A collection of poetry written over a span of dark years in my life, sometimes with hope for the future, sometimes without. I wrote about the images in my dreams, my daydreams, my nightmares - think of it as a verbal expression of a painting in my brain, with all the variations you would expect from colorful to minimalist, strict verse to free verse.
This is the journal of my dark travails as I came to accept the impending death of my mother, who passed away when I was sixteen, less than a month after my grandmother. I had been watching this happen since I was six, but coming to grips with the reality of it was something I had difficulty expressing until I started writing poetry.
Along that walk love was found, lost, found again, trust trampled, life expanded. I found my way through and learned to live again, trust again, and more importantly, to trust in myself. Here, I share that with you.
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Good morning everyone. Today it's my pleasure to have with me Trine Daely, a poet with just a little bit of a dark side. Of course, that appeals to me as I have my own dark side which is often reflected in my writing. I hope you enjoy the interview, and I hope you take some time to visit Trine's blogs, website and download a sample of her book. I don't think you'll be disappointed.
LP: Good morning, Trine. Why don't you tell us a little about yourself? Where you live now, and where you grew up.
TD: Hmm, that might be revealing a bit much. Suffice it to say I grew up down south, saw my share of hurricanes, and moved to the Midwest less than a decade ago. I'm a single mom, my daughter can be very challenging and time-demanding, so forgive me if I don't get written stuff out there as fast as everyone else seems to. The cat is spazzy, the fish are friendly. We're a strange household.
LP: Actually sounds rather normal to me. Having been a single mother myself, only our fish were spazzy and the cat was friendly. Do you feel that the environment you were raised in has any effect on your writing and your choice of genre?
TD: Definitely. I was raised in a house full of books, and got hooked on Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King early, so even when I try to write a piece of any kind with lightness, there's always a bit of a shadow over it.
LP: Cool! Some of my favorite authors, and shadows can be very enticing. When and why did you begin writing?
TD: Young, maybe nine or ten when I really started with short stories, about eleven when I started writing poetry. As to why, I guess all the questions and rages I had about and at the universe had to go somewhere.
LP: Wow, that's very profound. You learned early to channel your feelings into words, and words into written context to express your feelings. I would consider that an early gift. So what inspired you to take that huge first step and self-publish your book?
TD: Putting my writing out there for people to read is something I've wanted to do for years, but poetry is a bit of a niche item. Legacy publishing does not seem to devote a lot of their time and attention to it, so seeing the opportunity to get it out myself was a wonderful thing.
LP: I totally agree, and I think there are millions of readers who truly enjoy poetry. Do you have any plans to try your hand at a different type of novel in the future?
TD: Certainly. I doubt I'll do anything with my small backlog of short stories, but I have an entire future world that's been running around in my brain since I was about thirteen, and I'm finally writing down the lives of those I see living there.
LP: That sounds like a fun journey. Is there a specific message in your poems that you'd like the reader to grasp?
TD: Am I trying to get some underlying idea to them? No. I'm not a read between the lines poet.
LP: Are any of your poems based on personal experience or real life issues?
TD: In some way all of them are. Some are just images from dreams that I've written down as poems, some are my version of story outlines, the (game #) ones came out of a challenge over a few games of Scrabble with a friend, some were written after a good bit of introspection. They're all pieces of me and my life.
LP: That's one of the things I love about poetry. Poets seem to have an ability to bring emotions to life and create wonderful images with simple words that take the reader into a dream of their own imagination. Each reader may feel, see or experience something different.
Do you have a specific writing style?
TD: I'm not altogether sure just yet.
LP: Still working on that, huh? I'm often wondered what I'm going to be when I grow up too. So, if you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?
TD: Stephen King, he's got some great works about writing out there.
LP: There's no doubt about the fact that he's the book world's Elvis. What book are you reading now?
TD: Simon R. Green's “A Hard Day's Knight” has my full attention as a physical book at the moment, but it's not unusual for me to have a different book in each of several rooms and whatever room I'm in, that's the book I'm reading there. I also take my e-reader with me a lot so I always have plenty of things to choose from to read. Right now the Kindle is loaded with Valerie Douglas's “The Coming Storm.”
LP: Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest?
TD: I'm not sure if they would be considered “new” authors, but some of the more recent additions to my list of favorite authors are Kat Richardson and Kelly Gay. Always looking for more authors to enjoy.
LP: If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your first book?
TD: I would have gotten someone much more tech-savvy than me to format it for everything. Put them in chronological order as best I could. Maybe added an “About the Author” section at the back with some links, too.
LP: All easy changes, even now. Another great benefit of Indie publishing. Are you currently working on a new book, and if so, can you share some of it with us?
TD: That would be the aforementioned future stories. Right now it's looking like it will be a set of novella length stories of different people in that strange and scarred future.
LP: I hope you'll come back when you're finished and tell us more about that. What is the most challenging part of writing your current work in progress?
TD: Finishing it! That and really digesting the feedback from my beta readers when they give it a good (though admittedly needed) kick. Your first reaction is always to protect your “baby,” so learning to swallow that and really listen to them as serious readers has been both challenging and enlightening.
LP: One of the hardest lessons each of us has to learn, but one well worth learning. Who are your favorite authors and what is it that really strikes you about their work?
TD: That's a long list. Beyond the ones I've already mentioned I'd add Patricia Cornwell, Jeffery Deaver, Laurell K. Hamilton, Kim Harrison, Dean Koontz, C. S. Friedman, Piers Anthony, Robert Heinlein, Janet Evanovich. I'm pretty sure I missed some.
What strikes me about the work of my favorites? Their characters and the world(s) they move in seem to exist on their own.
LP: I see a couple of my favorites there and I totally agree. Did you design your own cover, and if so, what inspired you to use that image?
TD: The cover of Life Games started as a photo of the foot (paw?) of a lion statue in front of an abandoned building. For whatever reason, those statues (and others like them) fascinate me. The next cover will also feature the same lion statue from a different angle.
LP: Do you have any advice for other writers?
TD: Keep writing, keep reading, listen to your readers, connect with others. Actually I have no idea what to say to other writers in general, everyone is different, and while I've been writing for myself for years, I'm very new to the indie book industry. I've found some very interesting people among my fellow authors already. Great bunch of folks.
LP: I think that's one of the most amazing things about the Indie industry. I'm sure there's some of the "me" attitude out there, but it's the minority, not the majority. Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?
TD: Thank you if you made this far, I hope you will join me on the future journeys. I wish you well and want you to know that I'm still new at this message to the readers stuff. I'll work on that, too.
*adds to list*
Thank you, Trine, for joining me today. I look forward to hearing more about your future works in progress. If you'd like to get to know Trine a little better, download her current work, or just stay in touch so you can see what she's doing in the future, visit the links below. Have a great day and Happy Reading!
http://www.facebook.com/Read.Trine.Daely
https://twitter.com/#!/TrineDaely
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/55168
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Life-Games/Trine-Daely/e/2940012438911
http://www.amazon.com/Life-Games-ebook/dp/B004WWQA5G / http://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Games/dp/B004WWQA5G
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