Day: July 12, 2012

Indies Unlimited Welcomes Lynne Cantwell

Author Lynne Cantwell

We are pleased to announce that Lynne Cantwell is joining the staff of Indies Unlimited as a contributing author.

Lynne worked as a broadcast journalist for many years; she has written for CNN, the late lamented Mutual/NBC Radio News, and a whole bunch of radio and TV news outlets. Lynne’s education includes a journalism degree from Indiana University, and a master’s degree in fiction writing from Johns Hopkins University.

She has been writing fiction since the second grade, when the kid who sat in front of her showed her a book he had written, and she thought, “I could do that.” Come to think of it, that other kid might have been me. Lynne, did we trade pudding cups?

We are sure you will enjoy Lynne’s wit and wisdom. Please join us in extending a warm Indies Unlimited welcome to Lynne Cantwell.

Cross Training

A lot of people ask me for advice on writing. That’s not completely true, but it sounds badass. And some people do. I’ve posted recently about some of the exercises I do. Now, I am going to tell you the ultimate secret to my method. Cross training.

Remember when all the shoe companies came out with ‘cross trainers’. They looked kind of like a running shoe, a hiking boot, and a tennis shoe had spent a turbulent and shameful night in a bedbug-ridden motel with six bottles of Boones Farm wine and an eight ball. The idea was that you could run, hike, climb a mountain, bicycle, fight a lion, insult a pageant mom, do wind sprints, fly, seduce a hippo, and hang-glide without changing shoes. Or something to that effect.

Well, that’s basically the approach I take to writing now, and I do believe it has sharpened my game up a bit.

Continue reading “Cross Training”

Book Brief: Live From the Road

Live from the Road

by  P.C. Zick
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
80,000 words

This title is available from Amazon US and Amazon UK.

Live from the Road takes the reader on an often humorous, yet harrowing, journey as Meg Newton and Sally Sutton seek a change in the mundane routine of their lives. “Is this all there is?” Sally asks Meg after visiting a dying friend in the hospital. That’s when Meg suggests they take a journey to discover the answer. Joined by their daughters, they set off on a journey of salvation enhanced by the glories of the Mother Road. Along the way, they are joined by a Chicago bluesman, a Pakistani liquor storeowner from Illinois, a Marine from Missouri, a gun-toting momma from Oklahoma, and a motel clerk from New Mexico. Meg, mourning for her dead son, learns to share her pain with her daughter CC. When Sally’s husband of almost thirty years leaves a voice mail telling her he’s leaving, both Sally and her daughter Ramona discover some truths about love and independence.

Death, divorce and deception help to reveal the inner journey taking place under the blazing desert sun as a Route 66 motel owner reads the Bhagavad-Gita and an eagle provides the sign they’ve all been seeking. Enlightenment comes tiptoeing in at dawn in a Tucumcari laundromat, while singing karaoke at a bar in Gallup, New Mexico, and during dinner at the Roadkill Café in Seligman, Arizona. The four women’s lives will never be the same after the road leads them to their hearts – the true destination for these road warriors. Continue reading “Book Brief: Live From the Road”

A Few Questions for the Author

A lot of authors like to be interviewed. They enjoy talking about writing and they particularly enjoy talking about their own writing. They like to talk about their process, their characters, their inspiration, their approaches and devices and genres and heroes.

I have been the subject of a few author interviews. I don’t do many anymore. Part of the reason for this is that I genuinely find it incredibly boring to talk about myself. Continue reading “A Few Questions for the Author”