I’ve been thinking about authors and gardeners. Each garden is as unique as the gardener who plants it. Some prefer masses of flowers, others prefer planting produce. A garden is hard work but brings joy to the gardener and to those who share the beauty and bounty.

Each gardener plants within concrete boundaries such as soil type, weather, moisture levels and time. But they also use subjective boundaries such as memories, color, and preferences for a traditional or modern experience.

Books are as individual as authors. Authors also use concrete and subjective boundaries.
Ryshia states in her blog ryshia.blogspot.com that her writing differs from other writers because of her individual voice.

Authors’ voices are unique because they are made up of experiences, interests, and passions.

Ryshia Kennie http://www.ryshiakennie.com/
invited me to be part of this author hop.
Ryshia and I have met on many occasions around our home city of Regina, SK. Ryshia was the first romance writer to win the City of Regina Award in the 31-year history. Thank you Ryshia for inviting me to receive the author torch from you.
I will pass it to three authors, Sharon Plumb, Elizabeth Lang and Debra Jayne East who will post on June 30, 2014. Please check out their bios below.

The torch is to answer four questions about ourselves.

1) What am I working on?

My third novel is in the forefront of my writing time. This sweet contemporary women’s fiction novel with romantic elements has a working title of “Designed With Love“. I keep shifting between “Designed For Love” and “Designed With Love” because my hero is an architect and my heroine is an artist.

In this draft, I have set the story in Apex, a fictional town in Saskatchewan, Canada.

Will, my hero, was born differently-abled. He knows that he has issues of identity and belonging.

Tiffany, my heroine, worked in a non-traditional career with her father and believed that future was set. When circumstances, that she believed were beyond her control, freed her to leave Apex she pursued her artistic passion.

Will and Tiffany meet when Apex is on the verge of a boom due a potash mine opening close to the town. The tensions arise when the community is uncertain about all of the strangers who will invade their quiet town and when Tiffany is pulled away from her new life back into her old.

I am also getting my novel ready to attend Sage Hill Writing Experience in Lumsden, SK as part of the Novel Colloquium facilitated by Lawrence Hill. Lawrence Hill is an award winning author of “The Book of Negroes” (CA) re-released in the United States as “Someone Knows My Name,” “Black Berry, Sweet Juice” “Any Known Blood” and “Some Great Thing” and of the nonfiction work “The Deserter’s Tale” (with Joshua Key) and “Blood: The Stuff of Life”. He lives in Ontario, and Newfoundland, Canada.
I am so excited to have been accepted to be part of this experience and to have ten days to consult with Mr. Hill and work solely on my novel as well as experience all of the authors and facilitators in this years Sage Hill Writing Experience.
http://www.sagehillwriting.ca/

I am also waiting for new edits on my first novel, Moving On, A Prairie Romance for re-release with Soul Mate Publishers in late September, 2014.

2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?
My stories are similar to other women fiction novels with romantic elements because I write women’s stories. I want to find the heroine who is strong and independent to love a man who is not physically perfect. She must also love herself enough to continue with her passion. Most of us know that this is a challenge.

I have been told that my books as accessible to reluctant readers. Both of my previous novels have introduced readers who have either been away from reading or it was not a pleasant pass time. I am proud of this accomplishment.

My novels and stories are also strong enough to hold many readers attention.

3) Why do I write what I do?
I like to discover love between couples who are not perfect. I also like to build from friendship and leave the intimacies to the readers’ imagination when they take place behind closed doors.
I add in health concerns in my writing because of my past profession as a nurse. I also like to explore other emotions to find out what I have learned over the years as well as to learn new things.

While I have been thinking about the why, I realize that I write similar to where I live. What can this mean? I live in a condo where I can be part of the hustle and bustle of downtown with just one short elevator ride, therefore kernels of a story may begin but when I look out of my windows I see way past the high rises toward the horizon. There I see the agricultural land and the sky. I like to explore larger ideas within the relatively small confines of the people I see coming and going from their offices, apartments, farms. While the buildings remain the same, life is always changing.

4) How does my writing process work?
I am a slow writer. I write and then take a break. I may write short stories in between if I find a contest or discover a call for a story I am interested in writing about. I enjoy completing the story and sending it out. When the story is accepted for publication, I celebrate the achievement.
I like to research and I want to go out and be in an environment I am using in my story. When I am in the throws of writing, I read non-fiction pertaining to my story.

Now enough about me and onto three talented authors. Sharon and Elizabeth write from Regina, Saskatchewan and Debra Jayne writes from North Carolina close to the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The three authors who will pick up the torch on June 30, 2014.
Drum Roll Please:

Sharon Plumb:
Sharon Plumb grew up writing stories in a small town that no longer exists. Now she writes stories about things that only exist in her imagination. Her novel Draco’s Child is about a sneaky girl and a lonely dragon and an interfering constellation, stuck together on another planet. Her picture book Bill Bruin Shovels his Roof was inspired by her father doing that same thing. You can find Sharon at http://sharonplumb.ca

For Debra Jayne East being a writer is like painting pictures with words.Capturing the beauty of what she thinks down on paper is a challenge that excites her. It makes her want to do her best to get people to open the door to her world and walk on in.”
Debra lives in North Carolina close to the Blue Ridge Parkway and enjoys photography, volunteering and spending time with her family.She also is the host of Sky Watchers Radio show about UFO disclosure and the co-founder of Starseed Alliance Radio.
You can find Debra at:
http://debrajayneeast.blogspot.com/

Elizabeth Lang:
Elizabeth Lang was born in Hong Kong and moved to Canada in the late 60s. She spent many years in IT, mainly in the insurance industry, and started writing late in life, but once begun, she couldn’t stop.

She writes mainly scifi thrillers/psychological dramas, though she did accidentally end up with a scifi romance novel. She swears she has no idea how that happened.

Elizabeth writes some humour, mainly wacky stuff that comes to her mind in the wee hours of the morning when her brain refuses to acknowledge being attached to the rest of her.
Fine out about her at: http://www.elizabeth-lang.com/