Patricia Lewin writes contemporary suspense and romance novels. She’s published 11 novels and is currently writing Out of the Woods about her favorite character, Erin Baker.
In this discussion with host Patricia McLinn, Pat shares her love of storytelling, her favorite books and authors, and how locations in her life are relevant to her stories.
You can find out more about Patricia’s suspense novels at PatriciaLewin.com. Her contemporary romance novels are available at PatriciaKeelyn.com. You can also connect with her on:
* Twitter and
* Pinterest.
Thank you to DialogMusik for the instrumentals that accompany this podcast!
Transcript: Authors Love Readers with Patricia Lewin
Patricia McLinn [00:00] Hi, welcome to this week’s Authors Love Readers podcast where we delve into the stories behind the stories. We’re asking authors questions, some of them fun, some of them serious. And from their answers, you’re going to learn things you never knew about the people who write the stories you love. My name is Patricia McLinn. I’m your host and designated question asker.
Patricia Lewin [00:23] Hi, I’m Patricia Lewin and I’m an author who loves readers.
Patricia McLinn [00:27] Now. Let’s start the show. Hello and welcome to this edition of the Authors Love Readers podcasts. Our guest this time is Patricia Lewin. I had to hesitate because she’s also known as Patricia Keelyn, and Patricia, who I will probably slip and call Pat at some point, maybe throughout, is one of my best writing buddies one of my longest term writing buddies too. We met, shall I say the real year?
Patricia Lewin [00:59] Well, I don’t know which is worse, saying the real year or how long ago it was.
Patricia McLinn [01:05] We were both toddlers. It was, it was my very first Romance Writers of America conference in Boston, and I had sold my first book but it hadn’t come out yet. It was 1989. And it was standing in line to register for the hotel. She claims she doesn’t remember, she forgot me. But I remember. So we have known each other all this time, ups and downs, few tragedies here and there, lots of good news, lots of fun times and changing our writing too, we both have ventured in different ways.
Patricia McLinn [01:54] So this is going to be an interesting conversation because, as I said, she has two names. That’s because she’s writing two things. Patricia Lewin is doing thrillers. And Patricia Keelyn has the romance, and where Patricia, Pat started her writing. So to get us started, get us loosey-goosey here, we’re going to do some quick, quirky questions.
What are some surprising jobs you’ve held, Pat?
Pre-author days: chemistry lab for frozen potatoes and IBM programmer
Patricia Lewin [02:22] Well, um, surprising I worked in a chemistry lab as a chemical lab technician. I was a little different, um—
Patricia McLinn [02:30] Did you blow anything up?
Patricia Lewin [02:32] No, it was, it was for a potato, a frozen potato company. It was a long time ago, and we did testing to make sure that there were no chemicals in the frozen products. Um, it was a lot of fun actually.
Patricia McLinn [02:45] You didn’t blow up any frozen potatoes? Oh, what an opportunity.
Patricia Lewin [02:48] Wouldn’t that have been a mess? Yeah, but um, but I only did that for a short time, but my main job before writing was that I work for IBM as a programmer computer program. And also surprising or not.
Patricia McLinn [03:03] Well it is I think it is a little bit surprising because a lot of authors come from teaching, few number of us from journalism, there are a fair number of escaped lawyers, but not so much from the computer world. So that’s interesting. Okay, do you have a childhood book that addicted you to stories?
Patricia Lewin [03:25] Yes, the Black Stallion series by Walter Farley.
Patricia McLinn [03:30] Oh, oh, I love those.
Patricia Lewin [03:32] I could not get enough of them and my, I started with those, um. I have three older sisters, and one of them, I’m sure I was annoying her, she took me to the library to get rid of me and took me to the section of the book, the kids store, and that’s where I found the Black Stallion, and she never had to worry about getting rid of me after that because books worked.
Patricia McLinn [03:55] That’s, and that’s a great series. And a lot of people don’t know as a whole series that it wasn’t just the first book.
Patricia Lewin [04:01] Oh, yeah, and nothing in for a while after reading that is a kid, and I’ve actually gone through this with kids I know now, nothing was ever as good for quite a while after that.
Patricia McLinn [04:13] You know, there’s a whole series of books like Misty of Chincoteague and—
Patricia Lewin [04:18] I read those too.
Patricia McLinn [04:20] By Marguerite Henry. Yes. She was from the little town in, Illinois that was next to my little town in Illinois.
Patricia Lewin [04:26] Really?
Patricia McLinn [04:27] Yeah.
Patricia Lewin [04:28] That was, that series was part of my search to find something as good as Black Stallion. And what was the other one though? The black race horse? What was it Black Beauty. Black Beauty wasn’t as good either. Be interesting to read them as adults and see what I think of them now.
Patricia McLinn [04:45] I don’t know if I want to read them as an adult because I want to hold on to that feeling and especially as adult writers because it can make it harder to read books, purely as readers.
Patricia Lewin [04:59] That’s true.
Patricia McLinn [04:50] So I may not look at them again. But, okay. Did you ever have a story from your pre-author days that you rewrote the ending at least in your head because it didn’t end right?
Patricia Lewin [05:13] The Black Stallion. Are you detecting a theme here?
Patricia McLinn [05:18] Yeah.
Patricia Lewin [05:20] I really do not remember because it was a long time ago. How I rewrote the end but the ending bug me, and I didn’t want it to end that way. So that’s why I rewrote the ending myself.
Patricia McLinn [05:33] And do you think that led you a toward being a writer?
Patricia Lewin [05:38] Possibly. I mean I started becoming a little obsessed with it at that point. I don’t think is as a kid it ever occurred to me that I could actually write as a profession, but that was the first experience I had with writing and then moved into other stuff when I was in high school there was different too.
Patricia McLinn [05:55] You know, Pat, most authors, at least this is my theories, have a bad habit word. Often they use it all the time and have to take out. So what’s yours
Patricia Lewin [06:07] You want mine now or my original one when I first started writing—
Patricia McLinn [06:11] I want both.
Patricia Lewin [06:12]—my first start, my first books I wrote, I was the queen of should’ves and would’ves and could’ves.
Patricia McLinn [06:19] Ohhh.
Patricia Lewin [06:20] Yes, and I had a critique partner who at that point was very vocally pointed out to me that that was incorrect. There was no should’ves, would’ves, and could’ves, but then later on, I moved into— I’m very good with the words still and yet. She did something still … or yet. So now to this day, I still have to go, still have to go and find some of those words and pull them out because I tend to go crazy with them.
Patricia McLinn [06:52] Oh, that’s it. That’s really interesting. One of mine is really.
Patricia Lewin [06:55] Really?
Patricia McLinn [06:56] I have to I do—
Patricia Lewin [06:57] Really?
Patricia McLinn [06:58]—search and replace or search and delete it’s— Yep. And very and just—
Patricia Lewin [07:00] Yes.
