Friday, August 29, 2014

Waiting for Dusk

Today's special guest is Nancy Pennick.Born and raised in Northeast Ohio, Nancy currently resides in Mentor, Ohio with her husband and their college-age son, plus a delightfully entertaining lovebird. Her writing is influenced by all the years of working with young people as a teacher and raising her own son. When not writing, Nancy loves to travel with her husband and enjoys a good cup of tea. Waiting for Dusk is the first in her three book series. Call of the Canyon and Stealing Time continue the story of Kate and Drew.


BEHIND THE WRITING

I asked Nancy about the writing of Waiting for Dusk, and here is her response:


            Waiting for Dusk slowly grew and changed into a time travel novel in my mind. My original idea included a dream world and reality. As I continued on, I thought, “Why not make this real?”  
A book is responsible for the time travel. There’s no time machine involved. I’ve read other novels where the main character drove through a storm in a car and ended up in medieval times.  In another, the character has no control when it happens and just vanishes. I haven’t found any novels where a book is the culprit. I liked the idea of falling asleep and not know you really time traveled. Katie could be fooled for a period of time because even though she woke up at the boardinghouse when she went to sleep there it was always the next day at home.
The next challenge was to come up with a plausible idea of how the book worked. I had Katie’s mom give her the novel to read during the summer. Although she wasn’t too thrilled with the idea, she decided to read at night to pass the time. She placed the book on her nightstand next to her bed and fell asleep.
Each night she read the book she was taken to the same place, the Grand Canyon in 1927. She begins to love that life more than the real one. Katie meets a boy, makes friends with the girls at the boardinghouse and even has a job. The more she thinks about the dreams, the more she realizes they could be real.
Katie went to sleep every night and woke up at either the boardinghouse or her present day home. The challenge was to make it interesting enough so it didn’t seem repetitive. Obviously, an author can’t write Katie woke up in the boardinghouse. Katie was back in her own bedroom. It would get a little boring. Yet, it was needed to help the reader know where she was at!
An example of Katie’s waking at the boardinghouse: Katie woke with a start. She looked around and saw the pine walls of the boardinghouse. Her heart skipped a beat. “I’m back! Why am I so happy about that?”
or
Katie coming back to the present: I’m not ready to get up, and certainly not ready to end this dream. Katie sat up in bed and saw her butterflies on the wall. She could see sunlight streaming in her windows, bouncing off her sky blue walls and moaned.


ABOUT THE BOOK




Read a book.

Fall asleep.

Meet a boy.

Is it real or just a dream?

Katie's everyday life suddenly turns exciting when she travels back in time and meets the boy of her dreams. Thinking of nothing else, willing to leave the real world behind, she's determined to find out if it's all a dream or not. Returning again and again, Katie almost has her answers until one day her precious book goes missing.



AN EXCERPT




“Drew!” Katie felt butterflies in her stomach.

He held out his hand. “Come on. I won’t let you fall.”

She slowly stepped onto the rock, and inched towards him. Her heart pounded but she felt safe. He put both arms around her, holding her tight as they both faced the canyon.

“There is nothing like it, is there?” He whispered softly in her ear.

Katie could have stayed like that for the rest of the day, but knew she had to get back to work. The magic had to end. “I have to go.”

“Yes, I know.”

They stepped back a few feet until they were on what Katie thought was more solid ground. She knew the rock was just an extension of the land but it felt as if she was miles from El Tovar. She turned to run back to the hotel, then stopped.

“Drew, I…” She looked into his eyes, his sparkling emerald eyes. Her heart flipped. “I hope to see you later.”

“You will. You definitely will. Tomorrow is Saturday.”

Katie ran up to the brush next to the hotel, grabbed the pails and headed to the back of El Tovar. Saturday couldn’t come soon enough. For now, she needed to finish her shift and then head to the boardinghouse and go to sleep. She knew the only way to get back here was through her dreams. How confident am I? Will I be able to return? I’ll just have to believe, like in all good fairytales.


CONNECT WITH THE AUTHOR


Twitter- https://twitter.com/npennick   @npennick




Buy links:






Nancy will be awarding a $10 Amazon Gift Card and a PDF or mobi copy of Waiting for Dusk to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.


Follow the tour and comment; the more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here: 






a Rafflecopter giveaway