A dear friend to me, Australian author Susan Day,
accepted to share with us a few things about her books, the characters that populate them and her love for animals.Let's give her a warm welcome!
Susan,
your books have strong characters in them. Why did you choose to write about
dogs?
Thanks Carmen, all the characters in my
books, both dogs and cats, are based on real ones. When I decided to write my
first book, The Great Escape, I sat down and made a list of the all the dogs I
knew. Some of them were mine, others belonged to family members. I then wrote
down three characteristics each dog had that I thought would be useful. So,
Alfie the Doberman cross is very strong, is always hungry and he’s not very
clever (not as far as dogs go, anyway). He has other characteristics but I chose
those to build his character. And it worked really well. He’s one of the
funniest characters in my books. In Major Dakota’s Ghost, he sees five ghostly
shapes coming towards him and mistakes them for pizza delivery boys. When you
have characters like Alfie you can have so much fun with them.
Indy’s another character. If the real Indy
doesn’t like you she bites you; it’s that simple. Naturally, I made her into
our no nonsense combo who enjoys fighting anything and anybody. On many
occasions her bravery saves the day but there is also an understanding between
the characters of how lucky they are she’s on their side because life would be
extremely difficult if she wasn’t!
I run workshops for children and we do this
same exercise with their pets. They just love it!
Where
did you get the idea in the first place?
My friend and I wanted to do something for
animal welfare. I have worked in the pet and dog training industry for years
and she is very compassionate. While there are many shelters and pounds that
try hard to rehome unwanted dogs we felt that there needed to be a greater
awareness of the plight of many dogs that are left un-walked in their backyard.
From there I created The Organisation which
all my characters belong to which operates under our noses without detection.
Its purpose is to save dogs from neglect. I thought it would be fun if the dogs
took control of this situation themselves. It also gave me a great deal of
material to work with.
What’s
your key to writing captivating adventures?
I believe you have to think outside the
box. When I was planning my second book, The Golden Treasure, I knew my
characters were going to have to find a treasure. I considered that most
treasures are found on desert islands, under rainbows, on pirate ships etc. So,
I thought long and hard thought of one place that you’d probably never expect
to find a treasure and it also had to be the one place where you were not
likely to find any dogs. The reason for this was I really enjoy challenging
myself as a writer. Sure, I could get the characters to ride in a boat to a
desert island or use a map to discover treasure in the forest but that would be
too easy! No, I decided that the one place that met these two criteria was a
cat show. Can you image the fun I had getting the dogs into and out the show
without being detected by any human beings?
There’s also another important reason why
the treasure had to be golden but if I told you that it would spoil the story.
What’s
next in the Astro’s Adventures series?
I’ve just started the eighth story, Dogs in
Space. I’ve only got the first few chapters down now but it’s coming along
nicely. I don’t want to give too much of
the plot away but the dogs are required to replace our moon by bringing back
another largish rock that’s roughly the same size. I want to have an educative
aspect to this book, like previous ones, by discussing the various planets. I
know Pluto is no longer considered a planet but given that it’s a popular dog
character I’m not going to resist weaving it somehow into the story.
This book also has another tale threaded
through it by the evil genius who stars in my books, Speed Bump Charlie, the
wicked ally cat. There is a new character being brought it that ends up being
his sidekick or apprentice. While the dogs are away, the pair of them wreak
havoc here on Earth – as they always do!
I’m also doing the layout for Neptune’s
Trident, the seventh book, too and will hopefully have that available for sale
within the next couple of months. However, it is available as an eBook just
like all of Astro’s books.
Author
Info:
Susan Day is a mother and grandmother of
three avid readers. She is the author and illustrator of the Astro's Adventures
series of children's books. She lives in Melbourne, Australia with the family
dogs, two bossy cats, two rescue guinea pigs and a very patient husband.
Susan is passionate about getting children
to be great readers and writers and often posts free activities regarding
reading and writing on her blog.
For more information about her books go to
Or Smashwords Author Page:
