Hi Linda and welcome to my blog! I am looking forward to our interview and learning more about you and your latest release TILDA – I must admit, I love historicals set on the American plains so will definitely be looking this up… Let’s get things started with my questions, shall we?
1)
What
is the best and worse thing you have learned from an editor/agent?
The
best thing I learned early on was not to have body parts acting as the subject
of sentences for the POV character. A bit technical on the craft side, I know,
but I love learning the craft of writing technique by technique.
The
worst from an editor was correcting things in my writing that made the
technique weaker but more colloquial. I believe some editors just aren’t right
for editing a historical voice.
2)
What
is your typical day?
I
don’t have one, because I’m also a freelance editor and I have to give that job
its priority. If I’ve just started a new story, then I’m deep into the research
phase. Once that winds down, I start putting details on paper. I attempt to
list 100 things that could go into the story—from character traits to points of
conflict to weather events to historical places. I’m part of a plot group of
eight writers with whom I’ve been meeting for more than ten years. We have
started doing Zoom write-ins in the mornings for a couple of hours. Whoever is
available checks in and sits and writes. The accountability is nice.
As
my deadline approaches, I assign a word count for the day and don’t stop until
it is reached.
3)
What
do you read while in the midst of a project? Or don’t you?
I
do read for pleasure and usually in a genre different from what I’m writing. If
the current work in progress is contemporary, I read historical, and vice
versa.
4)
What
do you do with a paperback once you’ve read it?
I have so many craft books that I
don’t save fiction. I donate to the local library or I add it to my son’s free
giveaway shelf in his apartment. But our tastes are really different and that
doesn’t happen often.
5)
Are
you nervous about friends reading your book?
Quite the opposite. I enjoy hearing
that people I know have read it and am thrilled when I recognize the name of a
person who’s left a review.
6)
What
things inspire you to write? Location, music, film or even in a book?
For the past couple of years, I’ve
been involved in multi-author projects where either a setting or a time period
or a theme is the determining factor that a story must contain. Like my latest
release is a wagon train story that had to be set in the mid-19th century in
America. Those elements serve as a springboard to my creativity to build the
character and plot.
Pre-pandemic, my husband and I
often traveled to places in California and Arizona where I might place a story
so I could take pictures and jot notes. I look forward to return to those trips.
7)
What’s
next for you?
The novella I’m working on is titled Eveleen, and it’s part of the Rescue Me
Mail-Order Brides series. It’s a
companion story to an earlier release in the series featuring cousins who
experience a threat in their lives and have to seek out a safer place.
BLURB: After maid Eveleen Murphy rebuffs the romantic
advances of her boss’s brother, she’s blamed for theft of jewelry. She answers
an ad for a mail order bride in Wyoming Territory and jumps on a westbound
train.
Dairy farmer Bjorn Crosby regrets writing to secure a
farm wife the minute he sees the mail order bride ad in print. When he’s faced
with the city woman herself, he wishes he could send her back. With such a
tenuous start, what hope does this relationship have?
Releases June 12 https://www.amazon.com/Eveleen-Rescue-Mail-Order-Brides-ebook/dp/B0BLTBF1Q2
BLURB & BUY LINK:
Tilda, book 31 in Prairie Roses Collection multi-author series
Following her parents’ death, Tilda Torsdotter turns to her cousin, Rakel, for help and joins her family’s preparations to head to California. Tilda’s job will be to assist pregnant Rakel with her two children under age five and receive the protection of Rakel’s husband, Albert. Then Rakel sickens and dies, and Albert looks to Tilda to fulfill her cousin’s duties–all of them.
Flynn Mannix has his eye set on reaching the gold fields of California. An easy-going guy, he’s always made his way doing one task or another but now he wants to make something of himself. Hiring on as a driver on a wagon train seems like the easiest way to reach the west coast. Until he witnesses an inappropriate encounter and steps in. Suddenly, he’s committed to a marriage of convenience with Tilda and responsible for her safety until they reach California. At the end of the trail, will the couple go their separate ways, or will they realize the experience has made their marriage real?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXP3FBMT
BIO/WEB CONTACTS
As a young girl, I spent lots of my free time lying on my bed reading about fascinating characters having exciting adventures in places far away and in other time periods. In later years, I discovered and devoured family saga stories and romance novels. At a certain point, I grew cocky enough to think I could write one of these stories. Then I learned what a balancing act writing a novel is, but I wasn’t deterred. Twelve years later, my first fiction sale was achieved–a confession story.
After reading Debra Holland’s “Montana Sky” series and Caroline Fyffe’s “Prairie Hearts” series, I wanted to try my hand at historicals. I was thrilled to be invited to contribute to Sweetwater Springs Christmas and continued writing in the Montana Sky world by developing my Entertainers of the West series.
Married with 4 adult children and 2 granddaughters, I now write heartwarming contemporary and historical stories with a touch of humor and a bit of sass from my home in the southern California mountains. Lots of my stories are set in Texas where I lived for a dozen years.
Blog http://blog.lindacarroll-bradd.com
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BookBub https://www.bookbub.com/authors/linda-carroll-bradd
Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1806413.Linda_Carroll_Bradd
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