Introducing my March guest, J.Q. Rose

When I read Terror on Sunshine Boulevard I knew I had to find out more about author J.Q. Rose. As a senior myself, I always enjoy books involving seniors and in this book, I thoroughly enjoyed feisty Jim and Gloria Hart. I'm not going to give anything away but at the beginning, I thought this was going to have a sci-fi element to it. What J.Q. Rose very cleverly did was introduce a very plausible premise based on health concerns. And that's all you'll get from me other than I highly recommend it. 

BTW - I not only drool with envy over her red Mustang but wait until you read about how she got it!

Do you work with critique partners? If so, what do you most like about the process? If not, is this an avenue you would consider in the future and if not, why not? Yes, I work with a wonderful set of 4 writers every Friday morning (if possible) at our local coffee shop, the Koffee Kuppe. Their “fresh eyes” on my work is so valuable to see the story in different ways. And we learn a lot from each other about writing. We also love to brainstorm to the extreme. Sometimes we are figuring out how to “off” the villain. Poison, gun, knife, drowning. We just hope the customers in the shop don’t call the police! We do book signings together and presentations and shout about each other’s books online.

What advice about writing do you wish you had given yourself early in your writing career? The writing can’t be perfect on the first draft, and honestly, not even after the story is let out into the world and into readers’ hands. Yes, even after publication, I find errors or scenes I’d like to re-write! Try not to be a perfectionist when you’re a writer.

   When and why did you start writing? What is it about writing that satisfies you the most? I started writing stories in the second grade. As luck would have it, my mother was my teacher. I was one of those kinds of kids that finished assignments early, so I would talk to my classmates and bother them with getting their work done. Needless to say, my mom did not like that, so I started writing to keep out of trouble. I writing fiction and non-fiction. I receive a lot of satisfaction when I know one of my stories has touched/entertained the reader or when the information in an article has broadened their world.

Have you had a defining moment in your writing life that changed everything for you? Yes, when I received the email from my first publisher telling me my story was accepted. She added, “We love your voice.” I felt like dancing around the room because I knew I was on my way to a writing career.

What type of scene do you find the hardest to write? Funny, romantic, scary, or sad? Believe it or not, with two romantic suspense novels published, I find writing the romantic scenes difficult. I don’t want them to read like a second grader wrote them. Sometimes I just sit back and laugh at the scene. Oh yes, my crit group helps me out with those scenes.

What is one subject or genre you would never write about and why? I would never tackle the sci-fi genre. I am not “in” to the terms or the subject. I couldn’t write a believable story.

FUN QUESTIONS

What have you always wanted? Did you ever get it? When the Ford Mustang came out in 1965, I drooled over it. I always wanted a red Mustang convertible. Finally, in 1995, my husband surprised me with exactly that. He laid the keys on the kitchen table and told me to walk outside. And there in the driveway sat a gorgeous red Mustang convertible (with a white top). I froze. I could barely take it in. My kids laughed at me as I stood in shock ogling the car of my dreams. Even though it was a cool May evening, we put the top down, cranked up the heater, and drove through town. I have no idea how my hubby kept this a secret because everyone at work knew about it AND my older daughter. (My younger girl never could keep a secret!!)  You may notice, my bio photo is me in my Mustang. Yes, I still have the beauty, and she runs like a top.

What is the most memorable class you’ve ever taken? In college, I took a class about Shakespeare’s Sonnets. We dug deep into the meaning and the language and I fell in love with them.

Are you a glass half full or half empty kind of person? Or is the glass just malformed? Definitely half full. I like to live my life with positivity.

What holidays do you most like to celebrate? We were in the flower business so you can imagine how hectic holidays were for me. Don’t even talk about Valentine’s Day. Christmas started in July in the design department as that’s when I ordered the ornaments, etc for the upcoming season. When the decorations shipped to the shop in August, we unpacked them and immediately began designing artificial arrangements, swags, wreaths, etc. We were sick of red and white fresh floral arrangements with pine and cedar greens by December 26. My favorite holiday is and always has been Thanksgiving. There are no gifts to buy, no pressure to decorate, and always good food and friends and family.

