Sunday, April 28, 2013

Interview with Jim Cangany


It's a boy! Today on Pens and Peonies, we're welcoming our first male author, Jim Cangany. Jim has agreed to let us interview him, and he's one of the small percentage of men writing contemporary romance, so we were quite interested in his answers. :) Hope you enjoy the interview as much as we did.

Jim's also hosting a fabulous giveaway ($25 Amazon gift card to one lucky winner), so check it out and good luck!


Tell us a little about yourself and your writing career.
My wife Nancy and I have been married for twenty-two years.  We have two sons. Ryan is sixteen and Aidan is twelve. After dabbling with writing on and off for years, if not decades, I got serious with it in the fall of 2011. It wasn't a conscious decision to write romance. For whatever reason, contemporary romance stories are the ones in my head.

What was the hardest part of writing your book?

That's easy--learning to portray a woman realistically. I'll never forget my wife's reaction when she was reading my first draft of Fallen Star. At one point, she looked at me, shook her head and said, "Dude, you need to learn to think like a woman." I had the heroine doing some things I thought were completely innocuous that Nancy said a woman in real life would never do. Hopefully, I'm getting a little better every day in my attempts to think like a woman.

Do you have an agent?
Not yet. One of my career goals is to find an agent who loves and believes in my work as much as I do.

What do you do when you're not writing?
I have a full-time job in the legal field, so that consumes much of my time. I follow professional cycling and love riding my bike. I'm a voracious reader, too.

Coffee or tea?
Tea. Nothing beats a good cup of Earl Gray or an Irish Breakfast tea.

White wine or red?
White. I'm a huge fan of Rieslings and Moscatos.

Summer or winter?
Debut releases June 14, 2013
Totally summer. I complain all winter long about the frigid temps, so give me the heat.
Motorcycle or bicycle?

Bicycle--pedal power, baby!

Connect with Jim here:

Website - www.JimCangany.com

Twitter - @jimcangany

Facebook - Jim Cangany Author
 
 *** GIVEAWAY ***
 
$25 Amazon Gift Card

 

As always, thanks for stopping by!

xoxo ~Marisa
 

14 comments:

  1. Thanks for the invitation, Marisa. Appreciate it! Fallen Star releases June 14 and I'm counting the days. Cheers!

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  2. I enjoyed this interview with Jim, a member of my Romance Writers of America chapter. Best of luck with the book!

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  3. Hey, Jim! Great interview! Congrats on the new book!

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  4. Great interview and good luck on your future endeavors!

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  5. Fun interview! I'm eager to see Fallen Star released. It's a wonderful story, and I know readers will fall in love with it!

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  6. Hi Jim,
    I'm a fellow Uncial Press writer so I know you're in good hands. It's funny you should say you have to learn how to think like a woman because I often feel I need to think like a man when I'm writing from a male POV. Best of luck with Fallen Star.
    Jana

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    1. Thanks Jana. I think the old saying about walking a mile in anothers shoes is so apt when trying to get into the head of a character of the opposite sex. Thanks for stopping by

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  7. Congratulations on Fallen Star, Jim. Sounds like a good read. It's great that your other half is willing to help you keep things real with your characters. Looking forward to reading it.

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  8. Great interview, Jim. Can't wait to read Fallen Star!

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  9. I feel privileged to have read an early verion of Fallen Star and can't wait to purchase the official copy. Jim has me convinced that he can think like a woman and create a whole array of interesting and complex characters, weaving a story that leaves us wanting more. Congratulations and keep them coming!

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  10. Jim,
    I enjoyed your interview. Wishing you many sales of Fallen Star.

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  11. Jim;
    So awesome to see a guy here in the romance field...and interested to see how you write a heroine...we female romance writers assume we can write a male POV...but if we can't, hey, most of our readers are female, so they're not going to catch a mistake (yeah, right!).
    I walk around with my husband's voice in my head all the time, while I'm writing. "Guy's don't do that." or "That would get you beat up where I'm from" (he's not that much of a neanderthal, but he likes to pretend he is).

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    1. I can totally relate Teri. In Fallen Star my heroine's name is Annie and I don't know how many times I stopped to think "Would my wife approve of Annie doing that?" Of course that's part of the challenge and what makes it fun. Thanks for visiting!

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  12. Hey dude, good interview. As the first reader of the book, I know how hard you've worked on it and I just wanna say congrats and I'm happy you're happy with the book.

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