What is your favorite genre to read?
While stopping by V’s Spot on her Blog Tour, I was able to ask Marie a few questions for the readers. Check out the interview below.
1. What is your name?
Marie Drake
2. What is the name of the book or series youíre promoting?
Three Rules
3. Tell me how you came to love writing.
The first time I remember writing a story was in third grade. When the teacher handed it back to me, she said, “Very well done,” and discussed my story with me. I was hooked.
4. What other jobs have you done while working to become an author?
I worked in a motel for several years before I got married. I ran a home daycare for over ten years after I got married. My husband and I became foster parents because of an emergency within my own family, and once it was resolved we decided to continue to foster other children. We fostered fifteen children over a five year period. More often than not we were raising eight children at a time. Currently, I have a small home based online business. I design and sell crochet afghan patterns on my website.
5. Tell me about your book.
I thought about writing this book for years — the setting, the characters, and so forth. I didn’t have the time to actually put any of it on paper, however, until my kids grew a little older. The book takes place in a small, fictional town. It’s on a lake, like my own hometown. It isn’t anything too specific because it is centered on the main character’s feelings and state of mind more than the location. It is written from Hope’s perspective, the main character. She suffered years of abuse and never told anyone about it for fear that no one would believe her, and later that there would be repercussions within her nuclear family causing her mother and step father pain. She buried all the pain and anger inside, year after year. When her former abuser is pronounced dead in a mysterious boating accident but they don’t recover the body, it magnifies her feelings of paranoia and fear. She has recurring nightmares, and she thinks she sees him, feels him following her.
6. What kind of research did you do for the book?
Well, the story is based in a small town, on a lake, so I didn’t have to stretch my imagination very far on that. I drew on my own personal life experiences when describing the feelings and emotions of the main character. I survived some things in my childhood that scarred and changed who I was forever. It affected my outlook on life, on the world, and affected my decisions and the way I lived until I was nearly thirty years old. I often wonder how different I would be if they never happened. I have also been a care giver for children who had suffered abuse, which I can’t go into detail about for privacy reasons.
7. What’s a typical working day like for you? When and where do you write?
I usually get up at 5:30 AM when my husband leaves for work and our four boys are getting ready for school. They are all out of the house by around 6:20, and I sit down with my coffee and write for a couple of hours before I have to start the regular day —answering emails and doing customer service for my online business, cooking, cleaning, laundry, taking care of our dog, Lady Jade. I sit at my desk in my office and write, usually in my pajamas, always with a cup of coffee. I find that is the best time for me. I have tried going back in the afternoons to write a little, but I think my best ideas come early in the morning.
8. What is the hardest part of writing for you?
The hardest part for me is letting others read what I write. Writing it is thrilling, exciting; I am passionate about it. It wasn’t until recently my husband convinced me I should let other people read it. To me, it is very personal. It is a piece of me, and when others read it, it doesn’t belong to just me anymore. Then it becomes a book, material for random people to pick over, piece apart, and find fault. Accepting criticism is a difficult task, but it is a necessity. I try to do so graciously, and use it constructively.
9.What’s the best thing about being an author?
I have found the best part of being an author is also letting others read what I wrote, when some one enjoys reading it — when somebody else shares the excitement I felt writing the book while they are reading it.
10. What advice would you give writers?
Don’t give up. Life gets in the way; it may slow you down but it can’t stop you if you keep moving toward your goals, even if it is an inch at a time. It can be challenging, but follow your dreams.
11. What question do you get asked the most, and how do you answer that question?
I think the question I get asked the most is “Was it worth it, spending all this time writing a book?” My answer is yes, to me it was worth every moment I spent at the keyboard. I know they are most often speaking financially. That is not how I measure my success. I feel accomplished and proud of finishing something that I set out to do. I feel the most reward when some one enjoys what I wrote.
12. What are you working on now?
I have started writing my next novel, tentatively called Don’t Cry For Me. It is another fiction novel that I hope to release in 2014.
