1.
What do you wish men understood about women?
Oh boy… this is an
interesting question. There are long answers and short answers. I’m sure the
men would prefer the short answers… so… Are men reading this? I’m going long
with this one. Seriously, this question could be answered with bulleted points
that women and men have heard countless times before, but really I think a
meaningful answer lies with each particular woman. For me, I needed my husband
to understand that although I was the parent who would be home with the
children while he worked out of the house full time, that my work was no less
valuable. Yes, I’m more flexible working from home, but the work still needs to
get done. It doesn’t disappear. So every time I panic that I’m not going to
meet a deadline and I run around the house yelling, “I have a deadline! I have
to work on the weekend! You have to take the kids to lacrosse and swimming and
I can’t do it!” He just looks at me and says, “Okay.” And it’s done. To me that
is everything. Some women need flowers, some women need treasures, some women
need sixteen phone calls a day from their husband…the key is for the man to
know what his girlfriend or wife needs and find a way to give it to her.
2.
Do you only work on one book at a time?
I work on multiple
books at a time, but all are at different stages. And then at some point I have
to stop progress on all of them except the one that has a hard deadline. I was
given great advice once when I was writing a lot of nonfiction and had multiple
fiction projects going at the same time. My friend Judy said, “You’re going to
have to pick one and just finish it.” I wasn’t expecting to hear that as I felt
inspired by all the different projects going at once. I never got “stuck.” But
I’ve come to realize that to really delve into a book and reveal its heart and
soul, I needed to let that book have total access to my brain, my creative
centers. I still collect ideas for my other projects while one of them is
predominant. I still gather research ideas, character traits and scenes that go
into other books, but I’ve learned my work will go faster and be stronger when
at a certain point I give over completely to just one project.
3.
Who is your favorite fictional couple?
Wow… I think my
all-time favorite couple is Harry and Sally from When Harry Met Sally. That
movie—the dialogue and plot is perfection. I’m sure that has a lot to do with
the actors who played Harry and Sally, but I just think that’s a brilliant
romance that feels modern and fresh even though it’s… how old? It’s old, but
boy does it stand the test of time. Literary couple… I really loved the story
of Jacob and Marlena in Water for Elephants. That book has a special place in
my heart because when I read it I knew for sure I could write historical
fiction. Something about its structure, the back and forth of the plotlines and
the mystery of the character’s lives over time just clarified my next writing
project. And the love…I was mesmerized by Jacob and Marlena’s developing love.
4.
Do you have a favorite quote that sums up how you feel about
life?
This
is very commercial, but it fits most situations when I feel hesitant to do
something… Just Do It! I realize if the question was, “Should I drink all
night?” that quote would not be as helpful to leading a productive life, but
for me when I become reticent or worried, I find myself saying that and usually
action is the best, next step in life. Or not. Sometimes that quote fits when
I’m run ragged and I need to just sit a minute (I am working around having
Multiple Sclerosis and my treatment is supposed to involve “rest and listening
to my body!” Anyone with kids knows how silly that is.) and I feel as though
it’s lazy to do such a thing and again, Just Do It! Comes to mind. Not very
deep, but practical, for sure.
5.
Do you set daily writing goals? Word count? Number of
chapters? Do you get a chance to write every day?
I
have daily goals, but they are different depending on what time of year it is
and what stage my deadlined project is in. When writing first drafts I aim to
write 1600 words a day. That’s easy for me to do in two hours time. Revision is
tougher for me. Reworking and piecing together, ripping apart, developing,
expanding, getting rid of—all of these tasks require slower, reasoned work that
I find is much harder to assign a quantifiable amount of work to be done in a
given day. I make sure when the kids are in school I write as though I had an
office job with a boss who wants to see me in my chair at work. There are times
I need to do errands or go to doctors appointments but I really try to keep
that time for writing. But I also throw in exercise as it’s part of my MS
course of treatment and it also is a form of meditation for me that works to
solve plot and character issues as I write. I’ve learned to view that time as
writing time as much as the hours at the keyboard. So, it depends. There’s no
question that drafting, belting out 1600 words a day leads to the most
satisfying sense of accomplishment—at least until I get to the stage of editing
where everything is there and I’m messing with sentences, making them sound the
way I want—that is extremely satisfying and leaves me feeling accomplishment.
