with Judy Dailey
We are delighted to welcome author Judy Dailey to Omnimystery News today.
Judy's second novel of suspense, Forget You Ever Knew Me (Five Star; November 2014 hardcover and ebook formats) is recommended for readers that care about strong women struggling to make sense of their past and a daughter's enduring love for her imperfect mother.
We recently had the chance to talk with Judy a little more about her book.
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Omnimystery News: You've written both series novels and stand-alones. How do you go about deciding whether or not a new book with be part of a series or not?
Photo provided courtesy of
Judy Dailey
Judy Dailey: I start writing with a character in a situation. That character develops as she deals with the situation, and her personality determines whether the book will be part of a series or a stand-alone mystery.
Sunny Day Dahl, the heroine of my first book, Animal, Vegetable, Murder, is widowed and pregnant when she finds a dead man in a patch of organic Swiss chard. Worse yet, the dead man is clutching a picture of her late husband wearing little more than a pink feather boa and red stiletto heels. In the second book, Murder Gets Your Goat, Sunny adds a nanny goat to her urban farm while she juggles motherhood and a new career. The goat finds a body in the snow, and Sunny has another crime to unravel. Sunny belongs in a series because she has so many issues to work through: her past as a foster child, her hasty marriage, how to be a single parent, and if she should take a chance on love. Her character will grow and develop over the course of the Urban Farm series.
Forget You Ever Knew Me is a stand-alone novel about a woman driven to right a terrible wrong. This experience will change her forever and complete the arc of her character.
OMN: How much of your own personal or professional experience have you included in your books?
JD: I believe everyone sees the world through the lens of his/her own experience. Even authors writing about the Zombie Apocalypse address that fantasy world based on their unique life experiences. I found after I had written my first five (unpublished) mysteries that my books deal with motherless women trying to find their place in a hostile world. Not to get all Freudian about it, but my mother died when I was four years old under circumstances I still find hard to understand, which certainly created my interest in that topic.
The important thing about writing from one's own experience is that feelings are universal even if specific experiences are not. Everyone has dealt with loss, everyone has made a terrible mistake, everyone has struggled to discover who they are. If I can draw on my life to create real and true feelings in my characters, then my readers will understand and relate to those characters even though their losses and struggles are different from mine.
OMN: Describe your writing process for us.
JD: I start with a character in a situation, and get to know my characters as I write about them. In Forget You Ever Knew Me, Ellie, who grew up believing her mother died when she was a toddler, discovers her mother is still alive. Angry, joyful, and wary, all at the same time, Ellie is driven to find out what happened, why her mother abandoned her. In some sense, Ellie and I embarked on the journey of discovery together. As I write, I want to surprise and interest myself. I want to find out what happens next. I want to know whodunit and why.
I outline after I have a good rough draft to make sure all the bits and pieces of plot and character are in place. I develop the cast of characters as my heroine meets them and write their biographies as I learn who they are.
The only aspect of the first draft that I rigidly structure is character names. I keep an on-going list (first, last, and nickname) so I don't end up with multiple characters with similar names. As a reader, I get very cranky which I have to go back to the beginning of the book to figure out whether Maryanne, Marion, or Marie is the victim, the detective, or the key witness.
Most of all, my goal is to tell a good story.
OMN: What is a typical day for you while you're writing a book?
JD: My writing day starts with walking my dog for an hour through a park near our home. Walking seems to clean the cobwebs out of my brain. By the time I return home, I almost always have the germ of an idea — a key word or phrase that will springboard a new scene. My dog and I retire to my office while my husband fixes breakfast for both of us. We eat and then I shut the door until noon. I am a firm believer in making a habit of writing at the same time in the same place every day, especially when I'm working on the first draft. My office is small but cheerful with a dog bed in one corner and a cookie jar full of dog treats. I painted the walls bright yellow and pinned my favorite pictures and mementos to the walls. I play classical music while I write. Recently I added a crib, diaper pail, and a garland of paper elephants because I take care of my new grandson two days a week. Now my office smells like baby, which is just wonderful.
My best suggestion for writers: keep a piece of paper and pencil next to your computer. When I get distracted wondering if I paid the light bill or defrosted something for dinner or responded to that important email, I jot down the question and put it out of my mind until noon.
I write on a mini laptop, which is small enough to carry with me. I work on edits and tweaks anytime I have fifteen minutes or more: dentist's office, in the car while my husband shops for hardware, or on a road trip in our teardrop trailer.
OMN: How do you go about researching the plot points of your stories?
