There are three women in my life who've been supportive and helpful through my good reviews and rejections letters.
Allana Angel and I have critiqued each others work for many years. We read and reread our manuscripts offering suggestions even when we were not sure what we were doing. Chris always has positive suggestions and encouragement. She is very motivated and enthusiastic about writing. A prolific writer herself she has always encouraged me to keep writing and the importance of goal setting.
Amber Angel has helped me with her positive attitude and technical skills. On a personal note, several years ago, I was really sick and my doctor at the time wasn't helping me, Genene gave me the name of her doctor. A simple name and phone number, but I truly feel I wouldn't be here now if I hadn't changed doctors. I can't thank her enough for her help.
Sable Angel recently helped me do the final edits on Rekindled Love, a process I was apprehensive about. I learned a lot from working with her and look forward to our next project. Chris is always encouraging and supportive.
I know I wouldn't have been able to accomplish all that I have without the help and support of these three women.
Thank you ladies.
Cinnamon Angel
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
OF PARENTS AND PARENTING
I'm currently writing a series of nine books about eight adopted siblings and their adoptive parents. What a chance to explore the roles of parents and of parenting!
Some of these siblings will have babies of their own or become stepparents when they marry. They will also confront issues concerning their biological parents and why they could not stay with those parents.
These stories will also show the bond of love between siblings who don't share the same bloodlines, but have formed a tight-knit family. The foundation of that family will be shaken over the course of this series of books, but will emerge strong enough to support a new generation.
I worked for twenty years in an agency that included child welfare, foster care, and adoptions. Of course there were hundreds and hundreds of heartbreaking cases. However, I was most fascinated by how the children reacted. Some of them never recovered from the traumas of their childhoods, while others triumphed over all the odds against them.
It is that triumphant spirit I love to write about. It's been really interesting to explore how the events of their childhoods shaped these characters, as well as how traumatic events such as the destruction of their fictional home town affects each of them. And, of course, how their adoptive parents provided a heroic legacy for each of these siblings to emulate.
Do you have a parent or adult role model you particularly admire? I'd love to hear your story!
Some of these siblings will have babies of their own or become stepparents when they marry. They will also confront issues concerning their biological parents and why they could not stay with those parents.
These stories will also show the bond of love between siblings who don't share the same bloodlines, but have formed a tight-knit family. The foundation of that family will be shaken over the course of this series of books, but will emerge strong enough to support a new generation.
I worked for twenty years in an agency that included child welfare, foster care, and adoptions. Of course there were hundreds and hundreds of heartbreaking cases. However, I was most fascinated by how the children reacted. Some of them never recovered from the traumas of their childhoods, while others triumphed over all the odds against them.
It is that triumphant spirit I love to write about. It's been really interesting to explore how the events of their childhoods shaped these characters, as well as how traumatic events such as the destruction of their fictional home town affects each of them. And, of course, how their adoptive parents provided a heroic legacy for each of these siblings to emulate.
Do you have a parent or adult role model you particularly admire? I'd love to hear your story!
Sunday, May 16, 2010
More from A.W.Lambert
1. How has your family helped or hindered your writing?
This is the most simple of your questions. My two sons having flown the coop long since, my wife and I now live together in a tiny hamlet on the north Norfolk coast of England. As well as being my wife of forty five years, Valerie is also my best friend, my most fervent fan and my most ferocious critic. She is also the most diligent of proof readers. Without her encouragement and understanding I doubt that things would have happened as they have.
2. What is your biggest writing challenge?
I think the whole of the creative writing process is one big challenge. For me, as I’m sure with other writers, some aspects come much easier than others; for instance I particularly enjoy writing dialogue, but find descriptive prose takes much more time and concentration. However, as an instinctive writer who finds it as difficult to pre-plan the story as he does advance research facts, I will inevitably at some time during every story write myself into an unforeseen corner. Then it’s like the gauntlet had been thrown down - now get out of that - and it can take hours, sometimes even days of thought to solve the problem and move on. For me, that without doubt is the most difficult of challenges. Yet for some perverse reason, however long it takes, it is one of the challenges I enjoy the most.
3. What are your future writing plans?
As a Brit writing through a US e-publisher I do have an ambition to see my work, in paperback form, displayed on the shelves of UK book stores, something I have yet to achieve. However, this year I will be 72 years of age and with the urge to write as strong as ever the only firm plan I have is to continue doing the thing I love most for as long as I am able.
