About the Book:
It’s 2014 and Amy Daughters is a forty-six-year old stay-at-home mom living in Dayton, Ohio. She returns to her hometown of Houston over the Thanksgiving holiday to discuss her parents’ estate—and finds herself hurled back in time. Suddenly, it’s 1978, and she is forced to spend thirty-six hours in her childhood home with her nuclear family, including her ten-year old self. Over the next day and a half she reconsiders every feeling she’s ever had, discusses current events with dead people, gets overserved at a party with her parents’ friends, and is treated to lunch at the Bonanza Sirloin Pit. Besides noticing that everyone is smoking cigarettes, she’s still jealous of her sister, and there is a serious lack of tampons in the house, Amy also begins to appreciate that memories are malleable, wholly dependent on who is doing the remembering. In viewing her parents as peers and her siblings as detached children, she redefines her difficult relationships with her family members and, ultimately, realizes that her life story matters and is profoundly significant—not so much to everyone else, perhaps, but certainly to her. Amy’s guide said her trip back in time wouldn’t change anything in the future, but by the time her thirty-six hours are up, she’s convinced that she’ll never be the same again.
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Author Interview:
1: Tell us a little about yourself and what got you into writing?
I have an undergraduate degree in Business Management but have always written on the side. In 2002, my husband’s job afforded us the opportunity to move from the USA to the UK for three years. As I didn’t have a work visa, I, along with taking history classes at the local university, began to write in earnest. It was more of a way to fill my time than an attempt to switch careers. Eventually, I came to understand that I could get paid to write as a freelancer. That led to a contract to write about American college football and then to the two books.
2: Do you have a favourite time and place where you write?
Mornings are my most productive writing time. I do the bulk of my writing in my home office, which feels more like a safe/sacred space to me than any other place I inhabit.
3: Where do your ideas come from?
My best ideas come via two regular activities: walking and driving. I walk every day for several miles and am always taking notes on my iPhone about stuff I could write about or stuff I am writing about. The same applies to driving, which of the two is more fruitful for ideas. Sometimes I just go out and drive around with no destination in mind to stir the tanks in my brain. I listen to music in both cases, which I believe helps the process along.
4: Do you have a plan in your head of where the story is going before you start writing or do you let it carry you along as you go?
For both books, I had an ending in my head before I began writing. What I haven’t ever done is formally outline a major project, even though in some of my shorter work I’ve typed out subtitles and then written using that framework.
5: What genre are your books and what drew you to that genre?
My first book is a fictional account of me time traveling back to my own childhood. It was an idea that I had kicked around in my head for several years before sitting down to write it. My second book is a non-fiction work that chronicles an uncharted/unintentional yet life-changing letter-writing journey I went on from 2014-17.
The common threads that tie the two titles together are: (1). They are memoirs. Where the second is more clear-cut – an account of real-life events – the first is like a burrito, a real story wrapped in a fictional tortilla of time travel and (2). They both have an element of humor.
6: What dream cast would you like to see playing the characters in your current book?
For You Cannot Mess This Up, I would have Melissa McCarthy play Big Amy and Violet McGraw play Little Amy.
7: Do you read much and if so who are your favourite authors?
I am an avid reader but have found that when I’m working on a major writing project that I tend to be a less focused/engaged reader. I struggle with comparing what I’m writing with the beautiful, well-crafted words that I’m reading.
Among my favorite authors are David McCullough, Doris Kearns Goodwin, David Maraniss, Kate Quinn, Ken Follett, and Kate Morton.
8: What book/s are you reading at present?
I am currently reading Homecoming by Kate Morton and A Fever in the Heartland by Timothy Egan.
9: What is your favourite book and why?
My all-time favorite books are The Raven by Marquis James, Truman and Mornings on Horseback by David McCullough, Paul Brown by Andrew O’Toole, and When Pride Still Mattered by David Maraniss. All are non-fiction, biographies that read deliciously like fiction.
10: What advice would you give for someone thinking about becoming a writer?
Just start writing and don’t stop. While it’s good to listen and learn about other writer’s processes, it’s more important to stick with what feels right to you – it’s an art not a science. The number one thing is to take yourself seriously as a writer, regardless of what you assume anyone else is thinking about your work.
11: What are the best Social Media Sites for people to find out about you and your work?
My website is www.AmyDaughters.com and you can find me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/amyweinlanddaughtersauthor and on Instagram at www.instagram.com/smokinhotamys.
About the Author:
A native Houstonian and a 1991 graduate of The Texas Tech University, Amy W. Daughters has been a freelance writer, focusing mostly on college football, for the past decade. You Cannot Mess This Up is her first published book, meaning she can no longer claim to be “the author of unpublished books.” Amy lives in Centerville, Ohio―a suburb of Dayton―where she is a regular on the ribbon dancing circuit. She is married to Willie (a computer person) and the proud mother of two sons, Will (21) and Matthew (13).
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