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Though Liz Adair lives in the Pacific Northwest, she has desert in her DNA. Born in New Mexico, she graduated from high school and college in Arizona before heading north to moister climes. Liz began writing seriously when most of her seven children were grown. She has published six books and is currently working on a screenplay of her latest novel, Counting the Cost.

CRW: Welcome Liz to Writers Mirror. It is really great to interview you today.

Liz: It’s nice to be interviewed. I’ve been in awe of your energy and outreach ever since we met at a writers retreat three years ago.

CRW: Thanks Liz. I remember meeting you too, and how I was in awe at how well you had it all together. Okay, now some questions so all can get to know you better. What inspires you to write?

Liz: It’s just something I gotta do. You know, fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly.

CRW: Liz has got to write. Do you try to write daily, and if so, do you set a goal of a certain number of words?

Liz: If I’m in the middle of a project I try to write at least five days a week. The only goal I set is to get the dang thing done.

CRW: What gets in your way of writing?

Liz: Family, work, inertia, life. There’s lots to get in the way, but people in my life are really supportive. They always ask if I’m busy before breaking into my day.

CRW: Wow, I'm impressed. People still think I am just playing.  How do you get past it?

Liz: I don’t. I embrace it. So it might take a few extra months to get something written. The things that get in the way are important, too.

CRW: Well said. What makes you CRAZY about writing?

Liz: Missing obvious mistakes in something I’ve proofread a hundred times.

CRW: Where is the weirdest place you have worked on a writing project?

Liz: Sitting alongside a sewage lagoon in Chewelah, Washington. I wrote After Goliath while my husband was managing a job building a wastewater treatment plant. I worked with him, part time, and the rest of the time I sat in the job shack and pounded out the manuscript.

CRW: How long does it take you to complete a book?

Liz: The quickest I have written a book was four months, but I was able to work that one it full time. Since I still am employed, a more comfortable length of time is nine months.

CRW: Where do you get your ideas for your books?

Liz: Everywhere. From family history, from the newspaper, from standing in line at the post office, from the things that get in the way of my writing.

CRW: The line at the Post Office. Good idea. Where do you get your character’s names?

Liz: I take a lot of my surnames from family history. If I hear a name I particularly like, I file it away—which does no good, because I can’t remember where I filed it. When it finally surfaces, I can’t remember the reason I kept it, but, hey, it’s a pretty good name, I’ll stick it on this current hero.

CRW: What is your favorite writing food?

Liz: Diet Pepsi with fresh lime.

CRW: Tell us about your book “Counting the Cost.”

Liz: This story arc is taken from family history—a family secret, really, that my mother told me just before she died. This book is different from the other books I’ve written in a couple ways: First, my other books are lite fare. Both the mysteries and the romance are nice little puzzles, mini-vacations. They’re fluff. Counting the Cost has more substance to it. Secondly, my other books were all carefully plotted, outlined, written. Counting the Cost just welled up inside of me and poured out my fingers.

Oh, did I mention that Counting the Cost was an award finalist in USA Book News’ “National Best Books 2009” award?

CRW: Congratulations!  I also saw it listed in a contest for book trailers. If any

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CRW: Welcome, Tina, to Writers Mirror. It is really great to interview you today.

Tina: It's fun to have an interview, Cindy. Thanks.

CRW: No, thank you!  Okay Tina, tell us what inspires you to write?

Tina: Life--writing has always been a part of me.

CRW: Do you try to write daily, and if so, do you set a goal of a certain number of words?

Tina: I do like to write daily. I'm not good at setting word-count goals though--I spend all of my time checking to see how many words I've written.

CRW: What gets in your way of writing?

Tina: My family--but that's a good thing. If it weren't for them I'd probably stay sequestered in my writing room and never see the light of day.

CRW: How do you get past, through or around it and still make your writing happen?

Tina: When I don't have time to sit down to write, such as during the holidays, I am still thinking of my current WIP. I stop and make notes of ideas that come to me so that when I do have time, I have more to go from.

CRW: What makes you CRAZY about writing?

Tina: Trying to get published. I've been trying to get an agent for a year now.

CRW: Where is the weirdest place you have worked on a writing project?

Tina: From bed. I keep a notebook, a pen, and a flashlight by my bed. On a good night I have to force myself to sleep.

CRW: How long does it take you to complete a book?

Tina: I wrote the rough draft for my 230 page fairy novel in four months. My main character had a lot to say and I had to work hard to keep up with her.

