#lmford

[paranormalrealism]

Author To Author Interview

Orville Burch To L.M. Ford

Orville: How long have you been writing

LM Ford: Extensive writing was necessary in university and graduate school.  When I started my career, writing was a significant part of it. Yet I disliked the whole process. After a few years, something changed. I got interested in telling some of the stories in my imagination and now completely love what I once hated.

 Orville: What got you interested in writing?

LM Ford: My first serious writing, i.e. the first I finished, started because I believe in recording family stories. So I started writing down stories of a family member who was orphaned in 1880 and was taken into a Dunkard family (similar to the Amish). I ended up writing a book that was researched and based on the oral traditions, but was fictionalized into a novel. After numerous editors said how much they liked it, but didn’t buy the book, I’ve published The Thanksgiving Child through Amazon

 Orville: How many books do you have published?

LM Ford: 7 Cozy Mysteries & 2 other books currently at Amazon. I have 12 books under a different pen name with traditional publishers, but am enjoying the freedom of publishing at Amazon.

Orville: Are your books self-published or traditionally published?

LM Ford: I am both self-published and traditionally published.

 Orville: Are you a plotter or a pantser

LM Ford: I’m probably more of a pantser, but have used both approaches. For one publisher, I had to develop an extended synopsis before writing the book that was under contract, so those were plotted.

 Orville: What are your hobbies outside of writing?  

LM Ford: Reading, Rocks, Genealogy, Hiking, collecting folk tales

 Orville: Who was the greatest influence in your writing career?

LM Ford: I grew up in a household where both my parents had good insight into people and we interacted with a lot of interesting people. While I’ve never copied one in writing, that knowledge has definitely helped me create fun and interesting characters. My father wrote poetry, my Mom always beat everyone in word games.

 Orville: Do you have a favorite quote?

LM Ford: I’ve always gotten a kick out of the Errol Flynn line in Captain Blood. “This is what I call a timely interruption.” The setting of the scene is what makes it funny, of course.

 Orville: What genre do you write?

LM Ford: I write in several genres. I’m currently concentrating on Cozy Mysteries and have three series at Amazon, each with a different focus and flavor.

 Orville: What are your book titles?

LM Ford: The Thanksgiving Child, Whatever Happened to Little Jackie, Being Derrick Jenkins; No Dumping Allowed; No Pepper, Please, The Secret at Raven’s Point; Smuggler’s Cove; The Kensington Affair. I also have a Christmas book called The Road to Bethlehem.

 Orville: Is your work on Kindle Unlimited?

LM Ford: Yes, all of it.

 Orville: What are you currently working on (when will it be available)

LM Ford: I am currently working on the third book in the Movie Madness Mystery Series, which will not be available until 2023.

Orville: Who is your target audience?

LM Ford: Since I have an eclectic interest in writing myself, I wouldn’t want to exclude anyone.

Orville: What advice would you give a young person planning a writing career?

LM Ford: Be realistic, but never give up your dreams.

Orville: Do you think there are writing themes that are underrepresented.

LM Ford: Much of the traditional market seems driven by what’s selling, so at any given time, there may be some themes and genres that don’t get much representation.

[latebloomerblog]

It makes me sad when I see or hear girls say “I just want to be pretty.”  Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be pretty.  I admit to liking aesthetics and succumbing to vanity myself.  I’m trying to be not holier-than-thou. I'm not holy at all. I want to be beautiful too.  I want to be thinner, I want to be aesthetically pleasing. I like pretty things (including pretty people), maybe more than I should. Guilty.

But what bothers me about “I just want to be pretty” is this: the “just”.  I JUST want to be pretty.  It’s such a limiting goal. (So is I JUST want a boyfriend...but that’s a different bunch of bananas). There are so many worthwhile things you can strive to be. And pretty can be among them.  But it shouldn’t ever be the only thing you aspire to.   

