Blog Ring of Power Presents: Terri Bruce Revisited

I think I saw you have a double take. Yes, today is a Blog Ring of Power day. We are mixing things up a bit so that you can get the whole interview in one day. No more waiting till the next day to see what else our authors have said. It's good for you, good for us. It's just plain good.

Interview with Terri, in all it's parts:

Part 1 @ Teresa

Part 2 @ Emily

Part 3 @ Sandra

Part 4 @ Vicki

Part 5 @ Terri

So let me restart this with a wave to the powerful leader of our group. Terri Bruce. *Waves* Hi Terri. If you haven't heard, Terri has gone through the ringer with her books and has decided to let them out into the world self published. So here she is, back and beautiful with her first book Hereafter out and about, embracing the world. 

Terri Bruce has been making up adventure stories for as long as she can remember and won her first writing award when she was twelve. Like Anne Shirley, she prefers to make people cry rather than laugh, but is happy if she can do either. She produces fantasy and adventure stories from a haunted house in New England where she lives with her husband and three cats. Her second novel, Thereafter (Afterlife #2), will be released May 1, 2014.

Section #2: The Writing Life

BRoP: With two published books under your belt, have you found that your writing process has changed at all? Any new habits or tricks that you’ve developed since your last book was released?

Terri:  I’ve learned to deal with writers’ block much better. I’ve come to understand that it’s a warning bell, telling me something isn’t working. I’ve learned not to obsess about it and to trust myself/my brain to figure it out. I write around or past the problem or work on something else until I figure out the problem. Often writing around/past the problem helps because when I know what comes before and what comes after the problem area, I can figure out how to connect them, which means I can figure out the problem of why they aren’t connecting.

BRoP: What has been the most surprising reaction to something you’ve written?

Terri: That there were people who thought there was romantic tension between Irene and Jonah in Hereafter because at times one or the other blushed. I thought that was strange because people blush for a lot of reasons—including self-consciousness and embarrassment.

BRoP: What is the strongest criticism you’ve ever received as an author?

Terri: When I was going through the problem with the publisher, there were people commenting on various blogs about my writing skill—based entirely on a one sentence snippet of my work. There were people saying that my writing sucks, that using italics in a novel is weak writing, etc. Stupid, gross generalizations pulled out of thin air that should have been easy to ignore, but which, of course, fed into my insecurities at the time (it’s very hard to go into a fight with a publisher/editor in which you are asserting you know better than them—there is a lot of self-doubt at that moment, trust me).

BRoP: Now that you have two books out, has dealing with negative reviews or criticism become easier or harder?

Terri: From the outset, I’ve believed that readers have a right to their opinion and knew that not everyone would like my book. That’s a fact (er, possibly two facts). Of course, I’m human, so I still feel a twinge whenever I get a negative review. But I just remind myself that I don’t love every book I read, either.

BRoP: How does it feel to have two books published? Does having two books out there feel different than having just one?

Terri: In some ways there is even more pressure—not to have just written a good book, but to have written a book that is equal to or better than the first, on top of the pressure of showing that you aren't a one-hit wonder. On the other hand, I feel more like a “professional author” and that I’ve got a more stable leg to stand on when I say I’m an author. One book didn't seem like much of an accomplishment, but two books…woohoo! That’s something!

Here's where you can find Terri Bruce:

Blog - Facebook page - Goodreads author page - Twitter - Amazon Author Page - Smashwords AuthorPage

Book Back Cover Blurb:

Thirty-six-year-old Irene Dunphy didn't plan on dying any time soon, but that’s exactly what happens when she makes the mistake of getting behind the wheel after a night bar-hopping with friends. She finds herself stranded on earth as a ghost, where the food has no taste, the alcohol doesn’t get you drunk, and the sex...well, let’s just say “don’t bother.” To make matters worse, the only person who can see her—courtesy of a book he found in his school library—is a fourteen-year-old boy genius obsessed with the afterlife. 

The Blog Ring of Power (BRoP) is a consortium of five speculative fiction writers who have banded together to bring you highlights from the current speculative fiction market--news, reviews, and interviews with speculative fiction authors--with an emphasis on small-press and self-published authors. So grab a cup of coffee, pull up a chair, and relax. Have we got a story for you...