Tag: Interview Page 12 of 18

The truth is, when I was young, I just didn’t know how to go about becoming a writer. Also, deep down, I didn’t think I had the talent or perseverance to actually write an entire book.

I ended up becoming an advertising copywriter by default I suppose. It involves creative writing, but of a totally different sort.

Anyway, a few years back, I was feeling creatively frustrated and one night I just sat down and wrote a short story. It was about a young white collar criminal who is coerced into helping commit a murder.

I sent that story out, almost as a lark, and to my total astonishment a small online publication called The Rag actually published it. Paid me for it too!

That reignited the fire and I began writing seriously.

I often tell people that I feel more like a reporter chronicling the events taking place than I do an author writing fiction. That is, I write what I see in my head. When I brought Loretta into the story, I was simply following Skooley as he left the house and went searching for something to eat. He ran into Loretta in a bar. I didn’t plan it that way, that’s just the way it happened.

What I think Loretta does is address a certain humanity—and lack of humanity—in the story.

She is the only main character that is even remotely likable. She is a victim and I think deep down sees herself as a victim. And to the psychopath, Skooley, she helps further show the depths of his depravity and psychosis.

She also helps ratchet up the tension.

As for the name I chose, I wanted something that was instantly recognizable. It also allowed my characters to leave something that could be easily carried (baseball cards – one early reader of the manuscript, a big baseball fan, actually corrected the playing position of one of the baseball players I used) and it also allowed me to point directly to the relevant era.

Lastly, it gives the reader a hint at the false self-image this group had of itself—as an elite commando unit (hence All Stars)—while their actions show that they were basically a group of drugged up, violent, and somewhat inept psychopaths.

I started researching what was available and while I found a lot of ‘science of’ types of books, nothing was out there that could teach my daughter what to do ‘just in case’ in an age-appropriate way. Once I realized there was a gap, I decided I wanted to do something about it. I starting learning about book design, formatting, and structure. I had already dabbled in fiction books, but I had never looked at writing children’s books. As a linguist I realized that writing a children’s book was simply talking ‘child’ and the children in my books wanted their voices heard in their own special ways.

The steepest part of the learning curve had to be not so much the writing, the story developed as I wrote, but in how to balance the message, keep the story interesting, make sure children could learn how to be safe, and do it in as few words as possible. I would say that the struggle was, and continues to be, balancing that word count against everything I, and my beta-readers (mostly emergency managers like myself), think should be in the books that teach little ones how to stay safe.

The trick, or the hardest thing I feel I have to do, is figure out how to introduce all the topics, various disasters, without making my kiddos look like the unluckiest children on earth to experience everything – lol! I find that while some of the experiences can naturally occur within a classroom environment, as it might happen in day-to-day experiences such as the tornado in Elephant Wind, the storm in Lions, Leopards, and Storms, Oh My or the training for earthquakes in Tummy Rumble Quake, not everything would. For this latest book, Hurricane Vacation, the kids are visiting their cousin and we start to explore how a family prepares for a disaster. It’s important that my readers can relate this events to their own lives and different environments.

That being said I would love to start a series of board books that more playfully look at what to do and not do as during various scenarios, sort of a question – answer short book that allows children to express themselves and laugh at the silly things the character thinks to do. I teach earthquake safety in childcare and use Tummy Rumble Quake as part of that, but my favorite part is asking the kids about how to drop, cover and hold on through a series of questions where I do it wrong. For example, I ask “do I cover here” and alternate covering my head, framing my chin, covering my ears, or my face – which gets them to laugh as the “teach me” how to do it properly. I think that could be a great series of books that would entertain as well as teach even younger kiddos what to do to stay safe.

I wrote Flying Alone when my aviation career came to an abrupt end in 1990. The years leading up to that had been so turbulent and challenging that I wanted to write it all down while the events were still fresh in my memory. The story is of the challenges of a young woman and how she battled through them and came through on the other side a stronger person. The message is very important for young women of any generation as they find their place in the world.

Looking back now, though, I wish I had not ended it where I did. I’ve had feedback that readers want to know more, and, in fact, there is so much more to tell from that time. So, I am planning to write a follow-up memoir to give ‘the rest of the story’.