Interview

My personal life has had a lot of upheaval lately, two family deaths and the one-year anniversary of my father’s death all hit January, February, and March. It’s meant a lot of sudden travel and quite the emotional rollercoaster. Ir’s almost certainly why I’ve struggled to do any new writing. Just like picking up a familiar read, where you already know all the twists and turns, or choose a fluffy sounding new title because you just don’t want to be deluged in a sea of angst, as a writer I tend to turn back to previous characters or stories for comfort when I feel the need to write, but nothing new is coming.

And sometimes when you have a character not talking much, the writing advice is to interview them. This might really work, I thought, since Brenna and Cassidy are both actors. So… What have you been up to?

The first thing to come out wasn’t Brenna or Cassidy’s voice. It was Ryan’s. The 300+ word “Moms, Apple Pie, and Baseball” reads like an interview with Ryan Hyland, at age 11. He was 5 when the novels ended. Interesting. I posted it to my AO3 account. Ryan is sharing a bit of his life with his moms, and a family dinner in 2006.

While that spark was decidedly short, it was also timely. I got an opportunity to talk about Turning Point, Turn for Home, and Turning In in a Facebook group the very next week. Talking about Brenna, Cassidy, and their kids (and the dog, Ranger) at length with interested readers reawakened the characters’ voices a bit more in my head. So much so that I penned “The Interview” during yesterday morning’s writing session. This bit gave me a peek at their wedding that I’d been hoping for since I had planned a short story collection for the 10-anniversary coming up. But I hadn’t been able to figure out all the details and write a coherent story before I wanted Turning In to go to the publisher to get edited and formatted, etc. So it will have to be a story in the second collection, or part of the third novel.

Now I have Ryan’s little interview and Bren and Cass’s interview giving me details about their lives since Time Trails. When I have all the details clearer, I’ll get to writing it so I can share it with you. In the meantime, there’s the short stories I already put together in Turning In, now available for pre-order. I hope you enjoy.