Joining me today is Pamela Humphrey, author of sweet romantic comedies. She was inspired to write after researching her genealogy. Intending to create a booklet for her mom and immediate family, she set about gathering stories and pictures of the Ramirez family. She ended up writing her first book, Researching Ramirez: On the Trail of the Jesus Ramirez Family, a family history of her great great grandfather’s family. While researching, she found a christening record that ignited her imagination. Using the documentation she’d found as a backbone for the story, she imagined what life was like for her ancestors and wrote The Blue Rebozo, a fictional account of her great great grandaunt’s life.
On a road trip, when driving through the Texas Hill Country, the landscape sparked the idea for a book. Weaving mystery, genealogy, and romance, she wrote Finding Claire. Characters are never easy to let go of, so she made it a series and wrote Finding Kate and Finding Treasure. She continues to write sweet romance both as Pamela Humphrey and as Remi Carrington.
She is a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom who enjoys many creative outlets: sewing, crocheting, reading, and conversing with imaginary characters (what most call writing). She lives in San Antonio, Texas, with her husband, sons, and black cats.
SS: Have you always been driven to write? Or did you begin writing in response to a particular stimulus?
PH: I didn’t start writing until I was in my forties. While researching family genealogy, I came across a christening record that sparked lots of questions about my great great grandaunt. Looking through the records and documents and after listening to family stories, I imagined all the parts of her story I didn’t know and wrote it as a novella.
After writing that, story ideas popped up everywhere, and I continued writing.
SS: Could you say something about your relationship to your fictional characters? How autobiographical do you think your fiction is?
PH: Looking back at the 20+ books I’ve released, I see pieces of me in each one. While the stories are far from autobiographical, I reveal a little of e in each story.
SS: What are you working on at the moment?
PH: I’m working on a sweet romcom series that is set on a Texas ranch.
SS: Khaled Hosseini (The Kite Runner) says that he feels he is discovering a story rather than creating it. Are you a plotter? Or do let the novel develop organically?
PH: I am like Khaled. While I know my stories will end with a happily ever after, all the parts that get me there develop as I write. I feel my way through a story, which means I sometimes end up revising big chunks.
SS: How do you create and construct distinctly individual supporting characters?
PH: I love to watch people. Strangers are the inspiration for many of my supporting characters. Every person walking down the sidewalk in front of my house has a story. The same is true for all my supporting characters. I try to write them in a way that readers would want to know that person in real life.
Choosing supporting characters for a specific story depends on the main characters. I want my secondary characters there to complement the main characters and to offer comic relief occasionally.
SS: Do you know the ending to your story when you put pen to paper? If so, have you ever changed the ending after you started to write?
PH: I usually have no idea what the ending will be until at least partway through the story.
In my first full-length novel, after a beta reader read through it and commented she didn’t like the ending, I scrapped the last several chapters and rewrote it, coming up with something different.
The new ending was stronger, and it opened the door to book two in the series.
SS: Do you hear from your readers much? Where do you interact with them the most? What kinds of things do they say?
PH: I love interacting with my readers. My newsletter and my Facebook readers’ group are the two places I interact most.
Readers like that my stories are full of emotion. And I’ve been accused of keeping them past their bedtime. One reader messaged in the wee hours of the morning, saying she was one chapter from finishing and couldn’t sleep until she did.
Those are some of my favorite comments
SS: How important are romance tropes? Do you ever feel the need to break free of their constraints?
PH: Tropes are important because they give readers a way to find their favorite types of stories. They are ways to connect with readers. Rather than breaking free, I just like to mix tropes … sometimes in unexpected ways.
SS: Do you believe in real-life happily-ever-afters?
PH: I do. I’m living my own happily-ever-after.
SS: How do you make your readers regret that they’re coming to the end?
PH: I try to write engaging characters that feel real. Coming to the end of the story feels like saying goodbye.
SS: Where is your book set? How did you decide on the setting? When is it set?
PH: Most of my books are set in San Antonio and the nearby Texas Hill Country. Besides my family history-based novella, all but one of my books are contemporary. The other is set in the Texas Hill Country in the 1940s.
SS: Favorite thing about your genre? The feeling of falling in love.
SS: Pantser or Plotter? Pantser
SS: Your favorite genre of romance: Sweet Romantic Comedy
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Three Things I’d Never Do is available through:
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An excerpt from Three Things I’d Never Do:
Humming along, I sank into the tub. There were few pleasures that compared to a hot bubble bath.
An eerie creaking sound made me wonder what Pookie was into. Was it worth getting out of the tub? Whatever mess she’d made, I could clean up later. I didn’t even bother opening my eyes.
A loud crash shook the house, something clawed at my face, and a sharp pain radiated through my leg. Now I didn’t want to open my eyes.
Pookie was much too small to cause such havoc.
As I pushed up out of the water, my head hit something hard and large. Why was there a tree branch as wide as my hips in the bathroom? My gut said it had something to do with Mr. Raymond and that stupid chainsaw.
The branches were too dense to push through. With the tree across the tub and the way the big branches were situated, I couldn’t get out. If I’d been sitting up or even standing beside the tub, I’d be in a world of hurt … or dead.
How much of the house was damaged? I couldn’t see enough to know how the rest of the bathroom looked, but considering there was a tree in the bathroom, it couldn’t be good.
Bits of sunshine cut through the dense canopy of leaves.
I couldn’t let myself think about how bad things were or about how I could’ve died. Right now, I was alive, but I needed to get out of the tub.
No helpful ideas popped into my head.
Forcing myself to breathe in and out slowly, I focused on keeping my face out of the water.
Sirens sounded in the distance.
My phone had survived because George Strait was still singing “The Fireman.”
Connecting those two things, I questioned whether I’d survive the ordeal. The tree hadn’t killed me, but embarrassment might.
Using my toes, I worked to let only a little water out. I needed the bubbles to keep me covered, but I also liked breathing air.
Voices echoed in the house. I hoped it was someone to rescue me and not Mr. Raymond.
“I’m in here! In the bathroom.”
Footsteps pounded up the hall. “Hello?”
“I’m stuck in the tub.” I hollered out that tidbit so whoever it was could at least be prepared to find me covered only in bubbles.
I wasn’t prepared. Hopefully the bubbles lasted a while.
A fireman poked his head through the door. Well, from my vantage point it was a shadow with a voice, which I assumed belonged to a fireman. “You in here?”
“Yes, in the tub.”
Leaves rustled. “Are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so, but the tree has me barricaded in here.”
“Were you injured when it fell?”
I’d already said I wasn’t hurt. Why was he asking if I was injured?
That reinforced my thoughts from earlier. The damage must’ve been severe, and he was surprised to find someone alive.
I mentally took inventory. I’d been too panicked to think about what parts of me were in pain. “I don’t know. My leg hurts a bit, but the water hasn’t turned red.”
His radio squawked. “Female in the tub. Bathroom at the end of the hall.” Leaves rustled again. He must’ve been pushing his way into the room. “My name is Adam. We’ll get you out of here. What’s your name?”
“Evelyn Taylor, but everyone calls me Eve.” At that moment, I wished my parents had named me Sue or Paula, anything other than Eve.
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You can follow Pamela on social media here:
Phrey Press | Facebook | Website
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