Diane Chamberlain's Lies

My guest today is another North Carolina gal, Diane Chamberlain. Welcome, Diane, and please tell us more about you.
I started writing nearly thirty years ago, when I was working as a social worker in a hospital. When I started, I thought of writing fiction as a hobby, but it soon became an obsession. It took me four years to write my first book, and four years more to see it published. Since then, I’ve written nineteen more novels.

Is there a message in your writing you want readers to grasp?
I want my readers to be entertained, first and foremost, but I definitely hope they will take away a message of hope, resilience, and the importance of family in all its varieties.

Briefly tell us about your latest book.
The Lies We Told is the story of two physician sisters, Maya and Rebecca, who are part of a disaster relief team. When they were teens, they witnessed the murder of their parents, and each of them carries a haunting secret about that event. Now, one of them is in a helicopter crash and presumed dead. . . and I don’t want to give away what happens next!

Do you think your writing has improved since your first attempt? In what way?
Oh, yes! I view my first book as a training ground, even though it won the Rita Award from the Romance Writers of America. Over time, my books have developed more suspense and mystery and less romance, but the main focus is always on relationships between family members and friends.

How do you develop characters? Setting?
I usually pick a setting that intrigues me or resonates for me personally. Often it’s an area I want to explore more, such as the city in The Lies We Told, Wilmington, NC. I loved it so much as I researched it that my next book is set there as well. As for characters, I employ some of the same techniques I used when getting to know my clients back in my psychotherapy days. Basically, I talk to them and listen hard to their answers. When they start to feel like real people to me, I know I’m on the right track.

I set my fourth novel in Wilmington as well. Beautiful place! I lived there when I was first married.

How do you determine voice in your writing?
I gave both sisters a voice in The Lies We Told. Maya is in first person, because I wanted the reader to feel closer to her. Rebecca is in third person.

How do you promote yourself online and off?
I have a very active blog at www.dianechamberlain.com/blog and I’m active on Facebook. If you’re on Facebook, too, please friend me! My website www.dianechamberlain.com has tons of information, including trailers of The Lies We Told and other recent books as well as contests and a printable booklist. I try to interact with my readers as much as I can.

Where do you write? When? What do you have around you?
I usually write at a coffee shop in the mornings. I need to get out of the house! In the afternoon and evening, I write in my office or if it’s a nice day, on the porch. My significant other is a photographer, so we both work at home, where we hang out with our two shelties.

Diane, thanks for dropping by. I'll have to get The Lies We Told. Good luck with it.

Lynette Hall Hampton's Stetson Mold

Lynette Hall Hampton is my special guest today. Welcome, Lynette. Give us a little history about yourself.
I was born into a family of readers and writers. My Dad read western novels by the car load. When he retired from public work he read at least one a day for the rest of his life. My Mother read everything from Shakespeare to Grace Livingston Hill and wrote short stories and poems. She also wrote a column for her local paper. In the third grade I discovered a book called Cowgirl Kate and decided then and there that I’d someday write a book someday. It took many years of writing magazine articles and an occasional short story for me to reach that goal. In 2003 my first mystery novel, Jilted by Death was published. I haven’t stopped writing novels since.

I've read all of you books and enjoyed them very much. Briefly tell us about Stetson Mold.
My latest book, Stetson Mold, came out in January of this year from Wings ePress in e-book and trade paperback. It is a stand alone romantic suspense. It’s setting is an injection molding company which is located in Huntersville, NC – a small town near Charlotte. Stetson Varner dies and leaves his company and all his assets to his niece, Shelly Wakefield. When she takes control of the company, she learns that Stetson Varner didn’t die in an automobile accident as was reported, but he was murdered. In her struggle to learn who killed her uncle, she faces threats, sabotage, a potential strike and the possibility that the handsome molding manager is behind it all before she leans who she can and can not trust in the company.

How do you develop characters? Setting? Plot? And do you have specific techniques you use to stay on track?
My characters and plots have no rhyme or reason about them. It may sound strange, but my characters seem to pop into my head, sometimes uninvited. At first they’re fuzzy and nameless and without much form. To find out who these drop-in guest are I have a series of questions for them. Name? Age? Married? Single? And so on. After I get a fix on them, I start asking such things as: Where are you? What are you up to? Where do you work? Why are you bugging me? When I get the answers here I usually start writing. I don’t worry about a full blown plot, though I often have a vague idea of how things are going to end up and it usually does end this way. It’s the twist and turns in the middle that often surprise me. Though I know a lot of writers plot their entire novel before writing, I can’t seem to do it. Every time I’ve tried, the books have ended up not written or tossed in the trash. I’m not saying that I don’t plot at all, because I do. It’s simply a chapter or so at a time and as I do this I asked myself, “How is this going to lead to the ending I have decided on?” It’s kind of like a thirty-day trip I took across several years ago. I knew I was going to go a northern route through Ohio, Michigan, Montana and Oregon, go down the California coast and come back to NC by way of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. I didn’t plan some of the most fun things – the off shoots of visiting the Grand Canyon, The London Bridge in Colorado or touring the plantation in Louisiana among other things. And though I started out and ended up where I planned, I had a more exciting time doing ii than if I’d know about these things in advance.

