I thought I would share
a bit about my work with my readers today, and answer some questions and
answers about my book series. Enjoy!
As of Monday, April 1st, these are the stats for the entire series:
- 921,334 words
- 9,659 pages
- 18 books
- 1 editor
- 0 titles
My goal is to have one book ready to publish by October of this year. I am badly in need of some titles!
Section 1: Writing In General /
About Yourself
1.
What is it you love
most about writing? The escape. I can be in another place, anywhere I want to be. I
can be who I want to be. Anything is possible.
2.
What's the best and
worst thing about being an author? I’m technically not an author. I
could be wrong, but I feel like author is a title given to a published writer.
The best thing about being a writer…there are lots of things, really. I can’t
just name one. The worst thing about being a writer is that it is a sedentary
profession. You sit or lie around on your bum, in my case, for thirteen hours
on a typical work day. If I could, I would write while working out on the
exercise machines, while I’m lying in the tub, while I’m walking around the
park or the mall, or while I’m cleaning.
3.
Are there any parts
of being an author that you dislike? As I previously mentioned, I dislike
the whole sedentary thing where you sit all day. I also dislike those few and
far between moments where I get stuck on something and can’t move on.
4.
Is there anything
about you or your writing that makes you unique from other authors? I’m not sure yet.
A lot of people seem impressed by the fact that I’ve written eighteen books.
I’ve been called a “marathon writer” by several people in the industry.
*shrugs* I really don’t know.
5.
Tell us a bit about
yourself and your work as an author. I actually wanted to be a writer
since I was four going on five. I used to copy the junk mail advertisements
when they came in the mail to practice writing. Then, I grew up and left the
dream behind. In 2009, things were going terribly wrong in my life, and my
husband’s life. My husband was unfairly sacked from his job, so he decided to
go back to school. I was concerned about what we were going to do, and when I
voiced these concerns, he felt like I was trying to take his dream away from
him. We weren’t on the best terms for a while. To escape, I got online. I had
characters that I had created and I wrote bits and pieces about them and shared
their stories with my friend, Shelly. She told me I should put them into a
book. I didn’t think much about it. Then, she started sharing my stories with
her family and a few mutual friends, and they said the same thing, put them
into a book. Since my friends really and truly believed in me and supported me,
I decided perhaps I should listen to them. So I really started writing more and
more, and put even further effort into the characters, andShelly offered input
that changed the entire story. She was there when the story was in its infancy,
really. Even now, I look back on my writing from three years ago and shake my
head. Oh, and my husband finished school, graduated with honors, and we’re much
better now. Anyway, to make an already incredibly long story short, I was tired
of life and the way things were going, so I started writing as a way of escape,
and it became something bigger than I could have ever imagined!
6.
If you had to sum
up your book, (insert title), in three words, what would they be? I don’t know.
7.
What are you
working on now and what projects and ideas do you have lined up next? I go all over the
place, which isn’t difficult with eighteen books. One book is a sequel, two
books are prequels, and the rest are the series. I switch back and forth,
depending on where inspiration strikes. I can’t really say what projects
exactly. I’m just telling a story…an incredibly long story.
8.
Do you ever feel
yourself becoming quite emotional when writing a particularly intense scene and
is there a specific passage in particular where this was the case? Yes. I do tend to
become emotionally involved in my character’s lives. I feel their emotions like
they are my own. For example, I was a mess when one of my characters tried to
commit suicide. He thought he had lost his wife and his children because of his
addiction to alcohol. This particular character grew up in a very dysfunctional
home. His father was an alcoholic who abused his wife and children, and his mother
was an enabler. He was the very middle of five children, and he was essentially
raised by his oldest brother. When his father died, my character was so grief
stricken that he dove into the addiction head first. This happened starting
with the night he got the news of his father’s death. He said he was
celebrating, but he realized despite everything, he was depressed that his
father died. I can’t give away much more, but he and his wife separated, and he
started drinking. One night, he drank so much that he experienced alcohol
induced psychosis, and he hallucinated his father. That’s when he tried to
commit suicide. Now, to properly write this part, I put myself in a dark place
because I wanted to be in the room with him, experiencing it. I did research on
the subject matter. I listened to music that he may have been listening to, and
I imagined what would happen if I were in his shoes. I felt like this would
enable me to write about his experiences, and I sobbed through the entire
process, and it took days. The minute I stepped away from the keyboard, I
immediately took a two day break, I watched some comedy, read some uplifting
books, hung out with friends, and I basically did whatever I could to pull
myself out of that dark place, and I was successful.
