FOR LOVE AND MERCY by C. Ingrid Deringer Book Tour, Guest Post & Giveaway! {Ends 11/18/22}

Review By LAWonder10:

For Love and Mercy was a little difficult to get into at first. It was written in fragments of a person in a mental hospital confused as to why she was there. Her memory slowly came back to her. mainly through letters, she was given.

After this point, the story unfolded and a very good controversial story occurred. It covered the joys, devastations, dysfunctional family life, people stuck in their lives, and others following their dreams. This book also covers very sensitive topics. It covers the lives of a family up to the fourth generation.

This is an excellent book for Book Club discussions. It offers several topics for discussion, ones that need answers.

The Book Cover image Is simple but attractive and quite eye-catching. The Tile chosen is very fitting. The characters are very realistic and the scenes are portrayed well. It is written in the first person -which at times is confusing but is written somewhat like a diary. It keeps the reader wondering if it is an actual autobiography or fiction. It is not until the very last pages this indecision is made clear.

I feel the last half of the book is the most captivating and emotional.

Reader Beware: there are a few words of profanity, several “F”‘-bombs, and a few other less intense swear words. Sexual situations occur but no details are given.

I offer a Four Stars rating

This book was gifted me with no pressure to post a positive review. This is my honest review.

DO I EVER GET WRITER’S BLOCK?

Writer’s block is a devasting phenomenon that some writers experience. We often get the image of what it is like from movies. You know the story – the writer has an overwhelming
feeling of being stuck and not being able to move forward or write anything new – usually, a muse appears and they become inspired somehow and get back into writing – usually with gusto – and ending with a best seller. But in real life, I have heard of writers becoming paralyzed by writer’s block and struggling to find their creative spark. I can only imagine how devastating it can be for a writer.

I started writing fiction seriously in 2016. I’ve written novels, children’s books, and flash fiction. When people ask me if I’ve ever experienced writer’s block, I always laugh because so far, in my world, I have the exact opposite problem. I have so many ideas for stories in my head waiting to be written that I doubt I’ll have a lifetime to write them all.

My issue with writing is that I can get stuck on how or where to start a piece. But I’ve learned quickly that the solution for me is to write a scene, any scene, and work out from it – like tentacles. For Love and Mercy, my latest novel that was just published is a case in point. I wasn’t sure how to start the story, or even what point of view I was going to use. But I had a clear vision of a particular scene – a love story between a small-town girl from the prairies and an Opera singer who meet on a train in Greece. So I started writing that scene.

As I began to write, my characters began to develop – almost on their own. It was like they
emerged into real people. Once that happened, I wanted to know their background – who they
were, where they came from, what quirks they had, and the struggles they faced in their past.

Somewhere in there, I started an outline on cue cards – different scenes. As I wrote, I moved
those cards around in different orders. From there, the scenes and other characters, and the plot began to take shape. Once I started to have dreams about my characters, my writing took on a whole new level. My characters become real to me.

I should say, that I write literary fiction so my stories are about character driven and I focus on the human condition, so my characters’ development is always key to the story. So once I had my characters down pact, the plot began to emerge.

I still wasn’t exactly sure what point of view the story should be told from and that too was a struggle. I wrote different versions from different points of view and through discussions with my editor, we decided on which one worked the best.

Although I can’t see myself ever having writer’s block – sitting at my screen staring at a blank page – I do struggle at times when I write, but for me, it is just the process of writing and it almost always works in my favor in the end so I don’t concern myself too much about it.