Welcome to my blog, on your release day, Rochelle.
Congratulations.
Can you tell us a little about your sequel to Rock Bound, Rock Crazy from MuseItUp Publishing?
Rock Crazy is about 41K words, or about 128 pages.
Katie McGowan is bi-polar, and she’s run the gamut of medications, but nothing works anymore.
Everyone says her she should have a microchip implanted in her brain that can regulate her mood swings.
But Katie doesn’t want to be a robot.
In a tough love move, her husband, Scott takes her to the Moon—and dumps her. Katie’s stuck on that God-forsaken “rock,” and thinks she’s space sick. But she’s wrong; she’s pregnant. Now the surgery’s too dangerous and she has to go off her meds until the baby’s born.
Scott’s elated that he’s going to be a father and assumes Katie will take him back. He has no clue how badly he’s hurt her, how thoroughly he’s broken her trust—or that he may not get her back at all.
That sure is a fascinating concept. Where did the germ of this idea come from?
In college, I wrote a book called “Comes the Dawn” working through the angst of my own divorce. Each semester I wrote to my professor, so I ended up with eight different storylines with the same two characters. My ex-husband dumped me for my best friend (really the only other person I knew) in a town I’d never heard of, 750 miles from home, because he couldn’t cope with my mood swings.
My own bi-polar disorder had not been diagnosed then. When I graduated from school, I no longer had time to write and the book languished. Once I became disabled by my disease, I started writing again, that town became the Moon and the disease became the real villain in the book. Some of the scenes really happened. Many of the arguments with Katie’s mother are arguments I had with my mother when I was awake and she was alive. I believe now that she was bi-polar and self-medicating with alcohol.
Oh my goodness. This sounds like a powerful book. I've always said, the most potent writing comes from within, from what we know.
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| Earth Rise |
How did you choose your setting? Have you woven your own environment into your story? The opening scene on Earth really happened to me and does take place in an area where I used to live. Obviously, I’ve never visited the Moon. However, I’ve used a lot of my own experience in the book.
Never visited the Moon? How do you know :)? You might have astral travelled.
Who is your favourite character in your novel?
Goodness, I love the Johnsruds, but Lena Johnsrud cracks me up all the time. She’s such a typical teenager.
I put my galleys on my Kindle, because I thought typos and such would jump out better on the different screen and I was reading it at Wendy’s. Anytime someone walks into Jake’s Cafe when Lena’s working and asks for the manager, or asks for Jake by name, her reaction is, “Sure. Daddy!” Hopefully their ears will stop ringing by the time Jake comes out of the kitchen. I read one of those passages and cracked up. Then I realized I was laughing at my own book and started laughing at myself. So there I was sitting alone at Wendy’s having this great laugh-fest for no apparent reason. So, okay—I’m not certifiably crazy; I’m already certified by the Veteran’s Administration!
If an author can laugh or cry at her own story then it's pretty sure a reader will too. Congratulations.
How many drafts did it take before you felt satisfied to submit Rock Crazy for publication?
Jiminy! I did a draft a semester in college, then picked it up and put it down over the years, then gosh—I’ve lost count.
What's the one thing you hope your readers will take away with them, after finishing Rock Crazy?
If one person laughs or cries while reading the book it’ll be worth it.
If one person recognizes him or herself and gets help for this disease, it’ll really be worth it. People who are bi-polar are often misdiagnosed. It never occurred to me that my temper tantrums had anything to do with mental illness. I just thought I was a spoiled brat who hadn’t grown up.
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| Brain Surgery |
I saw a psychiatrist for several years and was treated for clinical depression until I had a housemate who recognized the symptoms, gave me copies of “Call Me Anna,” by Patty Duke and “A Brilliant Madness” by Ms. Duke and a doctor, and made me check into the VA for a week of diagnostic observation followed by a week of getting started on the appropriate cocktail of medications. I always thought bi-polar disorder meant crushing depressions alternating with maniacal highs. If my roommate and Ms. Duke hadn’t told me my highs could manifest as temper tantrums, I’d probably still be on anti-depressants, but screaming and throwing things at people.
If, by chance, you became trapped inside one of your stories, would you try to escape to your real world?
