Annette Dashofy is the USA Today best-selling author of the two-time Agatha-nominated Zoe Chambers mystery series about a paramedic and deputy coroner in rural Pennsylvania’s tight-knit Vance Township. With a Vengeance, the fourth in the series, was released in May. Dashofy and her husband live on part of what used to be her grandfather’s dairy farm with one very spoiled cat.
What made you decide to be an author?
I don’t think it was ever a conscious decision. My first “stories” were written in crayon! It was simply something I did. In high school, I wrote “novels” in pencil, longhand in lined notebooks. I’d write a chapter or two, pass the notebook/novel around to my “fans” in study hall. They’d give it back and demand I keep writing. Real life got in the way of my fiction for a number of years, but I always wrote, whether it was content for newsletters or promotional copy for the photography business my husband and I ran. The fiction bug bit me hard again back in 2003 when I had a vivid dream that begged to be fleshed out. But as always, it wasn’t so much a decision as a necessity to write.
Do you outline or fly by the seat of you pants?
Oh, my. I’ve done both as well as hybrid versions. I mostly flew by the seat of my pants on the book that comes out in the spring and had so much revising to do, I’ve sworn never to do that again. I need at least a loose outline to make sure the story makes sense. I’m working with a pretty detailed outline for the book I’m currently drafting. Granted, the definition of “outline” varies from writer to writer. I could probably write a whole book on the different versions I’ve seen.
What non-crime books do you enjoy reading?
There are other books out there besides crime? (Gasps in shock.) I do read a lot of crime fiction, from noir to romantic suspense. However, when I pick up something outside of my genre it’s often a Western. Everyone who really knows me, knows how much I love Westerns, be they books or TV shows. However I sometimes indulge in women’s fiction, autobiographies (especially humorous ones), and an occasional Stephen King thriller.
How do you handle rejection or bad reviews?
While I would like to tell you I’m so thick-skinned that these things have no effect on me anymore, I think it’s more accurate to say I’m not so much thick-skinned as fast-healing. I tend to gnash my teeth, mutter, and threaten to buy a voodoo doll at first. But after a few hours (or few days depending on the source of the rejection), I shrug it off and keep writing. For the most part I’ve stopped reading my reviews. Or I look at them with my hands over my eyes, peeking between my fingers. The last bad one I read made me laugh. And yell. Because the reviewer’s reasons for the slam were dead wrong! I wanted to tell her to “Read the darned book!”Of course, my number one rule is: DO NOT ENGAGE. Anyhow, to sum it up, I give myself permission to sulk, but only briefly, and then forget about it.
What advice would you give to beginning writers?
I have three bits of advice I always share to aspiring writers. 1.) Learn your craft. Join a writing organization or group and take the workshops and classes they offer. 2.) Write the best book you can write and then revise, revise, revise. And 3.) Never give up. Go back and look at my answer about rejection. Yeah, it stings. But don’t give anyone the power to quash your dream. Keep writing. Keep revising. Keep pounding away. The one and only sure way of never getting published is to stop trying.