Patricia McLinn [07:01]—when I’m trying to intensify it’s the really and the very. And when I’m trying to diminish it’s the just, and you know, you just have, you just, there I go, you have to use the strong enough for the right, the right word for the situation and not rely on those crutches.
Patricia Lewin [07:21] That’s true.
Patricia McLinn [07:21] I like my crutches.
Patricia Lewin [07:23] But still.
Patricia McLinn [07:24] Yes, but still and yet.
Patricia Lewin [07:28] And yet. Yes.
Movies for a deserted island: Avatar, Lord of the Rings series, and Aliens
Patricia McLinn [07:29] Okay, what three movies would you take with you to a desert island that somehow let you play movies.
Patricia Lewin [07:35] Oh my gosh, Pat and I are going to disagree on these so much.
Patricia McLinn [07:40] yeah, we’re gonna be on different Islands.
Patricia Lewin [07:42] I know. Different Islands. Um, Avatar. Can I say the whole Lord of the Rings series?
Patricia McLinn [07:51] Oh, that sneaky.
Patricia Lewin [07:53] Yes, and this is one Pat really isn’t going to like, Aliens the second one. Not the first one. Aliens.
Patricia McLinn [08:01] Yeah, we’re on different move, different islands.
Patricia Lewin [08:03] But we’ve known that for a long time.
Patricia McLinn [08:05] Yes, we have. Yes, we have. Okay, I’m gonna ask you one more. On your … you’re right-handed.
Patricia Lewin [08:12] Yes.
Patricia McLinn [08:13] On your right hand, is your ring finger or your index finger longer?
Patricia Lewin [08:19] My index finger. Well, no. It depends on how I twist the fing— My ring finger.
Thrillers written under Patricia Lewin name, such as Blind Run
Patricia McLinn [08:24] Okay. I’m just curious that it has no significance that I know of. I’m just curious. All right. Now we’re going to talk about some, some more about the, about writing in your works and your books. What’s the easiest book you’ve written? That it was just a joy to write.
Patricia Lewin [08:44] Probably Blind Run.
Patricia McLinn [08:48] Okay. And that’s the first of your thrillers?
Patricia Lewin [08:50] First of my thrillers is a stand alone. Although I have gotten so much feedback about having a sequel and I did set it up for a sequel. But it—
Patricia McLinn [09:00] Including feedback from, oh, somebody else who might be on this podcast, maybe?
Patricia Lewin [09:06] Possibly. Have you told me that I need a sequel? A lot of the, I mean—
Patricia McLinn [09:10] I’ve told you that.
Patricia Lewin [09:11] I actually set it up for a sequel, and I wanted, I plan to write it the sequel, right after writing Blind Run. I had it all plotted at that point, and my publisher at that time didn’t want the sequel, they wanted something completely different.
Patricia Lewin [09:32] But as far as the writing goes, Blind Run came fairly easy easily to me. I had, it was just something I wanted to write thrillers so bad that it just kind of came.
Romances, such as Keeping Katie, written under Patricia Keelyn name
Patricia McLinn [09:38] Mmm, and at that point, how many romances had you published?
Patricia Lewin [09:42] Nine.
Patricia McLinn [09:44] Do you think that, that we— Do you feel like you were always meant to write thrillers?
Patricia Lewin [09:50] Yes, I do. I think that that is, I enjoy writing romance, and I enjoy, I enjoy reading romance more than I enjoy writing romance, but the suspense came, comes easier to me than the actual writing of action and with some emotional components obviously, but the actual tension and everything suspense comes much easier to me than the, the tension in a romance.
Patricia McLinn [10:18] What do you think people who ask you about writing romance and writing thrillers? What do they get wrong about, the, about the different approaches to the two different genres?
Patricia Lewin [10:35] The different approaches to both romances and thrillers?
Patricia McLinn [10:40] Yeah. I’m just, I’m thinking that there’s probably expectations from readers about how a romance author might attack a thriller and, and then go back to a romance. How, how you would shift gears and I’m wondering if those expectations are right, or if you think it’s what your experience has been.
Patricia Lewin [11:06] To me, they are two separate ways of thinking when I’m writing, and I’m not sure I’m answering your question the way you want. It’s, one is the focus, in a romance, the focus is on the relationship and on the love story and you can trickle in some suspense, which I tended to do in my later romances, was there’s always the more romantic suspense lite, LITE than heavy romantic suspense.
Patricia Lewin [11:26] Whereas the suspense or thriller is almost the exact opposite. All the focus is on, you know, the bad stuff and you in the more if you can put an emotional component with that that, that makes the suspense of the thriller stronger. I mean there are very successful thriller writers who write just straight action and that’s not me. I need to add that component, that emotional component. And I actually think that writing romance first helped me write better suspense, because I can’t completely get away from the emotional component of the characters.
Patricia McLinn [12:17] So it made makes you go deeper into your characters in the thrillers.
Patricia Lewin [12:23] Right. You’d asked me earlier somewhere about my favorite quotes and just made me think of one. Michael Haig says about, that all story is about emotion whether it is the sweetest romance or the most hardcore thriller or science fiction story. And I think he’s right. If your characters don’t feel, whether it’s just fear or whether it’s love, they have to feel something, and I think writing romance, helped me to put elements of emotion into my suspense whether they are fear or whether they are love. Does that make any sense?
Patricia McLinn [13:01] Yes. You said that you said that it was a different way of thinking. Do you find if you’re, that your mood or how you’re feeling about things Is affected by what you’re writing?
Patricia Lewin [13:16] You mean affects the genre that I want to write in or just affects the writing in general?
Patricia McLinn [13:21] No, affects your writing. Say you’re writing a thriller, are you then in a, in a different kind of mind frame because you’re writing a thriller from what you might be when you’re writing a romance? In other words, which one should I wait for you to be writing before I call up and ask a favor?
Patricia Lewin [13:42] No, I don’t think, I don’t think that my mood affects which of the genres that I want to write in. My mood is actually there I can write.
Patricia McLinn [13:51] I was asking the opposite, whether the genre affects your mood.
Patricia Lewin [13:55] No, I don’t think so.
Patricia McLinn [13:56] Okay.
Patricia Lewin [13:57] Sorry.
Patricia McLinn [13:58] You even keel people you. So when, when you published your first book— When your first book got published, and Pat started out in traditional publishing, as did I. How— Did that change your writing process at all?
Patricia Lewin [14:17] It did quite a bit. I was working at IBM when I wrote my first book. Actually, I wrote three books before I sold one, and I was working at IBM. So I was writing on weekends and on lunch hours, and instead of going on vacations. I would write so it was constant and a month after or a month before my very first book came out, I left IBM. It was a variety of circumstances, it was not because I thought I was finally going to be able to support myself writing one book. But then, so then, suddenly I had to write full-time, and it was, it was a transition to suddenly go from writing in every available moment to having time.
