stacey

it down on a paper bag. Her father introduced her to science fiction with Star Wars and seven episodes of the original Star Trek series on tapes that she watched over and over again. Always being the new kid in school helped, too. Stacey entertained herself by making up stories, mostly about being a princess from another planet hidden among the humans for her own safety. Even now, she still wonders about that!
Stacey graduated from Valparaiso University in 1997 with an English degree. She loves writing stories, and she is grateful to God every time she is given the opportunity to do so.
She currently lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband and two retired racing greyhounds, Snostorm and Joezooka. I recently had the opportunity to speak with Stacey about writing, her current projects…and hunky aliens.

Dee ~ When did you begin writing?

Stacey ~ I've been writing or trying to write for as long as I can remember. I think I was five or six when I "wrote" my first story. I told the story to my mom who wrote it down for me. We were on vacation in Wisconsin, and she wrote it for me on a paper bag, the only paper available at the time. Unfortunately, I dont remember what the story was about (except the vague idea that it might have been inspired by some Neil Diamond lyrics), and we can't find the paper bag now. Which is probably a good thing!

I didn't start seriously writing until after I graduated from college, and even then it took me a few years to work up to my now daily routine of writing.

Dee ~ How do you manage to balance your writing and personal time?

Stacey ~ That can be tricky. I still have a full-time day job, though I hope to move away from that at some point. So, sometimes my personal time turns into writing time. But I have found that having a routine helps. I write in the morning first thing - even before I've brushed my teeth! That way, when I head out for my day job, Ive already accomplished my writing for the day. That leaves the evenings open for family time, errands, etc.

Dee ~ What is the best part about being a writer? The most frustrating?

Stacey ~ The best part of writing is losing yourself in the story, forgetting that you're at the keyboard making the words appear. The story just suddenly sucks you in and makes you a part of it. Then something distracts you and you look up at the clock and realize that hours have somehow gone by. That, and meeting new characters. I say "meeting" because thats how it works for me, usually. They kind of just show up and let me get to know them, if I'm lucky!

The worst part of writing? Well, I love doing this so much that it's hard for me to say anything is really the worst. But one of the less wonderful aspects of writing for me is getting stuck. I hate that. But even getting stuck has its advantages. Usually when I can't move forward it means I've done something wrong in the preceding scene or two. For me, it's most likely a character-driven mistake, trying to make someone do something they wouldn't do or putting them in a situation that doesn't make sense. Getting stuck is their way of saying, "Nope, I'm not going along with this." It sounds crazy, I know!

Dee ~ Where do you get the ideas for your books?

Stacey ~ I don't know where the ideas come from. And actually, I'm okay with that. If I knew where they came from, I might feel compelled to try to find them. As it is, I love it when they find me! It's like walking down the street and stumbling over a bar of gold in the road. (Not that every idea is gold, but I think they all have value, at least in awakening the mind to possibilities.) I have found, though, that the logical part of your brain - the part that worries about taxes and overdue video rentals - sometimes tries to squelch creativity. Consequently, the space between waking up and sleeping has often been a great help to me. I've found solutions to story problems, character insights and just wacky ideas there. Once, when I was waking up from a nap, the phrase, "pharmacists know all of our dirty secrets," suddenly surfaced in my brain. I wrote it down and that became the inspiration for my first mystery (a work in progress still), Bitter Pill.

For The Silver Spoon, though, it was more concept-driven. I've always been intrigued by how you can mix the normal and abnormal together to create a new sense of reality. I wondered what it would be like to be an average human living on an Earth where aliens roamed around freely. From that, I got my first line, "I was at the diner when I got my first real look at an Observer." Everything just sort of flowed from there.

Dee ~ What do you consider to be the key elements of a great story?

Stacey ~ Believable, conflicted and flawed characters. Sometimes villains are drawn to be simply opposition to the hero or heroine, without any true desires or needs of their own. But I think to have a great story you have to understand the villain as well as you understand the hero. Along that same line, heroes and heroines are sometimes painted to be the good guys without flaws, without questionable judgment. I think a great story is one in which you, the reader, find yourself sympathizing with the villain - maybe not with his actions but with why he feels he has been forced to take them. And one where you can see that the hero or heroine might be making a mistake, which will only make things more difficult for them, something we can all relate to.

In The Silver Spoon, Zara is scared, and sometimes this leads her to less than heroic behavior. But when it comes down to it, she does what needs to be done, at least most of the time, and that's a different form of heroism, I think. Caelan comes very close, it seems, to sacrificing Zara's life for his beliefs. Making what she is in the grander scheme of things more important than who she is. He's not perfect, though, he doesn't see anything wrong with his beliefs. That's the beauty of reality - everyone's personal version of it is no more right or wrong than the next guy's.