You can read more about Marie Drake @ http://www.mariedrake.com or contact her @ mariedrake72@gmail.com
13. Where can readers stalk you?
Blog: mariedrake.blogspot.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarieDrake
Twitter: @MarieDrake72
Goodreads author page: https://www.goodreads.com/MarieDrake
Amazon: amazon.com/author/mariedrake
Other: mariedrake.com
Three Rules by Marie Drake
Book website: http://www.mariedrake.com/three-rules-by-marie-drake
Sales Links:
Copyright Marie Drake
Pages: 296
Genre: Fiction, Suspense
Three Rules – The Blurb:
Hope Wellman has a childhood full of horrific memories, a bone chilling recurring nightmare, and a persistent paranoid sense of being followed that she would rather keep repressed. Is evil reaching from beyond the grave to capture the tattered remnants of her soul once and for all, is it only a machination of her disturbed mind, or is there something happening more sinister than even she can imagine?
Attending the funeral of her abuser is the first step in putting her life back together. She struggles with the fact she never told anyone what happened to her, and that the grave they are mourning over is empty. She’d find it a lot easier to move on and believe in the future if he were in the box, ready to be covered with dirt. She fears the last thread of her sanity has snapped when she sees Lucas everywhere she turns, and can’t escape a recurring nightmare. Is her tormentor alive, or is she imagining it? Is her dream triggered by past fears or is it a prediction of the future?
Quoted from Three Rules:
“I have learned three rules in my life: 1.) The most dangerous people in the world are not always strangers. 2.) The scariest things imaginable are not those that can kill you, but those you can live through. And probably the most prominent: 3.) The most horrible possibility is not what could happen to you, but what you could become – I became a killer.”
~Hope Wellman
Excerpt from Chapter 1
Chapter 1
*An Empty Grave*
I want to spit on his grave, but I won’t. That would cause the surrounding people to be offended and confused, all these people who didn’t truly know him but honor him at this service. I hold my frame as stiff as a board beneath the dark, rumbling sky full of churning clouds – the perfect weather to send him off. I twist my buttons trying to make sure they all point in the same direction. It’s a trivial thing to be focused on at a grave site, but my obsessiveness won’t allow me to stop until I fix them all.
I guess most people would be sad attending two family members’ funerals so close together. I’m not. We buried Grandfather Leonard not long ago. I didn’t cry. I didn’t know him. I didn’t know what I was missing by not knowing him. I don’t have any grandparents on my mother’s side either. I wasn’t his real grandchild anyway – and he never fussed over his own children – so why would he fuss over their children? I’m wearing the same black dress. My black hat covers my long blonde hair, fashioned into a bun. A veil conceals my face. I’m not crying for the loss of this man either, but no one can tell. Another rumble of thunder sounds and lightning crackles through the clouds. It seems appropriate that the sky swell up and spit on him for me. The pearly gates will not open to welcome him. No, he will not spend a single moment of eternity in a peaceful state.
There is no open casket, no public viewing. The authorities recovered his boat with evidence of some blood, a few strands of hair, and empty alcohol bottles. It was a logical conclusion that he fell, bumped his head, and went into the water. They did not recover his body. Too bad, I may find some morbid sense of satisfaction seeing him laying there in a coffin dead.
This ceremony over an empty grave seems very strange. Among all these tearful people mourning and sharing embraces, I separate myself. I look at them. I can see the fear in some of their faces. He died very young. They’re afraid of death.
I scan the cemetery. So many headstones, so many graves, they all contain secrets – even the empty ones. I stand alone, twisting these buttons, counting the reasons I’m glad he’s dead.
About the Author:
Marie Drake lives with her husband and their four wonderful sons in a small town near Lake Ontario. They take advantage of what others deem a vacation spot all year long. Camping and hiking are some of their favorite family activities. They also enjoy volunteering at the local animal shelter together, and recently rescued a Jack Russell/Corgi mix who made their family complete.
Marie is a crochet fanatic. She designs her own patterns and enjoys crocheting for friends, family, and charity. She loves to cook and bake, especially when making up a new recipe. Marie is an avid reader of romance, mystery, and suspense thrillers.
She is a woman of many interests – and maybe talents – but will be quick to tell you that her most important and proudest accomplishment is the part she played in the lives of children. She provided daycare for over ten years, and she and her husband fostered more than fifteen children over a five year period.
While juggling all her boys’ sporting events, academic, musical, and other extra curricular activities, and running a small home based business designing crochet afghan patterns, Marie tries to squeeze in some time for writing each day.
“Life is good, and a good story makes life better.” ~Marie Drake
http://www.MarieDrake.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/MarieDrake
Twitter : @MarieDrake72
Goodreads : https://www.goodreads.com/MarieDrake
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