7 Questions with Leslie A. Rasmussen
It seems like the further I get from my 20s, the more difficulty I have truly believing the happy-as-can-be endings of rom-coms and romance novels. Given the fact that life has taught me that happily ever afters usually just aren’t as tidy as we’ve been made to believe, I was immediately attracted to After Happily Ever After by debut novelist Leslie A. Rasmussen.
Whether you're disillusioned with love and life, or you're just looking for a novel with a 40-something protagonist to whom you can relate, After Happily Ever After is a book that might speak to your appropriately cynical heart.
But, before you look into this book, get to know Leslie a little better by checking out her answers to our 7 questions.
1. What's your favorite drink?
My favorite drink during the day is an iced tea, but if I’m going out for a nice dinner, I love a good fruity cocktail, like a Sea Breeze.
2. Where and when do you write?
Most writers like to be locked in a room alone when they write, I’m not one of them.
I write at my desk in my family room with whatever chaos of the day is going on. I can tune it out very easily, but I like knowing I have people to talk to if I decide to take a break.
I usually write from about ten o’clock in the morning to four o’clock in the afternoon, with lots of breaks.
3. What does your prewriting process look like?
Most days I wake up around eight o’clock, and work out. Afterwards, I shower and make a cup of coffee, then I sit down to start writing.
When I’m first starting a new book, I begin by doing whatever research is needed to start the story.
The next thing I do is write an outline. I know the outline is important, but I also remind myself that whatever direction the outline says I’m going in, I don’t have to stick with that. Often by the time I find myself in the middle of a book, my characters have developed in a way that the story needs to change, so I need to feel free to change the outline at those times.
4. What's up next?
I am a little more than halfway through my next book. It’s women’s fiction and is about two young women from very different backgrounds who find themselves thrown together as they navigate the most difficult decisions of their lives.
5. In After Happily Ever After we get an intimate look at a marriage that is, if not in turmoil, at least completely stale. Do you think that these kinds of marital slumps are inevitable, or are there things couples could do to avoid them?
In After Happily Ever After, Maggie and her husband, Jim, genuinely love each other, but they are both going through their own issues and aren’t turning to each other. When this happens in their marriage, it causes a distance between them.
I do not think marital slumps are inevitable in a long marriage, but I do think things happen over the course of your lifetime with someone, that can affect the quality of a relationship.
I think that, to avoid those slumps, both people need to communicate what their needs are to each other. Emotional needs are just as important as physical ones, and it’s difficult if both people in a marriage are going through tough times at the same time. However, if the couple are honest about what is going on, then there can be empathy on both sides and the two people can come together, instead of pushing each other apart.
6. *Slight Spoilers* One of the most heartbreaking elements of this novel was the depiction of Maggie's relationship with her father, who was rapidly slipping into the clutches of dementia. How did you go about writing these scenes? Did you engage in extensive research, or was this pulled from personal experience?
Before I wrote any of those scenes, I did a lot of research online about Lewy Body Dementia. I also met with a neuropsychologist to find out what kind of tests and what kinds of symptoms someone would have that would lead them to a doctor to diagnose them. The neuropsychologist also described various symptoms that might have gone undetected over a few years, because someone wouldn’t recognize these things as symptoms.
The other way I researched the disease was I joined a Facebook group for caregivers of people who had Parkinson’s with Lewy Body Dementia. Through these posts, I was able to see how different so many peoples’ experiences were for both the person with the disease and the caregivers. This allowed me to come up with scenarios and situations that Maggie’s father could go through that would ring true to anyone that has experienced it or had a family member that has experienced it.
7. While the bulk of this story was told from Maggie's point of view, you occasionally told snippets from the perspectives of other secondary characters as well. Of these secondary characters, whose point of view did you most enjoy writing from and why?
Since I wrote the book from the first perspective, I knew that it would be hard for the reader to know why Jim was being distant and what Maggie’s father was going through from his perspective.
For me, writing from the fathers’ point of view was the most enjoyable. Getting inside his head and showing how scared he was as he slowly lost parts of himself was a challenge for me as a writer, which made it more interesting. I wanted the reader to feel his pain and his fear.
