Author Questions

Author Questions 1. Who or what inspires you as an author? Ive just always written, there was never anyone I’ve ever read that I said gosh I want to do that. I have authors I like to read. I write cozies, mysteries. Its usually about a single woman. 2. Who or what motivates you as an author? Cause I’m not happy if I’m not writing. I just felt myself relax because I finished a novel. 3. What author[s] or book[s] influenced you as an author the most? Nothing really in particular because you don’t want to be derivative. But reading them, and because Ive written mysteries for so many years that I can now spot a poorly written one. 4. Most often, where, when, and how do you write? Since January its in the evening, 1000 words a night. I write and blog in the evening. I have my critique person, I call him my mentor, he was on the faculty for many years and hand carried me through my doctorate. Now that I’ve finished it, I’ll send it to him and I wont look at it again until I have his comments. 5. How is technology changing print culture, specifically regarding authors and readers? Well theres the whole ebook and pod business. Its overwhelming. I put two older books out to a company that does that. The publisher Im with now sells 10 ebooks for every print copy. The ebook comes out first and then the print, so you have to reformat. The last one, the ebook came out in August, but the print copy came out in December. I read on my ipad. 6. When you write, who is your intended audience? Anyone who reads cozy mysteries. Women almost exclusively. Usually older people. 7. How is the current technological revolution changing your audience? You have to have ebooks in genre writing. Its also, there’s no gatekeeper on the internet. Its harder to get an audience. 8. What do you think reading and authorship will look like fifty years from now? I have no idea. When I got into publishing in 1982 we were using typewriters. We’d get long galleys of what we had to read, and look where we are today. 9. How did you find a publisher, and how long did that process take? Mysteries are a whole different world. I used to write about the American list, I was published my Bantom in NY. When I started writing mysteries, I wrote to an agent I knew and he said “I liked it, but I didn’t love it”. Which is code for Im not going to publish you. I wrote an editor and then I finally found an agent who was so enthusiastic. Gradually, he got less and less enthusiastic. He sent it to 6 publishers in NY. The big houses already rejected it. So I sent it to a small press. I belong to sisters in crime, a writing organization, and they interviewed this woman from a press called turquoise morning and she said for me to send the manuscript. They called me back in February and said they’d publish it, and so that’s who I’ve been with. 10. How much did your manuscript change during your publisher’s editorial process? Not a lot. My mentor makes more changes. 11. Do you have a definite and specific organization and structure in mind as you begin writing? If so, how definite and specific is your outline? There are outliners, which I’m not. I’m a punster, I write by the seam of my pants. I think up a general one page idea when I start and that’s it and it often varies dramatically from when I start. One went a totally different direction and they made me change my synopsis. 12. How would you describe your writing process? On a computer. Sometimes, rarely these days, I’ll print it out and do some handwritten notes. 13. Do you have any writing habits or rituals that help your wiring process? I don’t like music playing, sometimes I have the TV low. 14. Do you write in multiple genres? I wrote about women of the American West and I’ve written quite a few children’s books both fiction and non fiction. 15. What was your first publication, and what do you think of this publication now? I like it. It was a book called “After Paul Was Shot”. When I wrote it I didn’t think I was writing a book for young adults, but I still like it. 16. Besides teaching and authorship, have you had any other jobs in the writing field? I haven’t really taught much. I was on TCU press. I’m not really comfortable teaching, but I could do workshops.