COCKTAILS & COCK TALES with WENDY BURKE

Today at the bar I have a dear friend of mine Wendy Burke. We're gonna be talking books, special projects we both have coming out in August and....we'll be drinking!!!!

Duh...didn't you see the title?

What we are drinking:

Spotted Cow
A smooth lager from Wendy's home state of Wisconsin--which my husband says tastes like Pabts Blue Ribbon LOL It doesn't, BTW


Deanna: Welcome Wendy! (((snags a bottle opener from under the bar))) I just love this pic!!! So cute!

Wendy: Thanks, Deanna! It's good to be here. (((looks around as she pulls out two cold ones))) Though I must say it feels familiar

Deanna: That's only cuz you've been in my real bar. My cyber bar is very similar. (((pops the tops off the Spotted Cow and holds them up in a toast)))

Wendy: Cheers! (((clanks bottles))

Deanna: Cheers! Now the most important Q of the day is: Where are you and what are you wearing?

Wendy: If it weren’t so dang HOT out I would be wearing, flannel. I LOVE flannel. I love the smell of GREY FLANNEL too. (oh that reminds me of…sorry, can’t say – no, he’s not in a witness protection program but I hate to kiss & tell.) But, right now I’m sitting around the house in jammy pants and an unmatching shirt. Two different prints…I know, I am NOT fashionable but I sure am comfy! I’m in the loft of our condo, which is a glorified TV room…not ‘lofty’ at all.

Deanna: What’s your poison? Vodka? Hot Coco?

Wendy: I don’t know if I’ve even ever really had Vodka – OBVIOUSLY I haven’t spent enough time with YOU! Not a big cocoa fan, but I drink a bit of wine at night, beer on the weekends --Spotted Cow -- and I like a nip of Scotch now and then. I don’t drink CONSTANTLY like it sounds above, not that I don’t deserve to, however!

Deanna: Of course you deserve to!!! Now that we’re comfy, tell me about your new book?

Wendy: Well, you know all about it cuz you pestered me into finishing it!

Deanna: (((holds up her bottle))) You’re welcome.

Wendy: RESPITE (which was a spur of the moment title, as the story really didn’t have one --- read that, I pulled it out of my butt) is a ‘love’ (gag..) story about a WW2 vet who needs some space (ie respite) after the war in Europe to decompress. Ryan doesn’t want to go home, so he hits up the Moroccan coast where he meets Maddy, who needs some ‘respite’ of her own. Needless to say after they meet they don’t get much ‘rest’ at all – heh…

Deanna: Where did the idea for this story come from?

Wendy: It was actually the prologue to another story I was working on, (contemporary) also untitled. But you badgered me so much to make it a separate story I did and it’s my first published work of fiction…THANKS DW!

Deanna: Yes, readers. I shall have you know Ms. Burke wasn’t going to give Maddy and Ryan a HEA!!!! I had to threaten her with ….nah. I just whined. Whining works. (((passes over another beer)))

Wendy: Thanks! (((takes a pull on the bottle))) Deanna should come with cheese. But, hey? I’m published!! Anyways, I’ve always been enamored by the post WW2 era, both my parents were of that time. My father served in the Army in the Pacific – my mom was a Civil Defense coordinator for her neighborhood – had the little helmet and all. It was a different time then, simpler, more patriotic.

Deanna: What was the hardest part of writing this story for you?

Wendy: The end…always, the end. I have written only ONE OTHER finished work...THAT end (Crossing Paths) I am happy with. I always feel I have such a good story that maybe subconsciously I don’t want to part with the characters or the story itself – and that makes the writing the end difficult. I also don’t want to mislead the reader with a good story and an ‘eh’ ending.

Deanna: What’s the easiest thing about writing it?

Wendy: Determining what characters look like and the locale. I’ve heard that people ‘write what they know.’ (Well, maybe that’s not the case with YOUR stories…ahem!!!) I know the area in which I live, I know the Great Lakes Midwest and the central Lake Michigan shore of Wisconsin. So, therefore most of my stories (those yet to be published) take place between Detroit/Toledo and Sheboygan, WI. With RESPITE – Morocco seemed warm and welcoming especially after WW2 (that whole Bogey and Bacall thing)…but I’ve never been there – so it’s ‘fiction’ in the truest sense of the word.

Deanna: Check out the sweet trailer for RESPITE here
What is your dream story, your opus, if you will? The one you dream about writing but haven’t don’t it?