The middle—the ugly revision stage when I’m not sure where it’s going—feels the
least productive, even though it’s the most important.
6. What do
you like better, Twitter or Facebook? Why? I love, love, love Twitter. Facebook is
awesome, but I was a late adopter to that and I feel a little like I’m in the
carpool lane at my kids’ school on Facebook. I’m hyper aware of everything I
write—should it be long, like a blog post? Should I write short and witty? Is
anyone even seeing my post? But with Twitter, for me, there’s a larger sense of
community even though I KNOW very few of my Twitter followers from my
“face-to-face” life. It’s a strange thing, I realize. But I love the brevity,
the lightness, the humor on Twitter. I feel like everyone’s more sensitive on
Facebook. Again, that’s just my experience I think most people feel better about
Facebook than me, but for some reason, Twitter is a fit. With all that said, I
do like posting to my author page on Facebook—for obvious reasons, it doesn’t
feel icky to talk about my books there!
7.
What are you working on now?
I am
working on a novella that will go into a book called, Holiday Bliss. It’s an anthology series—the series that launched
Home Again and led to Return to Love—the
novel I just launched. The heroine in the holiday story was introduced in Return to Love and will fall in love over
the course of her own tale. I’m also finishing up books two and three in the
Letter Series which started with The Last Letter—my first historical fiction
endeavor.
Publication date July 2014
April and
Hale Abercrombie’s love is tender and sweet. While he serves in Vietnam, their marriage
is marked by trust and the belief that they will grow old together with a
gaggle of grandchildren at their feet. But, their charmed marriage changes in
the face of losing their newborn daughter.
On leave
from his tour, Hale can barely wait to hold his wife and her help her heal.
When he arrives, his embrace, his touch, and his love are as perfect as April
remembered. Their reunion is passionate and their physical connection is strong
and soothing. But, April’s heartache remains.
Hale
stumbles through his attempts to prove to April that their future will be rich
and full of wonder. His good-hearted, but take-charge approach causes her to
retreat. Even in grief, April can see Hale’s earnestness, yet she finds solace
in putting space between them. They must learn trust that real love will endure
even in the face of all that has gone wrong.
Set
on the beaches of the Outer Banks, Return to Love is the second
book in the Endless Love series. Book one, Home Again, was named a
finalist in the 2014 Next Generation Indie Book Awards.
*Please
note, Book One (Home Again) in the
series is a novella and is also available for reviewers*
Buy link for Home
Again
US
UK
Chapter 1
Kill Devil
Hills, North Carolina, Autumn 1970
Hale’s lungs
were tight as he gripped his duffel in one hand and held his uniform over his
shoulder with the other. He flew up the steps of the small fishing cottage that
his wife was renting from the Shelby family and arrived on the wide porch. He
had imagined the moment he’d see her so many times that he felt like he was
performing a play. He dropped the duffel right there and knocked on the screen
door. Why was he knocking? She knew he was coming. He threw the
door open and walked into the small entry. It opened into the family room. He
wiped his feet while he scanned the space. “April!”
His heart
beat fast and heavy. Yes, he was home under difficult circumstances. Hale’s
wife was having difficulty coping with the stillbirth of their daughter. He was
worried for her and knew if his skipper granted hardship leave that things must
be bad. Yet he was determined, sure as he had finally arrived at the Outer
Banks, he was confident that he could make her well. He just needed to see her,
to hold her, to tell her everything was going to be okay.
