The inspiration behind my writing…
From childhood…
I love words. As a child, I dawdled over words too long and, consequently, was a slow reader.
I grew up and still live in Erie, Pennsylvania. My parents were hard workers. My dad had three jobs and owned a small paint distributorship. My mother managed that store. I had one sibling, a brother eleven years older than me, who married when I was nine. So, a good part of my younger years I spent alone. Creating characters and writing stories was my solution to lonely rainy summer days when kids in the neighborhood stayed inside.
In high school, an English teacher, Mrs. Patricia Root, introduced me to the classics and after that, reading and writing became my passion. I enrolled in college as an English major, yet the summer before my freshman year, I worked at a local store as a sales clerk alongside four women with English degrees. Worried I’d still be working retail after graduation, I changed my major from English to Accounting but never lost my love of words. While working in the business world, I wrote grants and contributed occasional financial and women’s articles to local magazines and newspapers.
As an adult…
I fell in love and married my soul mate, Jeff, and now we have three adult children and one grandchild. They are my life, but they live far from Jeff and I. Hence, I have fallen back to spending time creating characters and stories.
In 2015 I began looking at life differently after my brother and his wife were diagnosed with early-onset dementia and Alzheimer’s. They moved into a nursing home and I realized just how precious and fleeting life can be. During that very emotional time, my wonderful husband pulled me aside and said, “Quit your job. You’re a writer.” So. I did. After twenty years of working for the City of Erie, I picked up my purse one day and quietly walked away. I never went back. I began my career as a novelist.
Other inspirations for my novel, The Suicide Gene…
First, my grandfather Frank Gifford (Frank Merle Gifford, not THE Frank Gifford) suffered from depression. His wife underwent surgery for a growth on her spine and after the procedure, she was paralyzed. (I actually patterned a part of my second book, Dream Wide Awake, after this incident.) After six years of being bedridden, my grandmother passed away and my grandfather became so depressed he attempted suicide. Because we had so much depression in my mother’s family, I began to wonder: Is there a suicide gene?
Second, my brother and sister-in-law’s situation inspired me to have Emma’s mother suffer from Alzheimer’s. I simply wanted to shine a faint light on how hard this disease is.
Third, small pieces of my life are entwined in this book:
Sharon, the secretary, is patterned after a sweet, wonderful secretary in my hometown. Her name is actually Sharon and she is one of the most giving people I know. I thought she would make the perfect mothering secretary for Emma.
One of Emma’s running friends, Carol, grew from the personality of one of my own running friends—also named Carol. She is our running pack’s go-to person. Smart, sensible, Christian, and everyone’s sounding board. She is a minor character.
Finally, while he was named Gifford after my grandfather, Attorney Gifford John Johnson was patterned after my own son, Attorney Zachary John Zahner. I intended for Giff to be a minor character—someone for the main character’s best friend to fall in love with. But of course, I liked him so much I thought Emma would certainly fall in love with him. (I will never again pattern a character after a child or grandchild. You love them too much and can’t allow anything bad to happen to them.)
The touchy suicide topic…
More than three years ago, I had the idea of beginning a novel with the suicide of an identical twin. Since then the suicide topic has grown. As if Thirteen Reasons Why wasn’t controversial enough, on September 26th, one week after my book hit the market, another TV series, A Million Little Things, began with a suicide.
This new show has the premise: friendship isn’t one thing, it’s a million little things, and friends may be the one thing to save them from themselves. While The Suicide Gene is totally fictional and was inspired mostly by my crazy imagination and a little by my life, it suggests a similar idea that environmental factors (certainly friendships) can influence depression.
I do believe my novel will generate questions about genetic links. Today, our DNA secrets seem to be as close as a stroke on our keyboard and $69 bucks. We need more research, compassion, and funding for mental health issues in our nation. What a better world we would live in if we could eliminate this horrid problem that strikes so many families.
Author Bio
Cyndie "CJ" Zahner is a digital-book hoarder, lover of can't-put-down books, runner, author, and Mensa wannabe. That last trait explains the inspiration for her first novel, The Suicide Gene. Her second book, Dream Wide Awake, was inspired during long runs on Presque Isle State Park in her hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania. She is a proud mother of three and an even prouder grandmother of one.
Before becoming a novelist, CJ worked as a grant and freelance writer. Her articles varied from business to women’s health to the paranormal. Her most popular articles can be found on her website at www.cjzahner.com.
Before becoming a novelist, CJ worked as a grant and freelance writer. Her articles varied from business to women’s health to the paranormal. Her most popular articles can be found on her website at www.cjzahner.com.
In 2015, she resigned from her full- and part-time jobs to write novels. Now, she rises before dawn, writes, runs, and smiles much. She completed The Suicide Gene and Dream Wide Awake, and is nearing completion of two other novels, Within the Setting Sun and The Dream Snatchers.
