Ask the Author: Bonnie Toews
Answered Questions (7)
Bonnie Toews
I had two singing coaches when I was nine and sixteen -- the first was an Allied agent whose cover was a church organist in Berlin in WWII, and the second had been the director of the Amsterdam Opera Company. She was a British agent and her husband served in the Dutch Underground. When the Gestapo tracked them down they had to live in hiding and barely survived. My parents were setting me up for a singing career but I was more interested in the lives of these teachers and why they risked their lives. Luckily I lost my singing voice when I was 21 and had to figure out what I really wanted to do with the rest of my life. I didn't acknowledge my heart's desire to write a novel until my late 40's when their stories came back to me. I didn't feel I had the right to tell their stories but I embodied their quiet courage and beliefs in my characters.
Bonnie Toews
Often reading and doing research give me ideas I can work with. Sometimes a peaceful walk. I am about to try meditation to see if that creates a new level of inspiration.
Bonnie Toews
While writing THE CONSUMMATE TRAITOR, I developed a habit where I would tell my subconscious that I had arrived at an impasse and I needed a solution by such-and-such a time before I went for a walk to clear my head. At first the "solution" did not come by the time I "ordered" it. The walks seemed to be the break needed to re-stimulate the brain, but then the idea started to come within the time frame I gave it. Awesome! For the current novel, I've had so many interruptions this approach hasn't been possible to follow, but if I can retrieve blocks of creative time, I am going back to this method. I've proved to myself it works.
Bonnie Toews
The freedom to work in your own time and at your own speed. Yes, there are deadlines -- thank goodness!! -- but I love the independence of working in my own space.
Bonnie Toews
If you find that writing is as natural as breathing and is your preferred way of communicating, then this is a sign of your gift. When starting out to write a novel, if you only look to the end, it becomes an overwhelming task and you may become discouraged. I have always written in the moment -- one word, one sentence, one paragraph, one chapter at a time. And I let the characters drive the story. In THE CONSUMMAT TRAITOR, I didn't even know who the traitor was until I was three quarters of the way finished. Then I couldn't write fast enough to get to the end. In the novel I'm writing now, I had a dead body -- I knew HOW he was killed but I had no idea who he was or who killed him until I was at the half-way point. Now I am writing the sub-plot and integrating through the story.
Bonnie Toews
The sequel -- COVERT DENIAL. This novel is set in 1994 and stars the daughter of one of our heroines in the first book as a broadcaster who, while reporting the genocide in Rwanda, unlocks a drug scandal within the UN military peacekeepers and becomes an assassin's target.
Bonnie Toews
I was reading William Stevenson's book about INTREPID, the famous Canadian spymaster for Churchill, and came across his memory of the agent, Trudi. Later, Willliam Stephenson (Intrepid) regretted telling Stevenson about this agent because she was a member of the royal family, a third cousin to King George VI. It is believed the Gestapo executed her in Copenhagen. The Danish Underground, however, never found her body. For me it became a "what if" moment -- what if she lived, what would her story be? And then a "mirror image of her" emerged, and I had the plot for THE CONSUMMATE TRAITOR with two protagonists -- "sisters-in-spirit."
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