Guest Post with author Ann Montclair

When Life Imitates Art

by Ann Montclair

 

I plot. I imagine character first then I write a loose outline detailing the high and low points for my novel-in-progress. I’m not a pantser (a writer who just starts writing)—I create an outline and then allow my characters to fill in the details.

I was deep into drafting One Wet Summer, when I was called home to California to help my mom care for her mom—my grandma Martinez. She was entering home hospice, and it was time to say farewell.

The call came on the very same day I began writing the chapter where Maura Fields, my heroine in One Wet Summer, is called home to attend to her own grandmother. I remember seeing MOM appear on the screen of my phone and feeling irritated at being interrupted while creating a crucial scene. I answered, heard the news, and a chill traversed my body.

I decided not to change my story. Maura’s grandmother was beloved and essential, just like my own, but her fate had been written on lined paper, typed into a synopsis, and sold to my publisher. So, I finished the chapter on the long plane ride from New York to Los Angeles. 

How was I to know almost everything that happened to Maura would then happened to me?

Coincidence? 

Premonition? 

I can’t know. 

What I do know is that One Wet Summer is dedicated to my grandmother, and it is a story about love, commitment, and trust, about all the things wonderful grandmothers teach eager granddaughters. All the things I believe my readers will feel when they read this very special story.

Ann will be awarding three $10 Musa Publishing GCs to randomly drawn commenters during the tour.

About the Author:

 

I was born in Los Angeles, California, where my parents and grown daughter now reside. I currently live in the Finger Lakes region of New York with my sexy hero, our handsome son, and a pile of lazy dogs and ferocious cats. I enjoy a plethora of hobbies including but not limited to attending concerts, hiking and cycling, cooking, and gardening. I love to dance, to dress up, and I'll go just about anywhere a good time can be had.

I've built a satisfying career as an English professor at a small, rural community college, and now I'm also writing and publishing romance. I've finished and sold a few contemporary titles, and I'm working on perfecting a Tudor historical, and penning a modern day romantic suspense.

I plan to spend the rest of my life reading and writing in my little cabin in the woods.

My biggest wish is that each of my readers will be inspired to believe in and find their own happily-ever-after.