Question & Answers

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Tell us a little about yourself, where do you live, family, hobbies!

I live in Chesterfield in the UK, and have four boys, one girl, and a granddaughter born this April! My children range from 22 to 12. I have seven cats as well! I’m in my mid-forties, not telling my age! I love to crochet and knit and also make quilts.

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I was born in Essex and lived there until I was 28 when I fled to the country! I loathe the city and my ideal is sitting in a cabin writing surrounded by trees with a view of a lake and mountains!

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I love the country and BBQ’ing! I like to bake and cook with the boys and we play games except the middle child and youngest cheat! I’m a history nut and drag the boys all over the country with me to view castles and stately houses. For my 50th birthday, (cough in a few years!) I am planning a two-month tour of Scotland as I am descended from the Murray clan!

 

What got you into writing?

I’ve been writing since I was 11 years old. I started with an essay for an English lesson and the story kept coming. I’ve still not published it and yes, I still have my first, the years old Attics’ Secret, maybe one day I’ll release it! I love writing, even though my characters misbehave and go in a different direction for what I had planned for them to go!

 

What’s the main thing you love and hate about writing?

I love watching the characters form, take shape and their stories tell themselves. I find it hard to plan chapter by chapter as many writers do as they just won’t stay where they are meant to! But I love watching them come to life.

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I hate, simply hate editing! I use the word editor, then a programme called prowritingaid and then a final programme called Grammarly. Then I send to my beta reader and make the changes she suggests. After that I order a paperback and ruthlessly go through that. Only then am I happy to release the book! OCD much, I hear you all saying, lol yes!

 

Who is the worst villain you’ve ever written, and why?

Ah this one was difficult, as the Rage series progresses you will see many terrible villains. I have to say although there have been some dreadful ones, I think the worse is the chap in Texas’s book, Rage’s Heat due in December. I think the reasons why will be apparent when you read it.

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In Love beyond Death by Courtenay House you realise there is a criminal Mastermind at work, yeah, he’s got a pretty wicked and devious mind!

 

What is next on your list to write/publish?

Courtenay House comes out on the 1st of August and I’m at the paperback stage of editing that. After that is The Crafting of Rage and then the first book of Hellfire MC. Chance’s Hell comes out in December as fans are clamouring for his story!

 

Who is your favourite author, and why?

Oh god, this one is so hard, I have so many, Terry Brooks, Raymond Feist, Ed Greenwood, Kristin Ashley, H.Y. Hanna. If forced I’d be hard picked to choose between Raymond E Feist and Clive Cussler. Cussler is such a brilliant writer, amazing and intelligent, I love Dirk Pitt! Fiest wrote some of the best fantasy to ever touch paper, Prince Arthua and Jimmy the Hand. Jimmy’s progression is warming but sad at the same time.

 

Who encouraged you the most to write?

Myself, my family knew I wrote but didn’t think I was serious about it. When I said I was self-publishing they were really shocked but in truth the song, This is Me, convinced me to go for it. This is me, like it or not!

 

Are you as avid a reader as a writer?

God yes, I have over three thousand books lol. From fantasy, to romance, to vampires, to shipwrecks to Greek mythology!

 

What’s your favourite genre?

Depends on my mood, I go through phases which last a few months, one phase all I’ll want is mystery, the next phase anything on ghosts.

 

Do you listen to music when you write? If so, what type? Or can’t you stand background noise when writing?

Yup! Huge YUP! Classical, opera or chill out music when writing Love Beyond Death series. Loud rock, pop and bouncy music when writing Rage MC. I have to have it, if it’s too quiet I can’t think, the silence echoes in my mind.

 

If you could interview any famous author who would it be and why?

As part of the Supporting Indie Authors project I started, I get to interview many authors, it was a project started to help Indie Authors get their name out there. They get a page on my website, and then Dear Edgar started doing the same. I had the honour of conducting his interview and was so proud to publish it!

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The only famous author would be Clive Cussler, tragically he passed recently and I’ll never get the chance to see inside the man who gave us Raise the Titanic and Sahara films. The man who gave us Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino.

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Tell me a secret that none of your fans know!

I have 13 tattoos and will get more! I love motorbikes, Harleys and Norton’s in particular. A Harley Dyna Glyde does it for me! I can’t ride one though as I have a disability! That will always be my heartbreak! There you go three secrets for the price of one!

 

Tell me what your main character would say about you!

God this woman wants to make her mind up, one minute I’m planning to do this and the next I’m doing that! I think they’d curse me for what I make the go through in the name of love! In fact, Lord Daniel still hasn’t forgiven me for dying him blue in Oakwood Manor! Lol.

 

Finally, any words of advice?

Don’t quit, ignore that first nasty review, it knocked me, it will knock you. Believe in yourself, even when no one else does, at the end of your life do you want to think back with regrets? You want to write, WRITE. And there is no correct way to write! We all use different methods, different ways, don’t let anyone tell you the way you write is wrong!