Great stories also involve love in some way, the giving of it or absence of it - not even romantic love necessarily - and sacrifice. If the characters don't lose something of value to them, it's hard to feel for them, I think.

Dee ~ What is your favorite genre to write?

Stacey ~ I love anything out of the ordinary - aliens, vampires, ghosts. It opens up such possibilities to write about them. However, in my first foray into mysteries, I'm finding that the logic and puzzle-aspect of this genre really appeals to me.

One common thread through my writing, no matter what genre, is romance. Someone is always longing for the one they can't have or shouldn't want. Or, they're trying to figure out a way to be together when everything, including the safety of the entire world, seems to indicate that it would be better if they remained apart.

Dee ~ Which author(s) is your favorite? And who has most influenced your work?

Stacey ~ I have so many favorite authors! The ones that I will automatically buy, even in hardcover, include: Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris, Kelley Armstrong, Linnea Sinclair, Janet Evanovich, Kate White and Elizabeth Dearl. I've also recently discovered Mary Janice Davidson, and I love her 'Undead" series.

The one author that has influenced me the most is probably Laurell K. Hamilton. I started reading her Anita Blake series a while ago; before they became the huge best-sellers they are now! And when I finished Guilty Pleasures, I thought, this is it. This is the kind of stuff I want to write.

Dee ~ Could you tell us about the publication of your book, The Silver Spoon?

Stacey ~ When I write, I write the stories as they come to me. Which is such fun! But sometimes that results in genre blends that are not quite mainstream. I wanted to find a publisher that would be okay with something a little different and one that would not try to change the story to be something it wasn't. I'd been searching for an agent and/or a publisher for over a year. Getting lots of positive comments, but that was it. So, thats where RuneStone came in. They really liked the story and the characters. They've allowed me to be involved in the decisions being made about my book, like cover design and merchandising, which I like. I think the most important thing about finding a publisher or an agent is to find someone who believes in your book as much as you do, and RuneStone does.

Dee ~ Your characters strike an emotional cord with the reader, which one is your favorite and why?

Stacey ~ I don't have kids, but I suspect this is how a mother would feel if asked to pick her favorite child. I love all of them but for different reasons. I relate the most with Asha and Zara. Asha, because the control freak in me likes that she does what she thinks is best without consulting anyone else. If you don't think she;s right and dare to speak up, she'll twist your arm (probably literally) until you agree with her or no longer offer any opposition. I love Zara just because of her courage and spunk. She's the kind of brave person I'd like to be if I ever found myself in that trying of a position. She messes up but always keeps going.

But in my heart of hearts, my true favorite is Caelan. He is such an enigma to me even after four years of learning his story. He has this deep current of peace throughout him, which is so calming and reassuring to Zara (and me!) There's an old saying, 'still waters run deep," and I always think that's such a great description of how he is. As Zara has thought on more than one occasion, "It's like walking through a huge desert. Your feet are tired, swollen and dirty, and youre so thirsty that you feel like you've been swallowing sand instead of walking through it. Then suddenly there's this beautiful pool of cool, blue water up ahead. Thats Caelan."

Dee ~ In your book The Silver Spoon, the story is skillfully told in first person? Tell us about the challenges of writing a novel from this viewpoint.

Stacey ~ I'd never written anything in first person before this book. In fact, I started this book in third person, the first couple of pages, at least. But once I got to know Zara and her voice, it felt like she was saying, "I want to tell this my own way." Now I can't imagine writing in anything else! I think just like there are cat and dog people (not to say that you can't love both, but people usually have a preference), there are first person and third person writers; writers who just feel more comfortable writing one way or the other. I'm now a first person writer!

First person is wonderful - it provides such an intimate view of the world through that one person's eyes. It's closer to reality in my opinion. After all, who knows what thoughts are going through someone else's head? But with first person, it's difficult to get information across sometimes. Zara only knows what she knows from the beginning and what she learns along the way. Which means that's all the readers knows as well, unlike a book written in third person where other characters might be able to provide additional information and insight. However, in this case, first person works well because some of the other characters, Caelan specifically, hold secrets that they're not willing to share with either Zara or the readers right from the beginning. And for good reason - it would spoil the fun!

I also think it's hard in first person to obtain the distance needed for a more objective understanding of the main character. When you're reading a book written in third person, you can get an idea of other characters' perceptions of the main character. He's selfish or she's kind. Often, the main character may not even realize he or she is being characterized in this way. But those outside perspectives provide the reader with a fuller picture of who that main character is. In first person, you're relying only on the narrator's perspective on events. She may see her actions as justified while others may find them cowardly or harsh. The challenge is to convey the same feeling and depth without breaking the intimacy of being in one person's mind.

