In “Edith and the Mysterious Stranger,” I based this story around the courtship of my parents. They wrote letters to one another before they ever met. She said that she fell in love with the soul of my father, what was deep down inside and they didn’t even know what one another looked like. The day they met, my mother told me that her heart leapt within her and a warm glow filled her soul and she knew she would marry this man. I knew this would be the basis of my next novel, but there’s one difference. In my story, you don’t know who the mysterious stranger is until the end of the book. Some readers guessed right while others were pleasantly surprised.
In “Melinda and the Wild West,” I inserted an experience that happened to my dad. When he was young, his father asked him to bury the skunks he had shot. Before my dad buried them, he drained their scent glands into a bottle. He called it “skunk oil.” Then he took it to school to show his friends. While explaining how he had done it, he must have gotten a little too excited because he accidentally dropped the bottle and it splattered on the floor. The scent of concentrated skunk oil permeated the room with a stench that was indescribable. Everyone ran out of the school as fast as their little legs would go. And the teacher followed close behind. My father said that he was a hero for one day because he got school out for his classmates. This novel eventually won an award as one of the semi-finalists for the “Reviewers Choice Award 2007.” To read an excerpt, visit my website.
Do you have a blog?
Yes, I finally have a blog. I kept putting it off because of my busy schedule and wasn’t sure how a blog worked in the first place. After my husband kept encouraging me to do it, I decided to check out other author’s blogs and see what they talked about. After a day of researching, I decided that having a blog wasn’t so difficult after all. So I put one together this summer. I thought I would talk about writing, family, and interview authors. I’ve interviewed a fantasy author already and have another author lined up for an interview. You can visit me at http://lindaweaverclarke.blogspot.com.
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