Today I’m conducting a session with…Carol Shaughnessy! ****Be Sure to leave a comment for Carol to be entered to win an E-copy of Mitch: Drakken Brotherhood Book 1*** Me: Tell me about an experience that had a profound impact on your life. Carol: I don’t believe I can identify a single experience that had a PROFOUND impact on my life. Maybe life is made up of profundities and we just live through them. There were teachers in school who fed my love of reading with suggestions and tips. They were there to encourage my writing and support it in local contests. My reading, my writing and my way of thinking has always been uncensored. Not that it didn’t get me in trouble here and there. Me: What personality trait of yours helps you most as an author? Carol: The trait that has provided me with the most help is PERSEVERANCE. Not just as a writer, but as a person. My father taught us there were no roadblocks in life. People chose to stop and not continue. Like injuries. I fell off the balance beam in junior high and tore the tendons in my calf. I was told to “shake it off”. I made it though the end of the balance series of exercises. It hurt but I kept moving forward. Me: What personality trait of yours hinders you most as an author? Carol: I’m a LEO. We want to help people. Really! But that compassion can bite back. I allow myself to get sucked into the vortex of other people’s problems. A sympathetic ear. Then I offer helpful tips or solutions. Natural, right? The problems don’t get solved, never move forward and my time wasted. Then patience runs out. I’m done. Me: What was your high point as a writer? Carol: I think the highest point as a writer for now was seeing my first book in print. It’s an awesome feeling. You labor over this literary child, send it off with fingers crossed that others love this child of yours. Friends threw me a party that lasted half the night. All the love and support from family and friends, many of whom were the encouragers, the cheerleaders that forced me to let the book go. Me: What was your low point as a writer—a time when you questioned your path? Carol: The lowest point as a writer was the first convention. I was surrounded by published and confident writers on a cruise. I write in a vacuum. I attended as many workshops as humanly possible. Found out I didn’t even know the jargon tossed about so easily. Why did I think I could join this world? What made me think I knew anything about putting words on a page? What was this language everyone seemed to know but me? I wasn’t polished, couldn’t hold a conversation. I remember in one workshop a well known author asked me about a synopsis. I had to ask her to define that word. I wanted to throw myself overboard. She explained it, looked over my MS and pointed out the first 55 pages were not needed and gave me homework. I did it after tears and wine and finished before dinner. Just keep learning! Me: What causes stress in your writing life? Why? Carol: Stress in my writing life? Computers. The lowest point as a writer was complete computer failure. I punched the go button, the lights came on and the screen never appeared. I’d heard long ago to back up, back up, back up. I had one back up. I cried, and cussed and stomped around the house. Good thing I’m on a concrete slab. Then I bought another computer, loaded the back up and went back to work. Horror doesn’t even begin to describe that feeling when your soul shrivels. Especially since I’m a pantser and have no way to recover a lost sentence, not to mention a whole manuscript. Me: How many books have you written? Carol: I’ve written over 30 books with another handful of novellas and short stories thrown around. If the characters are active, yes, the voices in my head, I can finish a 100,000 MS in about a month. That’s weekends off and nights. Writing is easier for me to do day time. World building is wonderfully easy for me and characterization is second. My Achilles heel is editing. I’d rather see a dentist or OB/GYN than edit. I do it of course. But I’ve wonderful Beta readers who help me fill in the blanks first. Then grammar. Me: How do you deal with rejections or bad reviews? Carol: Rejection is part of life. It starts early in our years and will follow throughout life. When you submit a MS and it comes back with a “No Thank You” it hurts. It’s something that I fought through. Luckily I submitted to several publishers at once. It’s a no-no kind of rookie thing to do. The rejections came back in two days. One with comments and I clung to them with both hands. The editor loved the characters, the world and the hook. Everything else didn’t meet their standards. I did something right and that kept my head up and my fingers on the keyboard. I have a review on Amazon. Someone purchased my book without reading or investigating the blurb. They hated paranormals. I received one star. I laughed. There are readers for every writer and mine are out there. Not this individual, but others. THAT gets my past bad reviews and rejections. Me: Tell me about your paranormal action/adventure romance, Mitch, Drakken Brotherhood 1. Carol: Naval Commander Mitch Bolton gets his assignment. He must hand-pick teams to go underground for two years to participate as test subjects to produce enhanced soldiers. While strongly pro-military, Mitch would personally rather bring home troops than use archaic recipes to make super troops to send away from America’s shores. Regina Gardner, biochemist and archaeological linguist, celebrates a win as her latest project […]