Thank you, J.Q. Rose. It's been lovely getting to know you. You can visit J.Q. through these links: 

Connect with J.Q. Rose at

J.Q. Rose - Blog

J.Q. Rose - Facebook

J.Q. Rose - Google +

J.Q. Rose - Amazon Author Page

J.Q. Rose - Goodreads

J.Q. Rose - Pinterest

J.Q. Rose - Books We Love

I hope you'll all join me again tomorrow to check out some of her books.

Meet Stuart R. West, My First Guest of 2018.

My guest today is Stuart R. West, an author whose work I enjoy very much. I've read several of his books and the Zach and Zora series tickled my funny bone to the extent of laugh-out-loud, OMG humor while Peculiar County and Dread and Breakfast both gave me the chills a la Stephen King. Dread and Breakfast, in particular, reeled me in with its seemingly innocuous premise but quickly turned into something quite dark and disturbing. I didn't see the all too believable twist in the tale coming which made the book all the more satisfying. I hope you enjoy Stuart's wit as much as I do and don't forget to visit tomorrow Friday, 16th February 2018, for a showcase of some of his books.

Q: When and why did you start writing? What is it about writing that satisfies you the most?
A: Hey there, Victoria, thanks so much for having me on your blog. I started writing about six
years ago when the company I’d worked at as a graphic designer for 27 years closed up shop.
At the time I was devastated, not wanting to start over in the corporate world. That was when I
realized I absolutely abhorred the corporate world. So I took up writing (along with cooking
which my wife greatly appreciates) to run away from Big Business. To me, the most satisfying
thing about writing is typing “The End.”

Q: What is one subject or genre you would never write about and why?
A: That’s easy! Erotica! (You’re very welcome, everyone!). To me, sex in books or movies is
interesting for about the first minute, then it’s *yawn* “isn’t this something I’d rather be doing
myself?” Honestly, I don’t know how erotica writers do it. There’re only so many different ways
to describe body parts.

Q: What type of scene do you find the hardest to write? Funny, romantic, scary, or sad?
A: Outside of erotica (see above), action is the hardest for me to write. Which is kinda dumb, I
realize, since I usually include lots of action in my books. It’s challenging. Car chases are
particularly tough to write as I think they lean more toward visual entertainment. Doesn’t mean I
don’t write a lot of ‘em, though. Call me a writing masochist.

Q: What advice about writing do you wish you had given yourself early in your writing
career?
A: Don’t write 18 novels in six years! Just don’t do it, Stuart! Don’t make me cover over there!

Q: Do you read your reviews? If so, how do you celebrate the good and get over the bad?
A: Of course I read my reviews! Any writer who says they don’t is pulling your leg. I celebrate the
good notices with a smarmy grin, a haughty attitude, and walk around like the la-de- da King of
Writers. To the naysayers, I say, “clearly they don’t know what they’re talking about. Hmph.”
(Then I go curl up in a ball and cry myself to sleep.)

Q: If you weren’t a writer, what would you be and why?
A: That’s another easy one! Why, I’d be the President of the United States, of course! After
all...anyone can do it, right?

FUN QUESTIONS: 

Q: What is the best or most memorable compliment you ever received?
A: Eight years or so ago, I bought a six-pack of beer at the local convenience store. The clerk said,
“Can I see some I.D?” With a grin, I happily whipped my driver’s license out. Of course, when
she started laughing at my age, the preceding compliment lost a bit of its luster. Note...this hasn’t
happened EVER again.

Q: What is the most memorable class you’ve ever taken?
A: In college, I took something called “The Psychology of Satisfaction.” During the first lecture, the
professor (a giggling mad-man) told us the nature of the course is that we didn’t have to stay for
lectures, didn’t have to take any tests, and we were free to do whatever we wanted (although
there were five mandatory parties I had to attend). Still wondering how I managed a “B.”

Q: Are you a glass half full or half empty kind of person? Or is the glass just malformed?
A: I’m more a “Quick! Keep the glass filled to the rim!” kinda’ neurotic.

Q: Which of the four seasons do you like/dislike the most and why?
A: Winter! Ugh! People weren’t designed to negotiate snow and ice and freezing temperatures. I
mean, honestly, we’re not walruses.

