Blog Ring of Power--Terri Bruce

This week on the Blog Ring of Power, we're featuring our own hard-working leader, Terri Bruce, as she re-releases Hereafter. We're also making a change to our schedule and posting all parts of the interview on a single day. Hopefully this will make it easier for you to read the complete interview. This part discusses Terri's Creative Process; I'll post the links to the other sections at the end of the interview.

Was writing the second book easier, harder, or the same as writing the first one?



About the same because there were new and different challenges. Because the reader is familiar with the characters, the story has to dive into the action faster; at the same time, there are readers who might pick this book up first, without having read the previous one, so I had to include enough background information that they wouldn’t be confused, without boring the pants off the readers who do know the story to date.

In what ways, if any, was having experience under your belt a help the second time around? In what ways, if any, was it a hindrance?

I got a lot more adamant about my rights and what I’m worth as an author. Having experience—and having many positive reviews of my work—gave me confidence. First-Time-Terri would have let Thereafter go to print with errors in it or would have signed any of the three contracts that Second-Time-Terri rejected because First-Time-Terri would have felt powerless to do otherwise and/or because she would have thought it was the best she could do. She wouldn’t have had (and didn’t have) the confidence to fly without a net (self-publish).

In what ways has your writing grown or changed since you first started writing?

I hope I’ve improved steadily (and continue to improve) in all dimensions of my writing, but I’ve specifically noticed I’m getting a better sense of when a scene is sort of useless—when it doesn’t move the story forward. I just chopped the entire opening scene of a science fantasy work in progress for that very reason—it was all stage setting, but nothing actually happened. LOL—and I really liked that scene, too!

What’s something you haven’t yet tried as an author, but really want to?

I’ve had a historical fiction banging around in the back of my head for a while, but haven’t had the courage to attempt it. You have to get all the details right with historical fiction and I don’t know if I’m that exact a writer.

What’s something you learned about writing or being an author that you didn’t know when you published your first book?

How many friends I have. How wonderfully supportive the bookish community (writers and readers) is. It’s been truly amazing seeing how many awesome people there are in the world.



Terri Bruce has been making up adventure stories for as long as she can remember and won her first writing award when she was twelve. Like Anne Shirley, she prefers to make people cry rather than laugh, but is happy if she can do either. She produces fantasy and adventure stories from a haunted house in New England where she lives with her husband and three cats. Her second novel, Thereafter (Afterlife #2), will be released May 1, 2014.

Blog:
Facebook page:
Goodreads author page:
Twitter:
Amazon Author Page:
Smashwords Author Page:

Thirty-six-year-old Irene Dunphy didn't plan on dying any time soon, but that’s exactly what happens when she makes the mistake of getting behind the wheel after a night bar-hopping with friends. She finds herself stranded on earth as a ghost, where the food has no taste, the alcohol doesn’t get you drunk, and the sex...well, let’s just say “don’t bother.” To make matters worse, the only person who can see her—courtesy of a book he found in his school library—is a fourteen-year-old boy genius obsessed with the afterlife.

Unfortunately, what waits in the Great Beyond isn’t much better. Stuck between the boring life of a ghost in this world and the terrifying prospect of three-headed hell hounds, final judgment, and eternal torment in the next, Irene sets out to find a third option—preferably one that involves not being dead anymore. Can she wipe the slate clean and get a second chance before it’s too late?

Goodreads:
Amazon:
BarnesandNoble:
Smashwords:
Other: Hereafter is not yet up on Book Depository, iTunes, Kobo, Blio, and Overdrive, but it will be soon.
Hereafter is available in paperback and all ebook formats.


For the rest of Terri's interview, please check out these links:

About You
The Writing Life
About Your Current Work
Words of Wisdom