Patricia Lewin [15:09] And at first it worked because I had a very insightful young editor, who threw a contract out on at me and said we have a slot open, but you have got to write this book in eight weeks and I don’t think I can do that now, but I did it then so it got me into the process of, of setting up my time, you know so many hours a day, although I actually I do page counts. How many page counts a day? So that’s what happened
Patricia McLinn [15:34] And you still do that. How many page count, pages—
Patricia Lewin [15:36] I’m not as good as I used to be. There’s a lot more distractions now. It’s easier the, what I found over time, it’s easier to get distracted, and it’s easier not to have a steady rhythm when you have all day.
Patricia McLinn [15:54] Mmm, that’s true.
Patricia Lewin [15:55] And there are people that are extremely good at that. I am good at it in spots. Sometimes I, you know, can go every day and write whatever my page count is, and sometimes I can’t.
Patricia McLinn [16:08] What’s your favorite part of the writing process?
Patricia Lewin [16:11] Oh, I love story building. Story building and creating, creating worlds and connections and people and, and scenarios. I love story building.
Patricia McLinn [16:22] So is that necessarily before you start writing, or is that while you’re writing as well?
Patricia Lewin [16:28] Both, I start off beforehand. You know, I have this whole thing going on in my head, and then the story building goes on as I write. And on the flip side, the hardest thing for me is the actual putting words on paper. Well, not a paper, on the screen, because I’m bit of a wordsmith, and so I sit there and fuss, you know, over sentences or paragraphs instead of just getting the story out. The story’s all in my head, you know, but it’s a little harder for me to actually, you know, get the words in the screen.
Patricia McLinn [17:11] And then how does that affect your editing? So if you’re, if you’re fussing word-by-word in the draft process, are you pretty well set when you go to edit?
Patricia Lewin [17:24] Yes. Yes. I’m, I’m pretty close to a first draft writer, meaning by the time I get done with the book, it is pretty close to being finished. I do go through, of course, again. And when I was writing for traditional publishers, they went through it several times. And I always had to do some revisions, but the book is the actual writing and everything is pretty clean when I get it done, um, the first draft. Now, there may be structural issues sometimes or planning problems more of those than there are actual craft issues.
Patricia McLinn [18:01] Have you ever edited something out of a book or, or had something edited out, that you still mourn?
Mourning character names in Once a Wife and It’s a New World
Patricia Lewin [18:08] A character name.
Patricia McLinn [18:11] Oh.
Patricia Lewin [18:12] I, my—
Patricia McLinn [18:13] A character name.
Patricia Lewin [18:15] —Um, in my book, Once a Wife, which I think was my third. Give me a sec, I think it was my third, third book.
Patricia McLinn [18:23] And it’s, and it’s back out now.
Patricia Lewin [18:25] It’s back out now and actually. Since I thought about this question, I thought, Oh, maybe I can go back and change this now. My character and my editor told me years later that this was in her opinion the best of my books, my romances.
Patricia Lewin [18:40] The character is half Shoshone Indian and she was raised on a reservation and her, I picked her name as a shy name. It was Kya, KYA, and when I submitted it, the senior editor, not my editor, but her boss, told me that I couldn’t use that name because it sounded too romancey. This is a romance, right?
Patricia McLinn [19:05] Yeah. Yeah.
Patricia Lewin [19:06] So for all the editing process, I had to change her name, change it to Sarah, which is a little standard romance author, a romance character name, but I could not stop thinking of her as Kya because that’s what she was to me through the whole process of writing the book, but I thought—
Patricia McLinn [19:26] That—
Patricia Lewin [19:27] Go ahead.
Patricia McLinn [19:28] I was just going to say I have a similar story.
Patricia Lewin [19:29] Okay.
Patricia McLinn [19:30] and I did change the character’s name back when I brought the book out myself. It’s A New World, my second book. The heroines first name is Eleanor, and she becomes involved with a man who is a modern-day Irish immigrant to the United States, and she, I very carefully found her name. I wanted it to sound a certain way. I wanted some hard sounds, and I wanted it to be connected to Gloucester, Massachusetts, which is where the book is set.
Patricia McLinn [20:00] And I also spent, this is back pre-internet days, I spent an hour plus on the phone with this wonderful woman from the Chamber of Commerce on Cape Ann, which is where Gloucester is, looking up to make sure that there was no family that actually had that name, because I didn’t, I said nasty things about the family and I didn’t want there to be a real family that I accidentally insulted.
Patricia McLinn [20:30] So in my, in my world, her name was always Thatcher. Eleanor Thatcher. There’s a Thatcher Island by Gloucester and no, there was then no Thatcher family. And the editors came back, I think it was a senior editor again and said you cannot call her that because our UK readers would be upset with a woman named Thatcher sleeping with an Irishman.
Patricia Lewin [21:01] That is so ridiculous that, that is as weird as mine. You know, I—
Patricia McLinn [21:08] Yep.
Patricia Lewin [21:09] Traditional publishers, sometimes they had very strange ideas.
Patricia McLinn [21:12] In the traditional published edition, she was, what was she? Halston, I think, which I never liked, so I blithely changed her back.
Patricia Lewin [21:25] Even the last name change that is even stranger than a first name change.
Patricia McLinn [21:29] Yeah. Yeah.
Patricia Lewin [21:30] Well—
Patricia McLinn [21:31] So, we both had that, that episode. And now, how do you go about naming characters?
Patricia Lewin [21:38] It’s kind of a varied process. I kind of troll around. I look through baby books, and I really am stuck on a story until I get that name, but I’ll use Xs for a while, but the name has got to have the right feel for me. And I will go look up meanings of names like, I did in my last romance that I just put out an April. The character’s name is Daniel, and it just fit. He is a beast, and he communes with animals, and it just seemed to fit with the whole biblical.
Patricia McLinn [22:11] Oh, yes.
Patricia Lewin [21:16] Daniel and the lion, you know.
Patricia McLinn [22:18] That feel. Yeah.
Patricia Lewin [22:25] Yes. So names, I go a little crazy with names and find the right one. And that’s why Sarah in Once A Wife, really bothers me because although Sarah is a beautiful name, it just did not fit this character. And it just, you know, what I would love to hear from your readers if they responds, if I would change the name now the book has been out again digitally for, I don’t know, a year and a half more, it is probably one of my bestselling books. What if I change her name now? Is it too late?
Patricia McLinn [22:54] No.
Patricia Lewin [22:55] Would I drive everybody crazy?
Patricia McLinn [22:59] Why would it? Because the people who have already read it have read it, and it would be for the new readers coming to it.
Patricia Lewin [23:06] Yeah. I might do that.
Patricia McLinn [23:07] I say change it.
Patricia Lewin [23:08] Okay. I’ll do it.
Patricia McLinn [23:09] You know me. I’m a rebel. Touching off how you look for names, this sort of connects. This also goes back to the world building. What sort of research do you do, and how, when do you do it and do enjoy it or is it a chore?
Patricia Lewin [23:28] I do my research differently for both for the romances and for the suspense. When I started writing my Lewin books, my thrillers, I did an immense amount of research with, for about the CIA because my characters— My books are not really about the CIA, but my main characters are CIA officers or ex CIA officers who kind of … go off the rails, so to speak. I did a lot of research on the CIA, I read everything I could find out then.
