Taken By Storm by Angela Morrison. This is the first of three books in this saga. I'm excited to get to read it and will have my review up on Thursday this week. Take a look at Angela's page for Taken By Storm and the contest she is doing to celebrate the release of Cayman Summer, the third book in the saga. Here's a blurb about the book:Michael's parents died in a terrible storm and now he's drowning in tragedy. All Leesie wants to do is save him. But if she gives into temptations, who will save her?
Here are some questions Angela answered for us.
My mom took elocution lessons when she was a girl because she hated piano lessons. She presented dramatic readings all over Rexburg, where she grew up, and the surrounding smaller towns. She did some acting in college. She was the BEST storyteller at bedtime. She could do all kinds of cool voices. We had this old brown book of fairy tales, but they were mostly too scary for us because mom's witch voice was so convincing. My favorite story was one she told about Sarah, my great, great grandmother walking the Mormon trail with her grandmother, Granny Glover. Granny Glover was Scottish--so mom deliver all her lines with a decided brogue. The first story I ever published, "All is Well, Sarah" (FRIEND, July, 1998) was based on that tale. I spent decades researching the Glover line--traveled to Kilmarnock, Scotland, where they started out, and Pictou, Nova Scotia and Pottsville, Pennsylvania where they ended up until they went West to join the saints. I'd love to write a series of novels based on their stories. The first, MY ONLY LOVE, is finished, and we're looking for an editor who will fall in love with Sarah's uncle, Will. I turned him into the most romantic collier lad ever to leave Scotland.
TAKEN BY STORM was born in a rocking dive boat off the coast of Cozumel. Rain pouring. Teeth chattering. We had to wait up top in rough water and a storm until we could go under again. A guy sitting across from us was full of news. The clouds raining on us were the remnants of a hurricane that had hit Belize the night before. He had a wild tail about a dive boat that got caught up in it and capsized. "All the divers drowned," he said. We found that hard to believe. Divers don't drown. I looked it up when I got home. It was true. I followed the story, couldn't let it go, and kept asking myself, "What if?" What if a guy was on the boat with his parents and dive club. What if they all drowned, but he survived? Where would he go? What would he do? And most important, who would love him?
The saga answers those questions. I sent my hero, Michael, to live with his Gram (in my grandmother's old house) in the tiny farm town in Eastern Washington where I grew up. He has to finish his senior year in the tiny high school (that I graduated from). He meets Leesie, the only Mormon girl in town, who lives on the farm where I grew up. She falls hard for him, and she is the only thing he has left to hold on to. But she's a good Mormon girl--and he's a guy of the world. Their relationship fireworks gave me enough conflict for three whole books about them.
Write every day. Get THE ARTIST'S WAY (Julia Cameron) and use those techniques as much as you can. Do your homework. Read lots--especially in the field you want to publish in. But everything else, too. If you write because it's a passion you can't do without, keep at it. If you write because you think you'll make lots of money, find another pot of gold. Learn from professional mentors--whether it's by studying what they've written or actually working one on one through a class online, a college class, or a graduate program. These days you can learn tons through author, agent, and editor blogs. If you want to write YA or for children, join SCBWI. Oops, that's more than one. I have a special blog for writers on my website called liv2writ. Check that out. I've got more advice there.
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