As I sit here researching, deciding where to plant seeds about my writings, where to send my books, and who would care, I thought about what I would say when the interviewer asks what’s so special about my writing. It occurred to me that somebody else may have the same basic answer, but my answer is this:
I take what life has given me, process it, and write my own endings. I turned my fears into opportunities, my anger into laughter, my failures into successes, my flaws into strengths, and my uncertainties into answers. My dreams come true. It’s not autobiography, because the ending is always different on the page. But the lessons were absolutely mine to learn, and I know somebody else can benefit from them too. Okay, what does that mean?
I write from a central perspective. Envision me sitting in a circle, with life swirling around me at all times–people, places, things, feelings, memories, just life. At certain points when I need to release, I just reach deep within and pull out the words that make these things come to life for my readers, and I present them with a new set of occurrences.
Every character is me, or someone I know–sometimes combinations of people I know. I use lots of ideals for those I want you to love, and recall feelings from lots of bad experiences for those I want you to dislike. I literally extract people, places, and memories, decide the best way to assemble them into new ones, dust it with imagination, and I stitch the story together for maximum effect. I use music to invoke moods, memories, and transport to places in time. A friend of mine said I make my words dance. I guess I do. Everything I write is a well-thought-out orchestration of movement between my heart, head, and the page. I won’t say it’s easy, but I pray on it often, and then it just comes.
Can you see it? Do you think anybody else would answer it that way? Well, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
From the Mind of:
Tonya D. Floyd, Author
“The Sun Hasn’t Set”
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www.tonyadfloyd.com