DA: Eberhard, a.k.a. Mr. Doreen is an avid sailor. On one of our first dates he took me sailing. Now, even though I grew up on the beach, I’d never sailed on a boat bigger than a Sunfish, so it was a brand new experience to go sailing on Cayuga Lake in the spring. It was a total rush and I loved it. But when it came to getting back into the harbor, the outboard motor failed and we had to sail into the utility dock. It was totally too windy but what did I know? So he made me sit on the foredeck and put my feet out to break the collision with the dock. I stuck my feet out ready to cushion the blow when we rammed right into the dock, nearly crippling me. Like, total ouchiness. Mr. Doreen had no clue. He yelled out “Good job!” I married him anyway and we’ve had many more hair-raising sailing adventures.
MJ: LOL! If you didn’t write, what would be your creative outlet?
DA: I come to writing as a singer, with a background in opera and musical theater. I’d be throwing myself at that if I didn’t write.
MJ: Other than writing, what would be your dream job? Why?
DA: I’d like to own a restaurant. I started waiting on table when I was fourteen and I loved being in that whole milieu, especially meeting all these new people all the time. I grew up in Provincetown, MA and it was all tourists all the time – all these people from all over the world. It was so cool.
MJ: Describe your ideal/dream writing space.
DA: A screened in porch looking out at Provincetown Harbor. No phones. No music, since being a musician, I can’t listen uncritically.
MJ: What do you love most about your WIP hero?
DA: Tim was nearly killed by ISIS. Even though he wants to hide away and let life pass him by, he really can’t disengage totally. And he’s a sailor. He might just take the heroine sailing on a date that ends somewhat like what happened to my date with Mr. Doreen
MJ: What do you least like about your WIP heroine?
DA: was a horrible person in A Taste of Hope, my most recent release from the Wild Rose Press. She’s had to apologize for a lot. She’s lost her dream and she doesn’t deal with it well. She doesn’t see that she’s worthy of love given what she’s done in the past.
MJ: What genre is your current WIP?
DA: Contemporary Romantic Comedy
MJ: How did you come up with your hero and heroine’s names?
DA: Tim was a secondary character in my first book, Mike’s Best Bet. I never intended for him to have a book, but he ended up in Lobster Cove, ME, which is a fictional town in Maine invented by the Wild Rose Press. Tim spent summers there. Angelique started out as the hero’s sister in A Taste of Hope. I never intended for her to have a book either, but the two of them demanded their HEA.
MJ: How did you choose the setting for your current WIP?
DA: Worth A Thousand Words is set in Lobster Cove, ME as part of a multi-author series invented by the Wild Rose Press. My January release Working My Way Back to You is also set in Lobster Cove.
MJ: Please share the 1st five to ten sentences of Worth a Thousand Words.
