George Swikehardt

The Author's Voice

My guest is award winning author, world traveler and The Writers Forum facebook group member George Swikehardt

I began writing a rough draft of my novel, The Second Coming of Angela, in 2005. Then life got in the way. Finally, 17 years later, I performed final editing and published it on Amazon.

I have a sequel that is 3/4's finished, The Resurrection of Carlo.

I also have an eBook of short stories (Three Odd Tales) on Amazon.com.

I am 79 and quietly retired. I have been fortunate to have experienced Turkey, Greece, Italy, Spain, England, Jamaica, Brazil, Chile, and Peru, and I lived in Peru for 6 years.

Not much more to say. Just more to write.

Your Website:https://www.tinydogpublishing.com/
Link to your story or where it can be downloaded:https://www.amazon.com/Second-Coming-Angela-George-Thomas/dp/B09S1G5SVL/ref=sr_1_1?crid=ZR0KNTF7HK52&keywords=the+second+coming+of+angela&qid=1678121651&sprefix=%2Caps%2C84&sr=8-1

I started writing the rough manuscript for my first novel in about 2004.

It took me about a month and a half or so, at the prodding of a client who kept wanting more chapters to read.

I owe her a debt of gratitude for that.

When the manuscript was finished, I put it in a box to await editing.

Six years later, I left for Peru, the manuscript, in the box came along.

Another six years later, I returned to Canada, the manuscript with me, in the box.

Finally, five years after my return, I started editing and then published it.

I now also have versions in Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, and German.

The sequel to the novel is in process, sixteen chapters are ready, and perhaps another 8 or 9 to go.

The best advice I can give anyone; is don't wait seventeen years to finish editing. :)

I was an avid reader as a child.

We didn't have a tv until I was ten, so reading fostered my imagination.

Sitting in front of the upright radio Saturday morning listening to the drama programs added to that developing imagination.

With no visual, there was only the option of creating one in your mind.

I am certain that is the reason that I devote so much time to creating characters and scenes in great detail.

I see them in my mind and describe them for the reader.

I had a taste for poetry at a young age.

My mother saved short poems that I would write to her.

When I was in middle school, Junior High, I wrote poems to a girl I had a crush on.

I would hand them to her in the hall, and she would always smile and thank me.

I never asked her out or walked her home, or held her hand.

I was too shy and insecure to do any of that.

About twelve years later, I ran into her in a department store.

Her first words were, "I still have every poem that you wrote for me.

I keep them in a shoebox under my bed and often take them out to read."

That still remains the greatest compliment I have ever received.

I had written stories here and there, but not at all frequently.

I suddenly, four years before I retired, decided to write a novel.

Something had sparked an idea.

I have never been able to just sit down, with no motivating factor, and write anything worth reading.

Something had to move me to do it.

The Second Coming of Angela was the motivation for the nearly completed sequel,

The Resurrection of Carlo, which should be finished by the summer.

It had better be because the germ of an idea for a third book in the series is already running around in my mind.