Guest Author Interview - J. L. Manning

Today John Manning joins us for the guest author interview, read what he has to say below:

Please introduce yourself, who are you and what do you do?
I like to think of myself as an Author in learning. I have self-published six books the wrong way…. I published three books about Mars turning in to a vacation spot. I used my full name, John L. Manning Jr. for those three books. Recently I’ve used the pen name, J.L. Manning to publish my books.

I am an author of many different kinds of fiction. Space Sci-fi interests me, but I find myself trying to keep my books grounded. Sci-Fi is great because it has endless possibilities, but I try to keep my books believable.

What first inspired you to start writing?
Boredom.

Do you have a favorite genre to write in?
I can say that the genre I write in is Young Adult Fiction. I don’t like having to hold my tongue for children, but I don’t like to use too much foul language or be too sexual explicit with my writing.

Who is your favourite author and why?
I don’t keep track of what authors I read, but I am up to the third “Witch& Wizard” by James Paterson. I like how it is written in the first person. I wrote the first chapter of “The Night Watchman” in first person, because I show some of the background of the main character. The rest of the book was written in the third person perspective, because I was adding other characters. As I said, I’m an author in learning.

What advice would you give new and aspiring authors?
Don’t change point of view…at least not in the same book. When you start writing, start with short stories. Once you’ve mastered the short story then grow your stories into novels. I started with a novel, because I wanted to give the reader too much. I can see that some of my novels would have done better as a number of short stories.

If you could write the biography of anyone, who would it be?
I would write biographies about each of my characters…I should have done that before I started the books. To answer your question, I wouldn’t write a biography.

What are you working on at the moment?
A book that I thought was finished. I had the manuscript analyzed by a professional, and they weren’t nice. Really I learned a lot from it. I’m the type of critic that just has an opinion if there’s something I don’t like about it. If people say that your writing is good, what do you learn?

Tell us about your latest work and how we can find out more.
My latest novel is fictional, but it’s more of a self-help book about viewing yourself from a third persons perspective to help find the little things in your relationships to change, work relationships, family relationships, and friends.

“Changing the Little Things”
Authors Web Site; http://www.jlmanning.net/Change.html
Amazon Author Page; http://www.amazon.com/J.-L.-Manning/e/B007572XZQ/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1

Changing the Little Things Interviews; http://newscliptv.com/index.php?news=9275
New Interview; http://digitalbooktoday.com/2012/03/13/author-interview-j-l-manning-changing-the-little-things/

Thanks to John for sharing his time with us, on Tuesday we welcome Xavier Edwards to the hot seat