Sandra Byrd stopped by the Dregs to visit a bit. My review of "Let Them Eat Cake" appears at the end of her interview.
Click on the delicious book cover to learn more about "Cake."
Some out there in writing land have strange rituals. Share yours.
I must wipe down my mayonnaise lids, get all the laundry perfect, clean the carpet along the edges of the stairs…yada yada. Mainly, I look for almost any chore to distract me from the pain of starting to write. Because it’s hard. But once you actually sit down in the chair and tell yourself that you’re not getting up till XX words are done, or you can’t call it a day till XX words are done, it’s motivation to get going.
I think some people believe that because writing is a creative endeavor that you have to wait for “The Muse” to arrive. But it’s like any other job. Some days you wanna go to work, and some days, you don’t. But you still have to show up!
If you could change something in any novel, what would you change about it and why?
Nothing in specific, but in general, I don’t like reads that don’t offer hope. They don’t have to be neatly wrapped up, and they do need to be realistic, but I don’t like despair, which is hopelessness. I want to close a book with hope.
Pick one…..Pink iguana, purple cow, periwinkle giraffe. Which one and why? Can be negative or positive.
How about magenta salmon with smoked brown alder salt grilled on a cedar plank. : )
What period of history intrigues you the most?
Tudor England. It has everything! Drama, great clothes, excitement, romance, faith struggles. It was a great time to be alive – if you could keep your head attached.
What makes you feel alive?
Living each day with a sense of adventure. And I’ll be real, some of those adventures are not very fun, but they do make me realize I’m alive and I am exhilarated when we come through them.
I have had some incredible highs in my life as well as some lows I could never have imagined and from which I thought I’d never crawl out. But all of that makes me realize – I’m not a hydroponic tomato living in a controlled environment – lots of water, fake sun, no dirt, picked green, ripened by a blow torch, unsatisfying. Instead I get to struggle against the hard earth like everyone else, have dirt and slugs as well as rain and a constant gardener, slowly ripened by the sun, natural, satisfying. How’s that for an extended metaphor of being alive?!
My review:
Cute escapist chick-lit with joie de vivre, plenty of sass and a few yummy recipes.
Lexi, at thirty, is suffering serious growing pains. The only thing she knows for sure is that she loves to bake, cook and surround herself in recipes. With a dead-end job that bores her to tears, parents with an empty nest that are forced to make room for their nestling, and a brother who excels in life and love, Lexi struggles with the reality of being a grown up.
Throw marginal Christianity, men, and hurting friends in the mix and Lexi spends much of her time attempting to repair emotional souffle.
Will she find the missing ingredients to life as she dreams it could be? Hmmm, you'll have to check it out.
Sensitivity warning...Lexi is a Christian who drinks socially.
