Don’t forget to leave a comment with your email address or email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com if you want to be entered in the drawing for Goldeneyes by Delia Latham. The drawing ends Sunday evening.
1. What made you start writing?
An essay-writing contest in third grade. She had two winners – a girl and boy. I won the girl’s prize, which was a gorgeous pink-satin, quilted bed doll. Aside from the beautiful prize, I discovered that I loved to write, and just never stopped.
2. How long have you been writing? When did you sell your first book?
I’ve been writing something ever since that contest – songs, poems, little stories…then graduating to short stories and articles. My first novel, Almost Like a Song, was published through a POD publisher in 2006.
3. How do you handle rejections?
I don’t like them! LOL I guess no one does. But I know that I will never sell the story I don’t submit. So…rejections are part of the game. I try not to take them as a personal rejection, and move on to the next publisher. Who knows? They may love my work!
4. Why do you write?
Apparently God intended me to write. He provided me with the ability to do it well, and a genuine love of the craft. As a Christian, I believe God intends us to use the talents He gives us. In this light, I consider writing a calling, a ministry. So I do it because I love it, and because I want to reach others with an encouraging, uplifting word.
5. What would you be doing with your free time if you weren’t writing?
Something creative, without a doubt. I love to design bookmarks and business cards for other authors, using their cover art. Perhaps I would try to make an actual business of that.
6. What are you working on right now?
I recently reclaimed my right to that first book I mentioned – Almost Like a Song. I’ve decided to make it a series, using a couple of sub-characters from that story as main characters in the next two. I’m working on the first follow-up book at the moment.
7. Do you put yourself into your books/characters?
I think we all do, to some degree. I’ve had people tell me that Hannah, my main character in Almost Like a Song, IS me. LOL I didn’t intend that, and I don’t see it. But I know they’re looking at the fact that Hannah has dark hair, is a singer, has a minister father, and is…well, shall we say “a little naïve”?
8. Tell us about the book you have out right now.
Goldeneyes released March 30. It is very close to my heart, as it’s set in Weedpatch, the tiny little farming community where I grew up. Here’s a synopsis:
Deep in the darkness of a Depression-era night, a man addicted to alcohol commits an unspeakable crime to obtain it. His vile action impacts the lives of two entire families, and it will be over two decades before the horrible wrong begins to be made right again.
Two young women—strangers to each other—unknowingly enmeshed in a Pandora’s Box of secrets that could prevent them from finding happiness with the men they love. Two adoring mothers who know more than they are willing to say. A newsman with a story he cannot tell. What is their connection, and who is the golden-eyed stranger who moves in the shadows of their broken lives?
9. Do you have any advice for other writers?
Don’t give up. Find yourself a room (or a corner) to write in—preferably one with a door you can shut. Enter it at the same time every day and write something—write anything—but write. Don’t come out until you reach a pre-determined, realistic word goal. And remember…the one story that will absolutely, positively never be published is the one you don’t write. The second is the one you don’t submit.
10. How important is faith in your books?
Very important, especially since I do consider writing a gift and a calling. I try hard not to weave it in smoothly, so readers don’t see it as an “in-your-face” message. But it’s there, without doubt or apology.
11. What themes do you like to write about?
I’m first and foremost a romance writer. But I like to place my heroines—which might be any age, since romance isn’t only for the very young—coming up against adversity, even danger, and finding their strength and their answers in God.
12. What is your favorite book you’ve written and why?
Goldeneyes. Because I set it in my hometown, it felt almost too real at times. I hit a major writer’s block while I was writing this book, and I still think it was because I had such a hard time getting past the reality of the location and making it a fictional tale. But I’m so pleased with the end result! I think it will always be special to me, for the same reason it nearly stumped me during the writing phase.
13. What is your writing schedule like?
Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to set a rigid schedule and keep to it. My daughter is always reminding me that I “can’t work all the time,” especially when I’m deeply into a plot.
That said, I do my best writing at night, when the rest of the world is asleep. No phones or doorbells ringing, nobody needing help finding a lost shoe or sock or pillow, no one looking over my shoulder to see what I’m doing or trying to get me out of the house because I’ve been “cooped up way too long.” My brain seems to go into writing mode sometime around 9 p.m., and that’s when I enter my writing space, close the door, and have at it.