4. Please give us a list of your books with a short description and where we can purchase them.
A Treacherous past. A former intelligence agent disappears and private detective Theo Stern is asked to investigate. A woman is found brutally murdered and MI5 agents threaten Stern, warning him off the case. As an ex-London copper, Stern doesn’t threaten easily, but then he is violently driven off the road and almost killed.
A Fatal Score. A brutal killing on a cross channel ferry and the arrival of a jazz musician to perform in a sleepy seaside town.
Two totally unconnected events?
So thinks private investigator Theo Stern, but sinister happenings indicate otherwise and Stern finds himself sucked into a threatening entanglement of intrigue and death.
A Lethal Quest. The slaying of a foreign diplomat and a London cabby bequeathed £250,000 by a mother he hasn’t associated with for years. It would seem two totally unconnected incidents, but when Frank Barnes asks where and how his mother died he is drawn into a dark, frightening world where nothing is as it seems.
Payback. A fatal racist attack in a Norwich night club and the kidnapping of a London gangster. Two cases geographically miles apart, but when Theo Stern is drawn into both he finds a link that is close to home and shakes even his total belief in the rule of law.
All of the above can be obtained either directly from http://www.wings-press.com/ or from e-book stores such as amazon.com and fictionwise
This is the most simple of your questions. My two sons having flown the coop long since, my wife and I now live together in a tiny hamlet on the north Norfolk coast of England. As well as being my wife of forty five years, Valerie is also my best friend, my most fervent fan and my most ferocious critic. She is also the most diligent of proof readers. Without her encouragement and understanding I doubt that things would have happened as they have.
2. What is your biggest writing challenge?
I think the whole of the creative writing process is one big challenge. For me, as I’m sure with other writers, some aspects come much easier than others; for instance I particularly enjoy writing dialogue, but find descriptive prose takes much more time and concentration. However, as an instinctive writer who finds it as difficult to pre-plan the story as he does advance research facts, I will inevitably at some time during every story write myself into an unforeseen corner. Then it’s like the gauntlet had been thrown down - now get out of that - and it can take hours, sometimes even days of thought to solve the problem and move on. For me, that without doubt is the most difficult of challenges. Yet for some perverse reason, however long it takes, it is one of the challenges I enjoy the most.
3. What are your future writing plans?
As a Brit writing through a US e-publisher I do have an ambition to see my work, in paperback form, displayed on the shelves of UK book stores, something I have yet to achieve. However, this year I will be 72 years of age and with the urge to write as strong as ever the only firm plan I have is to continue doing the thing I love most for as long as I am able.
4. Please give us a list of your books with a short description and where we can purchase them.
A Treacherous past. A former intelligence agent disappears and private detective Theo Stern is asked to investigate. A woman is found brutally murdered and MI5 agents threaten Stern, warning him off the case. As an ex-London copper, Stern doesn’t threaten easily, but then he is violently driven off the road and almost killed.
A Fatal Score. A brutal killing on a cross channel ferry and the arrival of a jazz musician to perform in a sleepy seaside town.
Two totally unconnected events?
So thinks private investigator Theo Stern, but sinister happenings indicate otherwise and Stern finds himself sucked into a threatening entanglement of intrigue and death.
A Lethal Quest. The slaying of a foreign diplomat and a London cabby bequeathed £250,000 by a mother he hasn’t associated with for years. It would seem two totally unconnected incidents, but when Frank Barnes asks where and how his mother died he is drawn into a dark, frightening world where nothing is as it seems.
Payback. A fatal racist attack in a Norwich night club and the kidnapping of a London gangster. Two cases geographically miles apart, but when Theo Stern is drawn into both he finds a link that is close to home and shakes even his total belief in the rule of law.
All of the above can be obtained either directly from http://www.wings-press.com/ or from e-book stores such as amazon.com and fictionwise
Monday, May 10, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Meet author: A.W. Lambert
1. After such a technical career what prompted you to write a novel?
From a very early age I was an avid reader, cutting my teeth on the likes of Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, The Three Musketeers, Enid Blyton and a variety of others, some of which are still on my bookshelf to this day. I thrived on those stories and promised myself that one day instead of just reading the words of others it would be me behind the pen. However, in a struggling borough of inner London, aspirations were low and opportunities few. As a result, in 1954 a fifteen year old lad was expected to earn a living and contribute to the family pot as soon as he was able. As I showed a sound aptitude for all things electrical I was steered firmly to a career in that direction. Military service followed and then marriage, a family and a long career in engineering. But throughout all this time writing ran in parallel with everything else. Creative writing courses encouraged the persistent thumping out of words on an old typewriter, using writing competitions, magazine articles and any other outlet I could find just to hone the skill. In 1992 at the age of 54 I took a planned early retirement and was at last able keep the promise I had made to myself so many years before.
