An interview with writer, Rosanne Higgins

Hi, Rosanne, thanks for being willing to be interviewed about your first book, Inmates and Orphans, which I’ve recently read ˗ and enjoyed.

Can you tell us a little about yourself?

First of all, thanks for doing this, Mike!  I am glad you enjoyed the book. I am an anthropologist and small business owner living in Western New York. My husband and I own two doggy daycares. My business keeps me busy for about 60 hours per week so I do my writing and research in the evenings and on the weekends.

60 hours a week, and then you do your writing! So when did your passion for writing begin?

Very recently.  Until now, all of my writing has been for scholarly publications.  I have been a reader all of my life but I never thought I could write fiction.  It was a struggle at first, but after a while the characters just told their own story. Now I’m hooked!!

How many books have you written to date?

So far I have written Orphans and Inmates and A Whisper of Bones. These books tell the story of the Sloane sisters and their experiences at the Erie County Poorhouse and the Buffalo (New York) Orphan Asylum during the early nineteenth century.

Tell us about your first book. What was the idea that sparked it off?

For the past 15 years my scholarly research has focused on the asylum movement in the United States during the nineteenth century and the health consequences of poverty. While going through the inmate records for the Erie County Poorhouse, I came to know the people who sought refuge there.  I felt compelled to share their story, and I decided the best way to do that was to write a novel. 

Do you find your characters come alive as you write, or are they already real people in your mind before you start?

A bit of both, I think. I have a sense of the character before I begin to write, but often one or more of them will do or say something that takes me by surprise.

Yes, I know that feeling: in the first draft of my next book the characters kept arguing (as it were) as to who was going to be the real villain! Did your story change at all while you were writing it, or was it pretty much as you planned?

Orphans and Inmates came out much as I had planned, but that was not the case for Whisper. Some characters I hadn’t thought about showed up and a few threads in the story did not end as I had expected they would.

Was writing the book  a harder journey than you thought it would be?

Yes and no. Telling the actual story was easier than I expected, I suspect because I have been thinking about these people for so long. The problem for me is that I am terribly disorganized, and it took me a long time to develop an efficient system of notes that I could refer back to when I needed to recall certain aspects of a particular character, place or event.

Some people say that being a writer is the loneliest job in the world. Would you agree?

No, actually, I would not agree. I have become a “regular” in the research library at the Buffalo History Museum and I enjoy visiting with the staff and the other people who use the library. I have also met many kind and extremely talented people (like you!) along the way. I think now that we have so many social media options like-minded creative people can find each other very easily. When I am actually writing, I am never alone. My office is usually shared with two German shepherds and a standard poodle. Often I am stepping over furry bodies when I get up from my desk!!

I know that feeling. I've been babysitting two large dogs recently (we have a small dog of our own) and trying to find room to walk is sometimes an issue. 

What kind of writer are you, that is, do you write to a schedule or do it when the zone takes you?

I am very efficient and usually productive when I set myself to any task (I drive my husband and my son nuts!). I think because I juggled an academic career with a family for so many years I learned to use my time wisely. Those skills have served me well now that I juggle my business, family, research and writing. With a house full of dogs and kids, I learned to work well under pressure and in complete chaos. When I set aside time to work I always get something accomplished. If the characters are not talking to me, I try to outline the chapter I am working on or go back to organizing my notes (a never ending battle for me!).

Sounds like good advice for most writers. So apart from struggling to organize your notes, what's the most frustrating part of being a writer for you?

Marketing! I am still shocked that I wrote a few books that people outside of my family actually want to read! The hard part is taking this tiny amount of success and growing it larger. Like so many other writers I am short on both time and money. The trick is finding that cost effective way to generate interest in your work. I am trying to build a network of talented and innovative writers in the hopes that together we can figure it out!

Yes, a lot of self-publishing writers, I think, hear the stories of those who made it big in what seemed a matter of weeks. They don't hear about all the thousands who have sold just a few copies and wonder what they're doing wrong. So what has been the greatest lesson you have learned since becoming a writer?

I think the greatest lesson learned is that the self-publishing process is not that difficult. Any writer can produce a high quality book at a reasonable cost and distribute it through platforms like Amazon or Smashwords. Getting people to buy it is the trick!

How involved are you in deciding on the cover?

I am very lucky to have an incredibly talented husband and business partner. I describe to him my ideas for the cover and he puts together a sketch for the designer. We work with a company called Ebook Launch, and they have done a fantastic job translating the concept sketches for both books into great covers.

You sent me an example of how the cover of Whisper of Bones evolved from your husband's sketch to the finished product. I thought it would be interesting to let readers see this [sketch and final cover at left] 

What are you currently working on?

