I couldn’t decide for the longest time was whether I loved the concept of turning books into movies and television series. My first ventures into watching movies based on much loved books had been disappointing at best. After I watched several book adaptions I began to notice a pattern of emotional highs and lows that seemed to accompany the experience.

Stage 1: Excitement – When you first see that a much loved book is going to be made into a movie or television series you feel a sort of euphoria that the characters you know so well will become a more intimate part of your life. You imagine which actor will play which role, and in most cases, you discuss the topic with fellow readers. Your mood at this point can best be described as optimistic.

Stage 2: Anger and Disbelief  – when you first view a movie adapted from a much loved book you will inevitably find that the producers have decided in their infinite wisdom to change a few facts. At times they change so many facts that you can barely recognize the similarity to the book you have read and loved. You find yourself saying things such as, “That character isn’t even in the book” or “In the book that character looked and acted totally different.”  At this point your mood can best be described as irate.

Stage 3: Mourning – If you are able to continue with the series or movie after the stage of anger and disbelief, you will experience a sort of mourning. During this stage you will no longer fight every decision the director has taken, but you will feel a sense of loss that the movie that you hoped for is nothing more than a pipe dream and the big orange cat you have come to know and love isn’t big or orange at all. (Really, with all the cats in the world they couldn’t find an orange one?)

Stage 4: Acceptance – If you’ve made it this far you will find that you have accepted the choices that the directors have made, and while you still not be thrilled with them, you can begin to accept them. You no longer feel the need to curse at the television. You find that you are beginning to watch the program for what it is, a loose and watered down version of the book for sure, but a movie or series that you know you would have enjoyed had you not first read the book.

Stage 5: Enjoyment – If you make it this far you will find that you can actually begin to enjoy the movie or series free of expectation. At this point it becomes its own entity. You no longer compare it to the book because you know it is not the book. It can not nor ever will be the same as the book but it is still pretty awesome on its own merit.

So there you have it, the 5 stages of media transition. Comment below about a book adaption that you either loved or hated and be entered to win a $25 Amazon Gift Card.

People often ask me if my characters are based either on myself or someone I know. Most of the time the answer is no. Many of the dogs in my books however, are very much based on dogs that I have known and loved. My childhood dog was a terrier looking mix named Charlie much like Zoe’s Charlie in the Zoe Donovan series, and the adorable canine that graces the cover of every Paradise Lake Book is the spitting image of my real dog Echo. Let me clarify. Echo the real dog is not quite as perfect as Echo the book dog. My Echo is a totally awesome dog, but he is just a pet. He does not possess any special powers (other than to make me happy) and he has not been trained in search and rescue. Today’s blog will be dedicated to this huge bundle of joy.

Meet Echo as a puppy. Isn’t he cute! He has had the most kick back personality ever since we brought him home. He loves to cuddle and so do I.

Echo loves to go boating. We started him out young and he loves it to this day.

He also love swimming. The dog thinks he is a duck. If there is water he is in it. His first experience swimming was when he was just 8 weeks old. I had just gotten him and I decided to take a walk with him down to the river. There is this one spot where there is a high ledge about five feet above the top of the water. He saw the water, jumped off the ledge, and sank below the surface of the water. Yes I totally freaked out. He looked surprised when he came up for air but he seemed to love the experience and I haven’t been able to keep him out of the water since.

Echo also likes the snow. He is a dog of all seasons.

Echo is also a dog who loves the holidays. Actually I think it is the cookies that he really likes but he tends to be a good sport and accommodate my need to dress him up in all sorts of hats and whatnot.

Echo is a huge goof who loves the kids and they love him.

So there you have it. My dog Echo. Isn’t he awesome!

Echo is my third Bernese Mountain dog here are photos of the other two.

   This is BJ. He was my first.

And then I got EZ. 

I am giving away a Kindle or Paperback copy (Non US Kindle only) of any Paradise Lake book currently being published. To be entered to win comment below.

If you want to be sure not to miss any of my random thoughts please “follow” this blog. The next issue will be out on July 17.

