Northwest Arkansas Writer’s Workshop

After years, I mean decades, of working toward a goal, it’s really a great feeling to meet it. I started thinking about writing a novel based on a series of stories I wrote in 1994 about problems in the Arkansas 309 prison program. Lack of confidence, life, and other issues kept me from ever starting to work on the novel for ten to fifteen years. Then I piddled at it forever. My daughters will even tell you that I wouldn’t even call it a book for years. It was “my project.” Seven or eight years ago I got more serious about it, joined Northwest Arkansas Writers Workshop and rewrote it. Then I rewrote it again, and again, and again.

Thanks to Shannon Press, a division of Oghma Creative Media, A Lovely County has been published and released on Amazon this week!

I can’t tell you how thrilled and excited I am with this accomplishment. Yes, I am writing still. I have a thriller in the works that may turn out to be a novella, and I’m working on the second in a series about reporter Danni Edens, the protagonist in A Lovely County.

Thank you to everyone who supported me through this process, especially Sara and Hillary, my daughters, and my ever-proud husband Lloyd. Also, I doubt I’d ever get to this place without the Northwest Arkansas Writer’s Workshop. Thank you to everyone who read and critiqued and encouraged in our weekly sessions.

Here’s the link to my newly born Amazon page:

https://www.amazon.com/author/loriericson

The wittiest writer I know, Russell Gayer, hooked me up on this blog tour. I’m thrilled to be included in his blog last week and honored to say we’re in the same writer’s critique group. His weekly Friday fiction story based on a photo prompt often has me rolling with laughter. Check out Russell’s blog at http://russellgayer.com

What am I working on? I’m finishing the editing, rewriting and what seems to be endless changes on a mystery novel about a young Ozarks reporter who’s trying to rebuild her career after being accused of libel. Danni Edens has a chance to repair that damage as she writes a series of articles on a corrupt jail program and a string of child murders; two investigations that have her butting heads with the wrong people who’ll do anything to stop her. But Edens’ personal life brings its own problems with a psychologically troubled mother and a father whose cemetery business is struggling with bad press alleging a ghost is roaming the grounds.

How does my work differ from others of its genre? Although my character is much different from me, she comes from a similar background. I grew up in the cemetery my parents owned, and I spent nearly twenty years as a newspaper reporter for both weekly and daily newspapers in the Ozarks of Northwest Arkansas.

Why do I write what I do? Writing mysteries is a passion for me because I love to read them. I enjoy the twists and turns my characters take, sometimes so unexpected they surprise even me. Some of my short stories lean more towards thrillers. I hope to eventually sharpen those skills enough to try my hand at a thriller novel.

How does my writing process work? Like any writer, my writing process starts with an idea. I keep notes on possible characters, clippings from newspaper articles that have sparked an interest and snippets of plot sketches for future stories. Before I start to write, I like to develop that plot sketch with some details about the characters and how they’ll deal with the troubles I’m throwing at them.

I’ve had some short stories published, but my biggest problem with a full novel is learning to let go and call it done! I keep finding things I want to change and not finding the time to get them done. This one has to end soon. My second story about reporter Danni Edens is growing in my head and roaring to get on paper.

I’m excited to pass the baton for this blog tour on to two very different and fantastic writers. Although one writes fiction and the other non-fiction, and they come from different continents, they share a last name. Alice White and I are members of the Northwest Arkansas Writer’s Workshop critique group together, and Sarah E. White and I once worked for the same daily newspaper. Please check out what they’ll have to say about their writing process next Monday, March 24, and the information below about them both.

When author Alice White married her best friend, who happens to be a Vietnam Veteran, and moved to the U.S. from England in September 2009, she never envisaged publishing her work until meeting Velda Brotherton; an already well established author from Northwest Arkansas. Velda became her neighbor, friend and mentor; teaching her how to publish to Kindle and helping to proofread manuscripts. Since then, she’s learned to use Createspace and tried to keep up with the ever-changing world of self-publishing. Check out her exciting time travel trilogy, The Blue Door, on Amazon and visit her website at http://alicewhiteauthor.webstarts.com/index.html and her blog at http://authoralicewhite.wordpress.com

Sarah E. White writes at Our Daily Craft (http://sarahewhite.com) a blog about crafting with and for kids and creativity for moms and other busy people. She also writes the knitting websites for About.com (http://knitting.about.com) and Craft Gossip (http://knitting.craftgossip.com) and is the author of two books about knitting, the latest of which, Quick and Easy Baby Knits, was published in August by Stackpole Books. She’s at work on another book for Stackpole, this time on color knitting, which should be out next year. When she’s not crafting or writing about crafts, she enjoys spending time with her husband and their four-year-old daughter.