Dish the Pie with Monique & Guest Darlene Fredette--author of contemporary women's fiction romance mystery

Dish the Pie with Monique & Darlene Fredette

Hi, guys! I'm happy to be hosting Darlene Fredette today. She's here to share the recipe for Jess's Blueberry Muffin and to dish the pie on her new romantic mystery release--Secret Recipe, book 4 in her Redford Falls series. Darlene is a multi-published author of contemporary women’s fiction. I can't wait to get to know her better. Please help me welcome Darlene to Dish the Pie.   

Welcome, Darlene! I'm so happy you’re here to dish the pie with me! The first question I always ask my guests is: Do you like desserts? 

Darlene: I LOVE dessert.

Monique: You're in good company here! What is your favourite?

Darlene: My favourite is strawberry shortcake, but I’m a big fan of white chocolate macadamia nut cookies, too.

Monique: Yumbo! You promised to share the recipe for Jess's Blueberry Muffin. tell us more about this.

Darlene: In Secret Recipe, Jess has to prove her baking skills, but for someone whose previous attempts at baking ended in the trash can, she attempts to make blueberry muffins.

Jess’s Blueberry Muffins

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

3/4 cup milk

1-1/2 cups blueberries

Baking Tip - Jess added a teaspoon of vanilla to her mixture, which is highly recommended!

Directions

In a bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt.

In a separate bowl, cream the butter with the sugar.

Beat in eggs one at a time and then add the vanilla. 

Gradually stir in milk (mixture may appear curdled). 

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the liquid mixture, and stir until moistened. 

Gently fold in blueberries.

Spoon into large paper-lined or well-greased muffin cups, filling to the top. 

Bake in a preheated oven at 375°F for 25 to 30 minutes or until tops are firm to the touch.

Monique: Did Jesse pass the baking test and get the job? 

Darlene: You’ll have to read Secret Recipe to find out.

Monique: I think I'll do that! Have you ever eaten pie for breakfast?

Darlene: I have never had pie for breakfast. I’m a ‘start the day with a bowl of cereal’ kind of girl, but if I were to have pie, it would be apple for sure.

Monique: Some people might argue that certain types of cereal are on par with pie for breakfast😁. Are you married, Darlene?

Darlene: Yes, I am. My husband and I met in May of 1991.

Monique: How did you meet?

Darlene:  We were set up by friends (a guy he worked with dated a girl I worked with). He proposed six months later by the waterfront with roses. We married the following May (1992). He told his family that he didn’t need more time to know I was the ‘one’.

Monique: That's a wonderful story. Clearly, your hubs is a decisive man. I like that. Which season (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter) is your favourite and why?

Darlene: My favourite season was summer because I love sunshine and warmth, but the past few years, the humidity has been getting worse, so much that you can’t sit outside. I don’t enjoy the cold winter, and spring tends to be the wet season, so I’m leaning more toward fall these days.

Monique: Summer is a favourite for sure, but autumn/fall is pretty cool, too...no pun intended 😆. What is your idea of an ideal vacation?

Darlene: Southern Italy. We haven’t been there yet, but hopefully someday. Until then, we like a lakefront cottage where we can sit on the deck with a drink in hand and watch the loons and birds fly by.

Monique: Sounds blissful! What’s your idea of comfortable clothing? 

Darlene: T-shirt and jogging pants. Not only are they comfortable, but I have two large dogs that drool…a lot, so wearing anything dressy is a waste of time.

Monique: 😆 I love dogs! Thank you so much for hanging out with me, Darlene. We'd love to hear more about Secret Recipe. Would you share the blurb and an excerpt with us?

SECRET RECIPE

A Redford Falls Story – Book 4

By Darlene Fredette

All Rights Reserved

In the heat of the kitchen, one woman’s secret recipe blends danger, deception, and desire.

Jess Robinson is desperate for a fresh start, but an unexpected call drags her back
into the dangerous world she thought she’d escaped. With a missing bag of stolen jewels at stake, Jess must execute the perfect con.

