Lin will be awarding a $15.00 Amazon Gift Card to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour, and a $15 Amazon Gift Card to a randomly drawn host.
Please leave a comment.
Where the Greener Grass Grows
by Lin Brooks
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
INTERVIEW:
A lot of the ideas for my books come from real life experiences. The
book itself may go off in a completely different direction, but the core of the
book is usually something I or someone close to me has experienced. From there,
the “what if” takes over. In this case, my daughter, who I am very close to,
was in high school, and I could see her days under my roof were numbered. She
is my only child, and I wondered how I was going to cope with not having her
there every day. That’s when the “what if” kicked in. How would it be different
for single moms, as opposed to married moms? How would it be different if we
weren’t as close? What about her? How would she deal with her new freedom? I
have a friend whose daughter was only a few weeks older than mine, and I
started thinking about the differences, and then the plot just went from there.
I ended up with one married mom and one single one, one quiet, hard working mom
and one outgoing, fun one, and two empty nests. It was a really fun book to
write, because there was so much truth in it.
2.
What expertise did you bring to your writing?
My first couple of attempts at a manuscript
were pretty bad. You never realize how hard it is to fill all of those empty
pages until you actually try to do it! I was a math and science person in my
younger years, a very direct, to the point kind of person, so building a
character and breathing life into a story wasn’t something that came naturally
to me. And then I went to law school. They brain wash you in law school.
Seriously. They spend the first six weeks completely retraining your mind to
think a different way. By the time they’re done with you, you can’t even answer
a simple yes or no question. The answer is always “it depends,” because there
is no black and white anymore. It’s all grey. Everything. There are no right
answers. They teach you how to lay a foundation and then build on it in a way
that makes sense to other people and that the answer is not nearly as important
as how you came to the conclusion. As a writer, that was invaluable to me. I
can look at any situation now, turn it over, spin off a dozen different
hypotheticals, and then sit down and create a story that has some meat to it. I
learned how to worry less about getting to the ending and more about filling in
the detail along the way.
3.
What would you want your readers to know about you that might not be
in your bio?
I get into everything, kind of like a dog left alone in a living
room full of shoes. I don’t do it on purpose. It just works out that way. There
is so much I want to do, and there just aren’t enough hours in the day. So I
don’t sit still much. Unless I’m sick or just too exhausted to move, sitting
still feels too much like missing out! I love to cook, especially Italian, and
I make it all from scratch—noodles, sauce, everything. I grow fresh herbs in an
herb garden out back. I remodel—like tearing out walls with a sledge hammer
kind of remodel. I currently have eight projects in various stages of
completion (my husband is a very patient man!). I run a lot, and am training
for a marathon at the end of the year. I practice law in two cities that are
three hours apart. I am mom to a twenty year old college student that I visit a
lot, and step-mom to a 14 and an 11 year old that have reminded me what it was
like to run a taxi service. I travel a lot. And between it all, I write. I keep
thinking I should drop some things off of my list, but I am passionate about
them all. If it’s worth having, it’s worth working for. And who needs sleep,
right? That’s what coffee is for.
4.
As far as your writing goes, what are your future plans?
Right now, I’m putting the finishing touches on
a humor book about divorces, which is due in mid-November. That’s the beauty of
e-Books—I don’t have to have everything finalized a year in advance!! That one
is humor therapy for divorced women. I figured out that most women blame
themselves for failed marriages and, wouldn’t you know it, most men blame the
women, too. It’s hardly fair. So I wrote a book about it. So far, response has
been very positive! I also have a romance book coming out early next year, and
I have another one that is about 80% finished that I’m going to lock down on
next.
5.
Can you give us a sneak peak into this book?
Sure! The story is about Cara, a stay at home
mom, and Lacey, a single mother. Their daughters leave home for college right
about the time of Cara’s twentieth anniversary, which is a total bomb. With her
daughter out of the house, Cara quickly realizes that her relationship with her
husband isn’t what it used to be. Over the last 18 years they’ve drifted apart,
and without their daughter there to glue them together, she’s concerned that
they won’t be able to connect again. Her husband has a secret, though, and that
secret threatens to tear them apart. She distracts herself by worrying over
Lacey, who prefers working late to going home to an empty house. If she can’t
fix her own relationship, maybe she can help Lacey find happily ever after.
Except Lacey isn’t at all interested. She believes there is no Mr. Right and
has no interest in looking for Mr. Right Now. But Lacey can’t help but worry
about her friend. Cara has a solid, reliable, sweet man who cares for her, if
Cara could only see it. Lacey decides the best way to help her friend is to get
her busy. She offers Cara a deal—blind dates for job interviews. To her
surprise, Cara accepts. Unfortunately for Lacey, her daughter Abby is soon in
on the matchmaking scheme. Through all of this, Lacey and Cara have to learn to
adjust to their new lives without losing their identity.
6.
Do you belong to a critique group? If so how does this help or
hinder your writing?
