Authors Are People, Too: Cindy Procter-King
Romantic comedy and small-town contemporary romance author Cindy Procter-King talks about everything but writing…
What are your interests outside of writing?
I love to travel, although I didn’t get much opportunity when my children were young. Then, Disneyland and DisneyWorld were our destinations of choice, and both were fabulous to enjoy with our kids. I’m a big kid at heart, and when I had a chance to accompany my youngest son on a school band trip to Disneyland as a chaperone, I dove right in. The kids had the opportunity to play a piece of Disney music in a Disney recording studio and then see and hear their music played alongside a clip from a Disney film. It was amazing.
In 2010, my husband and I went to Peru for three weeks to celebrate our 25th anniversary. We saw Machu Picchu, which is breathtaking, and we flew over the mysterious Nazca Lines. We also took a 12-hour train trip into the mountains outside Lima and got out at 15,000 feet above sea level. It was dizzying! We ended the trip with a visit to Lake Titicaca.
In 2011, we had the chance to visit Newfoundland after my husband won plane tickets anywhere in Canada. We live in British Columbia, so wanted to go as far as we could. Also, we backpacked through Europe as young adults long, long ago, and at that time we visited the Westernmost point of Europe. Just outside St. John’s, Newfoundland, you can visit the Easternmost point of North America. No way could we pass that up. And Lake Titicaca in Peru is the highest navigable lake in the world. As you can imagine, visiting the Dead Sea (I think it’s the lowest, or one of the lowest, bodies of water in the world) is on our bucket list. However, in 2012 we visited Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands, and, wow, was that ever the trip of a lifetime. Reading about the Galapagos—swimming with sea lions and watching the Blue-Footed Booby mating dance—can’t compare to getting up close and personal with the wildlife in a way you just can’t experience in a zoo. We spent two weeks on a cruise with other members of our family, and I learned to snorkel, which I had never done before. We went snorkeling 8-10 times on that trip.
I really enjoy photography, although I don’t have much time to indulge myself anymore. That’s part of what made our Galapagos trip so amazing—all those wonderful photographic opportunities. I also enjoy playing the piano (self-taught). However, we were in a major car accident over 20 years ago and I had to give up the piano to stop this tingling nerve damage in my back. It was either that or give up the computer, so the piano had to go. I don’t mean literally. We still have the piano, which was built in 1892 if you can believe it, and I plan to return to playing someday when I have more of that elusive thing called Free Time.
If you could do something dangerous just once with no risk, what would you do?
I would probably choose to go skydiving. I am afraid of heights and get motion sickness, so skydiving not only sounds dangerous to me, but the very thought makes me want to hurl. However, If I knew with 110% accuracy that nothing bad would happen and that I wouldn’t feel terrified jumping out of the plane, then that’s no risk—so then I’d go.
My paternal grandfather, who lived to 106, went tandem skydiving at 100 (tandem is when you’re strapped to another skydiver). Grampa was 100 years and 40 days old at the time, and at the time he might have been the oldest person in the world ever to go skydiving. But we didn’t have the proper authorities there to witness his jump and so he couldn’t get into the Guinness World Book. Since Grampa’s jump, another man from one of the Scandinavian countries has surpassed him. I believe that fellow went skydiving at 104 or something ridiculous.
My grandfather, now deceased (he passed away in 2005 of Very Oldness), is my hero. Because he lived so long, I got to know him on a level we rarely experience with our grandparents. If he could go tandem skydiving “just because” he turned 100, then I would want to show him up by hurtling out of the plane without being strapped to a professional skydiver. But I don’t think I could wait until 100 to do it. I’m pretty sure I’d have to do it before I turn 80, because otherwise it’s pretty much a requirement to do the tandem thing. And I can’t show up my grandfather going tandem skydiving unless I wait until I’m 101.
To get in the Guinness World Book, I’d need to wait until 105. Which is entirely possible, IF I inherited his genes.
If you had to give up chocolate or alcohol, which would you choose and why?
