(Please see my review.)
About the author:
Darian was born in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, the youngest of two children. While still a toddler, her family moved back to their home state of Michigan, where she continues to live today.
Darian married her husband, Steve, in 2005, and is the mother to two wonderful kids. When not writing, she is happiest spending time with her family and friends.
Where did you get the idea for Love Unfinished?
When the idea came to me for Love Unfinished, I was actually working on another project all together. I had sat down to try a free writing exercise to ‘get the juices flowing’, where you write down whatever comes to your mind as it comes to you. I was writing, complaining really, about using an actual pen and paper to write, that I was getting a finger cramp, and had a blue smudge of ink on my finger. I began to wonder if technology was ruining us, if perhaps things were better when they were simpler. As my mind drifted to thoughts of older times, the image of a young couple came to me. I decided it was their wedding day. I wondered how tragic it must be for someone to die on their wedding day, and thus the idea was born.
How long did it take you to write Love Unfinished?
This is a question I am asked often by family and friends, and is probably the hardest to answer. When I started Love Unfinished my mom was on Hospice due to ovarian cancer, and I was her full time caregiver. I worked on it on and off for a few months, depending on the level of care she needed at the time. But after she passed away I set it aside for several months to get grounded again, to find my place in the world as a motherless daughter. Putting all the separate chunks of time together, from first draft to publication was roughly around ten months I would estimate.
How long have you been writing?
For as long as I can remember, I’ve filled countless notebooks, and folders over the years; but I have only taken up writing full time since 2009. The majority of my adult life I was under the assumption that my career choice had to be ‘practical’, with steady paychecks and 401k plans. It wasn’t until caring for my mom, seeing how much she wished she could have done, that I realized life is too short to not do what we love the most. I decided ‘practical’ just wasn’t for me, I was a writer.
Do you have other books published or are you working on any other books?
Love Unfinished is my first published novel, although I did have a few poems published in poetry anthologies when I was a teenager. I always have more ideas than I know what to do with, but right now I am finishing my second novel, Reinventing Claire, which should be out in late spring of 2012.
When you were younger, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A writer. I was a very, very quiet child, but I loved words. I could go an entire day without speaking, but give me an empty notebook or a typewriter, and I would write for hours. Sometimes I wish I had listened to that childhood want, and not wasted so many years trying to be something I wasn’t.
What was your favorite book when you were younger?
When I was very young it was tied between Goodnight Moon, and Oh the Places You’ll Go. Both I still know by heart. When I was a bit older, I was in love with Little Women. I read it so many times the binding broke loose and I had to use duct tape to hold it together.
If Love Unfinished was made into a movie, who do you see as Emma and James?
Oh good one! That’s a tough one for me to nail down! James, I think the closest to the man I see him as would be Joshua Jackson, the actor who plays Peter on Fringe (although I know him as Pacey from Dawson’s Creek!). He’s handsome but sort of plain, sweet but flawed. Emma is a bit harder, as far as her looks I see a beauty and softness of perhaps Kate Winslet, but the spunk of Maggie Gyllenhaal.
What is something most people don't know about you?
I love musicals and movies from the 50’s and early 60’s. I can sing Oklahoma by heart, could spend an entire day watching Moon Over Miami, and love anything with Doris Day in it. I’m also mildly obsessed with the 80’s; the music, the corny movies, bad makeup and all. It’s all so bad that it’s great!
You can find Darian Wilk at her website, on Twitter and Facebook.
'Oh the Places You’ll Go' was my favorite kid book too! :O Great Interview!!
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