Timothy's Thoughts

E ditor’s Note: It’s been a couple of years since I last did this, but Michael Hyatt recently posted about some of the things novelists can blog about and it rekindled my desire to interview a character from one of my books. I decided to sit down with Amber from Mother Not Wanted Timothy Fish: Amber, some of my readers may not have read your story. What would you tell someone who may be trying to decide whether to buy the book or not. What is it about your story that you think makes it special? Amber: You really know how to make a girl nervous, don’t you? Timothy Fish: I wasn’t trying to. Just tell us how it all started. The novel starts with you an Lizi on the train from St. Louis. Maybe you can tell us what was going on before that. What was it that convinced you to get on that train? Amber: I had to do something. I was at a point in my life where I couldn’t take care of Lizi properly. We’d recently gotten into church and our pastor was doing this series on the importance of men...

H ey guys, this is Sara Dawson. I hope I don’t scare you away because this is a guest blog. Timothy asked me to do this some time ago, but I’m not really that great of a writer, so I’ve been putting this off. I write what I have to for school and stuff, but it’s easier for me to just talk to people if I want them to know something. Anyway, Timothy asked me to read Mother Not Wanted and to write a review. Here goes. I think the first thing you’re supposed to do in a review is to tell what the book is about. If not, you can just skip on down to after I tell you what it’s about. Mother Not Wanted begins with Amber and Lizi on a train to Fort Worth. That’s part of the reason I took so long to write this review. I don’t like trains and Timothy knows it. I had a bad experience with a train. I was on a train that derailed and it could have killed me. There was another girl who did die. But I’d rather not think about that. Amber and Lizi get off the train in Fort Worth and they go to Fox’s...

I once heard of four old men living in a retirement community. They were all former police detectives and they spent their days reminiscing about how things used to be and discussing how the detectives of today didn’t know what they were doing. One day, they were discussing such things and they began to discuss how that it would be nice if they could pit themselves against the younger generation of detectives and prove that they were better. They discussed this for a while and decided that they would be quite the sight if they were to show up at a crime scene, one of them needing a walker. They were sure the police wouldn’t let them in and it would be hard to investigate from outside. They let it rest for a while, but then one of them suggested that the thing to do would be to bring the crime scene to them. They discussed how they could do this and decided that they only way it would work would be if one of them committed the crime. It took them a good deal of time to discuss the risk...

W hen I said I was struggling with my latest work in progress, I wasn’t kidding. I decided I needed to change the story one more time, so I went downtown to talk to Sara. It was supper time and Ellen’s café was noise, so I asked Sara to walk down the street with me. We left the restaurant and walked north along Main Street, going past the other restaurants and shops. There were several other people out for an evening stroll. I nodded at an elderly couple and thought I would wait till we got past them before I brought up the reason I needed to talk to Sara. She had already guessed. “You’re changing the plot again, aren’t you?” “Yeah,” I said as the white hair woman hobbled past me. “I got to thinking that having you help Kelly while you’re caterer isn’t that big of a change. And I’ve been giving the beginning some more thought. I got to thinking that the thing that would just kill you at the beginning is if you were on the outside of the movie production looking in with little means of ...

T he saga continues, I’m afraid. Another week has passed and I find it necessary to discuss the plot of my work in progress with my protagonist, Sara. She was with a customer when I arrived, but I told Carla why I was there and she seated me at a table in the back corner, poured me a cup of coffee and promised to tell Sara to come talk to me. I amused myself by looking at some old pictures of Ellen’s grandparents that were hanging on the wall back there. It was interesting to see how different the place looked when they first opened it. “What’s up?” Sara asked, arriving at the table as my coffee cup reached the halfway point. Let’s call it half empty—I’m in that kind of mood. “Sit down,” I said. “We need to talk about the story.” “Again? What are you planning to do to me now?” She sat across the table from me and rested her crossed arms on it. “This thing about you guys losing the contract just doesn’t seem to be working as well as I think it should. I could having story where you’...

F antasia has funny clocks. They aren’t so strange when you try to use them, but we can visit any time we wish. We can see things that haven’t happened yet and maybe never will, but it only works if you have licensed writer as your guide. With me being such a writer, I decided to move forward in time and explore a little, hoping to resolve this plotting issue I’ve been having with book five. I closed my eyes and when I opened them I found myself standing on Main Street, just outside of Ellen’s café. In front of me I saw what appeared to be a car wreck. A camera boom was positioned near it, but I saw no cameras or camera crew or anyone at all. I heard the door open behind me. It came to a stop so hard that the glass rattled. I turned around and saw Sara coming toward me. “I’ve got a bone to pick with you!” she said, pointing at me as she spoke. I could see the redness in her face. “Me?” I asked, putting my hand against my chest. Sara seemed to cool a couple of degrees. “You didn’t thi...

I watched Up for the first time the other day. Wow! Okay, so parts of it could have been better, but that setup… Wow! In a novel, we would call that section the prologue. It takes place in a different time with a different set of characters than the rest of the story and if some readers are true to form, they would skip over it, but all I can say is that I aspire to write a prologue like that. With hardly a word being spoken, the filmmakers paint us a picture of a couple who love each other very much. They live a long life together, but none of their dreams are realized. They dream of taking a trip to South America. They save their pennies, but life eats into their savings. They dream of having children, but the doctor tells them it isn’t possible. They keep dreaming, but the day comes that she dies. All that is left for the old man to do is to head off to the retirement community and wait to die too. By the time we reach the end of the prologue, we understand why the old man woul...

L ast Friday I sat down with Sara and discussed my next book in that series. She was quit persuasive and through the magic of blogging, this week I am posting the first chapter of that book. Please feel free to leave any thoughts, good or bad, in the comment section, but keep in mind that this is the first draft and I haven’t edited it at all. The story for the novel is that Sara helps an out of work waitress find the evidence she needs to prove that David, the grandson of the owner of a movie studio, is the father of her child and to convince him to provide for his daughter. Chapter One Blood covered one side of the man’s face. No one could expect anyone with such a terrible wound to live for long if medical help didn’t arrive soon, but as Sara watched, he tore open a small packet of sweetener, dumped it in his coffee cup and stirred it with a spoon. He took a sip of his coffee and looked down at his watch. “Do you mind taking this to that man over there?” Sara heard Carla say fr...

W ith me thinking more about Sara’s next book, I stopped by Ellen’s café. She wasn’t there. I found her by the river, watching a barge make its way downstream. She was sitting on the ground. I sat beside her. We sat like that for several minutes, neither of us saying a word, while the barge went past. Sara broke the silence. “I read your blog the other day—that post about what you’re going to do with the next book.” “I haven’t decided anything for sure,” I said. “I don’t like it.” “I didn’t expect you would,” I said. “If I had a better story, I would use it instead.” “It doesn’t fit with the other stories, you know.” She stared off at the distance bank on the Illinois side of the river. “How do you mean?” “You know,” she said. “All of the others were about someone trying to do something. My story was about me trying to get a mother. Then Neal was trying to become a Bible character. Then Mr. Mywell wanted to get Heather back. And all Martin wanted was for his family to be saved. No...

I t's been a while since I visited with my characters, so last Saturday I went down to Ellen's Cafe with the intent of writing a blog post that answers some questions I received from a reader. It was sometime between when the breakfast rush had slowed and the dinner rush hadn't quite started when Sara came and sat across the table from me. I had what was left of my breakfast pushed off to one side. My laptop was in front of me with a streaming cup of coffee next to it. I had printed out the e-mail from my reader and it was lying on the table to my left. "What’s this?” Sara asked, picking up the e-mail and looking at it. I told her. "That’s kind of exciting,” she said. “Someone’s reading about me. Are you going to let me help you answer it?” "I already answered it. I’m just posting the answers to my blog.” I showed her the answers. She looked at the answers carefully before she said, “These aren’t any fun. You should write somet...

E ditor’s Note: Today’s post is the second entry in Lieutenant Gamble’s Personal Log. (Reading Time: 2 Minutes) Lt. Gamble’s Personal Log (29 D.T.D): The outlook didn’t look any better when we woke this morning. Doc thinks he has the time of our death pinned down as close as he can get it, but he wants to run a few more tests to make sure. He’s using the equipment at the national hospital, which is just down the street from the palace. We’ve made the palace our base of operation. It and the hospital are about the only two places that haven’t lost power. It also has some of the most comfortable beds I’ve ever seen and there’s still food in the kitchen. It’s frozen, but I suppose the royal family must have had too much to take with them. Doc seems to think the people of this planet left after they found out they were exposed. If we can get off the planet within a week or so, we might be alright too, but that doesn’t look likely. The princess keeps asking our prisoner a bunch of question...

E ditor’s Note: Today’s post is the first entry in Lieutenant Gamble’s Personal Log. After abandoning the best starship in the fleet for fear that it would explode, Lieutenant Gamble finds himself stranded on a planet with seven other people. The planet was once thriving, but now it has either been evacuated or the population has been killed due to a type of plague. The eight of them must find a cure or a way off the planet, or they will suffer the same fate 31 days after their arrival. (Reading Time: 8 Minutes) Lt. Gamble’s Personal Log (30 D.T.D): It’s a terrible thing knowing when you’re going to die. I used to imagine that it would be nice to know, you could do all the exciting things in life without having to fear dying. I really wished I could have known that when I joined the military and received my orders to board a starship going out into deep space. The war had just started and Mom was sure that the ship would explode as soon as it went into battle. I assured her that there...

