Our very own Darlene’s Guest Post

It was a conversation with Darlene a while ago that made me think about having a few guest posts this week. To cover my lack of farm stories while I am in the suburbs in California.

I had Questions!

C: My top question is: HOW DO YOU WRITE and DEAL WITH Daily LIFE at the same time!! . 

D: My answer to your top question is this – With great difficulty! In fact this is the most difficult part of being an author. Life just simply gets in the
way. But for some reason, we write anyway.

1. C: Do you mostly write for young teens?  What other genres interest you. 
   D: I write my Amanda travels series for tweens in particular, but I find all ages enjoy the stories. I also write short stories for adults and recently published a collection of memories about growing up on a prairie farm, called You Can Take the Girl from the Prairies.
2. C: What does your writing day look like? (I am especially interested in this one). Do you have music on when you write? 
   D: I published the first four books of the series while I worked full-time. In order to carve out time for writing, I set up a schedule where I wrote for two hours every evening after work and dinner. This worked well until I retired and moved to Spain. I thought I would have tons of time to write then, but I was so wrong. Now I write whenever I get a few spare
   minutes. I write at the beach, on my terrace, in between dog walks, visits from neighbours and coffee with hubby. But I do tend to do my best and most productive writing in the evening. I guess old habits…
   Sometimes I’m amazed that I get any writing done at all but as they say, “you eat an elephant one bite at a time.” I belong to a couple of critique groups and that motivates me to have some writing done to read at the
   meetings. While dinner was cooking tonight I wrote two pages for tomorrow’s meeting.
   Noise doesn’t bother me while I write so if there is music in the background it’s OK but not necessary.

C: Have you travelled to all the places Amanda has travelled to and how do you manage your writing day as you travel. Do you write about a location while you are there? Or do you take notes and go home to write. All this fascinates me. 

D: I have travelled to all the places Amanda has been to. I make it a policy that Amanda does not get to go to any place I have not been to. I actually get quite a bit of writing done while I travel. I write while on the plane, train, bus or vehicle (unless I’m driving!) I’m usually working on a book while on a trip to the next book location so while sightseeing and visiting, I take lots of notes and pictures to take home and refer to when I get to that book. So I’m usually writing one book and collecting info for
the next one at the same time. And before you ask, yes it can get confusing!

Writers never really take a holiday.

C: Which would be the first book for me to buy for my tween granddaughter?  I guess there are quite a few books in the Amanda series so I have a lot of catching up to do but which is your favorite? Or is that a bit like being asked to choose between children. 

As we speak, there are ten books in the Amanda Travels series. I don’t have a favourite, that would very much be like asking which child is my favourite. The books are not sequential so they can be read in any order. If there is a particular location your granddaughter is interested in, that would be a good start. Maybe Amanda in France: Fire in the Cathedral would be a good choice as the Olympics are being held there and it will be in the news a lot.

C: Tell us a little bit about the publishing and selling of books – I have to admit that this bit sounds daunting. 

D: Now this could be a post of its own. At the end of the day, writing the book is the easy part. It took me three years to write the first book and five years to find a publisher. She is wonderful and published the first nine books in the series. For that I will be eternally grateful. But she has decided to move on and will not be publishing children’s books any
more. So I decided to self publish the latest book, Amanda in Scotland: The Standing Stones. It was a huge learning curve but I managed to do it
and am proud of the result.
As for selling the books, if no one knows about the book, no one will buy it. It’s important to tell everyone about it. More than once, I have sold a
book to the person sitting beside me on an airplane. We talk about our children and grandchildren, why not talk about our books.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to talk about my books, writing and all that goes with it.

Darlene