My Writing Message

By Peggy Savage Baumgardner

As a child, I would write stories about people, animals and things. If I saw an airplane in the sky, I would make up stories about what I would see, if I were the person in the airplane, looking down at me.

If a dog or cat looked at me as though it wanted to tell me something, I would write a story about what they would tell me if they could speak. In my stories, I eventually became the only person in the whole world who could talk to a dog or a cat.

Now as an adult, I keep a journal. When someone says something that I like, I will write a short story about it in my journal or I will draw a picture of something similar.

My son has a wild imagination and some of my ideas for my books and artwork come from him. If he knows that I am writing a book, we will discuss each character. We discuss their personalities and eventuality I feel that I know the character well. It gives me a better perspective as to how they will react to an event that I want to write about in my book.

When I am writing, I try to put a face on my characters. Sometimes, there are people I know or have met, that have a personality that I want one of my characters to have. It makes it easier to develop a conversation between two characters.

I personally would not like to write all romance novels, even though in each book that I write, I will have some type of romantic story. I want each book to be different, even though I may someday choose to write sequels.

When writing a new book, I think about my story line. What type of message do I want send to my readers. To whom will it appeal? I would like my readers to develop a friendship or feel as though they have met or know my characters.

Many of my friends and family want me to use first names of their different family members. I like doing this because as they read the book, they feel that they are part of my books.

My sister and I went to the funeral of a family member. The husband of one of our cousins said something that was very comical. My sister told him to be careful about what he said because he might wind up being a character in one of my books. He said that he would love to be King Richard. My sister was right. In my last book, there was a judge with the nickname of “King Richard.” Everyone should be careful about what they say, especially when they are around authors.

We are always looking for new material.

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Peggy Savage Baumgardner lived in the small town of Lowell, North Carolina until graduating from business school. After graduation, she moved to Gastonia, North Carolina which to me was a large city compared to Lowell. She was employed with the City of Gastonia until retirement. She had two brothers and four sisters. Married to Frank Baumgardner, who is retired from the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, they have two children and three grandchildren. She divides time between North Carolina and Florida. In North Carolina we enjoy spending time with my family. In Florida we enjoy playing golf and tennis. She loves to write and paint. Her fourth book released in April, 2017 and she was recently accepted into the Author’s Guild.She also paints and has now sold over 50 of my paintings. Life has been good.