ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I have been writing for about twenty-five years, while working firstly as a Registered Nurse and later as a Farm Insurance Underwriter. My first four novels were mainly for learning purposes and have long since been discarded - something I now regret. One of them was accepted for publication as an audio book, but the company went out of business before it could be processed. That gave me the encouragement I needed to keep on writing. I have since completed eight romance novels, three non-fiction books, three children's photo album storybooks, two books of photos taken for our camera club assignments, and two books of short stories, with a third on the way.
Since retiring, or rather - re-wiring, I have taken up amateur photography and am really thankful to our camera club for teaching me the basics. With Photoshop I am able to design my own cover images.
I live in the beautiful Lanark Highlands of Eastern Ontario with my husband Don, and a very independent cat named Little Bud.
Where did you grow up, and how did this influence your writing?
Our family home was a large brick house on a two hundred acre mixed farm in Eastern Ontario, Canada. Over the years, we had sheep, pigs, cows, chickens and hens, horses - oh, and lots of kids. My dad came from a family of thirteen children, my mother from a family of seven, so I wound up with five sisters and five brothers. (My parents' autobiography - The Way It Was - gives a great description of my background.) We all had chores to do after school and on weekends. But when the chores were finished and homework was done, we were free to read. And read we all did. Anything and everything we could get our hands on. I wouldn't attempt to write about someone with a bad childhood because I don't know what that would feel like.
What is your writing process?
It's difficult to decide how a book begins for me. Sometimes it's an idea for a storyline that pops into my head. Sometimes I'm working on my photographs, look at one, and decide there's a story to go with it. My mother, a devout Baptist, passed on last year and suddenly I had an idea for a book set partly on Earth and partly in Heaven. That's my next project once the cottage is closed up for the winter. And I'm counting on Mom to feed me the parts about Heaven, now that she's there. (This book is titled 'Waiting?' and is now available.)
Once I have the basic idea, I prepare bio sheets for my two main characters. I have the blank form in the computer so that I can print one out and fill it in whenever I need it. I clip pictures of the characters from a catalogue or magazine and paste them to the side of the page. The bio includes everything I can think of - name, age, birth date, Zodiac sign and characteristics, address, residence, hair and eye color, height and weight, education, career, vehicle, marital status, parents, siblings, medical history, religious and political leanings, and anything else that comes to mind.
By the time the bios are finished, I know these people really well and the story just writes itself. I'm not obsessive about sticking to schedules and I don't try to force the writing. If I get stuck, I just leave it until the next idea comes to me. I have yet to struggle with a storyline.
Describe your desk.
My desk has a top shelf with an ASUS screen, and all the usual office paraphernalia. It also has a teddy bear, wearing glasses, sitting in a rocking chair and reading a book. (I love teddy bears!) In a file holder is a three-ring binder with copies of Mark Coker's Style Guide and Marketing Guide - my current favorite books.
On the middle shelf is my Lenovo laptop with Windows 7, a coaster for my coffee cup, four completed children's books, my backup drive and a dust cloth. The shelf below pulls out with my Belkin ergonomic keyboard. Sitting on top of the filing cabinet is my teddy bear collection (so the cat can't play with them). There are currently nine bears.
How do you approach cover design?
This happened purely by good luck. My husband joined a local photography club a few years ago and persuaded me to keep him company. I had no interest in the subject, but once I had a camera, I was hooked. After I started writing, I began putting together the book covers - something I really enjoy. Photoshop is great fun and having a photo relate to a story makes my day. The camera club was also the reason I put together the children's photo and limerick storybooks.
Who are your favorite authors?
Too many to list - I love reading courtroom dramas, murder mysteries, as well as some historical and contemporary romances. I'm not into non-fiction in a big way, but having said that, I did read many New Age books (thus - Huna: Your Power Tool For The Twenty-first Century, and - My Health, My Way - the story of my journey from stage four cancer seventeen years ago to good health without the recommended chemo and radiation.) I give some of the credit to the books by Max Freedom Long on the ancient Hawaiian Kahunas for saving my life.
When you're not writing, how do you spend your time?
In the summer we go to our cottage up in the hills on a stocked trout lake. It's in a private club and the property owner built a library for everyone to use. There is every genre of book imaginable in there, so when we aren't fishing, or hiking with our cameras, we are reading. We also grow organic vegetables on our decks at home. Over the coming winter months, we are learning how to grow vegetables with aquaponics - fish in a tank below and plants growing above - each feeding the other, and both feeding us. Our camera club has monthly meetings with assignments, so I spend time on photography as well.
What is the greatest joy of writing for you?
When someone comments on one of my 'sweet romances' and says how much they love a clean romance, I know then that I have found the right readers' market for my writing.
What inspires you to get out of bed each day?
Having breakfast, coffee and conversation with my husband. Nothing else comes close!
Published 2013-08-26.