Ask the Author: Michelle Cummings
Answered Questions (3)
Michelle Cummings
I'm currently brainstorming the sequel to The Reel Sisters! I'm fairly certain of the direction I want to take with each of the characters. It's important to me that they each continue telling their own stories and learning lessons along the way.
Michelle Cummings
For The Reel Sisters, I found writing near the river the best recipe for success. I have a small vintage travel trailer, so I would often pull it to the river and find a good spot to write and fish. I'd write for a few hours, then when I got stuck or needed a good dose of experience, I'd wader up and let the river tell me what would happen next. There are several fishing stories in the book that happened to me while I was on these little writing journeys.
Michelle Cummings
The inspiration to write this book came from one night at my own book club. We were reading The Friday Night Knitting Club, by Kate Jacobs, when Kate called into our book club and let us interview her about the book. I was so inspired at the fact that a New York Times Best Selling author was calling us, and when I read her bio at the back of her book, the last line read, “This is her first novel.” In that moment it became attainable to me, and I knew I wanted to write a novel.
When setting my goals for the book, one goal was to write a fun and relatable story, that would also encourage women to step outside of their day-to-day routines and try something new in the outdoors. So, if I was going to ask other women to do this, I had to do it first. I needed to choose some kind of outdoor sport that I had never done before. I chose fly fishing as it was new to me, and it looked so graceful and peaceful. I’m so glad I did. I absolutely love this sport now and the life lessons it has taught me since I started.
I had so much fun developing the five women in the story. I chose five characters at random that were different ages and ethnicities, and then realized there were five main components to a fly rod. It was fun to tweak their personalities to metaphorically match the five main components of a fly rod. Throughout the book I wanted to scatter some basic fly fishing instruction, so I knew one of the women had to be new to the group and that the other girls would teach her how to fly fish.
When setting my goals for the book, one goal was to write a fun and relatable story, that would also encourage women to step outside of their day-to-day routines and try something new in the outdoors. So, if I was going to ask other women to do this, I had to do it first. I needed to choose some kind of outdoor sport that I had never done before. I chose fly fishing as it was new to me, and it looked so graceful and peaceful. I’m so glad I did. I absolutely love this sport now and the life lessons it has taught me since I started.
I had so much fun developing the five women in the story. I chose five characters at random that were different ages and ethnicities, and then realized there were five main components to a fly rod. It was fun to tweak their personalities to metaphorically match the five main components of a fly rod. Throughout the book I wanted to scatter some basic fly fishing instruction, so I knew one of the women had to be new to the group and that the other girls would teach her how to fly fish.
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