Section 2:
The Creative Process
1. Where did the inspiration for your first/latest* novel, (insert
title), come from? I hated my life, and a friend told me that if I hated it
so much that I should do something to change it. I started writing stories to
escape from my life, not knowing that I was in fact changing it. My friends
encouraged me to put the stories into a book. I would say that a combination of
my hatred for the way life was going, and the encouragement of my friends are
what inspired me.
2.
Why do you enjoy
writing in your usual genre, or what is it about your usual genre that
appeals to you most as a writer? I’m not sure what you would call it,
but I call it realistic fiction, because it’s real places, real events, real
scenarios, but fictional characters. I like writing about things I can really
experience.
3.
If you were to write a novel outside your usual genre, which
genre would you like to experiment with and why? When I was a teenager, I wrote
horror stories, and even those were not typically about the supernatural, they
were written about real things, like my story, “The Bombing of _______ High
School,” which was written after the high school I attended experienced a
fortnight’s worth of bomb threats. My story was about what would really happen
if the threats were not just threats. Instead of turning me into the principal,
(which is what would happen if a teenager
wrote something like that today) the librarian thought my story was well
written and entertaining, so I shared other horror stories with her as well,
like an untitled piece I wrote about a student who had been pushed too far. I
may explore writing realistic horror. I’m playing around with the idea of
composing a story about a huge fear of mine. I have so many that I could
probably write a book of short horror stories just about my fears alone,
4.
When you first get
the idea for a new story, do you find that the finished product tends to differ
quite significantly from your original idea, or does the original idea remain
more or less intact? The original idea remains, but with realistic fiction, that
doesn’t seem difficult.
5. What came first, the idea for your first
book or the decision to write a book? The idea for my
book.
6. Would you expect yourself to be most
creative as a writer shut off on a desert island or immersing yourself in a
busy social life? Sadly, I crave solitude most of the time
because I have my characters, but I try to have a good balance between solitude
and having a social life. I can become inspired anywhere. I would love to have
the opportunity to work with the ocean as my backdrop, then spend time with my
friends, living it up, or spend hours writing in a huge modern cabin with large
multistory windows, a stone fireplace with a roaring fire in it, and snow
covered evergreens and mountains, then experience a day of skiing and
snowboarding with my husband.
7. Have you ever had an idea which was inspired
by a real life incident, but which you ultimately decided not to include in
your story because readers would think it was too farfetched? No. Many
writers quote about truth in fiction. There are bits and pieces of my life
woven throughout my book series that only family or my friends may catch as
they read it. It could be something as simple as a favorite hat from my
childhood, or an inside joke that only a friend would laugh loudly about, or
something I learned from someone else, stuff like that.
Section 3: A
Bit Of Fun... Movies/TV/Other Media
1. If your book, (insert title), was made into a
movie who would you want to play the main character and why? I have a few ideas
for characters, but I know three of the characters are going to be very
difficult to find people to play them due to certain physical attributes that
make them who they are.
2.
If you were to
write a story featuring a fictional character from another author’s novel, who
would you choose and why? I would probably write a sequel about one of Judy Blume’s
characters, like Sheila, or Peter and Farley Drexel Hatcher (FUDGE), from Tales of a Fourth Grade
Nothing, and Superfudge, tell the story about where they are now.
3.
If you were to
write a story featuring a fictional character from any movie of your choice,
who would you choose and why? I really don’t have an answer.
4.
If you were to
write a fictional story based on a real-life celebrity, who would you feature
and why? Again, I’m not really sure who I would feature.
5.
Would your book, (insert title), work best as a movie
adaptation or as a TV series? It could go either way, but it would probably
be best as a television series due to the length. The movie, even if it was a
trilogy, or five movies, like the Twilight series, there would still be stuff
that would have to be left out.
6.
If your book, (insert
title), was made into a movie, and you were asked for input into the
soundtrack, are there any songs that would work especially well for any
particular scenes? Definitely. I can’t list them all, but my characters have their
own music playlists on two of my accounts. The suicide attempt of my character
that I mentioned in a previous answer, there is a song I played that really set
the mood as I wrote that piece. I’m not sure how the artist would feel about it
if it was used in that manner.
7.
Is there a particular
scene from your book, (insert title), which would translate well to
canvas and provide a powerful inspiration for a dramatic or emotional piece of
artwork? Yes. There’s a piece in my sequel series, yes it’s a series
all by itself, where one of the main characters passes away. The character was
born with an inherited illness and the character died young, but this
particular person leaves behind a legacy for family and friends, and the
character’s name lives on due to this legacy.
8.
If you could choose someone famous to record your book in
audiobook format, who would you choose as the voice and why? This answer is an
easy one…Patrick Warburton, because I love his character in Rules of
Engagement. He can make toilet paper sound dramatic! *LOL*
Section 4:
Your Characters
1.