I find that at times that I have a difficult time maintaining balance in my life. I think part of my problem is that it is important to me to conquer all the aspects of my life with a reasonable degree of success. I’m not sure that I’ve ever been as successful at finding balance as I’d like. When I was in college I took a bunch of extra classes that I really didn’t need “for fun” so that I was on overload much of the time. As a young mother I tried to do it all: soccer mom, PTA president, gym junkie, volunteer coordinator. If you ever wonder why my protagonists are always running around in a million different directions, I think the probable answer is that the uber busy lifestyle is all I can really identify with.

When I decided to try my hand at writing I threw myself into it with the same gusto I have thrown at everything else. By the end of 2016 I will have published 36 books in 28 months. Am I crazy? Apparently. I keep telling myself I will cut back but then I’ll have a few extra minutes and decide in a moment of insanity that adding one more book really is a good idea.  In 2016 I AM going to cut back a bit, I just need to figure out where. Should I delete a series? Cut back to just a couple of books in each of the 4 series? I’m not really certain at this point but be assured that these are questions I will be pondering.

I live a very busy life outside of my life as a writer. Sometimes I forget that. Leave it to a kid related activity to really bring home the importance of living a life with flexibility built in. After I decided to add Much Ado About Felines and Hopscotch Homicide to my publication schedule I knew it would be tight but I also felt it would be doable as long as there were no life interruptions. As you might have guessed life interrupted in the form of my 12 year old grandson making it to the South Lake Tahoe All Star Team for Little League. I am so proud of him and I have loved watching him excel and have a wonderful time, but in the past two weeks I have been out of town every day attending one game or another and I have gotten exactly zero writing done. I still think I can catch up but I will need to adjust a bit.

During my life interruption I was supposed to be working on Halloween in Paradise. I haven’t opened the file once. As a result I am going to push it back two weeks. It will publish on September 1 rather than August 15 and I am not going to do a presale. I still think I can get back on track for The Legend of Tabby Hollow, Ghostly Graveyard, The Cat of Christmas Past, and Santa Sleuth. I will keep you updated.  I also want to enjoy some of what Tahoe has to offer in terms of summertime fun and relaxation. I love to go to the beach and watch the sunset. I love to paddleboard, kayak, bike, hike, and spend lazy days with my grandkids. The winters are long and the summers are short so I know I need to embrace all that there is to embrace while I can. As a result of my late start to summer I will be cutting back on my social media obligations just a bit. I will still be around but maybe not quite as often so please be patient if I don’t comment to your post right away. I care about you all very much and want to stay in contact with all of you so don’t worry I’m not going to disappear. I hope you all have a wonderful and eventful summer.

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If you want to be sure not to miss any of my random thoughts please “follow” this blog. The next issue will be out on July 10.

My giveaway for today is going to be a paperback or Kindle copy of any Kathi Daley book (non US Kindle only.) To be entered comment below and let me know what your must do summer plans include.

Are you kidding me? That was my initial response when my husband Ken informed me that we were going to be attending a baseball tournament that started on Friday night and ran until Sunday at noon. My initial reaction was to ask my husband if he was insane. Apparently he is. He encouraged me to make the best of it so I booked us a room at a nearby spa. At this point I was imagining a little baseball, some time by the pool, maybe some spa treatments. It didn’t work out quite the way I had planned, but if there is one thing I have learned in my 57 years on this planet, things rarely go as planned so you’d better adapt and go with the flow or spend your whole life in a state of frustration. The event, fondly known as Midnight Madness began at 5:00 on Friday with events such as a homerun derby and a dance off. It was loud, crowded, completely insane, and surprisingly, a whole lot of fun. I even got this nifty sweatshirt. I just took a photo of the logo but imagine a hoodie attached.

On the upside we did have a fabulous meal when we first arrived. The kids were with their mother so it was just Ken and I for a few hours and we had a delicious steak dinner on the patio overlooking the mountains. The temperature was perfect, the view divine, and the food to die for. Of course what I didn’t know at the time was that this would be the last relaxing moment we’d have the entire weekend. I also didn’t realize that our meals after this point would consist of corndogs and chili fries from the snack bar.

