My writing process is always the
same for every book. First, I start with the characters and build the story
around them. The characters, my characters, must carry the story to completion,
give readers closure. It’s a must. In order to do this, I begin writing out
character tracking sheets (stats on characters’ appearances, clothing, likes
and dislikes, etc.) which have served me well throughout the writing process.
Then the fun begins. Research, research, and more research. I love this part of
the process too. In the case of Lost and
Found, the first book in a planned five book teen psychic mystery series
entitled Mysterious Tales from Fairy Falls, I had to do a lot of research on
the psychic ability of animal communication, as well as read a lot of animal
behavior books and blogs. Each book in this series is a stand-alone project
with a different cast of characters, one of whom possesses a unique psychic, supernatural,
or prophetic ability.
The soul of Lost and Found was born out of my firsthand knowledge and
experience working as an animal care attendant at a northern animal shelter during
2007-08. I found myself wondering what the cats and dogs would say to us humans.
How would they act and sound? What did they really think of humans? So, chasing
down the animal voices frolicking in my head, I wrote their story. All the
shelter animals in Lost and Found are
based on an animal I cared for in some capacity at the shelter. Now, trying to
come up with each animal’s unique voice wasn’t that hard for me, since I went
by the personality of the cat or dog. I observed certain quirks, how each
animal behaved, what were they afraid of, what they liked, and so on. What I
found was that every animal (even kittens born in the same litter) was
different. Just. Like. People. When I was ready to sit down and write their
story, I compiled a list of shelter animals that readers would emotionally
relate to and connect with. Many came to me as a surprise, others were firmly
planted in my imagination from the very beginning.
Once I gathered enough facts, and felt
that my characters were sufficiently fleshed out, I sat down and created the
setting—Fairy Falls—which is the backdrop that glues this series together. I actually
based this fictional tourist town on the area where I was living in at the time.
Write what you know, right? You see, for over eleven years we lived on a medium-sized
lake in the heart of cottage country. So I took in the sights, smells, sounds,
tastes, emotions, and feelings of this beautiful place, and added the
challenges and obstacles of what it would be like for an uprooted teenager
possessing a psychic ability to adjust to the day-to-day living in Fairy Falls.
Meagan Walsh, the protagonist from Lost
and Found tells us what she thinks of Fairy Falls right off the bat: “This
town sucks!”, and she goes on to describe it as ‘a small, boring northern
tourist town’. If only Meagan knew what life had planned for her in this
magical place!
Indeed, Fairy Falls could be any small
tourist town that you may have visited during your youth (or adulthood) that
invokes happy memories and simpler times. I wanted these feelings to emerge for
the reader, and make my characters realize that there truly is no place like
Fairy Falls. The town itself hosts a number of stores, services, and
inhabitants that you’d be familiar with when visiting any small, tourist town.
There’s a real estate office, a general store, a combined pizza shop and
laundromat, a small theatre, a coffee shop where the locals hang out, a
restaurant and bar (where tourists hang out), a marina, an arena, schools, the
police and fire stations, town hall, a handful of churches, and of course the
animal shelter where most of Lost and
Found is set.
The psychic teenagers in each of my
stand-alone books in this series will have their fair share of adversity and
prejudice to deal with. They truly believe they’ve arrived in a place so
foreign, so backward, that they try so hard to find a way to leave, only to
realize in the end that Fairy Falls has been waiting for them to finally come
home to themselves. Welcome to Fairy Falls. Expect the unexpected.
About
Lost and Found:
Fairy Falls
was bores-ville from the get-go. Then the animals started talking...
The Fairy
Falls Animal Shelter is in trouble. Money trouble. It’s up to an old calico
cat named Whiskey—a shelter
cat who has mastered the skill of observation—to find a new human pack leader so that their home will
be saved. With the help of Nobel, the leader of the shelter dogs, the animals
set out to use the ancient skill of telepathy to contact any human who bothers
to listen to them. Unfortunately for fifteen-year-old Meagan Walsh, she hears
them, loud and clear.
Forced to
live with her Aunt Izzy in the safe and quiet town of Fairy Falls, Meagan is
caught stealing and is sentenced to do community hours at the animal shelter
where her aunt works. Realizing Meagan can hear her, Whiskey realizes that
Meagan just might have the pack leader qualities necessary to save the animals.
Avoiding Whiskey and the rest of shelter animals becomes impossible for Meagan,
so she finally gives in and promises to help them. Meagan, along with her
newfound friends, Reid Robertson and Natalie Knight, discover that someone in
Fairy Falls is not only out to destroy the shelter, but the animals as well.
Can Meagan convince her aunt and co-workers that the animals are in danger? If
she fails, then all the animals’ voices will be silenced forever.
Mysterious
Tales from Fairy Falls Teen Psychic Mystery Series:
Lost
and Found, Book One Buy Links:
