What is your process for completing a book?

I don't think I have a real process. I just have a rather compulsive personality where I have to see something through from beginning to end! It's satisfying.

So, I don't really have a process but I have a whole bunch of, well, idiosyncracies...Are you ready?

I can't work if my office is a mess! I have to be organized (it's kind of like organizing my MIND). Then, as I write, the room gets messier and messier with cups and glasses and plates and all the stuff I accumulate during the day (only to be cleaned up before I begin again).

I play music on my stereo – piano solos, mostly – as I'm writing. Movie themes, show tunes. Before I sit down to write I LISTEN to music with words - from opera to country! Sometimes I get in the car and drive around to just THINK if I get "stuck" on something...

I make notes all day and night on anything that I can write on - cocktail napkins, backs of tissue boxes, paper towel if I'm cooking dinner...And I read books ALL THE TIME!

You absolutely can't write unless you read. Is this all part of the process? Hmmmm, I guess it is!

Did you feel a certain amount of pressure with the second book as opposed to the first?

Not at all. The Puzzle Bark Tree is written, as you know, in the third person as opposed to the first-person narrative in my first book, Jimmy's Girl. This change in perspective or point of view was a bit daunting at first but then it became so liberating. I enjoyed the new "perch" as the writer. I love to write...to me it's a luxury...my drug, if you will.

In an earlier interview, you said you always felt like a writer. Did you feel differently when you became a published author?

Yes – I became nervous! Suddenly what I did for love made me more public. And although I'm far from being a household name, I am suddenly opened up to questions about MYSELF.

I'm a very private person and in the beginning this was a difficult transition for me...now I seem to enjoy it since there is a wonderful exchange "out there" what with interviews and "fans" writing to me...I have made new friends through my readership.

Is there one thing about being a published writer that differs from how you thought it would be?

I never realized how much of a BUSINESS writing is once one is published. One has to learn to be entrepreneurial and self-promoting. This came as somewhat of a surprise!

What can your fans expect from your next novel?

They can expect a very intimate account of motherhood. The next book is the story of woman whose own mother abandoned her when she was not quite a year old and she was raised by a devoted father. Although she is a psychologist, she has never addressed her own issues with motherhood. As her daughter and last child (she has a son as well) leaves the "nest" for college, she grapples with her newly-changed life.

Unlike Emily in Jimmy's Girl and Grace in The Puzzle Bark Tree, she has a supportive and loving husband – but life changes one day when a man appears in her life with his young daughter. A single father, she is drawn to him and sees parallels with her own past. But the plot turns when he is not who she thinks he is...and leads her on a quest to make peace with her past, her mother and the way she mothers her children - most specifically her own daughter. A mix of a bit of mystery both psychological and concrete, it is again an unraveling of emotions that often send us down roads with many detours...

Many thanks to Stephanie Gertler for walking us through her writing room. Be sure to check the FictionAddiction.NET Events Calendar to find out when Gertler's coming to your town. And don't forget, you can purchase her novels, including her new release The Puzzle Bark Tree, through this site by visiting Amazon.com, Books-A-Million, Barnes & Noble or visit your favorite bookstore for more details.