I would give up alcohol. Is that a trick question? Who willingly gives up chocolate? I’m a very light drinker, so this is a no-brainer for me. There are days when I crave chocolate; I simply must have it. Never in my life have I craved booze. So, down the sink it goes!
What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever collected?
This is going to sound really strange, and I’m sorry for that, but when I was a child (under 12), I collected bird parts. It seemed like a natural thing to collect. For one thing, I thought for sure I wanted to become a pathologist. From a very young age, I wanted to be a doctor (Dr. Procter), and as I grew up, I realized that what I really wanted to do was cut up dead people. I was fascinated with how the body worked. Example, when we had to do a special project in elementary school, I did one on the biology of the eye. I drew the eye and all its parts. When I heard that in high school I could dissect a frog, or a sheep heart, or a fetal pig, that sounded like heaven (even if the reality wound up being rather gross once I reached high school). But as I child I thought I would grow up, if not to become a doctor, then a scientist of some sort. This was before I realized that I sucked at physics, math, and chemistry. That, basically, biology was it for me as far as science went. So…we had this cat who loved to collect, um, I mean, eat birds. And she would leave the body parts under my bed. Just the head with the beak still intact, and maybe the claws. I had this little wooden box hidden in my closet, and so I put the bird beaks and claws in there. When my mother discovered it, she was horrified. She made me throw out my collection, even though it didn’t stink, I promise. And I had to promise her that I would never again collect something so weird.
So then I started collecting pamphlets. After all, they didn’t rot. I had an entire dresser drawer (one of those tall, skinny dressers, not a HUGE drawer) devoted to advertising pamphlets, travel pamphlets, pamphlets of every type I could find. I would take them out and read them. I think what I was really doing was hoarding information. I just didn’t know at the time that I would grow to love research. In a way, I was still being scientific, but with words instead of bird parts. So I could no longer really be considered weird, right? Then my father discovered me all set to mail off about 20 envelopes requesting information on everything from Goodyear Tires to a local hot springs. I’d somehow gotten hold of a list of places I could mail for information. This was back when stamps cost about 8 cents each, not over a dollar like they are now (but, still, he needed them for his business).
As I was on my way out the door to mail the envelopes (after nabbing the stamps from his desk), I heard my mother coming, so I stashed the whole whack of sealed envelopes in the ball-collecting tray at the front of our pool table. There were 4 kids in the family, so I didn’t have a good time to grab my stash and mail them (without my brother or a sister watching) before my dad came in the basement door after work and saw the envelopes hiding in the pool table. Because the pool table was the first thing you saw coming in the basement door, and the ball-collector tray was in prime viewing position. I then received a lecture about wasting stamps. But I was permitted to keep my pamphlet collection, and I think I had it for about 3 years, until the drawer was jam-packed. I eventually grew too old for the collection and tossed it out.
Since then, I’ve just collected chocolate. Except I find it doesn’t last.
What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?
Well, keep in mind that I have an aversion to working for anyone. I like working for myself and setting my own hours. So I haven’t liked many jobs. Now, I don’t know if this would qualify as a “worst job,” but a job I really didn’t want to do but felt was necessary to keep my unemployment insurance going after I got married and moved to a tiny logging town with my husband where there were few jobs to be had…I worked in a fish hatchery. By this time, I was well over my love for biology, cutting up dead people, and collecting bird parts. The job only lasted a few weeks. I sat there every day with two other women with my hands shoved into very, very cold water (that, strangely, after about 6 weeks, did not feel cold anymore). I’d grab a tiny little fish out of this small trough on my left, cut off the fin at the top for identification purposes, then toss it into the bucket with the other newly fin-less fishies. The biologists who worked at the hatchery would keep hauling in buckets of fish, and we’d merrily lop off their top fins, and then the fish would be returned to the huge troughs outside the hatchery. Later, they would be returned to the wild. The idea was that the biologists could track fish with the top fins lopped off. Don’t ask me what they tracked. My hands were too cold for my brain to remember.