Where do you write? What do you have around you?
I’d like to impress everyone and say that I have a beautifully appointed office, but alas that would be fiction. Because my son-in-law had to take a job out of town and he’s away five days a week, I have recently downsized and moved into a small apartment connected to my daughter’s home. I have a large living room and one wall contains bookshelves, a desk with my computer and a television in the corner. My file cabinet is in my walk-in closet and my cat thinks the back of the desk is his private sleeping quarters. (He’s nineteen years old, so who am I to argue with him?) At least it’s private and my two grandchildren are most of the time thoughtful enough to knock before coming into my area. My seven-year old granddaughter sometimes forgets and will come bounding in, grab her mouth saying, “Oh, I forgot,” go running back out and knock. It always makes me smile.

What are your current projects?
I have to laugh when I think of this question. I’m one of those strange writers who works on more than one book at a time. I’m about half through the third in the Rev. Willa Hinshaw series, though it’s giving me more trouble than any other of the series. I have completed three books in the Coverton Mills Romance series and am working on the fourth. A third of the third book in the Ferrington Men series is finished and I’ve recently written a stand alone historical romance which is looking for a home. I’m now writing the second in this genre. I like stretching my mind and attempting different forms of novel writing, but I haven’t had the urge to try my hand at erotica yet. Probably won’t do that one.

Some of this books will be out in the future. The first in the Coverton Mills series, Lady Slippers for my Lady will hopefully be coming out from Wild Rose Press in 2011 under my pen name, Agnes Alexander. Your Place or Mine? is scheduled to be out later this year from WriteWord Books. The mass paperback reprints of Jilted by Death will be out this summer from Harlequin’s World Wide Mysteries. They will publish Echoes of Mercy in 2011. I have offered Wings ePress the first in my Calendar Clan series. So, like all writers, I’m waiting to hear form the others I have out.

Where can folks learn more about your books and events?
My website, http://www.lynettehallhampton.com/, is in bad need of updating, but my older books are there. Most of my books are available on Amazon and other on line booksellers. Of course they can be ordered from the publishers: PublisherAlabaster.Biz or WingsPress.com. I keep books on hand myself and my email is LynetteHampton82@Yahoo.com.
Thank you for interviewing me, Susan. I enjoyed it.

It was my pleasure, Lynette. Good luck with all those books going at once. I tip my Stetson to you!

Lynette (in the hat) and Susan at

Carolina Conspiracy event

Elizabeth Craig

My guest today is fellow Carolina Conspiracy member, Elizabeth Spann Craig.

Elizabeth writes the Myrtle Clover series for Midnight Ink and is writing the upcoming Memphis Barbeque series for Berkley Prime Crime as Riley Adams. Like her characters, her roots are in the South. As the mother of two, Elizabeth writes on the run as she juggles duties as room mom and Brownie leader, referees play dates, drives car pools, and is dragged along as a hostage/chaperone on field trips.
http://elizabethspanncraig.com, http://mysterywritingismurder.blogspot.com, http://mysteryloverskitchen.com

Elizabeth, welcome. When did the writing bug bite, and in what genre(s)?
I’m not one of those people blessed with multiple talents. J I discovered early on that writing was the one thing that I was good at. I started avidly writing stories and poems when I was in 4th grade and never looked back. Mysteries were always my favorite reads growing up—I cut my teeth on Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and the Bobbsey Twins, then I moved on to Trixie Belden before finally ending up with Agatha Christie. I must have reread Christie’s books ten times each!

What are your writing goals?
If I’m writing a first draft, I write half a chapter a day—this gets me through a 75,000 word book in about 5 weeks.

Briefly tell us about your latest book. Delicious and Suspicious is the first book in the Memphis Barbeque series and will be released July 6: When a food scout from a cable cooking channel is murdered, it's only natural for restaurant owner Lulu Taylor to take it personally. After all, her barbeque restaurant served the scout's last meal. But danger lurks as Lulu investigates the crime. Will she clear the restaurant's name, or is she next to be skewered?

How do you determine voice in your writing?
My voice is my natural voice—the one I tell stories in for my children at night. It’s very casual—“I want to tell you a story.”

How do you promote yourself online and off?
Since my children are still pretty young, I’m limited to my in-person appearances. I’m going to the Malice Domestic conference in DC April 30—May 2, and I make appearances with the Carolina Conspiracy mystery writers group in North and South Carolina. The bulk of my promoting is done online, though—via guest posts, my blogs, Twitter, and Facebook. Online promotion is a lifesaver!

Where do you write? What do you have around you?
I write anywhere I can! As a stay-at-home mom of busy children, I have to grab my moments when I can find them. You’ll frequently find me squeezing my writing into 5 minute blocks—at the grocery store deli line, waiting for my car to get washed, in the pediatric waiting room, or in the carpool line at the elementary school.

What are your current projects?
I’m handing in the second Memphis Barbeque book to Berkley Prime Crime this week. My deadline for the 3rd is November 1. I’ll also be promoting my first Memphis Barbeque book, Delicious and Suspicious after its release on July 6.

Where can folks learn more about your books and events?
They can visit me at http://mysterywritingismurder.blogspot.com. I blog daily and use the site as a hub to connect to other blogs I write for. Thanks so much for interviewing me today, Susan!

It has been a pleasure. Hope to see you at a Carolina Conspiracy event soon, Elizabeth.