My First Blog Hop

Irene Watters has put me on the spot with a blog hop. Irene is a lot like me: she blogs about her life, challenges, animals, fiction, haiku, travels, and she also provides lots of beautiful photographs (that’s not me). Her blog is a one rich menu of interesting reading. Right now she has applied for a grant to get her Master’s degree with a thesis on writing. Check her out at  http://irenewaters19.com/about-2/

The questions Irene sent to me:

1 What am I working on at the moment?

Right now I am trying to get some short stories into submission quality while I wait for the beta readers of my second book, Death in a White Dacron Sail, to give me their overall comments. This book is the next in the Rhe Brewster Mystery series, and you can see the cover of the first here on the blog site. As soon as I get those comments, it will be a grand adventure in drudge work to make my last edits. I am waiting to hear from a publisher who might pick up both books, but if that doesn’t work out, I will publish again with CreateSpace. And just for fun, I’ve written the first two chapters of the third book. I can’t seem to put down my main character.
2 How does my work differ from others of its genre?

While both Death in a Red Canvas Chair and Death in a White Dacron Sail are cozies in the genre of Sue Grafton’s alphabet series, my protagonist is a typical modern woman with a career, husband and young child. Along with acute investigative abilities and the tendency to get herself into dangerous situations. So a Kinsey Milhone in the modern day with family obligations. Rhe Brewster’s marriage itself becomes a character in the second book.

3. Why do I write what I do?

That’s hard to answer because my writing has taken me all over the place, from a story on lobsters in Coastal Style, to one on becoming southern in Deep South Magazine, to another about an old woman who survives a hurricane in Sea Level Magazine. I am also working on an idea for a second chapter to add to a story about four cats – A Comfortable Clowder – that I haven’t been able to find a place to publish. So maybe a book?

I write about whatever floats my boat. But the Rhe Brewster character is with me all the time.

4 How does my writing process work?

Very simply, I just sit down and write. After a lifetime of planning for research, analyzing results and mapping out papers and grants, it is freeing to just write. Sometimes a prompt, such as an off the wall idea, a challenge, a picture, or an experience will lead to a story. With the second and third books, I did quite a bit of research in Maine, wrote up scenes in advance as they occurred to me, and kept a running list of ideas for each book. But basically it’s still the same: sit down, let my mind go, and put it on the computer screen (not paper, unfortunately; my handwriting is illegible, even to me).

I am sending this blog hop on to three wonderful writers:

Robert M. Bird http://byrdwords.wordpress.com/

Luccia Gray http://lucciagray.wordpress.com/

Sylvia Villalobos http://silviatomasvillalobos.wordpress.com/