk of poisoning is too high.

About J. M.:

JM Landels, writer and illustrator of the Allaigna's Song trilogy and co-founder of Pulp Literature Press  wears far too many hats. The strange mix of a degree in Mediaeval English Literature, a misspent youth fronting alternative punk bands Mad Seraphim and Stiff Bunnies, and a career as a childbirth educator and doula informs her work. These days, when she isn't writing, editing or drawing, she can be found heading up Academie Cavallo’s Mounted Combat Program at her farm in Langley, BC where she swings swords and rides horses for fun and profit.

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Website: http://jmlandels.stiffbunnies.com/

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#WriterWednesday Interview with Lida Sideris

I’m so excited to have the fabulous Lida Sideris on the blog today for #WriterWednesday!

A few of your favorite spring traditions: Celebrating the first day of spring with a family party. It’s also my younger son’s birthday.

Something spring-related that you’ll never do again: Weed whacking my yard; I managed to eradicate all weeds in a square foot strip, ripping only one pant leg in the process and avoiding a narrow miss with my knee. It was a good day, but not to be repeated.

Favorite spring treat: Strawberry rhubarb cobbler

A spring treat that makes you gag: Ambrosia salad. I’m not a marshmallow fan unless they’re incorporated in Rice Krispy treats.

Something you only do in the spring: Plant tulips.

Something you’d never do in the spring season: Spring cleaning. I prefer to enjoy the spring with minimal labor, especially after the weed whacking incident.

Favorite spring beverage: Iced tea in raspberry peach flavor

A drink that gives you a sour face: Soda

Favorite spring smell: Freesias

Something that makes you hold your nose: Skunk

Best spring memory: Our first Easter egg hunt after we’d moved to the countryside. Kids hunting in tall grass surrounded by hens and goats. It was a treat!

Something you’d rather forget: Goats jumping the fence and feasting on our roses.

Best thing you ever cooked/baked in spring: Lemon meringue pie with lemons from my tree.

Your worst kitchen disaster: Boiling water for tea and forgetting about it for hours!

Favorite place you spent a spring day: Outside in a garden with beautiful flowers.

The worst place to spend a spring day: Outside in a garden with lovely flowers on a very windy day. Pollen everywhere!

Funniest egg-dyeing story: I don’t have to dye eggs because my chickens lay green, pink and dark chocolate colored eggs. Growing up in Los Angeles, our L.A. guests were amazed that the hens laid eggs in different colors.

Your worst egg-dyeing story: Trying to dye eggs using a kit. Never quite comes out the way I hope. A big thank you to my colorful layers!

Your favorite spring/Easter candy: Anything with chocolate (almost anything).

Something you would throw away if it appeared in your Easter basket: Candy canes. Not a fan even at Christmas.

About Lida:

Lida Sideris' first stint after law school was a newbie lawyer's dream: working as an entertainment attorney for a movie studio...kind of like her heroine, Corrie Locke, except without the homicides. Lida was one of two national winners of the Helen McCloy Mystery Writers of America Scholarship Award and a Killer Nashville, Silver Falchion Award Finalist (humor). She also writes short stories and is the author of THE COOKIE EATING FIRE DOG, a picture book for ages 4-8. Lida lives in the Santa Barbara area with her family, rescue dogs and a flock of uppity chickens.

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Your Writing Life Needs Some Spring Cleaning

Spring is here, and I love the warm weather. Everything is in bloom and new again. I also have the urge for spring cleaning. Here are some ideas to help get rid of the paper and electronic clutter in your writing life.

Electronic Files

• Go through your photos and save any that you really want to keep to the cloud or an external hard drive to free up space on your computer.

• Clean up your saved email, especially those with attachments. Make sure to empty your Sent and Trash files regularly.

• Archive any old document files.

• Open your cloud storage and delete anything that is outdated or no longer needed.

• Look at the apps on your phone. Remove any that you don’t use.

Your Marketing Materials

• Check out your biography and marketing materials. Make sure they are current.

• Make sure your website has the most current information about you and your books.

• Check your biography and your books on your social media sites.

• Does your headshot need refreshing?

Paper Files and Clutter

• It’s time to go through your files and purge what you don’t need.

• It’s time to file what hasn’t made it to the filing cabinet yet.

• Make sure that you file mileage and receipts for your writing expenses as you collect them. This will make it easier for tax time next year.

• Clean off your desk.

• Look at all the books you’ve collected over the year. Can any be donated or gifted?

What would you add to my list?

It's Time for Some Email Spring Cleaning

Email has been around since 1965, and the clutter and buildup seem to get worse every day. The volume seems to have snowballed. Here are some tips that help me contain the chaos.

• I’ve linked my email account to my phone. If I delete it on my mobile device, it deletes it, and I don’t have to look at it again on my PC. Just be careful not to delete something important.

