Wednesday, May 9, 2012

A Guest Post by Cat Connor

You guys know me by now. If there's a dog involved, I'm a sucker. But this young woman seems to have herself together even beyond her greyhound, and I'm please to have Cat Connor here to talk a little about the space that she's used to create her series of books.

Please welcome Cat Connor to Suspense Novelist.



New Zealander Cat Connor is the author of The_byte series of FBI thrillers published by Rebel ePublishers. So far the series contains killerbyte, terrorbyte, exacerbyte, and Flashbyte - her latest thriller about the life of SSA Ellie Conway. Her first novel, killerbyte, was a finalist in the 2010 EPIC awards.


Cat spends her days writing with her rescue greyhound - Romeo, keeping her company.







Hello!

Probably best if I start with an introduction.

Hi, I’m Cat Connor. I write thrillers. (I have an overwhelming compulsion to add - it’s been 7 weeks since my latest book was released.)

I write the _byte series which is a series of novels about FBI Supervisory Special Agent Ellie Conway. Honestly, I have so much fun writing, it should be illegal.

When I was thinking about writing this post and how I’d write this post I started to think about where I work and how my workspace has changed over the years, so I thought I’d tell you a little bit about how and where I write.

Once upon a time (because all good stories start like that) there was a writer who was also a mum. She had so many children she didn’t know what to do. Actually, it was more like she couldn’t get any peace. Her desk used to sit at the end of the dining room under the windows and face into the room. All the better to keep an eye of the small ones and supervise the goings on of the fledglings.

So she worked away at her desk, going slowly mad with the noise and the constant questions. Eventually, she happened upon a brilliant idea and moved her desk to the laundry room. The laundry room was a long narrow room and much of it wasted space. Finally she had her own area. To make sure it stayed her own space she fitted an alarm to the interior door. She also discovered the joy of being able to sit at her desk with the back door open and smoke. It worked fine over the summer. The older children watched the smaller ones. The noise was muffled by doors.

Then came winter. It was cold in the laundry room. She gave up smoking and moved her desk back into the dining room. With a sigh she was back into the chaos and the laughter that comes with a gaggle of young ones.

But to her delight, she’d managed to finish what would be her first published novel, killerbyte. Then the redecoration happened. No more windows at the end of the dining room. Now it was a ranch slider to a deck. The desk had grown into a large corner desk. The youngest child was at school. The house was her oyster. The large corner desk moved to between the dining room and living room. Another book was born. Along with it came another baby. The most beautiful baby in all the land. So with the bassinet at the end of her desk she wrote and wrote and searched and searched. Until one day she stumbled upon a home for her work and a new position for her desk.

Since then, the desk has bounced about from living room corner to living room corner and the most beautiful baby in all the land is now the most beautiful 6 year old in all the land. There are now 4 byte novels out in the wide wide world and a 5th sitting on the desk of the magical editor at Rebel ePublishers.










Woken by the news that she’d been strangled in a parking lot, SSA Conway knew it was going to be an interesting day.

The incident escalated into a week from hell with bank robberies, snipers, truly bizarre packages, and more reports of her death. What Ellie did not expect was old friends (good and bad) reappearing, see-sawing with more than the usual amount of kickass energy. Just so Delta A didn’t get bored, the universe tossed in an extraordinary rendition, lost memory, and a visit to the past that anchored the present. 

Links:

Buy links for Flashbyte:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cat-Connor/76140493745



Thank you Cat, for spending some time at Suspense Novelist.

It's all better with friends.





8 comments:

  1. Thank you for having me over!

    Cheers,
    Cat

    ReplyDelete
  2. You're more than welcome. The Internet makes our world so much smaller.

    I have a question for you. How does a girl from New Zealand write about the FBI?

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  3. Ah, that question. Well, I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you. ;-)

    The truth is, it just happened that way. My main character rocked up and told me who she was and that was that.

    Also, it makes for amazing research trips!! ;-)

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  4. Don't you just love it when a character insists you get out of your comfort zone?

    Cat, if you haven't hooked up with Crime Scene Writers or Sisters in Crime (both groups have former FBI members) you might consider them as resources. Crime Scene Writers is a free group on yahoo, SinC is a paid membership group with a lot of great benefits.

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  5. My characters are kinda head strong and don't take no for an answer... it makes life interesting!!

    Thanks for the information, Peg! I will definitely check the groups out.

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  6. Totally awesome blurb you have for your book! I love it! Glad to get to know you here!

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  7. Great post, Cat.
    Although, I never thought your desktop would look so neat and organized. I must be confusing you with somebody else, right? :-)

    ReplyDelete