For The Kissing Tree Blog Tour, I have Prudence Bice, the book's author, as my guest, and here's her post:
First, I'd like to say thank you to Ambur for having me be a guest on her blog to talk about my book and a little about myself. This blog tour has been a neat experience.
Becoming an author was not actually something I had planned to do. I had other dreams and passions. At one time I fancied myself a famous singer. Sadly, as one of eleven children, my parents could never have afforded to pay for the lessons. So my next choice was to become a famous artist and marry a musician who could both sing and play the piano. I even knew exactly what he’d look like, dark curly hair, green eyes…yum! Unfortunately, though I love to draw and am pretty good at it, I haven’t the patience for it, nor did I have the patience to wait for that dream man to come along. So I floundered around for a while, and while I was floundering, I met and married my husband. The best decision I ever made. He is the hero of my story, for whatever I lack, he makes up for. If it hadn’t been for him,
The Kissing Tree would probably have never made it to this point. He’s been my champion and my support, my inspiration and my anchor.
The Kissing Tree had to be written. I know because I didn’t set out to write. Actually I was absorbed with and frantically writing my first book when The Kissing Tree pushed its way into my head. The first line, exactly how it is written was there immediately and I could see in my mind, Georgiana, peeking out from behind the tree. The experience you get when a story floods into your consciousness is an experience like no other. I am sure other authors can relate.
Because I was writing my first book, I had to put the story of
The Kissing Tree on a shelf for a while. Thankfully, it wasn’t too long before I was able to come back to it. This book was so much fun to write! I wondered sometimes what my children were thinking of their mother when she was laughing out loud while snuggled on a beanbag, hastily scratching out words with a ball point pen or sitting at her office computer hen pecking at the keys.
Then there were the moments while writing that had me worried I might short circuit my keyboard. Well, maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but as I’ve mentioned in one of my interviews, I feel what my characters feel. When I was writing Charlotte retelling Angus about the day his son died in her arms, my chest ached as though I was there witnessing it. I never realized before I began writing how much an author invests in his/her characters. They sometimes make me feel deeper emotions than I’ve felt in a long time, especially since losing my son. That’s actually a good thing, for me at least.
Overall, writing
The Kissing Tree left me truly feeling eager to write more stories, to experience the satisfaction of writing something I can feel good about all over again. Hopefully there are many more books in my future to bring a smile to someone’s face or just make someone’s day a little brighter. But for now, grab a copy of
The Kissing Tree, snuggle up in a warm place, and enjoy the experience.
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Check out the other Blog Tour Stops:
