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.”
CONNECT WITH THE AUTHOR
Twitter-
https://twitter.com/npennick @npennick
Wordpress
blog- http://nancypennick.wordpress.com/
Amazon
Author Page-
http://www.amazon.com/Nancy-Pennick/e/B00AKX0MZ0/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0
Buy
links:
Barnes
and Noble -
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/waiting-for-dusk-nancy-pennick/1114286882?ean=9781612355238
Publisher:
Fire & Ice -
http://www.fireandiceya.com/authors/nancypennick/WaitingForDusk.html
Smashwords
- http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/351844
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
