Speed Date Interview with L. j. Charles
You the Readers are the Interviewers. Here is your chance to get answers to the questions you always wanted to ask your favorite Authors. Authors will be coming into the blog for a Speed Date Interview. They will only be there one day and you can only ask them two questions.
Pull up a chair, put on your best smile and make the best impression of yourself.
Personal and inappropriate questions may not be answered at the Author’s discretion.
Ask an Author two questions and be entered to win in our monthly giveaway. You could win a package of free reads from the RJ book vault. We will be asking Authors to select the best question they were asked on the day they day they posted on the blog. We will also be picking random winners from the general questions.
Once the Speed Date interview is done the Interview staff will be going in and selecting a group of questions and answer to post on the RJ Authors Interview Webpage.
http://www.romancejunkiesreviews.com/artman/publish/interviews.shtml
Bio
I have worked with energy both as a yoga instructor and as a body worker for many years. When I left that profession, I was driven to write about energy and the paranormal. Many of the situations my heroines experience are created from my own encounters with energy, its power and possibilities.
As to the “writing,” well, that started when I was eight and penned my first book on pink construction paper with a purple crayon. It was a romance that involved a princess, and although I remember very few details about the plot, I do remember that it was illustrated and there was music and dancing involved.
At about the same time I created my first story, I discovered Nancy Drew and my love for reading was born. It has only grown over the years, and I am rarely without a huge to-be-read stack, and a book within easy reach.
Now days I write women’s fiction and young adult novels. All of my stories combine romance, mystery, and paranormal elements. The paranormal, because it’s a huge part of my life, the adventure and romance because I haven’t ever outgrown my early reading adventures with Nancy, Ned, Bess and George.
I live in the frozen north with my husband, whose TBR stack is taller than mine, and two felines who have been known to add entire pages to a manuscript without telling me.
Everly Gray’s fingers are a magnet for trouble.
When she touches photographer Mitchell Hunt and sees the image of a dead body, she dives into the murder fingertips first. Life takes a turn for the dangerous when she discovers the body is related to a small-time crime family that accidentally stepped on the toes of notorious criminal, Delano West. Caught in a web of intrigue where nothing is as it seems, El discovers an aptitude for breaking and entering, the pain of an up close and personal meeting with a bullet, and the terror of facing a cold blooded killer. What she doesn’t learn—to keep her fingers to herself.
L. j. Charles
Lifethread March 2011
The Knowing June 2011
The Calling June 2011
November 15th, 2011 at 6:39 am
Good Morning!!
What paranormal experiences have you had?
ah yes, I remember reading Nancy Drew, Trixie Beldon and the sweet valley twins. Do you remember the first romance reader you were hooked on?
November 15th, 2011 at 2:00 pm
Good morning!
I’ve had several paranormal experiences. I’ve blogged about the time I saw an angel and it’s posted on Amazon at http://amzn.com/B005465LHM
Check under the digital edition and it’s titled: Why I write Paranormal Romance.
The first romance book that hooked me was Shanna by Kathleen Woodiwiss. i think I read that book about 50 times.
Thanks for the questions. I’m looking forward to more.
Lucie j.
November 15th, 2011 at 6:17 pm
Hi Lucie!
Do you find it hard to switch between WF and YA? Seems like the voice would be very different.
What do you love best about writing in each subgenre?
Tracey
November 15th, 2011 at 7:10 pm
Hi, Tracey. Good questions.
Yes, you’re right, the voice is very different. But I think that makes it easier to switch between the two. The personalities of my characters are so different. I’m a character-based writer and I write in first person, so I’m always in my heroines’ head. Or maybe they’re in my head. It’s difficult to tell! The nice thing about first person is that I’m almost always “thinking” in deep Point of View, so i’m very involved with my characters. I think that’s why it’s easy to keep them separate–they’re very real to me.
Oh, gosh. What do I love best? The other day my husband opened Creation, the 2nd book in the Lifethread Trilogy, a YA, and dead-pan looked at me. “You don’t talk like this,” he said.
Well, no. I don’t. And that’s a huge part of the what’s so fun about writing YA. I get to be “not me.” And I really, really like my teen characters. I’m going to miss them a lot when I finish Destiny.
In my adult books the thing I love best is the adventure. There are parts of my life in each of my adult books and I love sharing those with readers, but it’s the stuff I’ve never done that makes them so much fun to write. For example, I have been held at gunpoint, but never shot at. It’s that leap of difference that feeds my imagination.
Thanks for asking.
L.j.
November 15th, 2011 at 8:13 pm
Hi, L.j.
I positively adore your YA series, and cannot wait for the third book, Merritt’s book! My questions:
What inspires you in writing a trilogy about “sisters”, three young women who aren’t related by blood but whose lives are completely intertwined by all sorts of forces? They’re so compelling and (speaking from the experience of having four sisters myself) their relationships seem so real.
What do you enjoy most about the writer’s life?
November 15th, 2011 at 9:20 pm
Hello, Katherine.
Interesting that you asked about the sisters. I think family is very important and since my own childhood was messy, I wanted to give these teenagers some control over their daily life but with consequences if they made poor decisions. Relationships give us a fantastic opportunity to grow, and giving my characters a deep bond gave me fertile ground to expand their character arc over three books.
I’m having a great time with them…maybe I’ll have to keep them around for awhile and give them a few more, um, experiences.
The thing I enjoy most about the writer’s life is, hmmm, actually two things. Being able to pretend that I have control of my career (ha), and when one of my reader’s tells me how much they enjoyed a book. The coolest moment was when a teenager stood in front of me clutching a copy of Lifethread and told me that I’d done it right. Nothing can top that in my book.
L.j.