SPEED QUESTIONS: Straight YES/NO answers, unless you want to add a few
words to qualify the answer.

Have you ever:
Lied about your age? Yep! And dang proud of it, too!
Called in sick to work when you weren’t sick? Hmm...does a hang-over count as being sick?
Eaten ice cream straight from the carton? You mean there’s a different way to eat it?
Worn odd socks? Pretty much daily. Doing my best to keep the romance alive!

My guest this month is Kymber Morgan

My guest this month is Kymber Morgan, who writes Paranormal, Modern Fantasy and Contemporary Western Romance. Why multiple sub-genres? Because, she says, it's fun and she has a short attention span but don't tell anyone. 

I love her answer to Question #1. It made me tear up but I'm glad Kymber started and kept writing. I hope you enjoy meeting her and learning more about her.

QUESTIONS:  

1.     When and why did you start writing? What is it about writing that satisfies you the most?

Ten years ago I had a health scare that landed me in the hospital emergency room. Hours of waiting and multiple tests later I found myself admitted. At the time our health care system was strained to a near breaking point, so I was sent to an overcrowded ward where I was parked in a bed against a wall in a hallway leading to a private room. Positioned this way, my roommate and I were facing opposite directions but could glimpse one another from the shoulders up through all the apparatus we were each attached to. It was so tight, the nurses had to move my IV pole in order to wiggle around to attend to hers, and having never been intended to house a sick bed, the wall I was on had no way to hook up a TV or even a light for that matter. They literally called me the ‘wall-flower’. Okay, so you have the scene.

My wonderful husband, the ‘Alpha Muffin’ knows I hate hospitals (a previous unpleasant stay on an unrelated matter), so while they were getting me admitted, he went home and returned with my own fuzzy housecoat and the first couple of books off my ‘to be read’ pile in an attempt to keep me from turning into a raving lunatic. He even remembered to bring me a book light since there was no light in my hallway! Remember this is ten years ago and tablets including the Kindle weren’t ‘a thing’ yet, so we’re talking old school here; you needed light to read at night back then.

Long story short – hey, don’t laugh - I could make this much more drawn out if I wanted to ;-). My roommate Dorothy was a confirmed bachelorette of advanced years who, after having asked what I was reading, had informed me there was no such nonsense as love. There was lust and stupidity but that was about it, and she should know having been around some eighty plus years. Then, over the next five or six days, she saw my husband come to see me no matter how many hours he’d worked or how awful the weather (it was February in Canada and a very stormy year) or how busy he was on the home-front looking after our active tween-aged son with his busy sports calendar while I was out of commission. She saw how he always had a smile on his face and worked hard to cheer not only me up, but her too. She also saw how difficult it was for us to part at the end of every visit and how he ‘would get an eyelash or something in his eye as he left the room.

Then one night she wasn’t able to sleep any better than I was but didn’t want to watch TV, so I read aloud to her for a while. Then she asked how my husband and I met, so I told her the story, which is unique in it’s own way, but that’s tale for another time. I summed up my story by saying how blessed I was to be sharing my life with a wonderful man who was also my best friend and how, without him, I’d be a lesser version of me. She laughed in several places and snorted in others, but by the time I was finished, I realized she was sniffling. I was about to wrangle my IV pole into submission to get out of bed and go over to her when my crusty neighbour’s age-roughened voice came out of the dark. Over the beeps, bings and swooshes’ of all that hospital apparatus between us, she told me that for the first time in her life she believed love really did exist and that I should be writing books like the one we’d been reading from earlier. Now it was my turn to sniffle.

As happens in times of adversity you become close with the people who share it with you, so two weeks later when I was finally able to text ‘start the car!’ to my husband – yes it’s from that furniture store ad, and yes I did run out the front door in my little knit slippers and dove in the car before they changed their mind - as I left our room I hugged my friend, Dorothy, and promised to come back in a few days with a new book and read to her some more. She hugged me back and made me promise to give writing myself a try because if I could make a crusty old broad (her words, not mine) like her believe, I should be sharing with the rest of the deluded masses out there (again, her words, not mine).

