Author Archives: Michelle Garren-Flye

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About Michelle Garren-Flye

I am an author of romance, poetry, children's books and graphic novels. I also own a bookstore. My love of the written word runs deep.

Sandy prayers and a blog tour update, plus a plug for NANOWRIMO

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First off, let me say I’m praying for the people in the Northeast who are going to deal with Sandy’s full wrath in a few hours. I’ve been in a hurricane. I thought Irene was bad. That was the night and day where I could do nothing but pace the floor and listen to trees falling outside my house, praying none hit our roof. North Carolina just got swiped by Sandy this year, for which I’m thankful, but I’m watching and listening to reports of it bearing down on the New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia coasts. I have friends and family in all those states.

But the show—or at least the blog tour—must go on. I’ve got a Q&A up at It’s Raining Books today. Stop by and leave a comment for your chance at the fabulous prizes I’m giving away. And don’t forget to leave me a comment here for a chance to win a print copy of Foreign Affairs. I’ll be giving that away on Wednesday, but you’ve still got time!

Finally, I signed up for NANOWRIMO (NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth) this weekend. I’ve already got a rough outline of my book, have named the main characters and started to work on character outlines. So I’m ready to come out guns blazing on Thursday morning. I have every intention of finishing a novel this month, and I challenge everyone out there to join me. If you’re a writer at all, NANO is a great way to see if you’ve got a novel in you. It teaches you discipline and the joy of writing every single day. And if you don’t find those things by the end of the month (regardless of whether you finish the 50,000 words or not), well, you probably aren’t a novel writer. At any rate, it’s a great way to find out.

I will be blogging this month about my struggles with NANO. I am warning you ahead of time that I may use this blog to complain and vent my frustrations. I will also use it to remind myself to breathe. November is a busy month anyway, but when you’re forcing yourself to crank out nearly 2,000 words a day, it can be downright active! I look forward to finding out what it holds in store for me…

Self-published and proud of it: Stop squelching the new voices.

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There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt. — Audre Lorde

I’m really trying not to get angry now. If you want to know why, go read this article: Are Self-Pubbed Authors Killing the Publishing Industry? I actually read the article yesterday and let it sit for a day so I could be sure after cooling off that I didn’t see her point, but after reading it again this morning, I realized I’m still hot. So here I go on my soapbox.

Seriously? KILLING the industry? You want to know what’s killing the industry? Look a little deeper. Look at the agents who don’t want to take a chance on cross-genre works and new names. And the editors who won’t even look at a new author unless they’re represented by an agent. The publishing industry has become so intertwined, it’s almost impossible to get anything published the traditional route unless you’re grandfathered in.

Of course, there are exceptions. Everybody knows J.K. Rowling’s slush pile acceptance story. But that was more than fifteen years ago. More recently, of course, there was the Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James (what’s with the British authors with initials thing?) breakthrough, but let’s please remember that that started out as fanfiction, and was originally published online. So I’m not certain you can claim Ms. James went the traditional route at all.

I have self-published a book. I’m considering self-publishing more. And the reason I’m doing it is because I’m a writer, and I have every intention of continuing to write and be published, whether I have to do it myself or not. And to promote my books, I will do web tours and give away Kindles and Nooks, even if “Traditionally published authors aren’t stooping to these tactics.” Traditionally published authors don’t have to. Their publishers take care of publicity for them.

I have said before and will say again that the way for new authors to get their words out there is to go through small e-publishers. With that route, you get the benefit of a professional editor (believe me, it helps). However, I also know there are books that even indie publishers aren’t going to consider. And for those, Smashwords and Kindle Direct Publishing will continue to be desirable routes for writers. And if we want to sell our words for 99 cents, then traditional publishers need to suck it up and stop complaining. Buyer beware. If you pay 99 cents for a book, you might not enjoy it. It probably hasn’t been professionally edited. It may have typos and formatting errors.

On the other hand, it might be brilliant. It might be a new voice with something to say that you might enjoy hearing. At any rate, it cost less than a cup of coffee at Starbucks, so what do you have to lose?

If you’d like to try my 99 cent self-published 5-star on Amazon book, here’s a link: Weeds and Flowers. And my self-designed cover, which I am very proud of:

Playing with Emotions: What do you want to feel when you read?

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I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Since I gave up writing horror, actually. Surprisingly, however, the story that got me thinking about it again was a horror story. I finally got around to reading my friend John Peters’s story “Summer’s End” the other day. It’s not that I didn’t want to read it. In fact, I downloaded it weeks ago. It’s quite simply that I don’t have time to read anymore. Between my kids and my volunteer work and my own writing and just day-to-day life, reading has come in last on my to-do list for quite a while.

(BTW, my trip to Las Vegas the other day may have changed that. For four glorious days, I had, for a change, enough time. I wrote, I read, I slept, I had leisurely lunches with my husband and I shopped (a little). What luxury!)

It was on the way to Las Vegas, in fact, that I picked up “Summer’s End”. I expected it to be good. JP2 (his nickname from our old Horror Library group) is an excellent writer. I knew I’d be drawn in and find it difficult to put down. What I didn’t expect was how the story played on my emotions. Disgust, horror, and, finally, righteous indignation. I felt them all while reading this tale. And it got me thinking.

