1. What or who inspired you to start writing?
I guess one could say my mother inspired me to write by inspiring me to read from a VERY early age. At 9, I can recall being excited I was able to check out Agatha Christie's books.
I'd always dabbled in storytelling. I'm the eldest child of a career Marine. My father was NOT an officer so when we were transferred from one side of the country to another, we drove. Spending four to five days in a vehicle traveling through this big country of ours, I began to fantasize about the passing scenery--the beginnings of a writing career. A challenge to myself in 1998 to enter an online contest and, consequently, becoming one of the 25 finalists out of 500 entries, fired the hidden desire to write.
I can't turn the tap off now!
2. How did you come up with your idea for Healthy Homicide?
Funny story that... a friend and coworker in California was trying to increase her energy. She was researching various vitamins and asked me to help. I choose the B-vitamin complexes and was reading how one can die from an overdose of vitamins! At that particular time, I was trying to come up with an inexpensive, thoughtful gift for our supervisor who was retiring after 25 years on the job and figured since the supervisor was a published poetess, she might appreciate the time invested in writing a story. As my friend and I were laughing about dying from an injection of vitamins, my friend popped up with, "Gee, that would be a healthy homicide, wouldn't it?"
Well, anyone who knows writers knows I couldn't pass up that phrase for a book title. The rest of the story happened because I wanted to include members of the staff as characters so every time our former supervisor read the story, she'd be reminded of the people with whom she'd worked. I'd been listening to the radio on my hour drive to work and they'd been promoting the opening of a local day spa and the rest, as they say, is history.
3. What expertise did you bring to your writing?
What I bring to my writing is an innate love of the English language and a fair grasp of grammar and punctuation. I've always been good at English and early in my working life wound up writing columns in the newsletters published by whichever business I happened to be working at the time. For quite a while, I put together resumes for friends and the like and quite a few folks got hired on the strength of my work. One gal got hired without a face-to-face interview because of the resume I prepared for her.
I think another expertise I bring to my writing is my knowledge of the country. As a military kid, and lifelong gypsy, I've lived in 14 different states from Alaska to Florida, New York to Hawaii and all points in between. I have fairly good recall which works well when I place a story in a certain location. Toss in a love of research and I have great background to set up the scenes I need.
4. What would you want your readers to know about you that might not be in your bio?
My husband and I have recently reconnected with his children, and I'm a grandmother of eight! They are, of course, the greatest kids in the world--all wonderfully talented [as are their parents] and beautiful and handsome.
I'm also a member of the Rogue's Angels. I'm Sable Angel.
5. As far as your writing goes, what are your future plans?
I have so many ideas cooking, I'll have to live to 120 to get all my books written. Either that or learn to put my tukus in the chair and write three to four books a year. I find myself drawn to fantasy and science fiction more than romance these days.
Currently, I'm finishing a dragon story that is the basis for a series, I hope. I've started two other books for the series and find myself thinking of additional stories for the characters created in this base book.
6. If you could be one of the characters from this book, who would it be and why?
There is a Swedish shapeshifter/dragon named Petra who is small, petite, and appears fragile. However, as we all know, things are not always what they seem, and I think Petra is going to surprise readers with her strength. But that's not why I'd like to be her...she has violet eyes like Elizabeth Taylor, think of Elizabeth in National Velvet. My own hazel eyes get so little notice, I'd love to have startling violet eyes. Just my ego!
7. Can you give us a sneak peak into this book?
I've set this book in the current time. We humans have this tendency to think we are the only intelligent life living on this rock we call earth. What I've done is play a game of 'what if?'.
What if four to five hundred years ago in the British Isles a war began which would change how we all look at magic? Witches, wizards and dragons fought each other for the right to remain active in the scheme of day-to-day life. A pair of dragons escaped to a new continent and created a haven where they mated and hid their clutch of eggs, but duty to the clan called, and they were pulled back to the British Isles to fight for their survival and they perished.
Fast forward to May 18, 1980 and an explosion from a mountain thought to be inactive. The heat built up the previous months has incubated a clutch of eggs lying in stasis for hundreds of years. With the blast of Mt. St. Helens, a new era begins. People begin to report seeing -- dragons(?) in the skies of the Northwest. Around the world, the most bizarre occurrences are reported in the back pages of newspapers. Dragons are appearing on city streets, in national forests, and, apparently, out of thin air.
Reporter Aleda Sable knows about fabricated news, after all, she writes stories about Bigfoot, but when her editor insists the tip he's received from a dubious source is worth checking out, Aleda rolls her unusual gold, slitted eyes to the ceiling and agrees. After all, if it gets her started on her vacation sooner, why not? But really, dragons? In the Northwest? Right. And the forest is full of faeries and leprechauns. But Aleda finds the beliefs she holds fast fading into the realm of the unbelievable. Something is happening in the world that will change the truth as everyone sees it. Dragons in this day and age?
