Monday, January 15, 2018

From Food Blogger to Mystery Author by Debra Sennefelder

Please welcome new WWK blogger, Debra Sennefelder. I will interview her about the first in her Food Blogger Mysteries, The Uninvited Corpse, on March 28th. We're delighted she decided to blog with us.                                                                                                                                 E. B. Davis

I am thrilled to be here today to introduce myself and share a little bit about my upcoming release, The Uninvited Corpse.  I made a few stops along the way to becoming a published mystery author and one of those stops included a stint as a food blogger. That's right, I was The Cookbook Diva. I blogged about my favorite cookbooks, shared some of my favorite recipes and hustled to get comments, page views and had a love/hate relationship with my DSLR camera. Yeah, good times.

These days I'm creating fictional worlds that include plotting murder, developing recipes for my and a creating bunch of lovable characters. So how exactly did I go from food blogger to author?

I'd been pursuing publication for several years and I got discouraged enough to look for another creative outlet. At that time blogging was becoming popular so I started my first blog on a community website. There were dozens of blogs (on the now-defunct website), and I was hooked.  After a couple of months I realized I wanted to branch out on my and I'd discovered food blogs. Talk about a perfect match. I love cooking and baking and I love writing. I began a free blog on Wordpress.com and after about six months I bought my blog domain and shifted over to my own website. The Cookbook Diva.com was born.

I reviewed cookbooks, developed recipes and struggled with my photography. I loved everything about blogging. What I loved most was the fact no one could tell me what to write, how to write it or when to write. The freedom was intoxicating. It was heaven, yet something was missing - fiction.

I realized I missed writing fiction, something I'd done since childhood. To say I was torn would be accurate. I could continue with food blogging, maybe becoming the Connecticut version of the Pioneer Woman, or go back to a dream I'd had since I was a kid, which was to be an author. I decided to ease back into fiction writing by connecting with a critique partner and spending a few hours a week writing in addition to my day job, blogging and life. A point came where something had to give, I couldn't do it all. The more I worked on my manuscript the more I realized that's what I was meant to do. Within a year I stopped blogging and a year later I let the website go and put all my eggs in one basket. Within a year after that, I'd had a completed manuscript, found an agent and was offered a three-book contract about a food blogger who has a side hustle of solving murders. I think I made the right decision.

In addition to writing The Food Blogger Mystery series, which debuts March 27th with book number one The Uninvited Corpse, I have sold a second series, The Resale Boutique Mystery series to Kensington Publishers and debuts in January 2019. I'm looking forward to spending every fourth Monday here with you and sharing my journey as a debut author this year.

18 comments:

  1. congratulations on your upcoming releases. Food and crime fiction are an excellent pairing.

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  2. What a great look at an interesting process! I love the cover - it has all the elements of a fun cozy read. All the best with the new book - it's on my TBR. Stay warm in CT.

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  3. I absolutely love your title! Makes me want to read the book. Hope you sell truckloads of copies.

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  4. Welcome Debra!

    I'm looking forward to reading your books and to your monthly blogs.

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  5. Welcome to WWK, Debra. You have a great tale of how persistence can pay off. I look forward to a future blog about how an unpublished author landed TWO new series contracts.

    ~ Jim

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  6. Hi Debra, So happy you've joined us on Writers Who Kill! I love the title of your book - can't wait to read it.

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  7. Welcome! You are the second Debra of the group.

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  8. Hi Kait,

    Thank you! I hope you'll enjoy the book. I'm trying to stay warm and by the end of the week it's supposed to get up to the upper 40s! Yay!

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  9. Hi Sasscer,

    Thank you! It was my working title and my editor loved it.

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  10. Hi Jim,

    Thank you! I'm so happy to be here. I am fortunate that I have two series with Kensington. Both are so much fun to write.

    Debra

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  11. Hi Shari,

    Thank you! I'm very happy to be here and I'm looking forward to this year. I hope you'll enjoy the book.

    Debra

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  12. Hi KM,

    Thank you. I hope you'll enjoy the book and find my future posts here interesting.

    Enjoy your day!

    Debra

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  13. Hi Warren,

    Thank you for the welcome. WWK does have it's full of Debras this year. :)

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  14. Welcome to WWK, Debra, and congratulations on getting your book published. I look forward to reading it.

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  15. Oh, you're another CT person! So am I. I'll have to support my local author!

    DebRo

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  16. Hi Gloria,

    Thank you! I hope you'll enjoy the book.

    Debra

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  17. Hi Deborah,

    Ready for the snow that's coming tomorrow? We just got rid of that foot of snow that came last week. Oh, well. Another snowy day means more reading time. :)

    Have a nice evening,

    Debra

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