Many people sing the praises of your characters, how they are well-rounded, believable, and easy to become attached to. Exactly how do you go about dreaming up the people in your novels?

People are singing? Wow! How cool is that? Thanks for the kind words. Truth is, I’m a dyed-in-the-wool sucker for chick-lit romance novels and romantic comedy films. I love to escape into fairy-tale dream-come-true stories. But most of the “chicks” in chick lit are in their ’20s or ’30s and dealing with things I am so blessed to have left behind years ago!

That said, I wanted to write fun, funky, fashionable, and faithful fiction for women my own age—boomer babes! First, I select the age of the character and where she was born because so much of who we are comes from the era and place in which we were born and raised. Then I think about the environment and circumstances in which I want to place my “boomer babe,” and voila! The main character and the story are born. I develop the supporting cast of characters much the same way.

Your latest work is One Little Secret and dives into the red carpet world of fame and image. What made you choose this as the backdrop?

I lived in “Tinsel Town” for many years—or close to it in the Southern California community of Huntington Beach. While there, I worked as a professional fund-raiser and spent a great deal of time in the world of philanthropy—a world ripe with dramatic stories about people who had a whole lot more money than most of us ever dream of having. I saw firsthand that although money, fame, and fortune might buy great shoes and designer duds, it doesn’t necessarily make us happy or content.

But I think most of my fascination with the “red carpet lifestyle” of glitz and glamour comes from the dreams of my youth. As a little girl I was raised in the projects of Cleveland by a single mom. The lines we typically stood in were welfare lines, or food lines, where we would get government-issued powdered milk and blocks of processed cheese—a far cry from the lines of people on the famous Hollywood red carpet I watched every year without fail on the Academy Awards. I was mesmerized by award shows and pageants—venues where we watched folks achieve their dreams. Using communities like Malibu, Beverly Hills, and Los Angeles in One Little Secret, and featuring the GRAMMY Awards as a thematic plotline, came far easier to me than I imagined. As they say, “Write what you know.”

Do you find yourself in your characters, such as Ursula?

I would hazard to guess that every novelist imbues their characters with bits and pieces of themselves—both male and female. For me, because I’m a boomer woman writing for my boomer-babe sisters, I would have to say that, yes, I often find myself in my characters—in some form or another. Sometimes my main character has a trait or circumstance directly from my life, and other times I give them the things and experiences I’ve never had. Ursula has been married to one man almost all of her adult life—I’ve had a series of disastrous relationships and have been married to my sweet husband for only a dozen years. Ursula has very close and loving relationships with her two children, who are grounded in the Word of God, with a clear focus on their future—I have one son who, God bless his heart, is thirty-six years old and still trying to find himself, and three adult stepchildren I’m still trying to get to know.

I’m telling you this because so many folks ask me how much of my stories and characters are “real” and how much mirrors my own life. The only safe response to that is: not much and a great deal. But I will say this: Playing dress-up and pretending I was someone else occupied an enormous amount of my time growing up. I started dreaming of winning an Academy Award when I was a kid—first for the glamorous “Best Actress” category, and later for “Best Screenplay” as I began to understand that my gifts and passions leaned more toward writing and not acting. I’m fifty-two years old and I’ve been practicing my Oscar Award acceptance speech for Best Screenplay for decades—it’s a dream I don’t think I’ll ever give up on. Giving Ursula the little-girl desire-of-her-heart to sing professionally and win a GRAMMY Award was something I understood. Getting into the head of a character finally in a position to actually achieve her long-awaited dream was more fun than I could have ever imagined.

There are some key themes here in One Little Secret, such as image and forgiveness. Do you decide beforehand to deal with specific themes? How much of the ideas write themselves and how much of your writing is purposeful?

Some of the ancillary themes work themselves out during the writing, but the overall theme of One Little Secret was very purposeful. I wanted to write about a woman who had selflessly placed her lifelong dream on hold for years to raise her children and support her husband. I wondered what it would look like to lovingly do something with all of your heart and soul, and when the journey was over you were faced with a new direction choice.

The “empty nest” is a significant transition time for boomers. For Ursula, she is suddenly thrown into circumstances where she is able to achieve the true dream of her heart—to sing professionally—yet the circumstances around her choices get to be a bit confusing. I also purposefully selected the theme around Nik Prevel. When you have the kind of money and fame he’s had all of his life, there is a danger in thinking money can buy virtually everything. I also thought a great deal about Ursula’s husband, a man with a myopic focus on his career, and what would that look like if the tables were turned in his marriage.

Do you think you’re a different writer than you were for your debut, A Stitch in Time? If yes, how so?

