Sarah Osborne, author of the upcoming Into The Fying Pan and member of Sisters in Crime New England, stops by the blog today to answer questions about her newest book! Have questions or thoughts to share? Comment below!
What was the a-ha moment that made you write this story?
I’d probably have to say it was a “ha” moment.
Ditie Brown Mysteries were just in their incubation period. I was working on my first book and heard of a publisher who would read any book without an agent. She was a Southern publisher, so it seemed perfect. I knew Ditie (as in Aphrodite) would be living and working in Atlanta. What the publisher said on her website was that she was interested in finding a Civil War reenactor as a protagonist. I couldn’t give her that, but it wouldn’t be hard to give her a character involved with reenactments, and so was born Ditie’s ex-boyfriend Phil Brockton, the fourth.
The “ha” moment came after I sent off my initial manuscript and never heard back from the publisher. That meant I had a character and a commitment to Civil War reenactments that I knew nothing about.
The story has a happy ending.
I found a Civil War reeanactor who gave generously of his time and advised me on any number of issues. I visited battlefields in Georgia and began to understand Georgia history in a way I never had before.
What excited you most about writing this story?
I’d have to say it was the challenge of it. I had a situation I had to honor. Ditie’s ex-boyfriend returns for his much-loved Civil War reenactments. How was I going to make that an engaging story for people who weren’t history buffs? I love having a puzzle to work through, so I had Phil bring along some of his and Ditie’s medical school buddies—problem solved. While people might or might not like visiting a battlefield, I didn’t think anyone could resist gossip about med school and how medical students behaved outside the classroom.
Is there a setting in your book that you would like to visit?
I visited every setting in the book. One reason I love to write stories about Atlanta is because I lived there for years. I know and love the places I mention in the book including Ditie’s neighborhood. As for the battlefields, I needed to see them, and I needed to understand how reenactments worked. It was eye-opening research. I saw bucolic fields on which thousands of men had been killed. I walked through the old railroad tunnel north of Atlanta that was fought to control the flow of goods into the South, and I saw the house Sherman used as he planned his Atlanta campaign (the Clisby-Austin House).
Talk about living history!
Which of your skill sets were useful in constructing the plot?
I’m a physician in another part of my life and work part time as a psychiatrist. I’d like to say my professional background helped me greatly in this book, but today’s physicians don’t know much about what would happen to the people near an exploding cannon. For that, I had to turn to other experts like my Civil War reenactor. I did draw on my skills as a psychiatrist to think about the motivation of the many suspects and their reactions to events.
What is the hardest part of writing a book?
I think it’s keeping your head down and doing the work.
I make sure I write every day—for me it’s early morning. Walter Moseley spoke about the importance of writing daily when he was the Guest of Honor at Crime Bake 2018. As he said, your unconscious is at work even when you are not.
By writing every day, I can let my unconscious help me solve problems—like how to get out of that corner I painted myself into.
It doesn’t mean that every morning I’m pleased with my work, but I do my work anyway. There are days when I can’t seem to find the words or the story line. However, if I stick with it relentlessly, I also have good days when the words flow and the ideas come. If I didn’t write every day, I might miss those golden moments. I’ve also discovered that what I considered “bad days” sometimes weren’t.
Sarah Osborne is the pen name of a native Californian who lived in Atlanta for many years, and now practices psychiatry on Cape Cod. She has always loved mysteries--reading them and now writing them. Visit it her at https://doctorosborne.com/ or on her Facebook page Sarah Osborne, Mystery Author.