I don’t, but I wish I did. I have my support
group (i.e. my family and friends) who will read my books, but they don’t ever
tell me what’s wrong with them. I figure it’s their job to like my stuff no
matter how much work it needs. So I just work with book editors. I had a
wonderful editor on this book, a guy by the name of Lou Aronica (he used to
head up Avon Books). He gave me such wonderful insight. In fact, he gave me a
paragraph of comments that resulted in a total rewrite, and I was so pleased
with the results. It was 1000% better! So I’m a big fan of having an unbiased
fellow writer look over your work.
7.
What is the best and worst advice you ever received? (regarding
writing or publishing)
The
best advice I’ve ever received is to write what you know. True, you can do a
great deal of research in order to write about something that is out of your
skill set, but if you’re writing about something that others know and you
don’t, one mistake and you lose your audience. So you have to be very thorough,
very careful, and let people who know your subject look over your shoulder.
When you write what you know, not only are you less likely to make errors, you
are more comfortable. You can provide more detail and more depth, which makes
for a richer story.
The
worst advice I’ve ever received is to keep doing the same things over and over,
hoping for a different result. That’s a paraphrase, but it’s the essence of
what I was told. The idea was that if you get a rejection, write another story,
submit it, get another rejection, etc. That’s true to a point. You do have to
be thick skinned to be a writer, and rejections are part of the process. On the
other hand, if you aren’t learning anything through the process, you aren’t
helping yourself. Each manuscript should be better. Each rejection should teach
you something. If all you are doing is submitting and resubmitting, then you
will keep getting the same results. Ask for constructive criticism. Grow as a
writer. If you don’t look back and see that this manuscript is better than the
one you wrote three years ago, then you can’t expect that your chances of
getting published will get better. The worst thing you can do when you get a
rejection is assume the editor simply doesn’t see the potential in your
manuscript, and the editor must not know a good story when he/she sees one. Part
of your job as a writer is to deliver a story that people want to read. So you
have to be flexible enough see the flaws in your own works and make an effort
to fix them.
8.
Do you outline your books or just start writing?
I sort of outline. I have a general idea of
where I’m headed, and I usually jot down about ten plot points that are
designed to get me there. Then I start writing and maybe my story goes along
with the plot points and maybe it doesn’t. Once I get my fingers on the
keyboard, the characters take over.
9.
How do you maintain your creativity?
That’s a tough one. I go off in so many
directions, my biggest challenge is to maintain my focus. I think the trick to
maintaining creativity for me is to schedule time for it. That may sound
counterintuitive, but it is so easy to let life interfere. I have made a
concerted effort to dedicate a portion of my day, every day, to either to doing
something related to writing, whether it’s actual writing or promotion or
research. If I didn’t do that, I wouldn’t ever get around to it. Other people
do a really good job of taking time out of my day, and to a certain degree,
that is necessary. But I have to put myself in line, too.
10. Anything else you
might want to add?
Come visit me at linbrooks.blogspot.com or on
facebook at www.facebook.com/lin.brooks.33. I’m always pecking on the computer
about something, and I’d love to hear from you!
BLURB:
Sending the
children off to college is never easy. For Lacey Marchand and Cara Myers, an
empty nest is enough to drive them a little crazy -- but sometimes, a little
crazy is just what the doctor ordered.
Now that their
daughters have left for college, Lacey and Cara have too much time on their
hands. With nothing else to do, Cara decides to help single-mom Lacey get a
life. And what better way to get a life than a few blind dates?
Lacey, however,
can't think of a worse way to spend her weekends. She has her own ideas for
curing their empty nest problems -- Cara needs a new career. And a career just
happens to be what Lacey understands best.
For Cara and
Lacey, coping with the empty nest means reinventing their lives without losing
their sanity. Where the Greener Grass Grows is the story of two mothers
learning to live, to laugh and to let go.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EXCERPT:
Sunday,
August 26, 2010
Empty
Nest
Have
you ever noticed how quiet a house can be after a teenager leaves it? It’s like
all of those decibels that have been screaming through the air for the last
eight years have come to a sudden halt. I can hear buzzing in my ears, it’s so
quiet.
Three
years ago, I realized it was almost time. When Abby started the tenth grade, I
began telling myself it wouldn’t be much longer. Sometimes, I said this with
more than a little relief. For instance, what single mother has never muttered
under her breath, at least once, “just two more years and I can get in there
and fumigate that room”? Of course you have. Admit it.
Well,
at least now the room is clean. I had forgotten the child had a floor in there.
The mp3 player is quiet and there’s no chattering on the telephone. I’m trying
to remember the last time the house has been this quiet. A year ago, it
would’ve been bliss.
Now
it isn’t. Remember all of those things you tell yourself you’re going to do
whenever the kids leave home? I forgot most of them when she left. The rest
were finished within four hours. I’m bored. I know it’s pitiful, but I’m new at
this. Ideas would be appreciated.
Posted
by Lacey Gail at 14:52
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Lin Brooks is a lifelong
Southern girl who lives in Mobile, Alabama with her family. Lin is a lawyer,
runner, mother, home improvement enthusiast and an avid reader with a bucket
list that includes visiting Australia, running a marathon and trying every kind
of margarita ever made.
Author page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B005I56O5W
Blog:
http://lin-brooks.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
Don't forget to comment!