And then I also had a connection with a woman who was one of those serendipitous things, where I met her I was looking, originally I was looking for something, I actually originally I was going to make the character and I say and it just wasn’t working and I met this woman and she was an ex CIA analyst who was a budding writer. And she couldn’t write anything like I was writing because of her non-disclosure agreement with the CIA, but she could help me to certain extent.
Patricia Lewin [24:28] So I did an immense amount of research on that, on the CIA because it was so integral to the story. Now other types of research like for my romances or actually for some of the peripheral stuff in the suspenses, I kind of write through it and then go back and look and see if I’m right. Especially the romances I did this a lot. If I wasn’t sure about something I’d write something through it.
I’d write through it and I highlighted then I go back and I found that 90% of the time that I was right that I would had guessed right, you know, like locations or things like that. The suspense I can’t do that because obviously I didn’t know anything about CIA before I started and then locations, you know, I try and visit locations or I write about places I’ve lived and then I love going to research locations.
Patricia Lewin [25:28] Anyway, I do have a funny story about a location research thing that Blind Run was set the San Juan Islands, which is off the northern coast of Washington, and I had lived in Oregon, in Portland, for years. So I had a really good feel for the Northwest and what it was, and there’s some pieces is an island and it’s some pieces that were about Northwest weather and how you know, it’s very cloudy and rainy there and cool. And so there was that, kind of a lot of that in Blind Run. And I recently got a review back from somebody who was telling me that I obviously had never been there because the San Juan Islands was a one of the few places in the Northwest where there was not rain. Okay, so I was freaked out.
Patricia Lewin [26:15] Well, recently this summer I went and spent some time on Orcas Island, which is on one of the northern, big islands in the San Juan’s, and come to find out there is a portion of the San Juan Islands in the Olympic Rain Shadow, which doesn’t have a lot of rain, but the rest of them are all rainy and cloudy just like I said. I asked two or three tour guides about this, and they always kind of looked at me, and they said that’s reasonable. Why would I think there isn’t rain here, it rains all winter long. So that was kind of an interesting thing. Anyway.
Patricia McLinn [26:38] To be proven, right? That’s always wonderful.
Patricia Lewin [26:41] Well, it’s freaked me out because I thought, Oh my God, did I get this book wrong? You know and it was just one reviewer and, and he obviously had been to the part of the Olympic Rain Shadow where there, wasn’t raining. My book is set in the fake Island on the very north side of the San Juan’s almost a bit ago.
Patricia McLinn [27:01] In this rainy part.
Patricia Lewin [27:02] In the rainy part.
Patricia McLinn [27:04] Okay. Here’s, here’s a question from a reader. This says, Where do your stories come from? And the reader went on to say I know one author who dreams her stories. Pat and I have a mutual friend who dreamed her stories, their special one. Another has a character suddenly taking up residence in her head. So, how are your beautiful stories born?
Patricia Lewin [27:27] I think that a character or situation just kind of starts intruding on my thoughts or situation. Blind Run came to me because I had this idea about a man having to protect children. I had a vision of the desert and I had a vision of him having to protect kids and him being, you know, wishing he was, he’d rather be dead than alive, but he doesn’t have the nerve to pull the, the trigger and then these children redeem him. So that’s where it started with that one. Sometimes. I can’t even tell you where it starts but it usually is a situation that pops into my head and then I have to find characters that fit it or sometimes it’s character, but I’m much more situational where I start with a situation then and then I find characters that can play out that situation.
Patricia McLinn [28:08] Yeah, I’m much more characters. They start talking in my head.
Patricia Lewin [28:12] I know I’m the weird one.
Patricia McLinn [28:14] You are. I’m totally normal, I hear voices. What’s your problem? So from that, from that start, from the situation that comes in your head. Do you, do your stories often change a lot from that point to where you publish it?
Patricia Lewin [28:39] Yes, very much so. I mean, I start playing around with it. I start, you know, working out the details and, and trying to find how the situation can work and that it often changes before the end. I remember one of my romantic suspenses, I don’t even remember which one well, I was writing as Keelan. I had a reviewer come back to me said, Oh my gosh, this is so wonderful. I didn’t know what was going to happen next.
Patricia Lewin [29:14] And I thought to myself, That’s because I didn’t know what was going to happen next. I mean, I learned before I wrote the Lewin books that I had to plot these things out but, those first romantic suspenses that I wrote it as romances, I didn’t know what I was doing, and I didn’t know where the story was going to go. So I would write myself into a hole and then had to figure out how to get those characters out of the hole I put them in. I was lucky that it worked. I don’t think it would have worked that easily with the, with the thrillers.
Patricia McLinn [29:37] So how do you plot ahead of time? Do you outline? Do you write a synopsis? Are you just doing notes? How do you plot those thrillers?
Patricia Lewin [29:47] I do a free-flow outline with an idea, you know, I mean, I just I, knowing that, knowing that the outline can be changed, nothing cast in concrete, but I just write bullet points and then sub-bullets and every now and then I’ll, a piece of it will grab me and I’ll write maybe a section of dialogue and then as I start writing if something is bugging me if I’m not, if I’m not finding a solution or the way I had originally done it is not working, I will then take a little side thing I do another outline like, why is this?
Patricia Lewin [30:10] You know, how, what about the scene? What am I trying to accomplish in this scene? And will it move the story forward? The other thing that I find for Thrillers that I actually I was working as an editor for a while, and I did I would do this with some of my thriller authors, my romantic suspense authors, is I have to define what the bad thing is. What is the bad stuff that my character is going up against and then, and that is really integral because until you, until you know what your characters are fighting against you’re kind of, you don’t have story. So I will also add that on the side. So it’s kind of a free flow type of outline type thing.
Patricia McLinn [31:10] And do you do a lot of work with your, with your bad guy characters or bad women characters?
Patricia Lewin [31:17] I do. I find a lot of times that the, um, your antagonist is what, is could be a really interesting character and sometimes you have to be careful that they don’t take over the story and it’s come to them in different ways.
Erin Baker series, Out of Time and Out of Reach
Patricia Lewin [31:30] For instance, in the second of the Erin Baker series, Out of Time, which takes place in Cuba, which was so much fun, but anyway. I had a character, she wasn’t the main antagonist, but she facilitated the main antagonist and she was a brilliant researcher while I had it as a man, like, you know because who knows why. Because that is the tried and true, you know. He’s a—
Patricia Lewin [31:45] And one of the people that was helping with the researcher was a friend of mine who has a MD PhD in molecular genetics and she says, Why does he have to be a man? Can it be a woman? And I don’t know why I never thought of that. I was using her as research, I mean and, so that was kind of cool. So then I could once I had her as a woman instead of a man, then I could really flesh her out and she became a much more interesting character than if it had just been a man.
