Maurice Draine

Well, I grew up in a family where we didn’t have much money. But, as children, my mother never let that be known to us. We had no idea we were poor. This is a testament to all my mother’s hard work, we didn’t have much, but we had what we needed.

One of my fondest memories that makes me smile was when I was around five years old; we lived in a neighborhood where people didn’t put up Christmas lights for the season. So, my mother would put all three of her little children into the car, and we drove to the “rich” neighborhoods and saw amazing Christmas lights each year. As children, we really loved doing that. In addition, my mother would buy treats for us to eat in the car while we drove around and looked at the light shows. Thinking of this now as an adult still makes me smile.

I remember being a small child and being obsessed with Curious George. My mom would take me to the library, and I would grab as many Curious George books as possible to bring home to read. I couldn’t really read at age four, but I would give it my best shot. I’d look at all the amazing pictures in the book and imagine what I would do in those situations in which Curious George found himself. Also, since I could not read then, I would make up scenes and scenarios I’d interpreted from the images. I’ve always been very imaginative, and now that I write novels, it’s really come back to help me out dramatically when thinking of new story ideas.

Of course, Curious George and a lot of Dr. Seuss books. I also loved National Geographic’s magazines when I was a child. I was about eight years old; I was heavy into big cats, with my favorite being the Tiger. At that age, everyone thought since Lions were so popular for their beauty and fearlessness, that they were the biggest cats in the big cat world. But I wasn’t sure about that and learned how to do research then. Sure enough, I found out that the largest big cat species was, in fact, in the Tiger family, not the Lion family. And that made me happy and gave me bragging rights with all my hard-core Lion friends.

After the age of 10, I’d say I wasn’t really an avid reader at all anymore. I was very hyperactive as a child and needed to take medication to slow me down a bit. So, I liked things coming at me very quickly to stimulate my mind. I like information and pictures coming at me very fast. Books didn’t do that for me, well, at least not fast enough. But watching TV did. Many years passed before I was interested in picking up a book to read. But, as I got older, I found the suspense and thriller genre books, and realized that the pace I was looking for could be found in a book. Not as fast as a 30-minute TV show, but quicker than what I initially thought. So now, all the books I have in my online library are suspense or thrillers.

The first person I shared my first completed writing with was a guy named Tony. I met him on a young scriptwriter's website called Stage 32 back in 2016. Not sure if it still exists anymore; it might. But Tony and I would swap 10 to 25 pages of our screenplays and give each other feedback on them. I used to write screenplays before I found manuscript writing. Tony was the first person to tell me that my screenplays were so narrative that they probably would make better books. This was in 2016, and I didn’t find manuscript writing until about 2021. But, when 2021 came, I remembered what Tony had told me and decided to try publishing. I’m thankful I did, as I love it, and I feel blessed to have found something I want to do for the next 50 years of my life.

I was watching the news one day, and I learned that a woman had been sexually assaulted, and as a result, she got pregnant from the attack. At that time, I had never heard of anything like that before. After further research into this case, the woman terminated the pregnancy. So with my crazy imagination, I thought of a scenario where this attack still took place, but the woman kept the pregnancy. The child grows up and never knows who her father is, but ironically, takes up the same career path he did. But, once she found out who he was, she’d be one to bring the attacker to justice once and for all.

The first thing you need to think about is the character. You have to make the readers care for your main protagonists. Once the reader cares or feels sorry for them, they will follow that character on their journey to the very end.

They weren’t surprised because my bachelor's degree is in professional writing. They were happier for me and proud of what I had achieved. I’ve always been a writer, but not a creative writer. I’ve been in the corporate writing world since 2006. Creative writing is new for me, and I’m still learning a ton daily. I still have a lot to learn. However, I am passionate about it because I love this process. You will also need to love the process, as writing novels is very hard and challenging. Some days you will feel super bright, and other days you will feel like a dummy. To try and balance this out, create a writing process, learn to trust it, and you should be okay.

Since I have a ton of experience in business/corporate writing and not a lot in creative writing. I have taken online courses and watched hundreds of videos to help me become a better creative writer. I’ve even watched some great tv shows and movies, which also help. And I have been buying books by authors I admire and seeing how they craft words, paragraphs, dialogue, etc. together. I have been reading John Grisham, James Patterson, Dan Brown, David Balducci, Stephen King, LT Ryan, Willow Rose, LT Vargas, and Freida Mcfadden manuscripts as an example.

