Author Dina Santorelli to Visit North Shore

Story by Adina Genn

Author Dina Santorelli is making the rounds on the North Shore to discuss her debut novel, “Baby Grand,” which is top rated on Amazon Kindle in its mystery and thriller category. A Massapequa resident, Santorelli will be at Forest Books in Locust Valley on Wednesday, from 5-7 p.m, and at Bryant Library in Roslyn on Wednesday, June 5, at 7:30 p.m.

Patch caught up with Santorelli, who spoke about all things writing, and how she balances life, work and family. 

Patch: When did you first want to write a book? Would you write as a child?

Dina Santorelli: Although I tended to be more of a math whiz, I did write stories. I found a few of them recently—they were written on colored construction paper in my crooked, eight-year-old handwriting. And even from that very young edge, the things I wrote tended to have a suspenseful element to them. Spooky stories. Bad guys and good guys. Heroes and villains. As I got older, I moved into journalism as a career, but I was always drawn to the magic of fiction and movies and storytelling. And, over the years, I would jot down story ideas I had that I hoped someday I’d turn into a book or screenplay. “Baby Grand” was one of those ideas.

Patch: Have you always read thrillers?

DS: Yes. I’ve always been a fan of the thriller genre and used to whip through books by Michael Crichton, James Patterson and John Grisham while I was commuting to my editorial job in Manhattan from Queens in the 1990s. I always thought I had it in me to write a thriller. Finally, 15 years later, I decided to give it a try.

Patch: When did you decide to take the leap and begin working on your novel?

DS: About nine years ago, I had a thriving freelance writing career, three kids, a nice little house in the suburbs—I “was set,” as I recall my mother-in-law saying at the time. But I didn’t feel set. I couldn’t stop thinking about all those story ideas I had lurking somewhere on the hard drive of my computer. I decided it was now or never. But with a career and three young children, how was I going to carve out the time to focus on fiction? I decided to enroll in graduate school and entered Hofstra University’s graduate writing program. My goal was to get busy on this novel career I thought I had in me, and by the time I graduated in May 2009, I had about a third of “Baby Grand” done.

Patch: Did you balance writing it with other work?

DS: I didn’t sleep – ha! I’m actually a firm believer in finding time—not only to write, but to do anything it is you want to do. I just read a blog post this morning on the topic of Scarcity Thinking, the idea that there’s not enough time, too many books already in the marketplace, blah blah. I agree that many of us have so many things pulling on us throughout the day, and it’s very easy to simply say, “I just don’t have time” or “It’s probably not going to happen for me,” but if you make the time for the things you love, you’ll get them done. But it does mean sacrifice, and in my case, I sacrificed sleep mostly. I tend to write in the middle of the night or in the early mornings, so I set my alarm for 2 or 3 or 5 a.m. and I get up and write for a few hours, before the day gets crazy. It’s nice and quiet. And it leaves me time to do my freelance work and be with my kids as much as I can during “normal” hours.

Patch: Would you set aside a certain amount of time to dedicate to write your book?

DS: It’s not so much a set amount of time, but a set amount of words. When I’m doing a first draft, I try to write 1,000 words a day, every day. I commit to that. And with that schedule, I managed to write most of “Baby Grand” in seven weeks.

Patch: Do you work from an outline?

DS: In the beginning, I usually just plunge in. Then about halfway through I find myself veering off-course and losing focus. That’s when I create an outline and use it as a roadmap to get me to the end of my book.

Patch: What's been the biggest surprise about writing a book?

DS: Hmmm… I was just talking about this with a good friend: For fifteen years, I’ve had the story of “Baby Grand” in my mind, hoping one day to write that novel. Now that I have written it, I find that the story—and those characters who have trailed ... haunted?... me for years—are gone. They’re now on the page, rather than in my mind (I’m sure that will change as I write the sequel to “Baby Grand”). It’s almost like the obsession is gone. That was surprising to me. But I guess I’ve moved onto my next book. Or maybe it’s that the “Baby Grand” story isn’t mine anymore. It’s out there. It’s everyone’s story now. I love when I attend book club meetings and the members take ownership of my characters—how they defend them and love them. As they should. I’ve done the same with Mikael Blomkvist of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” series. I feel like I know him.

Patch: So there’s a sequel planned?

DS: Yep, I’ve got a sequel planned. First, though, I’m finishing up a stand-alone novel that’s titled “In the Red.” I’m in the revision stage—the first of several, I’m sure. After “In the Red,” it’s all about the sequel to “Baby Grand.” Believe it or not, I hadn’t planned on writing a sequel originally, but as I wrote the end of the book, I had the sense, all of a sudden, of the possibilities beyond “Baby Grand,” what was going to happen with these characters that I had lived with and loved. I saw their futures in my mind’s eye, and I thought to myself, “There’s more I can do here.”

Patch: Can you share a little about being a Massapequa mom?

DS: I’m a city girl who grew up in an apartment, without a backyard or a driveway, so just having a place to park my car late at night, a place to wrangle my kids, or a place to entertain friends in the summer may seem like little things to some of my Long Island-bred neighbors, but for me they’re big. Huge. I love raising my kids here. In fact, the other day, after returning home from covering a freelance story out in Cutchogue, I said to my husband, “We live in a pretty special place—drive an hour east and you’re in farm country, drive an hour west and you’re standing in the middle of Times Square. North and South of us are beaches and water.” Can it really get better than that?