FAQ Category: About the Author

What would you do if you weren’t writing?

Writing. I asked myself this question many times while I was trying to publish and eventually realized that I write because I have to. So if I wasn’t published, I would have a day job so I could eat, but I would be writing and trying to publish so I could write for a living.

When you’re not writing, what do you do?

I walk for an hour or so most days. I usually go to the gym a couple of times a week. I do boring things like buy groceries, and go to the movies and I watch a lot of Voice and Jane The Virgin and Letterkenny. Otherwise, I’m usually writing. I’ve tried golf and gardening, but I always seem too busy with the writing to have any success at it. We’re trying to make a point of traveling more.

Where do you work?

My office is a finished attic bedroom with two windows and a slanted ceiling. I work at a desk that my dad bought for me from Costco at least 20 years ago. I sit on a ball. Want a tour?

 

Do you work on more than one book at a time?

Funny you should ask.

Before I published, when I had young children and time was at a premium, I was genuinely frustrated that I couldn’t physically work on more than one book at a time. So the most honest answer is, No. Of course I can’t type one story and dictate another.

But I often have different books in various stages of completion. I might be writing the first draft of one and have to stop for a few days because I have revisions or copy edits on another. That’s very common.

With On The Edge, the heroine, Glory, writes a book. I pretty much wrote her book, Blessed Winter, in real time as I came to points in Glory’s story where she could steal away to the cafe or whatever. I wrote it as if it was a subplot of the main book. (It kind of was.)

It was very challenging and that’s why I didn’t do it again with the next one in the series.

And just to be clear, Blessed Winter is not available separately from On The Edge.

Do you write full time?

I sure do. I quit my day job (an office job) in April of 2014, right before An Heir to Bind Them came out.

This is my dream job and even days when it’s hard or stressful, it’s a billion times better than getting up early, putting on ‘real’ clothes and make-up, then going to work for someone else.