Q & A WITH MARY DAY (as in Daheim)

Question: What did you do with that extra day in February?
Answer: Don’t remember, except that I sure didn’t do everything I was supposed to do to get the year off to good start.

 

Deception Falls Question: Such as?
Answer: Move ahead with the bathroom project after toilet sprang a sudden leak; finish revisions on the B & B book, Vi Agra Falls, due out in late July; make better progress on The Alpine U_____ (not to mention choosing the right U word, so for now will say it’s Undone); keep tabs on various surgery patients within the family circle; respond to requests from various charitable organizations (you can put our three adult children on that list—am trying to find out a way to claim all of them as income tax exemptions, but don’t think that idea is going to fly with the IRS); clean up the yard after a fall and winter of unusually strong winds; and, as we’re now into March, do the necessary public appearances to promote The Alpine Traitor.

 

Question: What do you do for fun?
Answer: Fun? What’s fun? Wait—writing books is fun for me, always has been. If I didn’t have fun writing them, readers won’t have fun reading them. It’s the rest of Real Life that sometimes wears me down. The truth is, writers who have yet to be published have no idea what else is required after that golden moment of hearing a book has been accepted by a publisher. I was very naïve, but not alone in discovering that the buck doesn’t stop at the book. Indeed, the author will not make many bucks without doing his/her share of promotion. Strange, in a way, since writing is Alpine Falls such a solitary past-time. Getting out in public isn’t easy for many authors--it goes against the grain of those who are basically hermit-like. In the beginning, I was ambivalent about this part of the business, but quickly discovered that meeting and talking to readers is also fun.

 

Question: So what’s your problem or do you just like to gripe?
Answer: I’ve always liked to gripe. That’s fun, too, now that I think about it. The main problem, of course, is that I get behind in meeting deadlines and sometimes feel overwhelmed. I get over it.

 

Question: Okay, fair enough, but what about that toilet?
Answer: It got fixed. I hope it did. As they say in the mystery genre, “It’s early days yet.”

 

(And, speaking of water-related things, herein are a couple of Bryan Swan’s wonderful photos of waterfalls close to the site of the real Alpine.)