Patricia Lewin [32:15] Plus then I named it after, I named the character after my friend, so she really loved that.
Patricia McLinn [32:22] What— Did she get destroyed at the end of the book or could that character show up again, sometime?
Patricia Lewin [32:40] She disappeared.
Patricia McLinn [32:42] Aha, which of your stories has surprised you the most?
Patricia Lewin [32:48] I think Out of Reach because I fell in love with my main character.
Patricia McLinn [32:50] Okay. Well, wait now let’s explain Out of Reach. So, you did Blind Run was your first thriller.
Patricia Lewin [32:52] Right. And it was a stand alone.
Patricia McLinn [32:53] And Out of Reach was your second thriller.
Patricia Lewin [32:55] Yes and it was the first—
Patricia McLinn [33:06] They’re not related. But then Out of Reach is the first of a series.
Patricia Lewin [33:10] Yes. Out of Reach is the first in what will be a three book series at this point. I’m working on the third but Out of Reach was the first one and it is about a CIA officer, Erin Baker, and I just fell in love with her. She always say that not only do I like her, I want to be her. She’s tough and she’s brilliant and she’s got lots of baggage. So I fell in love with her as a character, and I tend to be, I tend to more fall in love with my male characters, but this one I really like Erin. And that’s why there had to be a second and, now working, which is Out of Time. This is the one that takes place in Cuba. And now I’m working on the third one, which I’m hoping to get out early next year.
Patricia McLinn [34:06] You going to get it out early next year?
Patricia Lewin [34:08] It’ll be done by early next year. We’ll have to go through the whole editing process and everything and we’ll, we’ll see
Patricia McLinn [34:12] That, that sort of segues into, I was going to ask if you miss characters as you did with Erin in Out Of Reach, where you kind of missed her when, when the book was done and you wanted to do another book with her. Do you miss characters when you’re done with them? A reader asked this and it was because she misses the characters when she’s finished a book that she really likes.
Patricia Lewin [34:38] Well, I was obviously obsessed with Erin Baker it, for my other books, earlier books for my romance was I was more obsessed with the characters while I was writing them, you know calling family members my character’s name et cetera. But Erin just kind of. Stuck in my head, her story was not done in my head and she’s still the character I think about well, of course because I’m writing the book, that part of it, but I will also admit that the Blind Run characters have stuck with me and it just goes back to the fact that the thrillers grab me. Some of the characters in in Blind Run have stuck with me too, but mainly Erin I think of all my characters is one that I just had to write more about her. I had to know what was going to happen to her.
Patricia McLinn [35:27] When you when you finish a book, do you celebrate or do you celebrate beginning a book or publishing or, you know, do you have do you have particular celebrations?
Patricia Lewin [35:38] I don’t have particular or things that I do other than just collapsing or doing nothing or you know going to movies or having a glass of wine or two, but I don’t have any particular ritual that I do. It’s just kind of like something is come out of you when you’re done. It’s like oh my gosh, it’s over. Okay go on. Let’s go on.
Patricia McLinn [36:00] Re-entry to normal life.
Patricia Lewin [36:02] Re-entry and everything gets put off at the very end there, you know, the house gets to be a disaster. You know, I haven’t talked to my husband or kid in, my daughter, in a while, you know that kind of things and so all that stuff can resurface after you get done with the book.
Patricia McLinn [36:17] Do you remember the movie Romancing the Stone?
Patricia Lewin [36:20] I do.
Patricia McLinn [36:22] The beginning sequence—
Patricia Lewin [36:23] Yes.
Patricia McLinn [36:24] —she’s finishing a book and she goes around and she can’t find anything to blow her nose on because she’s run out of all these things.
Patricia Lewin [36:32] Yes. That’s, that’s very much the way it is. Yes.
Patricia McLinn [36:35] Reality-based people think that’s funny. It’s not so funny. When it’s you.
Patricia Lewin [36:41] When my husband would follow me around the house sometimes and I would do things like, you know, put the milk in the stove or the microwave away or put things away in the wrong places obvious wrong places, like cold stuff in the because your mind is elsewhere. Your mind is not on the everyday stuff.
Patricia McLinn [37:00] I had a neighbor and Virginia who rang my doorbell one day at like ten-thirty in the morning, which is very early for me.
Patricia Lewin [37:08] Yes.
Patricia McLinn [37:09] And I came down was quite grumpy and she said, I know, I know you’re on deadline, but I was worried because you left your car doors open all night.
Patricia Lewin [37:21] Yes, I can see you do that.
Patricia McLinn [37:23] Which is very unlike me in ordinary times and, it’s okay. You’re forgiven. I think she had this vision of a massacre in my, in my house. Of course, that started me in other story ideas. What do you read for fun?
Patricia Lewin [37:40] You know, I read all over the place, but I read a, something that I have not let myself write, and so I enjoy it immensely is Science Fiction and Fantasy, you know, I because I don’t, you know, you like stuff you don’t like it, but I know tend to tear it apart like I do suspenses, you know, I write is somebody else’s suspense. I’m, I’m trying to figure out how they put it together when it works. You know, why is it so good or. Why is it not so good? I don’t do that with Science Fiction and Fantasy. If I don’t like it, I just stopped reading it, it’s tempting to actually write it because I do love it.
Patricia McLinn [38:17] In addition to writers looking at things as writers, and I refer to it as seeing the man behind the curtain, do you also think that writers look at the world or other people differently than most people?
Patricia Lewin [38:33] It’s possible. I mean, we’re always looking, we’re always seeing story ideas and every little thing. I remember years ago my critique group and, this is going to this is going to sound, maybe heartless when JonBenét Ramsey was murdered and we were sitting around in our critique group the comment was, If I was writing this book this is who would be done it, who would have done it. Yes, we look at story ideas and say story things are happening in the news and saying okay. This is how I would do it.
Patricia McLinn [39:04] There are a lot of studies now that story is part of the human condition and that that the brain processes story mostly the way it does real events, and I wonder if kind of the flip of that is true that story is our way of processing horrific things.
Patricia Lewin [39:30] It’s true.
Patricia McLinn [39:30] Or other things that are happening that we’re observing and possibly experiencing and to, to look at it as a writer you’re, you’re involved in it emotionally, and yet you’re also observing which I think in some ways is protective.
Patricia Lewin [39:55] Very much so.
Patricia McLinn [39:55] Or you could.
Patricia Lewin [39:56] Yeah, because I for you know, something is something is bothering me a lot I have on occasion written a short story where I changed things. Or if you’re upset about something you can and I’ve done this with a couple of things and if I write a little short story about making things different or changing things. It makes me feel better. Even if it’s just a story. Does that make any sense?
Patricia McLinn [40:29] Yes. Absolutely it, we have control.
Patricia Lewin [40:34] Well, you know, I think that’s what it is. I think this I think most writers, we do have a bit of a control issues. You know, when we write we control the universe.
Patricia McLinn [40:43] Isn’t that lovely and we did such a good job of it.
