May Book Brew Interview
Serious Questions:
1. Why were you inspired to feature the particular profession that one of your main characters is involved in?
I’m not always sure where the professions of my characters come from. Usually either the hero or heroine will just pop into my head and demand I start to tell his or her story. As that person gives me an introduction, I learn what they do for a living. In Kit’s Ultimate Deal, her MBA led to a job in financial consulting. I had to have a hero whose career would be totally different and in time would clash with her work goals so Bret became an anthropologist.
2. What other influences or inspirations are behind your writing this book?
Growing up in Arizona I was aware of the many real estate scandals that happened and more recently the trend to trade government and private lands often in a kind of under-the-table scheme where someone gets ill-gotten gains! This became a major plot factor. Then I like to play with “mismatches” and certainly Kit and Bret were classic in that paradigm!
3. When and why did you decide to become a writer?
Maybe at six or seven? As soon as I could print the twenty-six letters and make a stab at how words sounded.
4. Do you think you could ever co-write with another person or if you do, what obstacles and difficulties have you encountered in this?
I did do one book with my late husband and for the most part it went fairly smoothly since he was already a critique partner and tech adviser for me. I had to finish that book after his passing which was hard and did not feel I could do the job as I would have liked on some sequels we had planned. That book was January Gets Her Gunn, a police procedural romance.
Fun Questions:
1. What was your first job?
I worked as a ranch hand and horse trainer for about ten years during and after high school. I guided trail rides, trained and occasional showed horses and saddle mules and had main responsibility for care of up to fifty animals at a time.
2. What career or profession would you never ever consider trying to do?
I would make an awful teacher although many in my family did follow this profession. I have no patience and do not explain things well in different ways for different pupils.
3. What did you dream of doing when you were a kid? (Besides writing!)
Over the years I wanted to be a flight attendant, a nurse, a ballerina and a rodeo queen. Never made any of those but I also was interested in fashion design and have dabbled in that a bit.
4. What is your guilty pleasure or secret vice?
I am a caffeineaholic and have a sweet tooth that has to be fed now and then although I try to follow a healthy diet. I also sometimes get drawn into watching a few awful TV shows like Dancing With the Stars and The Bachelor/Bachelorette although I know the latter are totally fake and hokey, so bad they are almost good! I can claim doing it for inspiration maybe!?
Leave a Comment