Guest blogging (somewhere else that is)

I'm working on a new upcoming blog post - but this time it will be as a guest blogger. My publisher, the fabulous (yes, I said, fabulous), Blue Moon Publishers has asked me to sit in their blog chair in April. Hmm, I think they have a blog chair. Hope so. I imagine it looking the one shown above.

So I am feverishly working on that right now. Okay, it's a low grade fever.

I love that they asked me to do this, as things are getting closer to the launch of Fall in One Day – so it is exciting times.

If you're just dying for the latest woofreakinhoo post (um, yeah), well here is a snippet of an interview I did for BMP.

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Join us as we chat with author Craig Terlson, the newest member of the Blue Moon Publishers family, about his writing and upcoming literary YA novel Fall In One Day!

Have you always wanted to be a writer? 

Even though I ended up with a career as an illustrator, and then later, graphic designer, my earliest memory as a kid was wanting to be an “author” (which is what I called it – because, anybody could write, right?). As a kid, I was a voracious reader, even plowing through the World Book Encyclopedia, which impressed my parents and annoyed my sisters. I always figure if you read enough books, eventually you will want to write them.

What inspired you to begin writing Fall In One Day? Did you draw from personal experiences? 

In the 1980s I worked in the hospital where LSD testing was first experimented with in the 1950s. Growing up in the same city, I’d always heard the tales of alternative treatments for addictions and psychiatric patients, but I never knew the full story.

Years later, as I read about the history of LSD therapy, I was amazed at the fascinating connections that all led back to my hometown. I combined this history with my own memories of growing up in the 1970’s in a small Canadian city. We were TV kids, being amongst the first to get U.S. television stations because of our proximity to the border. I still remember watching Watergate, and wondering what the hell was going on down there.

These experiences wove together to form Fall In One Day.

Can you describe your revision and/or editorial process?

I do ascribe to the Stephen King adage of writing the first draft with the door closed (from On Writing). But once I have the shape of something, I am a huge believer in beta-readers and editors to help me see the things I missed. As I gather comments, and my own insights from leaving the manuscript rest for a while, I begin to revise by asking two main questions: “Why?” and “Is this true?” For something like a novel, that’s a lot of questioning. I also don’t do a chronological edit, page by page, until much later. Instead I jump around to different parts, and try to deal with the various problems that emerge. Sometimes, like with Fall In One Day, I need to put a book away for a couple of years before I can really come back to it with fresh insight.

Pop over to Blue Moon for the rest of the interview.