MY WRITING PROCESS BLOG TOUR

Big thanks to Belinda Frisch for approaching me to participate in this blog tour. She's a fantastic author and a great friend who has a proclivity for keeping my butt in check. 

Here's a little bit about her:

After fifteen years of working in healthcare, Belinda Frisch's stories can't help being medicine influenced. A writer of dark tales in the horror, mystery, and thriller genres, she is a storyteller at heart, and has been writing since her teens. Her fiction has appeared in Shroud Magazine, Dabblestone Horror, and Tales of Zombie War. She is an honorable mention winner in the Writer's Digest 76th Annual Writing Competition. Her novel, "Cure", is the runner-up in the General Fiction category of the 2012 Halloween Book Festival and was optioned for film. She is the author of "Better Left Buried", "Fatal Reaction", "Cure", and "Afterbirth", in addition to a number of short stories. She resides in upstate New York with her husband, son, and a small menagerie of beloved animals. 

As you can see, her work is as eclectic as it is prolific, ranging from zombies, to dark horror, to medical thriller, young adult, and now romance. Want to know more? Check out her blog, Facebook page, and follow her on twitter.

On with the tour!

MY WRITING PROCESS BLOG TOUR

1. What am I working on?

Back in early 2012, I got an idea for a story. The idea came about when I asked myself "What happens when a guy walks into his own funeral?" Five weeks and 130,000 words later the rough draft for what is now known as Funeral With a View was born. What type of novel is it? While it started as something completely different, FWAV ended up being a romance, of all things. Yes, a romance. Written by a guy who's published stories about mobile scrabble games gone horribly awry and an alcoholic ghost hunter who can not only see ghosts, but can talk to them, too. You heard it here first, folks. I don't have a blurb as of yet, and the cover isn't finalized (I've seen the preliminary and it looks great!), but Funeral With a View is a life story.  It covers dating, family, friends, life, death, marriage, tough decisions, betrayal, forgiveness, letting go, and all points in between. I'm looking to have it out this summer, and I can't wait for readers to get their hands on it. You know what? How about a peek at the rough cover? I'm hyped up on coffee, so I'm feeling  generous. Once again, this isn't the final, but you get the idea. I'll be posting the official blurb and cover when they're ready.

Come see the softer side of Matt Schiariti

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

The short answer is: it's different because I wrote it. Style, tone, dialogue, characterization, these are things everyone does a little differently. 

Now for the long answer.

When I was writing Ghosts of Demons Past, I didn't want the main character, Seth Gabriel, to be your typical paranormal 'hero'. He's not a gun-toting alpha male who always has the right answers. In fact, he's a bit of a screw up. I also wanted him to go through some growing pains. Seth isn't an established ghost hunter, and has only been in the business for about a year. He freely admits that he doesn't know what he's doing half the time.

Funeral With a View is an entirely different kind of flying. Altogether. First off, it's a romance written buy a guy, told through a male first person point of view. That's not exactly the norm for the genre.  Secondly, it's a bit of a personal story. Some events in the book are things I've lived through. It's not a memoir by any stretch of the imagination, but there are some experiences in there I didn't manufacture. As for what separates fact from fiction? I'm not telling. If a person held a gun to my head (please don't do that) and demanded I find other things to compare it to, I'd say it's part The Story of Us, part Defending Your Life, part Get Low. Take those and put my stamp on it and you have FWAV.

I like flawed, but not severely broken characters that readers can relate to. There's a little bit of me in each story, including a liberal dose of my odd sense of humor, which makes my work different.

3. Why do I write what I do?

I write whatever story interests me. The lion's share of my work to date falls under the paranormal or horror umbrella, but I'm not limited to that, as evidence by Funeral With a View. If I come up with a monster story that jazzes me (and I do have one), I'll write that. If a thriller idea tickles the back of my brain (got one of these, too!), I'll explore it. My ideas are all over the place. As long as the story is intriguing and features characters I can sink my teeth into, I'll write it regardless of what label ends up attached to it.

4. How does my writing process work.

So far, I'm a confirmed 'pantser'. Everything I've published was written by the seat of my pants without an outline. An idea comes to mind, I think about the plot for a while, then I start writing, keeping in mind where it's going and a few key scenes along the way. Before writing Funeral With a View, which is actually the first novel I'd ever typed up, I tried outlining, going so far as to Google how other writers do it. I came upon Jim Butcher's old LiveJournal page and read it dozens of times. When I tried it I fell flat on my face. I was getting too caught up in thinking every detail through, spinning my wheels and getting nothing done. Needless to say, that was abandoned in short order. Being a 'pantser' is fun and a pain in the ass. I like letting the story and characters take me in directions I didn't plan on, but it leads to a lot of editing and rewrites and consistency checks. I do keep notes in my Word file, adding stickies in the margins for notes, what needs to come next, where I'm thinking of going, etc., so I'm not completely flying without a net. FWAV has been a long, involved undertaking because it was written early in my writing 'career'. As such, it's gone through many changes and rewrites. It hasn't been easy, but it'll be well worth it once I'm done fixing it up. This experience has made me reconsider the advantages of outlining. In the future, as I get into multiple perspective third person point of view, I plan to at least have a rough sketch from which to work where I can fill out the details as I go. 

Who's Up Next?

I've picked two authors to join in on this blog tour. That's how I roll. They're both very different, both very good, and it should be interesting to see what they have to say.

They are fellow Jersey author, Dave Conifer, who writes in a variety of genres, from topical young and new adult to thrillers, and fellow metal-head and Carnival 13 contributor ,Armand Rosamilia, who has written everything from the zombie apocalypse to non-fiction about women in the world of heavy metal music. I kid you not. Armand used to live in Jersey but has since relocated to Florida. Lucky duck.

Here's a bit more about them:

Dave Conifer is a fitness fanatic living in South Jersey with his wife and three kids. When he's not coaching wrestling or soccer or working as a boy scout leader or girl scout leader, Dave likes to read non-fiction history. He also blogs about the 48 solar panels on his roof and how they generate nearly all the power needed by his family of five.
Dave loves to hear from his readers. He can be found at daveconiferfanpage on Facebook. Send an email to daveconifer@rocketmail.com to be added to the mailing list and find out when something new is coming, or just to say hi.

Or visit Dave's official web site to sign up for emailed updates about new releases.

Book three of the Cold Cases series is currently in the works!

daveconifer.weebly.com

Armand Rosamilia is a New Jersey boy currently living in sunny Florida, where he writes when he's not watching the Boston Red Sox and listening to Heavy Metal music... and because of him they won the 2013 World Series, so he's pretty good at watching!

He's written over 100 stories that are currently available, including a few different series:

"Dying Days" extreme zombie series
"Keyport Cthulhu" horror series
"Flagler Beach Fiction Series" contemporary fiction
"Metal Queens" non-fiction music series

he also loves to talk in third person... because he's really that cool. He's a proud Active member of HWA as well.

You can find him at http://armandrosamilia.com for not only his latest releases but interviews and guest posts with other authors he likes!

and e-mail him to talk about zombies, baseball and Metal:

armandrosamilia@gmail.com

Look for their contributions on Monday, May19!