I
was snagged to participate in a spider web blog challenge. Janet Greger snagged
me; Ilene Schneider snagged her; and I snagged Sandra Bremser. You get to meet
some bloggers you might not have encountered as we play this game!
Additionally, you find out more about this blogger and her work as an author. Check the bottom for links.
Each
of us has the same four questions to answer. Here I go! Tag! I’m it!
WHAT AM I WORKING ON NOW?
I
am deep into two novel sequels, a romance short story for an anthology, and
revisions of a mystery short story for a contest submission. The two sequels
are Sex for Sale, sequel to Streewalker, my erotic romance series
and Prime Rib and Punishment, sequel
to Mission Impastable, my culinary
mystery series.
In
Sex for Sale, my protagonist, Carrie,
and her business partner, Harlan still run their Upper East side brothel, but
Harlan is distancing himself more and more as he develops his photography
interest. Carrie is trying to get out of the brothel business and find more
legitimate ways to sell sex as she opens an erotica art gallery and restaurant.
Relationship misunderstandings interfere with their developing romance. Stuff
happens. Will they part forever?
Prime Rib and Punishment picks up a couple of
months after the end of Mission Impastable and finds the newly-minted personal
chefs still struggling financially. They take part-time teaching jobs at a new
culinary school but the head chef, forced to hire them by his boss, hates Alli
and Gina. Unfortunately for them, that makes them prime suspects when he ends
up dead. Filled with recipes, this two-fer, mystery and cookbook, will keep
readers guessing as they try to solve the mystery alongside Alli.
In
addition, I am writing a short story, “Just Say Something” (tentative) for a
romance anthology to be published in October.
I
am in the process of edits for an historical suspense romance, Lucinda, that I really want to publish
later this year.
And
for fun this summer, and as a break, I plan to finish my play about a single
guy moving into a retirement community. Hot
Dishes refers to the food the women show up with and how they view
themselves.
WHY DO I WRITE WHAT I DO?
I
write in a wide range of genres because I let the story unfold. Sometimes that
means paranormal, sometimes romance, and sometimes something else. I have to
say I love writing culinary mysteries just as much as historical fiction or as
much as erotic romance.
Each
genre teaches me something more about the craft of writing as I struggle to
master different genre elements. I think writing in a variety of genres is the
sign of a healthy imagination rather than a sign of a dilettante who can’t
focus! Right?
HOW DOES MY WORK DIFFER FROM OTHERS OF THE SAME GENRE?
My
protagonist, Alli, struggles with commitment and suffers from huge personal
issues traceable to being abandoned as a youth. She is a hard worker, but Alli
questions authority, and that hasn’t sat well with her dozens of employers over
the years. She lives in the backyard casita of her friend from 2nd
grade as part of her friend’s extended family. She is a natural cook who finds measuring anathema. Her
business partner in their newly-minted personal chef business knows they have
to be more mindful of the details. The women struggle, not with their cooking,
but with the business aspects of their chosen line of work.
HOW DOES YOUR WRITING PROCESS WORK?
I
can be a pantser, a plotter, or (as one speaker identified in her session), a
puzzler. A pantser lets the story roll out on its own. Sort of like mid-wifery.
Just helping along a natural process. I am also, with some of my novels, a
plotter (and I go into more detail on that). But at times, I am a puzzler. At a
workshop recently, Lexi Post/Alexis Walker said that folks who don’t write
chronologically, rather they write scenes out of order, are puzzlers. The
pieces will fit together somehow.
I
always work on more than one piece at a time. That shotgun approach staves off
writer’s block. I also find that working on different genres helps me stay
fresh with writing as well, as described above.
I
start with a situation, question, or character and then play “what if?” to find
plot lines to explore. “What if their first client died of food poisoning?”
“What if Alli had a police officer boyfriend?” and so on.
I
do major character sketches. I have the characters tell me, in first person,
who they are, what’s important to them, what scares them, and so on.
I
write the ten key events for the novel. I put the events spaced within a
40-line grid leaving grid spaces on either side to fill in as scenes. What
happened before and after each of the ten? Then on either side of those. Each
line of the grid includes who is in the scene, where/when is the scene, the
point of the scene, and other stuff that needs to be there. This plotting does
not restrict me (I veer off on side paths frequently), but it gives me a
compass for finishing the novel.
However,
as the puzzler, I have also written novels where I capture scenes that I write
down and then weave together later. I write scenes from any place in the book.
I’m afraid if I don’t get them down while they are pressing on me, I’ll lose
them.
The spider
who caught me in this web was Janet Greger. See her at www.jlgreger.com She was caught by Ilene Schneider. See her at rabbiauthor.com. She was caught into the web
Sandy Fairfax. See her at sandyfairfaxauthor.com.
I snared Sandra Bremser into the web. See her blog at www.sandrabremser.tumblr.com
No comments:
Post a Comment