2. Why did you choose the Action / Adventure Genre?
Thinking back, I can’t ever remember wanting to write anything else. Maybe it was because of my upbringing. As I have already said I was born and spent my informative years in a poor area of inner London where crime was part of everyday life and frequently occurred on your own doorstep. Burglaries, theft and violent crime were common place with the police ever present and always facing an uphill struggle. That period in my life has always stayed with me and as rough as it was I still look back at it with great affection, the colourful characters, good and bad, still as vivid as ever in my mind; the grandma, for instance, in ‘A Lethal Quest’, a real person, a real grandma of that time.
But then, conversely, during that same period, the movies were showing heroes; the gumshoes like Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe, who always, whatever devastation they had to paddle through, got their man. And their woman, of course.
One was real life; the way things were. The other was fantasy, but to me as captivating as anything I had ever read. I couldn’t make movies, but I could write and that’s what I wanted to write about. Since that time, though I have never been able to ignore the realities of life as I knew it, I have always strived to ensure that whatever mayhem occurs during the course of my stories, my own hero always wins through and when the reader turns that last page, he says, “Yup, just as it should be.”
You have some unique passions you share on your website www.awlambert.co.uk Can you share how your Gambia, Africa experience and your passion for jazz playing figure in your writing?
My African experience is the one thing that remains remote from all else. Five years ago my wife and I visited The Gambia for the first time. We found a country, among the poorest in the world, yet whose people were the most friendly we had ever met. Keen to see the real Gambia we hired a 4x4 and travelled far into the bush where we found a tiny, remote village that, though the villagers had virtually nothing at all to offer, still welcomed us and shared what they did have; which on that first occasion was a bowl of rice. We were so taken with those villagers that we have visited annually since and with the help of a few generous friends have personally funded the digging of wells and the supply of tools and seeds. That village, the tiny village of Nema, now has a small farm that is worked by the villagers and produces enough to sustain the whole village community. As a result Valerie and I are now considered honorary Gambians. The progress that has been made over those five years can be seen by visiting http://www.gambiafarm.com/ and is proof that it’s not only large charities that can create benefit for those in need.
However, as I have already said, this part of my life remains separate from all else. Whether, at sometime in the future, I will attempt to include it in my writing in some form or other remains to be seen.
Jazz came to me at the age of fifteen with British musicians like Ken Colyer trying to emulate the wonderful sounds of the New Orleans masters. I was smitten from the very first few bars. But as with the writing, so with the music. Just listening was not enough. I had to play and to this day, when I’m not writing I’m usually playing. And it’s a great pleasure to include that music in my stories. When Theo Stern, my own hero, climbs into his car and hits the CD player, it’s always New Orleans traditional jazz he listens to. And with the music in my head as I write, I’m right there alongside him.
3. Your novels include such specific details which add to the intensity and colour of your stories. How much research do you put into each story?
I’m ashamed to admit that I research only as much as I have to. I like to think of myself simply as an instinctive story teller whose writing is heavily influenced by his past. Each of my novels starts with the remotest of ideas and a first sentence. Advance research is something I just do not do. The ideas come and the story progresses only when I am actually sitting at the keyboard, each sentence, each paragraph prompting me into the next. So the truth is that only when the story suddenly turns that fateful corner and I find my fingers hovering helplessly because I’ve simply stumbled into the unknown, I’ve actually written myself into an area that I know nothing about, do I think about research. But then, before hitting another key, I dig deep and use every facility available to ensure that the facts are as they should be. However, it has to be said that every tiny piece of information I collect is faithfully recorded and squirreled away for future reference.
From a very early age I was an avid reader, cutting my teeth on the likes of Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, The Three Musketeers, Enid Blyton and a variety of others, some of which are still on my bookshelf to this day. I thrived on those stories and promised myself that one day instead of just reading the words of others it would be me behind the pen. However, in a struggling borough of inner London, aspirations were low and opportunities few. As a result, in 1954 a fifteen year old lad was expected to earn a living and contribute to the family pot as soon as he was able. As I showed a sound aptitude for all things electrical I was steered firmly to a career in that direction. Military service followed and then marriage, a family and a long career in engineering. But throughout all this time writing ran in parallel with everything else. Creative writing courses encouraged the persistent thumping out of words on an old typewriter, using writing competitions, magazine articles and any other outlet I could find just to hone the skill. In 1992 at the age of 54 I took a planned early retirement and was at last able keep the promise I had made to myself so many years before.
