Inside the Mind - Ira White

I was an early reader. I started learning to read at age 3 when I grabbed Mom's leg and wouldn't let go until she promised to teach me to read. Dad led me through many of the classics- James Fenimore Cooper, Mark Twain, Edgar Allen Poe, and so forth. After reading so many of these books, I felt a need to write so I started out in third grade with a poem and in fourth grade I started a diary that didn't go far. My writing continued sporadically until college when the spark flamed up and I began writing in earnest.

My latest book was inspired by knowing someone who was trafficked as a little child and another I suspect was trafficked by the story I was told. In addition, I have been so disappointed by the lack of prosecution despite the evidence that has come out on some of our most prominent people. I also have had a lifelong interest in magic. Put these all together with an exciting and fast paced story, add some romance and mystery and you have my book.

I created the characters by meditating on the scenes and watching them play out. In a couple of cases, I knew I needed certain characters for roles in the story, but other times my meditation would reveal the need for another character. My meditations were on the characters and their behavior but also on the back story of each. Using this method, I was able to create depth in each character in the book.

I start out at about 5 a.m. with 10 or 15 minutes of petting my dogs followed by making coffee. When coffee is made, I sit down and either write or research until 8 a.m. when it's time to feed my dogs and chickens and get something to eat myself. Then it's back to writing until around 11 a.m. when I take the dogs for a walk. The rest of the day is doing what needs to be done until the late afternoon when I do my meditations.

I love creating and I love making others feel emotions and be informed. When I am successful at either of these I feel rewarded. Being able to be in control of my creations is also a part of it as well.

I had never written a love story or portrayed a sexual encounter nor had I ever described a fight scene in any of my writings. It took a lot of thinking and much work and revisions to complete these tasks for my novel.

My favorite app is my brain in imagination mode.

Read and read some more. Choose some of the classic authors to read as well as newer ones. Write and write some more. Keep on writing and go back and revise what you have written often. Also, get out in the world and log in some experiences. You can't write what you know about if you haven't experienced anything.

I don't do this well. Nother I have done has worked well so far. I get very good reviews of my work but it doesn't sell to traditional publishers and it gets lost online.

I'm considering a sequel to "The Children of Raven's Reach." I'm also considering gathering up my poetry and putting a book of it together.