I am working on the third book in the Orphans and Inmates series. I am also working on a non-fiction piece on the cholera epidemics in Buffalo, New York, during the early nineteenth century.  I don’t think that will be a book, but there is a story there that definitely needs to be told.  I may just write a series of blogs.

How important is networking for you?

Networking is very important for all writers. I have learned so much from all of the people I have met along the way. Speaking as someone who grew up before computers were in every household (before computers at all!), I find it a small miracle to have connected with people like you, who live all around the world! I used to correspond with my cousins in Scotland as a child and it took weeks to receive a reply to my letters. You and I can communicate daily! In many ways that makes networking much easier, but the building of relationships still take time. A solid network of creative, innovative and motivated people is critical, I think.

Yes, I'd thoroughly agree, and it's not something that you can just jump in and do. You have to have online conversations with people, learn to trust what they're saying, and discover what you can offer each other. It also concerns me that some young writers ("I've written ten books" I saw one posting today) haven't really done more than produce a first draft. They don't realise that books take a lot of work. 

What, then, do you think is the biggest obstacle for writers getting their books out there today?

I think all too often people jump in the pond, so to speak, and become totally overwhelmed. There are so many other writers out there trying to do the same thing. I think the biggest obstacle is trying to build a network of like-minded people who can all help each other toward a common goal.

What advice would you give to any budding writer out there?

Go with your gut. If it make sense to you, do it. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and say what you really think. Start with the people who know you and build your audience and your network out from there. Above all else, keep writing.

What platforms do you use to promote your work?

As far as social media, I use Facebook and Google+.  I also have a blog and a website. I am very fortunate that my scholarly research is similar to my novels and I do local speaking engagements to promote both.

Many thanks for being willing to be interviewed. Finally, where can people find your book?

Here are three places to start:

Amazon 

Barnes and Noble

Smashwords

Google, Facebook and Research questions

UMR Research has just released their findings relating Google, Facebook and privacy and the following are some of the stats.

- 54% of New Zealanders believe that Google should be regulated to protect personal privacy. 51% think that Facebook should be regulated to protect personal privacy.

The question is, what do we actually mean by 'regulation?' This is one of those research type questions that doesn't tell us much.

- 67% of New Zealanders and 69% of Australians oppose Google sharing New Zealand data with American intelligence agencies such as the FBI, NSA and CIA. 71% oppose Facebook doing the same.

This is a bit more definite. I presume that Google does share some data with American intelligence, but what's being shared and what's not is vague here. It's a bit like saying two thirds of my family don't think family information should be shared with the neighbours across the road. What is actually meant by 'family information' in such a case?

- 54% of New Zealanders think that Google does a good job protecting people’s privacy, compared with 45% of Australians.

So if that's the case why are we looking at more regulation?

43% of New Zealanders think that Facebook has too much power.

Power to do what?

- 94% of New Zealanders have positive opinions of Google, compared with 84% of Australians. Fewer New Zealanders have positive opinions of Facebook (73%).

Again, a vague statement that tells us very little.

- Only 19% of New Zealanders think that Google has too much power, while 46% believe that Facebook has too much power.

Huh? Further up we were told that 43% thought Facebook had too much power.

- 23% of New Zealanders believe that Google manipulates search results for its own benefit, compared with 32% of Australians.

Yup, there's always plenty of conspiracy around when you ask a question like that!

Scary stats

With all the hubbub going on in Egypt, and across that part of the world, and the vying for leadership amongst different groups, it was rather scary to read this particular stat from the Pew Research Centre.

When asked about the death penalty for those who leave the Muslim religion, at least three-quarters of Muslims in Jordan (86%), Egypt (84%) and Pakistan (76%) say they would favor making it the law...

Note that Egypt is in the middle of these three. (Pakistan has even higher percentages on other punishments such as stoning for adultery and cutting off limbs for theft.) The article on the Pew Research site is full of detail about the attitudes of people in areas where there are high concentrations of Muslims.

For more about the possibilities of Muslim rule in Egypt, check out this overview from GetReligion.org.

Dolphins and healthy families

And via Alan Jacobs:

For 25 years, the researchers have made detailed observations of bottlenose dolphins in the eastern gulf of Australia’s Shark Bay. That one-of-a-kind dataset allowed them to chart the relatedness of dolphin moms and map their habits of social association, then correlate these patterns to whether their offspring survived childhood.

As would be expected, calves born to moms from reproductively successful families tended to do well. But for dolphin moms from less-fit families, that lack of a pedigree was offset if they tended to hang out with successful moms. The researchers’ analysis suggested that keeping good company was just as important — even, at times, more important — than coming from good stock.

