The Bash Is Rolling Right Along

Welcome back to the bash. This week I am so excited to have my friend Nancy Bell visiting for the bash. Hi Nancy.:-)

01: What is the first story you’ve published. Tell us a little bit about it.

Way back when I was in public school the local newspaper published a short story of mine and some poetry, but my first “official” published book was Laurel’s Miracle.

02: What inspired the story?

You know, that’s a good question. I started to write Laurel’s Miracle after I had an accident and was bed ridden. I was reading and researching some spiritual things and found myself interested in earth energy lines and ley lines. Somehow, Laurel’s Miracle grew out of that.    

03: Do you have a writing process? If so what is it?

For the most part the books write themselves. Sometimes I almost feel like a guilty ghost writer. I’ll wake up in the night with whole chapters and conversations spinning in my head. Driving across the Canadian prairie from Calgary to Winnipeg is also a great time for things to come together in my mind. The Cypress Hills for some reason always seem to be an area where plot twists become clear. Go figure!  Mostly, I just sit down and let the words come. With Laurel I had to do some planning as she needed to get from one point on the earth energy/ley line to another and I had to figure out how to facilitate that. There is also a riddle she needs to solve so that took some planning as well. Not my usual style at all.

04: What do you currently have in the works? Give us a small preview.

Oh my!  I’m working on a prequel to Laurel’s Miracle called Arabella’s Secret which is the story of Laurel’s Gramma Bella. I started this one long before the vampire series made the name Bella a household word. I’m also working on the third book in the Cornwall Adventures series tentatively called Coming Home. Aisling from Laurel’s Miracle will also have her own story at some point.

Totally off course from this, I’m working on a story about Jack the Ripper taking a totally different tack with it. My goal is not to get the reader to like him but to feel sorry for him on some level. You’ll see what I mean if I ever get it written.  I presented three pages of it last year in a Master’s Class with Jack Whyte and received some very positive feedback so that is encouraging.

05: Who are some of your favorite authors?

Charles de Lint is by far my favorite. He’s a fellow Canadian and he writes urban fantasy with a very celtic flavor. I love his stuff.

Mercedes Lackey is another favorite as well as Maeve Binchy and Anne McCaffrey.

06: Do you have one author in particular who inspired your writing career? Who and why?

Gilean Douglas, another Canadian author and poet, was a long time friend of my grandmother and she encouraged me from a very young age to create and write. She’s gone now, but we enjoyed a long and fruitful friendship. Her works are still in print and well worth a look. 

07: Are your stories based on real events or people?

Not usually. The exception here is Jack the Ripper, but for the most part I just let my characters create themselves and tell me their stories.

08: How much research goes into your work?

Tons! I have more reference books than some libraries (or so my husband says as he hauls yet another book case into the house). The problem is I LOVE research and it’s so easy to get lost in the research following some obscure trail  that it’s hard to find time to write the story.

09: Have you ever killed off a character based on someone real? If so why?

Nope, can’t say as I have, well except for the ladies in the Jack book. They were certainly real and an integral part of the plot and history.

10: If you could visit any period in history, what time would you go to? Why?

Hmmm. I’d love to be alive in early Ireland, really early when all the myths and legends were born. Although I’d prefer to be a man in those times. I’d love to spend some time with Boudicca, she’s one of my all time heroines. It would be wonderful to visit Avalon during the early times when the veils between the worlds was thin and before Christianity obscured some of the mysteries.

11: If you could gather any three people in the world, living or dead together, whom would you want to meet and talk with?

Hmmmm, again.  the Lady of the Lake, Boudicca and Lugh Lamfada 

12: What do you do for fun when you aren’t busy writing?

I garden and play with my horses. I love spending time with my grandchildren. I also study Celtic myths, Irish and Welsh.  I love that poem Pangur Ban. Oh Oh, I’d like to add the monk who penned that poem to the list of people I’d love to talk with above.

13: What is the one thing people believe about writers that upsets you?

That it’s easy to write a book!  Or that writers don’t really work.

14: Is there any genre you haven’t written that you’d like to try your hand at?

I think I’m okay with the genres I dabble in right now.

15: If you were independently wealthy what is the one place on Earth you’d most like to visit? Why?

Not one place really, but all the ancient sacred sites around the world. The stone megaliths that are present on every continent. Somehow I believe in my bones they are all linked, much like our modern communication system spans the globe now. Most of those stones have a very high quartz content which is capable of transmitting communications.

Five Bonus Questions

16: What is your favorite color?  Blue

17: What is your favorite food? Beet soup  or turnips with tons of butter and salt

18: What is your favorite movie? Gone with the Wind

19: What is your favorite TV show?  Doc Martin  - British comedy set in Cornwall

20: What is your favorite holiday?  Beltane  or for a traditional one  Christmas (which is also Winter Solstice celebration)