I had so much fun answering questions a few months ago that I decided to ask for more on my Facebook Page to go with some I’ve saved from emails.   In the future, if you have a question that’s not answered on my website at my FAQ (under Bio at the top), please email me to ask directly.  You should see FAQ when you pass your cursor over Bio.  If you don’t, the Internet gods are playing tricks.  Sometimes I see it, and sometimes I don’t.  My webmaster is trying to fix this.  If you don’t see it, please shoot me an email to forward to him so he’ll know I’m not crazy–which he doubts.

Which brings me to question number one.

What drives you absolutely, blooming nuts, and how do you deal with it?  Funny you should ask.  Technology!  My Internet’s going on and off, and Comcast not only has no idea why, they, too, think it’s in my head.  Then to add insult to injury, the new DVR we got from them comes with no instructions.  They assured me we need none, even though it’s not working.  I won’t go into my manifold past problems with my phone company–you can see them in a prior blog–except to say that after complaining to everyone in the entire Northern Hemisphere, I’ve been asked to testify in Richmond at a hearing about the company’s poor service record.  I plan to be there. 

Are you as vindictive as you sound?  Nope.  I just think things I’m paying for should work.  Call me. . . nuts (someone’s already done that, see the question above.)  BTW, Comcast techs are some of the nicest people out there.  We’re practically on a first name basis.

Both Happiness Key and Fortunate Harbor have long sections about the pleasures of pie.  You have pie recipes on your website.  Is pie one of your favorite foods?  Oddly, no.  But cupcakes–a real weakness of mine–were already well done (no pun intended) by others.  And pie is so versatile.  I am inordinately fond, though, of any pie with chocolate in it.  And occasionally, Key lime.

Do you write in your PJs?  I’ve been known to go to the computer in the morning wearing my bathrobe.  It’s that kind of job.  Ideas come at all times and in all places.  Of course, it’s hard to explain this to the UPS man when I have to sign for a package.

Do you plan to write a sequel to Prospect Street?  Most likely that will not happen, but I never say never.  Just discovered that a series of three novels I’m finishing now (Berlin Noir by Philip Kerr) was followed up many years later with more in the same series.  It can happen.

Which of your characters do you admire most and why?  Wow, great question, but then it comes from the great Casey Daniels, author of thrills, chills and mystery.  If I spent hours on this, I might come up with a different answer.  But the first character who comes to mind is Grace Cashell of Sister’s Choice, book five of the Shenandoah Album series.   Grace sets aside plans for her life and pitches in to raise her nephews, surmounting great difficulties without complaint.  Along the way she pursues her own creative agenda and lives life fully, despite all obstacles.

And finally for today:  How do you choose character names?  I blogged about this nearly a year ago right here.  In addition to the five major points I made then, there’s one more I can make now.  A name has to be unique enough for the reader to remember, and (usually) common enough that it doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb.  Sometimes you need a sore thumb, but you must have a good reason.  Naming characters is just as difficult as naming children.  And let’s not forget I don’t want to use the same names in book after unrelated book.  So my store of possibilities is narrowing.  Maybe we’ll have some polls here when I begin my next series.

Thanks for asking.  I’m always up for answering more questions in another IAQ blog.  The more colorful (as opposed to embarrassing) the better.

October in Virginia is the last gasp for fresh vegetables at our local farmer’s market.  Having just mailed off my latest book, I took the morning to visit and stock up for a week of roasted veggies.  While the pickings were slimmer than they’d been a month before, I still returned home with armloads of goodies to roast.  The last of the fresh eggplant (I bought three of the paler, striped version, 6 to 8 inches long), three small, firm zucchini, shining onions, colorful peppers, and garlic. 

Instead of putting my lovely finds away to wither in my fridge, I immediately washed and chopped (all the epplant, zucchini, three peppers, along with one large onion and four cloves of garlic) into 3/4″ cubes, adding two cubed potatoes from my cupboard, some chopped chili peppers I’d grown myself, and a small bag of baby carrots, just as they were.  In a large bowl I tossed everything with several tablespoons of olive oil until they were lightly coated and glistened.  In went chopped herbs from my herb bed, Greek oregano, basil, rosemary, and Creole seasoning.  Trust me, if you’ve spent any time in Louisiana at all, a meal isn’t a meal without Tony Chachere’s or his buddies. 

