Today I’m pleased to welcome Angela Scott to Off the Page, chatting about her new book Desert Rice.
Angela Scott hears voices. Tiny fictional people sit on her shoulders and whisper their stories in her ear. Instead of medicating herself, she decided to pick up a pen, write down everything those voices tell me, and turn it into a book. She’s not crazy. She’s an author. For the most part, she writes contemporary Young Adult novels. However, through a writing exercise that spiraled out of control, she found herself writing about zombies terrorizing the Wild Wild West–and loving it. Her zombies don’t sparkle, and they definitely don’t cuddle. At least, she wouldn’t suggest it. She lives on the benches of the beautiful Wasatch Mountains with two lovely children, one teenager, and a very patient husband. She graduated from Utah State University with a B.A. degree in English, not because of her love for the written word, but because it was the only major that didn’t require math. She can’t spell, and grammar is her arch nemesis. But they gave her the degree, and there are no take backs.
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Can Veterinarians work on people if they had to? (Fun research for DESERT RICE)
by Angela Scott
As an author, I’ve had my fair share of fun research for different books I’ve written. Some of my favorite would have to be the research I’ve done for my WANTED: Dead or Undead zombie series. For instance: can a large knife jabbed up through the bottom of a jaw and into the roof of a mouth possibly kill a person; how to skin a rabbit; what dead bodies smell like; medical practices during the last 1800’s (good stuff).
But my favorite piece of research came when I was writing DESERT RICE. Without giving away some of the plot elements (sorry, I’m mean like that), I had to find out if it was possible for a veterinarian to perform certain medical procedures on a person if it came down to that and no other option was available. Did they have the right medicines? The right tools? Etc…
I did a lot of research online, but had some mixed references and views. Most people agreed that in an emergency, they would have a veterinarian fix them up (it was better than using a banker or a waitress—this was said in jest by many). But the funny thing is, veterinarians actually have a lot of human medical knowledge. They study it in school. AND, (from actually talking with a veterinarian) some veterinarians find working on animals quite difficult and will decide it’s easier to just work on people—same species verses working on a slew of different animals and needing to know their bodies and biology. Interesting, huh?
I stopped into my local veterinarian’s office to chat and find out if indeed it was possible for them to work on a person. Say for instance, do surgeries and administer medicines. The answer is YES. Most of their medicines and tools can be used on both animal and human alike. In fact, most veterinarian offices are triage facilities for humans in case of an emergency. This is good to know, I had no idea. So in my area, where we are prone to earthquakes, should one occur and my family members or myself need medical attention we could go there for stitches, bandages, medications, you name it.
I love research. The stuff I’ve found out about over the years has been awesome. I’ve learned things that under normal circumstances I’d have never known about. The only down fall to doing research is that should I ever be suspected of a crime and my laptop taken into evidence, I’m so screwed. My browsing history doesn’t look good at all ?
Samantha Jean Haggert is a beautiful twelve-year-old girl—but no one knows it. All they see is an awkward boy in a baseball cap and baggy pants. Sam’s not thrilled with the idea of hiding her identity, but it’s all part of her older brother’s plan to keep Sam safe from male attention and hidden from the law. Fifteen-year-old Jacob will stop at nothing to protect his sister, including concealing the death of the one person who should have protected them in the first place—their mother.
Sam and Jacob try to outrun their past by stealing the family car and traveling from West Virginia to Arizona, but the adult world proves mighty difficult to navigate, especially for two kids on their own. Trusting adults has never been an option; no adult has ever given them a good reason. But when Sam meets “Jesus”—who smells an awful lot like a horse—in the park, life takes a different turn. He saved her once, and may be willing to save Sam and her brother again, if only they admit what took place that fateful day in West Virginia. The problem? Sam doesn’t remember, and Jacob isn’t talking.
