Ink Smith: Where do you do most of your writing? What is your process like?
Julie: My favorite place to write is my couch. I love to stretch out with my laptop and snuggle with my dog and cat while I write. They are my writing buddies.
I don’t really have a set process. I write down ideas as I get them for both the plot of the book and the characters. I like to have a structure for the story before I begin writing but I have never been any good at outlining the story before I begin. I am a total “pantster,” meaning I tend to “fly by the seat of my pants” while writing.
Ink Smith: How did you come up with the idea of this book? How long did it take you to write?
Julie: I first came up with the idea when I was planning a trip to Martha’s Vineyard back in 2010. I was looking at an island website and found a webcam that overlooked the beach and the lighthouse at Aquinnah. I started thinking, what if I looked at this webcam again and again and always saw the same person? I dropped the idea for a while but then it came back to me again. This time, the person was a woman and I asked myself, who is she? What does she want? The story came together from there. I wrote the first draft of the story during NaNoWriMo in 2011 and after that it probably took about 6 months to get a complete manuscript.
Ink Smith: Who are your favorite authors/books? Why?
Julie: George RR Martin/A Song of Ice and Fire Series
JK Rowling/The Harry Potter Series
Stephen King/The Dark Tower Series
Those are just the first three that spring to mind. I am totally amazed by the imaginations of these authors and love that I get totally drawn into the worlds they’ve created when reading their books.
Meet the Author
Julie Flanders is an academic librarian by day and a writer all the rest of the time. Julie is a television addict, an avid walker, and an obsessive fan of the Ohio State Buckeyes. Although a lifelong Ohio resident, Julie nevertheless has an ongoing love affair with the island of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Julie’s novels include the paranormal thrillers Polar Night and Polar Day as well as the historical love story The Ghosts of Aquinnah. Julie is a history buff who loves incorporating history into her stories, which she affectionately calls “mysteries untethered by time.”
Find Julie at www.julieflanders.net or visit her blog at julieflanders.blogspot.com. Also visit her on Twitter at @JulesFlanders or on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julesflanders/.
Julie Flanders is an academic librarian by day and a writer all the rest of the time. She is also an animal lover and has written features about pets and the importance of animal rescue for media outlets such as Best Friends Animal Society and Cat Fancy. Julie is a television addict, an avid walker, and an obsessive fan of the Ohio State Buckeyes. Although a lifelong Ohio resident, Julie nevertheless has an ongoing love affair with the island of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.
The Inkwell And Quill 