AuThursday – Alana Lorens

Please Welcome Alana Lorens to The Clog Blog.  Alana Lorens has been a published writer for more than forty years, after working as a pizza maker, a floral designer, a journalist, and a family law attorney. Currently, a resident of Asheville, North Carolina, the aging hippie loves her time in the smoky blue mountains. She writes romance and suspense as Alana Lorens, and sci-fi, fantasy, and paranormal mystery as Lyndi Alexander. One of her novellas, THAT GIRL’S THE ONE I LOVE, is set in the city of Asheville during the old Bele Chere festival. She lives with her daughter on the autism spectrum, who is the youngest of her seven children, and she is ruled by three crotchety old cats and six kittens of various ages.

So, Alana, how do you make time to write?

I’m lucky to be retired, so I can now write pretty much whenever I want, working around health issues,

Always something, right? Back in the day, I definitely was a night writer–could only get things done after the kids were in bed.

Do you believe in writer’s block?

I do. Been there, done that. After a divorce and some bad health news several years ago, I ground to a stop. Nothing for several years. But I sought out some therapy, and began fostering cats–I know it sounds silly, but you have to open yourself to nurture babies. Once I did, the will to write came back in force. Three new books since that!

Tell us a bit about the genre you write and why you love it.

I write suspense, whether romantic suspense or paranormal/sci-fi suspense. I need my story to have a ticking clock–it will keep the reader turning pages, but it also gives me a framework to keep writing them.

How are you publishing your recent book and why? 

Traditional, through small press. I know I make less money per book that way, but it is a relief not to have to worry about editing, covers, print set-up, and all that. More power to those who persevere!

Are you an Introvert or an Extrovert?  How does this affect your work?

I have definitely become more of an introvert over the years. I’m fortunate to have a critique group, Fellowship of the Quill, that meets over the Internet, so I can be comfortable in my slippers at home, 🙂 I don’t always like selling the book in public, as much as I believed book signings would be glamorous, you know? It’s hard to reach out to strangers sometimes.

What is your favorite motivational phrase?

“A ship in a harbour is safe but that is not what ships are built for” often attributed to John A. Shedd

What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

Write things. Take classes. Those two, rinse and repeat. You get better by doing. Also find the right critique group for you–not too harsh, but not just getting pats on the head, either.

Where can readers find you on the World Wide Web?

http://alana-lorens.com

Do you have an excerpt you’d like to share with us?

Of all the corpses I’d seen in six years as a news reporter, Lily Kimball’s hit me the hardest. Found in a drainage ditch along Route 24, two inches deep in snow, she wore only a shabby pair of Banana Republic jeans and a red jersey shirt, a dried clot of blood on her forehead where she’d taken a header into a discarded bottle.

In the half-light before dawn, two CSI-types crouched in front of the body taking pictures and samples, thick parka vests protecting them against the thirty-degree early March chill. Each breath left their cold lips as a mist of water vapor.

“Damnedest thing I ever saw,” the lead investigator said to the waiting medic from the volunteer ambulance service, “Why the hell would some girl be out here in the middle of a snowstorm without shoes, without a coat?”

Good question as far as I was concerned. I was freezing my butt off, despite a hoodie under my jacket, black sweatpants and fur-lined boots. I couldn’t return to the office until I had some answers. So far, all I had was her name, thanks to the CSI techs. No evidence of blunt trauma, no gunshots, no bruising—it didn’t even look like the girl had been tossed out of a car. I angled my pad to catch the headlights of the cop car and scribbled some notes, numb fingers slipping on the pen.

“Your tech pulled a bank debit card from her pocket. Maybe she needed cigarettes or something.” I gestured toward the lights of the all-night market a mile or so further along where the road intersected with Declan Highway.

The officer’s glare roasted his techs for sharing information, then he eyed me. “Who’re you again?”

“Sara Woods, for the Ralston Courier.” I tilted my laminated badge so he could read it.

He squinted at the black and white picture of a pixie-like brunette with a slightly crooked smile, then compared it to my pixie-like face, much more florid in the wintry wind. I tried for the smile, too, in case it helped. “New blood, huh?”

“Just started. I’m covering for O’Neal this weekend.”

The officer chuckled. “He’ll be pissed. He loves dead bodies.” The medic snickered along with him and they walked away, back to the running patrol car. The heated, running patrol car.

With a disappointed shiver, I observed the techs. They hadn’t disturbed the body much, other than to rule out major trauma. Lily’s skin was icy white, her black hair patchy, so thin it lay atop the snow. Bony stick fingers and toes were dark red, almost violet, from frostbite at the bare tips. It seemed like she’d just fallen over into the ditch. Just let go, dead.

Satisfied with their photos, the techs turned over the stiff body. The girl’s pale, sightless eyes stared into the gray miasma of the late winter sky. Nausea crept from my stomach toward my throat. She had to be about my age, twenty-something; about my size too, although those fingers were wickedly thin. What would have compelled me to leave home in a blizzard, half-dressed, ending in a frozen ditch with my life sucked out? I didn’t know what could cause such desperation.

But the goosebumps that rippled across my skin told me it was still out there, lurking.