I want to be so many things.  I want to be kind(er). I want to be healthy. I want to be true to myself. I want to be a good friend, a good daughter, a good sister.  I want to be a bangin’ writer.  I want to be a wife and a mother (someday, maybe) and a kajillion other things. Not all of these things are necessarily going to happen, and that’s okay...I’ll live until I die. I guess, above all I want to be happy (a lofty goal to be sure, but a worthy one nonetheless).  

But pretty isn’t happy.  Happy is the sum of so many parts and it’s not black or white or fat or thin.  Happy isn’t all the time, but it should be there enough to make the other stuff worth it. And I think part of happy is not “just wanting to be pretty.”  I think part of happy is not JUST wanting to be any one thing. (Unless it’s “fabulous”, because that can encompass a whole bunch of sweet stuff). Don’t hitch your wagon to that one star. The sky is lousy with stars.  Pick a bunch of those suckers.

That’s what I think, anyway.

PS: The other thing that bothers me about “just wanting to be pretty” is that there seems to be this notion that beauty is only achieved if you meet a pre-determined set of standards.  That if you look like someone else, or you have a certain shape, or bone structure , then you’re beautiful. But pretty isn’t a collection of rules carved in stone. Beauty has a definition that is flux and ever changing.  And it can apply to so many different things and different people in unique ways.

[galentines]

I fancy myself a writer (finally breaking out of a loooong period of blockage) and I'm often curious about other writers' writing habits/processes. Like, how often do you write, do you plan/set aside certain times to write, or just whenever you feel inspired or whatever? Also, do you keep any kind of journal/non-fictional personal volume other than your tumblr page?

i'm the shittest writer to ask advice of, because i have no processes and have gotten myself in no good habits.

my writing moods are like, as frequent and unpredictable as my mood/mental state. if i'm not being forced to write, i can go weeks without being able to bang out a sentence. if i'm being forced, i end up hating what i wrote because i didn't chose to write it. and right now, i have this, my already dead blogspot, and fic. that's all i've been doing and it's not productive and not good. i've tried keeping a small journal to jot down observations and ideas but it didnt last.

i can try to plan when to write but if i'm not feeling it then it just doesn't come.

[folklaurens]

Captain Jack

i-amthebadwolf also asked this so I'll answer together!

I like: WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE.

I hate: I can't really say I hate anything about Jack, especially after watching Children of Earth and that poor man and ugh he saved the world but sacrificed his family and it just hurts so bad.

[galentines]

If you could have any one thing that would make you feel better about life/happy, even just for a little while, what would it be?

i... don't know, actually. it's not really about not having things. it's about what i feel and how i think.

[galentines]

Don't take this as an insult bc I know opinions on this show/character are EXTREMELY divided, but Hannah from "Girls"? Seems like she's in the same life situation as you. Trying to be a writer in NYC. Has as quirky web presence and self-proclaimed anxiety issues. I repeat: THIS IS NOT AN INSULT. I like Hannah and feel like she could also be me. Although I wish I could be Shoshanna instead.

i need to watch girls, as i've only seen the pilot and really didnt like hannah in it. but i get this a lot lot lot, and i think pretty much every creative female in her 20s in the city relates to her somehow. its kinda cool to have a character so many struggling people can see themselves in. but i keep wondering about the other 3 girls and who they're supposed to be if everyone just relates to hannah and never them.

[latebloomerblog]

Young Love

There are certain spaces of time you wish you could erase.  For instance, those awkwardly self-conscious three years you spent in middle school.

That was when you fell in love for the first time.  That boy who sat next to you in sixth grade math class.  The one you spent the next six years in love with. 

You’re still not sure you’re really completely over him.  Every now and then, you still have those dreams about him finally kissing you, the same ones you had when you were 13.

It seems stupid and naive now to think about that as “love”, but you can’t explain it.  When you felt it, it was so completely different than anything you’d ever felt for a person before.  This tension in your stomach that was infuriating but not altogether unpleasant. 