Patricia Lewin [40:45] We do and good always triumphs, you know, the world is set right.
Patricia McLinn [40:51] In our books. Yes.
Patricia Lewin [40:52] And our book, yes.
Patricia McLinn [40:54] Okay. Here is another question from a reader says, What is your favorite place to write and why? Does it have an inspirational view?
Patricia Lewin [41:03] I have to write at my desk in my office on a desktop. And no, no inspirational viewing. I have the blinds closed. I do use music though. I listen to classical music while I’m writing and my usually Chopin piano concertos, my-my thought is, you’re going to laugh, is genius will inspire genius. But no, I, um, I know a lot of writers use their laptops and things and go and write in different circumstances, and I haven’t quite gotten the, I haven’t quite got the comfort level of right I would feel like I’m playing when I’m writing on my laptop. So I’m at my desk in an office setting, and it’s right here in front of me. I know that’s not very exciting, right?
Patricia McLinn [41:47] So you’re trying to possibly block out some of the other visual stimulation so that you’re not distracted from the vision that’s in your head.
Patricia Lewin [41:58] Exactly and also well also because it’s a writing cue or a trigger when I’m at my desk. That’s what I’m supposed to be doing. And that’s why I listen to classical music. I can’t listen to any music with words in it, because I will start singing and then we know we won’t get any writing done.
Patricia McLinn [42:18] I will start typing the words.
Patricia Lewin [42:20] Hold on up either tried it, but so I, so you’re right up and it’s like the music is white noise. It’s beautiful white noise, but it’s white noise and it does block things out.
Patricia McLinn [42:33] Well, and especially I think if you play the same music over and over it defin— It’s a, an element of Pavlov’s dogs. I hear this music I write. And it also it’s a there’s a certain rhythm to the music and I think that can carry you through, and keep you writing where you might otherwise have gone with a distraction.
Patricia Lewin [42:57] Yeah, you’re probably right. I mean it just it does and I do listen to the same music. I know authors some authors write different music for different books, and I’ve tried that it doesn’t really work for me. I always keep going back to the piano the Chopin piano concertos. I mean, there’s lots of other classical music with that, words out there, but why do I keep going back to the Chopin? I don’t know. And I think what you just said is probably it’s just it’s a trigger. It’s, it’s what I’m used to and it just soothes me and gets me concentrating on the words I’m trying to put down.
Patricia McLinn [43:32] That’s a great thing to have found for you.
Patricia Lewin [43:34] Yeah, I don’t know where I’ve been doing it for a long time. I don’t know where it came from.
Patricia McLinn [43:39] Okay. Ready, ready for another reader question.
Patricia Lewin [43: 41] Yes.
Patricia McLinn [43:42] This, this is more applicable more to the traditional world. But let’s see if it has any in your Indie publishing too. Says, When the cover image doesn’t match the character description, a pet peeve of mine says the reader, how does it feel?
Patricia Lewin [44:03] Drives me crazy. I have been blessed—
Patricia McLinn [44:09] I knew that answer.
Patricia Lewin [44:11] Yes. I um, I must have had some really great covers and no really horrible covers, but my original Blind Run cover, the original suspense, although it was a beautiful cover, it drove me crazy because it’s two characters and it looked like a, um, older girl, kid and a younger boy racing out on a pier into a really glassy ocean.
Okay. Well. It drove me crazy because the boy in the stories the older and the girl was younger, and there’s a third person, and they’re an adult running with them, and they’re running off to a pier in a turbulent Pacific. I know these are really minor things, right, so it drove me crazy because the cover just, I said, you know, you got this all wrong, and they basically told me to be quiet and go away.
So that is what that was one of the first things I changed when I went indie with this book was that I got the cover the way I wanted it. So yes, it drives me crazy when the cover is wrong.
Patricia McLinn [45:13] I see, I thought I knew what the answer to that one was going to be.
Patricia Lewin [45:16] You did, huh?
Patricia McLinn [45:17] I did.
Patricia Lewin [45:18] What do you think it was gonna be.
Patricia McLinn [45:19] That answer.
Patricia Lewin [45:20] Oh, okay.
Sally Field moments and mistaken for lost relatives
Patricia McLinn [45:22] So, do you have other, do you have good stories about communication with readers or encountering them, or how have you dealt with readers? For how long have readers dealt with you?
Patricia Lewin [45:36] You know when my first romances came out and I would go to writers conferences, it would always surprise me when somebody would come up to me and say, You’re the writer. You’re the author who wrote Keeping Katie or whatever, and it was like I’m looking behind me trying to figure out who you’re talking to, you know, that can’t be me. But now online, I get some really, I don’t have any, overarching stories but except for the fact that you do get some really great readers communicating with you sending you email or, or reviewing your books or talking to you. Sending you private notes when they read stuff that you know, that might be considered, you know, you know because we talk a lot online and the calm you down about things so I have been very. Thankful for my readers. They keep me writing.
Patricia McLinn [46:30] I remember receiving my first letter from a reader with my very first book, and I got it, and I looked at the return address and it’s from Oregon, and I thought I don’t know anybody in Oregon. What, how is this possible? And when I read the note it was, it gave me chills because she got from the book what I had hoped people would get from the book. And I often say reading is interactive that we as authors put material out there, but that’s only half of it. The other half is what the reader takes from it. So this was, this was a click what I put out was what she, she got from it and then she wrote to me saying how much she loved it and I was like, Oh my gosh!
Patricia Lewin [47:26] It’s a wonderful feeling, isn’t it?
Patricia McLinn [47:30] It was, it was a fabulous feeling. There was also this little tiny piece of me that said, Oh my God, strangers are reading my books.
Patricia Lewin [47:26] I find that with looking at good reviews too. It, just when somebody loved something that you put so much time in, it’s just like, oh my God, they’re talking about something that I did and it’s very surprising for all the readers out there, it really is surprising when people like what you did because you just, you know, we live in our little bubble.
Patricia McLinn [47:58] It’s a Sally Field moment.
Patricia Lewin [47:59] A Sally Field moment?
Patricia McLinn [48:01] They like me. They really like me.
Patricia Lewin [48:03] Exactly. I had, actually, your talk about the same you think about a funny story I had about a reader when I was writing romance, who this really isn’t about the book, this is about how she contacted me. She contacted my publisher, who sent me a letter because they will never give your address out, and put me in contact with this woman who was convinced that I was her husband’s sister who had been put up for adoption when I was born.
Patricia McLinn [48:33] Oh my God.
Patricia Lewin [48:33] And I could not convince her that I was not this person and she kept saying all I know it’s really upsetting to find this out and blah, blah, blah. But you know, I was number four of six kids. Believe me, after three, they would not have adopted a fourth, but it was very interesting.
Patricia McLinn [48:52] And it’s not like you guys don’t look like each other at all.
Patricia Lewin [48:55] Oh, yeah, we, yeah.
Patricia McLinn [48:56] Some of you.
