Today I’m pleased to welcome author Gay Yellen to Work In Progress Wednesday.
Gay, what are your top three dream destinations and why?
GY: Paris, because I lived there when I was twenty, and I can never get enough; Montana, because hiking in Glacier National Park is a big dose of heaven; Venice, because it’s Venice.
MJ: What is one thing most people don’t know about you?
GY: I used to have a nightclub act.
MJ: Really? What did you do?
GY: I was cabaret singer–some Broadway, some pop, some French/American hits.
MJ: That’s wild! If you weren’t writing, would that be your dream job?
GY: No. I’d be a philanthropist. I’d love to help create meaningful solutions to some of our most intractable problems – educate the poor, aid in medical research – and encourage struggling artists, too.
MJ: What do you normally eat for breakfast, or do you skip it and get straight to work?
GY: Multigrain toast with almond butter and a slice of fresh fruit (peach in summer, pear in winter) or my brother’s yummy fig preserves) and a big mug of coffee. Then I’m ready to work.
MJ: Describe your ideal/dream writing space.
GY: A room of my own, with a big beautiful view.
MJ: Briefly describe your writing day/process.
GY: I try to visualize the next day’s work as I’m falling asleep at night, so that by morning I’m ready to start the next scene, or fix a passage that’s been bugging me. It’s an old habit from my student years, when I’d use the same technique to review whatever I’d been studying. Of course, this can backfire, and keep you up all night worrying! But it usually prepares me to start writing the next day. I work until the muse leaves me, or life gets in the way.
MJ: That’s a great process! Name one writing-related website you use a lot.
GY: I find Anne R. Allen’s blog useful (annerallen.blogspot.com), and Pamela Fagan Hutchins is the queen of successful indie authors (pamelahutchins.com). Even though I have a publisher, I learn so much from her. Sorry, you said one, but I have two!
MJ: That’s okay. What book do you wish you could have written?
GY: The Book Thief
MJ: Name 3 things on your desk right now.
GY: A crazy pile of manuscript edits on the sequel to The Body Business. Three full flash drives and a fourth waiting to be used. A paperweight my husband made for his Mom when he was in third grade with his adorable school picture on top.
MJ: Love the paperweight! Do you listen to music when you write? Explain.
GY: When I work on the historical fiction I hope to complete before I die, I listen to music of that place and time. Otherwise, silence is golden.
MJ: What do you love most about your WIP hero?
GY: He’s a man of mystery, with a sad past and a kind heart. Handsome and rich, too. I like everything about him, except that it’s hard for him to share his feelings.
MJ: What do you least like about your WIP heroine?
GY: She’s still trying to find herself, but I think she’s going to make it!
MJ: What genre is your current WIP?
GY: Mystery.
MJ: What’s your favorite genre to read?
GY: Literary fiction.
MJ: How did you come up with your hero and heroine’s names?
GY: I pictured them in my mind and tried a few until something stuck.
MJ: Do you ever base characters on people you know?
GY: Not consciously.
MJ: How did you chose the setting for your current WIP?
GY: It’s a sequel to The Body Business, so for now, the characters are in the same place, which is Houston and the beautiful Central Texas hills. Stay tuned, though . . .
MJ: LOL! And with that, it’s time for the lightning round. Wine: red or white?
GY: Do I have to choose? Red, mostly, but I do love Prosecco.
MJ: I don’t blame you. Beer: can or bottle?
GY: Bottle.
MJ: Cinco de Mayo or St. Patrick’s Day?
GY: Cinco de Mayo. I live in Texas, and even if I didn’t – the margaritas!
MJ: Paper or e-books?
GY: Paper.
MJ: Introvert or extrovert?
GY: Introvert.
MJ: Favorite ethnic food?
GY: My comfort ethnic foods are Italian and Mexican.
MJ: Mmmm. Now for the meat of the blog: your current WIP. Can you share the opening lines with us?
GY: The working title for this is The Body Next Door.
Miles of dark empty highway had lulled me into a stupor until, out of nowhere, a thundering convoy of eighteen-wheelers caught up to me, hurtling their loads like freight trains. They closed in around my compact rental—a Ford Ferret, or Frito, or something like that—threatening to crush it between their bullying wheels.
My brain jerked into hyper-alert. I drained the last of the Super-Sized Java from the All-Nite in Denton, switched the radio to hard rock and turned the volume up to ear-bleed. Maybe it was foolish to try to make it home from Nebraska in one go, but after two days of reliving the second-worst chapter of my life, I’d had it. By dawn I’d be home, or what passed for home these days: Carter Chapman’s condo in Houston, on loan while I got back on my feet.
Practically everyone important in my life was gone, the career I’d worked so hard to build, destroyed. And the person I thought could be the man of my dreams, vanished. The future was a great big blank. Yet here I was, bee-lining it back to the city where it all went down.
MJ: Wow! I understand you have a current book out.
GY: Yes, The Body Business, which is available at Amazon.
MJ: And how can your fans stay in touch with you?
GY: My website, Facebook, Twitter, LinkdIn, and Goodreads.
MJ: Thanks for stopping by today, and good luck!
Scrappers will come and take down the whole thing if you let them have it. It didn’t cost us a penny.
But now what? My back lawn can’t remain like this.