Between two jobs and family obligations, firefighter Travis Cooper is stretched too thin. The last thing he needs is an unqualified baker who stirs up more questions than answers. Something about Jess feels familiar, and while Travis is drawn to her, he’s convinced she’s hiding more than a few secrets.

As drama simmers and danger closes in, Jess and Travis are caught in a game where every move could cost them everything.

    Travis pulled Jess into a hug. She molded perfectly against him. Her soft hair brushed his chin, and her hands warmed his chest where they rested.

    Her stare dropped to his lips.

    He lowered his head until a loud boom rattled his sanity. He released her and walked to the counter, creating distance. “Congratulations on a job well done.”

    Her widened eyes met his, and her cheeks flushed. “Thank you.”

    The thunder returned, louder than before.

    He shook his head, trying to erase the memory of her in his arms. What got into me? He wasn’t a touchy-feely guy. Hugs were usually reserved for his mother.    “Would you like to join me for a bite to eat?” What the…? Did those words just come out of my mouth? “My way of thanking you for a great first week.” More unfiltered words tumbled out.

    Jess stuffed her hands into her apron pockets. Her lips formed a tight line. “Sure.”

    She accepted? Part of Travis had hoped she’d decline. The other half was elated. He needed time to locate his missing common sense.

    “Do you have a restaurant in mind?” she asked.

    I’m not thinking. He gripped the counter’s edge. “Have you ever been to Kringle’s Lounge?”

AmazonCA | AmazonUS | AmazonUK

Darlene Fredette is a multi-published author of contemporary women’s fiction that celebrates resilience, romance, and the small-town magic woven into ordinary days. Step inside her world for heartfelt stories, character-driven moments, a touch of charm, wit, twists, and just enough intrigue to keep you turning the page. Residing on Canada’s scenic Atlantic Coast, where summers are too short and winters too long, she finds inspiration from family, nature, and the quiet moments that ignite the imagination, and enjoys life with her husband, daughter, and two oversized, loveable dogs.

Website | Blog | Instagram | BlueSky 

Fast Writer: Rachel Aaron

Welcome to the Fast Writers blog series, Rachel. So lovely to have you here.

Thank you for inviting me!

·         First, I’d love to hear about your writing day in a quick snapshot. Do you have a special time to write? Or do you grab moments whenever you can? I guess I’d like to know how structured you are.

I like to think I run a very tight ship here at the Rachel Aaron Word Factory! My day is divided into two sections, morning and afternoon. I usually sit down to work around 8:30, 9:00 am and work until 11:00am. Because I have several books out already, I usually use this time to answer email, do promotion, write out interviews, all that sort of stuff. If I don't have any like that lined up (or if I'm trying to make a deadline), I get to write! On days when I write in the morning, I usually try to get about 2000-3000 words before lunch. 

Afternoon is my serious writing time. I take 30 minutes for lunch and then drive to the coffee shop where I do all my real work. I write every weekday afternoon from 12:00 – 5:30 without fail. Seriously, if I miss my afternoon writing time, someone had better be dying and I'm their only hope.  During these 5 and a half hours, I try to get at least 6k words, though I usually end up with 7-8k, or a little over one full chapter.

A chapter a day is always my goal, but on days when I write in the morning and afternoon I usually pile on 9-10k to my manuscript, or about a chapter and a half. I will also sometimes write on weekends if I have the time or I'm REALLY EXCITED about something, but I try not to. My husband does like to see me sometimes... 

·         What sort of writer are you? Planner or pantser?

Militant plotter. I have a system and plan everything, it's the only way I can get the kind of speed I do. I actually have a blog post outlining my whole process from initial book idea to ready-to-write, and as you'll see, it gets pretty detailed. You could call it overkill, but I'm the sort of person who loves knowing exactly where I'm going. The more details I can get in advance, the faster I can write, and the faster I can write, the more time I buy myself to make my books amazing before they're due. Also, writing super fast is amazingly fun!

·         Can you tell us a bit about the technique you use to help you to write quickly, and how you developed it?