”

— Baby Dolphin Survival Depends on Mom’s Friends | Wired Science | Wired.com

Put on a happy face...?

There's a website called bestfacecream.net on which they discuss, obviously, the best face creams. These are the ones that they have researched and tested for superiority, as well as those coming up tops in surveys.

There's one thing I can see about their top three choices that kind of disturbs me: the price. The cheapest (the one that came second) is $US99.99 (which on today's rate works out at $NZ139.85 - pretty good exchange rate at the moment!). The third in the list is the most expensive, at $US230 (or $207 in some places online). That one works out to at least $320 in New Zealand dollars. Crikey.

Admittedly the site also quibbles about the price - as they might! My further quibble is about the 'scientific' language used in reviewing these creams. Yup, there might antioxidants available in them, but are face creams really into nanotechnology? Apparently they are, though there are some considerable concerns about the use of this in something that's going to be applied to your skin.

When I look up neuropeptides on the Net, I find plenty of links to them being used in face creams - although they also appear to be something the body naturally produces. But the links generally hive off to sites that are promoting face creams and the like. Not necessarily the most reliable of sources...

On a less serious side, I had a look on flickr.com to see if I could find a photo of someone using face cream. What I found instead was a host of pictures of people with cream on their faces, mostly children, sometimes adults - as in this photo by Bjorn Hardarson. It reminds me of the time a friend of ours was goading my wife at a church party - he wound up with a cream cake all over his beard...

Grandpa nap

At last I feel completely justified in having the occasional grandpa nap....!

Nap Time: According to a Pew Research Center Social & Demographic Trends survey, on a typical day, a third of the adults (34%) in the United States take a nap. When respondents were asked if they had taken a nap in the past 24 hours, more men than women report that they had (34% vs. 31%). This gender gap occurs mostly among older adults. More than four-in-ten (41%) men ages 50 and older say they had napped compared with just 28 percent of women of the same age. Below the age of 50, men and women are about equal (35% vs. 34%). Click here to view the report. [PewResearch.org]

It's interesting to see that men over 50 tend to nap more than women of the same age...of course, it could be that we men have worked so much harder all our lives!

The play begins

I'm writing this as a way of both getting warmed up for my next (and final) essay for the Research Methods paper I'm doing, and to also note that the play had its first night last night, and went very well. A few missed lines, a few moments when nobody spoke (but somebody should have) - including me - but overall a success. The audience delighted in it. It seems like a very wordy play (I guess that's hardly unusual) but the words have a lot of subtlety and heaps of humour. In fact, I think the cast continues to find it funny, which is always a plus. I certainly do.

There's a 'window' in the set, so that those backstage can actually stand there (without being seen by the audience) and watch at least part of the stage. It's interesting to see how the various actors have developed their characters; no one is just being there saying the lines: there's lots of detail and lots to keep the audiences eyes interested, as well as their ears.

We had an after-show 'do' last night. The South Dunedin Rotary Club had been the bulk of the audience, and were using it as some kind of fundraiser (to do with polio in third world countries). So all the actors trouped upstairs to the socializing area (which is where we did most of our rehearsing, in fact) and met up with the various bodies who make up the Rotarians.

What was interesting is that the two groups barely mixed. Here we have on one hand a bunch of people who can cope with performing on stage in front of a crowd of strangers, and yet when they come face to face with the same people, they mostly become introverts. I thought it was just me, but several of the cast were like that - or else they honed in on somebody they already knew and spent most of their time with them. And on the other hand, we have a bunch of people who are socially adept, and yet who kept their distance from the actors. Surely actors are 'okay' people these days? Or is it that they just didn't know what to say? Intriguing.

On another issue entirely...

There are always new jobs turning up (or maybe old jobs with new titles). I'd never heard of the job that requires medical coding, but apparently it's a job just like any other. The are medical coding training courses available. According to one site: Medical Coding and Billing Specialist are employed by hospitals, clinics, physicians' offices, health maintenance organizations (HMOs), mental health care facilities, insurance companies, consulting firms, health data organizations and information system vendors. As an Insurance Coding & Billing Specialist, you play an integral role in your employer's office. You help make it possible for your employer to collect monetary reimbursements from patient insurance providers. Medical insurance billing/coding and its related occupations are among the fastest growing opportunities in the healthcare industry.
Maybe the reason we don't hear so much about it here in NZ is because we don't, in general, have medical insurance. Or rather, there are medical insurers, but they're not the way the medical system is run, basically. Anyway, if you want to become a medical coding trainee, you can do it online - a kind of distance course, like my Research Methods.

