Getting to Know Us (and Our Writing)

Welcome to the Virtual Blog Tour

I was asked by my friend Janet Rice Carnahan to participate in a virtual blog tour. The goal of this tour is for each participant to answer four questions that help the blogger to share insight into his or her creative process.

Janet has a way of capturing nature’s beauty through her photography and poetry. I always have a feeling of peacefulness when I visit her work. You may read Janet’s blog tour post at Hear Earth Heart. 

Janet Rice Carnahan was born into a fifth-generation family on the California coast.  She is inspired by the ocean and the ever changing tides of a big family, including a husband, two adult children, a son-in-law and one precious grandson; her love of water is her constant muse! Janet’s journeys have taken her to Lake Tahoe in Northern California; Lake Mead in Southern Nevada; Laguna Beach, California; Hawaii on the island of Kauai; and currently to La Jolla in Southern California. After a twenty-year career in early childhood education, earning a Master’s Degree in Human Development and Family Studies, Janet continued developing interests in spirituality and metaphysics.  Photography and writing—in particular poetry—are her favorite mediums for expressing and exploring her various interests.  Her poetry has been published on several online poetry sites and in three anthologies with a cover photo and caption credit. Janet has self-published four poetry books that are highlighted on her web site, Hear Earth Heart, which includes her blog, Captured Moments.

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Character Sketch - Do Not Disturb

Recently I participated in WriteOnCon (thanks to Sarah Turnbull for telling me about it!), a "FREE Online Children’s Writers Conference (rated MC-18, for Main Characters under 18 only)" where one of the participating writers, L.L. Tisdel, who is also an artist, offered her skills to sketch the main characters from the books of any writers who were interested. 

Now despite the conference character age rating, there was a New Adult Fiction category on the site, which is why I decided to join in. New Adult Fiction is a developing genre of fiction that contains main characters between the ages of 18 - 25. My main character is in her early twenties and still figuring out her way in life. 

My work-in-progress, Do Not Disturb, is about a young woman/hotel maid, Sherri Mason, who steps into the center of secret packages, murder, & her late father’s ghost story after she moves back to her hometown in hopes of uncovering the mystery of why he abandoned her when she was a child and how he died shortly thereafter. 

This is the sketch of my character:

I love it! Tisdel is super-talented and did a great job. I hope you'll check out more of her work at her website.

Anyway, I've had some difficulty determining what genre to place my book into. It has elements of a cozy mystery, and there's also that ghost theme, so the supernatural genre has occurred to me. After reading through various feedback though, the thriller/suspense genre seems to fit.

It was a good learning experience and I recommend it for next year to all you children's book through new adult authors out there. 

For now, I still have a blog hop to answer to, so that's one of the things on my to-do list. Read about what I got tagged for at funny lady, J.B. Everett's Mobyjoe Cafe. Also, be sure to visit her at Momaiku, where "Behind every good mother is a child pushing her buttons."

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