CRW: By the way, Tina placed in a First Chapter Contest with this very fairy novel. I love fairies Tina, so am looking forward to you publishing this book. I always love when an author listens to the character.  Others probably think we are crazy, but they really do talk.

CRW: Where do you get your character’s names?

Tina: All over. When I wrote my fairy novel--she told me her name.

CRW: There's that talking character again. What is your favorite writing food?

Tina: I don't generally eat while writing--it takes my consentration away from my goal.

CRW: Good habit. Chocolate tends to inspire me.  Tina, please tell us about your book(s).”

Tina: I have self-published a children's picture book. It's a tale about a coyote who has a dream--how he saves the day and also makes his dream come true. My sister-in-law, an accomplished artist, did the illustrations.

CRW: Who did you use to publish it?

Tina: I self published through Instantpublisher.com

CRW: Please give us your best “Elevator Pitch�

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Sparkin just finished besting the Grand Master. It was pretty iffy for awhile.  He is on his final journey out the door and into the world.  I wish you well my friend!

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Valerie J. Steimle is not your average person. She was born into a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York, converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints when she was nine. She graduated from Ricks College in '79 and then attended Brigham Young University. She then went on to marry Robert Steimle at 21 and then had nine children. She has homeschooled all of her children with Robert during sometime in their life and also started writing for newspapers about family issues. She became a widow in 2006 as Robert passed away suddenly in his sleep after being married for 25 years.

CRW:  Welcome, Valerie, to Writers Wednesday on Writers Mirror.

Valerie:  Thank you so much for interviewing me. I love talking about my books.

CRW:  Let’s start with your book called "Of One Heart: Being Single in the LDS World." When will it be available?

Valerie:   It is available now on Amazon.com.

CRW:  Who’s your publisher?

Valerie:  They are called Createspace.com. It is a self-publishing company put out and run by Amazon.com.

CRW:  Please give us your best “Elevator Pitch” for the book.

Valerie:  Being single in a predominately married LDS world has great challenges. My book will help anyone who is single or knows a single friend to overcome these challenges.

CRW:  How do we find your  book on Amazon.com?

Valerie:  Type my name Valerie J. Steimle on Amazon.com and three books will come up. You can also go to my website, http://www.strengthenyourhome.com/.


CRW:  Excellent.  What are the titles of your other two books?
 
Valerie:  "Home Is Where the Heart Is" and "Home Is Where the Learning Is.: Homeschool Lifestyles from Homeschool Moms."
 
CRW:  What inspires you to write?
 
Valerie:  I started writing when there was an injustice occuring where I was living in San Diego. I see injustices all the time in family and social issues in our culture all the time, so I feel compelled to write about them. It's very theraputic.

CRW:  Do you try to write daily, and if so, do you set a goal of a certain number of words?

Valerie:  Yes, I do try to write daily but I don't set a word goal. I work on different manuscripts and ideas I have for several hours a day. Word counts can put too much pressure on me and I get writer's block so I set my writing time to 2 to 3 hours a day.

CRW:  What gets in your way of writing?

Valerie:  That's a good question. Life itself. Children, new husband, my responsibilities at church and homeschooling. There is a lot going on.

CRW:  How do you get past it?

Valerie:  I take my down time at the computer. I finally have an office in my home so I can close the door and write for a while.

CRW:  What makes you CRAZY about writing?

Valerie:  I love, love, love the publishing world. It is fascinating to me. I love that people will read my books and tell me it helped them in some way or they enjoyed what I had to say. It is so satisfying.

CRW:  So this is crazy good then, not crazy bad.  Where is the weirdest place you have worked on a writing project?

Valerie:  When I have to watch soccer games, wait at the doctor's

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Tanya Parker Mills grew up overseas, and the stories she writes inevitably reflect the clashes of culture, religion, and values that her LDS family witnessed, first-hand. Her first novel, "The Reckoning," (set in Baghdad, Iraq, where she lived for five years as a child) was a 2008 Whitney Finalist in two categories and won the Indie Book Award for Multicultural Fiction. She lives and writes in Richland, Washington, sustained by her husband, two children, two cats, and a continual supply of M&M's.

CRW:  Writers Mirror welcomes Tanya Parker Mills as our special guest on  Wednesday's Writer.

Tanya:  Hi Cindy.

CRW:  Hi Tanya, I know you have an interesting and vairied background that gives you much to draw from for your writing. Please tell us about it so we can begin to get to know you.

