“What?” I grinned. “You’re messing with me, right?” The interviewer’s reply was gentle, but I got that she wasn’t playing. Ninety seconds to capture the complexities of my novel, Dream Chaser; a passion that had ebbed and flowed over years in which I left “late middle age” in the dust, and groaned my way straight into older than dirt.

My old nemesis, doubt, wadded in my throat in the way of a cold biscuit, and I went straight to shallow breathing. I imagined an affable duck vanquishing the money worries of being laid up with a broken hip; investment wizardry from a cute toddler, and a lizard-like creature making bent fenders whole again. But I had no such cuteness to call upon, nor could I make big promises. I was alone, just me, squinting into a bright light, and facing down a camera’s red dot.

The interviewer smiled reassuringly, placed a microphone in my hand, and quietly encouraged me to talk about my approach to writing flawed characters. Now she was on to something. Ask a Southerner to talk about the oddities of family and we’ll deflect with a big laugh, then go right to owning one or more of all persuasions. I began to talk about my cast of flawed characters, and I couldn’t stop.

Not sure exactly when the red dot blinked off and the interviewer got real interested in the wall behind my head, but I’d delivered ninety seconds and a lot more. What followed was a great deal of cutting and splicing, the addition of some great images and the spot-on lyrics of Grant Peeples. You can view the resulting book trailer for Dream Chaser if you’d like to do so.

View it here