An Interview with Michele Drier

MM2: Michele how did you become an author?

I guess I’ve always wanted to write. I spent years as a newspaper reporter and editor and had bit, scraps and unfinished manuscripts in my desk drawer.

MM2: What is your writing schedule like?

Whew, it depends. I try to lump errands, meetings and appointments on the same day so that I have maybe four days a week I’m at home all day. I spend  two to three hours every morning going through email, doing marketing, send out requests for reviews and posting to social media sites. I try to write 500 words before lunch and another 2,000 to 3,000 in the afternoon.  I write best and fastest when I have a block of time at last three hours in the afternoon. I shoot to write 12,000 words a week, then spend time editing and rewriting.

 

MM2: Let's talk about the genre/s you like to write. Tell us about your latest book.

I write in two genres, traditional mystery and paranormal romance. My latest book, published March 20, is the seventh in The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles, the paranormal romances. It’s called SNAP: White Nights and reviewers are calling it the best one yet.

I write three books a year—two paranormals and one mystery.

MM2: What would you like to say to your readers?

I hope you enjoy reading my books as much as I enjoy writing them. They’re all written with a soupcon of humor and the protags view life with a slice of wry (also, I love puns, the badder the better). I have some readers who feel that the characters in the Kandesky Chronicles are family, and reading a new book is like going to visit friends. That’s the experience I’d like all readers to have.

MM2: When you have a writing idea but maybe you are not sure if it is enough to make a book. How do you decide when enough is enough? Who do you go to talk to when you are having a difficult working day?

I don’t plot out my books, but I do have an idea of where each one needs to end up. The hardest part is the dreaded middle third—after you’ve set the scene and introduced everyone but before you write the resolution. Some books become novellas when the story is finished; most become full books. And I have a great critique group. We meet every other week, but stay in touch through email, so if I’m stuck, I fire something off. I also belong to Sisters in crime, Guppies and Indie Romance Writers, so if something come up, I can send out an SOS to the listserv.

MM2: Are there favorite books that you reread?

Oh, yes. Pearl Buck, Elizabeth Bowen, Gore Vidal. I also read non-fiction and William Manchester’s A World Lit Only by Fire, Churchill biographies and The Arms of Krupp are always beside by bed. As are Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror and The March of Folly.

MM2: Do you have favorite writing conventions or writing groups you would like to share with us?

One of the writing groups that has helped me tremendously is the online chapter of Sisters in Crime, the Guppies. It began as the Great Unpublished, but now has more than 500 members who run from thinking about writing a book to published award-winners. It offers on-line classes, critique groups, specific subgroups for those looking for a publisher or agent and through the listserv, support, technical advice and caring. (Full disclosure, I’m the current president, through 2015). The website is http://www.sinc-guppies.org/

MM2: Now for some fun questions. What is your favorite meal, vacation spot, movie and

season?

Meal: Barbecued salmon, lemon risotto and grilled asparagus.

Vacation: France.

Movie: Lion in Winter

Season: Summer...summer. summer, summer!

MM2: By one of your characters please leave us with some words of wisdom?

Maxie’s mother in SNAP: The World Unfolds, Don’t get involved with someone prettier than you; they know it.

Michele Drier was born in Santa Cruz and is a fifth generation Californian. She’s lived and worked all over the state, calling both Southern and Northern California home.  During her career in journalism—as a reporter and editor at daily newspapers—she won awards for producing investigative series.
SNAP: White Nights  the seventh book of her paranormal romance series, The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles, was published March 20. She’s working on the eighth book in the series, SNAP: All That Jazz, scheduled for publication in late spring 2014.
She also writes the Amy Hobbes Newspaper mysteries, Edited for Death and Labeled for Death. A third book, Delta for Death, is coming in 2014.