A hard worker and story lover, CJ Zahner is determined to read, write, and run happily ever after.
A hard worker and story lover, CJ Zahner is determined to read, write, and run happily ever after.
Links
Author Links:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorcjzahner/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TweetyZ
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cjzahner/
Athletchic.com blog: https://athletchic.com/
Purchase Links:
The Wild Rose Press: http://bit.ly/WRPCJZSG
Amazon: http://bit.ly/AMSGene
Barnes and Noble http://bit.ly/BandNSGene
Blurb
She thought they were her siblings. By the time she realized they weren’t, one of them was dead.
Doctor Emma Kerr had no right counseling them. Adopted and her birth records lost, she believed she was born a McKinney. Her face, intelligence, and depression resembled theirs. For years people mistook her for their sister. So, she devised a plan. What begins as a scheme to counsel the McKinney family and determine if they are blood relatives, quickly causes Emma to wonder if she had truly done the manipulating. Is someone following her?
Now Emma clamors to escape the McKinney world of domination and deception.
Is she Mathew McKinney’s sister? She can’t be. Is he in love with her? He can’t be. Then how do he and his sisters know more about her than she knows herself? This is a game to them. Is the game Suicide? Or Murder?
Excerpt
Chapter 1
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
The Funeral Parlor.
The face in the casket was her own. It nearly freaked her out.
She stood between her brother and sister, knees wobbling. Her high-necked dress clung to her skin, choking her throat, squeezing her long, slender body tighter and tighter until she felt her lungs might explode. Damn panic attacks.
Her siblings moved closer, tightening their grip on her when they heard her struggling to breathe. Together their tall frames—movie-star handsome—melded into a dark mass at the foot of the casket. It took all the energy the three of them could muster to keep her upright.
“Are you okay?” Melanie asked her.
She nodded.
“Try not to embarrass yourself,” Matt whispered.
Again, a nod.
She wasn’t sure she could get through the day without fainting. There were no breaks at a funeral, and she just wanted to get away from the grim whispery-whirrs of the bereaved and the sickeningly-sweet waft of the flowers. But she couldn’t leave. Matt would kill her and, besides, she had no cigarettes. Her sister was her supplier. Now she’s dead.
The parade of mourners stretched out of the room and down the hall and it was only 2:05. Some faces in line she didn’t recognize, which infuriated her. Her sister had no real friends. Nosy bastards. They just want to know what happened.
She tried to ignore surrounding conversations and remain composed. But like Medusa’s venomous mane, muffled words of hand-covered comments serpentined toward her from all directions. She couldn’t block them. They echoed in her head like garbled phrases over a worn intercom. “Why did she do it?” “Like her mother.” “Was it suicide?”
That last question nearly sent her to her knees. Her body sagged. Melanie caught her and Matt pulled her close, so she could lean on him until it passed.
“Don’t look if looking makes you queasy,” Melanie told her, but her glance drifted back to her sister’s pasty face. That’s what I would look like if I were dead.
She, herself, had considered suicide for so long it was hard to believe she still feared death. She hated funerals, could barely walk through the front door of a funeral home without hyperventilating. Yet, she had to go to this one. Her own identical twin sister lie in that ugly copper box, her head sunk low in billowing white silk.
“I’m sorry for the three of you.” Her aunt Carol’s hoarse voice coaxed her attention from the coffin. Notably thinner—grief now topping her midmorning chemotherapy cocktail,— her aunt dabbed a tissue at tear-stained cheeks. She was in the third round with breast cancer and getting her butt kicked. “I can’t believe this is happening to our family again. Did you know she was that bad?”
“Well.” Melanie paused. “She’s always had those tendencies, but we thought—with the counseling—she was doing better.”
“Counseling?” Aunt Carol’s cheeks pinked.
“Yes,” Matt said. “Six months ago we started seeing a psychiatrist—all four of us.”
“We thought a counselor might help,” sweet Melanie continued. “We decided maybe we did have some baggage about Mom’s—” She took a deep breath. Her gaze moved to her sister.
Don’t say it, Mel, don’t say suicide.
“Death.” Melanie looked away.
“How horrible.” Aunt Carol straightened. She appeared appalled. “You should sue him—that counselor.”
“Her.” Matt shook his head, eyes glaring. “She’s a psychiatrist.”
“We will sue her.” The twin’s voice rose, but she stopped, glanced at Matt, and tightened her jaw. “She didn’t give a damn about us. Now my sister is dead. She’ll pay.”
It happened then—at 2:10 p.m. She felt Matt’s piercing gaze and watched as he released his grip on her arm. Her aunt Carol became so emotional that Matt had to help her to the back of the room. Family members congregated there amidst her wild sobs while Matt held her, and a rush of people came toward her and Melanie at the casket. One after another. Melanie let go of her, too, and she had to stand on her own.
For the first time in her life, she was alone.