Next I spread the veggies on two , lightly oiled cookie sheets and popped them into my oven at 450 degrees.  Fifteen minutes later I stirred and flipped, which I continued to do at five minute intervals until they were cooked through and beginning to caramelize, or turn a bit brown around the edges.  I like mine a bit more shriveled than my husband does, so we compromised at about 30 minutes. 

Once they cooled, I put my two quarts of roasted veggies in my fridge to use all week.  And wow, the possibilities are endless.  No sauteeing, boiling, baking this week.  The work was done. (more…)

Emilie's Study AFTER a book is finished

** Be sure to read to the end for a chance to win an autographed novel.

Yesterday, Monday, was celebration day.  On Sunday I sent Sunset Bridge to my editor.  These days that’s as “easy” as attaching the manuscript to an email and clicking “send.”  Of course everything that went before?  Not so easy.  Months and months of hard work, and at the end, seven days a week of it.  Recently when I eked out time to attend our early morning church service, I could see the greeter silently struggling over whether to send me to the visitor’s table, since I looked unfamiliar.  My husband is his minister.

Submitting a novel, particularly one that’s the culmination of a series, is a bittersweet experience.  Last night as I lay awake at two AM, I found myself imagining what life will be like for my characters in a future that will never be recorded.  Clearly I haven’t let go of them.  In a series that depended so heavily on characterization, letting go will be doubly difficult. (more…)

If you read my recent blog on writers and friendship, you know I spent last week at the Novelist’s Inc. workshop on St. Pete Beach, my old stomping grounds.  It’s always a surprise when I go home to find not the huge changes we sometimes see, but a re-creation of the past.  My neighborhood looks much the same.  The old Pelican Diner where my aunt worked is gone–and what a shame–but the hardware store where my uncle worked is still thriving.  (The diner, an old silver “mobile” diner is hopefully being refurbished in a warehouse nearby.)

If my childhood landscape was much the same, the conference convinced me that publishing is not.  In fact publishing is going through such huge changes, that  in the next two years, keeping up with them will be a job itself.  I arrived at the conference thinking that the book biz was spiralling downward, fewer sales, fewer publishers exerting more control, fewer opportunities for innovation.  I left believing the sky’s going to be the limit.  And all because of ebooks.

Do you own an ereader?  Or are you in a “wait and see” holding pattern?  Is a Kindle or a Nook–or any of the other possibilities–at the top of your Christmas list?  Or are you holding fast to paper and the comfort of  the familiar?  Are you sure you’re too old (jaded, technically challenged, angry) to learn yet another piece of technology?  And heck, you can’t see print that well anymore, so why try to read it on a fuzzy handheld computer screen? (more…)

Earlier in the fall I asked my Facebook  readers what topics they would like to see here at Southern Exposure.  Brandi Jones asked about my relationship with other authors.  She wondered if we critique or brainstorm together, help each other out of writer’s block or even lend ideas.  She was surprised at the lack of rivalry she witnessed. 

I spent most of last week at the Novelist’s Inc. conference in St. Petersburg, Florida.  “Brainstorming on the Beach” was billed as a chance to reconsider the future of publishing along with movers and shakers in the biz.  Since NINC is my favorite writer’s organization, and since St. Pete is  not only my hometown but also close to “Happiness Key,” attending was a no-brainer for me.  I could celebrate finishing Sunset Bridge, my latest novel, check on my 92 year old father and attend workshops if they were interesting enough.  Plus I could do a little research and sit on the beach as I did.

