Thursday, May 2, 2013

My self-publisher protagonist, for my fellow writers



Aspiring writers have long been reminded of Mark Twain’s famous quote, “write what you know.” Some argue the quote shouldn’t be rigidly applied. If everyone did, there would be no books about vampires, time travel or alien invasions.

As for me, I tend to stay close to what I know when crafting characters. I probably won’t be writing spy novels like some of my author friends. I tend to stay closer to Nancy Drew.

In Lessons, the protagonist and her husband owned a restaurant. There are four generations of restaurateurs in our family.  My grandfather owned a restaurant – my parents owned a restaurant and my husband and I once owned a restaurant. Our son is in restaurant management.

The next book in the Coulson Series, The Senator’s Secret, the female protagonist is an Arizona real estate agent. My husband is an Arizona Broker and I was a real estate agent for a number of years.

The female protagonist in After Sundown works in the restaurant industry, and the male protagonist is a general contractor. My father was a general contractor.

In my soon to be released, While Snowbound, the female protagonist is a self-published independent author. Her career is an intricate part of the story line. In fact there would be no real story if she worked in any other field.

For independent writers who enjoy reading romance, I suspect they might get a kick out of While Snowbound, especially considering what happens at the end of the story.