It’s All About the Book…
Please
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Title: Time Runs Away With Her
Blurb: It’s
not easy being Bean. Bean Donohue lives for her guitar, but her mom threw her
out of the house during a snowstorm for singing. No way she’s going to
get permission to go see The Grateful Dead at the Fillmore East. Zak, her
almost-boyfriend, will get drafted if he doesn’t get into art school. Pot makes
Bean paranoid and her best friend can’t stop talking about sex. 1970’s not for
wimps--but neither was 1885...or 1945. So why does Bean keep sliding backwards
in time?
What is
this book’s genre? Is this the genre you
usually write in? Are there any genres
you haven’t written that you’d like to try?
Time Runs
Away With Her is paranormal romance, a time travel story. It’s far from my usual genre: I’m a
poet. Dirty job, but somebody’s got to
do it. I’m loving writing this
genre. Who doesn’t love love? And I’ve been into the paranormal since I
discovered my mom’s old Ouija board when I was in sixth grade. Plus my favorite fantasy is being able to
time travel. Some day I might want to
try a straightforward YA coming-of-age book, but the fantastic elements are
such fun to write that I don’t know when I’ll get to it.
What
inspired you to write this book?
A book totally like and totally UNLIKE this book inspired
it. I was on Prince Edward Island, and I
read Anne of Green Gables for the
first time—as an adult. That got me got thinking about how much I’d loved
another YA classic: A Wrinkle In Time,
by Madeleine L’Engle. So, I wanted to write time travel, and I wanted to have
the main time-setting in my book be the one of my own high school days:
1970. And like Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne books, I wanted my book to really
feel like where it was as well as when it was. My main character has red hair as a shout-out
to Anne. Except there’s a Grateful Dead concert. And a peace demonstration. And, like I said, time travel.
How did
you pick its title? Did it come first or
did you have to write the story first?
I wrote the story first.
For a long time, I just referred to what I was writing as The Bean Book, after Bean Donohue, my
main character. But as I got deeper into
the book and into the way Bean time travels, the title popped into mind. Time really does “run away with her.”
How did
you create your characters? Did you use
any real life people in their making?
Time Runs
Away With Her is fiction.
Sure, I started with a grid of people who were important to me in high
school: my mom, my best friend, my first real boyfriend. That said, once I got the story rolling, the
characters turned into who they are in the book. Drafting fiction is kind of magical that way;
characters show up and tell you who they want to be. So no one is really my old
friend or my mom. Or me. My real high
school best friend was WAY tougher and smarter than the boy-crazy best friend
in this book. My high school boyfriends were cool guys, but not noble Old
Souls. I used my best friend’s canopy
bed and her white furniture, not who she was—at all!
Who is
your favorite character of this book and why?
Tough question. I like
‘em all, even my terrible bad guy. Zak
Grant, the boyfriend, is close to my heart.
He’s an absurdist, and I like that. Kind of a Bugs Bunny type. He’s also got a
huge, loyal heart. And he’s very striking physically: long, white-blond hair,
tall, army jacket and jeans. I’m very
fond of my radical priest, Father Tollman.
He’s a shout-out to my old inspirer Madeleine L’Engle, and a minor
character, but very fun to write. I love Janis Joplin wanna-be Samantha,
despite her recklessness and her shoplifting peanut butter cups.
What is
your favorite part of this book? Can you
share an excerpt from that part?
Hard to do that without
spoilers! It was fun writing the time
travel sequences, but I want you to experience them as Bean does—as a total
surprise. I managed to get my parents mad enough to throw me out in the snow
once when I was in high school, and I used that to write the opening of the
book. I like rereading that:
Snowflakes spangled the long red hair
spilling over Bean’s collar. Only three blocks to Zak’s house, she told
herself––but that was nuts. She was also well on the way to Suzanne’s if
she kept going. In one house she passed, a couple sat, facing away from their
picture window, watching a woman in a sparkly red gown singing into a
microphone on TV. Blue light from the screen flickered out into the night. Zak probably gives drawings to everyone,
Bean thought. Mine’s only a
doodle. Doesn’t mean anything. There
was almost no traffic, just the occasional car driving by slowly and almost
silently in the snow.
Then she was at the corner of Route 8E and Sickles Avenue. Zak’s house
was two doors down, on Sickles. Bean had seen the school bus drop him off there
back when they were in junior high, before everyone was way too cool to ride
it: The Loser Cruiser. She looked down Sickles. Snow falling under
the streetlights made the night a little less dark.
What was it Mr. Kaminsky had said about frostbite in Health? She
couldn’t actually have frostbite,
could she? Bean slipped one hand out of its glove and felt the tip of her
nose just to make sure. How could you tell, really? Maybe you could
have creeping frostbite. Stealth
frostbite.
“Oh, HELL,” she said out loud to nobody, and
turned left. This really was a special situation.
The
windows of Zak’s house were mostly dark, but upstairs were some orange paisley
curtains with lights on behind them. It looked like someone was maybe watching
TV downstairs, too.
But
there was no car in Zak’s driveway. Probably only Zak’s mom was out.
That would be a good thing, right? Bean knew Zak was like her in one way:
his parents were divorced. What would he think if she knocked on his
door? Were girls even supposed to do that? She shuffled through the snow
and stood for a moment in front of the house, stomping the stadium boots to
warm her feet.
A
shadow passed behind the paisley curtains, and Bean’s stomach lurched. Was that Zak? She thought of how far it was to Suzanne’s house, of the
walk back to her own house, of her mom closing the drapes. Then,
she stumbled up Zak’s slippery front steps, and rang the bell.
What was
the hardest part of this book to write? Can you share an excerpt from that part?
