And our next virgin is…(drumroll)…SUSAN M. BOYER!
Susan has been making up stories her whole life. She tags along with her husband on business trips whenever she can because hotels are great places to write: fresh coffee all day and cookies at 4 p.m. They have a home in Greenville, SC, which they occasionally visit. Susan’s short fiction has appeared in moonShine Review, Spinetingler Magazine, Relief Journal, The Petigru Review, and Catfish Stew. Her debut novel, Lowcountry Boil, is a 2012 RWA Golden Heart® Finalist and a 2012 Daphne du Maurier finalist.
Susan is generously giving away one copy of her award-winning debut to one lucky commenter—in the format of the winner’s choice: Kindle, Nook, or Trade Paperback. So please come on by, read her wonderful post about her journey to publication, then go check out her mystery—Lowcountry Boil. It sounds like a wonderful read: here’s a taste…
Private Investigator Liz Talbot is a modern Southern belle: she blesses hearts and takes names. She carries her Sig 9 in her Kate Spade handbag, and her golden retriever, Rhett, rides shotgun in her hybrid Escape. When her grandmother is murdered, Liz high-tails it back to her South Carolina island home to find the killer. She’s fit to be tied when her police-chief brother shuts her out of the investigation, so she opens her own. Then her long-dead best friend pops in and things really get complicated. When more folks start turning up dead in this small seaside town, Liz must use more than just her wits and charm to keep her family safe, chase down clues from the hereafter, and catch a psychopath before he catches her.
Doesn’t that sound like a great read? Now go check out her post, then answer the question about how song lyrics trigger our imaginations, and maybe you’ll win a copy! And thank you so much, Susan, for dropping by today—and good luck with your debut!
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Kaki, thank you so much for having me here on Virgin No More! I’m so excited to share with y’all how I lost it.
I’ll give y’all the abbreviated version of the backstory. I was that child who tried to get the school librarian to let her check out six books when the limit was two per week. I started college as an English major, but plenty of people were happy to tell me the odds against ever making a living as a writer.
Four major changes later, I took a long detour through corporate America, which came to an abrupt halt in 2004, when the company I worked for went out of business. My husband, who knew how long I’d dreamed of writing, looked at me and said, “Why don’t you give the writing thing a try.” So I did.
We had lived in the old village area of Mt. Pleasant, SC, for eighteen months while my husband was working on a contract in the area. Mt. Pleasant is just across the Cooper River from Charleston. Cross the Intracoastal Waterway on Ben Sawyer Bridge and you’re on Sullivan’s Island. I used to ride my bike across that bridge and down the beach every morning.
I loved living in the lowcountry. It spoke to me. And I probably ate my weight in lowcountry boil, a regional dish of shrimp, sausage, corn, potatoes, and whatever else the cook wants to boil in beer and spices. Moving back to Greenville when my husband’s contract was up was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Sidebar: Greenville is awesome in her own right, but this isn’t Greenville’s story.
One day, shortly after we’d decided I was going to live my writing dream, I was listening to that old Eagles song, “Last Resort,” on the radio. The ending of the song is, “They call it paradise. I don’t know why. You call someplace paradise, kiss it goodbye.” (Don Henley) Anyway, the word “paradise” sent me back to the lowcountry, and a story started percolating in the back corner of my brain.
Several drafts, a few conferences, a critique group, several rounds of “revise and resubmit” with agents that didn’t work out, and another pass of edits later, I started querying agents in earnest. After forty-nine queries, and maybe fifteen requests for the full manuscript, I signed with an agent.
But, just as she started submitting, she fell ill and went on medical leave. Thankfully, I had signed with a well-known, reputable agency. They re-assigned me to another agent, and I am convinced that he did his best to sell my manuscript to several New York editors. Most of the rejections I was getting sounded like great reviews until you got to that last sentence that said something like, “Unfortunately I’m just not passionate enough about it to make it a must-have for our list at this time.”
I started thinking about small presses about the same time someone I knew from a writers’ group decided to start her own. For many, this would be a risky venture, but I knew things about this lady that maybe everyone didn’t—like she was a successful entrepreneur in another business, and had been a freelance editor and cover designer for years.
I signed my contract in late March, and Lowcountry Boil has just been released. This was the right path for me. I’m absolutely thrilled to be with Henery Press. It’s small enough to be nimble. We hope to have the second book in the series out in spring. I have forward momentum, which was necessary for my continued grip on sanity.
Thanks again for having me, Kaki! Y’all please come see me when you can. I hang out in all the usual places—my website, Amazon, B&N, & Fiction Addiction
Hey, before I go, I was wondering, do song lyrics ever inspire stories for y’all? Even if you’re not a writer and never wanted to be, do you sometimes start imagining what happens next to the people in the song?
Congrats, Susan. Love hearing about the story behind the book! Love Lowcountry Boil and wish you much success!
Thanks for coming by, Terri. It sounds like a wonderful book.
Thank you so much, Terri! This was such a fun post!
Kaki, thank you so much for having me here on release day! 🙂
You’re welcome. This is one of the BIG days in your life! I’m thrilled to help you celebrate.
Oh, I love hearing about other authors’ roads to publication! What a great story. Congratulations, Susan!
Absolutely, song lyrics inspire me. Great songs are such powerful combinations of words that I think they naturally speak to writers.
I tend to have a soundtrack for each writing project (sometimes that has nothing to do with the project except that I love the music and it makes me feel creative). For instance, the summer that I wrote what would eventually become my soon-to-be debut mystery, I listened to Kenny Chesney’s Greatest Hits V2 about eleventy billion times. So much that my best friend still can’t hear “We Went Out Last Night” without cringing.
Congratulations again!
