Monday Mentions Welcomes Marilyn Barr
Chatting today with author Marilyn Barr about pets, music, writing, and The Spy Who Loved My Russian Tea Cakes.
Welcome to the blog today, Marilyn! Let's get right to the questions because I know lots of people are looking forward to getting to know you!
What is the best
thing about being an author?
The best part of
being an author is world-building. I love to create civilizations. When I was a
kid, I would daydream of escaping boredom to fantastic places. Busted! I still
do this as an adult. The dentist’s chair becomes the driver’s seat of my
spaceship as I travel to unexplored planets. Holiday dinners become medieval
feasts or vampire suppers. I’m not daydreaming. I’m working.
For my Strawberry Shifters series, I often get flashes or see “movies in my head” of the characters when I let my mind drift. They may be part of a book I do not plan to write after many other books, and I need temporary a place to record the idea. I have a ten-foot by seven-foot map hanging in my home. When a Strawberry character has a quirk or story piece added to the series, I write it on their house or business in Strawberry KY. Once their book is published, I add the book cover. My dream is to have a scribble-filled map populated with book covers.
What is the worst
part of being an author?
The worst part of
being an author is balancing it with my real life. I am a homeschool mom so
most of my career must fit between the hours of 5 am and 10 am. I learned
writing my books around my son wasn’t a good idea. Even though he wants to be
an author when he grows up, I can’t write by him side-by-side. My books contain
steamy scenes between soulmates which are not suitable for kids.
In The Spy WhoLoved My Russian Tea Cakes, I had planned for the main characters to meet in a
dream sequence in which they eat the title cookies by the fireplace. The scene
should have been suitable for writing while my son wrote his assignments. I
soon lost myself in my work and forgot he was with me. It wasn’t a fireplace that
heated the story to inferno levels. I let the creativity flow and wrote one of
the steamiest scenes I had ever dared to write. When I was finished, I turned
on my add-on editing software and my screen blinked black. I shrieked like a
horror movie damsel. In the reflection was my son’s face, reading over my
shoulder. My then ten-year-old was brimming with questions. The only saving
grace is my husband found the situation hilarious, and he wasn’t angry about my
impromptu sex education lesson.
Do you have any
pets?
True to the
witchy stereotype, I have a pair of black cats named Pepper and Tzatziki.
Pepper is my grumpy, writing accountability partner. It is his job to pounce me
awake to write at 5 am every morning. He takes his job very seriously and is
relentless with his claws. The twenty-pound tyrant is not above smothering my
face with his long fur either. We adopted him from the Animal Society of
Louisville, Kentucky’s first no-kill animal shelter, in 2016, when his picture
appeared in my social media feeds. I fell in love with the tiny kitten with big
paws and angry eyebrows. He looked like a cartoon villain despite the ad’s
description of “lap cat who never gets in trouble”.
Tzatziki was given to me in 2019. He was part of a litter where a breeder was trying to birth “Garfield” look-a-likes. Because of his fur color, he was starved and treated horribly. One of my friends rescued him, despite having five cats living in her one-bedroom apartment with her. Tzatziki’s laidback attitude and history of starving made the loving – yet cramped – environment a poor fit for him. My first cat, Olive, had just passed away, so our home had plenty of love for Tzatziki. He moved in while I was writing Strawberry Shifters Book 3: Go Scorch Yourself (coming in 2022). In the book, Vampire Lucien finds two black cats on the side of the road and adopts them. He names them Bela (Lugosi) and Christopher (Lee) as an homage to vampire-portraying actors. Some of Pepper and Tzatziki’s tricks are in the book.
Do you listen to music while you write?
I have to employ many coping strategies to manage my sensory processing disorder while writing. I assign a candle scent for each book to engage my nose and a "couple's song" for each book engages my ears. To start each writing session, I listen to the song, so I get into the mood of the book – whether it be somber or upbeat. Sometimes I must play the song on repeat as I write to bring back my focus if my mind wanders.
That's really interesting, to write to music that suits the mood of the book!
Do you have any
works in progress you wish to chat about?
Available for
Christmas is The Spiritual Spy Duology based on a Christmas Cookie recipe from
my husband’s Russian family. My mother-in-law, Theresa, was a hospice nurse who
loved gritty, crime novels and made the best Russian tea cakes before her death
in 2008. When my publisher announced they were asking for Christmas Cookie
story submissions, I knew I wanted to write a story she would read and feature
her cookie recipe in the back. To prepare for the book, I borrowed my husband’s
novels which she had borrowed while undergoing chemotherapy. They turned out to
be more about spies than cops and much steamier than I expected. Delighted, I
write The Spy Who Loved My Russian Tea Cakes.
I love the story of Sergei waking to gentle
Cassie and her boisterous family. However, during the editing process, I was
bothered by the lack of explanation for his being in a coma in the first place.
I kept trying to slip it in and my editor kept taking it out. I get away with
nothing. It bothered me until I wrote the prequel, The Spy Who Was Out Cold.
Now, I had a book already released in pre-orders and a prequel which still had
to go through the slow small press publishing process. My solution? I
self-published The Spiritual Spy 1: The Spy Who Was Out Cold as a free book for
those who are willing to come along with me for the ride. It gets wild, but
everyone gets their happily ever after.
I was fortunate enough to read an ARC of The Spy Who Loved My Russian Tea Cakes and I have to admit, I enjoyed Cassie and Sergei's story! Let's give readers a taste of what's in store for them!
The blurb:
Reiki Practitioner Cassie Morgan is the black
sheep of her family. She would rather work over the Christmas holidays
than answer her family’s interrogation about her non-existent love life and
career choices. She assures herself it has nothing to do with the
handsome coma patient, Sergei Chekov who stars in her dreams.
Sergei wakes from blackness and dreams of a siren’s call. He isn’t sure who he can trust when the woman from his dreams walks into his room with his favorite childhood treat to jog his memory. Despite his attraction to her, he must escape to safety.
Cassie is heartbroken and left with nothing but questions. Who was the woman who convinced her to wake Sergei? Why is the FBI involved? And will she ever see Sergei again or will she be left to pine over the spy who loved Russian tea cakes?
The Spy Who Loved My Russian Tea Cakes releases on November 30 and is available here.
Marilyn, thank you so much for visiting today. It's been wonderful chatting with you and I know readers had a blast hearing the behind-the-scenes writing and life scoop! Hope to see you again soon!
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