A big thank you to this month’s Guest Blogger, Mark
Brady! Don’t forget to check out
his blog: http://bradymarka.com/author/mb4384/
I met TLC at my first Write to Publish conference in
2013. She came up to me and introduced herself. I suppose she saw
the lost and lonely look on my face. Time has provided us the
opportunities to get to know each other better. TLC is a very sincere and
caring person. If she senses something is wrong she will do anything and
everything she can to fix it. This is what compassion is. TLC lives
out compassion every day.
TLC is also an accomplished trombone player. She plays in many festivals across the area. She is married, with three grown kids. TLC also writes. She recently completed her novel, a teen fantasy. She works at a local library and definitely may be considered an ordinary extraordinary worth knowing.
Hello TLC Nielsen!
Q) When did you encounter Christ and what was that like for you?
Q) When did you encounter Christ and what was that like for you?
A) I became aware of God at the age of 21. It was a hard
time in my life after I met and married my husband at a young age. I dropped
out of college to work, had two children 18 months apart and lived at poverty
level. At that point, we decided to go to church and it was there that I met my
Creator, who loved me. Getting to know Christ changed my life and saved our
marriage. We learned to rely on God together, despite the finances. It’s been
almost 30 years now since I was baptized and it’s been quite the adventure!
Q) Describe your immediate family members as if tweeting, TLC.
A) My family: 3 kids, 31 years of marriage + 3 grandkids
Q) You like playing the trombone, and you like writing. If you had to pick just one which would it be and why?
Q) You like playing the trombone, and you like writing. If you had to pick just one which would it be and why?
A) That’s like asking if I could pick one role in my life
like spouse versus parent, Mark! In struggling to discover an answer to your
question, I found I would pick both but for two different reasons. Definitely,
writing for the challenge and calling of taking emotions and ideas and stuffing
them into ordinary words, then into interestingish sentences that make some
kind of sense. As for trombone and music (jazz, hymns, classical) I love being
free of words and yet part of a group where my sound meshes with others to
become music. I guess writing is my solo endeavor while tromboning is my
community. Thanks for the unique question!
Q) How do you balance life and still find time to write?
Q) How do you balance life and still find time to write?
A) Writing time is rare, even though I’m a part-timer at
work. I juggle grandparenting, involvement with my grown kids, music,
volunteering, an aging home (100+ years) as well as a garden, while investing
in my marriage. Being involved with a writers group (Word Weavers) and finding
online support through 10 Minute Novelists helped me finish the rough draft of
my novel last month. It’s definitely a tightrope type of balancing.
Q) What experience(s) do you often draw upon when you write?
A) Most of my life – even my absent tooth showed up in my
fantasy novel when a character’s occupation was working with teeth
(toothsayer.)
Q) They say a writer should be a good reader. What do you enjoy reading?
Q) They say a writer should be a good reader. What do you enjoy reading?
A) I read a lot of Junior and Teen fiction, and I enjoy
Terry Pratchett, Rex Smith and Patrick Carmen as my fav Sci Fi authors. There
are some adult authors I like but I find there’s a better creative element in
youth fiction because of the less graphic nature.
Q) What do you get out of writing?
Q) What do you get out of writing?
A) I like the communion with God I experience when writing.
I feel that I hear him better as I sit with pen and paper, pondering what comes
next in the story, the poem or the article before me. Writing is the place I’m
most aware of God. He’s my muse.
Q) Who is your primary audience when you write?
Q) Who is your primary audience when you write?
A) I think that for fiction it’s teens but for nonfiction,
adults.
Q) Which activity inspires you the greatest to go write?
Q) Which activity inspires you the greatest to go write?
A) The quiet actually inspires me, those too rare of
moments.
Q) Where are you when your ideas come to you most often?
Q) Where are you when your ideas come to you most often?
A) Resting in the hammock or driving in the car seem to
offer the most quiet at this point in my life.
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