Wendy: I love a good action thriller. I am a huge Brad Thor fan and when I work out on my elliptical in the morning, it’s either a Brad Thor novel, or lately a James Rollins ‘SIGMA’ series book. Of course, I would incorporate a bit more romance and obvious sex in the story – I understand a good story can be carried out without written sex, you know, just the ‘inference’ of it. But, if you have amazing characters who have a solid relationship or are leaning that way, why not be more blatant about it? Hey, what’s better than sex, action, mystery and politics all rolled into one? That’s just IMO…humble as it is, and you know what ‘they’ say about opinions – like navels (or other body parts) everyone has at least ONE.

Deanna: I think you were looking for the word 'assholes.' You know, this is my blog, hon…you can say what you please!

Wendy: Well, okay then!

Deanna: When did you first discover you were a writer? Were you like sitting on the toilet and just said, “Ya know, I think I’m gonna write a book.” Or was it more profound?

Wendy: Well, I’ve always been a ‘story teller’ of sorts. I made up all kinds of shit in my head as a kid (that’s called schizophrenia now) and I was an A-grade storyteller on my high school forensics team. So, with all THAT running around in my head, the next natural step would be writing it all down. I, however, took a detour and ‘told stories’ with my voice in radio for many years --- all morning radio really is IS telling stories. Why did I write a book though? My first finished ‘novel’ (or super mega novel – is that what 300,000 words+ is!?) was written for my dear friend, Deb. She was going through a rough time and I told her, ‘I’m gonna write you a cheesy romance baseball novel.’ And, I did – it was finished five years after I started it and a year after she died of a life-long battle with diabetes and all the nasty fall-out that goes along with that shitty disease. I love her and miss her terribly – and I know ‘Crossing Paths’ will someday be for sale through some publisher – dedicated to her of course.

Deanna: ANy chance it's this kind of baseball story, Wen ------->

Wendy: No!!! You brat, I'll leave the hot man on man stories to you!

Deanna: You say that now. I'll get you to come to the dark side one day! LOL Now what helps you when you are stumped on a scene in a manuscript? I usually have a cocktail or three. But that’s just me.

Wendy: I usually email you! – and you tell me if I’m full of crap. Alcohol works, but just walking away from it for a day usually is the cure. I call my ‘epiphanies’ on a scene ‘baloney sandwich moments.’ Usually, if I IGNORE my ‘problem scene,’ it’ll come to me at a later time – usually when I’m making a baloney sandwich!

Deanna: Most of my stories have a theme song, do you do that for your characters?? If so what is it?

Wendy: I don’t really know about Maddy and Ryan in RESPITE – and it’s not something I ‘consciously’ do for my characters. BEER CAVE (aka AMORIS DEFENDE) which I’m working on as a follow up to RESPITE, well, Ty and Erin have a song or two: The Divinyls ‘When I Think of You I Touch Myself’…and there was another one I thought of, but it escapes me at the moment – darn old age!

Deanna: Tell us about a scene that you have written then afterwards, when you read it, you shocked yourself? You know I want a dirty answer (((hint hint)))

Wendy: Sorry, don’t have one. In ‘Crossing Paths’ it was the very end…the last chapter which wraps up the entire story and the tribulations both characters have gone through to find their HEA (happily ever after …I had to ask TOO when I first heard it…) The end chapter was everything I wanted it to be and I actually cried when it was finished. Then I announced to my husband ‘It is done.’ Yeah, that only took FIVE years!

Deanna: Shall we give them a sneak peak of our new stories?

Wendy: Sure! Why not! Just pass me another beer first.

Deanna (((cracks open another round of cold ones))) Wendy and I had a cool idea a few months back. I wanted to write a story for our publisher’s 1NightStand series. But the trouble with a short story like that, you never get to find out what happens to the couple afterward.
So what if my couple made a guest appearance in someone else's book, eh? Problem solved!!!
And that’s what we did. In my m/m story BEAR IT ALL which comes out August 2nd the reader meets Travis and John, an unlikely couple who realize that opposites really do attract. The story ends after their hot night of tropical passion but if you want to find out if their HFN (happy for now) becomes a HEA (happily ever after—don’t you love writer lingo?) you have to check out…


Wendy: My story THE ONE HE CHOSE. See, aren’t we clever? LOL

Deanna: I thought so (((grins)))

Wendy: In my story you meet Grace—John’s sister—and learn that there really can be love after loss and sometimes it is right under your nose. You just might need a little ‘push’ to see it. Check out the book trailer for THE ONE HE CHOSE, due to be out this August.


THE ONE HE CHOSE (trailer)


Deanna: Thanks for stopping by, Wen!
Now we need to hook up at my real bar later...this cyber bar is making me thirsty!

If you leave a comment—and please do—you can be entered in a chance to win a FREE copy of RESPITE.

Find Wendy online at:
Facebook
Twitter
Blog

You can buy her books here:
Decadent Publishing
Amazon