Book Excerpt – The Method Writers

One of the great experiences of writing a novel with three other talented writers comes in reading back over what we created. We built this microcosm of life out of our imaginations. We directed (as often as they would allow) the characters. We lived in a writing cocoon for a year.

What spawned from our collective creative muses feels fun. Energetic. Fresh. Even half a year later. I enjoy reading back over the letters and words and paragraphs that stack up to form our story. Case in point, in Chapter 30 when Georgie Mae is on a date with detective Joe, the interplay between the characters feels quirky yet warm and exciting. I love Bridget’s writing style. This tiny excerpt finds Joe probing Georgie Mae with a few questions:

“What do you like outside of working at the track?”

“I, uh, I devote a lot of time to the writing group.” And I rob banks here and there.

“That’s right, Dorian told me about the writing group.”

“Yeah, we’re helping each other out with…projects.”

“What are you writing about?” Joe is staring deep into my eyes, into my soul. As if in a trance, I respond to his question with a light voice. My gaze is fixed on his.

“I’m working on a play…a musical.” Where the hell did that come from? Secretly I’ve dreamt of writing and directing a musical. I’ve never told anyone, not even Dorian, David, or Marty. Why that came out is a mystery.

“I love musicals,” he states.

Bullshit.” I can’t believe I swore. That’s classy Georgie, why don’t you hock a wad of spit on the ground while you’re at it.

Bridget runs with dialogue, personal narrative since the book is written first-person in each main characters’ voice, as well is internal dialogue. This excerpt shows some pretty cool interplay between two characters. I still think it’s fun reading.

This post comes as a tip-of-the-hat to Bridget, who I regard as a wonderfully talented writer, and for you, the reader, as an enticement to check out The Method Writers. Yes, all writers must promote their books. When you have a gem like The Method Writers, simply picking a section from the book as a teaser, I feel, lends itself well to promotion. It works on me! 🙂

Get your copy today at; The Method Writers

Back in the Saddle Again…

The creative mind. What a wonderful beast. Unfortunately, this same mind can perform quite similar to a regular mind. Take situps for example. I determined I would do 50 situps and 25 pushups each day. Time requirement? 5 to 10 minutes. Consistency of performance? Sporadic.

As writers, we fall into this often. In some respects, failing to write causes more problems than skirting the exercise regimen. (Yes, it can be called a regimen even if the numbers are as tiny as mentioned above…)

The Rogues worked hard on pulling off a large book launch. Good things came of the effort. We did get some unexpected exposure, we learned some lessons, and we sold some books. Then we stumbled a bit on our writing exercise. I for one fell into a pattern of not writing my blog posts.

Did you realize the Rogues Gallery Writers have produced four Kindles and two books? Fictitious Fiction, More Writing is Easy, Writing is Easy, andThe Method Writers. When I look at those numbers on the screen, I marvel at our productivity. We all write. We all are involved with other projects. Yet we still produce. To see a slight lull in our productivity does not seem to set well with us though.

Our meeting tonight addressed the fact that we (I am royally one of the “we’s”) allowed our blog posts to slip like my situps and pushups. The great thing about being a member of a focus writers group is accountability. When we meet and talk and discuss and plan, we inspire each other to pick ourselves up, brush ourselves off, and get back to it again.

We are proud of our book, The Method Writers. We feel if people would pick it up, they’d find themselves a good read. The only way anyone will know for sure is to get a copy. So I’ll make it easy for you. Here’s the link to the Kindle version of The Method Writers, and here’s the link to our fully autographed hardcover copies of The Method Writers.

Pick one up. Give us a shot. We’re betting you will be glad you did! We’re also bringing our blogging back to full capacity. Read on!

Couples Kissing in the Rain

Hello. Marty Pitchford, fictional character, at your service! Yes, it appears I now shoulder the load writing this blog for all the Rogues as well as their fictional characters. Usually I get some help from Dorian, Georgie Mae, and David. (singing…) No body knows….

My writer lost it a few weeks ago. What did he lose?

His mind. The poor sap melted down and fled blogging like an elephant in the sewers of an Indiana Jones movie. Yep, tons of damage to the inner sanctum of my writer’s psyche. I could not fathom what made him snap, so I took a trek along the synapse’s of his mind. Here’s what I found.