I write using a process I call “2k to 10k,” because I went from writing 2k to 10k words per day using it. That sound super impressive, but really it boils down to 3 almost embarrassingly obvious elements: knowledge, time, and enthusiasm. I'm actually going to cheat and just go over each one briefly here, but if you're interested in the details so you can give my process a try in your own writing, please see my blog post “How I went fromwriting 2000 words to 10000 words a day”. There are graphs and everything!

The first and biggest change I made that really boosted my word count was knowledge, or knowing what I was going to write before I wrote it. Before I write a scene, I take five minutes and write out what's going to happen in my notebook. Nothing big, just short descriptions of places, rough outlines of conversations, what happens when, that sort of stuff. Really, really simple, short hand notes, but taking the time to plan things out rather than make all my decisions in the actual text where any changes could mean cutting paragraphs made a HUGE difference in my words per hour. 

I've had tons of people write me and leave comments that this one extra step has doubled their word count. So if you're only going to make one change to your writing, this is the biggest bang for your buck. I've found it's also the best for my writing in general since thinking about each scene on a macro level before I write it has taught me a ton about tension, pacing, and using scenes for multiple purposes. This means I'm not only writing faster, I'm writing much, much better. Total win.

The next change I made was time, making sure I was always writing at my most productive hours. Basically I kept track of my writing for a month, writing in different locations and times of day. From my findings, it was clear that my words per hour were best in the afternoon, out of my house, and when I had a writing block that was at least 3 hours long. 

This step is especially good if your writing time is very limited. By taking the time to find out when and where you write best, you can schedule yourself to make sure that your precious writing hours aren't wasted. Again, a very simple change, but one that can have a big impact on your wordcounts.

The final change was enthusiasm. This was probably the most headslappingly obvious one. Basically, I write faster when I'm excited about what I'm writing. I know! Revolutionary! 

But seriously, pumping yourself up about a scene, whether it's a battle or a love scene or whatever, is one of the simplest way to supercharge your writing. And if you have a scene where you can't seem to get excited, maybe it's time to consider changing that scene. I mean, if you as the author can't get excited about a scene, there's no way your reader will. 

This step is probably the one that has helped my writing the most. I've cut and redone several perfectly good scenes because I just wasn't excited about them. Boring scenes have no place in my novels. 

·         Did you always write this way? Or is your method something you picked up along the way?

This was something I stumbled into in phases. If you're interested in the particulars, they up on my blog post, but the cut and dry version is that I was up against the wall on a deadline. I had a very limited amount of time to write each day and if I couldn't figure out how to squeeze more words out of every hour, my writing career was in real jeopardy. So I got serious, got scientific, and ended up completely revolutionizing the way I wrote novels. Now, instead of 2 novels a year, I write 6-7. Not bad, I think. :)

·         How many words do you write per hr/writing session?

1100 wph is what I think of as my happy writing number, though I can hit 2000 wph when I'm really on fire. Anything under 1000 wph means I'm having trouble and should probably look at the scene again to see what was holding me up (usually a lack of tension or a character acting contrary to their nature). My wph also goes up dramatically the further I get into a writing session. Most of the time I'll write about 800 words in the first hour, 1200 in the second, 1500 in the third and every hour after that, which is why I always try to make sure my writing sessions are at least 3 hours long. The beginning is the dross, the real word burning comes later when I'm nice and immersed in my world. 

·         How many hours per day do you write? And how many days per week?

As I mentioned earlier, I try to always write at least 5 hours a day every week day. If I can write in the mornings, I usually get in another 2, 2.5 hours there, for a total of about 7 hours per day. Of course, I'm always thinking about novels and jotting down notes. An author is always working, but that's OK when you have the best job on the planet! 

·         How quickly can/do you finish a book?

I've written a book in 12 days! (Which has now been edited and sold :D) But that was kind of a crazy marathon combination of a test to see just how fast I could write and a book I was freakishly excited about. A more normal time span for me is about a month, usually writing a chapter per day (6-7k) with a few days of backtracking and fixes thrown in. Editing times vary wildly depending on the book, but I usually budget about a month for that as well, meaning I go from idea to novel ready to go to my agent in about 2 months.