You remember laying face down on your best friend’s bed, trying to vocalize these feelings into the duvet.  Trying to explain the torture of their unrequited state.  You could probably do the exact same thing now.  Lay face down on that same bed, talk about the gut sensation you had about that same boy.

You wonder if he knew.  He had to know.  It was six years.  Six fucking years of your life.  Jesus.  What a waste.  You were always friends, but not extremely close ones.  He had to figure it out at some point.  Besides, other people knew it.

You kept a “journal” of notes with your best friend in the 8th grade.  Your science lab partner intercepted it during a video about the moon landing (you were friends too and he happened to be the object of your friend’s affection, but somehow that was not the focus of the subsequent conversation).  Somehow, despite your brilliant use of code names, he had discovered your infatuation with sixth-grade-math-boy.  He thought it was pathetic that you had liked him for so long.  You tried not to put too much stock in it; after all he didn’t even believe we landed on the moon at all.

There is absolutely no way that he didn’t spread this news.  So, math-boy knew.  He knew you liked him.  He never said anything about it, but he knew.  And you knew he knew.  The awful part is that he didn’t say anything. 

But, god, you wanted him.  You wanted him to see you and feel that same adolescent ache for you that you did for him.  But he never did.  Not after he knew, and not after he had a chance to forget.

He did, however, date your friends.  One in middle school, another off and on in high school.  The latter tugged him around pretty well.  Hearing him tell you how much he wanted her, the way you wanted him, made your insides physically hurt.

Even after “dating” a couple of boys of little importance (there were no actual dates-and you had to dump one of them for putting his hand in your back jeans pocket right in front of your physical science teacher…9th grade you was kind of a prude) and really dating the boy who probably should have been your first real love, the thought of this other boy wouldn’t leave you alone.

When your first real boyfriend’s hand slid up your stomach on its way up your shirt that night on the beach, it didn’t magically erase the desire for that other boy.  It isn’t that you were thinking of that boy when your boyfriend copped his first feel out on the Isle of Palms or wishing it was him.  Because you weren’t.  You were thinking about the way his tongue felt against your own, and the goose bumps created by each graze of his palm. 

Even when he shut your car door for the ride home after that first time, your mind wasn’t on the boy you’d liked since sixth grade. All those nights when you had your limbs tangled together on the couch, you were only thinking about the boy enveloping you, worrying about him going to college the next year, wondering if you were laying against him the right way.

But after all of that was said and done, after you went to the prom with him and broke up with him twice, you thought about how you would always like that boy who sat next to you in sixth grade math class. 

You thought about how nothing had been done about it.  About how nothing would ever be done about it.  You’d forget about it.  It turns out that isn’t the same thing as getting over it.  Every now and then you’d just come across it and realize, “Oh, that’s still there.”

  Now it’s firmly in the past.  But there is that little pang when you think about how you used to feel and what never happened.  The random dreams are always of the teenaged version of yourself getting to be with him, never the current version of yourself. 

  You certainly don’t want to be with him now.  You don’t even know him anymore. He’s just a picture on a social networking page.  But it’s nice to think about the eighth or even eleventh grade you getting him.

  Sometimes you like to imagine yourself when you’ve become something special, something more beautiful, approaching him and telling him it could have all been his.  How mad you were about him way back when he only wanted to tell you about how badly he wanted your friends.  Laugh about your naivety and immaturity.  Tell him about the love of your life or the fulfilling single life you have.  Make him want it.  Make him want you.

  But it was never his fault he didn’t want you.  The heart wants what it wants, doesn’t it?  And besides, you never explicitly told him that you wanted him.  That isn’t how you operated. It still isn’t.  But it’s nice to imagine punishing him for never reciprocating your feelings.  Throw it in his face and make him regret it.  Because you sort of regret it.  Tossing so much emotion to someone who would never catch it.  It’s not like you learned anything from it either; only that the boys you really want never like you and you don’t want the ones who do enough. And that’s probably the wrong lesson.

  Ah, young love.