Sandra Glahn Blog Tour

I am pleased to be able to host writer and friend, Sandra Glahn, on a Blog Tour for her new novel, Informed Consent.

I'll let Sandi describe the story herself:

Jeremy Cramer, the next Einstein of research, is a medical resident specializing in infectious diseases. While working on a way to revive water submersion victims, he makes surprising discoveries, while also living with massive guilt over incidental infections that occur (which he could have prevented). Even as his marriage teeters, his career continues to skyrocket. Then, with a few twists along the way, he finds everything he has fought for threatened by the most personal, most heart-wrenching, choices of all.

What I find most compelling is how far into the head of the main character, Dr. Jeremy Cramer, the story is written. As the reader you can see how his guilt controls his drive and decisions in a way in which he is completely blind. It's not just a straight forward, spectator telling of the story but also a psychological one. There's a low grade level of grief in which the reader follows Dr. Cramer, yearning for him to be absolved.

In the middle of Sandi's busy book touring schedule, I was able to ask her a few questions about her book and writing.

You have a lot of cultural diversity in your characters. What determines that?
I teach at a campus where more than 30 percent of our students are minorities. My niece and nephew are African American. One of my best friends is from Japan. So diversity is part of the way I think now. It wasn't as much an overt choice to include them as a natural one that reflected my own world.

Have you ever imagined who might play your characters if your book was made into a movie?
I've actually had contacts from a couple of movie producers (I'll believe it when they show me the money), but I don't dare let my imagination go this wild! On second thought, oh why not? We could start with Jeremy played by Sonjay Gupta from CNN and Devin played by Regina King (the wife of Will Smith's character in Enemy of the State).

Loved Regina King in Legally Blond 2!

How do you write your characters? Do you have to somewhat "be" them to write them or do you imagine them as people outside of yourself?
My characters are all conglomerations of characteristics I've noticed in others. There's no one-to-one correlation between a character and someone I know, but each character has something of someone familiar. Of course they also do reflect part of myself in that I can give them some of my desires and pet peeves and certainly my opinions! (I have plenty of those.)

Have you ever heard of National Novel Writing Month where you write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days?
I had not heard of it until you mentioned it. Wow. You go girl! I have never written a novel in less than nine months! More power to ya!

Yea. It's a crazy idea.

Part of the madness is to spill out 50,000 words non-stop and get the bulk of the story down and then go back and edit. How much editing do you do along the way of the writing process? Do you try to keep yourself from pouring over previous chapters?
I think this is key. The first draft is the hardest, and the way to get around writers block is to "turn off" the editor and just get it all down on paper/the screen. Let the creator (rather than the editor) rule before fixing anything if you can, and you'll move much faster. I go through seven or eight drafts before I send a manuscript to the publisher, but the most time-consuming is the first. I write a chapter and then edit it. I wish I could write in bigger blocks than that! Editing is necessary but it can really slow you down!

Yea! My editor just will not stay in his cage.

What was the word and page count for "Informed Consent"?
The story came to 342 pages in print. But I never think in terms of pages when I write, only words. I shoot for about 10K words per chapter. This book came to more than 95,000 words, which was over the count my publisher gave me, but once they read the ending, they let me keep most of the words I had. To make the ending as fast-paced as it is, the reader has to understand a lot of background.

I'm struggling with my story for NaNoWriMO! I haven't written fiction since high school. Any words of encouragement?
Let the creator out and don't let the editor's mind tell it, "That's dumb" or "that's crazy." If you still think it's dumb or crazy in a few days, you can nix what you wrote, but let that editor's mind run free for draft one. You'll probably end up having interesting dreams at night because the creative mind goes into overdrive. To me that's the great fun of writing a novel! You get to speak and worlds appear. Imagine how cool it must be for the Creator to have thought something and spoken it into being and instead of existing only on paper and in the imagination it appeared in solid form! Ex nihilo! You will get a tiny taste of how cool that must have been because you were made in the image of the Almighty. Enjoy yourself!

Thanks Sandi!

More on Sandra Glahn
Her Blog
Her Web Site
Her Fiction
Her Non-fiction