Please share with us: What made you want to write in the first place?
Cheryl: Hi Martha. Thanks so much for putting together this wonderful series of reviews and interview questions! I appreciate this opportunity so much.
I think I have always wanted to write—my mom used to bring along a pad of paper and a pencil to keep me occupied in church. I didn’t draw much, but I did practice my letters A LOT. I used to write stories and poems in elementary school, and never did stop doing that. I wish I had kept everything I wrote, but a lot of it got thrown out when I was a teenager.
M: I don’t remember the pad and pencil in church but I can relate to the poems in school. I bet your work would be interesting for you to look back on.
Would you say you write from experiences or imagination?
Cheryl: I think my stories are purely from imagination, but my characters and settings are drawn on experience and upon people and places I’ve known in my life. (I should say, all except my truly “evil” characters, the villains, and those are mainly due to an overactive imagination.)
M: HA! I’m glad you only have to imagine those villains and that they are not anyone you have experienced.
Did you need any help staying motivated or getting any element of your stories to cooperate?
Cheryl: No, usually not. Although, as with most writers, some stories “write themselves” and others can be a bit more difficult to bring to fruition. I’m a “pantser” so I tend not to do much if any plotting at all, but my stories always take shape as I hoped they would and come about to a satisfactory ending.
M: It must be great when the story writes itself! I’m sure that sounds lots easier than it is!
With this new release how many books will you have out? What genres are they and do you have plans to write in any other genres?
Cheryl: Time Plains Drifter, to be released December 1 through Class Act Books, will be my second novel. It is my first time-travel/paranormal, and it takes place for the most part in 1895 in Indian Territory, although I truly wouldn’t classify it as a “western romance.”
My first book, Fire Eyes, was a western romance through and through. It was released in May through The Wild Rose Press.
I have a contemporary romantic suspense novel, Sweet Danger, coming out with The Wild Rose Press, but have no release date set as of yet. Hopefully sometime this next year.
And I’ve sold many short stories of all different genres to anthologies such as Chicken Soup and the Adams Media Rocking Chair Reader series.
M: I noticed those anthologies on your website and wondered about those. I’ll look forward to your suspense novel.
How about your Christmas short story? Is that contemporary?
Cheryl: No, it’s another historical western, and one of the best things I’ve written, as far as I’m concerned. It’s got a touch of the paranormal in it—a miracle that happens on Christmas Eve—and that’s where the title came from, A NIGHT FOR MIRACLES. It will be available through The Wild Rose Press December 2, for $2.00. To read the blurb about the story and see if it might be something you’d like, go to:
A Night for Miracles
After December 2, you can link to my author page at The Wild Rose Press to purchase A NIGHT FOR MIRACLES, as well as my other stories and books that are already available with The Wild Rose Press. (Fire Eyes and my FREE READ, Until the Last Star Burns Out, are already available at my author page here.) UNTIL THE LAST STAR BURNS OUT is FREE and is also an historical holiday short story.
Please join us tomorrow November 19, 2009 with Sumana at I READ for Part Two – Questions about the Promoting Process.
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