Dee ~ There were many humorous scenes between your hero and heroine; do you enjoy using humor in your writing?

Stacey ~ A story has to be funny, I think, or at least have funny moments. Otherwise, there's nothing to break the tension and it feels too harsh. In this particular story, I really enjoyed seeing the way humor played out between characters of completely different backgrounds because how we define funny is often tightly related to our culture and experience.

Like a lot of people, Zara uses humor as a defense mechanism. Her life has not exactly been a cakewalk up to this point and with Caelan's arrival, it only gets worse. Making light of things, I think, is how she survives, how she makes the situation more bearable.

With Caelan, because his life experience is so different, he doesn't have the same sense of humor or the same way of dealing with things. Which, in a way, makes their interaction that much funnier at times. Her little comments don't faze him. Most of the time he doesn't even acknowledge them until she tries to explain them and then he just says stuff like, "I understand your meaning from your thoughts, if not your words." That drives Zara crazy, which is another layer of humor.

Dee ~ Can you tell us about projects you are currently working on?

Stacey ~ Right now, I'm revising a draft of the second Zara Mitchell book. I can't reveal too much about this one right now because I'm not finished yet. But needless to say, there is more trouble headed Zara's way. All that she's come to rely on since The Silver Spoon may be taken away, leaving her feeling very alone and forcing her to do things that she once considered unthinkable just to save herself and those she cares about.

I'm also finishing what I hope will be the final draft of my mystery Bitter Pill. This is the one that's based on the idea I mentioned earlier - pharmacists know all of our dirty secrets. Here's a quick summary:
Since moving back to Morrisville, IL, Rennie Harlow has developed a knack for finding people…dead. This time it's Doc Hallacy, the town pharmacist. Turns out that Doc knew all the dirty secrets in town, so everyone is a suspect. Can Rennie and Jake Bristol, Morrisville's handsome but married sheriff, find out which secret got Doc killed before the murderer deals out another dose of death?

I'm planning for this book to be the start of a new series starring freelance writer and amateur sleuth Rennie Harlow.

Dee ~ Can you tell us about your involvement with the Greyhound Adoption program?

Stacey ~ I first became interested in greyhounds a number of years ago after watching a news program that showed the dogs being starved to death and dumped in a mass grave after they were no longer earning money in the races. These beautiful and intelligent creatures were being destroyed, or worse, tortured, when they were no longer of any use to their racing owners. But the environment has now changed, thanks probably to news programs like the one I saw, and the dogs are being placed in adoptive programs to find them loving homes.

For most of my life, I was a cat person, but my husband is allergic to cats and loves dogs. So, when we got married about five years ago and started talking about getting a dog, I brought up the idea of a greyhound. We found a volunteer organization Greyhounds Only (greyhoundsonly.com) that serves the Chicago area. They had dogs for adoption up on their website. So, one weekend in August 1999 we made the trip up to check it out. The funny thing is that I've always been really nervous around dogs. A dog chased me and knocked me down when I was little, which left a residual fear of dogs in me even as an adult. Still, I really wanted to get a greyhound, loved what I'd read about them. And these dogs turned out to be the sweetest creatures imaginable. When we first met Snostorm, she rolled onto her back in her crate so we could rub her belly. We have since added Joezooka to our family. And I am now officially a dog person, or, at least, a greyhound person!

The dogs are smart (my greyhounds know the words bacon, popcorn, French fries, riding in the car, upstairs…just to name a few!), not to mention gentle and well trained - they're trained not to potty in their crates from the beginning. And they're not the nervous bundles of energy that everyone assumes! The dogs have short bursts of energy - they're sprinters - and then they sleep about 17 hours a day. That's where they get the nickname "40 mph couch potato." In my opinion, they require much less work than, say, a black lab. They do need a little help at first getting used to household things like stairs and the sound of a telephone ringing because theyve never encountered these things before.

With working a day job and writing, I don't have as much time to volunteer as I'd like, but we've participated in meet and greets (events at pet stores where people can meet the greyhounds), clean-up days (at the kennel when new dogs come in for adoption) and generally spreading the greyhound word.

If you have room in your heart and your home (they don't take up as much room as you might think), consider making a greyhound part of your family! Greyhounds Only has a lot of information about adopting greyhounds on their site www.greyhoundsonly.com but there are many reputable adoption organizations out there.

Dee ~ Where can readers find your novel, and how can they contact you?

Stacey ~ The Silver Spoon is available through RuneStone Publishing at www.runestonepublishing.com http://www.barnesandnoble.com