I am trapped in Rock Crazy. If I go off my meds, I get violent. You haven’t lived until you’ve been the only woman on the locked ward at the VA, but I’ve been there, done that several times, and I like it out here in the real world, so I’ll keep taking my meds and hope they keep working. And if someone invents a chip and I can get the VA to implant it, I’ll be right there!
Do you have a daily writing routine?
I’m sure the Boss Lady is going to wet noodle me, but I’m very bad at sticking to a daily routine. I get up around eleven and try to spend about an hour on the internet doing e-mail and promo, then write for about three hours, write a review for my Rochelle’s Reviews blog, and read an hour or two while I have a late lunch. That doesn’t always work, because usually around four my granddaughter wants a ride somewhere and the rest of my day is blown.
Whom do you most admire and why?
My favourite author is Robert A. Heinlein because he wrote intelligent science fiction and he wrote it well. I would have loved to have met him when he was alive. I also admire Gene Roddenberry for his positive vision of the future, JK Rowling for her wonderful facility with words in the Harry Potter series, Ginger Simpson for her humor, Cyrus Keith who never fails to keep me on the edge of my seat burning up the pages, Roseanne Dowell for her sweet romances, and our fearless leader, Lea Shizas who is tireless in her efforts to make MuseItUp and each of us authors shine.
Here! here!
When you aren’t writing, what do you enjoy most?
I love spending time with my grandkids, playing Buzztime trivia, singing karaoke, and prowling the Volo Auto Museum and making people feel welcome there.
What's the most important thing you would like readers to know about you as an author?
I try to write honest books with both heart and brains.
Apart from ‘never give up’ what advice as a writer would you give to someone who takes their writing seriously?
Buy a dictionary and Style Guide—the Chicago Manual of Style is what most publishers use. Study commas, comma splices, semi-colons, ellipses, em-dashes, homonyms, capitalization, etc. Write your first draft and set it aside until you’ve finished the first draft of your next book. Go back and look for head-hopping, consistency, info-dumps, passive voice, too many adverbs, and set it aside again. When you go back to it, do a line edit for spelling and grammar. Go through it backward if you have to. Don’t rely on Word; they’re frequently wrong. Use that style guide. It’s much more important than a Thesaurus.
Well, Rochelle, it is clear to me you have written a timely book that will be of great benefit to the people who need your help, and to those who care about their fellow man.
Where can we reach you.
Thank you for being my guest today, Rochelle
Thank you for having me.
Here’s a short excerpt of Rock Crazy.
This takes place soon after they’ve landed on the Moon.
Rock Crazy will be available from today at MuseItUp Publishing.
Here’s the link:
http://tinyurl.com/museituprockcrazy
Rockton, the Moon 19° North 29° East
February, 2066
Scott came home, and she was doing her hair. It was sticking up all over, and she actually thought it looked cool.
“Whad’ya do?” he asked. “Stick your finger in a socket?”
Now a sane person would have taken that as a joke. But not crazy Katie. She went off on him. She screamed, shouted, and tried to rage around the room, but she wasn’t used to the lower gravity, and she bounced off a wall and ended up on her butt. In fact, she fell slowly, but then she bounced again when she hit the floor. She came back down still in that maddening slow-motion, spluttering and throwing her same arm out to break her fall. Fortunately, she landed softly enough to prevent anymore damage to her wrist.
Falling in slo-mo tends to put a real damper on one’s temper. Scott laughed so hard, he ended up bouncing onto the floor next to her. She glared at him.
“Y-You looked so f-funny floating d-down to the f-floor,” he gasped.
She glared some more.
“And…and then, y-you b-bounced!”
“There’s nothing funny about it,” Katie replied, trying to keep her own laughter from bubbling up at their predicament. Scott stood up, managing to do so without bouncing, and offered her his hand.
“I can do it,” Katie said, stubbornly. She over-compensated the amount of energy she’d need to stand up and bounced again. Scott tried to catch her, and they both went back down.
“C’mon, honey,” he said. “You have to admit it’s funny as hell.” Tears were leaking from the corners of his eyes, he was laughing so hard.
Rochelle has a copy of her novel Rock Crazy to give away to one lucky guest at her Launch Party which follows right. Please enter the garden gate, via the comments, at your own risk, hehehe. Right Here and Now. Welcome! and writers, bring your own characters with you to share in the fun.
