A GROOVY KIND OF LOVE by Karen Wojcik Berner
A GROOVY KIND OF LOVE by Karen Wojcik Berner
Thanks for having me on here today.
I’m not very OCD about my “process.” I started writing fiction when my second son was a baby, after I had quit work to raise my kids. As they grew, I learned to write on demand whenever I had a spare fifteen or thirty minutes during preschool or park district classes. In the beginning, I failed spectacularly, but eventually began generating words. Then chapters. Then novels.
Now, all I really do is put on a song that symbolizes whichever book I’m working on, stretch out a bit, light a candle to invite the Muses, and get to it.
Anything can spark an idea, even something as mundane as catching a quick glance of the crabapple tree underneath my window while I made the bed, its round, red berries delicately encased with snow. I wrote down what I saw and used it almost a year later as a way to illustrate my character Thaddeus’s missing his wife in my latest novel, “A Groovy Kind of Love,” the story of an uptight computer programmer who falls for a much younger, free-spirited daughter of Hippies.
Here it is.
“Snow hung on each red berry, on each brown branch, bubble after bubble, universe upon universe, all clinging precariously, interdependent and suspended in time on their crabapple tree, the same one that had sold Spring on their house, the very thing under whose branches they had vowed to love and cherish in sickness and in health.”
Sometimes, I venture out to one of the Starbuck’s in downtown Naperville, Illinois, where I live. The people watching is superb, and I get some great “ambiance setters,” I like to call them, background details that give fictional locations life and a sense of place.
Several years ago, two men plopped down next to me, and one started his conversation with “So, I’m having a problem with monogamy lately.” Oh really? Do tell. A fictional version of that conversation with a lot of embellishment appeared in my first novel, “A Whisper to a Scream.”
See? You never know when you’re going to come across a gem that will spawn an entire chapter, possibly even a short story or a novel.
Enjoy “A Groovy Kind of Love“
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Author Bio:
Karen Wojcik Berner writes contemporary women’s fiction, including the Amazon best-selling series, the Bibliophiles. An award-winning journalist, her work has appeared in several magazines, newspapers, and blogs,
including the Chicago Tribune, Writer Unboxed, Women’s Fiction Writers, and Fresh Fiction. She currently serves on the Author Council of LoveToReadEbooks.com and is a member of the Chicago Writers’ Association.
When not writing, she can be found on the sidelines of her youngest’s football or lacrosse games, discussing the Celts with the oldest, or snuggling into a favorite reading chair with a good book and some tea.
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Enjoy “A Groovy Kind of Love“
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