I wanted to give a shout-out, first and foremost, to my good friend Melinda Clayton, author of the Appalachian Justice series. She invited me to participate is this linked blog thingy and I total dropped the ball – I’m trying to pick it up again, but I seem to be all thumbs. Or all carpal tunnel. Or something.

Anyway, here’s my contribution and, since I’m not all sweet and polite and stuff like Melinda, who actually asked me if I was interested before springing the trap (!), I’m just going to name a couple writers and pass the love along! Just answer the questions on your blog and tag/name/elect a few others to participate too.

And by the way, if you haven’t yet read Melinda’s book, you are MISSING OUT! You can order them here, just call or shoot us an email.

With no further ado:

1. What is the working title of your book?

My first book is REDUCED, so naturally the second one had to be REUSED. But the working title of REDUCED was originally “Abby.” I’m not good at titles, REDUCED stuck in my mind, and the change was made – under protest from a few people!

2. Where did the idea come from for the book?

Ha. The story has been passed around a bit, in several interviews, but in a nutshell: I got hungry late at night and chips and salsa sounded good. At my age, it may have tasted good – delicious, in fact – but my stomach disagreed and sent word to my brain. My brain responded with a very strange dream wherein my lead character, Abby, was having a shoot-out at a convenience store. (It’s okay, they were bad guys.) So when I woke up, I realized that Abby was running from/to something and very bad things were going to happen. As soon as she clued me in, I was off and running!

3. Under what genre does your book fall?

Dystopian, science fiction, apocalyptic. Somewhere in there. Not a genre to which I expected to write, it just kind of happened!

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Wow, that’s tough. I don’t think I know enough about any actors to pick them. [Note to readers – do YOU have any ideas? I mean, just in case!]

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Um, one sentence? One??

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Oh, I’d love for an agent to swoop in and take off some of the marketing pressure. It could happen. Maybe. At the moment, however, I’m self-published even though, like a lot of SP authors, I use a “publisher” imprint. It’s legit, though, it falls under the bookstore SAN.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

First draft? There are supposed to be more?? Oh, well, about six months in time; probably four in actual writing. The second book is taking about three, more or less.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Oh, I wouldn’t dare to make comparisons. Although one reviewer did mention Stephen King’s The Stand….

9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Abby did. She told me what was going on, I wrote it down.

10. What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

I hope the title and cover start the process – a little dark, a little mysterious, and just one word: REDUCED. Of course, the question is just what is “reduced?” Morals? Politics? People? Government? Hmmm.