• I leave anything that I need to remember or address in my inbox until I take care of it.

• Add new contacts to your list when you read the email. This helps from losing them when you delete the corresponding email.

• I create a series of folders in Outlook. Make sure not create them as subfolders under the Inbox file. I move anything that I want to keep here. This gets emails out of my Inbox. File sizes build up quickly with attachments, and this keeps my inbox size from maxing out.

• Remember to empty your “junk,” sent, and trash email folders regularly.

• Delete spam or scam emails that happen to slip by your filters. Don’t unsubscribe, reply, or click on any links. A click can often trigger the download of viruses or worms to infect your system.

• I have multiple email accounts. Some I use to subscribe to things I might be interested in. This reduces the number of ads, newsletters, and alerts in my primary email box.

#ThisorThatThursday Interview with Lori Duffy Foster

I’d like to welcome Lori Duffy Foster to the blog for #ThisorThatThursday!

Things you need for your writing sessions:

I need either peace and quiet or the din of a noisy café.

Things that hamper your writing:

I can’t write with music or when I am worried about the kids and what they are up to. The two oldest are in college now, but I need to know my twins are engaged in something when I am writing even though they are teenagers now. A bit of mommy guilt there.

Favorite foods:

I love rice (Jasmine, especially), dark chocolate and coffee (That’s a food, right?).

Things that make you want to gag:

I can’t stand seafood, eggplant or milk by itself. I have always wanted to like all three, but nope. Not happening.

Favorite beverage:

It’s a toss-up between coffee, unsweetened iced tea and dry, red wine. It depends on the day and the time of day. I love water, too, especially our well water.

Something that gives you a sour face:

Whiskey.

Favorite smell:

That’s easy. My favorite smells are in the Adirondacks of New York State, where I grew up: the scent of decaying leaves mixed with pine needles on the forest floor; the fishy odor of white foam in the Saranac River; the fragrance of balsam needles, picked fresh and stuffed into a small, handsewn sack.

Something that makes you hold your nose:

As a teenager, I waitressed at a former Howard Johnson’s Restaurant in Lake Placid, N.Y, where the cooks made fresh croutons daily. I don’t know what spice they used on that bread, but I couldn’t be near the kitchen when the croutons were cooking. Everyone else loved it. I’m gagging thinking about it.

Something you’re really good at:

Boggle.

Something you’re really bad at:

I am terrible at Mario Kart and pretty much every other video game.

Something you wish you could do:

I wish I could sing well, or at least sing “Happy Birthday” on key.

Something you wish you’d never learned to do:

Calculus. Why did I bother?

The last thing you ordered online:

I ordered bubble envelopes for mailing books to readers, green t-shirts for my giant twin boys to wear to school on St. Patrick’s Day, and a new candy thermometer for making maple syrup.

The last thing you regret buying:

I bought paper filters for maple syrup without reading the product details. I thought they were the quart-size filters I bought last year. They were smaller than coffee filters and totally useless. Anybody need tiny paper filters?

Things to say to an author:

I couldn’t put your book down. I recommended your book to my friends. I left a five-star review on every platform. My best friend is a super-rich movie producer and she wants to by the film right to all your books.

Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book:

There is a typo on page 153 of your already-published book.

Favorite books (or genre):

I love any book that rises above genre. Some of my favorites are A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson, Defending Jacob by William Landay, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford and anything by Anita Shreve or Margaret Atwood.

Books you wouldn’t buy:

I wouldn’t buy books marketed as romance or westerns. I am sure there are plenty I would like, but I am not attracted to them as genres.

Most daring thing you’ve ever done:

I interviewed a murder suspect in his home, alone, without telling anyone where I was going. During the interview, he said something that convinced me he was guilty. I would have been more freaked out if I had known his girlfriend was buried in the backyard.

Something you chickened out from doing:

My editor once asked me to spend a few days at the county morgue, following the medical examiner around for a profile. Did you know the body bags are sometimes filled with maggots? Nope. I didn’t mind the fresh bodies on the scene of a crime or accident, but I was a coward when it came to bodies that had been dead for days, weeks or months before they came to the morgue.

About Lori:

Lori Duffy Foster is a former crime reporter who writes and lives in the hills of Northern Pennsylvania. She is author of A Dead Man’s Eyes, the first in the Lisa Jamison Mysteries Series and an Agatha Award nominee. Never Broken is book 2 in the series. Look for her debut thriller, Never Let Go, in December of 2022. Her short fiction has appeared in the journal Aethlon, and in the anthologies Short Story America and Childhood Regained. Her nonfiction has appeared in Healthy Living, Running Times, Literary Mama, Crimespree and Mountain Home magazines. Lori is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, The Historical Novel Society, International Thriller Writers and Pennwriters. She also sits on the board of the Knoxville (PA) Public Library.

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