At 11:00 pm the brackets are selected. The first game began at midnight and each team is assigned 4 game times between midnight on Friday and 6:00 am on Sunday. The playoffs are after that. While I have to admit that I experienced a slight rush of adrenaline when we first arrived, I was very glad to see that we had four hours between the announcement of game times and our first game. Most of the kids and parents camped at the facility but Ken and I headed back to the resort for 4 wonderful hours of sleep. Boy that 4 hours went quick.

After our short nap we headed back to the fields for a game in the middle of the night. Since the tournament was in the high desert (Carson City Nevada) is was HOT during the day and COLD at night. It was kind of cool to be watching a game under the stars but I think I’ve had my fill for a very long time. In fact I may have had my fill for a lifetime. The photo below was taken from the parking lot when we arrived for our night game. It was COLD.

As the song reminds us, “The sun will come up tomorrow,” and it did. It warmed up quickly and then it was HOT. Meet my granddaughter Maleia. This was taken shortly after sunrise when it was still cold. I wish I looked that good on 4 hours sleep. 🙂

The good news is that in spite of the insanity of it all the kids had a blast. This is my grandson Isaiah. He had the time of his life and didn’t seem tired at all. Oh for the energy of a child.

We got our next break, seven hours this time, on Saturday afternoon. We took the kids back to the resort for a nap while I sat out by the pool and caught up on EVERYTHING! When you have 5 email addresses and 8 Facebook pages, there is a lot of catching up to do, but if you have to work this is the place to do it.

Our team didn’t make the finals so our last game wrapped up at around 4:30 am on Sunday morning. It was then back to the resort to SLEEP.  When I made the reservation I really envisioned having a massage and spending at least part of he time being pampered. It didn’t work out that way but it was fun and something that I’m sure the kids will remember for a lifetime, and in the end, aren’t memories that last a lifetime what it’s really all about?

I hope you enjoyed coming along with me on my insane journey. My next post will be Friday July 3. I am going to reprint my post for the Whodunit page entitled Travel, Rearch, and Haunted Places. After that I will publish an original blog on July 10. I’m not sure of the subject yet. I guess I’ll see where my life takes me.

If you would like to have a paperback or Kindle copy of a Kathi Daley Book comment below. I will pick a random winner to receive a Kathi Daley Book of their choice sometime on Saturday.

Because this is my first blog I wanted to introduce myself. I invited the readers who hang out at my Kathi Daley Books Group page on Facebook to ask me questions that I would answer. There were almost a hundred questions asked, so I decided to consolidate them into general categories rather than answering them all individually.

Who am I outside of my life as a writer?

I grew up in Lake Tahoe, where I met and married my high school sweetheart. We moved to Sacramento, California, so I could attend college. I received a master’s degree in psychology and then worked with teens at risk for five years. My husband and I then moved back to Tahoe, where we owned our own business. I have two grown sons in their thirties and six grandchildren. I love to hike, bike, kayak, snowshoe, and pretty much anything else I can do outdoors.

5 random non-writing facts:

I love teenagers and have worked and volunteered at both a middle school and a Boys and Girls Club.

My favorite movie is Twister (I don’t know why).

My favorite food is pizza. (I could eat it every day.)

When I was a kid I wanted to be either a veterinarian (I love animals) or a lifeguard (I love the beach).

My handwriting is so bad that even I can’t read it. Really! People are always asking me what stuff says, and my standard answer is that I have no idea.

Meet Echo: Isn’t he adorable?

Who am I in my role as an author?

I published my first cozy mystery in September 2013 and I currently have twenty-seven titles in print. I will publish an additional eight titles in 2015. I write four series: Zoe Donovan Cozy Mysteries, Paradise Lake Mysteries, Whales and Tails Cozy Mysteries, and Seacliff High Mysteries.

