A to Z Blog Challenge 2022: the Letter I

It’s Monday, the sun is shining, and all’s well with my immediate world. My arm no longer hurts, so I’m quite satisfied with things. I’ve enjoyed the comments I’ve received on my posts to date. That’s one of the best parts of blogging A to Z each year.

Today’s letter is the letter I. Once again, I had a variety of choices: idioms, imagery, impact. implicit, even imagination, but I’ve chosen to write about the “I” point of view, often called writing in the first person. I’ve always been a voracious reader–well until I became a writer and donated what had been my spare time to writing. I preferred books with a third person point of view where I could get inside the thoughts and motives of all the major characters in a story, the “he, she, it, they” stories. When I started writing, I stuck to my favorite style.

Most romance novels whether they be historical, contemporary, or suspense, rely on two points of view, that of the hero and the heroine. While that is sufficient, in a few of my romantic suspense novels, I’ve added a third, the villain of the piece, which allowed me to dig deeper into that sick mind. Fire Angel and In Plain Sight from my Vengeance Is Mine series have that POV trait.

With the onset of the pandemic, including the lockdowns, life changed, and I had more time to write. Let’s face it, we really couldn’t do anything else but cocoon in the safety of our homes. A friend encouraged me to try something new. She was always going on and on about my dry wit and sense of humor, so she suggested I try my hand at romantic comedy, what is sometimes referred to as chick-lit. Now, I’m quite far from being a chick. Even my children are beyond that, although I have grandchildren who might qualify. Social values have changed a great deal since I was in my twenties and thirties, and since, like many of my generation, I was married at twenty-one, I lacked hands-on experience, but, despite that, I decided to give it a try. The results are a series of books based partially on experiences I’ve had, but primarily on my highly developed imagination–I knew I’d get that in there. The resulting books are part of a series called Cocktails for You. What makes them different from my other books? They are all written in the “I” first person point of view. I struggled with this at first, knowing I had a very narrow range to work with, but once i got the hang of it, it was fun. To date, I have seven books in the series.

Writing in the “I” point of view limits the scope of the story to what the narrator sees, does, and hears, but there is considerable freedom in that. You can “tell” more than “show,” and you can allow the reader to live vicariously through the main character of the piece.

Each of my “I” books is a blend of my experiences–I did go to Mexico, Tequila Sunrise: I did have trouble finding the perfect doll for my daughter one Christmas, Champagne Cocktail; I do love people who can sign, especially since I can’t, Buck’s Fizz; I’m fascinated by Egyptology, The Tipsy Pig; I took the Rockey Mountaineer, Emerald Glow; and I’ve suffered Writer’s Block and have been to NYC, Make Mine a Manhattan. My newest book in the series, Sea Breeze deals with something dear to my heart, my mother’s delusional disorder. That book, now available only in paperback, with be released later this year. But, believe me, most of the stories were fleshed out in my imagination–there it is again. Each book is named for a cocktail and the recipe is included in the story. You can find purchase links for all my books on my website. https://mhsusannematthews.ca/

So, that’s it for today. Don’t forget to check out the other posts. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nuoAOJ-BUAXE1Yl2yIArhUHInj902PHVX6_gL4oKiSo/edit#gid=1195767304