!
Are you originally from Southern California?
I was born in Salt Lake City, Utah (and in answer to your next question, no, I am not), but raised in a Western Colorado town called Grand Junction. Because I have MS and my body responds poorly to extremes in temperature (GJ gets really hot AND really cold), we moved to San Diego, the finest city in America and very temperate, in 2011.
I’ve been there once and had a very pleasant experience.
How long did you teach English?
My first teaching job was in South Lake Tahoe, California from 1992-1994. Then I had that awful MS diagnosis in 1994, so I moved back home. I then taught English and Drama at my old high school (!) from 1994 until we moved to California in 2011. So…nineteen years? The Chalkboard Outlines® cozy mystery series was written in a fictional Colorado mountain town called Pinewood, which is a combination of both schools and towns in which I’ve taught.
Nice. I’m still trying to learn English! You could teach me a thing or two.
Why did you decide to write a memoir?
Haha. I didn’t plan it, at all—I’m usually a fiction lover because I can make up anything I want in my fictional worlds. Real life is hard, and depressing sometimes, and therefore I don’t want to write nonfiction. Then I got in this ridiculous fight with my husband, on the phone in the middle of an Office Depot parking lot, and my solution to this fight was this epiphany on how I wanted to live my life. Since I’ve lived 22 years with a Chronic Illness, and I was infertile for like 12 years before I was able to have kids, I applied this solution to these elements, included my outlook on family and wellness in light of these, and tried to put my own goofy and positive spin on the whole shebang. The result is a sort of hybridized self-helpy medical memoir with weirdness built in. I’m trying to find an agent for this book because I’d like to be able to expose it to some of those publishers that absolutely won’t look at you if you’re unsolicited and knocking at the door without an invite. I think there are a lot of people dealing with Chronic Illness or Infertility, and I know even more who appreciate some nuttiness in their day.
Thanks for sharing this, Kelley. Certainly this isn’t easy to deal with. I see it on a daily basis working in therapy. I often have to console people.
Tell us about your book, Death by Diploma.
I am obsessed with mysteries—have been since Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden and Encyclopedia Brown. I also love Shakespeare, because, you know—English teacher. That man knows more about human beings and what makes them tick than a Sigmund Freud/Charles Darwin/Jon Stewart mashup. So, mysteries are Thing One, Shakespeare is Thing Two, and then there is this amazing and fertile idea field called High School. For years I just spent too much time observing and eavesdropping on this crazy place, but when I started really writing I wanted to tap in to that. Death by Diploma is a cozy mystery that takes place in a high school, and the sleuths/suspects are this wicked fun amalgamation of me and all my colleagues and friends. The Chalkboard Outlines® series is going to be an amazing place to put all those three things together! I think the two main characters, Emma and Leslie, are as much a part of what makes the book fun as solving the mystery is.
Wonderful!
Who or what inspired you to become a writer?
People always talk to me like this was some sort of a choice. I’ve always loved stories, have read obsessively since I was three, and because of this there are always stories in my head. The stories have to come out, somehow. It’s crucial to my mental health. So I let the stories out, and then there’s much less likelihood of a meltdown. Meltdowns bad, stories good.
No, seriously, when I read good writing it makes me want to make my own stories better. Other writers inspire me to write.
OH! I was just thinking of this today. I would love to talk to you regarding your reading obsession and experience with books. I know the need to get the stories out of my head!
What’s your goal in becoming a writer?
I would love it if lots of other people wanted to read my stories, and I’m always working to make them better. But like I said before, writing isn’t so much a choice for me as it is a compulsion, and I’d probably keep doing it even if no one else was reading. But I hope you are!
I’ll definitely be reading (or listening) to your stories. I’m drawing a connection here. So your obsession is reading, and your compulsion is writing. Not bad actually.
What three things have hindered you from completing your writing? (Conflict)
Ugh. There are so many things that hinder us. My teaching job was a big one—doing that job well takes an INORDINATE amount of time and energy, so before I had babies (with the exception of when I was getting my Master’s) I did my writing during the summers. Having children definitely makes it harder to write, although I feel so ungrateful for saying that—it took me a long time to be able to have babies! They’re so great. But also, complete energy suckers.
And the other thing for me has to do with the MS. I can only write for short periods of time, because I get really tired and because my stupid fingers stop working. Literally. They curl up into little balls of refusal, or sometimes they arch up in rigid protest. It’s ridiculous. Then I have to rest or sleep or zombify for like an hour at a time before they will start working again, and I tell ya—it really puts a cramp in my style. That’s three, right?
We have two boys–and they both are professional energy-sucking vampires. By the time 8:30 pm rolls around, I’m burnt toast. BUT I’m impressed given all of your life experiences, you were still able to pull of writing a novel. That’s impeccable!!
What keeps you motivated?
I am motivated by the fact that my husband is supporting a family of four in one of the most expensive cities in the world on a teacher’s salary, just to allow me to pursue this dream called “Writer.”
Oh wow. That’s very touching. It’s so important to find support in this wacky world of writing. It’s like learning to surf in the storm.
What’s your antagonist? What’s in the way of achieving your dream?
