BLOGWORDS – Thursday 5 June 2025 – CHAT THURSDAY

BLOGWORDS – Thursday 5 June 2025 – CHAT THURSDAY – C. HOPE CLARK

CHAT THURSDAY – C. HOPE CLARK

Please give a warm feathered welcome to author and friend, C. Hope Clark.

rem: Tell us three random things about yourself.

HOPE: I have an Agriculture degree from Clemson University.

I met my husband on a federal bribery investigation.

I raise chickens.

rem: I reckon that’s why agriculture shows up in your stories. #winkwink What is your favorite quotation and why?

HOPE: "If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need." ~Cicero

Of course it’s because I love nature, I have a big vegetable garden each year, and I can never have enough books. Add to that my chickens and dachshunds, and I’m good if the world suddenly shut down.

rem: I love that. When reading, what makes or breaks a story for you? Your fiction pet peeve?

HOPE: I prefer a mystery, and if not that, then a good suspense. The dialogue has to be marvelous. The setting has to be such that the story could take place nowhere else, in other words, perform as a character. Too much narrative or author-speak, and I’m done. I will shut a book and quit reading in a heartbeat. There are too many good books out there to waste time on one that doesn’t pass muster.

rem: Characters—including the setting—and dialogue are so very important. What are you reading right now?

HOPE: How to Read a Book, by Monica Woods – surprisingly, not a mystery, but she writes beautifully, and I loved her other book, The Million Dollar Boy. After that I will be reading Chiefs, by Stuart Woods. An older mystery, but it covers a type of mystery I want to research for a future book. After that, I have three Anthony Horowitz mysteries to read.

rem: Tell us a little about your writing journey.

HOPE: I have always loved stringing words together since I was a child. I learned early in life that excellent, thoughtful writing opens doors and earns respect, even if people have not met you. So from an early age, I learn to carefully craft words for grades, attention, and opportunity. Which meant I practiced a lot. However, my degree put me into federal government work for 25 years, but still, my writing helped me climb the ladder into management. Once I tired of bureaucracy and politics, I put in for an early retirement at age 46, took a reduced retirement, and started writing fulltime because I had enough to get by on bills plus health insurance. I wrote fiction on the side and freelanced for an income until such time I sold my fiction and it started earning money. Now it’s the other way around. The books come first, the freelancing second. A day hardly goes by that I don’t write for somebody, and of course, I have to produce a weekly newsletter with FundsforWriters (25 years old) which contains two short pieces of my own. I’ve only missed two Fridays in 25 years with it. Writing is now in my blood.

rem: I love how the pieces of your journey each lend to the next. What genre(s) do you write and why?

HOPE: Mystery, because I love reading it. Never write what you don’t love to read. I also write nonfiction freelance material and coursework material, which due to my government past, is easy for me. But I hope to write my fiction to my last breath.

rem: I’m 100% fiction, have a hard time staying focused on non-fiction. LOL Tell us a little about your latest book? What is your current project?

HOPE: Those are two different things. My latest book is Edisto Storm, book 12 in The Edisto Island Mysteries, released March 2025. The next book is Hidden on Edisto, coming out in Fall 2025. I’m just starting the Edisto mystery (unnamed) that will come out in Spring 2026. But I also write webinars for Writer’s Digest, which I do once a month. And I am a columnist for a local magazine. There’s always something to write. Also, there’s often an appearance to make, which can be time consuming.

rem: What is YOUR favorite part about the book or why do you love this book? Why should we read it?

HOPE: I love every book I write. Otherwise, it isn’t worth writing. My readers have been wanting me to write a hurricane story for years since Edisto Mysteries take place on a beach. Everyone told me to have a body wash up or get unearthed, which of course I did NOT go. Instead I went with a whole other type of crime in Edisto Storm that becomes totally inconvenienced by the storm. Some fresh characters were ridiculously fun to write.

Readers should read it only if they want to feel like they are coming home to a setting. This beach is addictive, and my readers pine for more books, reading them in one and two sittings when released. They feel they are familiar with the characters, and since many of them have been to the REAL Edisto Beach, they love envisioning real places. Many tourists wait for their annual trek to Edisto Beach to buy their latest one or two Edisto books.

rem: Well, you certainly have piqued my interest. What is one take-away from your book(s) that you hope readers identify with?

HOPE: I want readers to feel a pace with the storytelling, making them eager to read and not put the book down. By making the characters easily relatable and in-depth enough to feel real, I want the reader to be disappointed a book has ended and hungry for the next one. They want to return “home,” so to speak. Just like many of the readers return to Edisto each year or two for their vacations.

rem: I do believe you’ve achieved that. One more and then we’ll close. Do you have a life Scripture?

HOPE: Not really one, but I like this one: Romans 12:2 - Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

rem: That’s actually my life Scripture! Anything you’d like to add?

HOPE: To writers, if you want to do this for a living, invest 1000%. You have to go through your days thinking about your current project, your senses and mind ever keen on the next idea. To the reader, when you find a writer you like, stick with them and support them 1000% as well. They are writing for you, the loyal reader.

REM: I’m not there yet, but my story and characters is always running laps in my brain. LOL Hope, thank you so much for chatting with us on my blog today!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

C. Hope Clark thrives on mystery and writes from Lake Murray and Edisto Beach in her beloved South Carolina, alongside her federal agent husband she met on a bribery investigation. Bourbon in hand, water on the horizon, she spins tales of serious, hard-nosed female sleuths.

Hope also motivates writers to step up to their careers and is founder of FundsforWriters.com , awarded 101 Best Websites for Writers by Writer's Digest Magazine each year for over a decade. Her weekly publications reach 35,000+ readers.

Visit her at:

www.chopeclark.com

www.facebook.com/chopeclark

www.bookbub.com/authors/c-hope-clark

www.goodreads.com/hopeclark

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