Welcome, Anna! Tell us a little about your background
I’m Anna Gerard a/k/a Ali Brandon (the
Black Cat Bookshop Mysteries) and Diane A.S. Stuckart (the Tarot Cat Mystery Series and the
Leonardo da Vinci Mystery series) and Alexa Smart (from back in my historical romance
days!). I’ve been writing and publishing since the 1990s and am pretty much
known as a Cozy Mystery writer these days.
Tell us a bit about
your latest book
PEACH
CLOBBERED is the first in my new Georgia B&B Mystery series from Crooked
Lane Books. It’s set in the fictional town of Cymbeline, south and west of
Savannah. My amateur sleuth, Nina Fleet (pronounced NINE-ah) is recently single
and new to Cymbeline, where she impulsively purchased a 3-story Queen Anne home
with the proceeds from her divorce. Life should be peachy for her, but things
(like murder) are putting a crimp in her new Bed and Breakfast venture. And
then there’s that actor, Harry Westcott. He’s the grand-nephew of Fleet House’s
previous owner and claims the house was supposed to have been willed to him.
And he’s not letting the place go without a fight.
How do you “get to
know” your characters before and while you’re writing the books?
I get to know them like I get to know any real-life
people I meet, by hanging out with them over time and learning how they tick. I
don’t create full-blown bios for my characters until I’ve been writing about
them for a while.
How do you construct
your plots? Do you outline or do you write “by the seat of your pants”?
I’m a pantser at the beginning of my book but
in the last 1/3 to 1/4 I do start informally outlining to make sure I have hit
all the plot points and wrapped up all the necessary details.
Which do you consider
more important, plot or character?
Depends on the genre of the book but, in
general, strong characters can save a weak plot. A great plot is less great if
the characters are cardboard.
What are you working
on now and what are your future writing plans?
I’m putting the final touches on PEACHY
SCREAM, book 2 in the Georgia B&B series. I’m going to be self-publishing a
couple of small projects and then it’s on to GBB book 3.
What is a typical
workday for you and how many hours a day (or week) do you devote to writing?
I work a full-time day job and have lots of
other commitments, so I squeeze in writing on my lunch hour and after work and
the weekends (I’ve tried getting up at 5AM to write but, nope!).
What advice do you
have to offer to an aspiring author?
Be willing to put in the work. No great
book was ever dashed off in one draft. And once you’re published, be smart
about what you dig in your heels about as far as changing or cutting your
manuscript. If you protest every comma that’s cut, it will be harder to keep
the things that really mean something to you.
Just for Fun:
Night or Day? Day
Dog or Cat? (answer
carefully) Both (I’m bi-petual!)
Beach or Pool? Beach
Steak or salad? Salad
Favorite Drink? Diet Coke
Favorite Book? Ammie,
Come Home by Barbara Michaels
Favorite TV Series? Currently, Ink Master
Favorite Movie? Bowfinger
Favorite Actor: Michael Caine
Favorite Actress: Helen Mirren
Dirty Martini or Pina
Colada? Pina Colada
Hawaii or Alaska? Hawaii
Finish this
sentence: If I could meet anyone in the
world, past or present, it would be Leonardo da Vinci
If I had just one wish,
it would be World peace! Kidding…but,
actually, it would be world tolerance and commonsense.
If I could trade places
with anyone in the world, it would be one
of my dogs or cats because they live great lives.
Find out more about Diane
at: www.georgiabbmysteries.com www.facebook.com/blackcatmsteries