Well, here it is another blog Friday and Kayce totally got her days mixed up. So my apologies if you checked for my blog earlier and it wasn't here. It was written, it was ready, and then it was MIA. Argh!
Okay, here we go...I'm so excited. I finally got the question, "Would you mind if I interviewed you?" Woo Hoo! Whee! Happy dancing across the living room floor! Alright, I know...silly, but I can't help myself. I just get so excited. I'm being interviewed and you are all invited to sit in on it. Nevermind that the call came from yours truly and I'm interviewing myself. 'Why?'' you ask? Well.............because I can. : - ) Roll with it. We'll have fun. I promise. So here goes. I'm so nervous. I just hope there aren't any questions I can't answer.
Why did you decide to
interview yourself? It’s a good gig…you
know all the answers and you get to ask only the questions you want to
answer. What’s not to love about
that? (I’m not stupid.)
Where and when were
you born and where do you call home?
(You can leave the year off your birth date if you’d like.) DUH!
Like that isn’t a no-brainer. LOL
I have an August birthday, was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and still live
close by in the Valley of the Sun (Valley of the Hotter Than Hell right now!).
What are some day
jobs you’ve had and what were the best and worst? I’ve been a telephone solicitor,
receptionist, secretary, computer programmer, project manager, bartender,
mother, and writer. The worst was
telephone solicitor and I quit the day I tried to sell magazines to a sobbing
woman, only to find she’d just buried her husband…Not a good day for
anyone! The absolute best was mother
(most days), but I’d have to say writing runs it a close second.
Any pets that you would
like to tell us about, share a pic? OMG, through the
years I have had so many pets—horses, goats, cows, dogs, cats, chickens, ducks,
geese, pigs, sheep, fish, birds, lizards, guinea pigs, hamsters, tortoises, and
one stinking snake! (Can you tell the
snake wasn’t my favorite?) I currently
have four horses—Red, Kentucky, Cody, and Meeko. I also have three dogs—Toby (named after Toby
Keith), Rex (named after no one), and Skay (named by a seven year old). (I'll scatter some pics of them throughout so you can see what some of them look like.) The red mare shown here is my old lady. She is the mustang I adopted from the Bureau of Land Management 26 years ago and she rules the roost around here.
Who’s your favorite
author and Why? My favorite author is
Janet Evanovich because she makes me laugh out loud. That’s who I want to be when I grow up!
If you had to choose,
which writer would you consider a mentor?
Ohmigosh,
there are so many writers who have mentored and helped me through the years,
but I’d have to say the one I call “mentor” is Amanda Harte-Cabot. Aside from being a wonderful writer, she was
the first person to encourage me to try and she has unfailingly been there by
my side the whole way…Amanda, you rock!
Aside from Amanda, I also have to give a shout out to my critique group,
the Butterscotch Martini Girls—Brit Blaise, Judi Thoman, Tina Gerow, Cassie
Ryan, Dani Petrone, Kayla Janz, Lynne Logan, H.D. Thomson, Samantha Storm,
Isabella Clayton, and Lisa Pietsch.
These girls are the ones who keep me straight, prop me up when I start
to lean, and drink with me when nothing else works.
What makes you cry
and what makes you laugh? I thought this was
going to be a complicated answer, but it boiled down to a couple of very simple
things. Love makes me cry…and it can be
either the positives or negatives of love—losing someone you love, seeing
someone you love hurt, parting from a loved one, weddings, births, graduations,
achievements of those you love, and so many other things about love. What makes me laugh is life—people, me, and
stupidity are right at the top of my list.
Ever go out in public
with your shirt on inside out, or slippers on, and when realizing it, just said
screw it? Of course I
have. What else can you do when you’re
50 miles from home and all you have on your feet is your slippers? Besides, I love to laugh and make others
laugh and if wearing my shirt inside out brings a laugh to someone else, what’s
the harm?
Are you a “domestic”
person? Make your bed in the morning? Like to cook?
Those
of you who know me are laughing your butts off right now. Don’t lie…you are too. Domestic I’m not! My bed gets made when I know company is
coming and if they just show up, my door gets closed and no one gets “the
tour”. (So if you stopped by and didn’t
get the tour, you now know why.) Cooking
is something I believe should be reserved for those who can. My skill happens to be in ordering take-out
and I can pick out a really mean TV dinner.
Do you prefer fuzzy
or tube socks? In the winter, I
prefer fuzzy zany socks. In the summer,
I prefer lightweight zany socks.
(Sensing a pattern, are ya?)
There is never a time for tube socks…they don’t come in zany!
