Which of my books is my favorite?

I had lunch last weekend with a group of ladies I went to high school with. They were kind enough to ask about my new release and one of the questions (and one I'm frequently asked) was which of my books is my favorite.  The easy answer is obvious. All of them. But then I broke it down for them.

Because this is a high school reunion year for me, it was easy to tell them that my latest, Return to Hoffman Grove, is one of my favorites, because I revisited some of the things I remembered from high school. My books are NOT autobiographical, but that doesn't mean some of the scenes I wrote aren't based on my observations--and as an author, I embellished some of those scenes for dramatic effect.

Each of my novels has a favorite part for me. While re-editing Intimate Distance, I fell in love with Uncle Vinnie again. He was my favorite character, providing love and support when Julianne felt unloveable and alone.

Touched by the Sun remains one of my favorites because it was my first "major" inspiration. I've always been fascinated with Pompeii, from the time I wrote a term paper on it in eighth grade. Add in my religious background with St. Paul roaming the region in a logical time frame, I couldn't stop my imagination from piecing the two together. The Holy Grail? Buried by Mount Vesuvius? I had to write the story!

Living Canvas was a throwback to my Night Gallery days. I was the kid who loved watching Creature Features (much to the chagrin of babysitters on those nights my parents went out). It was also my first "travel diary," sharing some of the beautiful places I've visited with my main character. I  also added my experiences with bed and breakfast inns and there was a house (not a bed and breakfast) which I drove past regularly that captivated my imagination (hence, Castle Valley Inn).

Mist on the Meadow is a nod to my German heritage, combined with my bizarre imagination. I wanted to write about that "moment of grace" when I was driving to work one foggy morning, and a buck stood at the edge of the woods huffing a cloud of breath into the cold air. It was a magical moment for me, and from that moment alone, the story was born.

Heart for Rent came from a visit to France. Walking through the outdoor market on the square. Another of those magical moments in my life (I'm easily impressed by the most ridiculous things!) I wasn't sure how to incorporate that into a story, and decided my main character was renting out her house back home while she struggled with personal demons.

So which is my favorite? Well, each of them touched me enough to write them, and each one allowed me to share a piece of myself and my experiences. (That's the "write what you know" part of writing.)

I wrote a book a few years ago which I haven't yet edited for public consumption that was inspired by an old  made-for-TV movie. Epitaph (a haunted house story) will eventually get dusted off and "fixed," but in the meantime, I'm working on the second Kundigerin book (second in the Mist on the Meadow trilogy). My plan is to complete both the second and the third book, and I have an inspiration for the next stand-alone to follow them. The inspiration? Tromp L'eoil. I saw the most fascinating YouTube video ... (did I mention I'm easily impressed by the most ridiculous things?) No idea where I'm taking it yet, but looks like a fun starting point, no?

Writing a Dedication

There are lots of people who help during the course of writing a novel, from editors, to family, to friends, to research sources. As an author, its important to recognize people for their part in making my book the best it can be, and often, I forget someone. I've started keeping better notes as I go along, but it's still not a perfect science. Some of the people help in ways other than the obvious, some are part of the inspiration.

The obvious ones are those who helped me with my research, like the ladies at the Community Crisis Center. Among those I forgot to include are my sister for her information on fires and insurance and restoration scenarios. She helped in other areas as well, so here's my shout out: Thank you, Robyn!

I often include someone who inadvertently helped to inspire a character or a scene -- and in this story, through the magic of Facebook, I had the opportunity to reconnect with my former tennis coach. Sharing memories brought back fun times and resurfaced old memories. One of those memories, a 30-second experience dating back to puberty, launched the idea for Return to Hoffman Grove.

Personal memories get reshaped in a book. Things I witnessed (but didn't live first-hand), people I didn't know well but empathized with. I played tennis with a hot-head who threw his racket into the fence, but I didn't know him very well off the court. I played with a girl whose father gave her hell for losing the first time she met an unknown, untried opponent on the practice court -- someone who usurped her spot as Number One on the team. Again, I didn't know her off the court, but these memories helped me to shape the characters you see in the book. Imagine what it must have been like to be that person! Art imitating life, molded to suit the purposes of a story.