A biologist friend of mine who worked at the hatchery told me about this job, I think halfway to torture me. So I took it, froze my hands off and mutilated fish, then discovered that the job hadn’t lasted long enough to extend my unemployment insurance benefits anyway! So I had to go to work in a prison. But that’s another story.
What’s your guilty pleasure?
Reality TV. I know it’s bad for my brains, I know it will make me do crazy things, probably go insane, and die before my time from some sort of special Reality TV radiation, and I promise I do not watch shows like The Jersey Shore or any of the Housewife franchises. But I love watching The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, and also Bachelor Pad and Big Brother. I love The Amazing Race, but I’m also addicted to HBO shows that come on at the same time (like Boardwalk Empire or Dexter, which comes on HBO-Canada up here), so I’m not glued to every season of The Amazing Race. I also love American Idol and this year I got into The X-Factor. So You Think You Can Dance is another favorite.
I can justify the singing and dance competitions, because I’m watching a talented person hopefully living out their dreams, but my only justification for all things Bachelor is that I met my husband young and so didn’t have to endure what we fondly called back then The Meat Market (clubbing). So I get my jollies by watching the contestants vie for the Bachelor’s affections, even though I know they rarely see a happy-ever-after. But sometimes, once in a while, they do. And then…ah…sigh…isn’t that sweet?
Would you rather meet your great-great grandparents or your great-great grandchildren?
That’s a tough question, because I’d like to meet both. But if I had the chance to time-travel, I’m more certain about the past, so I’d probably go with my great-great grandparents. My paternal grandfather lived to 106, like I said, and his father, my paternal great-grandfather, immigrated to Canada from England back in the 1890s because England had too many people for his tastes. He settled in the woods, and the family farm, although no longer a working farm, is still in the family where he settled. It would be great to time-travel back to England and meet HIS parents and perhaps discover what it was about England being “too crowded” that made him leave all our relations and settle in the backwoods of Canada.
My maternal grandmother was born in Russia of Dutch Mennonite blood. She lived through the Russian Revolution and came to Canada as a young woman. So, if I had the chance to meet my great-great grandparents on her side, well, I did meet her mother, my great-grandmother, when I was a child. And I adored her. So I’d time-travel back to Russia and meet my great-grandmother’s parents. I’d get to experience what it was like in a Mennonite community way back when, and the old folks would probably have great tales that had been passed down to them about escaping the Netherlands for Russia in the time of Catherine the Great. The stories!
You just won $100,000, and you have to spend it all on yourself today. No saving, no gifts, no charity allowed. What are you going to buy?
If I had to spend it all on myself today…does plunking it toward a mortgage constitute saving? I’m a Capricorn; we’re practical. :) Barring that, I’d buy a Harley-Davidson touring motorcycle, because my husband is an avid motorcyclist and his bike, a Low Rider, is too uncomfortable for long-distance passenger riding. So it’s not a gift for him, it’s for the comfort of my butt and because I’d love to ride all over Canada and/or the U.S.
The Harley wouldn’t cost $100K, though, so I’d also get myself a mini-Cooper and rebuild the sundeck. It’s falling apart. Or, I might blow all the money on a 6-month tour around the world! And…I’d buy a whole lot of Peanut Butter Cups.
CINDY PROCTER-KING writes romantic comedy and small-town contemporary romance, and she’s a Romance Writers of America® Golden Heart Finalist. Her three books and two short stories have been published by Five Star Expressions and Blue Orchard Books. She also writes erotic romance under a super-secret pen name (which you can find on her website if you explore very thoroughly!). Cindy’s latest release is WHERE SHE BELONGS, which was a Kindle Contemporary Romance Bestseller and a Kindle Women’s Fiction Bestseller in February. Visit Cindy’s website or follow her on Twitter or Facebook.
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Lauren asks: Which of Cindy’s answers did you find the most touching, amusing, or surprising? For me: Her wish to meet her ancestors was the most touching, her weird collections were the most amusing, and as for surprising…you’ve gotta love her 100-year-old skydiving grandfather!
