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Q&A with Madelyn Alt
1. Where did you get the idea for your Bewitching
Mystery series starring Maggie O'Neill?
No one is going to believe this, but . . . Maggie came to
me herself in a way that no character ever had before. Out
of the blue one morning, as I sat at my computer at work,
insisting that I take down what she had to say, word for
word. A little taken aback, I opened a Word document and
began to type. Three pages of monologue flowed from my
brain to my fingers and out onto the screen in a kind
of "brain dump" I had never before experienced. When all
was said and done, I looked at it, raised my eyebrows, and
thought, "Huh. I'm not quite sure where that came from,
but . . . okay." And then I saved the file in my Ideas
folder, even though I had no idea what I could ever do
with it. At the time I was writing straight historical
romance exclusively; this was set in modern day, and it
wasn't a romance at all. Furthermore, it was also told in
first person point of view. I'd never really liked first
person! To top it off, it was paranormal. Now, I had been
a lifelong reader and researcher of the paranormal, and
had had a number of experiences myself, but it had never
occurred to me to include it in my romances. This,
obviously, was an idea that I would never use.
I promptly forgot all about it. Or so I thought.
But Maggie wasn't ready or willing to be forgotten. Those
three pages had ended with the words, "My name is Margaret
Mary-Catherine O'Neill, and this is my story." And Maggie,
it seems, was pretty determined that her story would be
told.
Several months later, I was driving down the highway
toward town for lunch, and wouldn't you know, it happened
again? All of a sudden, images flew at me from left and
right, so strong and adamant that I actually pulled off
the road onto the shoulder in order to grab a moment to
capture them. The only paper I could find was in a pile my
son had "cleaned out" from his bookbag and left on the
back seat, and the only thing I could find to write with
was the unsharpened end of a broken green crayon. I seized
the moment. The only thing that mattered was jotting down
the images that had come to me.
What I saw that day were people, places, attitudes, and
simmering amongst them, conflict. I knew immediately that
they belonged with the strange experience/idea I'd had
months before, one that I had until then just forgotten.
In one brief moment of providence {well, two, technically
speaking}, I was given the basis for the Bewitching
series, a broad enough glimpse that I could see the
direction that things would be taking.
Strange to some, perhaps, but nevertheless true. I've
always believed there was more than a sprinkle of magic in
the creative process.
2. When do you write?
I used to be able to sit down at the computer and write
for several hours straight. Somewhere along the way, that
stopped working for me. I'm not even sure how it happened!
Perhaps it was just a side effect of being forced to
multitask in extreme ways over the years. Now I write in
fits and starts, mostly. I keep my files open on the
computer and write as much as I can--sometimes as little
as a couple of sentences, sometimes as much as a page or
two--and then I get up to make a cup of tea, or to give
the cats their food so that they'll stop knocking things
off the shelves in exasperated attempts to get my
attention. My task complete, I'll go back to the writing
and settle back in, and the process repeats, with
something else being the interruption factor.
3. Do you do a lot of research for your novels?
Always. A lot of the material I'm just very familiar with,
but if it's anything new, or if I'm the least bit
uncertain, I doublecheck my facts. I have a fairly
extensive library that I've accumulated, but I'm always
finding gems of information on the internet that I save in
tabulated research files for easy searches. Actually, I
wish I had thought of that from the very beginning -- I
also have paper files, wonderful things I've printed and
saved over the years that I'm loath to get rid of but that
I have no time to scan into Word documents. They are
catching dust in their containers as we speak, but for
now, it makes me feel better to have them to sift through
from time to time.
4. Is Stony Mill, Indiana a real place? Or inspired by
somewhere you've lived?
Stony Mill is a fictional town of my own creation, an
amalgamation, of sorts, of various towns I have lived in
and visited over the years . . . but, that being said, it
is exactly the kind of town you might find in my corner of
the world. The people, the businesses, the attitudes, the
experiences are all representative of small towns
everywhere.
5. What's your favorite word?
Oh, what a question to ask a person who has carried on a
love affair with words for years! I used to flip through
the dictionary for fun as a child. I also looked up
everything that even remotely interested me in
encyclopedias, and read and cross-referenced and read some
more. Yeah, I know. I was strange. What was the question
again? Oh, yes. Favorite words. I've always loved:
Mesmerize. Whisper. Reverberation. Serendipity. Shadow.
Susurrant. Hush. I love the sounds, the flow, the play
between lips and teeth and tongue. They are like music.
6. What do you think Maggie is doing right now?
For Maggie, the holiday shopping season would be amping up
in a big way at Enchantments right about now, so she would
be kept busy decorating the store and creating a sensory
shopping experience for the customers. And at
Enchantments, you just know she has loads of beautiful
things to work with. The store always has that cinnamon
bun scent from the legend worthy pastries that Annie
Miller sends over from the local cafe, but during the
holidays it is complemented by the mulled apple cider that
Liss likes to keep warming on the burners for thirsty {and
cold! Those Indiana winds can be brutal!} shoppers.
Christmas lights are strewn throughout the shop, hanging
from beams, running along shelves bursting with fine
gifts, antiques, and yes, even the witchy stock in the
private loft upstairs, and the entire store just sparkles
with light. With surroundings such as these, is it any
wonder that Christmas is one of Maggie's favorite times of
the year?
Visit Madelyn at http://www.madelynalt.com
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