Two of my series, the Zoe Donovan Mysteries series and the Tj Jensen Paradise Lake series, are set in the mountains in small towns nestled near large alpine lakes much like Lake Tahoe. My Whales and Tails Mysteries series is set on a fictional island in the San Juan Islands off the Washington coast, and my Seacliff High Mysteries series is set on the Oregon coast.

I spend a lot of time interacting with my fans. I have both a main author page on Facebook as well as a teen page. I also have a birthday club, a recipe exchange, and a group page. Everyone in my birthday club gets a free book on their birthday, and I’m giving away a Kindle a month in 2015. Links are available on my webpage: www.kathidaley.com

Where did I get my inspiration for my first series?

The first series I published was my Zoe Donovan series. Zoe began as a whim when I was on Facebook one day and had an idea to share my Facebook page with my dog. I jotted down a paragraph that began with:

“According to my Facebook bio, which I share with Charlie, my half terrier/ half mystery dog, we’re in a relationship with our two cats, a huge orange tabby named Marlow and a petite black beauty named Spade. We are avid joggers and mystery buffs who work for the Ashton Falls Animal Shelter. When we aren’t rescuing animals and placing them in homes, I volunteer at the senior center, where I horn in on their book club, and Charlie volunteers at the hospital, where he’s a therapy dog.”

I just kept writing, and a week later I had a book. I opened an account with KDP and uploaded it to Amazon. It was the first book I published, so I wasn’t expecting much, but people loved it and now I’m about to publish book 15 in the series.

Do I plot my books and write from an outline?

Blogger Terry Ambrose recently asked me this very question about Matrimony Meltdown (Zoe Donovan 13), so I’m going to share the answer I gave him.

I never plot my books. I never even know who either the victim or killer is when I start. I sit down at the computer and format a new Word document. I type Chapter 1. I ask myself what is going on. In this case it’s a wedding. I ask myself “what is a possible wedding theme?” In this case I came up with either bride gone crazy or mom gone crazy. Zoe is a simple person who wants a wedding on the beach with daisies for flowers and her dog as a ring bearer. Bride gone crazy wouldn’t work, so I went with mom gone crazy. I thought it would be fun to have Zoe alone with Zak’s mom, so I decided to have him go out of town and her show up just as he’s leaving, with a wedding planner and crew. I decided this in about two minutes as I typed the opening paragraph. Once I start I just move the characters around and let them live their lives. In other words, I let the characters tell the story.

How long does it take you to write a book and how do you keep all the characters straight when you’re juggling four series?

It takes me two to three weeks from typing Chapter 1 to completion, depending on what else is going on in my life. As far as keeping the characters straight, they are all very real to me, so I’m no more likely to mix them up than I am to mix up my real friends. The biggest problem I have is with point of view. Two of the series are written from a first person point of view and the other two are third person. If I’ve just written several books from a first person point of view and then switch to a series with a third person POV, it usually takes a chapter or two to transition.

Five random writing facts:

Whenever I get stuck (more commonly known as writer’s block) I go for a walk. I find that once I get my blood flowing my creativity begins to flow as well, and I usually “realize” what needs to happen next.

I write sitting at my kitchen counter. Yes, it’s a busy place to work, but I live in a full house (husband, son, grandkids, dogs) so this is the only space left unoccupied.

Prior to a few months before I wrote Halloween Hijinks, I had never read a cozy mystery and had no idea what they were. A friend suggested I try one, I did and loved it, and the rest is history.

Although I made it all the way through graduate school with a 4.0 GPA, I’m a terrible speller. Really. I have to ask my grandchildren how to spell stuff all the time. Thank God for Spell Check and awesome editors.

My dog Echo is featured in my Paradise Lake series, although the fictional Echo minds a lot better than the real one, who is just a big goof.

It has been awesome spending time with you today. I am going to start by blogging every Friday. I will also continue with my newsletter every Wednesday.

June is Murder Mystery Month at Kathi Daley Books, so please be sure to head over for a scavenger hunt, murder mystery dinner party, and random swagging. The events will take place on my main Facebook page (www.facebook.com/kathidaleybooks) and newsletter http://eepurl.com/NRPDf.