Hopping Around Blogs

June 10, 2014December 22, 2014 / Lisa / 7 Comments

Susan Schreyer, author of the Thea Campbell mystery series, invited me to answer a few questions as part of a blog hop. Her blog can be found at http://www.writinghorses.blogspot.com (for some reason the link wouldn’t load; sorry) and I hope you take a moment to visit.

And just have to say I love answering questions. Kind of like filling out forms, which I also love. Weird, I know.

1.What am I working on?

Ghost Roads, which is a prequel to The Memory Keeper. All the fault of a friend named David, who came by my place of work while I was in the midst of meeting with bigwigs from FEMA. I’m sitting there with suits and ties, he pops in the door and says ‘I can’t believe you killed Kelly!’ and leaves. You should have seen those FEMA guys. A little mountain town and a clerk who’s killed someone. But anyway, so many people had a connection to that character that I decided to write a prequel with him. I also have a few projects percolating. The fourth book in this series of course, then reworking an older story, and then one that’s completely different than anything else I’ve done, relating to myths.

Mt. Baring; location of the myth story.

2.How does this differ from others in the genre?

I’ll take this question as relating to the mystery series as a whole, rather than just to the prequel. And it’s a hard one to answer. What does make one mystery stand out from another? There’s a dead body and the reader has to figure out what happened to it. I guess, for mine, there are two things. One is the setting. Mountains and forests pull at me. They are mysterious on their own (I swear Bigfoot is out there somewhere), but more than that there’s a connection for me that I try to share in the stories. Second is family. The layers in relationships, the history that influences the present, the ties that hold you back or allow you to fly fascinate me. The connections that run so deep with another person, simply because of shared DNA and shared experiences also fascinate me. Why are we so bound to these others in our lives? How do those bindings impact our daily actions and decisions? I find the stories I write always seem to end up looking at those questions.

Family

3. Why do I write?

To read a book I haven’t seen on a shelf yet. To bring a daydream to life. To answer questions in my own way. To bring peace to inner turmoil. To be able to manipulate life the way I want it to go. And because I haven’t been able to figure out a way to stop. The stories keep finding me.

4. How does my writing process work?

What writing process? I guess it’s a process of discovery. Meaning, suddenly discovering that I have a free half hour. Or suddenly discovering I have a whole day. I write in the mornings on weekends (except for the last few months of moving), in the evenings on weekdays (except when work wears me out too much, or there are cardboard boxes needing unpacking), or whenever I can squeeze in a few moments. I tried a regular schedule but failed. Life is too chaotic, hence a chaotic schedule, tossing words out here and there as I rush through. Sometimes I need quiet to write, but usually there’s music playing. There’s specific types of music I like to write to, such as Gaelic songs, movie themes, etc. I try to avoid music with lyrics I can understand as I get distracted by the story in the song and listen instead of writing. Usually I write on a lap top as I can type faster than I can hand-write. And I don’t like writing where someone can see me. I hate that feeling of a story being exposed before it’s done. So basically whatever works as I can fit it in.

A couple weeks ago I sat down to write in my newly created space amid moving boxes and the cat (Zim, ruler of the world) spilled tea all over the laptop. For some reason my son found it hilarious that I put the laptop on a cookie sheet in the oven. But hey, it worked, and I used the laptop last night.

Zim when he was first found as a drop off in the woods.

What Speaks To You?

May 15, 2014May 15, 2014 / Lisa / 6 Comments

In the last post, I listed eleven questions. Interestingly, most of the responses I got said the questions were too hard. Also interestingly, those responses came in to my email rather than here so I think it was difficult to admit that, too. So I decided to prime the pump of opening dialog by answering them myself. Not all at once, of course, as some are hard.

What makes a book speak to you – the characters, the setting, the plot?

For me, it’s always the setting that pulls me in. The characters and the plot keep me in the story world once there, but it’s the setting that hooks me.

I want to immerse myself in a place that resonates, even if it’s somewhere I’ve never been. Ellie Griffith’s book, The Crossing Places comes immediately to mind, with the salt marsh, the space between land and sea. I also think of the late, great, Elizabeth Peters and her Amelia Peabody series that took me, over the course of many years, to Egypt.