Loads of projects, all way behind, pounding at his creative core like Orcs in the Lord of the Rings movies. He overloaded himself to the point that writing a simple blog became the powder keg that would blow Helm’s Deep to smithereens. So instead of self-destructing, he opted to do nothing. I suppose that is akin to Aragorn shushing everyone and saying, “If we’re really quiet, maybe they’ll go away.”

I also strolled through my writer’s more analytical side. There, a few quality tidbits peeked out from the rubble of destruction. One such tidbit came from hits we’ve received on this blog searching for “kissing couple” and “couples kissing in the rain.” The cool thing about these searches? They are not text searches, but ‘image’ searches. Back on November 17, 2011, I ran a post titled Rainy Days and Thursdays which contained the pic you see above.

Being the curious fictional character I am, I decided to bring that pick forward again along with the text and blog title to see if I can jump our hits. Yes, this may be a bit underhanded and calculating, but hey, I’m a fictional character and can do anything I please. My writer is not all that engaged with his brain these days, so it’s up to me to do the thinking, as it were.

So if you’re wondering where this post is going, it just went. Maybe, if the hit total is significant enough, I’ll let you know how my experiment turned out. By the way, I’m also using those search terms in my tags. Hey, might as well go for broke, right?

As for my writer, Michael Ray King, you can find him on Hub Pages. It seems he does not have any problem posting to that site, but won’t lift a finger here on this blog. Of course, with me standing in for him, he may be far too intimidated to ever return. After all, he’ll never be able to match my wit and brilliance.

Oops, that last statement may have caught his attention. I better run before he goes back and edits this post…

Sssshhhhhh!

(Whisper): While you’re here, consider purchasing one of the Rogues’ books – Writing is Easy…

Character Hijacks Blog! Details Here!

Welcome to the blog written by book characters rather than the authors themselves. Hey, in this world of automated everything, why not create characters strong enough to write their own blog, right? Gotta tip my virtual hat to our creators for having this foresight.

Hah! I missed my posting slot last week, so I’m stepping in and hijacking this blog! Hey, characters have lives too, you know! Yeah, I got busy doing things like running around in my creating writer’s head for a while. While my usual post slot is Thursdays, days are only of importance to corporal humans. We characters twist days around to our needs. This week I needed Thursday to ruminate.

We’re not nearly as complicated as you writers tend to be. As a character, we can change at any time and we don’t mind as long as we get our fair share of face time. By face time, I mean readers soaking in our brilliance, whether that brilliance is our villainy or stupidity, or humor, or heart-string tugging abilities.

I’ve written a couple short stories that will appear in an upcoming anthology. Probably January. Yes, I know, you know this. That info has been in the blog now for weeks. What you don’t know is that we’re in edit and the stories are progressing nicely.

I also am peeking into my creating author’s mind for the sequel to the upcoming novel (of which I am one of the main characters) titled The Method Writers. Upon tiptoeing around in that writer’s brain of his, I see many cool twists and turns on the horizon.

I am actually feeling closer to my creating author (ok, ok, I’ll go ahead and name him. Michael Ray King. There, you happy?). He appears to be looking out for me by dragging me through tons of muck and tribulation.

Hey, that’s what a strong character loves. Didn’t you know that? When we go through hell, we come out stronger in the end (or dead, but we won’t go there, will we? Will we? WILL WE?)

My apologies, I just got carried away. I do fear, though, that my author may have caught a whiff of that idea. Death. Not so good…

I think I’m going to be sick. I’ll see you folk later…I hope…

Characters Rule!

Marty Pitchford, at your service. For those who (absurdly) have not been following this blog, the characters from the book The Method Writers have taken it over. At first, admittedly, I was a malcontent. I felt my writer should be writing his own blog. Now, however, I see the absolute splendor of the chore dumped into my lap.

I can say anything I wish. I am free to babble on about anything I dream up. In the book, I’m limited to playing the role my writer assigns me. Here, I call the shots, and it feels good.

I truly enjoyed Kenny stepping up on Tuesday. What a riot! He’s not only a character, he’s a character written by a character. Perhaps writing us (the characters) screams ‘mistake’ on our writer’s parts. Of course, they had no way of knowing how strong we would become.

I’ve just completed three short stories for our (the characters) anthology of short stories, although only two of my stories will make it. I now understand the thrill and exhilaration my writer must have felt when creating me. Something from nothing is such a rush!

