[♪♪♪] -♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ [♪♪♪] -Welcome, I'm Rose Martin, and we are Write Around The Corner in beautiful Pennhook, Virginia at this horse barn with some brand-new friends, that I think are gonna make an appearance shortly, with RITA award-winning romance novelist Inglath Cooper.

She has a collection of books that I know you're going to love.

We're going to discuss two of them today, Blue Wide Sky and That Weekend in Paris .

They often take place in a small Virginia town, similar to where she grew up.

And let's face it, who does not love a great romance story?

Inglath, welcome to Write Around The Corner .

-Thank you so much for having me.

-Well, and thank you for inviting us to this amazing space.

And tell us about your friends who are taking up space with us today.

-These are our horses.

Behind us, Willa, our 18-year-old pony.

Zeus, my big boy here, and London.

Collin, and Costello, that my daughter and daughters ride in the jumper world.

-How wonderful.

And this is such a beautiful setting.

How long have you been involved with horses?

I know you're quite an animal advocate.

-I grew up riding ponies and loving horses.

And after I got out of college, I started riding and doing dressage and did that until I had children.

And then my horses that were then retired, my girls learned how to ride on some.

And then started taking lessons when they were seven and moved on to doing the jumpers.

And we have these big guys now and Willa who's retired from her life as their school pony, so.

-So, they, they fell in love with horses, like you.

How about writers?

Are they also writers?

-I don't have a writer yet.

I have some breeders but saw a little bit of that, but don't have a writer yet.

-Well, maybe, we never know.

So, you said a lot of the-- we know a lot of your books are, at least the Smith Mountain Lake series, set in small town, Virginia, but you also have a point of making sure that those values and characteristics are part of your characters.

Did you grow up in this area?

-I did.

I grew up in Franklin County and my grandmother had a place on Smith Mountain Lake that was left to her by her father.

He had a farm on the lake, and when the dam was built.

in 1962, I believe it was finished, his farm, a lot of the land became part of the lake.

And so, a good bit of it that he kept ended up being divided by the children, but we grew up going to family reunions there and swimming in the lake and it wasn't fancy, but I have wonderful memories of those days.

And it forged my love for this lake and the area.

And my husband and I ended up being fortunate enough to buy this farm about 20 years ago.

It had been on the market for some time, and we just.

love it here.

It's home.

-I do too.

And I think Carol and I would have liked to move in with you.

It's a little piece of heaven out here, which is just so fabulous.

-Thank you so much.

-And those values and characteristics that you get from a small town growing up, what are some of those specifics that you try to build into your characters?

-I think a love of community and just the idea of people being there for each other in their time of need, for sure.

But also, in their daily lives, just knowing the people that you see in the grocery store, or when you go to the little places like Carl's up the road here, which has made an appearance in some of my books.

You know, the same people go there for lunch every day.

And it's just, especially today, I think people kind of need that sense of belonging somewhere that feels safe.

And it's very much that to me anyway.

-Well, and you mentioned Carl's and those locations that pop up in your book.

I know I read that you love character driven books, that that's part of the special thing that you think, you know, a character can pull that forward and drive that book.

So, I've.

obviously I'm curious.

Family members, your beautiful daughters, you?

Are they characters that kind of come in and out of your books?

-I don't write about any particular person.

I don't base any character on any particular person, but I think pieces of people I've known show up in my characters, for sure.

Things I either have admired or maybe sometimes not admired.

-Yeah.

[chuckles] -But I think writers certainly use those things to develop their characters because that's what we have to work from, you know, writing what we know without obviously writing someone specific.

-Well, and I hear that a lot, you know, the writers will say, don't try to make something that's not you.

Don't try to go into a world and create something you know nothing about, you know.

It's more authentic and real if you write what you know, and draw and pull from those life experiences.

So, you find that true?

-I do.

And I think when you're a young writer, your thought is, "Well, people won't find that interesting, you know.

What have I done that's interesting?"

And the truth is I think people find authenticity interesting.

