Hmm...Indiana Jones meets missionary love? Is that food for thought or an introduction?

It's so much fun to introduce you to debut authors, and this week we have another delightful guest, Debbie Kaufman, who is anxious to tell us all about her debut book, The Doctor's Mission. Follow me, as we step into my blog and meet her together.

Debbie Kaufman has always found a good book to be a great escape.  Years ago she failed to heed her mother’s advice when told to get her nose out of a book.  Instead, she parlayed her reading addiction into writing award-winning fiction.  Originally a Kentucky girl, Debbie now lives in Georgia with her own romance hero, her husband of over thirty years.  Her first novel is a Love Inspired Historical titled The Doctor’s Mission (Nov. 2011).

SKC:  It's wonderful to meet you, Debbie. Now, we are anxious to hear about your new project. Tell us about it.

Debbie:  I’m involved in promoting my first published book, The Doctor’s Mission.  Love Inspired Historical just released it this month, and it is a missionary romantic adventure set in the jungle of 1918-1920 Liberia, Africa, featuring the cannibal tribes of the time. I describe The Doctor’s Mission as a bit of “Indiana Jones meets missionary love.”

SKC:  What keeps you going on days that you don't necessarily feel like writing?

Debbie:  On those days that I really don’t want to put myself in front of the computer screen, I’ve usually fallen back on the reward system.  I set a goal, and if I make it, I allow myself something I want.  For me, that’s usually reading time, something that is at a premium since I published. 

However, yesterday I read a review that a reader left me on Amazon for The Doctor’s Mission, and I found a more mature motivation.  After all the wonderful things this reader said, she ended with this: “I didn't want this unique journey to end. I keep imagining where the author might take us next time!”  Reading that comment made me realize that I had a responsibility and my motivation level is now very high.  I can’t afford to let someone down now that I’ve put that first book out there. I may occasionally still need to reward myself in the short term, but now I’ve got my eyes on longer range goals.  

SKC:  That's a good system, Debbie. Thanks. Starting and ending a book is often the most difficult, for many writers.  Describe how you come up with the beginning and end to your story.

Debbie:  The beginning usually comes to me like watching a movie.  Something sparks an idea, and I see a scene and its setting in strong detail—sights, sounds, feelings, everything.  Then the real work begins as I plot out where to go from there. 

Because I plot, I pretty much know the ending before I get more than a couple of chapters on the page. Sometimes when I get stuck going forward, I take a big leap and actually write the ending before the middle.  I’ve even been known to work backwards from there!

SKC:  What do you believe is the KEY to writing a good book?

Debbie: Gosh, Shirley, it’s hard to choose just one thing as the key!  There are so many elements to a good book, but since you’re asking for only one, I would say the key is to never take the easy way out.  Don’t go for the cliché, the trite, because it cheats the reader. When you’re writing, it’s so easy to want to quit and say something is good enough so that you don’t have to rewrite that page/scene/chapter again. You’ll never get a truly good book by doing taking the easy way. 

SKC:  How do you create your settings, and do you take advantage of the area that’s around you or do you research and discover new places? 

Debbie:  I am a total research geek.  The Doctor’s Mission is set in 1918 Liberia, Africa. I read countless missionary journals, scholarly texts from a later Harvard expedition, and page-turned my way through anything with photographs from the time to create my jungle setting. May I just say that Google books and the Library of Congress are both my new best friends?

SKC:  After you finish your present project what plans do you have?

Debbie:  I’m working on a second Liberian missionary romance, and I have a third in mind with the same setting.  I’ve already had that “movie moment” for book three and know how it opens.  But, for book four, I want to turn to China.  I have some actual experience in China since my fourth child was adopted from there and I set up an international adoption program there in the 90’s. 

SKC: We appreciate that you are planning to donate a book to one of the readers here at A Pen for Your Thoughts. What would you like to ask our readers today?

Debbie:   Shirley, thanks for having me here this week.  I’d love your readers to tell us their feelings about a book’s setting: How important is setting to you? Any memorable ones you care to share? If you could choose a setting for a book, where would it be?

SKC: Please let us know where your book can be found and where our readers can learn more about you.

