What a treat to have Terrie Moran stop by ePen and tell us a bit about her writing style. And golf.  And panic. I’m not a golfer, but I sure get the panic part of it. Read on, then take a look at her newest release in the Read ’em and Eat cozy mystery series.  Thanks, Terrie, for visiting!

Golfing, Panic, and How-to Books

by Terrie Moran

When I was first learning to play golf, a game I still love to hate, I took lessons, I went to the driving range, I set up a felt putting green in my living room, I read books, and I watched videos. Hey, I was learning. And I was practicing. This went on for way longer than it should have. Finally, a friend said, “You do know that sooner or later you are going to have to go out on a golf course, don’t you?” I threw him an “of course, what do you think all this learning is about” look. He smiled and said, “I think it’s time.”

And that is when I panicked. I knew the rules, I knew the terms (“Mulligan,” which means I get a do-over, is my favorite), I knew how my stance was supposed to feel, and I even owned a set of secondhand but serviceable clubs. But actually play? Oh dear. Eventually I found some friends who played as badly as I did and, while I was never invited to a pro-am tournament, over the years my game improved and we had a lot of fun. When I began writing fiction, I thought there must be a set of directions for writing stories that someone would want to read. My go-to place is always the library and I was astonished to find shelf upon shelf of “how-to” books, many written by famous writers. So I grabbed a bunch and took them home. True to bad habits developed in school long ago, I put the pile of books next to my recliner and proceeded to skim, reading two pages in this book and three pages in that book and then I read the sentence that changed my writing life forever. Gillian Roberts, author of the fabulous Amanda Pepper series as well as many other fine books, had these words of encouragement: “Don’t write it right, write it down.”

CLICK! My brain nearly exploded. Gillian Roberts was telling me to get the story on paper. Not to worry about punctuation, spelling (I do love spell check) or whether the character’s name should be Mary or Marie. I can fix all that stuff later. I took the books back to the library and sat down to write. Yay liberation! I still follow the same path–write from the beginning to the end. Once I have a story written, edits and revisions make it readable. Writing fiction also taught me that I wasted a lot of time “learning” golf when I could have been improving my game by playing on a golf course.