Voices by Margot Justes

People often ask where do writers get their ideas? It seems intriguing to come up with a scene, develop characters, plot out the story, bleed repeatedly over every page and finally have a final product.

As the saying goes-truth is stranger than fiction-how many times do we hear a news story and say "I never would have thought of that, or seriously, someone did what?" Talk about suspending your disbelief-just pick up the paper or listen to the news, fiction has nothing on real life.

I don't think I'm the only writer out there in fiction-land that hears voices in my head, and listens as characters hold their own conversations, and clamor for their own stories.

I find it entertaining, and at the same time somewhat of a challenge, because at the most inopportune times they pop in and hold a conversation. That is how a premise for my new novella came about. The secondary characters from A Fire Within demanded their own story, and they will get it.

I don't even have a working title yet, but there have been so many stories about art recently that I won't have a problem selecting what kind of fraud, theft, or forgery I want to write about. The best part, it may be another joint venture with Amy Alessio and Mary Welk, set around Halloween 2012.

I wonder how many of us hear those voices that refuse to remain silent, and wind up in a story.

Till next time,
Margot Justes
A Hotel in Paris
www.mjustes.com

Tidbits by Margot Justes

We often complain how time 'flies' it doesn't really...it just seems as if it does.

Take today for instance, I drank a pot of coffee-nothing unusual there-happens most weekends if I'm home, made some mushroom barley soup, did laundry, all the mundane everyday things that aren't done during the week, and are saved for the weekend.

I sat down at the computer and realized half the day is gone. I don't know where it went, and have very little to show for it, (except of course for the clean laundry and huge pot of soup)but it seems to have flown.

In the meantime, new writing projects are not 'flying', in fact they seem not to be moving forward at all, except the three pages I added to Hotel in Venice and a page to Memories of a Country Long Ago, and the continuous editing of existing projects.

Time has been spent polishing Blood Art and A Hotel in Bath. I regained my rights to A Hotel in Paris and I'm editing that too, as well as writing a new end to A Fire Within.

All in all I can pretty much figure out where the time went, it did fly, but at least I know the destination...my manuscript pages.

I have some good news-Amy Alessio, Mary Welk and I will release our 3 novellas in time for Valentine's Day, tentative date is January 1, 2012. This is an old project that has been resurrected, and I'm absolutely delighted at the prospect of working together with Amy and Mary.


Till next time,
Margot Justes
A Hotel in Paris
www.mjustes.com