No matter what the location is, the emotional responses are similar. Especially if the setting is an integral part of the story so it becomes a character in its own right. I want to feel that sand in my clothes, the damp salt air on my skin, the freezing, biting snow (Winterdance, by Gary Paulsen). When the setting is so well written that I can see, smell, feel it, so well written that it no longer becomes just a background description but alive and vital to the story, then I won’t want to leave. I’ll want to read everything that author writes from then on. It’s a dream world that becomes tangible on the page.

I also love it when the author uses setting as a character, as I mentioned. Whether that land is an antagonist, throwing up conflict for the protagonist, or is a supporting character, or even comic relief. Writing like that brings the world even more to life, even if it’s a futuristic place on another planet.

For me, the land is the main character, and I’ll wander there, following the other characters as they move through that story world. I’ll even reach first for a book with a cover that shows the setting.

So what makes you reach for a book? What pulls you in, speaks to you, makes you stay within the pages all the way to the end?

Endless Chains

April 22, 2014April 22, 2014 / Lisa / 4 Comments

Remember chain letters? I suppose only if you are from a certain generation. I hated them, but had guilt if I didn’t follow through, thinking about all the people anxiously awaiting the arrival of their recipes, or whatever the chain letter promised. The premise was that you received a letter with a list of people and addresses. You had to respond, add your name to the bottom of the list, and mail it all off. Supposedly you’d end up with hundreds of new recipes if no one broke the chain. In reality you might get one or two, which always told me not many suffered from guilt.

These days, in the blogging world, chain letters have been replaced with the Liebster award. Which is basically a chain letter to introduce other blogs and learn a bit about a person. Having just been ‘nominated’ for this award, I now have guilt. The rules are, you link back to the person who nominated you, answer eleven questions, nominate eleven bloggers, and ask them eleven questions.

To ease guilt, I was nominated by ‘Simply Sam’ at http://www.sschroth53.wordpress.com. I’m going to answer her eleven questions below. I’m also going to add eleven questions. However, I’m not going to nominate eleven bloggers. Instead, I’d rather have a conversation and see who wants to answer some or all of the questions, and what those answers might be. So consider yourselves all nominated, and enjoy the guilt.

Simply Sam’s questions for me:
1. Favorite thing about blogging. Meeting new people, learning from them, stretching my imagination from conversations.
2. Favorite thing to write about. Mountains, forests, wild country. For me, the setting creates the associated stories.
3. Most interesting place you’ve been to. Dunnet, Scotland.
4. Favorite book. Come on, that’s like asking a starving person their favorite food. Can you really only have one favorite? I think not.
5. Favorite author. Similar to #4. Elly Griffiths, the late, great Elizabeth Peters, Meg Gardiner, Patrick McManus, Gary Paulsen…
6. Favorite genre. Mysteries
7. Favorite season. Spring or fall. Here in the mountains they’re the same. Some sunny days with underlying chill, clean fresh air, fat raindrops.
8. Favorite food. Anything related to bread, unfortunately.
9. Day or night? No preference. If it’s dark you’re supposed to be asleep. If it’s light you’re supposed to be up. Makes for long days in the summer.
10. Prefer the movie or the book? Depends on the book and the movie, and how well both are done.
11. Pets? In the past year I have gone from ducks, chickens, cats, dogs, a turtle, and a horse, to a cat, two dogs, and the turtle.

And my questions for all of you (pick one, some, or all and let’s chat):
1. What makes a book speak to you? (the characters, the plot, the setting, etc.)
2. What form does your creativity take? (writing, art, cooking, running, etc.)
3. What influences your creativity, makes it slam to a stop, makes it sing…?
4. What is courage, to you?
5. What is fear, to you?
6. Do you prefer crowds or solitude?
7. Why? (see #6)
8. Define ‘family’ and what that means to you.
9. Tell me one thing you are curious about that you hope to one day answer/see/do, etc.
10. Did something in the past week make you laugh out loud (not just smile)?
11. Can you answer the question, ‘who are you’ without telling me what you do?

The photo below is taken on a cousin’s farm. We rode that road on ATVs for a long, long time. The road seemed endless. Rather like chain letters and guilt.