And you know, the real things that people deal with every day and our own unique stories, because we all do have a story and you know, our life, as it unravels, is bits and pieces of things that we experience and have to deal with and overcome.

And that's, I think in a book, what interests me is seeing someone start out at a place of difficulty in their lives.

Maybe a crisis point that they think they may not get past, or they don't want to try to get past because they're done.

And then circumstances arise and they meet someone that makes them want to climb that mountain again.

And that's kind of how the story unfolds for me.

-Well, and resiliency is built in there, too, with a lot of your characters as part of it also.

So if I, you know, I know that this, this is a big part of your life, but you're also a huge animal rights activist and take a lot of time to volunteer and to change the lives of so many animals in need.

Why is that so important?

-It's always been important to me.

I have a great empathy for animals because there's a lot of cruelty in the world and there's a lot of kindness, but there's a lot of cruelty.

And being involved in rescue, you kind of see the underbelly of society.

And to be honest with you, before I got very involved with rescue, I kind of didn't know that it existed.

Some days, I wish I didn't, really.

But in trying to be an adult, a responsible adult, I try to do as much as I can to make a difference.

And in my early years in rescue, I was involved with a few people, other people who tried to change the status of our county pound, which when we started working down there, there was a 95 percent kill rate.

And there was nowhere for them to go.

And I saw things that I wish I couldn't still see in my mind, but the flip side of that is enforcing ourselves to look at it, to ask the hard questions.

To ask why?

Why can't this be different?

We were able to help create a situation in this county that did give them a place to go and for them to be adopted and go on to other rescue groups.

And sometimes that's what it takes, being willing to look at it.

And it's very easy not to look at the difficult things in life.

-You've saved a lot of lives and changed a lot of lives for the adopters and the animals, I'm sure.

-It's been very rewarding, for sure.

-How about the writing?

What reward does the writing provide for you?

-I think it's one of those things that just makes me feel successful each day.

I have a few things that I try to get done each day that I feel like, kind of make me who I am.

-What are those?

-Well, I like to work out every day because it just makes me feel better.

And I like to check that box.

I like to get my writing done.

If I don't get new pages written, I try to do editing or on whatever book I'm currently working on.

But, you know, it's those things that make you feel like you're continuing to move ahead in life.

And I try to be deliberate about those.

Nutrition is the other thing.

I'm trying to be healthy, make the juice that day, or have the smoothie every morning and, you know.

Just get those things done that make me be better.

-Yeah.

Well, that's admirable.

And you mentioned the, the process a little bit about how you try to write every day.

Do you have a structure like from certain number of words per day or you get up and write for a certain amount of time per day?

What is that process like for you?

-It's pretty varied, honestly.

And especially in this most recent time I've been home a lot, and what actually works best for me is if I'm doing new writing, I like to go to Starbucks somewhere or just have two or three hours where that's what I do.

And I'm not pulled to do something else or thinking about something else.

But I've kind of had to make a bit of a new structure.

And I guess maybe throughout the course of my writing life, one consistent thing has been I've had to adapt to changes.

And, you know, I had a long life before having children.

My husband and I had children later in life.

And I had a lot of years where I had complete flexibility and I could get up and do it when I wanted.

And then having children, you know, all of a sudden, I was writing during their nap time.

-Surprise.

-In the room with them, waiting for them to go to sleep.

So, you know, you just, you find ways to adapt to whatever is going on in your life, and just make it happen.

I actually do a lot of my writing right now in the car.

I dictate on an app that I have, and I just dictate the story.

And then I send that to be transcribed.

And they send me back a hard copy and I edit from that.

So right now, that's what is working best.

-Your mind is always going.

The mind is always moving.

So, I think you're one of the first that have told me, you're also writing in the car as you're going through dictation, which is a great way to make sure to do that.

What's your favorite part of the process, and what's your least favorite part?

-Favorite part.

I love finishing a book and knowing that it's complete.

That's a really good feeling, you know, to get everything finalized.