Tanya:  Shortly after my parents got married, my Dad had a choice: go to work for this new broadcasting company called NBC...or work for the government's newest agency--the CIA. Guess which acronym he went for? Of course, I didn't find out about his undercover work 'till I was getting ready to go off to BYU. It certainly lent a new perspective to our years abroad in Greece, Turkey, and Iraq! (By the time we went to Lebanon, where I finished high school, he had left the agency and gone "legitimate," as they say.)

CRW:  Wow!  What stories your Dad could tell, that is if he was allowed to tell them. No wonder you have so much to write about. What inspires you to write?

Tanya:  Knowledge. Ever since I was a kid, I loved reading encyclopedias and you can get a ton of ideas for stories simply by reading history and biography. I find that when I come across an interesting fact or piece of history, I simply have to start writing about it in some way, in order to better understand and remember it. (It was also my best method for studying in school.)

CRW:  You must have been a great student with such interesting study methods.  Do you try to write daily, and if so, do you set a goal of a certain number of words?

Tanya:  Yes, except on Sundays...but even on Sundays, I try to post to my blog. I try and write from 9 am to 11 am (except on Wednesdays when we go to the temple...then I write from 11 am to noon), when my mind is freshest. I shoot for 3-5 pages, but don't always make it.

CRW:  What gets in your way of writing?

Tanya:  Not my husband. He knows not to bother me during those hours. Now our cat, Peach, is a different matter (He's high maintenance, unlike our other cat, Anastasia). I'll be in the middle of a really good scene and he'll come and jump up and park himself right in front of the monitor.

CRW:  Looks like he got caught here in this picture, but that he really doesn't care.  So much like all the cats I know. So what do you do with the feline situta

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          Micah Conners promised his mother he would be good in his new town. But with Christmas being only three days away, being escorted home by the sheriff does not bode well.  Can the towering office be trusted not to tell what happened?  Perhaps the ramshackle stable that has appeared on Main Street will side track him from spilling the day's events--or maybe his interest in Micah's widowed mother would do the trick.  The last thing Dawn Conners needs is to hear her son is in trouble.  She has enough to worry about with her husband gone and her daughter, Annie, ill. 
          Even though Micah has told his sister the rustic structure in the middle of town is simply part of the town's decorations, Annie is sure that unseen angels are building the crude stable--which means baby Jesus is coming, and He can make her better.  Terrified that his little sister might die, Micah vows to find the baby Jesus for Annie, even if it is only a plastic doll.  But as Micah gets nearer to his goal he finds that angels are closer than he ever would have believed.  

The blurb sounded interesting. I thumbed through the 100 page book published by Covenant Communications and thought it looked like a nice clean read.  What I didn't count on was getting so involved in the story that I forgot to focus on reviewing the book.  I just enjoyed it.  I won't spoil the ending, but I did find the book page turning and my eyes moist.

Kathi has a clear writing voice. Her characters are strong and most of them quite likable.  I have always tried to out think the author as I read. I usually figure out 'who done it' by about half way through a book. This time I didn't figure it out until about three quarters of the way.  The only thing that seemed a bit out of whack was that several times Micah drew very adult conclusions and I had to double check that it was Micah saying or thinking these thoughts.  Overall the entire book is a masterpiece in creating human emotions in both the characters and the reader.

The responsibly Micah feels toward his mother and sister is touching. His character shines through and shows that Micah is a good kid deep inside.  The feeling extended beyond the book to include most youth. It is a comforting message that we have some wonderful young people in this troubled world.

The town sounds like a great place to live and has a good variety and flavor of people. Kathi allows her characters to achieve a good growth arch. She includes just enough physical and character hints that each of them come alive.  They become real people, people

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Writers Mirror welcomes Connie Wolfe as our Wednesday Writer.  Connie is a member of ANWA, American Night Writers Association. She has been writing for many years.  Though yet to be putlished, she is an excellent writer and will someday soon be out there.   

CRW:  Welcome Connie, what inspires you to write?

Connie:  I sometimes notice little things that trigger a scene for me. For instance, the other day in the grocery store there was a man with his little boy (about 5). The little boy looked up at his Daddy with an expression of pure hero worship and his father returned with a look I can only describe as gentle love. In my mind I imagined them as a divorced father who missed his time with his boy and took full advantage of his visitation rights. Since I am divorced and do not see a good relationship between my sons and their father, this really struck me as sweet and noteworthy. I’d love to write something that would inspire father’s everywhere to appreciate their children and to live so that their children could always look up to them with that same worshipful expression.

CRW:  Do you set time or word goals daily for your writing?

