Eastside, Westside, all around America's towns, we get to hear from our writing friend, Susan Page Davis, native of Maine and author of more than
40 novels, who now
lives in western Kentucky. Susan is the mother of six and grandmother of eight, whose books have won many awards, including the Will Rogers Medallion, the
Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award, and the American Christian Fiction
Writers’ Carol Award.
?
Welcome, Susan. What are you working
on right now?
I’m
writing a mystery for Guideposts, in their Miracles of Marble Cove series. I’m
also involved in their Secrets of Mary’s Bookshop and Patchwork Mysteries
series, and it’s been a joy working on these books with other authors.
Do you put
yourself into your books?
Not really.
I’m not nearly as adventurous as most of my heroines. Millie Evans, in A Lady in the Making, is a lot more
brave and determined (and a much better cook) than I will ever be!
How important is faith in your books?
It’s an integral part of most of my stories.
For Millie, faith is something new and untried. She’s not sure she’d doing
everything “right,” so far as God is concerned, but she aims to do her best to
please Him. When things get scary, she turns to God for help and comfort. For
David Stone, it’s hard to believe Millie could change that much—but as he sees
her living out her faith, his distrust starts to crumble.
What themes do you like to write about?
Forgiveness and reconciliation are favorites
of mine, as they touch so many of us. In this book, there’s a lot of repentance
and forgiveness needed.
What is your favorite book you’ve written and why?
I
like this series a lot because it blends British characters with the American
West. It was a lot of fun and refreshing to write. But it also required a lot
of research.
What kind of planning do you do before writing a novel?
Usually I have
a detailed outline ready before I begin to write. I also do quite a bit of
research first. Sometimes I prepare a timeline of the period, listing the
historical events pertinent to my story and the major events of the story. I
print out a calendar of the month(s) my historical novel occurs in, with the
moon phases marked.
If it’s a
contemporary book, I would probably make a calendar instead of a timeline,
laying out when each event in the story takes place on a blank calendar page.
For most books, I also make index cards for the characters with a thumbnail
description—appearance, family members, car if applicable (or horse), pets,
important dates, and so on.
In your opinion, what is the greatest danger or pitfall in the life of a writer?
There are so many! I guess for me it’s
procrastination. I try not to put off my
writing-related tasks because other things always creep in to fill the time.
If you could ask our readers anything what would it be?
What would it take to convince you to trust someone who has
betrayed you? ((Be sure to write in and give us your thoughts. You might win Susan's new book.)le
Let us know your thoughts and get your name added to the giveaway contest)
Let us know your thoughts and get your name added to the giveaway contest)
The featured book is A
Lady in the Making being offered to one of our viewers.
.jpg)
Millie
Evans has changed, choosing to leave rather than join an outlaw gang with her
brother. Hoping for a new future, she boards a stagecoach and finds that one of
the passengers is David Stone—a man she and her brother once tried to swindle.
As she tries to convince David she’s changed, her brother’s gang holds up the
stagecoach. Fighting beside David goes a long way to softening his heart, but
he’s still not convinced. Someone is trying to keep him from reaching England
to claim his inheritance. Is Millie involved? Millie must trust God to show
David the truth, but will he see before it’s too late?
When I start writing a new book or series, I make a
three-ring binder for it. I do keep some files on my computer, but for me some
are easier to use on paper. The contract and any correspondence I have with the
editor go into the notebook first. If the publisher has a stylebook or a series
guide, I make dividers for those sections. I usually wind up with a lot of
print-outs from research I want to keep to refer to, so I make sections for
those. For A Lady in the Making, sections
included: Historical Timeline and calendar of 1857; Period Costume; Oregon
Trail; Early Stagecoach Lines in the Area; St. Louis; Independence, Mo.;
British Peerage, and so on. This notebook helps me to keep my papers related to
the book or series organized and easy to find.
For online research, I bookmark a lot of sites in my
“Favorites.” I have a folder for “Historical,” and within that are several
other folders, including “Colonial,”
“Costume,” “England,” “Maps,” “Oregon,” “Railroads,” “Texas,” “Victorian,”
“West,” and more. Organizing the websites I use for research this way makes
them easy to find again if I have to check something, or if I want to return to
them for a future book. To me, it’s very frustrating to know I have information
SOMEWHERE and not be able to find it!
