Kathleen Squire-Merolla gave herself 30 days to write an entire novel in November 2008.
The result was her first mystery, dedicated to her love of Native American tradition, and entitled The Revelation. It’s a story about a Native American woman named Raven Lonewold who falls into a coma after a car accident where she travels through a past shown to her by family ancestors.
`I have Native American roots,` she said. `I’m from Syracuse, and I have Onondaga roots in my family tree.`
Merolla, a Latham resident, started the book after her friend tipped her off to the National Novel Writing Month’s website (www.nanowrimo.org), which gave authors a goal to write 50,000 words in 30 days. The guidelines were to write what she knew about, so she wrote about Native American culture.
Her three subsequent books have not followed the same theme, though, but they all fall under the genre of adventure-mystery, as it is Merolla’s favorite genre.
Currently, Merolla has been promoting her two latest novels. `Lies and Deceit` is a story about siblings separated at birth and placed into separate foster homes only to reunite later in life, and `Celebrity` is about a girl who was attacked by a stalker early in her life only to be tracked down again after winning a national singing contest similar to `American Idol.`
Merolla said she found inspiration for `Celebrity` while watching `American Idol` on television and wondering if she could deal with the transition of going from a regular person to famous, similar to what some of the contestants on the show experience.
`It’s all of these starry-eyed people going into those competitions,` she said. `What happens? Is fame all you thought it would be?`
She added that once a person wins a competition like `American Idol` they instantly lose their anonymity. She then asks herself, `Is that something I’d want?`
The question of `What if?` is what sparks the interest of Morella. She said she will see a news story on television and try to look at it from another perspective.
In the writing process, Merolla makes sure not to know the ending of the book as she writes it, which she said ends up making writing for her just as suspenseful as when someone reads the book. When she does finally write the ending, she leaves the story open ended, just in case the book becomes a best seller and warrants a sequel.
`As I see it, I write it down,` she said. `I’m writing a book now, and I figured out the end. Now, I can’t finish it.`
Keeping up the business part of writing books is something that is new to Merolla. She currently does her own marketing and is her own spokesperson.
`I’ve learned a lot about being a publicist and a marketer,` she said. `It doesn’t leave time to write, but I’ll get back to it.`
Merolla said she generally can write a book in a month, which helps her keep all of her characters in mind and not let the details slip away. During the day she tries to write at least 2,000 words.
`You can’t let them go away,` she said. `I have to write when I have a couple of hours at least.`
She does hope to see the business side of things take off as she said that her publisher, Publish America, has sent her material to Frankfurt, Germany, and sent `Lies and Deceit` to Disney for a possible movie.
`Wouldn’t that be nice,` she said. `I’m just loving it [writing], but I’m hoping money will follow.`
One thing Merolla does promise her readers is that she is not going to jump on the current bandwagon that has become so popular.
`I’m not into vampires,` she said. `I think that’s a little overdone.`
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