American River College adjunct English professor Erika Mailman talked about the writing process for her book “Haunted: The Arnaud Legacy” and read some scenes from her story at Thursday’s college hour.
Mailman wrote the book under her pen name Lynn Carthage. She is taking this semester off from teaching to focus on writing.
This is the first book in the trilogy. The second one comes out in February.
“I came because I saw the flyer and I thought the book looked really interesting and there is a raffle to win the book, so I’m hoping to get that,” American River College student Kate Clark said.
The book is about a teenage girl named Phoebe who moves from San Francisco to her step-father’s manor in England. She soon discovers that something is not right with the manor.
Later, Phoebe meets a boy named Miles and he tells her the history of the manor and how it is haunted by Madame Arnaud who used to live there and would drink children’s blood so she could gain everlasting life.
“I got this idea from being arose from a nightmare and days after I kept jotting down what I would remember from the nightmare and the more I would remember the more I thought it would be a good book,” Mailman said.
Each of the books of the trilogy have their own plot and a bigger plot is in all three of the books.
Mailman also wrote historical fiction books under her real name, and talked about how different it was changing to young adult fiction.
“I had to get in a teen mindset again,” Mailman said. “Having to think about back when I lived with my parents and when I had my first kiss and all the stress of teenager things, that was hard.
“Being a writer is almost like a sport, you have to practice. Sit down every day and write for at least an hour. Having an idea of what to write about is not enough.”
Mailman got started writing when she was in fourth grade when she got picked for an additional creative writing class at her elementary school.
She originally thought she would be a poet but then slowly transitioned into writing novels.
“I like that I can write what I like to read,” said Mailman.
ARC student Summer Morris recently discovered her own flair for writing.
“I’m a nursing major and I started taking English classes and I found that I really like writing,” said Morris. “It’s cool to hear what her writing process is to add in my life.”
