On Reading

There are those who read for fun, others for information, others for relaxation and there are those who read to escape life for awhile. I like most genre's of books. I have to say that Mystery and Sci/Fi/Fantasy are my favorites because I like the "sitting on the edge of your seat" type.
Now, I like human interest and animal stories and romance, but if I'm going to pick up a romance book, I go for the mystery/romance type.

When I wrote The Forest Portal, I was going for adventure, excitement, and danger. Yeah, all of these wonderful ingredients are in there, but as the book moved along, I added a little romance in there as well, which I had not planned, but I'm glad I did. Spices things up a bit. lol!
It was tastefully done. Not really a whole lot going on there, but enough to make it interesting.

I feel that it is important to describe the thoughts and feelings of my characters. What they were thinking and feeling as they faced a dangerous situation, or when they were in pain, when they faced a difficult situation, or what they were thinking of each other in any given situation.
This makes the characters human. That is very important; to show the characters as human. I feel that the reader can relate so much better to the characters; feel what they feel, "see" their thoughts, thus, getting a better "picture" of them and their lives.

I have read some pretty intense books that I have not forgotton. When I read a book, I like to "get in" to the plot, to feel the intensity of what is going on in the story, to "be" the character or characters. I think it's important for the reader to really see the characters and put themselves in the story. They can do this with a well described, well written story.

Blurb: Writng Now

My inspiration for writng The Forest Portal came from Sci/Fi/Fantasy, Thriller, and Mystery novels I read throughout my life and through movies of the same genre. I always had a very vivid imagination and I loved creating stories as a child and as a young teen.
I was very lucky as a yougster as I never really suffered from writers block. When I started to write, the words just seemed to flow, however; writng as an adult is a different story all together! I suffered a little writers block when I wrote The Forest Portal. There were times when I would sit down, but I just wasn't happy with anything I came up with. When nothing seemed to go right, I would just get up and leave my work for awhile. I would find something else to do, sometimes I even went for a drive. My mind was on my story, well, the frustration from writer's block was anyway.
There were times while driving though, that I actually started to come up with ideas for my story. Driving seemed to clear my head. lol!

My characters actually came from my own sense of adventure that I had as a kid. Being a very imaginative child, I took myself, through my writing, on many exciting adventurous journeys. I created my characters for my book through that same very vivid imagination. Glad I haven't lost it as an adult!

I have to mention how my title came about. The origional title for my book was Time Trees.
I carried that title on my book until my very last manuscript submission. I subbmitted my origional manuscript with the Time Trees title, but my publisher gave me the option to change the title if I wanted to. Well, I talked things over with my husband and two daughters. It was fun to hear all the titles floating around. I was not completely satisfied with the titles being offered. I was trying to come up with another one myself. Finally my husband came up with the current title. I was very happy with that, so were my girls. My husband was quite proud of the title himself!