Ask the Author: Anne Hagan
Answered Questions (11)
Anne Hagan
Writer's block.
Anne Hagan
That was a special deal that was available for July of 2017 only, during the month of the GCLS convention. My apologies. It may reappear for the GCLS con in Las Vegas in July of 2018.
Anne Hagan
I do. As a former soldier in the U.S. Army, I've lived in a lot of places. Where I've hung my hat, I've called home. I was happy though for the days I no longer had to wear a hat! My wife grew up on a farm a couple of miles out of the village we now live in. Here grandparents (both deceased now) lived here since my wife's mother was small. There's a comfort and a familiarity here for her that has enveloped me as well. My son is grown and on his own but he loves to come out here and visit. We didn't actually move from my house in the suburbs until he graduated from high school several years ago...we just spent most weekends out here. The pace of life is so different. Too, there's a neighborliness here that - even though I knew all of my neighbors in the subdivision I lived in for more than 16 years - I just haven't seen anywhere else.
As for the two careers; when we moved out here we actually downsized. I went to working part time, 20 hours a week across the street from the house as the sole employee at the village post office. (That has since ballooned to 30 hours over 6 days a week but that's another story). My wife stayed with the same company but left shift work for a desk job. It was a pay cut but, everything costs less out here and she wasn't traveling 70+ miles each way to work anymore so it all came out even. We're looking forward to the day when I can write full time and do away with my position entirely and we're hoping for a day when she can quit work before retirement age too and just be a haunted attraction owner for 6 weeks out of the year. Fingers crossed!
As for the two careers; when we moved out here we actually downsized. I went to working part time, 20 hours a week across the street from the house as the sole employee at the village post office. (That has since ballooned to 30 hours over 6 days a week but that's another story). My wife stayed with the same company but left shift work for a desk job. It was a pay cut but, everything costs less out here and she wasn't traveling 70+ miles each way to work anymore so it all came out even. We're looking forward to the day when I can write full time and do away with my position entirely and we're hoping for a day when she can quit work before retirement age too and just be a haunted attraction owner for 6 weeks out of the year. Fingers crossed!
Anne Hagan
Years ago, I had some problems with a manager at a company I used to work for. I took so much verbal abuse from her and then she started to stalk me outside of work that I eventually complained formally to senior management about her. They investigated and were accommodating to me, at first, but then it all went haywire.
One evening, after I arrived home from work, they called me out of the blue and fired me after a very cryptic conversation about things that apparently came from a fairly new co-worker whom I was training. We were becoming friends, or so I thought, so it was a puzzle that made no sense to me. My former co-worker cut off all contact with me at the same time. I've never heard from her since I left work that day.
I filed for unemployment and won it but I never collected anything as I quickly found a new job...albeit a temporary position but doing what I had been doing. More than a month into that job, my previous employers decided they wanted to fight my unemployment award, for whatever reason. They apparently had no idea I was working and that I had been for several weeks.
Given that I was on a temporary assignment and might need unemployment compensation down the road, I requested arbitration and got a hearing, over the phone, to take place during the work day. My new employer accommodated me by letting me take the call in a private office on their site. During the call, the arbitrator revealed a few details from a letter, written anonymously, but obviously from my former 'new' coworker, that she would not allow the company to refer or to use against me because I hadn't seen it. Her point was that I could not defend myself against something I hadn't even seen.
When I got home that day, there was a FedEx envelope that had been left for me, sent from the company the day before to arrive by 10:00 AM that day. As I said previously, they must have assumed I wasn't working and I'd be taking the call from home. I had won the arbitration and was on a high knowing when my temporary position ended, I'd be covered but the high dissipated when I read the contents of the envelope. My former co-worker and a woman I thought to be a friend had made up all sorts of things that were so far removed from the truth, that they were beyond my comprehension.
To this day I still don't know if my co-worker actually wrote that letter or if the manager did and passed it off as her, with or without her knowledge. Was she coerced by the manager? Did the company actually interview her at all over the letter or just do the cryptic phone interview with me and then fire me when they felt I wasn't answering their questions? If they did personally interview her, did she sit there and lie to them out of some sort of spite or, false loyalty or even out of fear of her manager?