·         Do you know what you're going to write each day before you start your writing sessions? For instance, do you draft the scenes/chapters you’re about to write just before you write them, or do you thoroughly outline before you even start the book (if you’re a planner, that is J)?

*Looks up at previous walls of text* Ohhhhh yeah. I plan. :D For every book, I make a story map listing all my scenes and a written out description of the whole book, scene by scene on top of the pre-writing planning I do before each scene. But even this isn't enough to catch every mistake, and often I'll end up going back and redoing large sections of my planning to take into account new ideas I had while writing or problems I hadn't considered. Novels are complicated!

·         How do you prevent your internal editor/critic from interrupting?

Iron hard confidence and the knowledge that I can go back and fix things later. That said, if I know I'm writing something that is crap, I can't go forward. I actually backtrack a lot in my novels to fix problems that prevent me from moving on. Honestly, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I'd much rather take a day and go back to fix a huge plot problem then write a scene I'm 90% sure I'm just going to end up throwing away.

Basically, my aim on a first draft is “good enough.” A scene doesn't have to be perfect, but it has to be good enough to support the scenes that come after it. If it can't hold up, I have to go fix it or replace it.  

·         Do you have any more tips you’d like to share?

Yes! The internet is full of writing advice that begins with “butt in chair” time. I agree that is necessary to being a writer, but it's important to remember that writing isn't something you get better at by putting one word in front of the other until you end up with 100k words. 

If writing is like pulling teeth, if you dread opening up your manuscript, you're doing it wrong. Stop. Remember why you love your story. Remember why you wanted to be a writer in the first place. Never be afraid to take a step back if something isn't working. There's always more than one way to solve a problem. Don't be afraid to do something different. You're the author, you are god in your world. Revel in it, delight in your creation, and you'll finish that book. Guaranteed.

Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to spend time with us here today. We’d love to hear about your new book, would you tell us a bit about it?

Certainly! I'm the author of The Legend of Eli Monpress series, a light hearted, old fashioned fantasy adventure series about a disastrously charming wizard thief, his taciturn swordsman, and the monster who follows them. Think Lies of Locke Lamora with more tongue in cheek and faster pacing. 

Eli Monpress is talented. He's charming. And he's a thief. But not just any thief. He's the greatest thief of the age - and he's also a wizard. And with the help of his partners - a swordsman with the most powerful magic sword in the world but no magical ability of his own, and a demonseed who can step through shadows and punch through walls - he's going to put his plan into effect. The first step is to increase the size of the bounty on his head, so he'll need to steal some big things. But he'll start small for now. He'll just steal something that no one will miss - at least for a while. Like a king.

 

This omnibus edition contains the first three books of the Eli Monpress series, including The Spirit Thief, The Spirit Rebellion, and The Spirit Eater.

 

The first three books are currently out in a very well priced (read: cheap) omnibus, and the highly anticipated fourth book, The Spirit War, comes out in June. If you like charming thieves and are a bit worn down by how dark and gritty Fantasy has gotten lately, you should totally go to my site and read the first few chapters. The Spirit Thief.  You won't be disappointed!

Author Bio:

Rachel Aaron is the author of The Legend of Eli Monpress series, a fun fantasy adventure published by Orbit Books. She is also the mind behind the popular “2k to 10k” word count boosting method and the author of 9 novels, 5 of which were written in the last 10 months. You can learn more about Rachel's books and her tips for writing at lightning speed on her website, www.rachelaaron.net

Fast Writer: Melanie Milburne

Our fast writer today is Melanie Milburne who writer for Harlequin Mills and Boon Modern and Medical Romance lines. Welcome Melanie and thank you very much for agreeing to be interviewed for my Fast Writers blog series.

·      First, I’d love to hear about your writing day in a quick snapshot. Do you have a special time to write? Or do you grab moments whenever you can? I guess I’d like to know how structured you are.

