01: What is the first story you’ve published. Tell us a
little bit about it.
VERMONT ESCAPE is my first published book. (Picture author
jumping up and down! J )
02: What inspired the story?
The idea is based on a time in my life when the kids were
young. The whole family had gone on a lovely vacation to Red
River , New Mexico Texas
where in August it can easily be 109 cooling only to the 80s or 90 at night.
Stressful stuff awaited us back home, and I didn’t want to leave the lovely
mountain top retreat. We half joked that we could buy one of the little stores
for sale, and my husband could practice law. We’d just not return.
Well, only in fiction, do you really get to escape, and we
returned to Texas . Ultimately,
life settled back into the level of stress we can all handle. But that feeling
of really wanting to leave everything (not the family) behind stuck with me and
was the basis for VERMONT ESCAPE.
03: Do you have a writing process? If so what is it?
I’m a plotter, so before I try to write the story, there are
a number of things I have to have in place first.
1) I need a location. I know most people start with the characters, but I
start with the location. Where do the people live and work?
2) Then I ask myself who lives in that house? Why are they there? What do
they do in town? At that point I drag out all my charts and start developing
the characters. Not just what they look like, though I’ve frequently got
pictures of people who represent the characters as I see them in my mind. What
were their growing up years like? Who are their friends, mentors, supporters? I
do charts for all but the very smallest of roles.
3) Then I ask what do they want and why can’t they have it? That leads
right into the Goal, Motivation, and Conflict chart. (Judges of the first book
I entered in contests, said I should really study GMC. LOL I didn’t know what
they were talking about. That book remains under my bed serving as a holder for
dust bunnies. LOL)
4) Next chart is one for internal and external conflict and it’s from this
that the action pieces happen.
5) Then I put together a tag line and a short paragraph about what’s going
to happen.
6) Then it’s time to write. I let myself write some of the backstory. I
know it will go away and only pieces of it will get layered into the story, but
I have to write 2-3 chapters of this. It’s kind of how I get into my
characters’ minds.
05: Who are some of your favorite authors?
This is fun to answer because some of these folks are friends
or at least folks I have a relationship with on-line.
Jerrie Alexander, Donnell
Bell, Kate Wyland, Jane Richardson, Diana Layne, Kathy Bennett, C.A. Szarek,
Jeanne Guzman, Clover Autrey, Carla Neggars, Allison Brennan, Elizabeth Lowell,
and Linda Howard. Well, I could go on, but that gives you a good place to
start. J
06: Do you have one author in particular who inspired your
writing career? Who and why?
I’d have to say, Linda Howard. I inhaled her books. My
husband bought me a Romance Writers for Dummies because she’d written the
introduction. (He liked her books, too.)
07: Are your stories based on real events or people?
Almost all of them have some basis in fact. I don’t write
fantasy or create whole, new worlds as some authors do, but even with the basis
in the real world, the stories and characters are made up.
08: How much research goes into your work?
That varies depending on the book. With VERMONT ESCAPE, I
had to dig into what their legislative body was called and how it worked. I was
already familiar with the Texas
legislature.
09: Have you ever killed off a character based on someone
real? If so why? No
10: If you could visit any period in history, what time
would you go to? Why?
I’d go about 40 years into the future so I could see how my
grandkids turn out.
11: If you could gather any three people in the world,
living or dead together, whom would you want to meet and talk with?
My mother.
I find myself often thinking, “I should’ve asked Mom that.” Eleanor Roosevelt
and Diane Sawyer.
12: What do you do for fun when you aren’t busy writing?
Watch TV. Love dramas and crime stories. Travel. Love New
England . Always looking for the perfect location for the next
book.
13: What is the one thing people believe about writers that
upsets you?
I think people are clueless about just how hard this
business is. (I was.) When I first started writing (about six years ago),
everyone wanted to know when they could read my book. As if—poof—you write a
book and—poof—you are published. LOL There’s no “poof” about any of this
business.
14: Is there any genre you haven’t written that you’d like
to try your hand at?
I’ve been content to write romantic suspense. I guess if I
branched out it would be to women’s fiction. (But it would probably still have
a romance, a bit of a mystery, and a Happily Ever After.) LOL Guess that would
still be romantic suspense. Maybe children’s books, so my grands could read
them.
15: If you were independently wealthy what is the one place
on Earth you’d most like to visit? Why?
No question. I’d buy a house on the coast of Maine
and live there for 4-5 months of the year. It’s a gorgeous state and I feel
like I belong there. J
16: What is your favorite color? Turquoise
17: What is your favorite food? Anything Mexican
18: What is your favorite movie? 42nd
Street .
19: What is your favorite TV show? Covert Affairs, Rizzoli
& Isles, Longmire, Person of Interest
20: What is your favorite holiday? Thanksgiving! Great food,
family, and fall colors.
Blurb:
Two years after the murder of her husband,
someone guns down Jill Barlow’s father, a Texas State Representative. The
authorities suspect a connection between the murders, but can’t find proof.
Jill longs for the peace she found when she visited Vermont after her husband’s
death. With the perpetrators still at large, she flees to the small town of
Woodstock.
The gambling syndicate, believing she has damning evidence
against them, pursues her, shattering her dreams of peace. In an effort to
protect her grown children, she doesn't tell them violence continues
to stalk the family.
Despite having
lost so much already, with the lives of her family and friends at stake, will
Jill be required to make more sacrifices, even the hope of a second chance
at love?
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EXCERPT VERMONT
Jill Barlow reached for her make-up kit and brushed
against the one thing she’d been doing her damnedest to avoid. Her heart rate
tripped into overtime.
The package she received days after her dad was
murdered. One month ago, but she couldn’t face opening a reminder of the
nightmare.
Pictures of her vigorous father mixed with recent
images of his closed casket. Nausea hit. Again. Damn. Why would someone blow off
her father’s head? She didn’t stay to find out. She ran.
She’d pushed herself on a four-day trip from Texas Vermont
In the
Woodstock Inn suite, her hand trembled when she removed the package and dropped
it onto the bed where it lay on the white coverlet like a scorpion.
Hands
propped on her knees, she leaned over, drew in needed oxygen. A minute passed,
and then she straightened.
“Okay, open this. Every time you’ve come
across the thing, you implode, morphing into a quivering mass of mush.”
BIO:
Marsha R. West, a retired elementary school
principal, is also a former school board member and threatre arts teacher. She
writes romantic suspense where experience is required. Her heroes and heroines,
struggling with life and loss, are surprised to discover second chances at
love.
Marsha, who loves to travel, lives in Texas
She’s currently editing her latest work in
progress.
Her first
published book, released on July 19, is available at MuseItUp Publishing http://goo.gl/nJtaa at B & N
http://goo.gl/llR6D and at Amazon http://goo.gl/qhzBm
Places to reach her:
She’d
love to hear from you.