Debbie: You can find my books at www.Harlequin.com , Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Doctors-Mission-Love-Inspired-Historical/dp/0373828942/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321310871&sr=8-1 ),Barnes and Noble (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/doctors-mission-debbie-kaufman/1102081630?ean=9780373828944&itm=1&usri=the%252bdoctor27s%252bmission ­), Christian Book Distributors  (http://www.christianbook.com/the-doctors-mission-debbie-kaufman/9780373828944/pd/828940?product_redirect=1&Ntt=828940&item_code=&Ntk=keywords&event=ESRCP) or any local retailer that carries the line.
For more about me, my books, and missions, visit my website at www.debbiekaufman.com
For an excerpt of The Doctor’s Mission: www.debbiekaufman.com/excerpt 

Congratulations to ANN LEE MILLER (ALY LOGAN) of GILBERT ARIZONA. YOU JUST WON THE BOOK!

Mysteries Come in the Most Unusual Places

While we share a little about the art of writing, and reflections that offer us encouragement here at  A Pen for Your Thoughts, we also love to promote other authors with interviews and reviews as well as excerpts from their upcoming books.

In the next few days we look forward to sharing with you more about the Award Winning Author, ANNE GREENE who delights in writing about wounded heroes and gutsy heroines. She writes both historical and suspense novels. After falling in love with several countries and their people, Anne set a number of her books in exotic locations. She and her hero husband, Army Special Forces Colonel Larry Greene, have visited twenty-five countries, including three communist countries.

A visit to Scotland resulted in her newest book release, Masquerade Marriage, published by White Rose Publishing. When Anne is not deployed with her husband, she makes her home in McKinney, Texas. Two of her four children live nearby. The well known Tim LaHaye led her to the Lord when she was twenty-one and Chuck Swindoll is her Pastor.

In 1990, Anne graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor’s degree in Literary Studies from the University of Texas, Dallas. Her highest hope is that her stories transport the reader to an awesome new world and touch hearts to seek a deeper spiritual relationship with the Lord Jesus. To learn more of Anne and to view pictures from her extensive travel, visit her at www.AnneGreeneAuthor.com.    

Anne's upcoming release is called

A Texas Christmas Mystery.

 A lady Coastguardsman searches for a killer. An oil rig troubleshooter accused of murder races to clear his name. The murderer strives to silence them both. As Amber Meredith seeks to arrest Derrick Darbonne, sparks fly. She needs to solve her first case. But the handsome Cajun suspect makes her heart race and her toes tingle. Derrick has worked all his life for his high-paying, adventurous job. When his past threatens his future, will he endanger the woman he loves?

Join me as we get a hint at how the book begins.

CHAPTER ONE

Galveston, Texas

           Only one thing scared Derrick Darbonne. He had no fear of fire, hurricane, sabotage, high seas, drunken roughnecks, reckless roustabouts, brawls, or hard work. But losing the job he’d slaved all his life to obtain terrified him.

            He’d worked himself up from oaks draped with Spanish moss, murky alligator-filled water, and a tiny cabin on the banks of the bayou with no running water or electricity. He’d finally gotten to where he wanted to be. And now someone was trying to pin a murder on him. Some Christmas present.

            Derrick crushed the schematics he’d been scanning and jammed them into his pocket. He braced his legs wide on the steel floor of the oil rig and raised the powerful navigational binoculars. A Coast Guard cutter slashed a white wedge through the sparkling Gulf waters straight toward his oil platform.

            His jaw tightened, his spine stiffened, and he swallowed.

            Standing beside him, Joe Bridges, the MIC, Man in Charge, swore.

            If Derrick had been a swearing man, he would have joined Joe. Instead, he gripped the navigational binoculars tighter. “Third time this week. If I had anything to hide, I’d jump ship.” He smacked his hard hat so thoroughly his ears rang. “Thought so! That guardsman is a female.” Here was a Coastie bearing down on him with the authority to shut down the operation. The men would be out of work just in time for Christmas. What pretense to investigate the murder was the Coast Guard using this time?

             Derrick lowered the binoculars and frowned. “She looks familiar.”

