Ask the Author: Deborah Garland
Answered Questions (6)
Deborah Garland
I admit, I stressed over starting Must Have Faith. When pitching Must Love Fashion as a series, I had to create a synopsis for the other books. While I had the idea of what the book would be about and even how I wanted it to open, sitting down and preparing to write 85K to 90K words was daunting. Thanks to the NANOWRIMO experience, I am a PLOTTER. I found a great chapter by chapter worksheet, which I will always use to start any novel. But even with that completed, I had trouble starting Must Have Faith. Music is a big part of my process. I wrote screenplays before I wrote novels, so I always see my novels as movies with a soundtrack. So to get started with Must Have Faith, I sat on my bed with my laptop and my iPod and listened to the songs that I felt created the background. Once I got going, the story unfolded easily. I completed the first draft in 57 days.
Deborah Garland
I used to think the best thing about being a writer was... you write a book, give it to a publisher... they publish it... it goes into the bookstore... and you as a writer, stay home to write more books. The operative word there... you stay home... out of sight. LOL. Now, for me the best part of being a writer is creating worlds, characters, situations, and dialogue that start in my head and them end up on paper. And now thanks to this opportunity will be read by others to hopefully enjoy.
Deborah Garland
Having gotten to this stage as "writer" and now being considered an "Author", later in life, I could not stress enough to start early. Don't tell yourself, you can do this next year or the year after. If you have an idea...WRITE IT RIGHT NOW. Then I would suggest learning all you can about how publishing works NOW. And it seems to change dramatically every 5 to 7 years.
Deborah Garland
I am currently "working" on 3 novels. The one I am most excited about is, the follow up to Must Love Fashion, Book Two of the Darling Cove Series- Must Have Faith. As stated in my "What are you reading this summer" section, I am also tackling a vampire romance- Drawing Bloodlines. I had tweeted a couple of months ago... there's no such thing as a simple vampire romance. I am working closely with my critique partner to smooth that out. Finally, last November during NANOWRIMO, I completed 57,000 words of a Psychological Thriller currently titled- Room 321. What's real exciting about this novel is I do have an agent interested in looking at it when it's complete.
Deborah Garland
I often think of how a book would end. What result would I like to see happen. What would satisfy a reader. And then I work backwards. Explore the characters, create the setting of how they meet, formulate a backstory and create conflict along the way.
Deborah Garland
Must Love Fashion is the result of another failed novel. I won't make a secret about that. (Too many people read the original version!) What stuck with me throughout that painful failure was the desire to still tell Gwen and Andrew's love story. That hadn't changed from the original novel. It was the setting in which they met that was different. Without creating too many spoilers, as someone who has similar health issues as Gwen, I wanted to create a narrative about a man who had lost his wife to an illness, falls in love again...only to be faced with those challenges again. I felt that was a compelling story to tell. I fought to tell it. And I think I won...
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