Andrea Hurst's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing"
AN INTERVIEW WITH ANDREA Part 1
Tess Klingenstein speaks with Andrea Hurst about her experience as an indie-published Commercial Women's Fiction author in a series of interview installments.
One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.
-Virginia Woolf
Food and recipes play a big role in both The Guestbook and Always With You. Does cooking play a big role in your life at home? Did you feel there was risk in being so food focused?
Many people have said reading my books make them hungry and many have thanked me for the recipes. A few people have commented that there’s too much food mentioned. I figure there’s always going to be parts of a book readers can skip if they want to. I personally love reading about food—and fine dining as well.
The Guestbook:
For The Guestbook, it definitely was part of the plan to include the recipes because the main focus of the book is the bed and breakfast and Lily who is a trained chef. One of the things prominent in the story is the brownie recipe, and I thought a lot about if I should include the recipe or have readers come to the website for it. And then I thought, if I had read a book about brownies, I would want a recipe at the end.
Actually my first published book was a cookbook—Everybody’s Natural Foods cookbook, so I do have a strong background in that area. One of my passions is great food in wonderful surroundings, so it made sense to put it all together in my stories.
Always With You:
With Always With You, the food was, of course, a main part of the plot because the main character, Cathy, owns a health food café. I actually owned a health food café, myself in 1977 called Over the Rainbow in Petaluma, CA, so, in that way, I had some experience with it. In 1977, health food was a big part of the culture and it was easy to remember the recipes I had made in my café.
I didn’t feel that Always With You was as food centered as The Guestbook, although the more I think about it, the man she is in love with is a chef, so where else could I go but food—which is where I generally end up. In Always With You, food was part of Cathy and Jamie’s shared passion and something that they bonded over. It was a big part of both of their lives and brought them closer together.
If more of us valued food and cheer above hoarded gold, it would be a much merrier world.
-J.R.R. Tolkien
Here’s a romantic lunch recipe that Cathy and Jamie would have used for a picnic on the river in the 1970s:
4 boneless chicken breasts
3 stalks celery, chopped
½ small red onion
Handful chopped red grapes
½ cup mayonnaise + 3 Tb yogurt
½ cup dried cranberries
½ t. garlic
1 Tb orange juice
2 tsp curry (or to taste)
2 papayas, halved
Sea salt to taste
1. Skin and chop chicken into cubes.
2. Saute in butter until tender.
3. Add the remaining ingredients (except papaya) to the chicken cubes.
4. Mix and chill.
5. Serve in ½ papaya
One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.
-Virginia Woolf
Food and recipes play a big role in both The Guestbook and Always With You. Does cooking play a big role in your life at home? Did you feel there was risk in being so food focused?
Many people have said reading my books make them hungry and many have thanked me for the recipes. A few people have commented that there’s too much food mentioned. I figure there’s always going to be parts of a book readers can skip if they want to. I personally love reading about food—and fine dining as well.
The Guestbook:
For The Guestbook, it definitely was part of the plan to include the recipes because the main focus of the book is the bed and breakfast and Lily who is a trained chef. One of the things prominent in the story is the brownie recipe, and I thought a lot about if I should include the recipe or have readers come to the website for it. And then I thought, if I had read a book about brownies, I would want a recipe at the end.
Actually my first published book was a cookbook—Everybody’s Natural Foods cookbook, so I do have a strong background in that area. One of my passions is great food in wonderful surroundings, so it made sense to put it all together in my stories.
Always With You:
With Always With You, the food was, of course, a main part of the plot because the main character, Cathy, owns a health food café. I actually owned a health food café, myself in 1977 called Over the Rainbow in Petaluma, CA, so, in that way, I had some experience with it. In 1977, health food was a big part of the culture and it was easy to remember the recipes I had made in my café.
I didn’t feel that Always With You was as food centered as The Guestbook, although the more I think about it, the man she is in love with is a chef, so where else could I go but food—which is where I generally end up. In Always With You, food was part of Cathy and Jamie’s shared passion and something that they bonded over. It was a big part of both of their lives and brought them closer together.
If more of us valued food and cheer above hoarded gold, it would be a much merrier world.
-J.R.R. Tolkien
Here’s a romantic lunch recipe that Cathy and Jamie would have used for a picnic on the river in the 1970s:
4 boneless chicken breasts
3 stalks celery, chopped
½ small red onion
Handful chopped red grapes
½ cup mayonnaise + 3 Tb yogurt
½ cup dried cranberries
½ t. garlic
1 Tb orange juice
2 tsp curry (or to taste)
2 papayas, halved
Sea salt to taste
1. Skin and chop chicken into cubes.
2. Saute in butter until tender.
3. Add the remaining ingredients (except papaya) to the chicken cubes.
4. Mix and chill.
5. Serve in ½ papaya
AN INTERVIEW WITH ANDREA Part 2
"Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it."-Truman Capote
Do you feel writing is an emotional experience?
With Always with You, it was an extremely emotional experience. The idea came to me in a dream—a very powerful dream. It must have resonated with me deeply because I had to write that story. The story flowed out of me in just a matter of months. I sat down and started writing in first person, present tense, which I’ve never done before. I could basically hear Cathy’s voice telling me the story. And I really reacted to it as if I was hearing it, because I found myself very sad in parts of the book. Just thinking about the book today, it’s still a very emotional experience.
But Always With You is written in third person. Why the switch?
My beta readers, on the first edition, did not like Cathy when it was written in first person. And there was no point of view for Jamie so they couldn’t tell how he was feeling. I had to put it in third person and add Jamie’s point of view—it was a complete rewrite.
But it was very hard to finish that book because the characters still have not left me. I had people tell me they would like to have a sequel and right away the ideas just started spinning and I could really see them, and feel where the book would go next. I didn’t want to leave those characters because I was just so invested in them. And I would like to go back.
Does that mean readers can expect a sequel to Always With You?
I am considering it. Maybe.
What was it like finishing The Guestbook?
Finishing The Guestbook was a whole different deal. It was my first novel and I wrote it in spurts over years. It never seemed like I would finish and what spurred me on was finally making writing—my own writing—a priority and giving myself a goal.
How did you decide to make it a priority?
I thought about my goals in writing and the one thing I wanted to do before I die and it was clear to me that the answer was: finish The Guestbook. And once I saw that, I thought, why not put it as the top priority in my life. But it was very hard to finish that book.
Is it difficult to let go when you finish a novel?
Part of finishing a book is knowing when to let go. What I learned with The Guestbook is: It’s never, ever going to be perfect and you just have to know when to let go.
Thank goodness for my beta readers and editors because each edit polished both books and helped guide me toward a marketable product.
Questions for the Readers:
As a reader how do you feel about sequels to books you enjoy?
