Today's spotlight is on my friend and writing colleague Candee Fick. Candee is the wife of a high school football coach and the mother of three children, including a daughter with a rare genetic syndrome. When not busy with her day job or writing, she can be forund cheering on the home team at football, basketball, baseball, and Special Olympics games. In what little free time remains, she enjoys exploring the great Colorado outdoors, indulging in dark chocolate, and savoring happily-ever-after endings through a good book.
Interview Questions
1. What is the genre of Catch of a Lifetime? Why did you choose
this genre?
Catch of a Lifetime is a contemporary inspirational romance. I choose to write romance, because it's what I love to read, and it's a reflection of God's relentless pursuit of a relationship with mankind. That's also why I write for the inspirational or Christian market, because my faith is such an integral part of my life that I can't imagine trying to write a story without that worldview. And I admit that I write about contemporary settings and interactions to avoid the extra research involved to get the historical time period details correct.
2. How is your protagonist the same/different from
you?
I grew up playing football at recess with the boys, married a coach, and our oldest son plays receiver and linebacker for his high school's team. And that's very different from Cassie, who hates football, especially football players! Howver, a part of me always wanted to be a flexible, tumbling gymnast (especially when watchin gthe Olympics), so I was able to put that desired skill into Cassie's background. On the other hand, Cassie and I are both smart enought with a love of biology and science to be tutors. In fact, I used to teach high school chemistry before I got married and started a family.
3. What secret about the
book will enhance our knowledge about you or the book?
Fun fact: During the editing process, my editor
asked me to actually name two background characters instead of just referring
to them in general terms. Their names would never show up again in the story,
but I saw her point about making the current scene clear. On a whim, I pulled a
first name and a last name from two of my son’s teammates to create one
character. The other character—Luke Daniels—is a variation on my son’s first
and middle name. As I’ve been watching my senior son play his final season of
football, it’s been sweet to know that his football identity will live on in
fiction even as he puts away the cleats and moves on to basketball.
4. What made you want to
be a writer in the first place?
I love stories and haven’t been far from a book
since age four when my mother taught me to read. The best books were the ones
that lingered in my imagination to the point where I invented new scenes and
adventures for the characters, just because I couldn’t bear to say goodbye yet.
However, the more I read, the more I came across books that didn’t quite
satisfy or seemed flat or dry or (gasp) boring. Whenever I read a book like
that, my imagination would kick in to try to fix the story with a better ending
or something. Then came the day when I woke up, having dreamed a scene so real
I didn’t want it to end. I scribbled down everything I could remember and
decided that I would someday write books of my own. My hope is that readers
want to linger with my characters.
5. What advice would you
like to give aspiring writers?
Read a lot. You absorb what works or doesn’t work
in stories by seeing how other writers have built story worlds. Write a lot.
Just like other muscles, it gets easier the more you exercise it. Keep learning. Focus on one skill, dig deep
until you understand it, apply it to your own writing, and then find something
else to work on. Mostly, be patient. It takes time to develop a strong foundation
of skill, professionalism, thick skin, stack of possible manuscripts, network
of friends, and social media platform. Then, when the door of opportunity
opens, you’ll be ready to walk through it.
Blurb:
He breathes football. She shudders at the very mention of
the sport. After a tragedy involving a football player destroyed her family,
athletic trainer and graduate student Cassie moves across the country looking
for a fresh start, but a change in financial aid lands her in the middle of her
worst nightmare. Meanwhile, rookie coach Reed worries his dream career will
slip away as injuries plague his players and his star receiver teeters on the
brink of ineligibility. As the two work together to salvage the season, sparks
fly, and Reed must eventually choose between the game he cherishes and the
woman he loves.
Social Media Links:
www.Facebook.com/Author.Candee.Fick
www.Twitter.com/CandeeFick
Buy Links:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1941103944/
http://www.amazon.com/Catch-Lifetime-Candee-Fick-ebook/dp/B013Z1S33Q/