             “Ever since you arrived for the routine inspection, Cajun, the Coast Guard’s been on our backs.” Scowling, Joe thrust out a hand for the glasses. “Then there was the murder. That’s the reason the big boss’s keeping you out here again, so long.”

             “Don’t I know it! I’m looking for a saboteur as well. Probably the same guy.” Derrick slapped the binoculars into Joe’s hand and tried to lighten his foreboding with a jabbing tease. “Now I’ve got to get the Coast Guard environmental crew out of your hair.”

            “Rib me, will ya?” Joe repositioned his yellow hard hat over his bald head and shook a work-hardened finger. “I’ll bet you I can get that Coastie to go for me and my shiny head before she goes for you and that Cajun accent of yours. Loser pays a hundred bucks.”

            “You want us to distract her with our masculine charm so she won’t sniff out any violations that could shut us down?” Derrick surveyed the rig’s two-hundred-foot deck looking for any OSHA or EPA trouble the Coast Guard might use to give a citation. Sunlight slanted off the metal plates causing enough glare to hurt his eyes. He didn’t like Joe’s plan.

             “You got it.” Joe grinned.

              Derrick gave a tight smile. He slid his gaze to the roughneck inside the glass-enclosed room, jiggling the joy sticks and pushing the buttons that worked the rig’s floor. The big man hooking a new drill in place beneath the five-hundred-foot drilling tower wore his safety equipment. No problem there.

              Derrick flicked his gaze over the new hire, the eighteen year old from Galveston. The kid’s long blond hair straggled from beneath his yellow hard hat. He was bent over washing sludge and mineral oil through sand to clean out the last drop of hydrocarbon before reusing the sand. Kid was a hard worker, already adept at his job. No laws broken. No environmental procedures shortcut.

             The rest of the roughnecks and roustabouts worked steadily. None violated safety measures. No oil spills or pipe breaks had occurred. The hole drilled through the sea bottom was clean and not yet exceptionally deep. They should hit oil soon. Joe Bridges had a salty vocabulary, but the boss man ran a tight rig. So why suddenly all the anonymous phone calls about regulation problems? Had to be the murder.

             Derrick needed to come up with answers.

             “Alamo Oil pays you a hefty salary to make sure things run smooth on all two hundred of its rigs.” Joe’s voice sounded more than a little jealous.

             “Don’t I know it.” Derrick ran a hand over the stubble already growing after his close morning shave.

            “Alamo doesn’t want to fork out any stiff fines or lose any drill time because of environmental pollution, safety violations, mismanagement, or accidents. So make sure that Coastie’s distracted.” Joe winked. “And don’t mention the murder. We’ve trampled that ground too many times with the Coast Guard already.”

             “Right.” Derrick rubbed the back of his neck. An uneasy feeling kept nagging him about the murder. Nothing he could put a handle to, but—too many clues led directly to him. Once the Coast Guard put the puzzle together, they’d come looking for him. He grunted. How had his personal helmet wound up grasped in the dead kid’s hand?

              Joe swore loud enough that the crew cleaning sand looked up. He lowered his voice. “That Coastie’s gonna cause trouble. I feel it in my bones.” His eyes, shadowed under his hard hat, looked wary. “We gotta keep her thinking about us, not her job.” He handed the binoculars back.

             Derrick frowned. “I think you’re just hard up for a date. You want a girl friend to share Christmas with.”

          “Whatever!”

           As the Coast Guard cutter pulled alongside their offshore rig, Derrick focused the binoculars on the trim figure in her blue uniform. He’d not seen many women in the Guard, and none that looked so curvy…wow, hotter than a Louisiana mudbug boil. He loved that spicy crawfish dish.

           Dread inside his gut heightened. Sweat beaded his forehead. He got tongue-tied around women. “This can’t be good!”

            “Yeah. The broad’s probably a—”

            “It’s Amber Meredith!” Derrick fumbled the expensive binoculars, made a grab for them, and caught them just before they hit the deck. 

SOUNDS GOOD, DOESN'T IT! Anne looks forward to offering a free book to one of our readers. Be sure to share a comment below and leave an email address to get your name added to the basket of potentials winners of this upcoming book! What a great Christmas present that would be! We look forward to hearing from you.

Congratulations to E.A. West of Middletown, INDIANA!