E ditor’s Note: Being a little pressed for time and having nothing else for Fiction Friday, I sat down with Sara to see where it would take me. Sara: Don’t stare at me like that. Timothy Fish: I didn’t realized I was staring. Sara: You’re just sitting over there running your finger around the top of your coffee cup, like you expect me to say something. Timothy Fish: That’s sort of the idea. Sara: Then what do you want me to say? Timothy Fish: I don’t know. I think I’m out of words. I was hoping you would say something. Sara: I can’t really say anything if you don’t say it first. Timothy Fish: True. Sara: Maybe I should start putting words in your mouth. Timothy Fish: That would never work. Sara: I bet it would. Here goes… Timothy Fish: Sara is the most wonderful person in the whole world. And she’s really pretty too. Sara: See? I told you it would work. Timothy Fish: I think that’s about enough of that. Say goodbye, Sara. Sara: Goodbye, Sara. Timothy Fish: Cute.

T his is supposed to be Fiction Friday, but today we’ll call it Fat Friday instead, and there’s nothing fiction about it. Besides, I can’t afford to head off down to Ellen’s and smell all that good food. Fictional or not, I’m sure those visits are adding inches to my waistline. Why Fat Friday? You guessed it; I’m fat. Yeah, I know you can’t tell it from the picture, but as Richard Mabry noticed when I went to one of his book signings last year, I’ve put on a few pounds since the picture was taken. I haven’t changed the picture because I keep telling myself that I’ll get back down to that weight again. And I intend to, but the last couple of years haven’t been conducive to that and here I am trying to be a writer. That doesn’t help either. I spend my days sitting in front of a computer screen and I hardly get up. These days, I may be sitting there for twelve hours each day. Then I get up and go home, where I sit in front of another computer, trying to complete a book. The result, I’m ov...

N o editor’s note today. You have just me and no one else because today I want to talk about my work in progress. In particular, I want to talk about the main character, Silvia Song. Silvia Song is a television reporter. She wants to be like her older sister, Brianna, who is an investigative reporter and a real go-getter. You’ve met her before. But Silvia isn’t an investigative reporter. Instead, she is an entertainment reporter and she isn’t very good at that. She see’s a criminal mind in every celebrity she interviews and if she isn’t more careful, she is going to get herself and her television station into a lawsuit for some of the things she has accused people of. She has been investigating one celebrity and thinks she has a witness lined up, but the witness turns out to be of no value. What Silvia wants is to get away from entertainment reporting all together.

E ditor’s Note: I figure any day I get to spend time with Sara is a good day. This week, I sat down and talked to Sara about a subject that came to light in the recent discussion of New Year’s resolutions. Timothy Fish: Sara, I’ve started writing another book, but I’ve still got book five in your series floating around in the back of my mind. We’ll see how everything goes, but I’m thinking that I might write it sometime this year. Sara: That’s great. What’s it going to be about? Timothy Fish: You know how in And Thy House Kelly got involved in the movie industry, a little. I’m thinking that I’ll expand on that. Sara: So, I won’t be in this one? Timothy Fish: Actually, I was thinking of making you the protagonist. It would sort of bring the series full circle. Sara: That would be okay, as long as you promise a happy ending, but what would you have me doing? I’m not an actor. Timothy Fish: That’s part of what I wanted to talk to you about. This concept came up about setting resoluti...

E ditor’s Note: Today’s post isn’t so much of a story as it is a character sketch. I hope you enjoy it. It was one of those afternoons when there weren’t enough customers to keep the workers as Ellen’s café busy when Sara walked out the front door, made a left and walked down the street. Most of the shops were as deserted as Ellen’s café. A few customers browsed the wares, but many of the shopkeepers sat inside reading books or stood staring out the windows, hoping for any sign that someone would open the door and step inside. And it was little wonder that there were so few people shopping. On top of it being in the middle of the week, the mercury hovered just below eighteen degrees, even with the sun shining brightly and trying its hardest to push it a little higher. A gust of wind hit Sara in the face and she pulled her coat a little tighter. She came to a shop, opened the door and stepped inside. There were three other people inside. One was the owner. The other two were a ...

E ditor’s Note: Wouldn’t you know it? Fiction Friday falls on Christmas, of all days. I’m spending the day with my family and I figure most people are too. What dedication for you to come by this blog on Christmas! Rather than reward your dedication with a post that says that I won’t be posting today, I thought I would invite you to come with me and visit Sara and her family as they celebrate Christmas. Mark Jr. peered into the box—the last package—turned away from it and went back to the car he had been running across the hilly terrain of the couch. He mashed one of the buttons on top; the lights began to flash and the siren began to blare. “I guess that tells us what he thought of that,” Ellen said. She put her own gifts on the floor and stood up. “I’m going to go fix breakfast.” Her husband didn’t look up from his effort to affix a new scope to a riffle. Sara looked up briefly, but her eyes went back to the new book she had in her hand. “That is, if you guys want breakfast...