Guest blog with Brenda Pandos

Today I have with me Brenda Pandos, author of The Emerald Talisman. My blog is the first stop on the blog tour which is hosted by Eleni from La Femme Readers, and I will be reviewing The Emerald Talismen in a few weeks time.

I asked Brenda to do a guest blog about her research process for her novel and here is what she wrote:


First, I want to say thanks to Kristen for asking me to be a guest blogger. This is truly a wonderful honor.

My story sprung from a difficult period in my life where I needed to escape into someone else’s life for a while so I invented one. I’m really glad I did because it gave me something to look forward to every day and brought happiness I didn’t expect.

I’ve always had a very active imagination, maybe overactive (hence why I can’t watch horror movies or even swim alone in a pool – thanks Jaws!). I would get teased about talking to myself as a kid. But if my mom gave me some tape, clothes pins, paper and some bed sheets, I’d be entertained for hours. I even sewed a mermaid tail out of my mom’s old nightgown and swam around in the pool, trying to trick the neighbor kids, telling them I was a real mermaid.

When I started out, I just imagined a very elaborate rescue scene (which is now chapter and sent it to a friend. She told me to keep going. The rest of the premise of The Emerald Talisman developed later around the guise of a piece of powerful jewelry, a tortured guy with a complicated paranormal past and a misfit girl with a similar situation. I gave Julia the gift of empathy so readers could get a glimpse of what the other characters are feeling even when the story is told in her POV and she’d know when the bad guys were close.

My setting is in the Santa Cruz Mountains in California, a place I know pretty well and miss tremendously. I wanted a place I could see in my head so I wouldn’t get too complicated for myself because research stopped the natural flow of writing for me. Though I did Google a lot of details to make sure they were right.

Actually, after writing the emergency room scene, something very similar happened to me where my husband had to go to the emergency room. I arrived later and had to wait to get authorization to see him. At the time, was totally freaked until I could get inside. It confirmed I’d nailed that scene.

Additionally, I did look up some vampire lore and read a few books on writing, character development and editing.

I’m not sure if this is helpful for aspiring writers. I think writing about things you are privy to opens a world people can now experience. Though I’ve never encountered a vampire, my story is what I’d like to have happen if I ever did.

Thank you Brenda for sharing that with us! I'm really looking forward to reading your novel!