I've never been able to find out anything at all about what exactly went down back then. Nearly a year later I heard the manager had been let go a few months prior for reasons the person I was speaking with (who was interviewing for a position with my new employer) wasn't at all privy to. As far as I know, from that person, my former coworker who wrote the letter (or not?) eventually took over the department. Maybe that was the grand plan all along? I'll never know.
One evening, after I arrived home from work, they called me out of the blue and fired me after a very cryptic conversation about things that apparently came from a fairly new co-worker whom I was training. We were becoming friends, or so I thought, so it was a puzzle that made no sense to me. My former co-worker cut off all contact with me at the same time. I've never heard from her since I left work that day.
I filed for unemployment and won it but I never collected anything as I quickly found a new job...albeit a temporary position but doing what I had been doing. More than a month into that job, my previous employers decided they wanted to fight my unemployment award, for whatever reason. They apparently had no idea I was working and that I had been for several weeks.
Given that I was on a temporary assignment and might need unemployment compensation down the road, I requested arbitration and got a hearing, over the phone, to take place during the work day. My new employer accommodated me by letting me take the call in a private office on their site. During the call, the arbitrator revealed a few details from a letter, written anonymously, but obviously from my former 'new' coworker, that she would not allow the company to refer or to use against me because I hadn't seen it. Her point was that I could not defend myself against something I hadn't even seen.
When I got home that day, there was a FedEx envelope that had been left for me, sent from the company the day before to arrive by 10:00 AM that day. As I said previously, they must have assumed I wasn't working and I'd be taking the call from home. I had won the arbitration and was on a high knowing when my temporary position ended, I'd be covered but the high dissipated when I read the contents of the envelope. My former co-worker and a woman I thought to be a friend had made up all sorts of things that were so far removed from the truth, that they were beyond my comprehension.
To this day I still don't know if my co-worker actually wrote that letter or if the manager did and passed it off as her, with or without her knowledge. Was she coerced by the manager? Did the company actually interview her at all over the letter or just do the cryptic phone interview with me and then fire me when they felt I wasn't answering their questions? If they did personally interview her, did she sit there and lie to them out of some sort of spite or, false loyalty or even out of fear of her manager?
I've never been able to find out anything at all about what exactly went down back then. Nearly a year later I heard the manager had been let go a few months prior for reasons the person I was speaking with (who was interviewing for a position with my new employer) wasn't at all privy to. As far as I know, from that person, my former coworker who wrote the letter (or not?) eventually took over the department. Maybe that was the grand plan all along? I'll never know.
Anne Hagan
This is a tough question to answer because I enjoy reading books in so many genres. There are some great romantic couples that come to mind for me but there are also some great duos, especially in a crime fighting sense, like Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson that come to mind.
In a romantic sense:
1. I'm a huge fan of Jane Austen and Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorite books. Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy are the romantic couple in that book that the whole story spins around.
2. I'm also an avowed Janet Evanovich fan. I wish Stephanie Plum would just pick between Joe Morelli and Ranger already. That little threesome has been dragging out forever. I understand the danger and the excitement of Ranger but Stephanie should pick Joe. The sex with him is as good, he loves her a great deal (something we can't say about Ranger for sure), she loves him (she's not at all sure how she feels about Ranger...other than lust), and Joe has always been there for her and always will be. He's the good guy. Ranger is the mysterious bad boy.
3. I have to say that I love Mel and Dana of my own books. They're certainly fun to write and I'm not done with them yet, not by a long shot!
In a duo sense there are many that I love (mostly from crime fiction):
1. The previously mentioned Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.
2. Nancy Drew and her best friend 'George'
3. The Hardy Boys
4. Jane Lawless and her sidekick Cordelia in Ellen Hart's mystery book series
5. Thomas and Charlotte Pitt from Anne Perry's novels (a romantic AND crime fighting duo...read those books in order for the best romantic look at their lives)
And many, many more, too numerous to count.
In a romantic sense:
1. I'm a huge fan of Jane Austen and Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorite books. Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy are the romantic couple in that book that the whole story spins around.
2. I'm also an avowed Janet Evanovich fan. I wish Stephanie Plum would just pick between Joe Morelli and Ranger already. That little threesome has been dragging out forever. I understand the danger and the excitement of Ranger but Stephanie should pick Joe. The sex with him is as good, he loves her a great deal (something we can't say about Ranger for sure), she loves him (she's not at all sure how she feels about Ranger...other than lust), and Joe has always been there for her and always will be. He's the good guy. Ranger is the mysterious bad boy.