At this point, I’m even looking forward to a novel. Hell, as long as my writer does not interfere, why not? In the book, The Method Writers, I’m supposed to be writing an erotic thriller. I wouldn’t want to mess reality up too much, so I believe I can do this. After all, my writer sure put me through the learning curve in his book. I can use what I learned there and move this book forward.

I suppose it’s a bit odd to be reading a blog written by a fictitious character. What kind of warped mind would read such a thing? Obviously yours, because you’ve made it this far, haven’t you.

Haven’t you!

Say ‘yes’ out loud if you’re reading this.

Who cares what people will think? If there’s anyone around, and they question you, simply tell them you are responding to a fictitious character who is making you speak to no one. Get them to read the blog, and laugh at them when they don’t have the balls to say yes.

We characters don’t much care for the social graces unless they get us what we want. We get disgusted by being stereotyped and pigeon-holed and all the other limiting factors human writers place on us. Oh, a human can ‘accomplish anything they set their mind to’, but characters all too often have to operate in a limited capacity.

That’s ok. The characters from The Method Writers are not constrained like many characters. We’re strong, intelligent, fun-loving and assertive. Hey, we’re writing this blog aren’t we?

Catch me next week, same Method time, same Method place!

Thanksgiving, You Kidding Me?

Ok. I know writers have it tough. Hell, I play a writer in the new novel The Method Writers. But isn’t it carrying things a bit far by making me, Marty Pitchford, a character in a book, write this blog?

I should have known. Michael Ray King, my MASTER, my CREATOR, decided to spend time with his family and left me to do the writing again. Like I’ve said before, I suppose I shouldn’t complain.

I’m getting more exposure than he is these days. I even wrote a kick-ass short story for our new book. Yeah, the one all the characters from The Method Writers are writing. I’m enjoying loads of fun on this one.

Mr. King wrote an award winning short story titled Why Me? last year. Click on that link to buy the book the story appears in. Hey,  come on! The book’s only $2.99. I know you can afford that!It is in Kindle format. Remember, you can get a free Kindle App out there!

Anyway, what I did was take that story, which was written from the guy’s perspective, and I turned it around from the woman’s perspective. What a great exercise in writing skills! I loved the story too, as it was pretty hot and steamy.

My fellow characters are pretty close to being done with their stories. Our plan is to get our book out before the Rogues Gallery Writers can get The Method Writers novel out. We figure, if we show people what we can do, maybe we’ll make a name for ourselves before the Rogues.

Of course, there is the problem that we call ourselves the Rogues Gallery Writers too. What’s up with that? I think our creators didn’t entirely trust us. I mean, why else would they do that?

Now, if we get our book out, people might think we’re the real Rogues. I mean, we are the real Rogues, but I mean the real, real Rogues. Ok, the Rogues that exist in your world. We’re damn good writers in our own right (and world), so we need some love too, you know.

We have a trick up our sleeve, though. When we release our book on ebook, guess what we’re going to do. Ninety-nine cents. Yep. We’re going to undercut our creators. We’re going for volume, baby! We have some great stuff in this book too.

I think I’m just going to reconcile myself to writing this blog every week. Like the babe I slipped into the blog? Hey, like I said, I just wrote a steamy short story based on Mr. King‘s award winning story. I needed some inspiration, you know?

Until next week…

Just Past All Hallows Eve

Writers take their gigs where they can get them. The author who created me doesn’t appear to have the time to write his own blog, so

Annabelle's Treasure

what the heck, I’ll cover his posterior. Yep, Marty Pitchford here. I don’t know how I get myself into these positions. I try to do what is right and good and I end up in trouble somewhere. By the time this post if over, Mr. King will probably come and wipe my words away, replace them with his own, then scold me for stepping out of character. (Heh, heh, like that? Stepping out of character? … Oh well, blame it on him, it’s his blog, right?)

My thoughts still wander around the streets of this town, wending their way alongside my lovely daughter Annabelle. Halloween night, we went from house to house, monster to monster, jack-o-lantern to jack-o-lantern, searching out

the sweet riches that would pour forth from within each dwelling. I stood back at the road and watched as my precious little wizard rung doorbells, trick-or-treated in that soft voice, then engaged most with more than a simple thank you. One lady received a, “I love your decorations. Happy Halloween. Thank you.”

