A family who gets goofy together stays together, right?
My husband, Jerad, and I have two kids, and they have two cats. All are growing up way too fast, except for Jerad and I, who refuse. Adamantly.
It’s a key to our successful marriage, number one being put God first.
Jerad works as an emergency services dispatcher for the city while I wordsmith at home and try to keep the house in a livable state.
Many people have asked me where I get the ideas for my books, so I thought it would be fun to put that here. I keep an idea file which is mostly newspaper articles from the actual newspaper you get deposited on your lawn for free, but also stuff people have told me about their family members (with the names changed, of course), bits and pieces of dialogue from conversations overheard, you name it. Almost anything or anyone I encounter in my day-to-day is fair game for a setting, character, or plot point in a novel I write. I think you’ll find it’s the same for most writers.
When it’s time to put it all together, I employ the book Save the Cat Writes a Novel, by Jessica Brody. Some ideas gel. Others get refiled for another day.
Back in the early 2010s, when I wrote my first three books, I was a finalist in the American Christian Fiction Writer’s Genesis Contest for my book Six Solitude Road. That was 2011, completely in our rearview mirror now, but it remains an encouragement for me to keep writing.
In 2013 I entered the Romance Writers of America (Kiss of Death) Daphne du Maurier contest and won fist place with my inspirational entry, Raw Nerves. I keep the adorable silver-tone bookmark they sent me right next to my computer as further encouragement.
You may wonder why it’s been so long since I completed a novel. There were a number of years Jerad and I decided I needed to bring in more income, so I worked at an assortment of jobs. Chiropractic assistant, personal shopper, clothing reseller. They were each intriguing in their own way, but none worked for our family’s needs or schedule in the long run, so I quit each in turn. I floundered for a bit.
But writing always called me back.
I started two novels I never finished. They were supposed to be sequels, but they never got past 50 K words. They’re both shelved for now. Maybe one day.
That’s a little bit about me.
Bethany Macmanus 