2. Why did you choose the Action / Adventure Genre?
Thinking back, I can’t ever remember wanting to write anything else. Maybe it was because of my upbringing. As I have already said I was born and spent my informative years in a poor area of inner London where crime was part of everyday life and frequently occurred on your own doorstep. Burglaries, theft and violent crime were common place with the police ever present and always facing an uphill struggle. That period in my life has always stayed with me and as rough as it was I still look back at it with great affection, the colourful characters, good and bad, still as vivid as ever in my mind; the grandma, for instance, in ‘A Lethal Quest’, a real person, a real grandma of that time.
But then, conversely, during that same period, the movies were showing heroes; the gumshoes like Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe, who always, whatever devastation they had to paddle through, got their man. And their woman, of course.
One was real life; the way things were. The other was fantasy, but to me as captivating as anything I had ever read. I couldn’t make movies, but I could write and that’s what I wanted to write about. Since that time, though I have never been able to ignore the realities of life as I knew it, I have always strived to ensure that whatever mayhem occurs during the course of my stories, my own hero always wins through and when the reader turns that last page, he says, “Yup, just as it should be.”
You have some unique passions you share on your website www.awlambert.co.uk Can you share how your Gambia, Africa experience and your passion for jazz playing figure in your writing?
My African experience is the one thing that remains remote from all else. Five years ago my wife and I visited The Gambia for the first time. We found a country, among the poorest in the world, yet whose people were the most friendly we had ever met. Keen to see the real Gambia we hired a 4x4 and travelled far into the bush where we found a tiny, remote village that, though the villagers had virtually nothing at all to offer, still welcomed us and shared what they did have; which on that first occasion was a bowl of rice. We were so taken with those villagers that we have visited annually since and with the help of a few generous friends have personally funded the digging of wells and the supply of tools and seeds. That village, the tiny village of Nema, now has a small farm that is worked by the villagers and produces enough to sustain the whole village community. As a result Valerie and I are now considered honorary Gambians. The progress that has been made over those five years can be seen by visiting http://www.gambiafarm.com/ and is proof that it’s not only large charities that can create benefit for those in need.
However, as I have already said, this part of my life remains separate from all else. Whether, at sometime in the future, I will attempt to include it in my writing in some form or other remains to be seen.
Jazz came to me at the age of fifteen with British musicians like Ken Colyer trying to emulate the wonderful sounds of the New Orleans masters. I was smitten from the very first few bars. But as with the writing, so with the music. Just listening was not enough. I had to play and to this day, when I’m not writing I’m usually playing. And it’s a great pleasure to include that music in my stories. When Theo Stern, my own hero, climbs into his car and hits the CD player, it’s always New Orleans traditional jazz he listens to. And with the music in my head as I write, I’m right there alongside him.
3. Your novels include such specific details which add to the intensity and colour of your stories. How much research do you put into each story?
I’m ashamed to admit that I research only as much as I have to. I like to think of myself simply as an instinctive story teller whose writing is heavily influenced by his past. Each of my novels starts with the remotest of ideas and a first sentence. Advance research is something I just do not do. The ideas come and the story progresses only when I am actually sitting at the keyboard, each sentence, each paragraph prompting me into the next. So the truth is that only when the story suddenly turns that fateful corner and I find my fingers hovering helplessly because I’ve simply stumbled into the unknown, I’ve actually written myself into an area that I know nothing about, do I think about research. But then, before hitting another key, I dig deep and use every facility available to ensure that the facts are as they should be. However, it has to be said that every tiny piece of information I collect is faithfully recorded and squirreled away for future reference.
Mother's Day
Hi all, Sable Angel here.
Okay, okay, so we all know Mother's Day is a fabricated holiday. Every day is mom and dad's day. They sacrifice so much for each of us and we are appreciative... sort of. It's not a bad idea to take one day and really remember how much these amazing people do for us. Honor the sacrifices they make out of love. Remember the people and history of their families.
Wingman and I no longer have our mothers to honor in life, but we know what they gave us to carry on. We have children [steps in my case] who have grown to be amazing adults with loving, quirky, unique personalities who are carrying on the family traditions. My grandchildren are all diamonds, sometimes in the ruff but always diamonds.
