Please join me in welcoming John J. Smith, author of Finding Katie to My Reading Room today. Enjoy the guest blog and be sure and enter the giveaway at the end!
Writing Finding Katie by John J. Smith
Finding
Katie came to me out of nowhere, and I mean that in all seriousness. I wanted
to write a comedy but the story had to be unique compared to what I’ve written
in the past and I wondered how I could take the simple log line, “A young man's
sister becomes missing, and while he ventures out to find her, he stumbles onto
the zany, insane, and criminal world he never knew existed.”
I
wanted to take a “person” and toss him/her into a scenario they’d never been in
and I felt it couldn’t be a woman; I just didn’t get a good feeling about a
naïve woman running around in a bad neighborhood looking for her brother. It
wasn’t that she wasn’t strong enough but there were certain things I wanted to
have in the story that I thought a naïve young man would pull off better. I
feel Preston Meadow did it for me. He is kind and considerate but extremely
naïve and clumsy, but, he was very likable and had the best intentions.
The
only thing I really knew when the idea came to me was that I wanted a little
suspense, a little drama, and a touch of paranormal wrapped in the middle of a
comedy storyline.
The
major research was on the therapeutic end of Preston. He had major issues with
his parents and I had to research several things I found wrong with him; I
actually worked with a therapist to get the details down right. Preston suffered
from various issues caused by his father and he constantly talked (or wrote in
his journal) about those issues throughout the book. Of course living in a
homeless shelter didn’t help. He stumbled onto issues that were as bad as his
and that in it self forced the research to expand somewhat more than I had
originally planned. I want to thank Catherine Burton for her help, and
especially her patience, there were issues mentioned in Finding Katie that was
somewhat difficult to get my hands around without destroying it or making light
of some very serious situations.
About Finding Katie
The very wealthy and
very sheltered Preston Meadows lives his life protected from even the
hint of harm. His world is safe and secure until someone kidnaps his
sister, Katie. Against his parents’ wishes, Preston sets out on his own
to find her. Preston works hard to blend in with the “regular” people
roaming the streets of Dallas – but the real world is zany, insane, full
of danger and ruthless criminals. Preston soon begins to learn more
about himself and finds he has a knack for foiling certain crimes. In
his adventures, during his search for his sister, he makes friends with
some of the strangest people he could ever imagine. Along the way,
Preston falls in love, comes face-to-face with a self-described Drug
Lord, and discovers a side of himself he never knew existed, especially
after the Drug Lord kidnaps his girlfriend.
Giveaway
The giveaway is open international, US/Canada has the option to win a print copy of the book, international can win an ebook (US/Canada can win an ebook as well if they choose). Simply fill out the Rafflecopter below to enter.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
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