We writers play with emotions in our stories, but what we’re really playing with are our reader’s emotions. If we get good, we can make you cry, laugh, feel sick to your stomach (JP managed that one pretty well!) or get angry. But why do readers seek this stimulus? And what are they looking for in it? I can’t honestly answer this question although as a reader, I know I’ve sought all of the above, and as a writer, I’ve explored all of it (except maybe making you sick to your stomach—well, maybe…). In fact, the reason I stopped writing horror was because I wanted to make my readers feel better about the world around them.

What I realized after reading “Summer’s End” was that maybe that’s the point of horror, too. Maybe after you read a good horror story that’s really made you sick to your stomach, you stop and look around you and realize this world is so much better than that one…feels pretty good, huh?

I encourage everyone to read a good horror story before Halloween. Maybe you should start with JP2’s “Summer’s End”…

Magicians and magic: I saw David Copperfield! (and a couple of updates)

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That’s right. I’m fresh back from Las Vegas (well, actually, not so fresh, but then, who comes back from Las Vegas refreshed?) and I got the opportunity to mark something off my bucket list. I saw David Copperfield live on stage. To understand this, you have to understand that I’ve been fascinated by magicians and magic most of my life. When I was five years old, a magician chose me to go on stage to be on a flying carpet. He told me to keep my eyes closed the whole time, much to my disappointment, and I didn’t get to actually see myself “flying”. Of course, if I’d opened my eyes, I might never have believed in magic again, so I’m glad I wasn’t a rebel back then.

I had a brief fling with Criss Angel and David Blaine, but I started to see something kind of ugly in their magic, but I’ve always loved David Copperfield. I’ve seen almost every one of his television shows, and when my husband told me to pick out a couple of shows in Vegas, I chose (with his help) The Blue Man Group and David Copperfield. The Blue Man Group was cool, of course, but we’d seen it before and our seats weren’t that great. I splurged a little on David, though. We were right up front, so close that an usher questioned us to make sure we weren’t journalists. Technically, I guess I kind of am, since I blog and write and have a degree in it and all, but on Saturday night, I was that same five-year-old girl who kept her eyes firmly shut so I couldn’t see the trick behind the magic. And it paid off. The show was spectacular, and David Copperfield was as charismatic and entertaining as he’s ever been on any television screen.

So I’ll continue my quest for magic, whether it be in what I write, read, see in the movies or on television. But I may have been as close to the real thing as I’ll ever get on Saturday.

BLOG TOUR: Visit me today at Bunny’s Review for an interview and a review (4 carrots!) of WHERE THE HEART LIES.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS GIVEAWAY: Leave a comment for your chance at a (signed) print copy of the romance anthology FOREIGN AFFAIRS with my story “Agapi Mou”. If you’d like to suggest reasons ALL my books should be in print, I’m sure my publishers will take them under advisement…

A quick post: Join me at Ramblings from this Chick for more…

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Hey! You! Yes, you! Read an interview and some more great stuff about Where the Heart Lies over at Ramblings from this Chick today! Go check it out! And leave me a comment to say hey!

Is it a sign of immaturity that I like Nickelodeon? REMINDER: Enter to win!

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Seriously. I’ve always loved Disney, but recently I’ve found myself watching Nickelodeon shows with my kids, and now they’re being DVR’d because I don’t want to miss them! On my DVR: iCarly, Victorious and Drake & Josh. MOST of the time, I watch them with my kids.

Nickelodeon—like Disney—has a habit of creating what I consider “plastic” stars. Many of the young stars on their shows are multi-talented. They act, they sing, they dance. But often the real talent there is overshadowed by Nickelodeon’s managing and molding. It’s like finding a pretty rock and instead of polishing it up a bit and enjoying it, you have to cut facets where facets weren’t meant to be and don’t really improve anything. And yet, some of these kids manage to shine, even through the plastic coating.

Miranda Cosgrove of iCarly was the first Nickelodeon star to catch my attention. It was back when my younger son teased my older son about watching “teenage girl shows”. Well, I was once a teenage girl and I know what kind of trouble they can be, so I figured I better watch some of these shows with him. To my surprise, I found I enjoyed it, mostly because I could see some real talent in the cast of iCarly. I laughed at their antics and even teared up once or twice (yeah, I did).

It’s a slippery slope from one Nickelodeon show to many. My son and I discovered Victorious together, and I love that show. Set in a high school for the arts, it’s peopled by some pretty spectacularly talented kids, and the cast is led by Victoria Justice, whose music, I’m not even ashamed to say, is in my iTunes library.

So am I reliving my childhood by watching this stuff? Does my brain atrophy every time I sit down in front of it? Is it just good quality time with the kids? Who knows? I don’t even care. It is good quality time with my kids that I enjoy. And if it’s not exactly stretching my brain, well, maybe my brain needs a rest every now and then.

Oh yeah, before I go, remember to leave me a comment to enter to win a print copy of Foreign Affairs, the anthology from Turquoise Morning Press with my story “Agapi Mou”!

