Tag: Tasha Alexander

Behind the Shattered Glass by Tasha Alexander…a review

reviews, authors, writingreviews, authors, writingreviews, authors, writingreviews, authors, writing reviews, authors, writing    5 out of 5 quills     A Review of Tasha Alexander‘s latest Release

I don’t know about you but I love the characters in a story ‘below the stairs’ as much as the main characters in stories such as Downton Abbey and Upstairs, Downstairs and of course in all of Alexander’s  ‘Lady Emily Mysteries’.  This author has always given her best sellers, writers, best selling authors, Victorian, mysteryreaders a little taste of the servants’ lives surrounding her main characters: investigators, Emily and Colin Hargreave.
But in Behind the Shattered Glass we get to walk behind the ‘green baize door’ and join the servants in the kitchen.  And what wonderful characters they are!

This is a tangled murder mystery and I think, one of Alexander’s best.  A beautiful country home, love is in the air, and the rich aristocrats are doing what rich aristocrats do; shooting, drinking, dancing seducing, riding, and sleuthing.

Continue reading “Behind the Shattered Glass by Tasha Alexander…a review”

An Interview with Tasha Alexander (part 3)

The conclusion to my Interview with mystery writer, Tasha Alexander

Tasha Alexander, best sellers, mysteries,
Tasha and husband, author, Andrew Grant

Q. and the all important: What does the process of going from “no book” to “finished book” look like?

A. The first part of “no book” land is a barren, hideous wasteland. You’re sure you’ll never have a book-worthy idea again. You’re sure you should have gone to law school. You wonder if it’s too late. Then, as you’re reading, doing research, a little idea comes to you and you start developing it, researching it, playing with it. Pretty soon it coalesces and then you enter into the everything-is-possible-and-beautiful stage. A stage that never lasts long enough. In this stage, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the book. It can be the best thing you’ve ever written. It has no flaws. It will change your life.

All this is possible, of course, because you have not yet written a single word. Once you start writing, the book immediately loses all its shiny goodness. Continue reading “An Interview with Tasha Alexander (part 3)”

Grand Country Houses, Victorian England, Murder! Delicious! an Inteview with Tasha Alexander (part 2)

Tasha Alexander, best sellers, fiction, interviews
Burton Agnes Hall

Part 2…my Interview with Tasha Alexander

Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing and for how long?

A. Writing a first draft is the most intense part of the process for me. When I’m doing research, kicking around or fleshing out plot ideas, or revising, I can interact with other people, run my household, etc. etc. But drafting is another story altogether. I have a daily word count goal when I’m drafting and will not stop until I have reached it. I get very focused on what I’m doing and am barely functional in other capacities. When I was in this mode last year, my son asked me to make him pancakes for lunch. I did. Unfortunately, however, instead of using the recipe I have made thousands of times, I randomly followed one on the opposite page of the cookbook, not realizing what I had done until I noticed the batter seemed weird. My head was completely in the book. We ordered pizza. Which just goes to prove that sometimes it’s better to let pizza boxes pile up than to try to cook.

Funnily enough, cooking is a huge part of my writing process—just earlier and later in the life of the book. It’s my favorite thing to do when I’ve got ideas percolating in the back of my brain. You think you’re browning meat for Julia Child’s boeuf bourguignon, but all of a sudden you realize Continue reading “Grand Country Houses, Victorian England, Murder! Delicious! an Inteview with Tasha Alexander (part 2)”

Lady Emily sails into the Salon to Find a Dead Body! Interview with Author, Tasha Alexander (1 of 3)

 

writers, best selling authors, Tasha Alexander                   Let’s peek into Tasha’s writing world….    “any delay opens the door to the possibility of not writing at all.”

 INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR, TASHA ALEXANDER

Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing? 

A. Before I started to write, I had this idea—an idea many of us have at the beginning—that I would need the right sort of space in which to work. I had visions of lovely bookshelf-lined rooms with big windows and a large antique table. Reality was that I lived in an attic apartment in New Haven, where the only think that might be construed as an office or study was an unfinished section of the attic (no windows) where we had draped canvas to form a ceiling that would keep the bats from dive-bombing whoever was sitting at the computer. Not being a fan of bats, I learned quickly to be adaptable. It turns out where you write isn’t so important as it might seem. I can write in an airport lounge, a coffee shop, on a bench waiting for my son to come out of his drawing class. My preferred spot at home is my bedroom. For some reason, sitting in bed is the one place I can work without ever getting wrist or shoulder pain (you’d think it would be an ergonomic nightmare, but it’s not). Continue reading “Lady Emily sails into the Salon to Find a Dead Body! Interview with Author, Tasha Alexander (1 of 3)”