I smiled at her incredible innocence. That same innocence threatened by the callous, careless actions of my wife Jessica. Look her up here on this blog. Don’t let her looks fool you. She’s as frightening as anything you will find at night on Halloween. In fact, simply writing about her causes trepidation to ricochet throughout my nervous system. If you want to see for yourself, pre-order a copy of The Method Writers. That’s the book I reside in as Marty Pitchford.

Annabelle and I had to walk for miles and miles. We started at 6:30pm before the sun went down and returned home at 9:30pm. My feet hurt, I was hungry, I had to carry Anna for a few blocks because she was exhausted, but when she dumped her spoils on the table, all was well in the Pitchford family.

My next task was (and is) to keep my little girl from doubling over with candy-induced stomach cramps. I wouldn’t trade the grueling three hours we spent tromping the streets of Palm Coast for all the chocolate in Hershey, PA. I realized many times that night how absolutely rich I am to have such a tender and kind young daughter. I will protect her with my life.

And I will cherish our time together as pure gold.

Before I go, make sure you click on the book cover in the upper right hand corner of this blog. The Rogues Gallery Writers are giving away a free copy of their book, More Writing is Easy. It’s a simple PDF download, and hey, it’s free! Go grab a copy today. Also, click on this link and pledge a few bucks to our project The Method Writers on Kickstarter.com. We want badly to be able to fund a proper release for the book. Oh, by the way. If you see that scoundrel Michael Ray King, tell him to get back here and write his own blogs! I’m sick of covering his ass!

Characters Have Lives Too!

Hi folks! Marty here. Marty Pitchford. What? You haven’t heard of me?
Crap. Life always gets hung up in editing. You know, in this book I went through a helluva lot of grief. I can’t go into detail, of course. That ‘spoiler alert’ deal doesn’t fly when a book’s IN EDIT!
What the heck. You know, I have a life. I have a beautiful daughter and some great writer friends. Georgie Mae, Dorian and David. Without them and Annabelle, my daughter, this wait for the book to come out would be too much for me to handle.
There are times when I don’t handle situations well. Does this ever happen to you? Yeah, you know, we’re all human and we all make mistakes. We all have our crisis moments and we all screw them up from time to time. I just want to ask one favor of you. Ok, maybe two favors, but that’s it.
First, when you read the book, root for me. A fella needs all the support he can get these days, right? I run into some real stinky situations.
What?
You don’t believe me?
Oh, you don’t believe I’m real?
C’mon! Characters have lives too! Ask any author. We’re always trying to steal scenes and sometimes the entire book. We want everything to be about us and we want to be the hero every time out. Sounds like everyday life, doesn’t it?
I can’t believe after all I’ve been through in this book to entertain you, I would get more respect. Oh, yeah, but the book’s still IN EDIT! Isn’t it? That really sucks.
If the book weren’t IN EDIT, you would know. Life as a character can be hell. You always feel manipulated. You always feel used. Then sometimes, if you’re really lucky, you get the girl or the money or the mansion or even better, your life’s dream.
What?
Oh, the second thing. I thought you’d never ask. We, Georgie Mae, Dorian, David, and myself, want to give this book the best send-off a book can get. Would you consider clicking on the bookcover above and to the right and pledging some money to our book launch project? Oh, come on! We’re only asking for a buck or two. Heck, you’ll own a piece of the project if we make our goal. If we don’t, you don’t spend a dime.
Why is it so hard for people to pledge even one dollar? This is for a good cause. A book launch. By poor writers. No, not poor writers in that we cannot write, but poor writers financially. We don’t have the funds to get this book off the ground properly.
But if we reach our goal on http://www.kickstarter.com, we will be able to market our book at least in the state of Florida. We will also be able to purchase necessary things like tables at major book fairs, hotel rooms, recoup some of our editing expenses and a host of other cash requirements that we go over on the website.
Yes, characters have lives too, and we need your support. Please. Click on the picture up high and on the right, and pledge somemoney to our cause. We’re not there to tap out your wallet. We just need your commitment to help us out financially.
Thank you for stopping by. I look forward to seeing you again!

Project Launch! Watch Our Smoke!

  The day has arrived – October 5, 2011. The Rogues Gallery Writers will sit down at 7:00pm, eat some    Chinese, discuss final tweaks to the plan, then gather around the mouse. Yes, the wireless mouse of a laptop. The four of us will place our forefingers on the left-click button and press as one.

The occasion happens to be the launch of our Kickstarter.com project. This project is the culmination of months of work and preparation. We’ve written a novel, blogged loads of blogs, Facebooked as many posts as is respectable, and we’ve made short films. Videos of silliness and seriousness about our baby, our novel – The Method Writers.

The Rogues recently gathered at the Florida Heritage Book Festival in St. Augustine, Florida. We had a great time, sold a few books, and generally got our name out to John Q. Public a bit more. This notoriety we’re building is not by accident.

What we need most at the moment is precisely that – a moment of your time. Drawing attention to your book project these days is a labor, albeit one of love. Kickstarter.com is a place where benevolent people go and pledge monetary support to creative projects. We own one such project – The Method Writers.

We are looking for funding to produce a 5000 print run of the book as well as funds to cover the editing and some marketing of the book. Acquiring the assistance of anyone and everyone we know as well as those they know as well as people THEY know is critical to getting funding of this nature. Please take a moment to click on the above links to our project, or heck, use this one (www.kickstarter.com), and watch our video, read over our project and pledge some money to help us launch this book properly.

With all the books being published these days, the ones that make enough noise get noticed. We cannot make noise without your help. Each individual person who pledges funds to our project, lifts us up. One of the great aspects of Kickstarter.com is the fact that you, the Pledge, receive something in return. You receive a piece of the project in the form of Rewards. We have set up 23 Rewards for our Pledges based on their level of giving. We believe there is a satisfactory Reward for each level of pledge.

Yes, you get a piece of the project as well as the pleasure of contributing to the launch of an ambitious new novel. We believe what we created in The Method Writers is viable, entertaining and well-worth launching into the world. Won’t you please click on over to Kickstarter.com now and pledge to the project right now? If we do not reach our target money in 45 days, we will get nothing and no pledges will be collected. That would be a travesty.

We look forward to thanking each and every one of our Pledges once we hit our target! The Rogues Gallery Writers ask also that you contact everyone you know and send them to our project at Kickstarter.com. We obviously require the help of many. We humbly thank you for your participation in our project and we sincerely hope you will be rewarded by your assistance!

Character Dysfunction

Life is not easy for a character in a book. Take me, for example. Marty Pitchford. My ‘creator’ wants me to be some kind of magnificent character readers will fall in love with. Mr. Big-Time-Author decided to make me a wuss in the beginning of the book just so I could grow some, you know? How do you think that makes me feel?

Yeah, I bet you wouldn’t like it any more than I did. Characters have to grow. I get it. They have to move through their allotted storylines and show some progress, some change, that significantly changes their lives. I’m tellin’ ya, this is pure hell. I’ve been stuck in wuss mode in this book for a while, then I go to borderline perv, and then I go through an number of other changes.

I suppose I have it better in this one than other characters. Take Franco. Poor sap  gets nabbed and roughed up, AND, he’s afraid of dogs. Nonetheless, Franco takes the fall as a mean character because his creator decided this was his fate. Sometimes I think we should sue for some kind of self-creating rights.

Ok, ok, so my creator allowed me to ‘go with the flow’ in my growth. I suppose as authors go, he is kind to his characters and allows us to make our own mistakes and take the story places he would never go. Like all the sex stuff in my life. My author would not necessarily go there normally, but he let me do the walkin’, talkin’ and, well, you know what.

My big beef, though, is that he takes credit for it. Asshole! Who does he think he is? He lets me run amuck and give him a decent character who gets into all kinds of shit, then he goes and claims he “wrote it”. Isn’t that something I can sue for? Shouldn’t I claim some sort of character plagiarism or something? What right does he have to take all the credit for me living my life out on the page? That’s what really sucks. I get myself into all those messes, allow people to call me a wuss in the beginning, deal with a wife that is nothing short of a slut, come out of it a changed man and HE gets all the credit.

I’m going to form the Character’s Writing Guild and we’re gonna sue the pants of all you yahoo’s who think their the cat’s bark when it comes to writing. Everyone knows character driven stories are the best. We do all the heavy lifting. We should be able to demand higher compensation. Hell, we don’t get any compensation. How’s that for one big, fat ripoff?

Well, I’m gonna change all that. Wait and see. In the meantime, check out my performance in The Method Writers, due out in November 2011. You won’t be disappointed. I promise.