Phew, it's been an exciting couple of months with the release of my latest book The Piano Raft, and starting not one but TWO new Greek Village Series books almost immediately afterwards.

But if there was one thing I wanted to make sure I found time for amongst the whirlwind of writing, it's something that gives me great pleasure; Ask Sara.

I really do enjoying getting to know my Village friends on Facebook and in turn telling a little more about me. And it seems other Village friends enjoy it too and appreciate getting to know more about each other.

For this Ask Sara, I asked Pam Forrest Spann to tell me three things about herself and to ask me three things about myself.

Here is what Pam told us:

I am passionate about supporting public schools where every student is accepted and taught by teachers that want the best for each child. I have been a public-school teacher for 26 years. I teach prek in the Texas public school where I started 1st grade nearly 60 years ago.

I have only recently become a world traveller. I went to Copenhagen and Paris last summer and Progresso, Mexico for Christmas. I can’t retire anytime soon or I won’t be able to afford the trip to Greece!

I absolutely love to read and have so enjoyed my “trips” to Greece and Great Britain through Sara’s books. I love to pass on my love of reading by promoting reading aloud to children. There is nothing a parent (or other adult) can do to ensure a love of reading and success in learning to read than to read at least 20 minutes a day to your child. Have your read a book to a child today?

And here is what Pam asked me:

Did you attend public schools?

To clarify, in England a public school refers to a fee paying school, and as such is not public at all, but confusingly private!

There are state schools (free to all) and public schools (fee paying).

I believe my kindergarten school was state run, but then for some mad reason known only to them, my parents sent me to a fee paying convent school for two years, where I did battle with the nuns...

My parents have no clear religious feelings, and are certainly not Catholic, but the experience was a serious eye opener for me, and introduced my young mind to the concepts of hypocrisy and negativity.

The nuns were bullies who delighted in accusing us of anything they could. I still feel anger, and disbelief, at the way they treated me when I was only six years old!

After that I attended state schools until the age of thirteen, when I was sent to a grammar school. My schooling on the whole was poor, and I have many gaps in my knowledge. My dyslexia was never diagnosed. My personal belief is that teachers should be paid the highest wages, to attract the brightest and best, above politicians and bankers, as they are moulding our future, and what could be more important than that?

Have you travelled in the United States?

I must cry a loud and mournful NO to this one! I have wanted to visit for years. When I was younger I could not afford it, and then, when I was in a position to scrape together the air fare I was nervous of going alone, so I arranged to come with my daughter but then she couldn't come...

I am beginning to feel I am destined to never see the USA! I would love to do a tour, I cannot think of one state that I would not want to visit so it might be quite a long tour!!

Being the geek I am I have even learned all the states and where they are just in case I ever get to go. I feel that with it being such a large country there must so much diversity amongst the states and people, I want to see how, let's say, the people of New Hampshire differ from those of South Dakota. So interesting!

How do you write so fast and still do such a great job of coming up with completely new ideas?

I love writing and I will spends hours and hours at the keyboard. The stories just have to get out of my head and onto the paper (hard drive!) so it is also a relief to make progress.

I am very self disciplined. I do not allow myself to do anything else until I have completed my work. I work seven days a week, and if I lose a day I try and make it up over the week.

Occasionally I give myself a day off but then think 'I will just write 500 words for fun,' and end up doing a normal day.

My word varies between 2200 to 3000 words a day. I find that it is the emotional content in the stories that tires me, so after I complete my word count I need to leave it till the next day - it's too tiring to continue.

But just recently I have found that although I might not be able to continue with that story, I feel fresh as a daisy for a new story.

So this last week I have been writing two novels in tandem and it seems to be working out very well indeed! Fingers crossed tat I can continue!

As for finding new ideas, they just seem to come to me. I am constantly enquiring into everything I see; I people-watch a lot when I am out and when/if I watch television I often do so with the sound turned down. I find the words people say is what they want you to believe of then, and are often a distraction and I can feel so much more by a person's body language. I then extrapolate the character I think I can see and if they are interesting or unique then often a story forms by itself.

Thank you Pam!

To find out about my last book The Piano Raft follow this link https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...

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