When We Are Married

Haven't mentioned the Varsity course I'm doing on here much, I don't think. When I last wrote about it, I was still doing a week's block course called, Congregations in New Zealand. Well, that got side-swiped by the fact that I was in hospital that week (!), so I reverted to my earlier choice of an online paper called Research Methods, which actually suited me better anyway.
I've been getting along fairly well with the course, and enjoying it, but I also got asked a couple of weeks ago to do a part in a play. It was a very small part, two scenes in which I would have been on the stage for no more than about three minutes in total. Achievable, I thought.
The play is When We Are Married, by J B Priestley. It dates back to the thirties, I think, but is actually set in the late 19th century. It has a cast of fourteen, so it's a big piece actor-wise. Several of the parts are relatively small (though none of them quite so small as what I was to be doing: the local chapel minister.)
Anyway, I went to the first read-through, and did my two bits, and thought this will fit in nicely with my Varsity work. And then yesterday got a call to say that the man playing the photographer in the play had had to pull out due to unexpected work commitments, and would I take over that role?
It's still not a large part, thank goodness (though it's a lot more fun) - he's on for a couple of minutes in the first act, and then doesn't appear again until two thirds of the way through the third act. The two scenes there are a bit more involved, but still not what you'd call huge. But the rehearsal schedule turns out to be very full on. Three nights a week, and we open on the 23rd May. Crikey.
Fortunately, not being in the second act at all, I have a couple of weeks off in the middle of the schedule, but after that it's going to be a fight to get the Varsity work done.
Well, live on the edge, they say. Not quite sure if that applies here, but it feels a bit like it.

Retirement?

Blogging has taken a bit of a back seat over the last couple of weeks or so since I started doing a paper through Otago University. It's an online paper, which suits me fine, but it's a bit like there's no let up...once you start you have to keep going, though not entirely at full bore.
I'm enjoying it, though. It's called Research Methods, and it focuses on the way to do a research project, whether large or small. While I'm not actually planning on doing anything major in this line, it does relate to my work a good deal, and I'm learning some stuff that will be useful as I carry on working over the next couple of years.
When I could then retire - and may have to from this particular job. Time will tell. With the amount of money the superannuation brings in I'm not likely to be living it up too much. So I may have to do at least some small or short term jobs just to boost the income. My wife doesn't retire another five years, so unless she decides she can't stand to work anymore, we'll have a reasonable amount coming in - and the mortgage is finally paid off about the time I would officially retire. Which will be a relief after all these years.
Of course, if I can't get work, then I'll have to potter around in the garden dead-heading the perennials, or mowing the lawn more frequently, or tending the vegetables, or coming inside and...blogging (I mean: finishing my degree!)

Online surveys - and an acquisition

Back when I was out of work last year, I started (amongst many other things online) doing more surveys online. Sorry, market research, not surveys.

In spite of what’s said about doing surveys online, it’s not a very lucrative way of earning money, and some of the research places don’t actually offer cash direct, but various other ways of spending the points you earn, which personally I could do without.

I’m one of those people who enjoys doing surveys, although I must admit that some online surveys are very boring in their layout. They don’t fit on the screen well, and they ask the same questions over and over, on screen after screen – until you want to scream.

I’ve always thought face-to-face surveys that just asked the same questions for page after page were badly organised, and it’s the same online. I’ve thrown the towel in with some of them, because they get tedious, and all you can think is: when will this ever end?

On the other hand, some survey companies have made use of the Net’s capabilities rather more, using short videos, and even recreating ads on screen. This is a far better way to go, and shows that some researchers have become more innovative. Let’s hope others follow in their footsteps.

Apropos of all this, I see that yet another NZ company has been taken over, this time Research Solutions, which has been acquired by Synovate. Well, well, NZ will soon be entirely owned by overseas interests and then we won’t have to worry about anything any more!

Stats and research

I read that in NZ they’ve decided to make Government statistical information much more readily available. A good thing too, since both businesses and charities and all sorts of other groups can better plan for the future.

Coincidentally I’ve just come across a group on the Net who seem to do something similar, though they get their information through market research rather than stats. They produce a number of reports on diverse subjects, such as customer loyalty, hotspot reports on places such as Mexico, the Hispanic market, what colour is and isn’t, consumption trends in China and so on. They also produce two regular reports, one on change, and the other on the latest market research.

The company is called Synovate, and they class themselves as ‘an agency with a boutique feel that offers global capabilities.’ In other words, they’re not a large organization, but they produce big results, and have a big vision. At least, that’s what I think they’re saying!