And probably the least favorite part is putting those first words on the page for a new book, because you're like, okay, I just wrote 250 words.

So that means I only have a lot left to go.

So that can be a little daunting, but I try to just break it down into, "Today I'm gonna try to write a thousand words, and that's four pages."

And I'm very driven about feeling the need to accomplish a lot and complete a lot.

And sometimes, that works against me, I think, because I don't allow myself to just, you know, feel good about having written those four pages that day.

And that's okay, that's enough.

-That's just not enough.

Yeah.

So, is it plot driven first, or character driven?

Do you plan out all of those characters and then figure out where they're going to go and some of the nuances, or do you have the story first and then develop the characters?

-I wish I could say I was one of those plot people who can just lay out the whole thing in an outline.

I've tried that many times, what works for me is to come up with a character.

I usually start with-- generally it's the female character.

Occasionally it's.

I start with the male character.

I come up with the female character and then I think of the person who's going to also be in the story with her, and then put them in a place.

I know something generally that has recently happened to them that is going to change who they are.

And I kind of just go from there.

-Well, and it's believable and that's what comes through in your work so much is, is the strong character development.

And the fact that I'm either cheering for them or not, or not, in some cases, but that comes through.

But in addition to that character development, I read somewhere that you consider yourself a lyricist and you also are a songwriter.

How does that transfer from novel writing to songwriting?

-Well, I developed a desire at some point to learn how to write lyrics.

And I don't know that I'm a great one, but this is one of those interesting stories in life that I decided that I wanted to go and spend some time in Nashville and learn how to write songs.

And I went and met some wonderful people.

Made some friends that I started co-writing with.

And basically, learned how to write lyrics, but more importantly than that, as it played out for me.

I learned the community of Nashville and what that's all about.

And it.

it's an amazing community of people there.

The songwriters and people involved in the music industry are just incredibly generous with their time and knowledge.

And I kind of learned the story of that life.

And I ended up writing a ten-book series called Nashville based on my experiences there and some characters that I came up with and their desire to become country music singers and-- -Well, and a ten-book series.

That's just not a little bit of, "Let me write a book about my experiences."

I mean, you really go into the detail.

And I think that's why your books are so well-loved is because you want to see what happens next.

-Oh, thank you.

-You want to take the intricacies of the story and give me a little bit more, and give me a little bit more.

Is it hard to go back and forth?

Are you still writing songs or strictly books?

Still doing both?

-I'm not, right now.

I won't say that I will never go back to that, but you know, in my own life, some things happened that I felt the need to kind of put that on the back burner and basically went back to novel writing.

But I think the way I look at it right now is what was given to me out of that experience was those stories that came from it.

And I do have readers ask me for another book in that series.

And I do plan to add another one to it, so.

-Oh, good.

I'm sure that people will be happy to hear that -Oh, thank you.

-I noticed on your website, you've got an area that has inspirational quotes and pictures, and it didn't surprise me because then when I opened up your books, I'm fascinated with how you include at the beginning of the chapter, famous quotes, famous quotes.

Everybody from.

let's see Confucius to Mother Teresa, to Coco Chanel, to so many.

And we're going to talk a lot about that.

But what about those quotes?

And I have to tell you, full disclosure.

I first started and I thought, well, isn't that nice?

She opens up with a sweet little quote.

Then I realized how clever you were that you left clues for us in what you chose to open up all of those chapters.

Fascinating.

Where'd that idea come from?

-Thank you.

I don't know.

I like for each chapter to have some meaning and generally what I do is write the chapter and then I look, go back, and look at it and kind of decide what I think the theme for that chapter is, or the point I would like for people to take away from what happens there.

And then I usually just search that topic until I find something that I think fits.

-And it does.

I mean, it adds so much to the story that I actually found myself looking at the quote and then thinking about it a little bit and then wondering, "Ooh, I wonder where she's going.

Why she put that there?"

Right.

So, let's talk about two of your books and out of the collection.

The most recent is That Weekend in Paris .

