Walking
With Elephants
by
Karen S. Bell
Genre:
Contemporary Women's Fiction
Suze
Hall is at a crossroads. Her nemesis at work, Wanda, has been
promoted and now will be her boss. Her husband, Bob, is leaving her
and the three kids for a six-month sabbatical down under. To top it
off, her best friend, Marcia, is missing in action—playing footsie
with some new boyfriend!
Adding
to this disaster stew, David, the gorgeous hunk who broke her
young-girl's heart has coincidentally popped back into her life and
has something she desperately needs to keep her job.
Walking
with Elephants, a lighthearted slice-of- life story, brings to the
table the serious work/family issues facing women today. It explores
the modern dichotomy of a workplace that is filled with homemakers
who still must cook, clean, carpool on nights and weekends, shop for
prom dresses, and "create" the holidays—such as Suze. But
it also is filled with women who have the same drive as men, have no
family responsibilities, and will do what ever it takes to get
ahead.
So
step into the shoes of Suze Hall and commiserate over workplace
politics, titillate your sexual fantasies, ride the wave of a working
mother, and fall-down laughing.
I
get so much satisfaction in the writing process. I take care to
choose just the right word, to make sure each sentence has the right
cadence. I appreciate other writers who respect the craft in this
way, and I hope my readers do so with me. Writing is a need, a desire
for expression, and springs from well within my subconscious mind.
Thoughts rise up, scenes rise up and blend in with the over-arching
story. These thoughts emerge whenever they want to and wherever I am
and probably not when I am at the computer. The computer is for the
craft, the technique. The thoughts come during walks, or while
driving the car, or at the grocery store. I am the willing recipient
of these thoughts and so they seek me out. It's a mystery this
business and art of writing and it keeps me enthralled.
GUEST POST
What is your writing process? For instance do you do an outline
first? Do you do the chapters first?
Here is my process—I
get up in the morning, have coffee and watch the news and get
aggravated. Try and do some exercise (not really). Check my sales
(none), surf the internet and buy some clothes online, find
affordable marketing tools. But now, I’m on my computer, so I might
as well write something. So as you can see, my main process is
avoidance until I’m in the throes of a narrative. Then it’s on my
mind even when I’m doing something else. Characters come to me,
names of characters come to me, what happens to my characters come to
me when I’m doing something other than writing.
But here’s the magic.
When I’m finally writing, my characters lead the narrative. They
tell me what’s next, point me in other directions, so I feel I’m
on to something. I also have no set plan of the storyline but an
overall idea. My latest book is set at a Bed and Breakfast hotel and
while driving one day, I passed a road sign that said Possum Trot
Lane—bingo—perfect address for the B&B but has to be
someplace like Vermont—so Vermont is the setting.
My
first three books are written in the first person present
tense—supposed to be a big no-no—but it felt right. My latest
work will be in the third person, just to mix up my writing style to
see if I can do it. My technique is to write a few chapters and then
comb back through and revise, revise, revise. I finish the work after
doing this several times with all the chapters and then revise the
final result. Then I send it out to beta readers and copy editor and
revise again. The final go is painful and annoying but there is a
feeling of accomplishment when it’s ready to be rejected by
hundreds of agents and then ultimately published by myself on Amazon.
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