Make-Beleieve Mondays with Amy Ruttan

Today on Make-Believe Mondays I'm pleased to introduce Amy Ruttan

Amy, first, tell us a little bit about the manuscript you’re working on now.

Amy: Right now I am working on the final book of my Enchantress series, Enchantress The Valkyrie. I NEED to get it done before my third child is born, and he’s coming June 26th 2009. LOL. It’s not the deadline from my publisher it’s the deadline from the tenant in my belly which is driving me to get the words done. I’ve done the tally, I’ve written over 200,000 words since January 2009. Mind boggling for me, anyways I digress, Enchantress The Valkyrie it’s set in Saxon England, but has some fun paranormal elements to it. My Enchantress series has characters with magical powers. This is a story about Rowena, she’s recently widowed, no kids, and her husband’s brother is coming to claim her so he can keep her dower lands. Thing is her keep is attacked by Vikings, and as she helps her household escape, she is stuck and she dresses herself up as a young boy to escape rape. The hero Galen decides to sell the “boy” as a slave, but he finds himself strangely attracted to him. This infuriates him to no end. It’s proving to be a very fun book to write. I think I’m subliminally torturing my DH through my poor hero. Not a book to write in the third trimester to be certain. LOL!

Debra: Wow, now that's a deadline! Congrats, btw. :-) That does sound like a fun book to write. Hmm I wonder what kind of scene you would write if you were going into labor? Or right after? lol

Ray Bradbury said, “We are cups, constantly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.” How do you keep your creative cup filled?

Amy: I love to read and I love movies. Comedies especially. Music also restores my creative muse as does car trips. I love to take day trips in the car. My kids also help revitalize me. I love spending time with them. I love that I have a job now where I can spend time at home doing what I love and being with my kids. Another cup filler is my local RWA chapter The Toronto Romance Writers, the support and comraderie is a definite cup filler. I always feel revitalized and jazzed coming from one of the meetings.

Debra: It's a beautiful thing when spending time around other writers does that. They "get" us like no one else can. Car trips are wonderful and it's the perfect time of year for them. Picnic on the seat and off to wherever the road takes you.

For some writers, dreams play a role in creating fiction. Has this been true for you? Have you ever dreamed a scene or an image that later wound up in one of your books?

Amy: I dream up whole books. I call these blessed dreams Plot Monkeys. Kind of like the flying monkey’s from the Wizard of Oz but cuter. ;) Dreams often play an important role in my writing. My Enchantress series came from a dream I had after having my first child back in 2003. I had a dream of a fey woman with long red hair running through the forest, graceful and beautiful and being chased by a very handsome warrior. I knew from the dreams they were enemies but were going to be thrown together. Of course these two became Edwin and Aislinn from Enchantress The Fey.

Debra: Plot Monkeys! I love it! Can just see them. :-) Childbirth and creativity also go together, sometimes in unusual ways.

As a child did any particular book or author pull you into their imaginary world?

Amy: It’s a trifecta tie between Laura Ingalls Wilder, Lucy Maud Montgomery and Roald Dahl. I love the history and romance of the Anne Series, the wanderlust of Pa Ingalls and Laura’s adventures in the frontier and Roald Dahl’s kookiness. His stories were so dark and eerie it really set my fertile little mind off, and because of these three writers I read voraciously as a child. I was always reading “above” my grade. I had a huge imagination and books were one of the ways I fed it.

Debra: Trifecta, yes. I could not choose one over the other either.

If there were no categories for books, no reader expectations to meet, and you could create the wildest work of imagination that you could think of what kind of story would that be?

Amy: Ooh I have no idea. Working in e-publishing is quite freeing and the publishers are more apt to take a risk on things traditional publishing houses won’t. I think for me I would like to write an epic set on a distant world. A real Sci Fi for my father. One day when I have time I may try. LOL.

Debra: So true. We have much more leeway in e-publishing. Seems like the traditional publishing houses are watching them though and trying to catch up. Look how many have now added e-books.

Amy, thank you for joining us here on this Make-believe Monday to share a little bit of the magic of writing with our readers.

Amy: I love to hear from readers contact@amyruttan.com

And my website www.amyruttan.com

Thanks for having me! J

Debra: It's been my pleasure.

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Debra's News/Debra is posting:

Well it's been a couple weeks since I reported in and did an interview. What's been going on?

Let's see....I had a birthday day with about thirty friends, which was awesome!

Chipped a tooth eating an almond. (Be careful with those hard little nuts.)

Had a book signing at my beauty salon which was so much fun! Hair dryers going and ladies getting their nails done. There was a constant flow of people having books signed and visiting. I had a blast!

Then Friday a tornado came through Bartlett, TN. We're fine, just lost a few tree lines and power. Internet came back up last night.

So, I'm happy to report today is quiet, the rest of the week is likely to be quiet. Which is just what I need to get some writing done. I've had enough excitement for a while.

www.debraparmley.com
Posted a few new pics on my www.myspace.com/debraparmley and Facebook from the book signing. Updates are coming on my website, I'm just not sure when.

And now back to the manuscript under revision................perhaps next week I'll talk a little about it.