Introducing a brand new author!!
Jo vanHoodmoed is a local friend and author that I'm thrilled to feature!
‘A Beginner’s Guide to
Separation Anxiety’ (aka ABGTSA) was the silliest thing – a lovelorn nerd and a
talking dog – Jo vanHoogmoed could think of because she didn’t want to reveal –
to the Write-Your-Novel course attendees – any of her well-thought-out
storylines. But the more Jo wrote, the more she fell in love with the
characters, and when characters are loved, their story needs to be told.
Computers and
telecommunications have been Jo’s gig since she was 17 (1972) when she (a)
began her computer education at Dawson College (Montreal) and (b) secured a
part-time job as a junior computer operations clerk for Canadian International
Paper (also Montreal). She’s come a long way since then. She moved to Toronto
at 19 and started her own consulting company, then joined ranks individually,
not all at once, with TELUS, Bell Canada, Motorola, Sprint, Canadian Satellite
Communications, Government of Ontario, plus a few other telco and non-telco
companies where she held technical and/or management positions in marketing,
engineering and sales.
Her pre-retirement writing took
a non-fiction, dry-as-dust route in the form of technical plans, business
proposals, and other thrilling work-related material. During that time, her
non-work writing was nurtured by writing courses and ‘Meet the Author’ venues
(thank you, Orangeville-Grand Valley-Shelburne libraries), resulting in those
well-thought-out outlines. Those outlines? All were usually involving murder
(the yoga teacher) or fantasy (body-inhabiting personality-altering parasites)
or self-help (Finding Your Happy). Not one of those outlines went beyond the
outline phase.
She retired in 2020 and decided
to put words to MS Word and attend (and quickly drop) an online writing course.
As mentioned above, loved characters need their stories told. So, the nerd’s
and greyhound’s story, complete with swap-o-rama scams, usurping weasels,
cycling ladies, a narcissistic ex-husband, international desserts, and a vacuum
cleaner species, grew to over 330 pages.
Jo and her retired racing
greyhound, Hillary (the model for ABGTSA’s snooty and condescending Obie), live
in the charming century town of Orangeville, Ontario, northwest of Toronto. She
has the incredible fortune of having a loud, joyful family – sons and sisters,
daughters-in-law and brothers-in-law, and nieces and nephews aplenty. Oh yes,
and a greyhound that, unlike Obie, has never once accused her of
enormity-of-stupid nor dismissed cycling as a pointless endeavour. In fact,
Hillary has kept her own counsel in all conversations and on all observations.
Lucky her.
Website:
What genre do you write?
Women’s humour – target the over-40 crowd.
Do your reading
choices reflect your writing choices?
Yes and no. I enjoy humour, but my tastes
vary widely … so fantasy, classical, crime, humour, non-fiction, historical,
and the list goes on but does a hard stop at romance – the mass-produced,
paperback kinds – they’re just not my thing. Or exceptionally cruel stories …
can’t read those. When I read a book, it’s real to me for that moment and if
one (either romance or excessively cruel) slips into my reading list and I find
myself flinging it across the room.
Which types of characters are your favorite to write?
I love characters with senses of humour,
that take life as it happens and realize there’s plenty of ridiculousness to a
life well lived. And of course, characters have to be a tad flawed, but are
good people nonetheless.
Do
pictures, real life or plain imagination create the character you want readers
to love?
It’s actually a mixture of the latter two.
There’s something wonderful about people, places and things you know and love
and can inject them (or parts of them into a story). ABTSA is almost a tribute
to Orangeville (I actually had to dial that down a bit for the final version of
ABGTSA) and my wonderful neighbours BUT far enough from actual not to make them
uncomfortable.
Do your
characters come before or after your plot?
A Both … either a character arises that I
want to include, then I build a plot line that best suits them and the
story. Or, the plot demands a certain character and I get to create.
Either way, it’s wicked fun to juggle plot and character so they link. This is
the benefit of writing for fun; although there are rules, they’re loosely
adhered to.
How do
you choose a villain and how do you make them human?
My ABGTSA villian is certainly a villain
to the main character, with all the bad behaviour and plain meanness, but in
the end, no one is terrible. People are complex and when placed in weird
situations they sometimes behave badly but that doesn’t mean they don’t love
(or aren’t loved) … they’re just in situations that they can’t handle. I think
there’s a trueness about that. Not all bad people are 100% bad, just as not all
good people are 100% good.
A Beginner's Guide to Separation Anxiety
Portia Weaver’s life is … complicated. There’s that
outrageous swap-o-rama scam her ex-husband, the man she still idolizes, is
running. Then there’s that imminent end to a career she’s had forever. And,
let’s not forget … those despicable dognappers, a cat with murderous intent,
to-die-for international desserts, conspiring weasels, cycling ladies, a
budding love-interest potter … and, the unexpected arrival of a greyhound who
just happens to talk … human.
As
Portia stumbles through her complications and obligations, the latter dictated
by the dog, both human and canine discover ‘that something’ they’ve always
wanted but never thought to expect.
For the Buy Link… Right now my book is available on
most e-bookstore platforms (everything from Amazon to B&N, etc.). However,
I can add a buy option (and button) to the jovanhoogmoed.com web
site. It’ll drive you to a page that will ask Canadians (only) for a funds
transfer via Interact – and a promise to respond via email & mail up to two
books within 48 hours. For international orders, or orders of more than
two books, email for advice/discussion or use the e-platforms.
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