K-Thank you so much for joining us.
I am delighted to do this interview. I have so many questions. First, let me make sure I have all the facts.
You are an award-winning author of three novels. You are the founder of the World Literary Café, where you mentor and support other writers.
You also founded the Women's Nest, a social and support community for women, and
your newest venture, Fostering Success. In addition, you are a wife and mother
to six children. Did I miss anything?
M- Wow, I sound
busy, lol. You’ve got it, that’s me in a nutshell, but I have to admit, I am
also a chocoholic and a tweetaholic. I need a few 12-step programs. And, Kat,
I’m truly honored to be your guest today. I admire your generosity and kindness
that you share with those around you.
K- I have so much admiration for
you, Melissa. I do not know how you manage to juggle everything. Will you
please describe a typical day in Melissa Foster’s life? I want to know how your
secrets. Please start with what time you wake up, meals, caffeine consumption,
everything in between and then end with what time you go to sleep.
M- I’m afraid I will bore you terribly. I get
wake up every morning at about 5:30am and just lay in bed thinking of the day
ahead, until about 6:30. Then I rally my 12 yr old, shower, dry my mop of hair,
and wake up my 11 yr old at 7. I then head for the kitchen, where there are
lunches to be made and coffee to be brewed, and many shouts of, “Jake, get out
of bed. I mean it. Now, please.” I drive Jess to school, then come back and
drive Jake to school, then at 8:45 I sit at my computer and dive into social
networks and emails. This takes hours. I teach people to take 10 minutes – no more
– but for me, it’s an all day affair that doesn’t end until about 12:30am. At
10 am I start bouncing between writing, emails, and answering WLC inquiries. In
between, I check in on my private author groups on FB and try to respond to
every Twitter DM that isn’t a sales pitch. I also spend about an hour each day
reaching out and marketing aspects of WLC to groups to see how we might
collaborate.
The second cup of coffee is consumed around
1pm with a baked chicken breast and cucumber (summer diet), followed by
Starburst, Laffy Taffy, or Skittles (no chocolate while preparing for
vacation). 2:15 I pick up my 12 yr/old, then I pick up my 11 yr old at 3, and
they do their own thing while I run through emails again. The rest of the night
is a blur of preparing for WLC promotions, jotting down story ideas, checking
social networks, and marketing.
I fall into bed at 12-12:30am, read until 1am,
then close my eyes and get ready to start again.
This is all going to change soon. I’m
reclaiming my life, redesigning my schedule, and I will be writing again from
7:30-1 daily, beginning June 1st.
K-I don’t know how you do
it. Only two cups of coffee? So June 1st
is the big day. It sounds like a new book or books might be in the making this
summer. I can’t wait!
When I read ‘Megan’s Way’, it
was quite a ride. In the beginning, the intensity of what Megan was
experiencing actually made my chest hurt. Then later, oh, how I cried &
cried... I know that your inspiration came from a health scare that your mother
went through, it must have touched you deeply.
M- I am truly lucky. My mother is one of my
best friends, and I respect her as a mother, a business person, and, of course,
as a friend. When she had her health scare, she kept the truth from me for a
year. When I learned that if she’d had cancer, she would not have gotten
treatments (this was twenty years ago – treatments did not have as favorable of
an outcome at that time), I was deeply hurt. Although I had children of my own
at the time, I reverted to an angry teenager, and it was all about me, “How
could you choose to leave me like that?!” It took me about ten years to come
through the other side of that selfishness and see how selfless she actually
had been acting. To say I was touched is beyond an understatement. I live in
fear of the day I lose my mother. It’s not that I’m a Mama’s Girl, just that I
so adore her, that I know I’ll miss her every second of the rest of my life.
K- I know exactly what you mean.
I can’t bear to think about losing my mother. She is a breast cancer survivor
and I thank God every day and pray to keep her healthy.
Let’s get off that topic and on
to something fun!
I heard that Megan’s Way is
going to be a movie! That must be a dream come true. How did it come about?
M- Again, I
think I’m very lucky. I was referred to my director while I was on vacation in
Cape Cod, and she happened to be there at the same time. She read Megan’s Way, loved it, and really
believed in Megan’s Story. It is, indeed, a dream come true.
K- If you could cast the actors,
who would you choose?
M- I really
love Virginia Madsen. I’d love to see her as Megan. As for Olivia, I’m not
sure, but I think Elle Fanning would be fantastic.
K-I have a ritual. I like to do
a “writing exercise” with the authors that I interview. I give them a scene and
then ask them to re-write the scene in their own special style. Are you game?
M-
K-Okay- here you go:
Anil sat quietly in the dark room, staring down into the amber
liquid in the glass he held in his hand. He quickly swallowed the whiskey, in
one gulp. Then he screamed out filthy obscenities, while he hurled the glass to
the floor. He grimaced as a large glass shard bounced up and lodged in his bare
ankle. He reached down and grabbed the glass shard, and pushed it deeply in to
his skin, and then pulled the shard through his leg, all the way up to his
knee.
"Arrr!"
He screamed out in pain and then grabbed the glass shard and
threw it back on the floor. He did not notice the blood gushing down his leg
and pooling on the floor. He felt a little better now. He had discovered that
cutting himself seemed to calm him down. Sometimes he became so irate and
agitated it took more than just a few cuts. It was starting to escalate. Like a
drug, he needed more and more. The month before he was not able to soothe
himself until he had sliced off his pinky finger
M- Anil sat in the corner of the room, the darkness
pressing in on him. He clenched a whiskey glass between his three fingers and
his thumb. He sucked down the whiskey in one fast gulp, grimacing as the hot
liquid slid down his throat, then grit his teeth and threw the glass against
the wall. His heartbeat pounded in his ears, sweat poured down his brow. He
breathed in fast, hard spurts, wishing his fiancé hadn’t left him, made a fool
of him. He’d show her. He stood, a shard of glass sliced into the arch of his
bare foot.
“Mother effer!” He crouched, yanked the glass from
his foot, and watched the blood gush onto the cold concrete floor. Anil mumbled
under his breath as he jabbed the glass into his calf, tearing it upward,
leaving a thick trail of blood oozing onto the floor. His pulse calmed.
Numbness set in. I’ll show that bitch.
His eyes bulged, settling on his missing pinky. Cutting was his savior—the
pinky had been just the beginning.
K- I love it! So delightfully twisted!
Do you have any exciting events
or book promotions coming up?
M- I think every book promotion is exciting! I
am currently on a summer blog tour, and my newest manuscript, TRACES OF KARA,
is currently being shopped to publishers, so we shall see where that lands me.
I’m refocusing WLC for authors to make it a more user-friendly site, and that’s
going to be a big change. Fostering Success is currently in a beta-testing
stage, and I’m exciting about launching that in the next 4 weeks. Overall, I
think I have a lot to look forward to, and I hope to bring my readers several
great stories in the next 12 months.
K- Melissa, thank you so much
for joining us. It was wonderful chatting with you. Where can people find you
and your work on the web?
Thank you, Kat, it was my pleasure! Below are
my links, and I love to chat with readers, so please, find me! Xox
Facebook (Fanpage)
