AUTHOR INTRO: Carol Shenold

Carol Shenold is a freelance writer and teacher. She's been writing and publishing for over twenty years. Her Infection Control textbooks are still in print and being sold by HCPro. Her most current Infection Control book is being readied for international publication. Her first novel, "Privy to Murder" has been released and scored a 4star review. "Privy to Murder "also placed in the Frontiers of Writing contest in 2007.

Please visit Carol at her blog, http://carol-carolsinkspot.blogspot.com/ or her website http://www.freewebs.com/carolshenold.

Privy To Murder

Mag the Ghost wasn't going to be any easier to deal with in death than Mag the Terror had been in life. Living in Love, Texas, in her childhood home, shouldn't have been end of the world. But Tali Cates can't see the good things with her eyes clouded by murder and mayhem. The first party for her event planning business, Party On, is marred when Tali finds the hostess's dead body in the outhouse, the woman's ghost hovering above.

Ever since her paranormal gifts ruined her marriage, Tali Cates has tried to suppress her abilities. Now, living at home with her son and her mother and trying to support her family, Tali is faced with a vengeful ghost, intent on ruining her life unless she solves her murder as well as some very human elements with violent intent. Now Tali has to come face to face with the very things she tried to leave behind, her gifts and violence.

http://www.freewebs.com/carolshenold

What would you like your readers to take away from your book?

The importance of family and being true to yourself and who you really are. At the same time, I write because I love it, not to teach a lesson. If the reader can have a few laughs and a couple of hours of pleasure, I'm happy.

What have you learned throughout the process of writing, pitching - and now, promoting your book?

That I really wish I'd know what I wanted to be when I grew up before I had another whole career. Then I might have started trying to publish earlier in life and could have been writing that much longer.

What are three things you wish you'd known before you reached where you are now?

Write what you read (I know, trite but true, as I found out when I tried to write a sweet romance early in my career (Not a sweet romance kind of girl, my romance has to have extra spice thrown in like a murder, a ghost, maybe even an otherworldly creature.

Write through your first draft without revising. Then revise the finished manuscript. (I can kill a story trying to perfect the first paragraph.)

Write because you love the process of writing, not because you just want to have finished writing. (You spend lots of your life in the actual process.)

What aspect of writing do you love the best, and which do you hate the most?

I love the actual writing, especially when it flows and when I get a hand written note from the lady who delivers the newspaper, saying how much she is enjoying the story. Now that's cool.

I don't always love the 10th revision because by then I'm seeing what I think should be there and not what I actually write. Then there are the business aspects like marketing. Takes time from the actual writing.

What's your secret to balancing career and family?

There's no secret but one thing that works for me is trying to be organized, haveing goals, daily word counts, an outline or roadmap of some kind. Then I don't get lost in the middle.