How Do I Write?

Today I am taking part in a blog post relay after an invitation from Shirley Corder http://shirleycorder.com/ who lives and writes inspirational books in South Africa. She has published Strength Renewed, Meditations for Your Journey through Breast Cancer and is currently working on two projects: Out of the Shadows:Reflections of Lesser-known Women in the Bible and Naomi’s Long Road Home:Living with Heartbreak and Shattered Dreams. In addition to beingan author, Shirley is a registered nurse and cancer survivor (1997), and a pastor’s wife. She was born in Scotland, grew up in Rhodesia, and now lives on the Eastern Cape of South Africa.

To participate in this blog tour, I have to answer four specific questions, then pass on the baton to three more writers you can read about at the end.

1. What am I working on? My first three novels are based on my rodeo cowgirl grandmother. The next novel will be the next generation, and based on my mother who immigrated to America from Germany after WWII. I’m calling it An American Dream.

 2. How does my work differ from others of its genre? This is always a difficult question to answer. I think it is different because it does follow my grandmother’s and mother’s lives. All of my books feature strong, independent women who have done something a bit unusual for a woman in their generation. In my “Dreams” trilogy, I tell the story of the growth of women’s competition on the same bucking stock as men and then how it gradually declined, ending in the early 1940s due to the wars’ influence and an all-male rodeo association.

3. Why do I write what I do? I grew up riding horses on a ranch and I did ride with my grandmother. I just wanted to tell her story. A lot of family history gets lost because nobody writes it down. I chose to fictionalize my family history because it gives me more freedom to develop characters and create a storyline, and sometimes to give a story the ending it should’ve had.

4. How does my writing process work? I’m a “pantser” rather than an outliner. Because of my background in journalism, I tend to write spare first drafts, so that draft is really my outline. Then, with the help of my critique group partners, I go back and flesh it out. I may do several rewrites before I’m ready to submit to a publisher.

And now, I pass the relay baton on to Tammy Hinton, Janet Oakley and Libi Astaire. Their posts will be up on May 26. Please visit them as well!

Award winning author Tammy Hinton has accumulated a Will Rogers Medallion Award, Spur Finalist from Western Writers of America, Willa Finalist from Women Writing the West, and a Finalist from the Western Fictioneers group. She refers to her genre as women’s historical fiction. Her novels include: Unbridled and Retribution. Devoted to Antiquing appeals to those bitten by the collecting bug. Her short story, “She Devil Justice”, will be published in an anthology, date undetermined as of this writing. She and her husband, Herb, love the red dirt of Oklahoma.

Check out Tammy’s blog!

Janet Oakley is an award winning writer of historical fiction. Tree Soldier won the 2012 EPIC ebook award for historical fiction and as well as the grand prize for Chanticleer Books Reviews. Currently, the novel is a quarter finalist in the 2014 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest. It’s prequel, Timber Rose, launched on April 6, 2014. Another novel, The Jossing Affair, won first place in the Chaucer Award for Historical Fiction for 2013.

In addition to writing novels, her published essays and articles appear in the Cup of Comfort, The Seachest, Historylink.org and the Mount Baker Experience. “Dry Wall in the Time of Grief” was the top winner in non-fiction at Surrey International Writers in 2006.

An historian and educator, she teaches hands-on history at museums, schools and historical parks. In addition to writing and historical pursuits, she loves gardening. She lives in the Pacific Northwest, loves its history and writes every day. No matter what. Janet blogs at Historyweaver.

Libi Astaire is the author of the award-winning Ezra Melamed Mystery Series, which is set in England during the Regency era and follows wealthy-widower-turned-sleuth Ezra Melamed as he solves a series of “white cravat” crimes affecting members of London’s Jewish community.  Here’s Libi’s blog.