Meet Me Monday's with Sara Dean

Hi everyone! Please welcome my next guest Sara Dean!

***Sara has been so kind as to giveaway 2 of her ebooks as a set. One is children's book that you can give to a child. Please leave your email address with your comments. Good luck everyone***

Sara's bio:

Sara Dean lives in West Virginia with her 2 kids, her husband, and all of the pets her kids keep bringing home. She has 13 books currently available with more to come soon. She writes for every age group, and you can find all of her books on amazon.com, on her author page.

1. How has your journey in publishing been? Anything you would or wouldn’t do again? It’s been a lot of fun! (For the most part J) It started off rocky, I had accumulated over a hundred rejections before my first acceptance, but now I have 13 books published under my own name, and I have ghostwritten over 85 books. If I could go back and do anything differently, I would DEFINITELY learn to research the publishers I’m interested in, instead of just blindly sending out stories, like I did in the beginning. (That’s probably why I got so many rejections! lol.)

2. What are you working on right now? Can you tell us about it? I’m currently working on a YA book that I’m co-authoring my mom. (She’s been my unofficial editor for the last ten years, so I’m so excited to be writing alongside her this time!) It’s a story called, “Because of You”, about a teenage boy whose life is falling apart, and he finds himself in Heaven after dying in a bad car accident. He wants to stay there because he has nothing to go back to earth to, but God shows him what has been going on while he was in a coma, just before he died. People from his past file in one by one, telling him about how he has changed their lives and each one begins with the words, “Because of you”. In the end he has to decide if the lives he’s changed are enough for him to decide to go back to the life he was living, or stay in Heaven.

3. What/Who inspired you to start writing? So many people!! Lol. There are a lot of amazing writers out there that I draw inspiration from, but the two biggest ones are Nicholas Sparks and Sarah Dessen.

4. How long have you been writing? I started writing as a kid, and I wrote a lot during my teenage years, but I’ve been writing professionally for almost 11 years.

5. What advice would you give a new writer just starting out? Don’t get discouraged! It’s so easy to see those first rejection letters and want to give up, but writing is a tough business to break into, and you have to be patient. Don’t get discouraged and don’t give up. Every writer has been there, and it’s not easy. But when you see your book in your hands for the first time, it’s so worth it!

6. Are you a pantser or a plotter? I try to plot out my stories, but honestly, once I start writing, they often take on a mind of their own and I wind up going a whole different direction.

7. Who is your favorite author? It’s a toss-up between Mary Higgins Clark, Nicholas Sparks, and Sarah Dessen. I also love children’s books, (writing them and reading them to my kids) and my favorite child’s author is Mercer Meyer. 

8. When did you first consider yourself a writer? When I was in third grade and I won a writing contest. After that I was hooked and I never stopped writing.

9. What is the hardest part about writing for you? Finding the time! I have 2 young children, and I do freelance writing full time, so I don’t find much time to write my own stories.

10. Do you have a favorite character from your books? If so, why and who? I have two. (I can’t have just one of anything! Lol. I have more than favorite character, inspiration and favorite character.) Bobby Bunny is my favorite from my kid’s books. He’s hilarious! And from my YA books my favorite character is Jesse, from Forgiving Jesse and Shandy’s Gift. He’s got a bit of an attitude, but he’s been through so much that you can’t help but feel bad for him.

11. How many books have you written? Which is your favorite? Honestly? I lost count! I’ve been writing and ghostwriting for so long that I really don’t have a clue how many I’ve written. My favorites, (again I have more than one. J) Bobby Bunny and the Missing Tooth, and Forgiving Jesse.

12. Do you do research for your books or does it all come from your head? It all comes from inside my head unless there’s something I have to know. Like when I wrote Forgiving Jesse, I needed to know flight information for the flights on 9/11. 

13. What is your favorite colour? Purple.

14. What is your favorite food? Anything chocolate!

15. What is your favorite smell? Lilacs.

16. Do you have any strange habits? None that I can think of, but if you ask my husband or my kids, I’m sure they would have a different answer. Lol.

17. Where are you from? Do you still live there? If not, what do you miss about it? West Virginia. I’ve lived here my whole life. I like to visit other places, but man I love coming home to the mountains!

18. Ebook or print? And why? Both.  E-books are cheaper and you can download them instantly, but there’s nothing like holding a print book in your hands either. 

19. How do you keep your writing different from all the others that write in this particular genre? When I’m writing children’s or YA books, I try to remember what it was like to be that age, recall what I felt and what I did, and really put that into my stories. I want kids and teens to feel like the characters they’re reading about are real and that they’ve known them all their lives.

20. What is one thing your readers would be most surprised to learn about you? Most of my books, (except my children’s books, they’re all light and funny) deal with serious subjects, but in real life, I’m a total goofball!! I’m completely happy just dancing around the house with my two kids, even if they look at me funny and ask me to never dance like that in public. J