Inside the Mind - Ira White

I was an early reader. At my insistence, Mom taught me to read when I was three. By the age of 5, I had read most of the little books for kids that were available at that time. Dad started me on reading the classics such as Mark Twain, James Fenimore Cooper, etc. By second grade, I started writing. Reading the writing of such great authors inspired me to follow in their footsteps. Life got in the way for several periods of time, but the urge to write continued and is now a major part of my life.

My latest book, "The Children of Raven's Reach," was inspired by having come in contact with adults who had been trafficked as children. I wanted to inject this topic into people's minds as I feel not enough is done to stop this practice. The story became wrapped in fantasy with the practice of magic and soon the elements of science fiction, romance, and action were mixed in to make the book a mulit genre story. Other messages in the story that are woven into the narrative include the power of love and the statement that good cannot be accomplished using evil. My approach to writing this story is unconventional. I designed it to be fast moving and mind bending with the power to stir the imagination as well as reader's emotions. Though the subject is dark as night, there is, at the end, a bright light.

My writing is done mostly in the morning. In the afternoon, I sit back in my recliner and meditate on the story. I visualize the characters, their personalities and back stories. Sometimes, I run a scene with a character through my mind watching the way they react as the scene plays out. If the visualization works, I write it up the next morning. As I progressed in the novel, my characters began to tell me how to present them and their story. Sometimes, the story tells me a character is needed for a specific purpose. My visualizing creates the character to fill the slot and gives me important details about them. Much of their story is not in the book, but it tells me how they would react in different situations and how they would talk. I believe this helps me give depth to my characters and believeability as well.

I rise a 4 or 5 am. My first action is to sit with my two dogs and pet them for several minutes. After that, I make coffee, check my email, then begin writing. The writing will continue until around 8 am when I feed the dogs and make my breakfast. After breakfast, I write some more until 11 or so when it's time to take my dogs and myself outside for a walk. The afternoon is the time for visualization as I have described above.

The most rewarding part of being and Indie author is freedom- the freedom to create without needing to stay within conventions or needing to write within certain guidelines imposed on you by a publisher.

Life. Life gets in the way. Money is needed for food, shelter and other necessities. Things happen. Sometimes good things sometimes bad, but time is needed to attend to either one. Life can suck up enough time to leave you exhausted or without time to write.

I do much of my writing on my computer. I have no favorite tools or apps. I do a small amount of my writing with pen or pencil and paper. Nothing special is required.

Practice writing as much as you can, but read, read, read. Not just the kind of writing you are interested in doing, but all kinds. Read the old masters. They will give you a base to work from and compare any newer writing you read. Research anything that catches your interest. You never know what tidbit of information you might incorporate into a piece.

This is the weak part of my existence as an Indie writer. I don't do it well. While there are many who contact me in various ways to promote my work, most are scams. Be very careful as the scams can be very sophisticated and convincing. As for my own promotion, I have a website and I write a weekly column, Rants in the Pants, a short little essay that I promote through social media. It brings visitors to my site. I also post about my book in social media. In addition, I try to promote it in the real world by doing readings, getting my book in stores, and mentioning it to people I meet. I carry cards with my website and books on them and pass them out. All of the above has not been very effective. I am about to embark on another route. I had AI write me a marketing plan and I hope this will help.

I have started thinking about a sequel but that's a bit down the road. I have a bundle of poetry that begs to be read and I'm thinking of putting that into a book.