Interview with Billie Williams

-What inspired you to write this story? I am not really sure Karina. I’d like to cook up some profound answer, but really I just had this character in mind that owned a café. I did a character sketch for how I saw Chaneeta Morgan and started writing. The story just came to be. As weird as that sounds, that is how it happened. I knew it would be about small towns but I didn’t know what was going to happen in the small town this time.

What was the most interesting part of the story for you?

Discovering the characters various goals, wants needs or desires. Finding out what the characters really want. Not just their surface wants – I want a million dollars is usually not about the money—it’s about what the money can buy or do for the individual. I want to be loved is okay, but I want to be loved by a certain person is even better.

So the characters’ desires or goals – their deep, story–worth-telling goals is the product of the writing and that I enjoy ferreting out.

Who is your favorite character and why?

In this story it’s Chaneeta. I think be cause I identify with her more than the other characters. I don’t know if it’s an age thing or if I’ve some how become involved in her goal. Is it my goal, or is it hers? I don’t have an illegitimate child, I have never been in a racially mixed relationship, I have never robbed a bank—but there are other similarities between her and me. I just like the way she grew into the type of person I wish I was.

What was the hardest part about writing this book? The easiest?

The hardest part I don’t know that there was a hard part unless it was letting the book end. When you spend so much time with your characters they become like family and you want to keep them close – especially the nice ones. I wanted to watch Hope and Dusty’s relationship develop. I don’t know that it will and I was totally surprised by their instant attraction to each other. I may have to explore that in a subsequent book. The secrets are already a series I’m developing so I may just continue with Chaneeta and Hope and see where it leads me.

The easiest? The easiest part was making the twins roles in the story. I modeled them after my sisters in law (twins) and they are pretty much as I portrayed them in the story. They filled the parts I needed so perfectly I only needed to set them on the page and watch them.

What’s next for you?

I always have a couple more novels in the works. The book club selection I’ve got going now The Capricorn Goat ~ ~ January Flannel is available to anyone who wants to sign up at http://billiewilliams.com/BOOKCLUB.html a chapter a week delivered by Constant Contact to your in box — in rough draft form. The chapters are then archived on my web site so anyone can read them all at their leisure.

I also have a series of writing books, three of which are published, Writing Wide, Exercises in Creative Writing; Characters in Search of an Author; and Spice up Your Writing! Write to Entice. Two are in the development stages – Mystery, Muse and Manuscript and Playing with Plays. The first chapters of these five books are the basis for the free 5-week writing course offered on my Pens in Motion website. If anyone is interested they can go to http://www.pensinmotion.com and read more about it and sign up.

I also am working on the second 3-act play for another novel (My Dear Phebe) of a friend of mine (Janet Elaine Smith).