Author Interview with Iris Chacon

 Iris Chacon is a singer, writer, and teacher living in Florida.

LQ: Tell me a little bit about yourself. 

IC: I’m a Florida girl, so even though I love to travel, I’ve only lived in the hot climate of the American Southeast. I feel secretly inferior to people who cope with actual winters. I’m married, have two grown (beautiful) offspring, and love animals. I’ve had several interesting jobs, but my most recent and favorite one was teaching.

LQ: What does your writing process look like?

IC: I hate to tell you this, Kara, but sometimes it’s not pretty. I have a desk, but mostly I’m spread out all over the dining room table with books, papers, scribbled notes, a half-finished iced tea, and used tissues — but I can never find a pen!

I write on my laptop, or on my tablet when I’m traveling. I have Wattpad friends who can write on their smartphone, but I haven’t mastered that.  I experimented with dictation because some authors claim it’s faster than typing, but with my Southern accent, I have to edit every syllable because the computer misunderstands. So, I type. I also outline, make charts, create calendars and maps, and do a ton of planning for every story.

LQ: What was your favorite book to write so far?

IC: Oh, please! That’s like asking a mother to pick a favorite child, or a child to pick a favorite puppy out of a litter. I’ve loved every book so far, all seven of them. That’s mostly because if I’m not loving the story and characters passionately, I stop writing. If I’m bored with a story, readers will be even more bored. I’ll dump it and start something else.  Of course, my first novel, Finding Miranda (2014), has a special place in my heart because readers of that book gave me the courage to keep writing.

LQ: Who is your favorite character to write about? 

IC: The main characters are always the ones I get to know best and often love, but it’s the oddball minor characters who are the most fun to write. It’s freeing to write about someone like the gun-toting 75-year-old Martha in Finding Miranda or Shadow, the computer-hacker unisex conspiracy theorist in The Mammoth Murders. Minor and supporting characters, who say and do the unexpected, make any story richer.

LQ: Who are your favorite authors? Have any of them influenced your work?

IC: I’ve always heard that writers are thieves, they steal from everyone they meet. I believe we all unconsciously steal something good from every good book we read. I love Dean Koontz and his way with description, introspection, humor, and pathos. I love Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte for the sheer poetry of their narratives. I enjoy the humor and character-building of Janet Evanovich, the survival skills and action/adventures of Steven Konkoly, and I could go on and on. I hope I have been influenced by all of them, in all the best ways. I’m influenced by a new author almost every week. 

LQ: How are you doing during the current pandemic? 

IC: I feel somewhat guilty that, as a hermit-like author to begin with, the pandemic hasn’t changed my life very much at all. It’s common for me to spend a week without leaving the house or talking to another person except my husband. And that’s a good week in my view! So the main difference between my normal life and my quarantined life is that I worry more now about the welfare of the people with whom I’m not interacting. I try to pray instead of worry, but that’s not always easy. Please, stay home and stay safe. Also, it’s best not to make masks out of bandanas, because wearing a bandana on your face makes you look like a bank robber. Just saying.

LQ: What are you currently working on?

IC: I am one draft into Emerald’s Secret, a humorous story of four undercover cops who couldn’t be more different than their alter-egos are supposed to be. The gay man is assigned the role of husband and straight-laced father. The promiscuous diva is to portray a doting wife and mother. The womanizing bachelor is told he must be the gay son of the phony family, and the woman he wants to pursue romantically is supposed to act like his sister. These four are always one breath away from blowing their covers — which would be bad. The last undercover cops who were sent to infiltrate the same criminal operation never returned. If I can make good use of my quarantine time, maybe I’ll get this one edited and published in summer or fall 2020.

LQ: Anything else you would like to share?

IC: Writers can be depressed and anxious even without a pandemic. I want to say to my fellow writers (and fellow readers), keep smiling. The situation doesn’t change because we feel badly about it, so why not feel good about it, instead? Even if nothing changes, we can find joy in life. The Bible tells us God is in everything working for our good, but it also tells us His timeline is not ours. He definitely takes the long view. We need to trust that the story will end well, even though, most likely, it won’t end as soon as we hoped.