The Woman in the Fire Tower (Giveaway)

WICKEDLY POWERFUL has been out for about a month now, and it seems to be doing pretty well (yay, and thanks to everyone who has bought a copy!). I'd actually meant to blog about some of my inspirations for the book before this, but, well...stuff happened.

But I'm finally getting around to it, because I thought you'd like to meet my friend Kathy, the real woman in the fire tower. As you know if you've read the book, my third Baba Yaga, Bella, gets involved with a former Hotshots firefighter, Sam, who now works in a fire tower in Wyoming. What you might not know (unless you read the dedication and acknowledgments pages at the beginning of the book) is that my inspiration for Sam come from someone I actually know.

This is my friend Kathy. Wave hi to Kathy, people.

Kathy on the tower. That's some view!

 And that funny green building she is standing next to is the real life fire tower she has worked in for a number of summers on and off over the years. It was her tales of life as a fire watcher that gave me the idea for Sam's current occupation.

Sam's previous job as a Hotshots fire fighter was inspired by the tragic story of the Prescott Hotshots team that died a few years ago, leaving behind only one surviving member of the twenty man team. When I first heard about it, I thought, "What on earth must it be like for the one who lived?" And I had a personal connection with that story as well, because my friend Caere lives in Prescott, and told me about how the entire community mourned.

But Sam's tale was most based on all the wonderful bits and pieces I read on her fabulous blog A Room with a View (here's a sample). Sadly, last year was Kathy's last season up on the mountain, but thankfully she let me pick her brain for all sorts of great stuff, and fact-checked the manuscript as I wrote it. [Note: any errors were obviously mine, or else poetic license required by the story.]

She also shared with me some cool photos of the tower, both inside and out. Obviously, Sam's tower wasn't *exactly* the same as hers, but it was pretty damned close. (Yes, hers was in Wyoming too.)

Not a very big place to live for over five months!

This seriously IS a room with a view!

That's a LOT of stairs. The bathroom is at the bottom. Yeesh.

If you wondered how Sam could see a fire so far away, now you know!

An amazing view in every direction.

I am incredibly grateful to Kathy for sharing her story and her expertise with me, so I could share Sam's story with you. (She lived here in Oneonta for a time, and was a cherished member of Blue Moon Circle. Plus an amazing baker!) And I'm grateful for all of you who have read the book and shared Sam's story as well. So I think we should have a giveaway to celebrate, don't you? Kathy was kind enough to send me a sage smudge stick made from sage that she picked and wrapped on the mountain. Plus, I'll throw in a Wickedly Powerful notebook and a fun stuffed dragon (maybe a Chudo-Yudo?).

As always, there is no purchase necessary to enter, and all you have to do is use the Rafflecopter form below.* Tell me if you have read the book yet...and do you think you would like to live in a fire tower, like Kathy did?

a Rafflecopter giveaway


*You get extra points for reviewing this book, or any of the other novels (poor Wickedly Powerful hardly has any reviews compared to the others...it's feeling a little sad). Don't forget that leaving a review--and buying a book if you can--is one of the best ways to help an author!

Inspiration & Perspiration: The Current Novel Saga

Thomas Edison once said, "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." Now I'm no Thomas Edison, and the genius part is questionable (an IQ test said so, but hello, have you seen my life?)...but when it comes to writing, I think this quote is particularly apt.

So substitute the word "writing" for the word "genius" and there you are.

I'm almost at the end of the current work in progress, a novel I haven't talked about much in specifics because both my agent Elaine Spencer and I are SUPER excited about it, and as far as I can tell, no one else has come up with the idea...a rarity in publishing. So I'm keeping it under my hat until it is ready to send out on submission.

I can tell you, though, that in the midst of the perspiration part of the process (I wrote over 10,000 words this weekend alone, as the book bubbled up and tried to push its way to those magic words, "The End") I have been thinking a lot about the inspiration that led to it.

Don't get me wrong--the idea is all mine. But the glimmerings that led to it, and in particular the novels that inspired me to use words and tell the story in a way that is different from anything I have done before, that all comes down to three of my favorite authors, and three specific books.

If you know these books, and can put together a few clues, you may get an idea about where my hush hush book is heading. Either way, I recommend these three books as highly as any I have ever read.

I am currently rereading (for probably the 3rd or 4th time) the book that kicked it all off for me, Patricia A McKillip's Solstice Wood . McKillp usually writes what I would consider "classic" fantasy, and her use of words to paint vivid pictures is unparallelled. Solstice Wood is a departure from her usual novels, in that it takes place in a realistic modern setting. More or less...

Another of the books that started the pot stirring (or in my case, you might better say cauldron) was Alex Bledsoe's The Hum and the Shiver . I fell in love with Alex's writing through his fabulous Eddie LaCrosse books, which are a spectacular cross between noir mystery novels and the sword and sorcery fantasy I loved in my youth. Now this guy is definitely a genius. The Hum and the Shiver is a new series set in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee and contains twists and turns and musical riffs that make it a delight to read.

The last (but not least) of the three was The Enchanted Emporium by Tanya Huff (best known for her Blood Ties books that inspired a TV series). This one is set in Calgary, and involves, well, an enchanted emporium (that is, a store filled with magic--in more ways than the obvious). This is another one I will end up rereading over and over.

The book I am working on [insert secret name here] is not really like any of these books. Except in the ways that it is. But if I can come even close to creating the intriguing characters, well-drawn worlds, and sense of tangible magic that these authors achieved in these three books, then all the perspiration will have been worth it.