I never got the chance to read to Dorothy again. She passed away the next day. But I have gone on to write in the hopes that my words might again touch some soul who is having a hard time believing love is real and quite often think of her standing over my shoulder as I do so. The thought that I may be able to lift someone’s spirits in times of trouble, as mine were by the authors I read in that hospital bed, or ultimately touch someone’s heart enough to have them question their belief that love is a ‘pile of pahooey’ is extremely satisfying for me. Thank you Dorothy.

2.     What was the best writing advice you ever had, and did it work?

“Finish the damn book!” comes to mind, but I think it was something Deirdre Knight once said to me that really resonated. She told me to always stay true to my own personal writer’s voice, and write the stories I want to read regardless of what the current trend is.

3.     Have you had a defining moment in your writing life that changed everything for you?

I’ve had two actually. The first is when I finally dug up the courage to join CaRWA the local Calgary writer’s group under the Romance Writer’s of American banner. Without the five years I spent laughing and learning from the wonderful people there I’d still be trying to figure out what a plot really was. And second, was when I had the pleasure of meeting an author I’m a super fan of – and managed to not make myself look like a dork at the time – who graciously treated me as an equal as she congratulated me on the success I’d just had at a signing we were both involved in. As we walked to the elevator together on aching feet with the muscles in our cheeks stiff from smiling and our fingers cramped from signing our books, we both groaned, then she winked at me and said, “Hey, it’s what we signed up for, right?” Then she spontaneously hugged me and said, “Isn’t it great!” That’s the moment I realized: I AM a writer.

4.     What advice about writing do you wish you had given yourself early in your writing career?

If I had sat down for a coffee with my earlier writing self I’d have stressed how important consistency is. Writing every day, even if it’s only a hundred words at a time is much better than doing a marathon, then settling in for a drought and writing nothing - kind of a tortoise vs. hare thing.

5.     Have you achieved all your career goals? If not, what goals are you still working on?

That’s easy, and a big resounding NO! I’m still working on everything. I believe the minute we stop striving to improve our writing craft or feel we’ve somehow can now put connecting with fans somewhere down the priority list, or we’ve got all the writing community relationships we could ever need, we might as well unplug our computers and drop our pens for good. It’s not a goal IMHO but a journey. One we need to work hard on to keep getting better and better at. And I still have to figure out how to make the whole life balance thing work too, something I think most of us wrestle with on a constant basis.

FUN QUESTIONS:  

1.     What is the best or most memorable compliment you ever received?

It was the first time a reader overheard a conversation I was having about a book I’d written, and she said, “Oh my god, I read that book. I loved it!” Whew, still get chills on that one.

2.     What is the most memorable class you’ve ever taken?

James Scott Bell’s ‘Write Your Novel From the Middle”. Not only was the material awesome, he’s a singularly amazing speaker; knowledgeable and entertaining and can bring his audience to the point of tears from laughing so hard.

3.     Are you a glass half full or half empty kind of person? Or is the glass just malformed?

Ha ha, that depends on how fast or lopsided my world is spinning at any given moment, so I supposed I’d have to say malformed.

4.     Which of the four seasons do you like/dislike the most and why?

I’m not a cold weather person, so I used to think it was summer, but over the last few years, I’ve discovered it’s actually autumn. We’re so busy during the summer we never seem to get out camping, which is what my husband and I love to do more than anything, so we go long into the fall. The peace and quiet, changing leaves from weekend to weekend is something I look forward to every year. It’s still warm enough during the day, but cold enough at night that there aren’t as many people out there, so it becomes our own little piece of paradise in some ways. We’ve often found ourselves the only ones in the area. That’s when I love it the most.

SPEED QUESTIONS: Have you ever:

1.     Lied about your age?

Yes, I said I was older than I am.

2.     Eaten ice cream straight from the carton?

Yes, and with a much bigger spoon than required.

3.     Ridden a motorcycle?

Yes, and ran one into a tree once too.

4.  Watched the stars at night?

Yes, as often as I can.

Please join me tomorrow Wednesday, August 16th, and check out some of Kymber's books.