Amey Zeigler Interview Published on: 22, Dec 2020

Alaska. It was a magical place to spend a childhood. Winters were cold and dark, but we looked forward to ice skating and sledding. (I also was too young to drive so winter was always so thrilling instead of stressful.) We'd usually have at least a few feet of snow on the ground from October to April. One time, the city plowed the streets and piled up snow as high as the street signs. And I loved the northern lights. The greens and blues looked as if you could almost touch them.

Of course summer there is amazing! The sun doesn't set until like three a.m., and Alaskans, tired of being cooped up all winter, just want to play all summer long. My father was a fisherman so we largely spent those long summer days/nights fishing along the banks of the Kenai, Moose, or the Russian rivers. I can still smell the fish bait and mosquito repellant that were the perpetual scents of summer. July was the salmon run and then we smoked and/or canned our catches. August meant blueberry picking and preserving or baking blueberry treats.

Alaska also has a unique culture. I loved learning about Native Alaskans' way of life and their myths and legends.

Hard. Just kidding. Sort of. Moving around was definitely a blessing. I got to see large swaths of America. I learned how to adapt, to be resilient, and to fit into new "cultures." Even in the US, there is a vast difference between east and west, north and south. I made a ton of friends and used to write and receive about two letters a week in my childhood (oops, I just dated myself!) There were some challenges, too. I went to three high schools for example. Leaving friends has always been hard for me.

Oh my gosh! It was also a romance! Hahah! The main character girl had to stay at the cute boy's house for some reason, and they solved the mystery together. The clues were ridiculous and didn't make any sense. (Like the villian lived on the street that was my brother's name backwards. We still use that expression if I watch a movie and the clues are non-sensensical or the mystery plot has massive holes: Nillad St. strikes again.)

Orchestra instruments were the only ones we could play in fourth grade. All the other instruments (like woodwinds or brass), we had to wait until fifth grade. I was impatient to try my hand at music. I loved to try new things. I still do! My husband says I have a short attention span because I pick up something and try it then try something else. Sadly, the violin class was in the middle of Reading Time at school, and Mrs. Martin was reading aloud The Girl with the Silver Eyes to us. I stayed to listen to the book rather than go to orchestra. That should've tipped off my parents where my future was going. :)

I'm weird because I love action flicks--Mission Impossible, Bourne series, Indiana Jones etc. There is always something BIG at stake in an action movie. And I love puzzles to solve--if there's a mystery involved--BONUS! I love seeing people overcome physically challenging situations in creative ways. And I love to laugh. Laughter is very healing. And those types of movies can have varied settings and tropes. Some of my favorite action-adventure-comedy movies: I Love Trouble, Charade, Maverick, Princess Bride

When I wrote the first draft, I didn't really know where I was going. This was actually the second book I wrote, though it was published first. I had the idea for the character of Andy Baker being an investigative journalist who solves local crimes. When her stepbrother got murdered (it was originally her ex-boyfriend), the stakes jumped really high, and I was a little afraid of where it would take me. I was afraid I couldn't go any higher. So the challenge was to keep raising the stakes. I really loved Charade because the main character woman was never quite sure if she trusted the male lead. I wanted that kind of doubt laced throughout my book. So I just worked with deception and reaction, then thought of a really cool twist after learning about how Brandon Sanderson writes. Although he writes Sci-Fi and Fantasy, he always has a nice twist in the end without cheating. Not a lot of writers can do that.

The Swiss Mishap is such a great story. It's based on some experiences my friend Regina and I had while living in Vevey, Switzerland as missionaries. Living in a foreign land, speaking another language about deeply held beliefs is one of the hardest things I've done in my life, but also the most rewarding. We had a lot of laughs, too. The book is dedicated to Regina for that reason. She is a very quiet person who went out of her comfort zone to share a message she believed in. She was courageous and one of my heroes so she needed to be immortalized in a book.

The One Scoop or Two is actually a series of books put together by my publisher, The Wild Rose Press. They gave authors a challenge: to write about ice cream in a setting near water. I wanted to write about a different setting, not just your typical beach. I had gone back to Alaska with my daughter when she was not yet 12 and showed her all the places I lived when I was her age. We visited a little ice cream shop in Seward while we were there. So when my publisher opened the submission's call and issued the challenge, I knew exactly where I wanted to set it--in a struggling ice cream shop in Seward, Alaska.

I wish I had learned more grammar in school. I might have missed the unit bouncing around the nation. I have always struggled with spelling, too. My editor is like a sound engineer for a vocalist. She auto-tunes all my words. :)

I have three kids at home so they are my first priority. On a regular non-2020 school day, I send them off to school, exercise while listening to motivational talks, then do chores/run errands, then sit down to write at about 11 or so and write until the youngest gets home in the afternoon. It's important to me to be at those crossroads for my kids. Sometimes I get back to writing in the evening, but usually I'm the taxicab taking all my kids to different activities. This year was a little crazy with virtual school, but the evenings have been freer which is nice. I've been able to work on my audiobooks this year.

I have a newsletter which I send out once or twice a month. You can sign up on my website at www.ameyzeigler.com. I also try to be active on Social Media mostly Instagram and my author page on Facebook. I do tweet occasionally, and I love the supportive writer community on Twitter, but it takes a lot of time to stay on top of that one. @ameyzeigler

Character growth. Good/proper motivations. Secrets. A moral lesson.

I've been watching a lot of movies that have, in my mind, really bombed in storytelling. I ask myself what went wrong? Where did it go off the rails? I can usually nail it down to those four things. If the character isn't changing, the story feels stale. If I don't believe the motivations of why a character is doing something, it pulls me out of the story. If there are secrets or puzzles, I must know the answer and that keeps me glued in, but if there isn't one, I grow bored. The moral lesson is usually more subtle and goes along with character change. If the character doesn't learn anything, what was the point of the story? If I didn't learn anything about myself or about the way human nature works, then why did I waste my time? Even "popcorn movies" like Legally Blonde had a moral lesson to it.

I have a second Baker's Dozen book that's with my editor right now. The second book is always the hardest I think. Baker's Dozen took me years to write so to come up with something as good as the first one was rather daunting. I struggled to find the right plot points. I decided to change the plot trope. Instead of a suspense novel, this one is closer to a cozy mystery. I was watching/reading a lot of Agatha Christie at the time so maybe that's why it leans a little cozy. It still has a ton of weird plot turns, and some crazy twists, but it's less violent than the first one.

Oh, I'm always working on something. Let's see. I have three books in with my editor. We'll see if she wants to do all the auto-tuning on them :).

The first book is Certainly Will Die, the book two of Baker's Dozen. I'm really excited about how this one turned out. Of course it's an action-adventure-romantic-comedy set in Spain, London, Scotland, and Hong Kong. Not only is there one hot guy, but now there are two hot guys! I can't wait for you to meet Spencer!

The second book is Casserole, a women's fiction with strong romantic element set in St. Louis. The main character needs to rebuild a new life after a tragic divorce. She and her kids rehab an old house and help the neighborhood as well.

The third book is called Wylder Bride. It's a Cyrano de Bourgerac-meets-mail-order-bride-meets-Wild-West. Set in 1879 in a fictional Wylder Wyoming, this manuscript has action, adventure, and comedy. Maisie is part of the Boston elite. She wants to get married but no one in her circle of friends has the kind heart she's looking for in a mate. So she writes a stranger in Wyoming Territory looking for a wife, only he's not who he says he is. It has some fun elements including a nasty villain because it wouldn't be a western without a shoot out.

Oh, let's see, 2017 or 18? It was after my first book came out. I started looking for other platforms to reach more audiences. So far it's been pretty good. They've been helpful.