So from Wingman and Sable Angel, we wish each of you a happy, loving Mother's Day!
Sable Angel
Okay, okay, so we all know Mother's Day is a fabricated holiday. Every day is mom and dad's day. They sacrifice so much for each of us and we are appreciative... sort of. It's not a bad idea to take one day and really remember how much these amazing people do for us. Honor the sacrifices they make out of love. Remember the people and history of their families.
Wingman and I no longer have our mothers to honor in life, but we know what they gave us to carry on. We have children [steps in my case] who have grown to be amazing adults with loving, quirky, unique personalities who are carrying on the family traditions. My grandchildren are all diamonds, sometimes in the ruff but always diamonds.
So from Wingman and Sable Angel, we wish each of you a happy, loving Mother's Day!
Sable Angel
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Stepping Stones
I am an anomaly.
I have a dozen grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Yet I've never been in labor nor delivered a child of my own. I am a step. Allana spoke last week of the blessings she's been given in her life, and I must say although I had great trepidation when I met the Wingman about stepping into the role of "wicked stepmother", I'm loving the results.
It wasn't always blue skies and sunshine. In fact, the troubles Wingman and I had with my children's biological mother was the inspiration for my first book, Old Enough to Know Better. I surmised it wiser to commit murder on paper than in real life and spend time in jail. It was a wise decision. The first book led to a sequel Sun in Sagittarius, Moon in Mazatlan and the rest, as they say, is history. I now have eight books to my credit and am furiously writing on the base book for a dragon series. But I digress.
I had always hated Mother's Day. It was a glaring reminder of my failure at the simple task of reproduction. For the first 10 years of my marriage to the Wingman, I shared a tentative, tenuous relationship to my stepchildren; but then they were teenagers, a class of human beings all to themselves. With the passing of that healer, time, the slow maturation of the aforementioned teenagers into adults who married and had their own children, our relationship changed its dynamics.
But a brief year and a half ago, my stepson reached out to his father, and in that act, healed a rift of many years. Wingman and I moved back to be close to the children and grandchildren. On Mother's Day of 2009, I received my first Grandmother's Day card. I was... speechless. [A difficult task to accomplish; just ask Wingman.]
We had taken the steps and received the rewards of keeping the door open. It's been a year, and we've been to birthday parties, Christmas and Easter, weddings and many other family activities. It still takes a minute for me to respond to "Grandma", but I wouldn't trade for all the gold in the world.
Hope you all have a wonderful Mother and Father's Days. Treasure your parents as long as you can. You never know when the universe will send them an invitation to come home.
Sable Angel
I have a dozen grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Yet I've never been in labor nor delivered a child of my own. I am a step. Allana spoke last week of the blessings she's been given in her life, and I must say although I had great trepidation when I met the Wingman about stepping into the role of "wicked stepmother", I'm loving the results.
It wasn't always blue skies and sunshine. In fact, the troubles Wingman and I had with my children's biological mother was the inspiration for my first book, Old Enough to Know Better. I surmised it wiser to commit murder on paper than in real life and spend time in jail. It was a wise decision. The first book led to a sequel Sun in Sagittarius, Moon in Mazatlan and the rest, as they say, is history. I now have eight books to my credit and am furiously writing on the base book for a dragon series. But I digress.
I had always hated Mother's Day. It was a glaring reminder of my failure at the simple task of reproduction. For the first 10 years of my marriage to the Wingman, I shared a tentative, tenuous relationship to my stepchildren; but then they were teenagers, a class of human beings all to themselves. With the passing of that healer, time, the slow maturation of the aforementioned teenagers into adults who married and had their own children, our relationship changed its dynamics.
But a brief year and a half ago, my stepson reached out to his father, and in that act, healed a rift of many years. Wingman and I moved back to be close to the children and grandchildren. On Mother's Day of 2009, I received my first Grandmother's Day card. I was... speechless. [A difficult task to accomplish; just ask Wingman.]
We had taken the steps and received the rewards of keeping the door open. It's been a year, and we've been to birthday parties, Christmas and Easter, weddings and many other family activities. It still takes a minute for me to respond to "Grandma", but I wouldn't trade for all the gold in the world.
Hope you all have a wonderful Mother and Father's Days. Treasure your parents as long as you can. You never know when the universe will send them an invitation to come home.
Sable Angel
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