A young lady from India named Rose_Miller. I found her on fivver.com, and we have worked together on the last two covers.

I’m pretty bashful about writing intimate scenes. I don’t think I’ll ever write a detailed, intimate scene, as I’d be too embarrassed to write it. Even though I’m almost 43 years old, I feel like a 12-year-old boy and giggle when I try to write them. If I do an intimate scene, everything will take place off-page, so I don’t laugh myself to death.

No.1 - You don’t have to be an avid reader to be a great writer. It helps for sure, but not the end all, be all. You can still be a great writer and not a great reader. You at least have to watch great movies and tv shows. However, you cannot watch them like a fan, you need to watch those great movies like a writing student, taking mental notes and noticing how the writers and director put a scene together. Whenever the next time you watch a tv show or a movie, and the writer makes you feel a certain type of way, take a step back, and think about what s/he did to make you have that emotion. And then, try to copy it into your writing to get the same emotion. I learned this from one of Walter Mosley’s master classes. He is the writer of Devil in A Blue Dress.

No.2 - Write what you want to write. Don’t write in a genre that a publisher may want you to write unless you love the topic. The reason being, at the end of the day, you’re the one who will have to make all those edits, re-edits, and so on. Editing takes hours, days, or even months to do. So if you have to do such an undertaking with the revisions after the first draft, things will go a lot smoother if you love the topic you’re writing on. I learned this from one of David Baldacci’s master classes. He is the author of Absolute Power.

Well, this is the question that I have fought with. But Walter Mosley put it all into perspective for me in one of his master classes. I’m 42 years old and love creative writing, but I started it about a year ago. I’ve been doing business and corporate writing for 16 years. Sometimes, I wish I had found creative writing back in 2006. Maybe I’d be further along in my novel writing development and career. But in 2006, I was a 25-year-old senior in college. Walter Mosley said that when you’re that young, you haven’t lived long enough to be able to write a great novel from a deep perspective. And what I think he meant by that was the younger you are, you haven’t seen, heard, experienced, been a part of many things in life for that long. Longer life experiences better suit you to come up with amazing book ideas.

For example, me at 25 versus me at 42. Today, I have better ideas for books than I did at 25. So, a good age to become a novelist is over 30 years old. Walter said 40, 50, and 60 can be good ages to start writing novels, as well.

Well, I’m working on book 2 from my debut novel series; Honor thy mother. The first book was just called Honor Thy Mother. The second book is called Honor Thy mother: Awakening. I already have the cover created, and it is available to see on Amazon for pre-order. It should be out later this Winter. In this follow-up story to book 1, my main protagonist Rue Patton, has gone through a lot the past year. As a result, in book 2, she still has some mental health issues, some confidence issues, and some underlying daddy issues. These issues are causing her not to see who she was meant to be, and why she is here on this earth. There will be cases for which she’s the best person to solve, but with all the new baggage going on, she will decline to take the cases. That was until a mysterious case came along that she was pleaded with to accept. As the latest victim is found alive, she explains to Rue that if no one helps her, more young girls could die. Rue will have to figure out her baggage before more young girls get hurt.

Here is the description for the book:
“The Greater The Doubt, The Greater The Awakening… (Albert Einstein)

Stillwater, Minnesota, 1993. Nineteen-year-old Lauren Patrick (a Black woman) leaves home for a party. Little does she know she will never arrive. Twenty-five years later, Rue Patton, a rookie cop, and Lauren’s daughter finds her mother's attacker. But in locating him, she makes an earth-shattering discovery about her mom that will change her life forever. For fans of female protagonists, mystery and crime, and procedural thrillers.

I’m still learning the promoting game, but it seems to be an ongoing, never-ending process you will always have to do. When I first thought about becoming a novelist and writing stories, I never really thought about the promotional part. Also, now that I’m writing and having to promote at the same time, I don’t like the promoting part as much. It takes away time from my writing schedule and throws me off most days. Some days I promote much longer than I write. However, thankfully, I have found book promo companies such as AllAuthors who work hard to help lighten promotional loads off of authors. But, the book promotion game is like a hungry beast with a bottomless stomach, it needs to eat every day. Book promotion companies help authors promote their books and help take some marketing stress away. My advice to authors is to don’t try to do it alone. Work with a book promotion, marketing, or publicity company to help take some pressure off you, so you can stay on schedule to finish your novel. Whether you are a traditional, hybrid, or self-published author, book promotion will always be something you have to do. There is no world where the author can just write 100 percent of the time and never have to promote their book.