Interview with author Trish Perry
I'm excited to introduce fellow author, Trish Perry to you today. After blitzing around cyberspace on my own book tour for the past few weeks it will be fun to put someone else on the hot seat! 
Jenn: What inspired you to write chick lit?
Trish: I always enjoyed the genre, Jenn, but when I first starting writing a novel, the Lord led me in a more serious direction. So my first novel (which is unpublished) is a spiritual warfare story. When I was going through the second draft of the manuscript, I kept feeling the itch to write something with more humor in it. You can only attempt just so much humor when dealing with the darkness of the spiritual world, you know? So I began to play with character and scene ideas for a romantic comedy. It wasn’t until I was well into the manuscript that I realized the book was chick lit. My chick lit characters aren’t all wrapped up in designer labels, but much of the other elements are there. The genre just fits my voice. I can be a real smarty pants when I want to. Chick lit allows for that attitude to settle in like a big, spoiled cat right in the middle of your lap.
Jenn: Who are some of your favorite novelists?
Trish: I always struggle with this question (and with those about favorite novels). I’m a hugely avid reader, and I would rather buy books than clothes, shoes, or chocolate. I mean, more than clothes or shoes. I read at least as much secular fiction as I do inspirational. I don’t have favorite authors, honestly. But some of the authors I’ve particularly enjoyed lately have been Sophie Kinsella, Jennifer Weiner, Khaled Hosseini, Tony Parsons, John O'Farrell, Philippa Gregory, Francine Rivers, Lisa Samson, Rachel Hauck, Mary DeMuth, and Karen Kingsbury.Jenn: Tell us about your new book, Too Good to Be True.
Trish: Too Good to Be True is about Ren Young, a 20-something elementary schoolteacher whose husband dumped her and divorced her a year ago. She’s been holding out hope for reconciliation and for the adoption they began before he left. But on the first anniversary of her divorce, she gets word that her ex officially called off the adoption process. Besides the finality of these incidents, Ren has to face the little boy they were planning to adopt, who is one of her students.
Are you laughing yet?
Actually, all of these sad circumstances take place before we join Ren on page one. There, she reacts to all of this emotional stress by fainting dead away in the boys’ department of her local Wal-Mart. The stunningly gorgeous man who helps her to her feet is one Tru Sayers, a labor-and-delivery nurse whom she can’t help but eventually date.
Family plays a large role in this story. Both Ren and Tru have strong-willed mothers who are most fulfilled when trying to control the love lives of our heroine and her man. Plenty of colorful siblings get in the mix, as well. And some of the main characters from The Guy I’m Not Dating are important in Ren’s story, too. With so many people involved, how could Ren’s love life possibly be free of conflict? Could she have been right, thinking her new romance was too good to be true?
Jenn: Do you write with outlines and storyboarding or SOTP (seat of the pants)?
Trish: I am most definitely not an SOTP writer, but neither do I storyboard. My usual pattern is to fantasize an opening scene and just chew on it for awhile, picturing the characters, what they might do and say, listening for my opening line. I “watch” the scene, as if I’m there or as if I’m watching a most excellent movie based upon my fun, bestselling novel-to-be. While that happens I jot down information about my heroine and hero, which includes their relationships with other people, their history, emotional makeup, that kind of thing. By the time I write the first chapter, the possible conflicts and humorous circumstances start to pop up on my mental map. So I sit down and write what I call plot points—events that need to take place to bring my heroine forward, closer to her goals, closer to conflicts, closer to the reader. Each plot point becomes a chapter. I suppose my plot points are a form of outline, but a very loose outline. Often I’ll go back and add a chapter to flesh out something or someone. Or I’ll get to a plot point and decide other events need to occur before that point can take place. When I have a general idea of what will happen in the future, it helps me to lay groundwork early on.
Jenn: If you were stranded on a deserted island and only got to choose 1 meal (calories don’t count), which meal would you choose? . . . .
Maine lobster (many of them); prime rib (medium rare); Caesar salad; baked potato with butter and sour cream; steamed artichokes with ranch dressing; fresh, ice-cold spring water; warm, flourless chocolate cake with vanilla Häagen Dazs ice cream; strong black coffee. Oh, my goodness, I just gained three pounds thinking about this.
Jenn: Besides Jesus, if you could meet anyone (past or present) in person, who would you choose?
Okay, I’m not going to consider people who I know will be in Heaven, because I plan to meet them there. I figure that’s one of the cool things we’ll do with eternity ahead of us—wander around and go, “Oh, hey, Mahalia Jackson! All right if I sing worship with you?” or “Wow! Pascal! Run that physics stuff past me again. I’ve got time!”
So I’ll pick someone about whose eternal location I’m ignorant: Oskar Schindler. My apologies if he was a well-known believer; I know very little about him. I frankly never worked up the courage to watch Schindler’s List or to read Thomas Keneally’s Booker-Prizewinning novel of the same name. But I do know that Schindler was a self-serving hedonist who was totally changed by the Holocaust. He became a true hero, risking much for his fellow man, as Christ asks us to do. What moves a man to do such things, if it’s not the Holy Spirit?
Jenn: Thanks for stopping by, Trish -- I'm looking forward to reading another great addition to the Christian Chick Lit scene!