Connie:  I don’t do very well at setting a daily word goal. I tend to write by scenes, not words. When I have a scene fixed in my mind, I like to sit down, close my eyes, and just let it pour out my fingertips onto the keyboard. It isn’t unusual to come to the end of the scene and realize that I have tears running down my cheeks.

CRW:  I beleive that if the writer cries as she writes it, then the emotions are so honest that the reader will too.  What gets in your way of writing?

Connie:  It would almost be easier to say what doesn’t get in my way of writing. Life happens. I can always find something else that needs done before I sit to write and before you know it, my day is gone. Perhaps my biggest stumbling block is emotional energy. Especially if I am working on an intense scene, it tends to drain me emotionally. If I am under a great deal of stress for the day, I find it very difficult to find the energy to write.
          Recently, I find that I resist being scheduled. As of three months ago, for the first time in my life, there is no one calling the shots for me; no parents, child, husband or boss. I have been wallowing in that luxurious feeling like a pig in the mud. My time is my own to do with as I choose and it has been a heady feeling. I got a little unrealistic with it for a while, but am getting things back into perspective now.

CRW:  Tell us a little more about how you are coming to terms with making time for writing?

Connie:  It took a while to identify some of the problems, but I am doing my best to negate them. While there is always something that needs doing in the housework department, I have identified the things that drive me crazy if undone. Since my best writing time is early in the day, I am making it a policy not go to bed at night until those things are done so they don’t take control of the next day and my wrighting time. I also try to schedule other responsibilities and appointments for later in the day so it keeps my mornings more free to write. I limit myself in the time I spend with e-mails, blogs, etc. Reading was a distraction for me. Once I start a book, I hate to put it down. So, since I like to read as I eat, for breakfast I limit my reading to an Ensign article or a Relief Society lesson. To read for fun is becoming a reward for

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Donna has had a passion for writing since the age of 8 when she wrote her first short story. In between caring for six children, (7 counting her husband) she manages to carve out time to indulge in her writing obsession, with varying degrees of success, although she writes most often late at night instead of sleeping. A native of Arizona, she now writes Regency Romance and Fantasy. And yes, all of her heroes are patterned after her husband of over 20 years.

Donna Hatch writes clean romances known as "Sweet Romances."  Writer's Mirror applauds Donna for her stance on keeping high standards in writing. 



CRW:  Thanks for being with us here on Writers Mirror today as our Wednesdy Writer Donna. What inspires you to write?

Donna:  Anything might. A story I read that I wish had gone a different direction. Wondering about a secondary character in a book or movie. A song. Sometimes I just get a scene in my head, like watching a scene in a movie, and I build the rest of the story around it.

CRW:  Do you try to write daily, and if so, do you set a goal of a certain number of words?

Donna:  Word count doesn't work for me because sometimes I need time to chose just the right word or phrase. Instead, I try to write for at least two hours daily. It used to be longer, but now that I'm juggling three part time jobs, plus being a mommy, it's cut into my writing time. I write more when I'm suffering from insomnia.

CRW:  In a nutshell, what gets in your way of writing?

Donna:  Life. Kids. Self doubt.

CRW:  How do you get past it?

Donna:  Usually because I can't NOT write. Or sometimes I just make myself sit down and write something. Anything. Even if I'm sure I'll cut it later. Some of the biggest bursts of brilliance have occurred when I was sure I was writing utter trash, which most of it was, but there was often a jewel in there that I salvaged which changed the course of the story or the basic element of a character.

CRW:  Intersting.  What makes you CRAZY about writing?

Donna:  Self doubt. My interal editor. Critique partners, sometimes, when they don't "get" what I'm writing.

CRW:  How long does it take you to complete a book?

Donna:  I can usually write the first draft anywhere from 3 weeks to 2 months. But I spend 4 months or more polishing it depending on how many interruptions I have. Novellas go much faster. I wrote both of my novellas in just a few days.

CRW:  Where do you get your character’s names?

Donna:  Nothing clever. Sometimes they come pre-named. Other times I rename them several times until I get just the right one. The character doesn't become 3 dimentional until I chose the right one. I stick to names that were used in Regency England or that were Norman Conquest names to help create that believable Regency feel.

CRW:  What is your favorite writing food?

Donna:  I don't eat while I write unless my stomach wakes me up out of my writing coma. And then I'm so starved that I want whatever I can get my hands on fastest.

CRW:  I love that you get into a "Writing Coma"  or zone. Okay Donna, here's the million dollar quesion.  Why are you a writer?

Donna:  I am. Therefore I write. It certainly isn't for the glory or the money, since obviously I have neither of those.

CRW:  Keep it up, you will!  W

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