Along with the situational memories, I remembered one of the stars of the tennis team. I can't say he inspired the story in any way, but he is part of the tennis memories that shaped the backstory of this novel. I have other memories of The Nice Guy. His murder would make a novel in itself, but I don't know that I could do that story justice. Instead, I wanted to remember his talent and the mark he left during his short life. He made an impression on me, as he did with most of the people he crossed paths with. Although he doesn't make an appearance in the book, he is part of the memories that went into it.

Inspirations come from all sorts of unusual places. For me, it's important to acknowledge them in my dedications -- story related or otherwise.

Deadline Day!

First - I need to thank everyone who showed up to the FaceBook launch and also to the folks who ventured out to the library to meet me live and in person! I hope you all enjoy Return to Hoffman Grove and I'm looking forward to reading the reviews on what you thought of it! I will continue to share my royalties (ebook and paperback) with the Community Crisis Center through July 1 of next year, so if you like the book, recommend it to a friend and support a good cause while you're at it.

I'm going to let you in on a secret: one of my male coworkers stopped by my desk to congratulate me on my sixth release and told me he planned to buy a couple of my books to find out about my writing. Here's the secret. I'm always surprised when a man wants to read my books. Not that men don't appreciate romance, but because it is so much a woman's genre that I'm always caught a little off guard. I did warn him (because I didn't want him to be surprised), along with a reminder that I write FICTION. It's all made up.

And speaking of work, today is deadline day. I'm not ashamed to tell you that many of my posts are written ahead of time and post on a schedule. This has certainly been an exciting week for me, with the book launch, the book signing and assorted out-of-town visitors added in. Oh, and did I mention the deadline? (oh, I did. Sorry.) And so this post is auto-launching while I am no doubt pulling my hair out and trying to maintain a semblance of order to the chaos that accompanies these days. Fortunately, I have a well-developed (if not overdeveloped) sense of order.

Next week I'll dive back into the second of the Kundigerin trilogy. And no, that's not procrastination, that's me trying to keep up with everything without losing my mind. The story is coming along nicely, I'm past the halfway point, but I need "alone time" with it. It's time for the antagonist to get nasty, and that always causes me a little turmoil. Once my life settles again, rest assured I will go full speed ahead with the writing. I've reserved a spot with the editor, so I have a deadline to meet.

Holiday season anyone?  Oh. Sorry. Sarcasm. It's all good. Just a little high-stress for a little while. I'll be back next week, hopefully without a straight jacket....

Character interview - Brody Parkhill

Return to Hoffman Grove will be available for sale in just a few short days! (Sunday, to be exact.) Until then, you can pre-order the ebook for $0.99 at the links to the right. After that, it will sell for $3.99.

In preparation for the launch, I'm interviewing the hero of the book, Brody Parkhill. (No, he's not a real person. Yes, this is slightly schizophrenic, but this is how I find out more about my characters.)

Me: Hi! I'm so glad you could join us today. We met Cinda and Audrey in Living Canvas, but your name never came up. How do you know the ladies?

BP: We all went to high school together. In fact, Cinda was my best friend back then, but after graduation, I went out into the world "to seek my fortune." The rest of the gang I used to hang out with all stayed around town.

Me: You said Cinda was your best friend. How did you meet her?

BP: We played on a co-ed tennis team every summer, from junior high into high school. She and I used to compete for the tops spots on the team, and we occasionally played mixed doubles to break a tie at the tennis meets.

Me: It was the tennis that drew you together?

BP: Well, not really. I mean we had that in common, but it wasn't until I found out what an idiot  her father was that I actually noticed her. He gave her a hard time when she didn't win, chastised her for not being good enough, when she was actually damn good. I know what that feels like. I had a rough time with my dad, too. I guess I felt sorry for her, and once we started talking to each other, we realized we had more in common than we thought.

Me: So you started dating?

BP: {chuckles} We never dated back then. We were both too screwed up to attempt any sort of mature relationship. Mostly, we went out with our group of friends to commiserate about our dysfunctional home lives. For some of us, living through the day was an accomplishment. Add in teenage insecurities, lack of self-confidence, those things make it hard to maintain an emotional commitment.

Me: It says here you were gone for nine years, that no one knew what happened to you except your mother. Why didn't you keep in touch with your friends?

