Jodie Pierce is thirty-six years old and lives with her hubby, John and four children in Cleveland, Ohio. She has had a fascination with vampires since she was a child and has been writing almost as long. Halloween is and has always been her favorite holiday and she dresses up on this day each year. She was an exchange student in Brazil in high school so you will find some of her experiences from there in her stories. Many of her stories have historical or researched facts as she also enjoys research. Mrs. Pierce is inspired by music and enjoys all genres but something has to be playing in the background as she writes. She has a short novel, “The Vampire Queen” that’s been published on April 7th, 2011. She has several short stories that she's written and is always busy with the next great vampire story. In her spare time, Mrs. Pierce enjoys movies, music, the metaphysical, reading and spending time with family.
http://www.amazon.com/Vampire-Queen-Jodie-Pierce/dp/1615723625/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1308406258&sr=8-1 (Amazon link)
Writing is not always as easy as sitting down and writing a story for most people and everyone goes about it differently. Some make an outline like we were taught in school. Others jot down notes or things they want to cover in the story. Me, when a short story comes to me I can write it in just a few hours or days depending on how much time I have. However, a novel or novella usually takes a lot of time and a lot of hard work for most. Luckily for me, it’s usually a fun and easy process. One I enjoy and move along with fairly quickly. It’s the revising and editing that bogs me down.
When I wrote The Reluctant Vampire, I wanted it to take place in England for a portion of it but I’d never been there. I started doing research on England on the internet for the usual vampire stuff. I was first looking for places my vampire could sleep by day. Then I found her a couple really cool museums and their contents to look through since she’d been a History major in college. I then found some cool architecture for her to look at on certain buildings and what they were. Finally, I found a nightly carnival on the water that would be perfect for finding her victims. I used all of these researched elements in my story. There are so many other things that can be researched and it was hard to contain myself but I picked only a couple things I wanted to research and stuck with them. However, the sky is your limit. Really!
Next, I go through my baby book of names and pick a bunch of names for potential characters based on their meaning. All my characters names have a subliminal meaning in the baby book I own. I use those names as characters I come up during my writing process. I always pick a strong meaning name for my main vampire woman and make the people around her have specific personality traits based on their name meanings. The reader doesn’t usually know the meanings but I do and it makes it fun for me as I write. It’s also a good place to find unusual names that you wouldn’t normally think of or need for a specific region of a country.
I then just sit down with all my information and start to write. I like to write as much as possible at a time so I won’t sit down to write unless I have several hours to dedicate to it. Once I’ve written it, this is the most daunting process for me. I go back over it and see if words can be changed, if it reads aloud smoothly, if I’ve used all my researched items that I wanted to and if I really, really like it. I reread it about two more times before I let anyone else read it (usually my poor hubby whom I hound for days asking him if he REALLY liked it or if he was just saying that…lol).
Then comes the publishing process that everyone hates but hopefully rewards you in the end. Just because you wrote a kick ass book doesn’t mean you’re going to get published. You have to be ready for a lot of rejection. You will get more no’s than yes’ and that’s a fact. There’s this great little book out there called The Writer’s Market 2011 and you can find it in any reference section of your library and book stores such as Amazon.com and other mail order book clubs. It lists many book (small and large companies) and magazine publishers, who and what they are looking for and how to contact them. It made the process much easier for me. I just made a list from the book and sent out a mass email. Actually, I sent my recently published manuscript to the same company twice and they rejected it the first time but took it the second time. Not to mention all the ones I submitted and got ‘no’s’ back or just an ‘ignore’ from in return. But when that one comes through…you feel like it’s all been worth it! Of course the hard work isn’t over (shameless self-promotion, book signings, marketing, etc) but it’s a great feeling that someone else believes in you and your story and wants to publish it.
Hope this inspired and helped some of you!
Happy Reading!
Jodie Pierce