I enjoy reading and writing. This is especially true in the off-season when we’re working on the David B’s winter maintenance. A day or so ago mystery writer and author of The Only Witness, Pam Beason sent me an email with the opportunity to join a “blog hop” where I get to answer some questions about my writing and spotlight a couple of my favorite authors. My author picks are Elsie Hulsizer and Wendy Hinman both of them share the same kind of love for adventure, wilderness and being on the water that I do. I have more information on them at the bottom of this post, but first here are the answers to the ten questions about my writing:

What is the working title of your book?
More Faster Backwards: Rebuilding David B

Where did the idea come from for the book?
I was sitting in the galley of my boat, the David B, with my husband Jeffrey telling stories to our guests. Two of them seriously suggested that I write a book about restoring the boat. I wasn’t convinced that I could write, but they pressed me to commit to writing the boat. By the time we returned to the dock two days later, I had decided that I’d try to write the book.

What genre does your book fall under?
Memoir

Which actors would you choose to play you in a movie rendition?
I’m always doing a million things and haven’t spent much time watching movies recently, so I had to ask friends who would be a good fit to play me in a movie. The answers were a tie between Kate Winslet and Laura Dern. The runner’s up were Hope Davis, Leelee Sobieski, Helen Hunt and a young Sophia Loren. They are all awesome actors and I’m sure they’d make me more interesting than I really am.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
More Faster Backwards takes place on a voyage to Alaska where I remember the endless hurdles my husband and I faced restoring an old wooden boat to run as a small tour boat business.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I chose to self-publish. I’m not against traditional publishing, but I knew that it would take years to find and agent and a company to publish the book. I also decided to self-publish because I knew I had and audience who was would be interested in buying the book now. To me it made more sense to publish myself and have exposure rather than hold out for the possibility of finding a traditional publisher, which might never happen.

Since I’ve done all the work to publish and market More Faster Backwards myself, I have had the opportunity to learn a lot about it. If there’s ever publishing company interested in me as an author, I’ll have a good understanding of how the industry works and I think that will make for a better working relationship.  ??How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? ?It took me two years to write the manuscript. I woke up every morning and wrote from 5am-7am. It was the quietest time of day and I’m most creative in the mornings.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
My dream is that More Faster Backwards will be compared with A Curve of Time by M. Wylie Blanchet and Passage to Juneau by Jonathan Raban.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?
Pam Young, author of Sidetracked Home Executives: from Pigpen to Paradise and Marla Cilley, author of Body Clutter: Love Your Body, Love Yourself  were my inspirations to write More Faster Backwards. They encouraged me and gave me the confidence to tell my story.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? ?We all struggle with the idea of who we are and who we want to be. More Faster Backwards tells how my husband and I really worked together to achieve our goals. The story is uplifting and positive. We’re normal people with big ideas and readers find that MFB can inspire them to take steps towards following their own dreams.

Now that I’ve answered those questions, here’s some more information about Elsie and Wendy.

Elsie Hulsizer is the author of, Glaciers, Bears and Totems: Sailing in Search of the Real Southeast Alaska and Voyages to Windward: Sailing Adventures on Vancouver Island’s West Coast. She acquired her fascination with the sea growing up on the shores of Puget Sound and learning to sail on an 18ft wooden sloop.  That fascination took her to the University of Washington where she  earned a master’s degree in biological oceanography, and then to a career in environmental management in Rhode Island, Philadelphia and Seattle. Retired now, she lives in Seattle, cruises every summer and writes in the winter. Her early interest in the sea grew to a fascination with the cultural, geological and historical factors that shape a region.

 In addition to her books, Elsie’s articles have appeared in local and national boating magazines in the U.S. and Canada.  Her writing is augmented by her photography.

Wendy Hinman is the author of Tightwads on the Loose: A Seven-Year Pacific Odyssey (May 2012, Salsa Press), about a seven year voyage she took aboard a 31-foot boat with her husband. Click here for purchase details.

Wendy Hinman grew up moving every few years as a child because of her father’s job as a dentist in the Navy. During her childhood, she had the opportunity to live in multi-cultural environments in Guam, California, Hawaii and Washington D.C. with strong Asian influences and loved it so much she’s devoted her life to exploring as much of the world as she can.

She used her degree in Economics from the University of Michigan to found a successful international business, which along with her insatiable curiosity has taken her to over 30 countries.