Preslaysa

I’m so happy to interview Pamela Meyers on the blog today. Today she’s talking about her latest release, Thyme for Love, which is available now. Welcome, Pamela!

What made you want to become a writer?

The need to write things down has been ingrained in me since I was a child. At age eight I asked for a diary for Christmas. That moved on to journaling as a teen and years later, I became editor of my church singles group newsletter. While working toward a bachelor’s degree in an accelerated adult program, one of my profs told me my writing was good enough to be published. Shocked that someone would actually pay to read my words, I soon started publishing magazine articles. But, my real love was fiction and that led to where I am today.

What’s your writing process like?

Before I even begin to write the story, I brainstorm my plot idea with at least one or two people who are good at brainstorming. Then I research as necessary on the setting, the vocation of my characters, etc.  If it’s an historical it takes a bit more time, but even with a contemporary like my current release, Thyme for Love, I needed to do some research around when a dead body is found in a private facility. For that I had to research what happens in Wisconsin and in particular the county where I was setting the story.

The setting for Thyme for Love is fictional insofar as the town and lake are concerned, but it’s minutes away from my hometown of Lake Geneva, WI. I called a funeral home there owned by a man who attended high school with me and got what I needed from him.

My next step is characterization. I free-write backstory on my main characters to learn what makes them tick and their likes and dislikes. I don’t understand how it works, but the words flow through my fingers to the computer keys and I learn things that way J.

Then, I nail down the plot points. I am not a seat-of-the-pants writer, but within the outline of the story I give my characters some freedom. Sometimes they tell me something I didn’t know, and I’m always surprised by that.

Sometimes during the writing I’ll send out several chapters for critiques or I wait until the first draft is done then have a friend read it through from start to finish. She is really good at finding things and telling me if something doesn’t make sense or doesn’t agree with what was said earlier.

I give it another read-through and add in the five senses and make the POV deeper where it needs to be, and then send it off to my agent in a proposal if that’s the route I’m going. Now that I’ve started publishing some work independently, that would be a different process. Which leads to the next question.

How is indie publishing different from traditional publishing?

Thyme for Love was first published in 2011, and I was able get my rights back on that book and also its sequel, Love Will Find a Way. That led to republishing them as indies. Thyme for Love just came out and I’ll soon start on edits of Love Will Find a Way.

I first had to edit the manuscript. I’ve grown as a writer and also the technology mentioned in the 2011 version is already obsolete and I had to correct that. I think this version is much stronger and even if you’ve read the first one, you might like to read this one to see the changes.

The process I described above for traditionally published work is similar until you get to the point where my agent sends it off. In indie publishing, the author becomes her own publishing company. You have to pay to have the cover designed and a full edit done on your manuscript–the things a publisher would do for you. But having these services professionally done raises the quality of the work to the same standards you expect to receive with a traditionally published novel. You can learn to format the manuscript yourself for e-book and print, and many do. I chose to hire someone to do it, because I wanted it to be done right. Then after the cover design and manuscript is formatted in different ways for different platforms, you send it off. In my case I am using Amazon and they have an exclusive right to the book for three months. The Kindle version went to the Kindle Direct Publish (KDP) area of Amazon and the print to another area called Create Space. You set the price and date of release, etc. Having control is a great benefit because it’s your decision and not one made by someone else. Then you release the book and start praying for sales. Of course you have to do all the marketing yourself and that can be relentless, especially in the early days of the book’s release. But, in this day and age, traditionally published authors are also doing more and more of their own marketing.

What is the greatest benefit? Higher royalties for starters, and right behind that is control over every part of the publishing process and the sales process. Also with trad published books the wait from contract to release can be as long as 18 months. I started editing the manuscript last January and it was ready for publication in July. It would have been sooner if I wasn’t busy on something else as the same time.

If you could hang out with the characters from this story for a day, what would you do?

With my Thyme for Love characters—April Love, Marc Thorne, and Kitty McPiper, I would love to hang out at Aunt Kitty’s, cooking with April, and later going down to the dock and catching a swim or taking a boat ride around the lake. Kitty, April’s aunt, is a hoot. She always gets idioms mixed up but everyone loves her so much they just consider it part of her charm. That evening Marc would come over and we’d have a cook out and enjoy the warm summer evening outside on the deck until the bugs got too bad. Then we’d retreat to the screened porch. I’d spend the night and have a good soak in Kitty’s spa tub before climbing into the four-poster bed in Kitty’s guest room and drift off to sleep.

Where did you come up with the idea for this story?

I grew up in Lake Geneva, WI and one of the major attractions of the town are the many mansions that have dotted the lake’s shoreline since the early 1870s after the Great Chicago Fire. Many of the antique homes have been torn down and replaced by large modern homes, but lots do remain. I’ve always thought a romantic mystery would be a great setting in one of those old homes and that’s where the nugget of an idea was born. But I didn’t want to place the story in Lake Geneva itself because I make the village police chief kind of a bungler and I didn’t want to do that to the Lake Geneva police chief. Instead, I made up a small town and lake that had similar types of homes on it within a ten minute drive into Lake Geneva so they could go there to eat out and things like that.

About Pamela Meyers

A native of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, author Pamela S. Meyers lives in suburban Chicago with her two rescue cats. Her novels include Thyme for Love, and Love Will Find a Way, contemporary romantic mysteries, and her 1933 historical romance, Love Finds You in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. She is a contributing blogger to Novel Rocket at www.novelrocket.com and Heroes, Heroines, and History at www.hhhistory.com.  When she isn’t at her laptop writing her latest novel, she can often be found nosing around Wisconsin and other Midwestern spots for new story ideas.

You can connect with Pamela via her website, her blog, Facebook or Twitter!

Pam’s website: www.pamelasmeyers.com

Pam’s Blog: www.pammeyerswrites.blogspot.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pamela.meyers

Twitter: https://twitter.com/pamelameyers

About Thyme for Love

New chef, April Love, has landed her dream job, but she never anticipated her former fiancé and a murdered boss would be on the menu.

When April Love applies for a job as an in-house chef at a century-old lakeshore mansion in Canoga Lake, Wisconsin, she never expected to find her old flame, Marc Thorne working there and looking more gorgeous than ever. He’d left her high and dry weeks before their planned wedding, and last she heard, he was living on the West Coast. Soon, the old attraction heats up. But, April senses Marc isn’t spilling all the beans about his past eight years, and no amount of questioning has him talking. Despite being unable to trust Marc for her future, she’s determined to not let him stand in the way of living out her dream.

Their boss is murdered, and Marc is falsely accused of the crime. He’s about to be indicted, and April has no choice but to turn detective and find Ramón Galvez’s real killer. It isn’t long before she realizes she may be the murderer’s next victim if she doesn’t stop her sleuthing. If she stops now, hopes for a future with Marc will end in a cellblock.

You can purchase Thyme for Love here!

“A romantic mystery, full of twists, turns, fancy cooking, a hunky hero, and a heroine who doesn’t take no for an answer.” Cynthia Hickey, multipublished author of several cozy mystery series, including the Summer Meadow mysteries and the River Valley mysteries.

“Great food and a murder are all the rage today for haute cuisine. I’m looking forward to more adventures!” Bonnie Calhoun, Publisher of Christian Fiction On Line Magazine and author of Cooking the Books and Thunder.

A compelling mystery romance with unique characters that will live on in your hearts long after you turn the last page.” Ane Mulligan, president of Novel Rocket and author of Chapel Springs Revival.