3. I have to say that I love Mel and Dana of my own books. They're certainly fun to write and I'm not done with them yet, not by a long shot!
In a duo sense there are many that I love (mostly from crime fiction):
1. The previously mentioned Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.
2. Nancy Drew and her best friend 'George'
3. The Hardy Boys
4. Jane Lawless and her sidekick Cordelia in Ellen Hart's mystery book series
5. Thomas and Charlotte Pitt from Anne Perry's novels (a romantic AND crime fighting duo...read those books in order for the best romantic look at their lives)
And many, many more, too numerous to count.
Anne Hagan
The best thing about being an author is being able to take a real life event and twist it until you're satisfied with it and then use it in a story. Did you ever get in an argument with someone and, afterward, think to yourself, "I should have said this" or "I should have done that"? As a writer, I can use those snippets of life and make them what they "should have been" and that's pretty cool.
Anne Hagan
You never know what will be useful in a story. Great, funny, stupid, crazy and terrible stuff happens each day. Keep a notebook and jot down a line or two about what happened or a funny quip and work those things into your writing. Sometimes you can't make up stuff that's as potent as what life hands you to work with!
Anne Hagan
I was a reader long, long before I published my first book. I read all of the advice about writing and publishing. Everyone I read on the topic of writing had their own take on how to deal with writer's block. Most say to just write something until you power through it even if it isn't anything you'll ultimately end up using. Do that if it works for you.
Me? I just walk away from it for a while and let my subconscious mind play with my dilemma. For example, It took me three weeks to write the last 10 pages of Relic. I just couldn't figure out how I wanted to bring all the loose ends together. I would sit down to write and my thoughts would be swirling. Rather than get frustrated trying to bang something out for the sake of putting something in writing, I would just get up and walk away. The key for me was to come back each day and try. When you stop coming back, you never finish what you started.
Me? I just walk away from it for a while and let my subconscious mind play with my dilemma. For example, It took me three weeks to write the last 10 pages of Relic. I just couldn't figure out how I wanted to bring all the loose ends together. I would sit down to write and my thoughts would be swirling. Rather than get frustrated trying to bang something out for the sake of putting something in writing, I would just get up and walk away. The key for me was to come back each day and try. When you stop coming back, you never finish what you started.
Anne Hagan
Inspiration strikes at the oddest times. For example, I have a day job as a government employee in a customer facing position. Someone will come in and say something that will trigger something and I'm off to the back to scribble down what I thought of as soon as they're out the door. That often leads to me later writing 500 or 1,000 words that I wouldn't have had before.
In non-fiction, they say to write what you know. That works for fiction too. I observe what's going on around me and I use it to tell short stories that I can weave together.
In non-fiction, they say to write what you know. That works for fiction too. I observe what's going on around me and I use it to tell short stories that I can weave together.
Anne Hagan
I'm working on 'Healing Embrace', a lesfic romance that's a follow-up to 'Broken Women'. It should be out by mid-November of 2016. I've got a 9th book in the Morelville Mysteries series planned and an all new romance planned as well.
Anne Hagan
I read a lot of mystery fiction and I always take away from the books that I read a sense of awe at how the author arrives at a well told story with a surprise ending. Often though, even with a good story, I come away thinking, I would have done it this way or I would have had her say that. I finally decided it was time to put up or shut up and I took all of the little snippets from stories that were running around in my head and I put them together.
My two protagonists are based on two people who are very near and dear to me. I'll be developing their personalities more as the series continues. The ultimate villain in Relic is my twisted mind taking a person I know and some things both that person and some others that I know (or know of) did and weaving them into a story. The sad - or exciting, depending on how you look at it - thing is, there's lots more of that stuff for me to weave and manipulate!
My two protagonists are based on two people who are very near and dear to me. I'll be developing their personalities more as the series continues. The ultimate villain in Relic is my twisted mind taking a person I know and some things both that person and some others that I know (or know of) did and weaving them into a story. The sad - or exciting, depending on how you look at it - thing is, there's lots more of that stuff for me to weave and manipulate!
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