My writing day is fairly structured. I’m a clear- the-desk-first type of person so I like to get other stuff out of the way so I feel free in my head to write. I swim early and then I walk my dogs. Then I sort out business emails and so on before I sit down to write. I prefer block time so I can immerse myself into the story world rather than snatch odd moments here and there.

·         What sort of writer are you? Planner or pantser?

I’ve thought a lot about the pantser and plotter thing. I’ve finally come to realize that I’m a bit of both. Some books come to me intuitively; others take a bit more thinking through. If I write a too detailed plan I nearly always end up veering away from it. If I don’t plan at all I can end up losing my way and having to do massive rewrites.

·          Did you always write this way? Or is your method something you picked up along the way?

I’ve always been a fast writer. Again, I think it’s very much linked to my personality. My brain runs like a Ferrari most of the time. Over the years I’ve had to concentrate on slowing down my speech so friends and family can keep up! Writing fast is normal for me so it really scares me when I hit a rough patch and the words don’t pour out as they usually do.

·          Can you tell us a bit about the technique you use to help you to write quickly, and how you developed it?

The technique I use (or which comes most naturally to me) is to write in fits and bursts. I always start with a new book with a bang. I find the first half of the book easy. I can write 20,000 words in a couple of weeks, but then things start to slow down and I might have a few days, or even a week or more, when I don’t write anything much at all, although I will be still be processing it in my head. Then I’ll come back at it and finish it in a rush.

·         How many words do you write per hr/writing session?

I don’t set word count limits or pages for the hour or day. I prefer a word count for the week. I set a target and then head towards it. It keeps me focused and motivated.

·         How many hours per day do you write? And how many days per week?

I write for four to six hours most days. I take weekends off here and there, but when I’m deep in the story world I prefer to keep going until it’s finished. That’s why I find social media and the business end of writing so distracting. They pull me out of the story world and it can take ages to plug myself in back in. It’s like trying to watch a movie while someone is talking to you. Impossible!

·         How quickly can/do you finish a book?

It usually takes me four to six weeks to write a book. But that’s just the unpolished version. It will take another week or so to edit and tighten up the story.

·         Do you know what you're going to write each day before you start your writing sessions? For instance, do you draft the scenes/chapters you’re about to write just before you write them, or do you thoroughly outline before you even start the book (if you’re a planner, that is J)?

I don’t always know what I’m going to write each day. Sometimes I know I’m going to write a particular scene, such as the crisis or climatic scene or a love scene, but generally I will see where the characters will take me. Even when I’ve done a rough outline or a detailed beat sheet I will still let the characters have precedence over it. That is the magic of storytelling. The story comes to you if you’re open to it.

·         How do you prevent your internal editor/critic from interrupting?


I have learned to control or balance my internal critic/editor. It’s not a bad thing to be critical of your work but you have to be constructive in how you go about it. You have to take an honest look at it now and again and improve where you can. Over the last couple of years I’ve been studying the craft of writing by reading dozens of books on story structure and attending novel and screenplay workshops. I found my writing slowed down a quite bit to start with. It was almost paralyzing creatively. I was overthinking everything. Now I find I am back to my fast pace as I’ve gradually integrated what I’ve learned. It’s a bit like learning to drive. At first you remember every stop sign, but once you become more experienced it becomes more intuitive.


·         Do you have any more tips you’d like to share?

My best tip for writing is: If you can’t tell someone what your story is about in a sentence or two then you have no story.

Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to spend time with us here today. We’d love to hear about your new book, would you tell us a bit about it?

My next release is Book One of a duet called Deserving of His Diamonds. It is a story about a young woman whose life was destroyed two years ago by a sex tape scandal before she found out she had an identical twin. When her ex-fiancé Emilio Andreoni finds out the truth he moves heaven and earth to get her back in his life, but there is something heartbreakingly tragic that Gisele hasn’t told him about the time they were apart.

You can find Melanie here: Website, Facebook, Blog

Interviews

Hi, guys,

Just a quick entry to let you all know of my recent interviews.

You can check them out here: Just Me & You 

You'll also find me in the Author Spotlight at Cate Masters Blog.

Do stop by and say hi, won't you?

See you soon.