I Resolve What?- Welcome Tina Westbrook

   

I Resolve to…What?!

Happy New Year!  Allow me to introduce myself.  I am Tina Westbrook, and I am a writer.  I know, it kind of sounds like an intro at an AA meeting, but it’s actually one of the things I have put on my New Year’s Resolutions list, but I’ll get to that shortly.  For now, I will entertain you with some highlights of what I do and who I am.  Okay, maybe it will entertain you and maybe it won’t, but either way I’m doing it, so here we go:  I write books.  What genre you ask?  Well, I write thrillers.  I enjoy books that leave me wanting more and I hope that’s what I leave my readers with.  I also enjoy books that have that, “Gotcha,” ending and you sit there saying, “Oh dang!  I never saw it coming!”  Yeah, that’s me.  I figure if I like to read books like that, I might as well write them.  Some of my recent titles (all available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million and any other place you typically purchase books) are Death by Consent: An Erotic Thriller, Coffee with the Devil, and Cloak of Sanity.  My most recent book, A Presence in New Orleans, coincidentally launched on January 1, 2014. Do you like the way I just plugged it?  Yep, I’m pretty sly.

Besides writing, I’m an avid reader – bet you never saw that coming – but I never read if I’m currently working on a manuscript.  I have a fear I’ll read something and it will influence what I’m working on, so I don’t risk it.  It’s commonly referred to as paranoia, but I’m okay with that.

My other interests include photography, travel (I could go on-and-on about travel,) social media, and music.  But enough about me, let’s discuss my writing oriented resolutions.  Ooops, I guess that’s still about me.  Oh well, if I find them worthy of making, maybe others will, too!  

To be perfectly honest, I’ve never been one to make resolutions.  I’ve always felt that making resolutions – on the first day of a brand new year – was basically setting my own self up for a year of disappointment.  Then in late October, 2013, I made a snap decision to join NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month,) and write a novel in thirty days.  That got me to thinking; if I could buckle down and write daily for a month, then why can’t I do it all the time?  The answer to that question was lack of discipline.  So, I resolve to….

1)    Write daily, whether I want to or not:  I learned from participating in NaNoWriMo that despite my years of saying, “I have to be in the mood to write, I can’t just write for the sake of writing,” I was merely lacking discipline.  It’s true that creativity can’t be forced, but if you don’t sit down and just write, you don’t know what creativity you might be missing out on.
2)    Try something new:  I confess, I always write in third person.  This year I resolve to write a novel in first person.  It couldn’t hurt (too much) if I step out of my comfort zone.
3)    Give another writer a gift:  This year, I’m going to read four books that no one is talking about.  And when I’m done reading them, I’m going to review them.  Let’s face it, being a writer can be downright difficult.  This year I resolve to pay it forward.
4)    Call myself a writer:  This goes back to what I mentioned in my introduction.  I’m one of those people (writers) who never refer to myself as a writer.  In my mind, despite the fact that my sixth novel is now available and I’m currently writing my seventh, I don’t really consider myself a writer.  I tend to think I dabble in writing.  This year I resolve to stop thinking that way.  The truth is; if you write, you are a writer. 

Of course, resolutions aren’t written in stone, they’re nothing more than a formality.  But, when we resolve to do something, little or big, we plant a seed.  If we tend to what we plant, it grows.  With that, I wish each and every one of you a year of personal and professional growth.  

After a traumatic life-changing event, novelist Levi Brashear is unable to move forward. With a deadline looming, his agent and publisher begin to apply pressure and Levi experiences writer's block for the first time.
Turning the events of the past twenty-six years over-and-over again in his mind, he realizes the only story he can tell is his own.
Set in New Orleans, Louisiana, Levi Brashear is about to discover ghosts exist beyond his own imagination.

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