Meet Kay LaLone, Author of The Middle Grade Novel, Ghostly Clues

Today, I'm pleased to bring you author Kay LaLone, and her novel Ghostly Clues (love the title!)

Don't forget the Excerpt from her book on Saturday!!

KLL: Thanks Leslie, I'm so pleased to be here today.  It's always nice to find a new audience to meet and talk writing.

LA: What’s next for you, Kay? 

KLL: I am finishing revising a YA mystery story, Family Secret. This story has ghosts, witches, and demons in it. Of course, there are other ghost stories in the works.

LA: Which aspect of writing do you love the best, and which do you hate the most?

KLL: I love coming up with new ideas for stories. I have a lot of ideas and I hope most of them will become a story. The least thing I dislike about writing is revising. Sometimes I find it hard when to stop revising, when to stop making those changes.

LA: Describe for us, if you will, your writing style, as in plotter vs. seat of the pants, and do you put more time into developing characters or plot or are they equal?

KLL: I love to free write. To just write out the story as it flows in my head. Then comes the hard part of plotting the story and making sure it flows right. The fun part is developing characters. The characters seem to show themselves when I free write.  

LA: Was there a person who inspired you to write?

KLL: I would have to say my mother inspired me to write. I remember in grade school, I'd sit at the kitchen table and write a short story for school and my mother would be there helping me spell. It was fun being creative with my mother.

LA: What themes do you like to write about?

KLL: Ghosts, paranormal, things that go bump in the night. Dreams. I have always been fascinated with dreams. To me dreams reveal a lot about our life and sometimes the future. So I use dreams a lot in stories to give clues to the characters.

 

LA: If you could meet anyone, living or dead, who would it be, and what would you talk about?

KLL: Either Nora Roberts or Heather Graham. These are my two favorite authors. We would talk about writing. I would want to know their secret to making their characters come to life.

LA: If you were a dessert, what would you be and why?

KLL: The first thing that popped into my head was banana split. Sounds good right now. I think I would be a banana split because you have all these different flavors. I feel I’m like that because I have all these different characters in my head all the time and I never know which one is going to show up.

LA: Do you have a favorite quote, quip, or saying? What is it?

KLL: Since my mother passed I away recently I have this saying. God is good. Life is good. It gets me through those days when life is hard.

Blurb:
The sweet scent of lilacs permeates the air around Grandma’s gravesite. Only Sarah Kay can smell Grandma’s favorite flower, and they’re not even in bloom.  

Sarah Kay and her best friend, Mary Jane, believe the lilacs are a sign from Grandma’s ghost. The girls follow one ghostly clue after another, uncovering a secret that Mom never wanted Sarah Kay to know. 

Grandma makes sure Sarah Kay gets the message even from the grave. As the evidence piles up, Mom still refuses to accept the possibility Sarah Kay’s father is alive. 

Sarah Kay finds Dad’s parents. A set of grandparents she didn’t realize existed. They make it clear her father is alive but days and miles separate the father and daughter reunion because Dad is a truck driver on a long haul.  

Sarah Kay waits. The news reports a fatal car accident involving a semi and Sarah Kay fears the worse. She runs away which leads to Dad and the truth, Mom wanted Dad to remain dead. 

Dad had faked his death so why not just stay dead. The ghostly clues of Grandma wouldn’t allow Dad to remain dead to Sarah Kay.

Buy Links:
MuseItUp
Barnes & Noble

Bio: 

I’m Kay LaLone. Ghostly Clues is my first middle-grade novel published by MuseItUp. I live
in Michigan with my husband and teenage son (two older sons and a daughter-in-law live near by) and two dogs and a cat. I love to get up every morning and write about ghosts, the paranormal, and anything that goes bump in the night. Or anything that interest my characters. Making my characters come to life for readers is important to a good story. I’m an avid reader of just about any type of book. I do reviews on the books I read and post them on my website and blog.

Find Kay:

My website http://www.kaylalone.weebly.com/
My blog http://www.kaylalone.blogspot.com/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ghostlyclues
Twitter https://twitter.com/kaylalone