 BP: I was a bit of a hot-head. My temper got the better of me more often that I would have liked. I quit the tennis team when my closest opponent won the scholarship I wanted, and he got it because of my bad temperament. I started running instead, cutting myself off from everybody so they wouldn't see me as a loser. Whenever I tried to let Cinda know how I really felt about her, she used to joke and laugh me off. I figured that was her way of telling me she wasn't interested. It was easier to walk away than be rejected.

Me: But when you told her you were going to move away, didn't she ask to go with you?

BP: Have you seen her? The woman flips my switches. I couldn't live with her and maintain a platonic relationship, and if I pressed the issue, I would have lost my best friend. No, for the the same reason I quit tennis and took up running, I figured I'd be better on my own. I learned how to control my temper better when I was alone.

Me: I'm hearing that you had a few outbursts after your return to town though.

BP: {chuckles again} Yeah, well. After I left town, I didn't care enough about anything to get myself worked up. I didn't know anyone, didn't take the time to get to know anyone when I moved away. When I came home, my emotions rose right back to the surface.

Me:  Once a hot-head, always a hot-head?

BP: I prefer to think of myself as passionate, now. I know how to control my temper.

Me:  You have some friends who have tangled with domestic violence. Do you ever worry that your temper will push you too far and you might hurt the people you love?

BP: Absolutely not. I've found other outlets for my anger. I would never intentionally hurt the people I love. Anyone who threatens me and those people is another matter. I went a long time without my friends and family. I'd do whatever was necessary to protect them now that I have them back.

Me:  And you and Cinda?

BP: Man, she was mad at me for leaving her behind! I had no idea. I really didn't think she'd even notice I was gone. She has a passionate nature, too, and that bubbled up when we ran into each other again after all these years. I probably should have guessed right away from her reaction that she was fighting the same emotions I did. If she didn't care about me, she wouldn't have been so angry that I'd gone, right? All I can say is as much as I never thought I'd step foot in my home town again, I found out a lot about myself, including it's all right to be a hot-head sometimes. It's better than being numb, walking through life not feeling anything and not caring about anyone.

Me: Welcome back to Hoffman Grove, Brody!

Plotting and the Ability to be Flexible

The classic debate - plotter or pantser? Do you plan every inch of a new book when you start or write by the seat of your pants.

For me, I do a bit of both. When I first start out, it's an idea. A concept. It can start with something as simple as something I see (Heart for Rent, with an Option started from a walk through a French market in Aix). Then I build a story around it, and sometimes that initial inspiration is barely included in the end result. But it is the impetus. With that being said, I am a pantser. At least at the onset of each book. Somewhere along the line, I'm forced to plot to give the story direction.

Working on Kundigerin 2, the second in the Mist on the Meadow trilogy. I posted a couple weeks back that the story was taking me into different directions, that the characters were getting pushy. Yesterday I discovered something. My intended hero wasn't pulling his weight. Nothing like a road block to stop forward momentum! These are the points where I usually stop writing to plot. Enough writing by the seat of my pants--where is this story going? Oh, I know where the story is going. The general plot is clear, along with the plot for Book 3, but my hero? He doesn't have anything to do. Well, that's not entirely true, but he doesn't have enough to do. And then the next plot twist came to me. This isn't what I expected at all! And yet, deep down, I knew. As a writer, you always know. From the beginning, one of the characters has been giving me those sly looks that say, "you know I'm going to to take center stage. I'll just wait until you figure it out."

In my humble opinion, being a pantser works fine for the onset of a story. It is when I'm my most creative. But in nearly every story I've written, there comes a point when you need to pull it into focus. Identify the theme, the goals, the motivations, the conflicts, and lay them in a cohesive form. That's when the plotting takes over, and for me, I find that often my brain is pre-plotting during that pantser stage. Then again, sometimes I have to go back and pull out the stitches in the story and reweave them. Authors often have enough innate ability to direct their story, and some have to work harder at it than others. My process works for me, but other people I know balk at the idea. Some need more structure, the outline. Even with the outline and the framework laid out, a story will often redirect itself once the words begin to multiply on the page.

This is where flexibility comes in.

The new development in my latest writing endeavor is causing me a lot of heartache. Not that I don't like what's happening, but that it requires more from me, the author, to present it well. It's a challenge. The fact that it intrigues me, the author, gives me hope that it will strike a similar chord in my readers.

You know the old saying, Life doesn't always turn out the way you planned it.