The Guess
Who’s “No Sugar Tonight” was playing on the radio. The tune brought a smile to
his face. He rushed down the hallway and poked his head into two bedrooms and a
bathroom before finding the room April had been using. He tucked his naval
uniform into the closet, went back to the kitchen, and turned off the radio,
straining to hear any noise that might signal April’s location. He went back
outside, inhaling the salty air.
Where was she? He leapt off the porch and crossed
the gravelly lane called Beach Road stepping onto the sand, craning his neck to
catch a glimpse of her. A seagull clipped Hale’s head as it landed off to the
side then flipped a whitefish into its mouth. As far as he could see, the beach
was empty, yet he thought he should walk it, search for April. He didn’t know
which direction she would have walked, but he started out anyway.
Heading
south, a flock of black birds escorted him from above. Scores of them moved
together like one great wing flapping in the wind. The whoosh of their
collective descent was punctuated by their coarse, throaty screams.
The sand
worked into Hale’s shoes, each particle stabbing at the skin below his ankles.
He pushed one shoe off and then the other, leaving them near a smattering of
driftwood that had been pushed ashore by high tide. The birds dropped, their
calls growing louder, drowning out the surf. One by one the black skimmers
rained from the sky like bombs, their red beaks bright against the gray sky
that had crept in with Hale’s arrival. Some of the birds landed in the shoals
and poked and prodded at the sand.
He came upon
the largest cluster of birds, the beige sand peeking out in small patches among
the blackness, and his eye went to a different form, a woman sitting rod
straight, motionless in the center of the black avian shroud. Her blonde hair
whipped in the wind like the sea grass at his feet. Hale stopped. His heart
thumped. April. He willed himself to breathe, to move toward her. He’d never
seen such a sight, the way she seemed partly born of the sand, partly able to
sprout wings and fly away.
“April!” he
said, waving even though her back was to him.
She did not
respond. He called again, his words turned back to him by the stiff ocean
gales. He jogged toward her, weaving in between napping skimmers, hopping over
those that were too busy eating to move out of his way.
When he had
nearly reached April, he halted again. He suddenly felt nervous about his
excitement; he felt her sadness as though they shared the same soul. He’d never
seen such a stunning sight in his life. Her elegance was apparent even sitting
on a beach, in the middle of birds. She turned her head slightly, her profile
facing him. His stomach flipped. Oh my
God, is she beautiful. The wind tossed her hair, making her appear as
though she were posing for a magazine shoot.
Even from a
distance, even from the side, he thought he could see the sparkle of her blue
eyes. The way they were set, wide on her face, made it seem as though he saw
something slightly different every time he looked at her, something more,
something alluring, hypnotizing. Those
eyes.
About the Author
Amazon
Top-100 Bestselling author, Kathleen Shoop, holds a PhD in reading education
and has more than 20 years of experience in the classroom. She writes
historical fiction, women’s fiction and romance.
Shoop’s
novels have garnered various awards in the Independent Publisher Book Awards,
Eric Hoffer Book Awards, Indie Excellence Awards, Next Generation Indie Book
Awards and the San Francisco Book Festival. Kathleen has been featured in USA
Today and the Writer’s Guide to 2013. Her work has appeared in The
Tribune-Review, four Chicken Soup for the Soul books and Pittsburgh
Parent magazine. She lives in Oakmont, Pennsylvania with her husband and
two children.
For more
information, visit www.kshoop.com. FACEBOOK-- KATHLEEN SHOOP https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kathleen-Shoop/359762600734147?focus_composer=true TWITTER-- @kathieshoop https://twitter.com/kathieshoop
GIVEAWAY!!
Overall tour
giveaway is 3 x $15/£10 Amazon Gift Cards plus 1 x recipe book (ties in with
Return to Love) Renewal “Anytime” 10 Day Detox by Lisa Consiglio Ryan.
Comments?? Questions!!
Thank you for hosting today Rachel.
ReplyDeleteShaz