And so, we've got a cast of characters from Dillon and Klein, Josh.

So again, there's a little bit of that Nashville feel through here.

So, set me up with that cast of characters and the storyline.

-Yeah.

I kind of wanted to go back to that Nashville feel of characters and about, well, you know, it might be interesting to put them somewhere else and see what happens.

So, I had the idea of this country music star Klein doing a concert in Paris.

And Dillon, who's in the-- she's a songwriter and is intent on starting a publishing company, goes there to meet up with him, and see if she can convince him to leave her soon to be ex-husband's publishing company.

And of course, things go from there, but.

-Well, and you have the tension.

You build up that tension from them right away.

So, when she first meets him at the Bluebird Cafe and is able to sign him, and then we realize, "Oh, so her husband isn't all he was cracked up to be, to begin with."

And then right away, when they have the meeting in Paris, and then as their relationship goes, I found myself thinking they're.

you built up gradually their relationship and their tension throughout that, both of them kind of realized that, but then they were unsure of each other, right?

So that was a wonderful way to kind of make that happen.

When you look at the protagonist and you look at how those interactions of those characters are going to happen, what are a couple of things that you want to make sure that you always include?

-I want readers to be able to identify with them in some way, even if the guy's a country music singer, there are things about him and his past that most people have experienced.

Yeah.

They, they wouldn't identify too much with his current life of, you know, big lights, big city maybe.

But he very much had a beginning that shaped who he was.

And I just look for pieces that I hope people, readers will identify with.

-And I think they do; that gets back to that strong character development.

And in the other book that I want to jump on, it's a Smith Mountain Lake book.

And it's the first of the series and it's a three-book series?

INGLATH: It is.

ROSE: Okay.

And where'd the title come from?

INGLATH: Blue Wide Sky .

Actually, it came from a lyric I was working on at one point.

And I had the idea to write this series that is set on Smith Mountain Lake, which is where we live.

And as you said, there are three books in the series.

Currently, the book I'm working on now, is actually going to be the fourth book in that series.

It's a standalone series.

And this book is called the Strawberry Field .

So, they're interesting to me because they're very real and I try to use places that are actually here.

And not in any way that I think anyone would find offensive, but it's so nice when I get notes from readers who say, "Oh, I've been there."

And.

-Well, and I felt the same way reading it.

So, the cast of characters here, we've got Gabby, we have Sam, we have Kat, Annalise and Evan, right?

And the family dynamics, it's so interesting because you can take some contemporary, real family issues that people deal with and you pluck them down in a, in a place that's romantic fiction so that you realize that everything's-- everything might not be easy.

And like you said, you've got that conflict you built in, but you also realize that, you know, it's going to be okay.

You know, people are going to be okay.

And their story, was there anything specifically that drove that story?

-I think I'm always drawn to that first love thing.

I was fortunate enough to meet my husband when we were both young.

I was 17 and he was 16, and we've lasted since then.

And we were never apart, but you know, I think oftentimes people meet when they're young and I actually get this from readers a good bit that my books make them think about their first love and what might've been.

Yeah.

-Well, and that's obvious in this book.

Would you be willing to read something for us?

-Sure.

Yes.

So, this is Blue Wide Sky , first book in the Smith Mountain Lake series.

And I thought I would just start with the first chapter and read a bit from there.

I do think I'll put on my glasses.

ROSE: Perfect.

-First love forever love.

So, this starts with Sam.

"You know how there are some things in life "that you eventually allow yourself to admit "you're never going to do again.

"Things that you clung to when you were young "with the arrogance that underscored life, "through your 20s anyway.

"Until you hit 30 "and that little ping of awareness started up, "'Uh-oh, this really may not go "exactly like I thought it was going to.'

"No, U-turns in sight, just straight ahead highway "like the North Dakota stretch from Gaggle to Beaver Creek "where you can see so far in the distance, "it looks like you'll just fall off the edge of the earth, "if you ever do get there.

