I am thrilled to welcome you to my blog for the first time and very much looking forward to learning more about you and your work - I wish you lots of sales and success with your latest release WHISPERS THROUGH TIME. Let's kick things off with my questions...
1)
Do you use pictures as
inspiration at the start of a book?
Not too much. If I can, I visit the area. If I can’t go there, I actually watch a lot of movies that use my location(s), illustrate dialogue, and help me build lesser characters. I also focus in on other books set in the same area and time frame just to get me into the right mindset. Finally, I use story songs to help me build characters, plot, and emotion. For example, I’m using Jolene and I Will Always Love You, by Dolly Parton, to help me work a sub-plot in my current work-in-progress, UNHOLY WINDS, Book Two of the Whispers Through Time series.
2) What is your favorite period drama?
I think I’d have to say the movie Dances with Wolves. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a visceral reaction to a movie in my life – to the degree that I dragged my husband 1,100 miles to South Dakota just so I could see it…the buffalo, the horses, the American Indian reservations. My first novel, WHISPERS THROUGH TIME, came from that trip. My other favorite period drama is Anne of a Thousand Days. I’ve seen that so many times, I know the dialogue! How are those two dramas for a stretch in interest?
3) Are the titles of your books important?
Very, very important. The title often comes to me years before the story, and I just write it down so I don’t forget it. Then, when a story starts coming, the title starts niggling at my brain and I have to run look it up. The title WHISPERS THROUGH TIME came to me in 2001 when we were at the Wounded Knee memorial on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, but I didn’t start seriously writing the book until around 2017. That title just came back to me like it was yesterday, and it was perfect.
4) If you’re struggling with a scene or difficult character, what methods help you through it?
That’s a wonderful question! Sometimes I talk it out with my husband of 49 years – he’s a fabulous plotter. But usually, I get in my car and head out for either the Hill Country or the canyons of west Texas. Sometimes I play appropriate music really loud, or I close myself into total silence as I drive and talk to myself. None of that helps right away, but it locks the problem into my mind, where it seems to gestate until the solution is finally born. The answer generally comes to me while I’m sleeping, and I tap into it as soon as I wake up. I’ve learned to rely on this process.
5) Are you an early bird or a night owl?
My biorhythms seem to have been established when I was in college. I’m definitely a night owl. The TV is off, my husband is asleep, my dogs are quiet, my phone notifications are silent…and I can work, or I can watch the movies I need to see, or I can just read. I love the nighttime.
6) Who’s your favorite author? Why?
In terms of truly beautiful writing, I’m a huge fan of Pat Conroy, author of Prince of Tides, The Lords of Discipline, The Great Santini, and The Water is Wide, among others. His descriptive prose is breathtaking. In terms of great description and perfect dialogue for the era, I love Daphne DuMaurier, who wrote the classic Rebecca, and Margaret Mitchell, who wrote Gone with The Wind. But my all-time favorite author, who’s a man your younger readers probably won’t recognize (unfortunately), is Leon Uris, one of the most phenomenal storytellers of all time. He changed my life. He’s not a great, technically correct grammatical writer, but he creates incredible characters of both genders (which is unusual for a male writer) who curl up in your heart and live there. He writes with so much passion, and uses accurate history to build his plots. Leon Uris is the author of Exodus, Trinity, The Haj, Mila 18, QB VII, and other fabulous novels. If you’ve never read him, read him. You won’t regret it.
7) Do you have a pet peeve?
I hate what passes for journalism these days – it’s so lazy. Parrots are smarter than these so-called journalists. We always had to check at least 6 sources and accurately quote/credit them. None of this ‘a source close to the president’s great-grandmother twice removed…” It’s ridiculous – and embarrassing.
8) Can you tell me a little about your next project?
Thank
you for asking! I have three projects, all important, and I can’t wait to work
on all of them.
The
first is the marketing of my next book, a mystery/suspense novel published by
The Wild
Rose
Press entitled TIP THE PIANO MAN, due out in early 2024. I don’t have the date
yet. This was a very difficult book to write (it took me more than 20 years)
because it’s about a child
psychologist and a famous mystery writer who, while fighting for the life of a
traumatized little girl who has won both their hearts, stumble on a child sex
trafficking ring functioning smoothly inside the legal system. It’s
based on fact and a story I know intimately, which is why it’s taken so long to
write.
The second project is the continued
marketing of my novel WHISPERS THROUGH TIME, the first book in my series of the
same name. I lost a lot of time because of Covid-19 (I was in the hospital for
nearly 2 months) and the 2021 shutdown, so I’m pushing it hard now in an effort
to catch up.
Finally, I’m working on the second book
of the WHISPERS THROUGH TIME series, entitled UNHOLY WINDS. It will pick up
where WHISPERS THROUGH TIME leaves off. Our main character, empath Sierra
Masters, has to fight her way backwards through history to identify the serial
killer who terrorized an Indian boarding school in Rapid City, South Dakota
nearly a century earlier.
The
only man Sierra Masters has ever loved appears with a proposition that could
alter her future. She turns him down, but then after experiencing a foretelling
dream, decides to take a risk in order to uncover the truth. Hunter Davenport
realizes the evidence he's shared with Sierra could indeed destroy her—but it
could free her as well. The decision is yanked from her hands when the past and
present collide through a historical portal on sacred Native American land.
Will she take the gift that is offered? And will Hunter do what he didn't do
twelve years earlier—stand by her? Only time will give them their answers.
LINK: https://shorturl.at/LR256
BIO:
Rosetta Diane
Hoessli (called ‘Ronni’ by her friends) has been a freelance writer since 1985,
publishing articles in McCall’s, Christian Herald, and many other
smaller forums. A winner of national and state-wide writing contests, she has
served as senior feature writer, columnist, and executive editor for three (3)
regional publications – two in San Antonio and one in Houston, Texas.
Ronni also collaborated with New
York socialite Jeanette Longoria in Longoria’s self-published book entitled Aphrodite
and Me: Discovering Sensuality and Romance at Any Age, co-authored
biographical novel Falling Through Ice with Carolyn Huebner Rankin, and
edited a book of short stories, Working On the Wild Side, compiled and
written by Florida Fish and Wildlife officer Jeff Gager.
Today, Ronni focuses most of her
attention on writing historical fiction and traveling with her husband, Kevin,
in their RV. They reside in San Antonio, Texas with one fur-kid, near their
daughter and two grandchildren.
Whispers Through Time is Ms. Hoessli’s first solo novel. She is currently working on a sequel entitled Unholy Winds. Her second book, entitled Tip the Piano Man, is a mystery/suspense novel to be released in early 2024.
FACEBOOK AUTHOR PAGE:
https://www.facebook.com/RosettaDianeAuthor
INSTAGRAM:
https://www.instagram.com/thompd2011/
GOODREADS:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21788498.Rosetta_Diane_Hoessli
X, FORMERLY KNOWN AS TWITTER:
https://twitter.com/DianeThomp3419
EMAIL ADDRESS IS: THOMPD2011@GMAIL.COM.
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