Really, I think my biggest antagonist is time. I feel like I need hundreds of years and 53 hours in every day to be able to tackle the millions of ideas in my head, so time or a lack thereof is my biggest antagonist. And it’s further exacerbated by the fact the hours I DO have are further limited by my own body, when the MS hits me with fatigue or appendages that don’t do what I ask them to do.
Ugh. I completely understand this one. When it’s time to write, I’m too pooped to party. Or I don’t end up writing when I do have time. Ugh!
Have you ever wanted to give up?
Nope.
I love your nope.
Why do writers quit?
I don’t know. I think sometimes they don’t realize, when they start, how much work it is. And a lot of them—well, this is true for all of us, really—don’t like criticism. But people take it differently, ya know? Like if you can’t take criticism as either a) a need for improvement or b) a need to surround yourself with someone else or as c) par for the course, then maybe you’d be tempted to give up. But I think you should work on making it one of those three, or maybe you do need to find a new occupation. Because really, it’s not supposed to be easy. If it were easy, everyone would do it.
This is so true. Writing is a lot of work. There’s so many elements to tie together you need to be a seamstress.
What would you say to those who have given up?
I would tell them to look inside their heart for the reasons they want to write. If their motivation comes from that source (your heart), think again about not quitting, and then don’t! If they are looking for a way to get famous or make a lot of money, weeeeellllll…maybe in that case they should look elsewhere. (Unless they are okay with fame in their own mind—always a fun place to be!)
Yes. I love it. This is great.
Favorite quotes?
Every day above ground is a good day. I don’t know who said that originally, but I say it every day. This second one I can give proper credit to: it’s Ralph Waldo Emerson: “What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.” Isn’t that a great quote?
Mm—I just love it!
AWESOME. Love both of them.
If you answered yes to either of these questions you may be suffering from CBH, compusive book hoardom. That’s when your ‘to be read’ list far exceeds the books you’ve actually read. Go ahead and admit it. Let’s say it together, ready? I’m a compulsive book hoarder. Good, again. I’m a compulsive book hoarder. Maybe you’re not a book hoarder and perhaps you just enjoy a challenge. Or you’d like to reduce the amount of books in your TBR pile. Well, we’ve got a challenge for you!
A fellow blogger, book enthusiast, Sally Allen and I were discussing reducing our TBR piles and actually reading the books that we own. We came up with a great solution. A strategy. Challenge. Fun competition.
I have so many books lined up I could literally read for an entire year without buying or adding another title. To make it worse I keep adding MORE books to the insurmountable mountain that I’ve built. Yikes!!
Are you like this? Am I the only one? We need to systematically target all of the juicy books on our digital and actual bookshelves! We need to go in guns blazing and take out those books mocking you on the shelf. That’s right, no more Mr. nice guy. I’d like you to meet our new mascot.
Person A reads 16 books/month
Person B reads 8 books/month
Persons A & B cannot add more than 10% of books determined to be read. So Person A can only add 2 books to read to his TBR pile a month. That’s the threshold multiplied by the total of determined books to be read. Or 10% x (Books to read) = Allowable amount to add to TBR/month. Person A’s allowable amount would turn out to be 1.6/books to add per month. 0.1 x 16= 1.6 rounded up to 2. If the number is only below a .05% then you cannot round up.
Person B cannot add more than 10% of books determined to be read. So person B can only add 1 book per month to his TBR pile. The math would be 10% x 8= .80 or 1 book per month. We get 0.80 as the answer but you can’t add 0.8 of a book, so we round it up to 1. Make sense?
If you read 25 books/month = add 2.5 or 3 book/month
If you read 35 books/month = add 3.5 or 4 books/month
*It is recommended that you keep the threshold percentage low in order to reduce your ‘to be read’ pile and unread books.*
Aria’s pyrokinetic ability has always been hard to control, and being pulled in so many directions, isn’t making it any easier.
Now she has to help Inarus, a foe turned friend who is being targeted by the Human Alliance Corporation-the very organization he once worked for.
But the HAC has more than just Inarus in their sights. Aria finds herself going deep into enemy territory to save a witchling child with never before seen powers, that the HAC has kidnapped to further their own ends.
Aria has been hired to save a child once before, and she failed. That failure has haunted her even to this day and she wonnt let herself fail again. With the HAC closing in, and complications between herself and the Pack rising, Aria has no choice but to succeed. A child’s life is on the line and Aria will risk everything to save that life.
There’s nothing like the imagination of a buddinig writer. Author Danielle Annett does a great job conveying her characters in the midst of dynamic relationships and navigating through dire circumstances. I’ve always appreciated the cast that surrounds the main character. To me, it always brings out the best fiction in any story. Aria has good intentions, but struggles to contorol her pyrokinetic abilities. Because of her lack of control, and apparent weakness, she’s become dependent upon her Alpha mate, Declan. This forces her to deal with her mixed feelings about him, her friend Inarus, is caught up right in the middle of it.
Author Biography
Danielle Annett is a reader, writer, photographer, and blogger. Born in the SF Bay area, she now resides in Spokane, WA, the primary location for her Blood & Magic series. Addicted to coffee at an early age, she spends her restless nights putting pen to paper as she tries to get all of the stories out of her head before the dogs wake up the rest of the house and vye for her attention
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