Maybe.
8. Do you belong to a critique group? If so how does this help or hinder your writing?
I belong to a critique group of writers who shall remain nameless... oh, alright. It's the other two Rogue Angels members. When I was a very green writer and not sure where to turn to pursue my craft, these two incredible individuals along with Rosemary Indra gently guided me through the first hurdles of writing. I'll always be thankful these wonderful people came in to my life.
Although Healthy Homicide is book five of six that I've had published, I still need guidance on my writing. I had a great aunt who lived to 96 years old. She commented she was continually learning, and the day she quit learning was the day she would be dead. I believe the same is true of everything, writing included.
We writers have a tendency to get too close to our stories. We become involved in the storyline, the character's motives, points of view, our story voices, and on and on. It is necessary to find reliable critique partners who will be constructively honest about your work. Please note the word constructive. There are too many out there willing to "knock you down a peg". I once had someone tell me [after my 3rd book was published] I had too much time on my hands! They exist.
Good critique partners point out the obvious bumps in your story you've overlooked because you're too close to see it. They are also the first ones to applaud your success and toast the book contracts you get. If you're very lucky they become great friends.
9. When did you first decide to submit your work? Please tell us what or who encouraged you to take this big step?
In 1998, my husband and I moved back to Oregon from Hawaii because my father-in-law was diagnosed with a terminal illness, and we wanted to spend as much time with him as possible. Watching this wonderful, healthy human being morph from an 80-lb pack backpacker to bedbound in less than a year was agony for all of us.
As I said above, I'd "played" with writing for a few years but never got serious. I was surfing the web one day and stumbled across a contest being put on by Diet Coke. The theme was "Living life to the fullest." Well, I told myself if I was a writer then I needed to write. I entered the contest with a story where the main character has one more day of getting up, taking a shower, fixing breakfast, walking his dog...until the sound of the ventilator kicks in and... it was a dream. Yeah, yeah I know, done to death, but it was my first real attempt at writing, and it was chosen out of 500 entries to be one of 25 finalists.
The approval from winning the contest [prize was having my bio and story published on a website Diet Coke set up specifically for the winners for 3 months] opened the door for my writing. I finally realized what I wanted to be when I grew up -- a writer.
Through all of this, my husband has been my BIGGEST fan and promoter. He constantly carries my business card and passes them out like candy. Anyone who talks about reading will have their ear bent as to my abilities as a writer. Think I'll keep him!
Along with him, my critique partners have cheered me on, held my hand through the nagging doubts every artist has and cheered when I've gotten a contract.
10. What is the best and worst advice you ever received? (regarding writing or publishing)
The best advice I recieved was from a publisher who was kind enough to read my first attempt at writing and point out the characters were so nasty why would she want to read about them much less publish a story about them. I reread the story and, after swearing she didn' t have a clue what she was talking about, agreed with her. I went back, rewrote, and resubmitted my work to another publisher because the first had told me she already had one story about a younger man/older woman she was publishing, and those kind of stories really wouldn't interest anyone. Really? Every publisher around has an "older" heroine line now. Must not have gotten the memo she did.
I tried to find the publishing house a couple years ago and they've closed their doors.
Oh, well. Her honest comments helped me to realize I needed to edit, edit, edit my work before I let anyone see it including critique partners.
11. Do you outline your books or just start writing?
I start out as a "seat of the pants" writer, no outline. That having been said, I found myself having to institute a few assists I hadn't used previously with the dragon story. Since I have a great many characters scattered all over the world, I've started bios on them with descriptions and a little bit of back story. When I submitted the idea to my publisher, I had to write a synopsis of the story - essentially, an outline. It helped to gel the direction of the story. Writing by seat of the pants creates the best story for me because my characters take the lead and move the story forward. However, it's good to aim for a goal at the end of the story, and an outline can provide the target.
For the most part, I allow my characters to steer the story in the direction they want. So far, they've done a pretty good job.
12. Anything else you might want to add?
There is discussion that those of us who are epublished aren't "really" published, and I want to weigh in on that discussion. It takes me around one full year to write, edit and pull my quick books (less than 300 pages) together. I can pretty well guess other writers take the same time to do the same thing. I've yet to have someone buy my print-on-demand book, have me autograph it, then tell me I'm not a real writer. For real readers, the format doesn't matter. And for me, I'll write whether or not my book is published.
Since I've discovered how much I love storytelling, I'll not quibble about the form it takes. I just hope I offer readers an enjoyable respite from the problems we all face. After all, when you're lost in a world of dragons, who cares about the New York Stock Exchange?
C. L. Kraemer/Celia Cooper/Sable Angel
No comments:
Post a Comment