CURRENT GIVEAWAYS


My interview over at The Art and Craft of Writing Creatively is HERE

Purchase my book Images of America: Detroit Lakes HERE

Monday, April 8, 2013

Blog Tour Guest Post + Giveaway: Ken Murray



Hey - I'm the new writer in the neighborhood. Pay ten dimes, then you can spend some time with me - you'll be walking through my mind.

Many fiction writers keep the same hero - each book a new plot. I decided to write novels on different themes, all with new people. Yeah - it's a different approach but I touch the cusp of insanity and I live inside each story.

OK - So where have I been these past five years. Well I've got some more prose coming out soon, but I switched genres. I've been studying, writing, and going to Rollins college critique poetry night sessions for two years.

Hey - I'm a break-out romantic poet. Sissy stuff you say. No way. John Updike died in 2009, but he won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction TWICE. He was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic. During his last interview he was asked what he would look back on when he thought about his career. He answered, "I would review my poetry, it's the most intense and the most satisfying."

One of my recent poems entitled 'Paradise' I wrote after I found the original score of an old Broadway play entitled 'Kismet' in a book store. "Stranger in Paradise" was the lead song. I knew there was a poem there. I listened to that album in the car for five days. Then I wrote it in twenty minutes.

Good fiction creates vivid images in the reader's mind. It captures the readers and pulls them in, much like a black hole in space that through gravity, pulls in everything that comes near it.

A good writer comes to understand how tough it is to show, not tell, using scenes and descriptions to advance a story. Writers should lead the reader, not have plot surprises all the time.

Write with fewer words. Carve out excessive adverbs or adjectives that only clutter the sentence. Limit their use. And use more action verbs that move the story forward, gently pulling the reader from one chapter to the next.

Mark Twain said, "Don't use a lightening bug when you need a lightening bolt."

I usually work out or exercise in the morning and begin to write late morning on into the afternoon. Then late afternoon and past dinner, I can write on into the night.

Tautology - Needless repetition of an idea, statement, or word. Nothing dulls the reader more quickly when you try to further emphasize a point already expressed.

I have been enjoying writing and hope you enjoy my books. I plan to keep on writing.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ken Murray lives with his wife Beth in Winter Park and has sons and daughters and three grandchildren. A graduate of the University of Virginia, he served in a top secret cryptographic unit of the U. S. Army in the Pentagon during the Korean war organizing intelligence from codes deciphered by the National Intelligence Agency. He moved to Florida in 1958, retired early and for the past fifteen years has been writing novels and poetry.

AUTHOR LINKS
Website  /  Facebook  /  Twitter  /  GoodReads 

ABOUT THE JEWELER
Cole Hanson learned the jewelry trade early in life. Dealing in emeralds in Columbia, Hanson is kidnapped and taken to the mountain jungle lair of the Black Jaguar, a cocaine drug lord. He witnesses a horrible triple murder, executes the killer, and escapes. Hanson is overwhelmed by a euphoric rush and struggles with this discovered Jekyll and Hyde personality. Hanson is recruited to become an assassin for the CIA who learns of his strange predilection for death and uses this alter ego to press The Jeweler ever deeper into espionage and assassinations around the world. Murder occurs in England. Diskettes with top secret information about the Soul Catcher are stolen. Incensed, Hanson seeks the killers, but is on his own without CIA approval as clues take him across Europe and to the Vatican for revenge. After twenty years of service The Jeweler attempts his toughest sanction. Hussein is well guarded moving between palaces and seems an impossible target until fate deals a hand. Hussein flees on his mega-yacht. Hanson battles his way on board for the final action and twists in the Persian Gulf.

PURCHASE THE JEWELER

GIVEAWAY
First prize: Autographed Copy of The Jeweler; $20 Amazon Gift Card
Second prize: Autographed Copy of The Jeweler
Third prize: Autographed Copy of The Jeweler



1 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Kelsey,
On behalf of Ken Murray and Book Marketing Services, I would like to thank you for hosting Ken today on Kelsey's Book Corner. Ken will be by later in the day to respond to any comments and/or questions your readers may have.
Please join Ken tomorrow when he will be a guest on LoupDargent.info http://www.loupdargent.info.
To all readers, please take a minute to enter the giveaway to win an autographed copy of The Jeweler.

BLOG CREATED JUNE 20, 2010