Patricia Lewin [48:57] Yeah, but she was convinced because of my last name that I was her brother’s long-lost sister. And I kept saying I wish I could say I was, but I’m not.
Patricia McLinn [49:07] There’s a book in that, Pat.
Patricia Lewin [49:09] Actually. I never about that, but you’re right, there is a book in that one.
Patricia McLinn [49:13] Dibs.
Patricia Lewin [49:15] My story. You probably get it done faster than I would.
Patricia McLinn [49:19] Of all your books that are done so far, as opposed to the ones you’re going to write really fast now, ahem, are any of them what you would consider an overlooked gem something that even, even your loyal readers may not have come across?
Patricia Lewin [49:39] Well in the romances, I think, well from any suspense, Running for Cover always surprises me because it’s kind of buried in the— I’ve two series in my romances, and it’s kind of the theme series, you don’t have to read them in order. It’s kind of buried like third or fourth in that series and people don’t seem to get to it. And if you like, you know romantic suspense is more romance than suspense, although they are obviously running through the entire book, I think for romance readers, that’s the one that I think that gets overlooked a bit. And as far as the suspense is go, I mean, I don’t know I, you know, I loved Out of Reach, but then I love the whole Cuba thing and Out of Time. So it’s kind of hard to say, but for romances, I would say Running for Cover.
Patricia McLinn [50:24] Well, so for somebody who’s new to you, hasn’t read your books yet, what would be the best book for them to enter say the romances first and then the thrillers.
Patricia Lewin [50:35] if you like, you know, family-oriented romances, then I would say Keeping Katie because those three books are part of a series called a mother’s heart. They’re all about women who are mothers but in different ways, I mean not necessarily biological mothers, and they’re more about family and the love of family and children as well as the romantic loves.
Yeah. Keeping Katie is my first book and I loved it. So, so I would say if you like family-oriented stories that you would start with that. Those books are all themed, it doesn’t matter which order you read them in. if you like something a little more action than you start with the, The Protector series which are all, all the heroes in those books are ex-protectors, military or cops or something. And they all have a little bit more of an element. Some of them have more suspense than others.
So the first one in that series is Loving Lindsey, but it doesn’t matter what order you read them and you could read them all over the place.
Patricia McLinn [51:38] How about your thrillers?
Patricia Lewin [51:40] You know the series, I mean Out of Reach is, Out of Reach seems to be the book that I have got, when I was traditionally published originally in hardcover and I got the best reviews on Out of Reach of any of my books as far as in Publishers Weekly and everything, you know, Blind Run is kind of my baby and I do plan to write the sequel to that, but Out of Reach is the book that seems to have the most seems to be more compelling I guess this is maybe the right word.
Patricia McLinn [52:10] And this is another question from a reader. I love this one. If you could write a book with any author alive or dead, who would you want to work with and why?
Patricia Lewin [52:20] Oh my gosh, that would be a really hard decision. It’s almost the same thing as asking me who my favorite authors are, which is, since everybody I know is an author, is an unfair question. But, you know, I’m going to cop out and go with, you know, one of the big names. I would I mean just to meet somebody like JK Rowling’s you know, I don’t write that kind of book. So maybe that’s not a good answer but you know—
Patricia McLinn [52:48] Well why, why would it?
Patricia Lewin [52:50] Because of her incredible skill of detail. And putting stories together that are immensely complicated. I mean you can like the books or not, but they, you can’t ignore the skill there. The skill of any, remember story building is what I love most about writing, and her to be able to put together this really complex world and have it all mesh. I think that is a phenomenal talent.
You know the other author that I adore his skill is still storytelling is Stephen King. I don’t write that kind of stuff either. So why would I want to work with him? I don’t know, just because he has this really great storytelling ability. For people that I write what I write I probably Lisa Gardner I would want to work with Lisa, you know, because she writes the same type of book that I write and you know, it would be interesting to work with her.
Patricia McLinn [53:50] Okay. Is there anything, I’m thinking of I’m, I’m sitting here thinking of authors and working with them and what you learn and, and I think even like Stephen King even though you don’t write what he writes. I think there could be a great deal that you would learn that anybody would learn—
Patricia Lewin [54:09] He’s an incredible storyteller. I mean, he really is, and so you would learn that aspect of it from him. And you know what? When I say Lisa, I really like her books to, that would be more of a collaborative type thing where I don’t know. I’m sure she could teach me something. I’m sure but not like, you know, Stephen King or JK Rowling’s you know that you could actually, you know, I could actually identify what it is they could teach me.
The other author that I would really love to write work with is Robert McCammon. He is probably one of my all-time favorite authors, and his incredible ability to tell a story and, and it doesn’t have the complexity as JK Rowling, I don’t know if anybody does, but he does. He’s also a great storyteller and a great writer. And I would think there would just be an incredible amount to learn from him, and he writes all over the place rights all kinds of stuff.
Patricia McLinn [55:07] It’s a fun question, isn’t it?
Patricia Lewin [55:09] Well, it’s an interesting thing to think about because I never even, you know, I have a list of authors I’d like to meet but would I like to work with them? I mean in a certain sense working with somebody like JK Rowling could be very intimidating, you know, and even more intimidating than Stephen King. I would be so in awe of her ability that it would be a sin intimidating. So I never even thought about actually working with another author.
Patricia McLinn [55:34] I think I would tend to take somebody who is dead, just because there’s always the possibility you could run across the live person, you know in real life and but the dead person you can’t so you take the opportunity of the question to go for somebody who is impossible in real life.
Patricia Lewin [55:55] But if you’re working with him—
Patricia McLinn [56:00] How’s that for logic?
Patricia Lewin [56:02] But if you’re working with them, it’s okay to run into them, right? Because you’re working with them.
Patricia McLinn [56:06] So, as we’re close, getting closer to the close here, tell us about your most recent release.
Patricia Lewin [56:09] The one I’m working on or the one that just came, that the, um, the last book in—
Patricia McLinn [56:13] The most recent release. The one that came out.
Patricia Lewin [56:15] Okay, that was be Out of Time. And that’s the second book in the Erin Baker thriller series.
Patricia McLinn [56:20] What’s the significance of that title?
Patricia Lewin [56:22] Because she’s on a deadline. She has to she, it takes place in Cuba. She gets sent into Cuba to investigate a missing agent or officer, they don’t call CIA offi— agents. They’re officers, and there is a real short time span. She goes in, she’s half Cuban. Looks are so Miami, which I spent most of my life in South Florida so that fit, and she goes in to investigate and the way they get her in undercover is that her estranged father runs a medical facility that’s something like Doctors Without Borders. But I did make up a thing, didn’t use Doctors Without Borders, and that’s her way in but that’s not who she goes investigate.
Patricia Lewin [57:22] She goes to investigate a missing officer who happens to be a friend. So I have the dynamic there of an estranged father who left her at a very young age, and she has all these built, this is the emotion thing all these built up emotions, and she’s very unhappy with the CIA at the moment, but she is only there because of this friend of hers is missing so we have the combination of the emotion and the action and this bad stuff. She goes in they think it’s going to be a slam dunk that she’s going to go in and come right out. And of course that never happens in books right has to get worse and worse and worse.