Today’s blog tour stops and a reminder about my Foreign Affairs giveaway.

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Goddess Fish Promotions has taken me all over the net, it seems, and today we make two stops, both of which I’m enjoying very much. Over at Once Upon a Time I was asked a very simple but very intriguing question. Describe a trip that changed you. Think about that for a minute. I had a hard time settling on one trip at first, but finally I figured it out. After you read the post over at Once Upon a time, check out this flash piece that was inspired by that same trip: China.

The second stop today is actually a review! My Reading Addiction gives Where the Heart Lies four stars and highly recommends it!

This is a story of loss, redemption, second chances, and a little bit of skeletons in the closet to throw a wrench in it. Great story line and smooth transitions with multi-dimensional characters. I highly recommend it. —My Reading Addiction

Finally, don’t forget about my Foreign Affairs print giveaway! Leave me a comment between now and October 31 for your chance to win a copy of Foreign Affairs in print. In the comment, tell me why you think ALL my books should be in print. What would you use them for? To prop up that uneven table leg? Firewood? Paper the birdcage? Give me a compelling and creative reason and enter to win your copy of the first print book with my name on the front cover. Check it out:

Isn’t it beautiful? Wouldn’t you love to own a copy? Well, here’s a buy link in case you just can’t wait for the giveaway to end: Turquoise Morning Press Bookstore. And now I’m off to do some real work!

Ahh…Print. Finally!

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Had to share the good news…I’m finally available in print! Yay! Foreign Affairs, the anthology with my short story “Agapi Mou”, is now available in print, so if you’re one of those who loves to hold a book in your hands…well, you can finally hold one with MY name on the front cover in your hands. Here’s what the cover looks like:

To celebrate being in print, I’m going to give away a signed copy of Foreign Affairs to the commenter between now and October 31 who gives me the most creative and convincing reason why my books should ALL be in print.

In other news, be sure to tune in early tomorrow for my TWO guest spots on My Reading Addiction and Once Upon a Time. Find out what I’ve been up to when I haven’t been updating my blog.

Nothing new to report here, but check out my interview on Megan Johns Invites!

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Check out today’s guest post here: Megan Johns Invites. Beautiful blog, lovely romance writer (Megan Johns) and an interview with yours truly…what more could you ask for?

Okay, something new on BREATHE would be nice, and in a perfect world, you’d get it. But I’m incredibly busy right now, currently writing two romances because I can’t make up my mind which I want to finish first and helping sort out my kids’ school’s library. I’m having loads of fun stretching the old librarian muscles, but it’s time-consuming and energy-absorbing.

Plus, I’ve still got five more guest posts to write for my blog tour stops in November! So, after this quick note and breathing moment, I’m off to work…

How to make your setting into a character…and why you should. Plus, today’s blog tour stop!

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I watched a movie last night that made a real impression on me. It was called “Saving Grace”, a British film set in a little town on the coast of Cornwall. What impressed me most about the movie (which on its own was very entertaining and made me laugh and cry), was that the town has become a character to me all on its own.

You see, I’ve been watching the British television series “Doc Martin” with my husband over the past few weeks. I’m so addicted to this show if I can’t watch at least one episode of it a day, I feel out of sorts. Last night my husband was on a Boy Scout campout and had forbidden me to watch “Doc” without him, so I decided to rent the movie the series had grown out of instead. I wasn’t sure I’d like it because, although some of the same actors are in it, they play totally different characters. None of the characters are the same.

Except the setting.

I’m not sure if they called the town by the same name, but it looked the same. The narrow curvy streets, the quaint cliffside architecture, the harbor clogged with fishing boats. Every time they showed the town, I felt a little happier and I knew it was because I recognized it. The town itself has become important to me, as if it’s a friend I visit when I watch the show. The setting of the story has become a character to me.

Setting is important to any story, of course. For the most part, you can’t let your characters carry on their story against a blank backdrop. City or small town, apartment or house, they need to be put somewhere. The question I’ve been asking myself ever since realizing the little town in “Doc Martin” had become so important to me is, “Can I do that in my stories? Is it possible?”

I think I’ve answered it. It is possible, because some authors have already done it. Think about Margaret Mitchell’s Atlanta. Didn’t you mourn the burning of Atlanta almost as much as her characters did? She must have really loved that city. Other settings I love as much as the characters in books: Hogwarts (Harry Potter), Prince Edward Island (Anne of Green Gables), and Bath, England (Jane Austen). In fact, if I look back on the books I’ve loved most, part of what I loved—usually a large part—was the setting. The authors not only provided a backdrop for their characters, they created living worlds.

Have I achieved this in any of my books? I don’t think so. Maybe I came a little bit close with Weeds and Flowers? Possibly. The setting of that book was the most important of any story I’ve told yet. I’m writing another one now set in my hometown of Brevard, N.C. It’s the first time I’ve tried it since W&F. Maybe the key is to love the setting as much as you love your characters, to let the setting influence the story and your characters. I look forward to exploring it further.

In the meantime, check out my guest blog on All I Want and More today for some background into the inspiration for Where the Heart Lies and an excerpt from the book. Leave me a comment for a chance to win fabulous prizes!