Guest Post by Lee Thompson, and a Giveaway!

You guys know that I adore Lee. Great man, great writer, great friend. He’s celebrating the release of his new crime novel A Beautiful Madness, and you can enter the giveaway!
A Beautiful Madness novel cover (2) (402x640)
A BEAUTIFUL MADNESS BLOG TOUR + GIVEAWAY
 
A Texas Senator and his wife go missing… On the same day, their son is slaughtered by an enigmatic killer on the lawn of ex-Governor Edward Wood’s residence. Sammy, Wood’s drug dealing son, suspects his father of the crime. After all, his old man snapped once before and crippled his wife with a lead pipe. But there’s something more to these events…something deeper and festering just beneath the surface…
 
In direct opposition to Homicide Detective Jim Thompson, Sammy begins an investigation of his own, searching for the truth in a labyrinth of lies, deception, depravity and violence that drags him deeper into darkness and mayhem with each step. And in doing so, brings them all into the sights of an elusive and horrifying killer who may not be what he seems.
 
A brutal killer on a rampage of carnage…a hardened detective on the brink…an antihero from the shadows…a terrifying mystery that could destroy them all…
Welcome to Lee Thompson’s A BEAUTIFUL MADNESS blog tour! This blog, and the others participating, will receive a paperback copy to give to a random reader who leaves a comment and shares this post.
Throughout the book tour, I’ll be sharing fun facts about my first Mystery/Thriller, and also offering dubious advice to novice writers because I’ve had writers and editors farther along the path than myself give me tips that have helped me tremendously. If you want to up your game, pay attention and pass what you find useful on to those in your critique groups.
If you’re here as a reader, thanks so much. You’re every author’s life source. You’re the yin to our yang. The stories we set down on paper don’t seem to exist until someone else has read them, and the more the merrier.
Why You Should Read Widely
By reading great writers, across all genres, we develop more complex emotions and can learn to use those emotions to create more well-rounded characters.
By reading great writers, across all genres, we meet all kinds of people.
Chances are if you’ve spent most of your life stuck in a three or four different jobs, a couple different serious relationships, and still live in the place where you graduated high school, your worldview and the kinds of people you interact with in your neighborhood is very limited.
But the casts in dozens of terrific novels will help you see the scope of the world we live in and broaden your knowledge of people, which you can then use in your work.
A big hang-up for many novice writers is writing the same characters over and over and over because they have not lived enough or have not read enough to grasp the potential kinds of people available to populate their stories.
You’ll learn different ways to tell different stories, and different ways with which to start and end the scenes in your book. There’s an art to it, and we can learn it if we’ve got a smorgasbord to sample and lock away for future use.
You’ll learn and be influenced by different prose styles, have to look up and discover the meaning behind words, you’ll find those ‘ah ha’ moments hidden inside the structure of great plots, and when you read hundreds of novels that give an emotional payoff, you’ll dissect the dozens of ways it can be done.
It’ll make you a better writer, that’s all.
So don’t shortchange yourself or your audience by being a snob and saying you can only read this type of fiction because everything else is garbage.
For some variety, check out these novels (some of my favorites): THE FAULT IN OUR STARS by John Green; GRENDEL by John Gardner; THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS by John Connolly; A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN by Tom Piccirilli; NAMELESS by Mercedes Yardley; THE DAMNED by John D. MacDonald; GALILEE by Clive Barker; THE RAPIST by Les Edgerton; THE THROAT by Peter Straub; WATER FOR ELEPHANTS by Sara Gruen; THE END OF EVERYTHING by Megan Abbott; SHARP OBJECTS by Gillian Flynn; MYSTIC RIVER by Dennis Lehane; AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner; FEAST DAY OF FOOLS by James Lee Burke.
In A BEAUTIFUL MADNESS, my protagonist Sammy grew up as a governor’s son and was used to those types of people and that lifestyle; as an adult he’s a drug dealer, selling to that same upper crust, and also has a lot of experience swimming along the underbelly of society thanks to the way his sister Delilah lives her life.
If he’d had a different history and personality the story would have been a completely different one since he would be a different person. And as he reads the people around him like we read books, he begins to change himself, and he’ll need that change to survive all the death-threatening obstacles he faces.
 Lee T.
Author bio: Lee Thompson is the author of the Suspense novels A BEAUTIFUL MADNESS (August 2014), IT’S ONLY DEATH (January 2015), and WITH FURY IN HAND (May 2015). The dominating threads weaved throughout his work are love, loss, and learning how to live again. A firm believer in the enduring power of the human spirit, Lee believes that stories, no matter their format, set us on the path of transformation. He is represented by the extraordinary Chip MacGregor of MacGregor Literary. Visit Lee’s website to discover more: www.leethompsonfiction.com
A BEAUTIFUL MADNESS main page (http://www.leethompsonfiction.com/?page_id=2423)
Enter to win a paperback copy! There will also be a grand prize at the end of the tour where one winner will receive my novel, and four other DarkFuse novels in Kindle format!
 
Simply leave a comment on this blog and share the link.
 
Thanks to those who participate.
Happy reading~ Lee

9 Comments on “Guest Post by Lee Thompson, and a Giveaway!”

  1. Thank you for talking about the need to read across the genres. It is so very important. If writers don’t read and I mean really read then they are not doing themselves or their readers any favors. To me this is the key to being a good writer. Cheers, Ardee-ann

  2. @M: Thanks for taking part in the blog tour + giveaway! *Hugs*
    @Steve: Thanks for the comment and entering the contest. Good luck!
    @Aree-ann: Thanks for the comment and entering the contest. I’m in total agreement. Reading widely only serves to make us better writers! I think it’s key, too! Good luck in the giveaway!

  3. Thanks for the comment, Donald! Your chances are great for winning a paperback, man! You’ve commented on most of the guest posts. Thanks and good luck!

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