Do you have a nickname? Through the years, I’ve been given a number
of nicknames—most of which cannot be printed here without offending at least
one person. But I think my most un-favorite
nickname was one given to me in kindergarten, and that one was “Woody Woodpecker”. The inciting incident was one afternoon when
I was playing with some neighbor kids and we were swinging on the vines of
their weeping willow tree. My vine broke
(yeah, I know…what were the chances of that?) and I cut my head open on a
rock. My mother (the consummate clown)
convinced the doctor that after they’d stitched and bandaged my head, they
should leave a little topknot of hair hanging out the top. Yep, you got it…Woody Woodpecker’s topknot. (Mom, I still haven’t forgiven you for
that! LOL)
What are your pet
peeves? Bad drivers,
cockroaches, weeds, telemarketers, toolbars that take over my computer, too few
checkers at the store, snail mail, the summer heat in Phoenix, and grocery
store parking lots with two aisles in a row both designated to go the same
direction (you know who you are!).
Coffee or tea? Favorite food? Vanilla or chocolate ice-cream? Coffee!
Mexican food! And chocolate
anything!
What is your favorite
alcoholic bedtime drink? Yes! Oh wait…that wasn’t the question, was
it? Did you miss the part about me being
a Butterscotch Martini Girl?
What actor or book
character do you have a crush on? Kayla Janz is
laughing her butt off over this one and wondering how the hell I managed to miss
telling someone.
The actor that makes my
heart go barroomph-baroomph would have to be Sam Elliott, and Hugh Jackman runs
him a damn close second.
As for book
characters that knock my socks off, without a doubt that would be Morelli or
Ranger—and they vie for first place depending on which one is flirting with me
(er…Stephanie Plum) that particular day.
And for those of you who don’t know who Morelli and Ranger are, you have
to pick up
One for the Money by Janet
Evanovich and begin your E-ticket ride!
If you couldn’t be an
author, who or what would you want to be?
Katherine
Ross or Stephanie Plum. (The love
interests for some of my favorite leading men…see previous question. LOL)
Have you ever read or
seen yourself as a character in a book or a movie? Really?
(Refer back to previous two questions for the answer to this one.)
Where did your love
of storytelling come from? I think I would have
to say my family. My parents are deaf
and my mother used to be president of the Phoenix Theater for the Deaf, and
there isn’t anything that woman won’t do for a laugh! So she planted the seed and then the rest of
the family pretty much gave me a lot of material to work with. LOL
What does your family
think of your writing? They love it, as long
as it isn’t about them. My son has a
great deal of difficulty reading my romance books because he’s always afraid
I’m going to throw him a curve and put a love scene on the next page that will
make him want to stab himself in the forehead with a fork.
Have you ever found
true love? I find it daily in
every romance book I read and in real life too.
One thing I have found is that “true love” comes with many
faces…sometimes it wears the face of a boyfriend or husband, sometimes the face
of a mother or father or grandparent, sometimes the face of a sibling, and
sometimes the face of a dear friend. But
the wonderful thing is that life gives us all many opportunities to find it…all
we have to do is be open to it.
Are you jealous of
other writers? Insanely!
What was the hardest
part of writing and did you learn anything from it? The first word. Yes, I learned once you get past that, it
doesn’t get any easier. You will
continue to agonize over each and every one.
Have you ever hated
something you wrote? No…everything I write
is perfect (NOT). Yes, I have, and
you’ll see it when pigs fly! LOL
How long did it take
you to finish your first book? Which time? LOL As
most writers know, the first time you write “The End”…is only the
beginning. In my case, it turned out the
first book was only half a book and it had the wrong ending for a romance. Argh!
So once I learned enough to know what it was I didn’t know, I added some
characters, some more sub-plot, a different ending and…well, basically, I wrote
an entirely new book. Then I think I’ve
probably rewritten it no less than ten times since.
What was the toughest
criticism given to you as an author? The best compliment? I think the toughest criticism given to me
came from my mother when she first heard I was writing romance. She looked at me with a perplexed expression
and just as serious as could be and asked, “What do you know about romance?” HUH?
How the heck do you answer that?
Funny thing is, I think I’ve asked myself that same question dozens of
times since. LOL The best compliment is actually a toss-up
between two comments that came just within the last few weeks. The first was when a friend who read one of
my blogs commented that it brought to mind Erma (OMG!!!) Bombeck and another
was when a good friend emailed me to ask if I had ever read Janet
Evanovich. She said she had just
finished Explosive Eighteen and the
story and writing reminded her of mine. HOLY FREAKING COW! You should have been there for the squeeing
and happy dancing on both occasions! If
I could only aspire to be half as funny and witty as either of those women, I
would die a happy author!
Is anything in your stories
based on real life experiences or purely all imagination? Ah, the age-old question: fact or fiction? Well, it’s a bit of both. You take a real-life experience, crush it to
death until it morphs into something totally unrecognizable, then you add the
dialogue you “wish you had said at the time”, do all the illegal (and sometimes
immoral) things you were dying to do at the time but knew you’d never get away
with, you add a composite of some of the people you’ve known through the years,
and win the perfect man of your dreams that you wish you were with today…and,
voile…fiction!
If your characters
could speak for themselves, what would they say? Help!
I’m trapped and she won’t let me out!
