Author Interviews: What Not To Do!

To celebrate the release of the third book in what's probably a trilogy, the Maelstrom Chronicles, I've been doing a blog tour and I've answered quite a few questions! It's fun, so I thought today I'd interview myself. This is probably a good example of how not to do promo, but I enjoyed it :).

1. Can you remember the first romance novel you read?

The Sheik's Captive by Violet Winspear. Punishing kisses have been branded on my brain since I was 12!

2. Can you remember when you first decided to write romances?

In my 20s.

3. Which ties into, why do you write romances or books with heavy romantic subplots? 

My 20s. (Note: I didn't settle down until I was 30...)

4. How do you handle people who disrespect your profession?

Disrespectfully.

5. How long and steep was your uphill battle to get published?

There was snow, and I had no shoes, and...

6. Do you ever clean your house or get 8 hours of sleep (in a row, not collectively over 3 days)?

NOT TONIGHT, SATAN.

7. One piece of advice for aspiring writers:

Finish writing the book, even if you think it's crappy.

8. One piece of advice for readers new to romance:

If you end up not liking it, don't be an ass about it. There are people out there who don't like chocolate, and romances are pretty much the chocolate of the genre fiction world.

9. What do people usually do when they find out you're an author? 

"Well, bless your heart." (I live in the South.)

10. Do you like book signings, writers' conferences, and otherwise appearing in public as your author self?

No.

11. How has your career or your writing day changed due to all the changes in the industry right now? 

I'm so effing desperate and bad at doing promo, I'm interviewing myself. What do you think?

12. If you weren't a writer, what would you be besides wealthier and possessed of a great deal more free time? Oops, am I making not-writing sound very appealing? Okay, what would you be besides empty and depressed because you weren't telling lies for fun and profit?

I'd be an editor. Speaking of which... http://www.meankittyediting.com

13. Is writing your primary outlet for creativity or do you have others you'd like to share?

I also crochet penises. Like you do.

14. What's one very annoying thing about being an author?

Promo.

15. What's the most appealing thing about a writing career that keeps you going back for more, time and again?

I like to lie.

16. What was the most marked creative or writer's block you can remember having, and how you did you recover from your brain drought?

It started earlier this year, and that's all I'm saying about that.

17. What do your family and friends think about your writing career?

They think it would be nice if I made more money so we didn't have to cut grocery coupons and make our own yogurt.

18. Let's say you were going to be devoid of a computer, the internet or any type of word processor for a year, but you would have an ample supply of pens, pencils and paper. Would you keep writing? 

Yes.

19. If you would keep writing, what if you were also going to be devoid of research materials for that year? How would you write around that?

Duh. Lie?

20. Let's say you wouldn't even have paper and... Ok, let's not say that. This is an interview, not a nightmare counseling session. Speaking of which, in your current WIP, what do you think your protagonists would have nightmares about?

Having to interview themselves, probably.

*

Jody Wallace
Smart. Snarky. Seductive. And that's just the books.
http://www.jodywallace.com  *  http://www.crochetpeen.com

Here Be News

New Releases

PRODIGAL: Book 3 of the Maelstrom Trilogy by Jody Wallace

Sheriff Claire Lawson has all the trouble she can handle keeping the peace in her post-apocalyptic town. She sure doesn’t need an amnesiac Chosen One, the very guy who nearly destroyed the planet, tagging along after her just because a sentient AI said it was a good idea. Never mind that she finds herself drawn to him like no man ever before…

Buy it at Amazon, B&N, iTunes, Kobo

What I'll Miss After The Apocalypse

Contrary to what you might expect, this isn't a political post about what I think will happen if Trump wins the upcoming US Presidential election. I'm about to release (via Entangled Publishing) PRODIGAL, the third book in my SF-romance trilogy, the Maelstrom Chronicles, and it all takes place after an alien invasion that pretty much serves as an apocalypse. The book comes out September 5, and the hero is a character we've heard mentioned in the previous two books and would never have expected to become a hero...because he's the guy who kind of CAUSED the apocalypse in the first place, by failing in his job to prevent it.