Good luck on your upcoming release, LynDee. I wish you great success. I also find that the right music can boost creativity and help you tap into emotions. I find that especially true of the CW songs–they each tell a story and can trigger imagination with just a few words. Thanks for coming by.
Thank you! And I agree — maybe that’s why I’m such a fan of Country music. You have a great blog — I’m glad I found it!
Great story, Susan. Love hearing your journey to publication, which is where we became friends! (That’s the part I like best) So happy that you found a place for Lowcountry Boil that fits you and your story. Congratulations!
Thanks for coming by, Larissa. I think (almost) the best part of writing is the wonderful people you meet along the way. Good luck with your own writing.
The wonderful writers we befriend along the way is definitely the best perks of writing! For schizzle!
Thank you so much, LynDee and Larissa for helping me celebrate today!
[…] Virgin No More: Susan M. Boyer! […]
Congratulations and best of sales to you. A song lyric hasn’t inspired a story yet – but now you have me thinking.
Hi, Diana. Thanks for coming by. And I wish you luck in winning a copy of this intriguing book.
Congrats on your debut release! Would love to read its sound very interesting. Good luck to you.
Song lyrics tend to remind me of certain people that I’ve met in my lifetime. Like certain old songs remind me of certain people from high school. When I hear them I will think of that person. Since I am not a writer they don’t really inspire a story from me.
Hey, Quilt lady, glad you dropped by. Good luck winning a copy of Susan’s book.
Hi Diana! Thank you so much! 🙂
Hi Quilt Lady! Thank you so much! Certain songs take me back as well! 🙂
Hi Susan and Kaki!
Songs are a source of inspiration and a great way to find book titles. The song, “You Don’t Know Me”, always comes to mind when I’m writing the angst-y part of a story.
Enjoy your well-deserved launch, Susan!
As I struggle through the first draft of this dang book, You Don’t Know Me is a familiar tune I keep hearing
Good morning Susan and Kaki! Susan, congratulations on your new release. I hope you are enjoying it 🙂
I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I’m one of those people who pay absolutely no attention to the lyrics of a song. There’s an 85% chance that I have the lyrics wrong, but I still sing along nonetheless. With that said, I love music and I definitely get inspired by it. I have a killer commute, and I’m always thinking about my writing projects on my way home from work. Normally, my ideas for my writing play out like scenes from a movie. Sometimes I’ll hear a song and it plays as a soundtrack to a particular scene. The rhythm or tempo gives off the right vibe and feel for my character’s mood or actions. So even though lyrics don’t particularly speak to me, music definitely does!
Funny enough, I can’t listen to music when I write. I need peace and quiet 🙂
Best of luck, Susan! And Kaki, I hope you are doing well!
Congratulations, Susan, on losing your (publishing) virginity and telling us all about it here!
Your story sounds like a lot of fun … I’m hoping there’s a recipe or two in there, too, because it sounds delicious!
Song lyrics? No, not lately. I’m more of a classical listener, actually. I was really inspired by a piece recently. Fit in with a WW1 Time Travel piece I’m working on. I must have played it ten times in a row and the words kept coming!. Here’s the link, in case you’re interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWc62xO2O2c&list=FLaxUR0pFnoZuxJrfsujX8Uw&index=2&feature=plpp_video
Thanks so much, Jamie and Genevieve!
Jamie, I can’t listen to music while writing, wither–it’s ocean waves for me.
Genevieve, I might try classical music for writing. Without the lyrics, I can see where ir would be inspiring rather than distracting.
I’m more inspired by lyrics BEFORE I sit down to write. 🙂
I hope you all have a great weekend!
[…] Virgin No More: Susan M. Boyer! […]
Hi Susan,
Your book sounds wonderful–I hope I win this one. If not, I’ll have to put it on my Christmas list.
Cookies at 4pm? Where were you staying? I’m obviously visiting the wrong hotels. Chocolate chip? Sorry. Got distracted. Only 49 queries before getting an agent? Free cookies and quick, good agent? I may have to hate you. i’m just teasing. Mostly.
You know, my husband and some kids never listen to song lyrics–it’s all about the beat for them, surprising to me, ’cause I’m like you. It’s all about the lyrics. My friend, Donnell’s book The Past Came Hunting was originally titled Walk Away Joe and inspired by Trisha Yearwood’s song.
While I find some lyrics very inspiring, they’ve never inspired a book for me. Miley Cyrus’ The Climb inspired me to make a video. I couldn’t NOT make this video because the lyrics simply had to have been written to describe our writers’ journey. So I made a video and posted in my website at http://www.theresarizzo.com.
Congratulations on your deflowering and I can’t wait to read your book!
Hi Theresa! Thank you so much!
Yes, every Hampton Inn has cookies every afternoon during the week. Often there are several varities–usually chocolate chip is one. 🙂
We have a mutual friend–unless there are two Donnell’s with books titled, “The Pat Came Hunting.” 🙂
Thanks so much for stopping by!
Nice husband.
Hi! Yes–he is an extraordinarily nice husband. 🙂 I jokingly refer to him as my “patron of the arts.” But it’s actualy pretty true. 🙂
Most of the lyrics of songwriter John Stewart (formerly of the Kingston Trio) conjure up characters and stories in my mind. He’s one of the few “kinesthetic” song writers I’ve heard, and he still has a loyal following. “Cody sang to me a song about the great Montana sky,” “I can’t hold it on the road when you’re sitting right beside me and I’m drunk out of my mind, merely from the fact that you are here,” “Nebraska widow, only a girl,” “Hand your heart to the wind,” and “If I’m missing you then soon I’ll be bringing down the moon, turning midnight into noon to keep you here,” Definitely kinesthetic imagery full of potential stories! http://www.californiabloodlines.com/defaultr.html is the lyrics database.