Patricia Lewin [57:50] So I really. I loved writing that book. The whole Cuba thing was fascinating, having spent most of my life in South Florida with the huge Cuban population, and, um, and I had to do a ton of research on Cuba. I actually tried to get into Cuba and at the time I had to submit an application to the State Department, and they turned me down. But so that is—
Patricia McLinn [58:10] They’re so short-sighted and not thinking that book research is a good reason—
Patricia Lewin [58:15] Yes.
Patricia McLinn [58:16] —for any trips.
Patricia Lewin [58:18] I might be able to get in there now, but I couldn’t at the time. And, and you know, I had friends say, Oh just fly through Cuba, I mean, fly through Canada or fly through Mexico and I’m thinking, oh, yeah, I’m going to do that and then I’ll be the one they make an example of an American in Cuba and get charged. So I didn’t do that.
But one of the things that I loved about this book, and I won’t tell you, but the ending to me leaves Erin, I always like to leave Erin with little bit more baggage, and she does end up with a lot of baggage to this book and which is the trigger for the book I’m working on now. The one that’s her follow-on.
Patricia McLinn [58:50] Have the title for that one yet?
Patricia Lewin [58:53] Out of the Woods.
Patricia McLinn [58:56] Ah, okay.
Patricia Lewin [58:58] Yes, and it started as a short story, and it just kind of, because I was trying to have her reconcile where she was at the end of the book, and it just became much bigger than a short story can handle and, and basically she has to come to terms with the kind of person she is. And she is basically a protector. That’s what her, her whole thing in life has been she’s a protector and a warrior and she’s been fighting that forever. And in this book, she has to come to terms with what she is. And what she is meant, why she is here. Does that sound a little too philosophical for you?
Patricia McLinn [59:34] No, no. Pat, where can readers find out more about when Out of the Woods is coming out and about your other books?
Patricia Lewin [59:43] Well, they can go to my website, which is PatriciaLewin.com and Lewin’s, I have excerpts out there. I have a brief blog, and I will post about Out of the Woods as I get a little further along where I can actually give you a time that’s a little bit closer than early next year.
Patricia McLinn [01:00:10] And how about the romance books?
Patricia Lewin [01:00:11] That’s at PatriciaKeelyn.com. And you spell Keelyn, K-E-E-L-Y-N is much more active than my Lewin website, and I can’t even tell you why that is but that, there’s always something going on there. I’ve blogs and giveaways and things like that. At this point, I don’t have any crossover between the two, and this is actually going to be a question for your readers is that I find that there are a lot of, a lot of romance readers read everything. There’s a lot of crossover that my romance readers will go read my suspense folks. I don’t find that there’s crossover the other way around, and so I’ve been considering putting both websites under an umbrella site with links to both websites so that you can cross over, and I’m not sure whether that’s a good idea or not.
So I’d love to hear what readers think about that an umbrella site that would either be my, I don’t know, just something where you go to one place, and then you can go to either my suspense books or my romance books. So I’d love to hear what readers think about that.
Patricia McLinn [01:01:18] Okay, and we will also have those URLs and others in the show notes for folks to find Patricia’s books. Now, we come to the what I call the epilogue. Rapid-fire either/or questions.
Patricia Lewin [01:01:36] Okay.
Patricia McLinn [01:01:37] No warnings. Well, I’ll give you a warm up one, appetizer or dessert?
Patricia Lewin [01:01:43] Appetizer.
Patricia McLinn [01:01:44] Day or night?
Patricia Lewin [01:01:45] Day.
Patricia McLinn [01:01:46] Toenail polish or bare?
Patricia Lewin [01:01:48] Toenail polish? After you said bare, I’m thinking Bears. I’m going, what is one thing have to do with the other.
Patricia McLinn [01:01:54] You’re thinking EAR instead of ARE.
Patricia Lewin [01:01:57] Exactly. Polish, definitely polished
Patricia McLinn [01:02:00] Tea or coffee?
Patricia Lewin [01:02:01] Coffee.
Patricia McLinn [01:02:02] Dog or cat?
Patricia Lewin [01:02:03] Cat.
Patricia McLinn [01:02:04] Knew we wouldn’t agree on that one.
Patricia Lewin [01:02:05] Yeah.
Patricia McLinn [01:02:06] Which is eerier to you, an owl hooting or coyotes howling?
Patricia Lewin [01:02:11] Coyotes.
Patricia McLinn [01:02:12] Sailboat or motorboat?
Patricia Lewin [01:02:15] Sailboat.
Patricia McLinn [01:02:16] Save the best for last or grab the best first?
Patricia Lewin [01:02:19] Save the best for last.
Patricia McLinn [01:02:21] Paint or wallpaper?
Patricia Lewin [01:02:23] Paint.
Patricia McLinn [01:02:23] Mountains or beach?
Patricia Lewin [01:02:25] Oh, this is a really hard one because I can never make up my mind. I used to play this with my daughter, and I love both the mountains and the beach, so I would have to have a mountainous beach. I really don’t know the answer to that one because I love them both
Patricia McLinn [01:02:39] Cake or ice cream?
Patricia Lewin [01:02:41] Ice cream.
Patricia McLinn [01:02:42] Yoga or walk?
Patricia Lewin [01:02:44] Walk.
Patricia McLinn [01:02:45] Garden or house decorating?
Patricia Lewin [01:02:47] Do I have to do either? Probably house decorating of the two would-be least of the two evils.
Patricia McLinn [01:02:55] I was good guessing that one. Leggings are sweats?
Patricia Lewin [01:03:00] Sweats.
Patricia McLinn [01:03:01] Cowboy boots are hiking boots?
Patricia Lewin [01:03:03] Hiking boots.
Patricia McLinn [01:03:04] Oh, I thought that might be another do I have to do—
Patricia Lewin [01:03:06] To be honest, I don’t like boots period of any kind, and cowboy boots, you know, hiking boots have a function cowboy boots, don’t seem to have one. Well, I guess if you’re a cowboy.
Patricia McLinn [01:03:10] Yes, they do.
Patricia Lewin [01:03:12] If you’re a cowboy, they are, but—
Patricia McLinn [01:03:20] Okay. Well, it’s been lots of fun to have one of my longtime, we won’t say oldest, we’ll say one of my longtime writing buddies here, and hope that the listeners will come back for another session of Authors Love Readers and hope you have a great week of reading.
Patricia Lewin [01:03:39] Thanks, Pat.
Patricia McLinn [01:03:40] Thank you. That’s the show for this week. Hope you enjoyed it and thank you for joining Authors Love Readers podcast. Remember, you can always find out more about our guest authors in the show notes and you can find out more about me, at www.patriciamclinn.com. You can also send in questions to be asked of future authors at podcast@authorslovereaders.com. Until next week wishing you lots of happy reading.
Bye.