Apocalypses are popular fare in our media. We've been watching The Last Ship and enjoyed Falling Skies when it was on, and I've been thinking a lot about what humans would really do in times of great crisis like pandemics or zombie hordes. While we don't watch The Walking Dead, I've heard it is a gritty representation of post-apocalyptic times. Also -- Defiance (post apocalypse alien invasion all out war and not much like my books), and does anyone remember Dark Angel? Man, that was a fun two season show! Lots of movies (FURIOSA!) and books about apocalypses, too, proving I'm not the only creator fascinated by this plot line.

ANYHOO.

What would YOU miss after the apocalypse? Beyond standard fare like "my family" and "what we consider a normal life in the US," there's electricity, air conditioning, modern medicine, coffee, chocolate, washing machines... Travel for pleasure. Frivolous stuff indeed, but still a hallmark of our civilization. In some part it depends on the kind of apocalypse, and how savage humanity ends up becoming. In many many many interpretations, of course, it's all-out Patriarchal Darwinism with women being chattel, and you can see countless glimmers in today's world cultures why this is a logical conclusion.

My characters in the Maelstrom trilogy get involved with the "good aliens" who have advanced medicine, the loss of which is probably one of my biggest concerns. But they have to struggle with limited supplies, waste disposal, bandits, food, livestock, and so on, though not in such gritty detail that I've written a survival manual.

Started a Pinterest board for when I think of things I'd miss... this list currently has a lot of chocolate on it, heh.

https://www.pinterest.com/realmeankitty/what-ill-miss-after-the-apocalypse/


Tell me what you'd miss in the comments! If you want to participate in my upcoming blog tour, you're more than welcome. Think of it as free blog content for a day that will probably involve cats and snark.



Jody Wallace
Smart. Snarky. Seductive. And that's just the books.
http://www.jodywallace.com

 

Feminist Heroines in Science Fiction Romances

My children, who've never been all that into SF, are, like the rest of the world, quickly being converted into Star Wars superfans. (NO WE HAVEN'T SEEN IT YET NO SPOILERS BUT WE TOTALLY WATCHED SPACEBALLS TODAY!) From what I hear, it won't pain me to take my daughters to The Force Awakens because the female protagonist is not stuck in a role of damsel in distress, prize to be won, evul sexorina, or what have you. They may not be getting a Black Widow movie anytime soon and the Supergirl currently on TV may be a little...pallid...but they will have Rey (http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/12/star-wars-the-feminism-awakens/420843/) an article about how she's a great feminist character that I only read the first paragraph of to verify the spelling of her name). One day they may also have Furiosa, if they get tough enough to watch the herky jerky blood bath that was Mad Max 2015.

These two characters in particular have got me excited that it might be the first of a new breed of female protagonists on the screen and between the pages. And by "new breed" I know good and well these women have existed always, but they don't always capture the attention and respect of the masses and make the big bucks. SF romances, in particular, have never been a fantastic seller for romance publishers, as far as I can determine, though they do have a devoted readership. Before self publishing was such a thing, right when small internet-based publishers and ebooks were starting to take off, I had a pretty complete collection of "mainstream" mass market futuristics from the standard publishers.

Johanna Lindsey, Saranne Dawson, Marilyn Campbell, Susan Grant, Dara Joy, Stobie Piel, Pam Rock, Catherine Spangler -- many of these were released starting in the 1980s and early 1990s. With the onset of electronic publishing, the field became way too large for me to maintain any kind of complete list.

 

But I always loved romances with hearty SF worldbuilding and always hoped for characters like what I'm assuming Rey in The Force Awakens seems to be. (*Also, if anybody WANTS some of these old paperbacks, please let me know and I'll mail you a box of lust in space goodness!) In my SF series with Entangled, the Maelstrom Chronicles, I've written all my female characters with my daughters and with this type of female character in mind. Smart, self-reliant, in tune with their own strengths and weaknesses, Adelita Martinez (ANGELI), Sarah CallenJoseph (TRAITOR) and, in novel currently in edits, Claire Lawson (PRODIGAL) are as likely to rescue their heroes as they are to need rescuing. I can't imagine writing them any other way.

Please don't spoil Star Wars in the comments -- but please DO share some other books and movies which you think feature feminist heroines who are equal to the male characters in their world-saving abilities!

Incidentally SPACEBALLS does NOT qualify for this category of movie, but at least the heroine's uselessness was played for laughs instead of for serious.

Jody Wallace
Smart. Snarky. Seductive. And that's just the books.
http://www.jodywallace.com  * http://www.meankitty.com