Do you write an
outline before every book you write? Nope. I have always been what they refer to as a
“pantser”…but I’m hoping to change that one day because flying by the seat of
your pants shaves years off your life.
How many people have
you killed over the course of your career?
None…yet. But don’t mess with me—there’s always a first
time!
Where and when do you
prefer to do your writing? I’m mostly a weekend
warrior. I like to take an entire
Saturday or Sunday and drag my laptop to a restaurant to write. I like to start the day at one of the local
Village Inns, where their fabulous wait staff always keeps the coffee coming. Then I move to Dillon’s at the Zoo and write
through lunch and dinner. When the
weather is good, I like to sit on the patio, which borders the flamingo
enclosure. My favorite bartenders (Eric,
Linda, and Kaitlyn) make sure I have enough libations to keep the writing
juices flowing. If I get writers block,
I watch people or flamingos for a while and something I see will generally
trigger an opening…and if not, the drinks are good!
Do you ever write in
your PJ’s or naked? I edit at home, so I
sometimes do my editing in PJ’s. As for
writing naked…not any more…Village Inn won’t allow it and the flamingos at Dillon’s
make me nervous when naked.
What are the most
important attributes to remaining sane as a writer? Is this a trick question? You can’t be sane and be a writer! Who came up with this question?
What will you do when
the zombies come? Haven’t you seen any
of the movies? You have to pretend to be
one, but be a slow walker so you end up at the back of the pack and then when
they aren’t looking, run like hell.
Would you slay a
dragon or tame it? If it didn’t turn my
butt into a fried fritter first, I’d probably try to tame it. I don’t believe in slaying dragons…unless
they’re the mean ones with halitosis and warts on their noses that don’t like
anything but virgins. I’m just sayin’…
Are you fun to go on
vacation with? It all depends on
where we are going. If it involves
holding snakes or jumping out of airplanes, I’m not gonna be a real
hoot. But if it involves little pink
drinks with umbrellas in them or cowboys in tight jeans or horses, you’re gonna
L-O-V-E me!
Has the dog ever
eaten your manuscript? No…but there were
times when I wished it would! I still have hopes for Skay (shown here)...if anyone could destroy a manuscript, it would be this guy.
Do you really go
around in a corset, high heels, and a whip, subjugating men? Uh…no.
(That’s the story I’m goin’ with!)
If you were in a bar
fight, would you be punching or holding jackets? I used to be a bartender. I would be holding jackets (in a pile on top
of me on the floor behind the bar). My
momma didn’t raise no fool! Punching
gets you a broken nose.
Do you have any
advice for other writers? Yeah, if you’re sane,
stay that way and pick something easy like lion tamer or bronc buster. If you’re not, welcome to my world!
Where can your
readers stalk you? Okay, the word
“stalk” makes me a little itchy. But if
you’re not a forty year old man living in your mother’s basement with her body
in the freezer, playing video games in your tighty whities and cutting letters
out of magazines and pasting them into notes, then please…stop by and say hi.
Before you go, what
can you tell us about your latest projects?
Well,
I am currently working on the release of my first full length novel, a
single-title called Katie’s Rock. It is a story about a single mother forced to
choose between two brothers—will she choose the perfectionist with trust issues
or the younger brother who seems to always want what his brother has? Look for it to hit Amazon.com in early
August-2013. I also have another project
which I am currently shopping with some of the New York publishers. That one is a four-book series and the first
book in the series, currently titled Loons
of a Feather, is a takeoff on a short story I published back in 2011 as part
of an anthology titled Twice Upon a Time. In Loons
of a Feather, we once again ride along for the misadventures of Delta, a
fairy godmother who rides a Harley, wears cowboy hats and boots, and has a
tattoo on her shoulder that says, “Bite Me, Cowboy!” I will keep you posted on the fate of this
series.
Well, that’s my
story, baseless and bonkers, and I’m stickin’ to it. Hang on tight now, cuz’ we’re gonna go real,
real fast!
Love ya,
Kayce
Angelica:
Carrie is my 24-year-old prostitute who works her way into a deal to partner
with Harlan, the older male “madam” of a high-end brothel on the Upper East
Side of Manhattan. The fact that he’s black doesn’t bother her, but the way he
works his way into her life does! Harlan is the sexiest man she’s ever met, and
he threatens her vow to never let a man get close. Carrie is vulnerable while
trying to be tough, and Harlan just doesn’t get ruffled about much. She’s smart
but doesn’t think she is. She’s curious and a voracious reader. Harlan’s
extensive vocabulary intrigues her, and she requests he define words he uses.
Harlan is a fixer. He sees Carrie for who she truly is long before she’s aware
of it, and he sets about to ensure she attains her potential. Their sex is
sizzling even as she fights her attraction to him. His dark demons cause him to
withhold part of himself, too. While they have a HFN ending to book one, more
misadventures await the two of them in the remaining books in the trilogy.
