My guest today is Kim Fielding to talk about her new book, Venetian Masks.
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I have daughters ages
thirteen and just-turning-ten. They’re both bookworms. I don’t know how many
times I’ve caught them reading after bedtime. The younger one tends to do the
under-the-covers-with-the-flashlight gig. The older one has a towering stack of
books at her bedside, which I fear may someday topple on her and then we’ll
never see her again. And inevitably when I call to one of them to do a chore or
eat a meal or go to bed, I hear the same complaint: “But I’m at a good part!”
As readers, we’ve all
experienced that feeling of being unable to stop because a story has so
consumed us. I once screamed at my entire family like a lunatic and banished
them from the room until I’d finished reading the final chapters of The Book Thief.
Until I began writing
novels a few years ago, I didn’t realize that writers experience the same
thing.
My experience with
writing a novel tends to be a bit like a roller coaster. There’s the brief
initial drop when I get started and I am really enthusiastic about a new story.
The there’s that sort of sloggy part in the middle—the uphill chug—when
progress seems so slow and it feels like I’ll never finish. But then… then
comes that delirious whee! of the
final chapters. I generally shoot for writing 2000 words a day (I have a day
job, alas). On a good day I hit 3000. But towards the end of the story I manage
much more than that. I just finished the first draft of a novel in which the
final 11,000 words were written in two days. My record, though, comes from my
upcoming novella, Night Shift, in
which I wrote the final 7000 words in one day.
When that roller coaster
starts zooming down the track, I become a conduit for my muse. I write until
the screen is so blurry I can’t see and I’m making more typos than correct
words. Doesn’t matter what’s going on around me and doesn’t matter how early I
have to wake up in the morning. I’m at a good part.
What I really hope is
that when the story makes it into print, people will find it as hard to stop
reading as I did to stop writing. I like to picture people hiding from their
partners, their kids, their jobs, their friends, all so they can keep on
reading.
My newest novel, Venetian Masks, releases February 11.
The main character, Jeff Dawkins, is a reader too. Here’s an excerpt from the
book.
Kim Fielding:
On Twitter:
#kfieldingwrites
On Facebook:
facebook.com/kfieldingwrites
Venetian Masks by Kim Fielding: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=3568
They stopped for lunch at a place Cleve
said had decent pizza, but which he chose for the view. And it was spectacular.
The restaurant was built over the water of the Canale di San Marco, looking out
toward an island with a domed church. Right next to the restaurant was a little
dock where boats came and went constantly.
“Why Venice?” Cleve asked him over their
food and wine.
“Told you. Wasn’t my idea.”
“Yeah, but you’re the one who’s here
now, so there must’ve been something about the place that appealed to you.”
“Nonrefundable plane tickets,” Jeff said
with a sigh. And then, probably because he was finishing off his third glass,
he looked out over the serene water and said, “It was my boyfriend’s idea. My
ex-boyfriend’s idea.”
“Yeah?”
“He had this plan for a kind of grand
tour, right? Probably he was trying to inject some spice into our relationship.
We’d been living together for a while. But the spice didn’t come soon enough.
He dumped me for another guy.”
“That sucks balls. But any guy who’d
dump you obviously has shit for brains, and you’re better off without him.”
Jeff turned his head to look at Cleve,
who was doing a pretty good job of pretending to look sincere. “Kissing my ass
isn’t going to get me to hire you.”
Cleve waggled his eyebrows suggestively
and then chuckled. “I’ll skip making a comment about ass-kissing. I really
meant what I said, though. I mean… look at you.” He waved a hand in Jeff’s
general direction. “You’re fucking adorable.”
“Adorable?
Kittens are adorable. Chubby babies are adorable. Little cottages with gingerbread
trim and flower boxes are adorable.”
Cleve reached across the table and
pinched Jeff’s cheek. “So are you, man. I mean, you have these… wholesome
boy-next-door good looks, and you blush, and you’re sort of cutely grouchy,
and….” He bit his lower lip. For once, he was the one who looked embarrassed.
Although that was probably an act too, Jeff reminded himself.
But Jeff was having trouble thinking
straight at the moment, because the skin of his face burned where the other man
had touched him, and he could suddenly imagine exactly what it would feel like
for Cleve to trace his cheekbones with his broad fingers, to ghost along his
mouth and then in, and—
“Why are you in Venice?” Jeff
asked gruffly, very glad that the tablecloth covered his lap.
Cleve visibly relaxed, his usual
demeanor settling over him like a well-worn mask. “Told you. I bum around.”
“Yeah. But why here?”
“Dunno. I like it. There’s lots of
tourists around if I need to make a buck.” He flashed a grin. “And it’s kind
of… in the middle. Easy to get to somewhere else if you want to take off in a
hurry.”
Jeff decided not to ask why he’d want to
leave so quickly. Cleve wouldn’t give a straight answer anyway. “Is it your
favorite city?”
Cleve smiled. “It is this week.”
Thanks so much for letting me visit!
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