Interview Dorothy Bodoin

by

*lizzie starr

Dorothy, thanks for taking time to answer a few questions to let your readers know a little more about you.

1) An easy question first, and one of my favorites to ask. What’s your favorite food?

It’s hard to pick just one, but if I have to, I’d say baked ham with potato salad.

2) Now, to the interesting writing stuff... Do you have a regular writing schedule? What’s it like?

I don’t have a formal writing schedule, but I try to write at least three or four pages every day.  After a few days, I have a whole chapter.  Then I keep rewriting it until it’s as perfect as I can make it.  My goal is to finish a chapter a week.  I started my WIP, tentatively titled THE GHOST DOGS OF LOST LAKE, in the last week of October and I’m starting Chapter 23 today, February 20.  My best time to work is in the morning, right after breakfast, but I’m fortunate in being able to work on my writing off and on all day, and I do.  Then, before I go to bed, I always read over what I’ve written during the day. 

3) How do you handle interruptions to your writing?

 I rarely answer the phone when I’m writing, even though I have phones within reach of my computer, but there are always interruptions, even when you live alone.  My dog whines to go out on the porch and come back in, daily chores need to be done, meals must be cooked… I’m always trying to use my time more efficiently. 

4) What places or things bring you inspiration? Do you keep those things close to you, or visit your places often?

It’s probably not places but things.  There are wonderful places that I keep in my memory. For example, an old log cabin in Harrisville, Michigan, that I visited many times as a child.  I used it as a setting for my book, A SHADOW ON THE SNOW.  And of course, there’s Metamora, Michigan, called Foxglove Corners in my cozy mystery series.  I visit Metamora frequently as my brother lives there, but I haven’t been up north in years.

My greatest sources of inspiration are within walking distance of my computer: My scrapbooks, which I’ve kept practically all my life, so many old time prints of collies that they’ve taken up all the wall space, and my books, especially poetry books.

5) What is it about your chosen genre that interested you enough to choose to write in it, rather than in another?

I’ve always loved mystery stories.  When I was a child and had a new mystery, sometimes I’d read it in a single setting.  Many times I was disappointed because the story didn’t live up to the cover art.  Margaret Sutton, author of the Judy Bolton’s books, rarely failed me, though.  Then, years later, when I discovered the Gothic novels of authors like Victoria Holt and Velda Johnston, I was never disappointed. 

I love creating mysterious places, ghostly apparitions, and inexplicable events, and it’s a special challenge to find them in my own backyard, so to speak.

6) How long does it take you to go from the gem of an idea to a completed story?

I try to adhere to Phyllis A. Whitney’s suggested schedule, discussed in her book, GUIDE TO FICTION WRITING: Two months to plan a book, two months to write it, and two months to revise and type it.  That always seemed sensible to me.  Over the years, I’ve adjusted this schedule to fit my own working habits.  I revise heavily as I go along, so I use those two “revising months” for writing.  Nowadays, I keep my entire manuscript on one document, so there’s no need to retype.  Computers are an amazing time saver.  Ideally, then, the time is four months, but it usually stretches to five or six.

7) Winter is a rescue dog... have you worked with rescue organizations or humane societies?

No, not yet, but I’d like to some day.  I have one collie of my own, a small house, a large fenced yard, and neighbors who don’t like barking dogs, so this will have to be a future project.  

8) Collies are the prominent canines in this book and Winter’s Tale. Are they your favorite breed?

Ever since I can remember, I’ve always loved collies.  My mother told me that a collie knocked me down once when I was a little girl, but I don’t remember this, and obviously it didn’t have any adverse effect on me.

9) What’s the first book you remember reading?  Why do you think this book sticks in your mind?

This is another hard question because as soon as I learned how to read, it was my favorite pastime, and I always had new books.  I remember crying over “A Dog of Flanders” and a book by Marshall Saunders called Beautiful Joe.  Neither dog was a collie.  Beautiful Joe was, in his own words, only a cur.  It was the autobiography of a dog that begins with a cruel milkman and an act of unspeakable cruelty.  The book sticks in my mind because of the wonderful family that rescued Joe and the underlying theme of kindness to animals in the story.  

10) Finally, what’s the best advice you’ve ever received.

To keep trying and never give up on anything that matters to you, whether it’s a dream or a writing project.