MELISSA WHITLER
Melissa@DallasVoice.com
shley Herring Blake, the author of internet hits Deliah Green Doesn’t Care and Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date, is back with a new series, “Clover Lake.” The first book, Dream On, Ramona Riley, was released last month and is the perfect summer read.
The novel follows Ramona, who has been working as a waitress in her small town ever since her father’s car accident drove her to move home. It’s been 12 years since the accident, and now Ramona’s sister is getting ready to go off to college.
It’s time for Ramona to pursue her own dreams, if she’ll give herself permission.
Dylan Monroe arrives at Clover Lake to shoot a new movie and has to learn what it means to live a quiet small-town life in order to accurately play her role. And who better to help than a local?
Except Dylan and Ramona have met before, when both of their lives were in turmoil. Will their shared past be enough to keep them together, or will their dreams drive them apart?
The second book in the series, Get Over It, April Evans, follows Ramona’s best friend as she tries to get her life together. The novel is set to be released next year in February, with the cover just revealed online.
With the release of the first book, Ashley Herring Blake took some time to talk about the new series and what it means to her to write queer stories.
Dallas Voice: Dream On, Ramona Riley is the first book in the new Clover Lake series. Where did the inspiration for it come from? Ashley Herring Blake: It’s hard to talk about where an idea came from. I feel like it just comes to me. I’m very visual and see things that spark an idea. I love small towns, and with Clover Lake I wanted to create a small town with weirdness and quirkiness.
The final product is cobbled from so many ideas. With the town I wanted to take normal situations and place them off the beaten path to make it more interesting.
The writing process has all these layers, like an onion. I initially began with the characters and wanted to explore two different things. The first is what does it look like when you give up your dreams. Ramona doesn’t have regrets but still had to put her life on hold for her family.
The second came when I saw a picture of Frances Bean Cobain, and I wondered what it would be like as the child of Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love. That’s how Dylan was born. She is my messiest character to date, but I love writing that messiness. She has to learn how to accept and give love.
How did you research the celebrity lifestyle? For Dylan, I totally made it up. I did some research, looking up industry terms and what might be on a movie set. I looked up children of famous people to see what their experiences were like. In creating a unique character, I wanted a balance between making it feel true and the freedom to make Dylan what I needed her to be. I needed her to have issues with her director and wanted her to have conflict with a costar. In this story that’s what drives things.
I’m making it up for the purpose of the story, but a lot of it is trying to be as real as possible.
With Ramona as a designer, clothing plays a big part in the novel. How did you come up with the costuming? I used pictures for inspiration. I’m not a costume designer, so I just paired together things I saw and liked. For the movie, I just made up the costumes how I would do it.
The great thing about fiction is there’s no wrong way to do it. I am someone who dresses simply and wears a lot of black, so this was something different for me. The cool thing here is there are no stakes, there’s no budget so I can just dream.
How did you balance the two perspectives of Ramona and Dylan? It all comes from character development. Before I even start writing I plan out the characters, their entire history. I have to know those things because they affect how they speak, how they dress, everything.
The hard part is deciding whose POV to write a certain scene in. The default is altering chapters, but that doesn’t always work out. With sex scenes especially I try to give them both a POV in one scene. I like to have that experience depicted for both of them, but it depends on the needs of the book at each moment.
How has it been writing adult fiction? I think I was ready to explore that freedom. I’ve written six kid lit books, and I’m proud of them. But I feel like I’ve said what I needed to say. I’m ready to explore messy adults.
This time around I wanted to write the kind of book I like to read, the kind of characters I want to read about. I really enjoy messy people, and what guides me is the characters. Every character is a little bit me, even though they are all unique entities.
What does it mean to you to be able to write such queer stories? I love making all my characters at least a little queer. We can’t live in isolation. I want a plethora of people surrounding these characters even when they’re having issues. I want to show that that is real, that there’s queer people everywhere. I also think it’s realistic. Queer people seek out other queer people.
When I first started writing, I didn’t know I was queer. Once I came out it changed everything, even the stories I wrote.
For more information and to purchase the books, visit Ashley Herring Blake’s website.