MINTY’S KISS
P. C. ZICK
Christmas Pets and Kisses: 16 Sweet Christmas Romances boxed set
Contemporary Romance, Holidays
Everyone, please put your hands together for, PC Zick, the Author of Minty’s Kiss which is available as part of the Christmas Pets and Kisses: 16 Sweet Christmas Romances boxed set. Okay, Patricia, let’s have a bit of a chat.
Getting to know you … la la la. Do you have children, a significant other, or pets?
I have one daughter who’s grown and a very good friend. I love spending time with her whenever we can manage it. My husband and I have been married since 2010, but we actually met long ago in a small town in Michigan where we both grew up. When I was seventeen and he was twenty-two, we fell in love, but life interfered. He moved to Pittsburgh and married someone else. I eventually married and moved to Florida. In 2009, we reconnected and discovered the love we’d felt so many years earlier still existed. It’s been a wonderfully romantic time so far!
How very sweet. What do you like to do to balance the demands writing places on you?
I read to relax. But I also enjoy cooking. I’m getting ready to make a peach pie with fresh Georgia peaches. My husband gardens, and I prepare the food for the table. We also enjoy golfing and boating and kayaking together. We’ve just relocated to the Smoky Mountains where we’ll do all the things we love as my writing allows.
Oh, my, my, peach pie, yum. What prepared you for becoming a writer?
I’ve always written and always had a vision of myself as a writer. However, it took me until later in life to admit this secret passion and to say, “I’m a writer.” Even though I couldn’t say it, I’ve always written. As a high school English teacher, I was known as the writing teacher. When I became sick of teaching others—students and colleagues both—about writing, I began doing it full time. Several things actually prepared me for what I do now. One, I trained as a secretary in high school. That was one of the most valuable things I ever did. Second, I studied writing in college and as a teacher. I continue to study all aspects of writing. It’s a continual learning curve, but one I love.
It’s always interesting to learn how writers got their start. How long have you been writing professionally?
I began earning money as a writer more than fifteen years ago, even though I’d been writing for much longer than that. It started with a very small piece in Better Homes and Gardens. I was paid $50 for that tiny piece, but it could have been a million for as excited as I got!
An author’s first check for writing is so exciting. Are you an independently published writer or a traditionally published writer?
I’ve done both. My early novels were traditionally published, but I became discouraged with that process and took some time away from publishing. When I returned, with several completed novels, the Indie Author movement had exploded, and I became a part of that. I’m here to stay.
Many indie authors make the jump from traditional publishing to self publishing. What do you write?
I write contemporary fiction and romances. My works usually have some type of social consciousness. My Florida Fiction Series focuses on the environment. All of my works contain strong female leads who fight for what is right.
The options for writing are so wide open. I like your subject areas. How do you keep yourself motivated to write?
I don’t adhere to the concept of writer’s block. When the words don’t flow easily, I take breaks. Those breaks usually involve watching movies or reading a novel. Inevitably those things are a form of pre-writing that help me focus once again on what I need to write.
I like the idea of not adhering to the concept of writer’s block. What’s your newest release?
Minty’s Kiss is a contemporary romance set in the Smoky Mountains. I wrote Minty’s Kiss to go in the box set Christmas Pets and Kisses with fifteen other authors. I’m getting ready to release Minty’s Kiss as a separate title from the box set Christmas Pets and Kisses. The third book in my Behind the Love series, Behind the Curtain, should be released this month.
This is definitely an enjoyable series. Why did you choose this one?
I was inspired to write this sweet contemporary romance with a pet playing a major role in the love story as a note of gratitude to my cat Minty who lived with us for eighteen years. He found us one day when he was less than six weeks old, and he became a loyal and trusted member of our family. My daughter was five when he joined us. I loved that cat and wanted to do something to honor him.
Pet’s are great at touching our hearts and leaving love behind. How do you decide on setting?
Setting usually chooses me, although the majority of my novels are set in Florida. I lived there for thirty years, and the landscape and people captured my heart. Not to mention, some of the wackiest things happen in Florida so it makes it a natural choice for a novel. However, in the past five years I’ve lived in Pittsburgh, so one of my more recent novels, Third Base, is set there. It’s my love offering to the city where I fell in love and married in 2010, so it’s another natural setting for a contemporary romance. My new release, Minty’s Kiss, is set in the place where we’ll be spending our summers, the Smoky Mountains. I began the novella there at our new cabin, and as I gazed out at the mountains, I felt the setting plant itself on my laptop.
You pour a great deal of what you love about Florida into your writing. Some writers edit excessively as they write; others wait until a novel is finished to do the bulk of editing. How about you?
I write a first draft, which I consider an outline. I don’t do much editing except to go back and reread and change things as needed just to refresh my memory on what I’ve already written. I write the entire book. Then I read it, editing it along the way. I don’t send it off to beta readers until I’ve gone through it at least two times.
And there you go folks, an interview with the marvelous PC Zick. Give it up for today’s author, everyone! Thanks for stopping in, Patricia. It’s been great having you. Please do visit again and don’t make us wait too long!
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P. C. ZICK describes herself as “a storyteller no matter what I write.” And she writes in a variety of genres, including romance, contemporary fiction, and nonfiction. She’s won various awards for her essays, columns, editorials, articles, and fiction.
Many of her novels contain stories of Florida and its people and environment, which she credits as giving her a rich base for her storytelling. “Florida’s quirky and abundant wildlife – both human and animal – supply my fiction with tales almost too weird to be believable.”
Her fiction contains the elements most dear to her heart, ranging from love to the environment. All of her novels contain elements of romance with strong female characters and descriptive settings. She believes in living lightly upon this earth with love, laughter, and passion, and through her fiction she imparts this philosophy in an entertaining manner with an obvious love for her characters, plot, and themes.
BLURB
When Molly retreats to North Carolina with Gracie, her ten-year-old daughter, she’s surprised to find her childhood crush, Nick, still living in the area. Months before her retreat, Molly’s husband announces he’s leaving to sail around the world with his best friend, she’s left wondering why she isn’t his best friend. She divorces him and takes Gracie and Harold, her seventeen-year-old cat, to the Smoky Mountains where she spent many happy childhood vacations.
The morning after her arrival, Nick shows up on her porch, and he is even more handsome than she remembered. She feels the flush of her adolescent crush heating up. But first, they must find Harold after he runs out the cabin door and into the woods.
When Nick discovers Harold lying dead at the base of the tree where Molly always went to read as a child, they bury him. A broken-hearted Gracie and Molly return to the cabin and discover a gray furry kitty under the porch. Gracie names him Minty
Gracie refuses to believe her father won’t come back for them, so she resents Nick spending time with her mother and tries her best to pull them apart. Can a small kitty named Minty help Gracie accept the love developing between Nick and Molly in time for her first Christmas in the mountains of North Carolina?
Minty’s Kiss is a sweet romantic novella, filled with holiday cheer brought to life by an adorable kitten.
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I want to thank everyone for visiting today. Again, a round of applause for our author today. Please hang around to visit and comment below.
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