As it turned out, the visit with family was the only part of the trip that went as planned.  The book was NOT finished on time–still editing–and the workshops were simply not optional.  They were, in fact, highly frustrating, since every one was so good that choosing was agonizing.  What beach time I experienced was in the company of other professionals, and conversation took precedence to studying seagulls.  Rarely have I gained as much from a conference as I did from this one.  Publishing is changing at the speed of light, and now I’m at least aware of the possibilities. (more…)

I spent yesterday searching for hidden objects.  What time I didn’t spend with nose to ground–a skill I learned from the local beagle–I spent watching half the appliances in my house fall apart.  Ah, some people look for signs of changing seasons, colored leaves gently drifting to the ground, that first tracing of frost on window panes.  Novelists see the changing seasons of their deadlines in all the signs around them.

I am “this” close to finishing Sunset Bridge.   Even if I didn’t know that because I’m the author, I would be able to tell just by looking at the state of my house.

First sign: Nothing has been put in its proper place for months.  That’s right.  Months.  Things have been “straightened” at least a little, but the time to get them where they really go?  Could I afford that when there were sentences to rework, plot threads to tie up, characters to admonish?   So things ended up in, well, for lack of a better term, deadline purgatory, that temporary abode where they don’t quite fit and sometimes, prayer is needed to get them where they really belong. (more…)

Time for another The Write Way blog, so listen up.  For those of you in the know, once a month–or thereabouts–I present my take on how to write a novel.  Pop over to the “categories” listing to the right and click on “The Write Way” to see all those that have gone before.  If you’re not writing a novel yourself, haven’t you always wondered how it’s done?  Here’s your chance to find out.

I’ve already addressed editing a manuscript once before, with an overview of how I go about it.  Today I thought it would be fun to “show” you, using Sunset Bridge, my manuscript in progress.  After all, Sunset Bridge is uppermost in my mind.  What better time for examples?

If you read my first foray into the subject, you know that once I’ve finished a novel, I do several stages of revisions before my editor sees my final product.  I begin by sitting down with my first draft and reading through it  in one sitting.   This, as you can guess, has gotten progressively harder as the books expanded.  These days, if I want to finish in one sitting, I start EARLY and read straight through until dinner time. 

But why put myself through this?  Do readers read a novel without a break?  Who cares?  Regardless of how and when its read, the story should still have a graceful, even thrilling, arc.  We write it one word at a time, and while we hope that in our planning stage we’ve got some sort of handle on that arc, we’re never quite sure until the manuscript is finished.  Did the book begin with a bang, introduce the characters and elements, then build slowly toward a climax?  Or did we begin with a whimper, lose what heartbeat there was in the middle, and only end with a flourish–by which time no one is reading to discover how brilliant we are?  Reading the novel in one sitting will help answer that. (more…)

I’ll confess that when I recently interviewed Aggie Sloan-Wilcox for this blog, she was only too happy to comply.  However there was a caveat.  Aggie claimed that to be fair, I ought to submit to an interview with her, as well.  Aggie’s nothing if not determined.  And those of you acquainted with her know that Aggie always gets her man or woman.  Sometimes a little late, but hey, nobody’s perfect.

I explained to Aggie that I really had very little to say about my life.  After all, I am a minister’s wife, just like she is, and what could possibly happen that’s worth recording here?  She just looked at me, then I remembered to whom I was speaking.  Okay, that excuse fell flat.

So, in the interest of justice–a biggie with our Aggie–I’ve decided to comply.  Aggie promises to keep this short.  And after all, lately Truth is an issue with my favorite clerical sleuth.  We’ll hold her to it.

Emilie, I wonder if writing a mystery series about a church and congregants who kill or get killed was all that wise a step, particularly since your own husband is still a minister?  Has that decision ever come back to haunt you?

I’ve purposely set my series in a very different environment from the church my husband and I are part of.  While the Consolidated Community Church of Emerald Springs is a liberal church, it draws from several denominations for its clerical leadership.  The church is small and fairly traditional in some of its practices.  The town of Emerald Springs is small, as well, and midwestern, with its own unique flavor.  I live in Northern Virginia, just a stone’s throw from Washington DC.  When the president throws a party complete with fireworks, we hear them–and wonder if we’re under attack.  Politics is our life blood and politicians adorn our hallways.  Our church is solidly Unitarian-Universalist and very large.  At any given moment there are at least half a dozen events taking place within its walls, often related to social justice.  So while there are some similarities, there are many more differences. (more…)