I’m not sure I’m different—but I pray I’m better. Some of your readers may know I got my start as a writer in the world of nonfiction. My outreach ministry is called God Allows U-Turns, a business started as a result of my own U-Turn journey. Many folks know I come from some pretty tough beginnings. The fact is, I have a “formal” ninth grade education. I have a GED for crying out loud, with a few college courses and a lot of “self-help education” under my belt. I wrote A Stitch in Time as a class assignment for an intensive writing workshop I took with bestselling novelist Tracie Peterson. She encouraged me to pursue this passion and here I am.

To have been offered a two-book fiction deal with Bethany House Publishers right out of the gate is a dream-come-true story! With my second novel, One Little Secret, I used an entirely different POV—I figured I should see what it was like to move from first person to third, and see which style I was better at. I’m not sure—I’m waiting for readers to tell me which they prefer. A Stitch in Time was totally about Dee Decker and her world. The POV of One Little Secret allowed me to get into the heads of multiple characters, including a few rather dashing and dastardly men, and I must say it was great fun! So am I a different writer? Hmm, I’m not sure I’m any different, just a bit older and hopefully wiser.

How did you first come to write?

I began to write as a way to deal with a traumatic early-childhood situation. Writing was a way to create a world that was safe—a world that allowed me to be in control. My first conscious memories of writing are the play scripts I developed as a young girl in grade school—very rudimentary stuff—no character names, just “Me” and “You.” Fairy-tale scenarios wherein I got to be the damsel in distress rescued by Prince Charming. Very original stuff, let me tell you! Back in my twenties I had a modicum of success being published in women’s magazines like Cosmopolitan, Shape, Women’s World, and such with human interest stories that centered primarily on the topics of self-image and weight. I’ve battled a weight problem all my adult life, and back then I was one of the first plus-size models ever signed by the Wilhelmina Agency in Los Angeles.

But when I began to lose weight as a result of a lifestyle entrenched in drugs, parties, alcohol, and fast-paced living, my agent told me to gain weight or be out of work. A catch-22 conundrum if ever there was one! So I began to write about it. I also wrote a great deal in my career as a development director. I wrote press releases, grant proposals, brochures, strategic plans, and detailed development plans. Then, at thirty-five years old, I had a life-changing faith-based epiphany that entirely redirected my course, and as a result of that I founded an outreach ministry called God Allows U-Turns. The foundation of that outreach was (and still is today) a series of books that are compilations of true short stories of people from all over the world. The first book I ever had published was Volume One in the God Allows U-Turns compilation series—twenty-three books and six years ago.

For those longing to be a novelist, what is some of the best advice you can give?

It may sound corny, but never give up! I’ve dreamed for years of writing fiction. I’ve also dreamed even longer of writing screenplays—and I won’t give up until I’m walking in heaven with Jesus. If we don’t pursue the dreams of our heart—who will? Plus, and this is a biggie, whenever possible take writing classes from working pros and read novels in all genres. I’ve attended their workshops at writer’s conferences and studied technique from bestselling authors like Angela Hunt, Lauraine Snelling, Tracie Peterson, Gayle Roper, Brandilyn Collins, James Scott Bell, Jerry Jenkins, and Randy Ingermanson. And I read voraciously—all genres.

What’s coming up in the future for you? Do you keep several projects on the burner letting them simmer all at once?

I’m blessed beyond words to be writing both fiction and nonfiction. This does take some organization to juggle all the stages of work-in-progress, especially for someone like me with dyslexia and ADD, but I’ve developed some systems that help me stay on track. In fact, as an aside, I share some of those systems with writers in an audio teaching series available as a download on my Web site.

As for what’s upcoming, I’ve just completed a nonfiction project with Harvest House that releases in Spring 2008. It’s called Setting Boundaries With Our Adult Children — Six Steps to Healing and Hope. This is a book I’ve had on my heart for many years—born as a result of my own parenting mistakes as a teenage mom. Plus, I’ve just signed a three-book fiction deal with the new David C. Cook Publishing for the VA VA VA BOOM series, a trilogy of books focused on fun, fashionable, funky, and faithful boomer-babe entrepreneurs. Affectionately coined “Boomer-Lit for Boomer Chicks,” the first novel in the series releases in summer 2008.

If Allison Bottke were to surprise her fans in the future, even in the distant future, by going in a completely different direction with her writing, which way would she most likely go?

If God grants me the true desire of my heart from a career aspect, it would be to work in the film industry. I even developed a Hollywood Casting Call Contest on my Web site where visitors can help to cast the film version of One Little Secret—how’s that for being optimistic? As I said earlier, I’ve been working on my Academy Award acceptance speech for the Best Screenplay award for about forty years now. I’d sure like to walk up those steps to accept the award on my own volition—so I hope it happens soon!

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