"At some point along the way, "that's what I eventually came to accept "about Smith Mountain Lake and my memories of it.

"That this place and everything I had loved about it as a boy "were part of my past.

"A time long gone, so far behind me "that it wasn't possible to ever travel back, "or, at least, that's what I would have told myself "just a few days ago.

"And yet here I am now, "behind the wheel of a rented Ford Explorer "headed out of Roanoke, down 581 South to 220, "and the winding curves that will take me back "to the heart of my childhood summers.

"The agency coffee pot, "and the Dr. Pepper 10-2-4 signs, "both erected sometime in the '40s "are still here among the downtown high rises.

"The factoid comes to my brain "with my father's voice, still attached.

"And I remember how he'd point them out "those first summers when we'd drive in from our D.C. home, "headed for the lake house "in our packed to the gills station wagon.

"New on the city landscape though "is the train shaped museum.

"That is a more recent part of Roanoke's contemporary identity.

"I had read about it online in the New York Times "and remember the pang "just seeing the city name in print lifted up inside me.

"To the left of 581, "Mill Mountain looms in the distance, "its famous star now modestly dim in the daylight.

"At night, it glows red, white, and blue "on top of its post, "earning Roanoke its nickname as the Star City of the South.

"A Starbucks, a Lowe's, and a BMW dealership "have grown up alongside 220 heading out of Roanoke.

"It looks vastly different from the last time I was here, "and I'm suddenly anxious to leave the city limits "where the countryside starts to appear in short, "more familiar stretches.

"But it isn't until I've hit Route 40 headed East "outside of Rocky Mount "that I start to see green pastures.

"Black and white Holstein cows grazing slope after slope, "barbed wire alternates with whiteboard fencing.

"The houses ranging in style from brick ranches "to two-story farmhouse structures.

"I've hit late afternoon traffic and a big yellow school bus "has cars lined up out of sight behind me.

"The transplanted Londoner in me, "itches to blow the horn and wave for the driver "to pull over and let us all pass.

"I suppress the urge "realizing I don't want to be that guy.

"Not here, where everyone seems content to wait, "where I used to be someone content to wait.

"The thought of London brings with it.

"a ping of guilt.

"I should give Evan and Annalise a call, "let them know where I am, "but I don't have the energy to get over that wall just now.

"It's possible the kids haven't even missed me yet.

"Evan's on the fast track of a young career "and Annalise is nearing the end of her junior year "in boarding school.

"They are both busy and occupied with their own lives.

"For now, I'm grateful for this.

"At some point I will have to talk with them, "but I can use the time here "to figure out how I'm going to do that.

"And as for Megan, "I don't really owe her an explanation of any kind.

"Sad, but true, after 23 years of marriage.

"The life we built together, "wasn't initially mine by choice, "but I did commit to it.

"And even though what we had never felt "like the love of a lifetime kind of love, "I grew to care for her.

"I was faithful to her.

"Odd as it sounds in some strange way, "I'm glad that I wasn't the one who caused our marriage to end, and that I don't have that particular guilt to live with."

-And so much is about to happen as he goes back and has a chance to meet a first love, and the brother comes in.

They're just-- I love the way the stories are so fast moving.

And this-- we're at the end of our time.

And so, you have been a delight.

-Thank you so much.

ROSE: And I thank you so much for inviting us here.

-Well, thank you.

And you made that so easy.

-Oh, yay.

Well, my special thanks to Inglath Cooper, RITA award-winning romance novelist for having us here at her beautiful farm and for meeting some new friends, horses all around us.

And you know, if you have not read one of Inglath's book, I suggest you pick up a couple because there's so many wonderful stories that will just endear to you, the things that she's wanting to share.

Please tell your friends about us, check out more of our conversation online because I'm not going anywhere.

And I want to know more about Inglath, and some of these great books.

Thanks for sharing the link with all of your friends.

Until next time, I'm Rose Martin, and I will see you Write Around The Corner .

[♪♪♪] -♪ Every day every day Ev ery day every day every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ ♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ ♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