JD: Researching Forget You Ever Knew Me was a surprising experience. I wrote the first draft with the story set in present-day Seattle, then realized the story truly belonged to rural Indiana in the 1950's. I rewrote the book in that setting drawing primarily on my earliest memories, particularly of my grandmother.
After the second draft was finished, my critique group asked me many, many pointed questions about the setting. For example, the hospital in Zillah has a plaque commemorating a donation from the Klu Klux Klan. "Really?" my critique group said. "The Klan built hospitals?"
I though the hospital where I worked as a teenager had a plaque like that, so I researched the KKK and discovered, yes, my memory was correct. I live only a couple of blocks from the University of Washington Medical School, and I drew extensively on its collection to fact-check medical care in the 1950s. I haunted used book stores for books published in 1950-1952 or editions published then. Among my found treasures are: Roget's Thesaurus, Joy of Cooking, a history of Memorial Hospital Indianapolis, and the book the Indiana Department of Health gave every first-time mother.
I love Internet research, especially when I can't remember how something is spelled or I want to locate original source material. A Yahoo search turned up a documentary from the 1960s about a Chicago clinic for low-income mothers and children, which I bought and watched. I know writers should be wary of Internet sources, but I also believe that if my readers have a question about something in my book, they probably will turn to the Internet first for an answer.
OMN: Who reads the drafts of your books before they're submitted for publication?
JD: I liken writing to singing in the shower. When I'm standing under a stream of water and belting out "I Wanna Hold Your Hand," I hear the backup singers, the complete orchestration, and, of course, the other four Beetles singing along with me. My husband, standing in the hallway outside the door, only hears my quavering and off-key voice. And it's pretty off-key. And quavering.
The point is, when I write a scene I see the characters, hear their voices, and understand their motivation. Unfortunately, the written page often doesn't contain all that richness, especially the first draft. The reader doesn't know what I meant to say, she only knows what's on the page. I rely on a critique group of mystery/thriller writers to help me figure out how to bridge the gap between what I intended to say and what I actually wrote.
The group is very structured. We meet at every week at a local independent bookstore. We submit no more than 3500 words every Sunday by 6:00 pm. Each of us comments on every submission and brings a hard copy to our Tuesday meeting. The author can't respond until everyone has finished reacting to his/her submission, and we work very hard on not being defensive. I may not incorporate every comment, but if two or three people get stuck at the same point, I know I need to do more work.
I think another occupational disease for writers is dashing out a first draft and then wanting to read all those wonderful words out loud — even to strangers on the street. A critique group is a great way to satisfy that urge and still give the work time to mature before it goes public.
Finally, I'm lucky to be part of a group of terrific writers who inspire and nag me in equal proportions.
OMN: What's next for you?
JD: My husband and I own a 1929 Model A Ford. After spending 15 years restoring the car, we painted it bright yellow and drove to Indiana. Next year, we plan to drive it more than 7,000 miles roundtrip from Seattle to Halifax, Nova Scotia on the Trans-Canada Highway. Road trips are fun because every time we stop, or even pause for a stoplight, someone (inevitably a man) comes up to tell us the story of his car or his grandfather's car. Cruising at 45 mph with the windows rolled down means we really experience the countryside. We hear the birds, smell the cows, and chase bumblebees out of the backseat. Something goes wrong with the car almost every day, but my husband is a gifted mechanic who can do a lot with a bobby pin and a piece of bubble gum. As a teenager, I learned to drive on a John Deere tractor, which turns out to be a pretty good introduction to driving a Model A. You can see pictures of our car or follow our adventures on Facebook.
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Judy Dailey grew up on an 80-acre organic farm in Indiana. Now she lives on a 1200-square-foot urban farm in Seattle, Washington, with her husband, six chickens, and a dog. A graduate of Bryn Mawr College, Judy earned an MBA from the University of Washington and a certificate in compost management. She has been a pilot, skydiver, spelunker, bicyclist, skier, and night-time sailor. She managed a multi-million-dollar grant fund for affordable housing. She handcrafts artisan salami, beer, and ricotta cheese.
For more information about the author, please visit her website at JudyDailey.com, or find her on Facebook.
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Forget You Ever Knew Me
Judy Dailey
A Novel of Suspense
It's 1952. Maggie Kendall, an idealistic young doctor, must chose life or death for one of her patients under horrifying circumstances. She makes the wrong decision and loses her home, her husband, and her infant daughter. She flees to the south side of Chicago where she provides medical care to the poorest of the poor.
Forty years later, Maggie sees a chance to return home and right a terrible wrong, but this time the stakes are even higher.
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