Making my bad guy bad enough and conflicted enough to do what
he finally does was very hard. I’m a
gentle soul. I had to come from real
anger and pain to write him--and remember hurtful things that had been done to
me and use those feelings. And I had to
build his bullying confusion early on in the book, so that meant going back and
rewriting and adding stuff like this:
Bean leaned against the wall next to
the library door as Zak kissed her. Classes were changing, and the hall seemed
extra-noisy with her eyes closed: laughter, footsteps … locker doors. She felt someone bump into Zak, hard.
“Ear Wax,” said Don. She opened her eyes. Don and Blair stood beside Zak. “Eaaarrr Wax,” Don said again.
That is so totally moronic, thought
Bean.
“Ya know...”
Zak said. Don snickered.
“I got tickets for Friday,” said Blair,
although it was hard to say whom he was talking to. His eyes were always all over the place. He was wearing the black and red paisley
shirt Bean had helped Suzanne pick out for his last birthday. They’d gotten it
in Constant Karma, and it was much hipper than the madras button-downs he
usually wore. “I can’t believe you’re going!” he said, his eyes finally
settling on Bean.
Oh.
That was meant for me, she thought. He’s
actually talking to me. Blair hadn’t
said more than a handful of sentences to Bean in all the time he’d been going
out with Suzanne.
“Well, I am,” she said. “I’ve been into the Dead a lot lately.” She glanced up at Zak,
again, and he cleared his throat loudly.
“As I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted,” Zak said. He turned
away from Don and Blair, and pulled Bean up into another kiss, lifting her
almost off her feet. “My house after school, when you and Suzanne get done playing
tunes?” he said.
“Like four-thirty, quarter of five,” she
said. Zak grinned a huge, silly grin.
But then he grabbed Blair by the chin and leaned in about an inch from
his nose. Bean sucked in her breath, and watched as Blair’s face went red.
Blair
is going to hit him, she thought. He is totally going to...
“Turn On Your Love Light!” Zak sang out.
Then he turned back to Bean and Don. “An
R&B classic written by Bobby Blue Bland,” he said in a fake radio-announcer
voice, “and performed by The Grateful Dead on their latest hit album, Live Dead.”
“Jesus Christ,
Grant.” Blair unclenched the hand he’d made into a fist. Five seconds later, his eyes were as
unreadable as ever.
“Au revoir, amigos!” Zak said,
pecked Bean on the cheek, and ran for the stairs to the third floor and
math. Bean watched him disappear into
the crowd of kids heading for class.
She started down the hall to Social Studies,
and Blair fell in step beside her. Ugh,
thought Bean, but there was nothing she could do about it. Suzanne’s boyfriend, after all. She wondered if he really would have punched
Zak. Was Blair the one who’d shoved her and Zak or was it Don? Don had
peeled off in the direction of the cafeteria. First Lunch started at
10:54. How anyone could face cafeteria
Sloppy Joes at that hour was beyond Bean, but everyone knew Don would eat
anything, anytime.
“So, I never see you at track meets,” Blair
was saying to her.
Oh!
He’s actually talking to me again. “Yeah, I guess not,” said Bean. This was weird.
“Seriously. I didn’t know you liked The Dead,” he said.
“I do.
I mean, I like them better now that Zak turned me on to their early stuff, but...”
“You and Grant.”
Blair made an odd, snorting noise in the back of his throat.
Did you
have any special rhythm or quirks while writing this?
I wrote a bunch of it on a long-distance train coming back to
New York from Hedgebrook, a writing retreat for women on an island off
Washington State. I’d gotten stuck in Seattle after Hurricane Sandy. And then I just pounded on it until it was
done. About a zillion drafts. It was a first novel.
Is this a
stand-alone book or is it part of a series?
If so, we want to hear about it and what’s next in the series. If not a series, what comes next to be
released?
I’m beginning to work on a sequel: same characters, same main
time setting: the year 1970. Bean will
travel in time again, and her understanding of why she gets to do it will
change pretty dramatically. There’s also
a little FM radio station that’s central to the new book. I did college radio and a wee bit of FM back
then, and it’s been fun writing that! Bean, Zack, Samantha, and Suzanne are
still telling me what’s going to happen.
* * * * *
Time Runs
Away with Her
Christine
Potter
Time Travel Romantic Suspense, 74k
Time Travel Romantic Suspense, 74k
It’s not easy being Bean. Bean
Donohue lives for her guitar, but her mom threw her out of the house during a
snowstorm for singing. No way she’s going to get permission to go
see The Grateful Dead at the Fillmore East.
Zak, her
almost-boyfriend, will get drafted if he doesn’t get into art school, pot makes
Bean paranoid, and her best friend can’t stop talking about sex. 1970’s not for
wimps—but neither was 1885...or 1945. So why does Bean keep sliding backwards
in time?
* * * * *
Author Bio:
Christine Potter lives in a small
town not far from the setting of Time
Runs Away With Her, near the mighty Hudson River, in a very old (1740)
house with two ghosts. According to a
local ghost investigator, the ghosts are harmless, “just very old spirits who
don’t want to leave.” She doesn’t want them to.
Christine’s
house contains two pipe organs (her husband is a choir director/organist), two
spoiled tom cats, and too many books.
She’s also a poet, and the author of two collections of verse, Zero Degrees at First Light, and Sheltering in Place. Christine taught English and Creative Writing
for years in the Clarkstown Schools. She
DJ’s free form rock and roll weekly on Area24radio.com, and plays guitar,
dulcimer, and tower chimes.
Website: http://chrispygal.weebly.com/
Facebook
book page for Time Runs Away: * https://www.facebook.com/beanstravels?fref=ts
Twitter:
@chrispygal
Giveaway:
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