If you could invite one character from
your novel(s) to a dinner party who would it be and why? One character? Really? My character, S.
He is an oncologist who later becomes the chief of medicine of a certain
fictitious hospital, and he has a HIGH IQ, he’s a hyperpolyglot, and he is very
cultured. He has beautiful hands. He’s just beautiful inside and out. He would
be extremely interesting to listen to, and to learn from.
2.
Are any of your characters based heavily
on people you know or have met from real life and if so, would they regard it
as a compliment or an insult to discover they were the inspiration for the
character in question? My
female character, L, is a lot like a combination of my friends Shelly and
Allison. Both of those friends look like I picture L does. They’re both blond
and they’re both intelligent and gorgeous, but they’re not stick figures, and
neither is L. L is 5’10 though. L is intelligent, and she’s a pediatrician, but
unlike Allison, L does not get the hang of motherhood for a while. Shelly also
reminds me a little of my female character, G, who is a bit spoiled, gorgeous,
and VERY into fashion. And a later character, K, looks and acts like Allison
did in high school. My female character, D, I have no idea where she comes from
because there really isn’t anyone in my life like her. My husband is a
combination of my male characters, P and R. R has my husband’s birthday, and
he’s quiet and somewhat introverted like my husband, but P loves the outdoors
as much as my husband does, and he loves corny jokes, also something my husband
inherited from his father, and children. P is a big kid with a goofy grin. My
husband can be like that sometimes, too. A later character, J, looks like my
friend, Danielle, with green eyes, I even gave J Danielle’s birthday. She has
that gorgeous black hair and darker complexion. I hope my friends are not
offended that some of my characters remind me of them, or they remind me of
some of my characters. Some of the character modeling that happened was
accidental.
3.
Are any of your characters based on
yourself and if so to what degree, and do you find it easier or more difficult
to write characters based on yourself? My characters each have different aspects
of me here and there, but I am probably the most like my female character, T.
She’s a lot stronger than me. She has quite a bit more of a backbone than I do,
and she’s much meaner than I am. It is easy to write about her in certain
aspects, like when she told her eventual husband, P, that the last thing she
needed was another man, I actually said that to my eventual husband!
4.
Without being too specific and without
revealing too much about the plot, have you ever killed off a character who you
felt particularly attached to and if so was it an emotional experience writing
the relevant scene? Oh yes. There was a
secondary character that Shelly wanted dead. It was symbolic of something that
had gone on in her life, and she wanted me to tell her story in so many words,
and in my words because she knew someone would read it and relate to it, and
perhaps it would change their view on life. This was all last minute, too. So I
did this for her since she supported me from the beginning, and because I had
actually written about this character’s life, as a main character when I first
starting writing stories to escape, it was tough. We both cried, but I
wouldn’t’ go back and change it.
5.
Have you ever written a supporting
character, who took on a life of their own or turned out to be far more popular
than expected and if so do you have plans to feature them as the lead character
in a story of their own?
Yes, he’s T, S’s best friend from Japan. I’m already thinking he’s going to get
his own section now.
***There are some sections I have
skipped because I’m not published yet***
Section 10:
Promotional Section / The Big Sell
1.
Why should people buy your
book,(insert title)/books? I will have to have a friend answer this question because I
really can’t. I know that’s perplexing.
2.
Who do you see as your target audience? I write a bit about people of all ages,
so I would think it may appeal to a bit of everyone.
3.
Why would you recommend your book, (insert title)/books to other
readers? To escape. That’s
why I started writing was to escape from something.
4.
What would you say is your biggest
strength as a writer? Persistence and
focus. The fact that I could write for thirteen hours per day is a huge
strength, at least I think so.
5.
What target audience would you recommend
your book, (insert title)/books
to? Probably teenagers
and adults of all ages.
6.
What sort of audience will your book,(insert
title)/books most appeal to? Adults of all ages.
7.
Of all your books, which would you say
was the best starting point for a reader to be introduced to your work? From the beginning. It’s an ongoing
story.
8.
Is there a TV series or movie which you
think would appeal to a similar audience as your book, (insert title)? I’m not sure.
9.
Can you list a few other books which you
feel would appeal to a similar audience as your own book, (insert title)? I’m not sure.
My series is a bit about everything. You get a look at different career fields,
such as medical, law, political, just to name a few. One of my characters is a
stay at home mother of two, who also works from home. Another character gets a
chance to work from home, which is convenient since he and his wife have four
children, (two sets of twins), but he still has to be at his office to meet with people on an as
needed basis, and his wife has a demanding career, so family often steps in to
help when he can’t be there. So as you see, my book is not a medical drama, or
a political drama, or a crime thriller, so I’m not sure how to answer this
question.
