Interview: Jodi Linton

Congrats to Jodi Linton! She signed a two-book deal with Entangled Suspense back in May.

Keep connected with her and watch her journey!

Website: http://jodilinton.com

Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/jodilinton30

Facebook: facebook.com/JodiLintonAuthor

Twitter: twitter.com/JodiLinton1

Tumblr: jodilinton.tumblr.com

Fast Facts:

Coffee

Night

Rivers

Red wine

Liquor

Ice Cream

Laptop

Casual

Ponytail

Shower

Summer

Motorcycle

Our interview with Jodi:

1. When did you realize you wanted to be a writer?

I have been seriously writing for five years, but I have always had a love for storytelling since I was a child.

2. What is my writing schedule?

My day job “stay –at-home mom” keeps me pretty busy, so I write mostly at night. Although, I was able to finish this book in two weeks, and then I handed it off to my husband for him to do his first round of nitpicking. No. He was great. I knew one day marrying an English teacher would pay off, and he did a wonderful job, giving me some of the best editorial advice.

3. What do you think makes a good book?

I believe a good book lets you have your cake and eat it too. The setting is as much a part of the book as the characters. The characters leap off the pages, and the VOICE grabs you from the first sentence.

4. Do you have an agent?

Yes. I’m represented by Sharon Belcastro and Ella Marie Shupe of The Belcastro Agency.

5. What were the last three books you read?

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, Catch Me a Cowboy by Katie Lane, and For Love or Money by Cathy Perkins.

6. What’s one thing you can’t live without?

Dr Pepper.

About Jodi

Jodi Linton grew up across the street from a cow pasture, where she was more likely to been seen selling Kool-Aid in a Dixie cup at ten cents a pop, or inviting neighbors over to watch one of her plays staged on her father’s Bass boat. Even though she never owned one of the bovines, she’ll admit that the smell of cow manure had a lasting effect, making it easy to spot a cow a mile away.

In 2001, she traded in the rednecks, cowboys, and mesquite trees of her hometown to chase destiny out west. After a few years of mucking it around with the roughnecks, dust storms, and droughts, she decided to dust off her boots and head home. With a History degree in one hand and a marriage license in the other, she followed her husband in 2006 to the Texas heartland, fabulous Austin.

Somewhere down the line, she started writing. Maybe it was the boring job search, or maybe it was the crazy characters dancing inside her head that help put pen to paper. Whatever the case, writing sure beat the heck out of working for a temp agency. The first story was about a boy lookalike Indian Jones who chased after vampires in small town Texas. The second story was a YA contemporary about the Grim Reaper, and well half-way through she decided to shuck them both, partly due to the birth of her son, and mostly because she wasn’t awe struck with the premises.

Taking a break from writing to raise her son, she filled the time by reading, and insistently fell in love with mysteries, especially ones with witty, spunky heroines. Four months later, she had a manuscript about a smart-mouthed deputy and her rotten ex-boyfriend dueling it out in small town Texas.

After settling into the Texas Hill Country with her husband and two kids, she joined the Writer’s League of Texas, and signed with The Belcastro Agency. Today she can be found cozied up to the computer escaping into a quirky world of tall tales, sexy, tight jean wearing cowboys, and a protagonist with a sharp-tongue quick enough to hang any man out to dry.

There’s a good chance she’s brushed paths with a few of her characters, but she’ll never tell, those lips are sealed.

xoxo ~Marisa

Interview: Teri Anne Stanley

Pens and Peonies is super pleased to welcome author Teri Anne Stanley to the blog!

 

Teri Anne Stanley is the evil writing twin of Tracy Hopkins. She grew up reading Nancy Drew and Encyclopedia Brown, but always felt there was something missing.  When she hit her teens, she shifted to romance, but still...something was missing. When she discovered romantic suspense, her reading life was complete.

Teri  authored several scientific articles, and a recipe column or fifty, but wasn't allowed to write sex scenes for them--so she's decided to write what she loves to read: Romantic Suspense that doesn't take itself too seriously.   She's also worked as a fashion designer for female body builders and a sex therapist for rats.

In her spare time, she and the most awesome Mr. Stanley, along with a variety of teenagers, and dogs, enjoy boating and watching farm runoff flow past their weekend estate, Camp Swampy.  Teri lives in Northern Kentucky, near the Ohio River and her beloved Interstate-75, with its lush rolling semis and musical rumbling tires. 

Her first novel, Deadly Chemistry, will be coming from Entangled Suspense later this year. You can find Teri wasting time on Twitter @teriannestanley, on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TeriAnneStanley or blogging at http://teriannestanley.blogspot.com.

 

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your writing career.

Well, I'm in the process of bursting on to the writing scene. Maybe not bursting, but hopefully I'm not just dribbling onto it.  I've been writing off and on for my whole life, but I didn't actually sit down to start something with a goal of finishing it until a couple of years ago.  I took a couple of online plotting workshops, started blogging and hanging out with other writers, and here I am...just a couple of months from the release of Deadly Chemistry!

What is your writing schedule like?

I work full time, and I have three teenagers and a husband who travels for work...so I write in the cracks of my day. Breaks at work, at stop lights, in the evening...my kids are old enough to ignore me, so I get a fair amount of time at night.

What do you think makes a good book?

I love that "oof" feeling that I get when one character bares his or her soul to the other. I don't know how to define it, or how to do it...but that's my goal--to make readers feel something. And to make them laugh.

What was the hardest part of writing your book?

Getting the committee in my head to shut up. You know the one, the group of voices that tell you you should probably make blankets for homeless cats, that noone is going to want to read that, and if they do, it will only be to make fun of it on Goodreads.  But somehow, I manage to get through to "the end", and when I go back and re-read what I've written, sometimes I even think it's good.

How long does it take you to write a book?

It took me three years to finish the first one, which I'm revising now to submit soon. The second one, Deadly Chemistry, took six weeks. It was a NaNoWriMo project. I sold it to Entangled when it was only 3/4 written. After I got "the call", I spent another two weeks finishing it. Sitting on cloud nine helped a bit with that. I suspect that the next book will fall somewhere in between six weeks and three years. Hopefully closer to the six weeks!

Do you have an agent? How did you get published? Share with us "The Call" story.

My story is a little bass-ackwards: I wrote Deadly Chemistry during NaNoWriMo as part of the Savvy Authors website's Bootcamp Smackdown. Basically, writers joined teams and competed to earn the right to submit their manuscript at the end of November. My imprint, Suspense, won the smackdown, so I submitted my unfinished, barely edited manuscript, along with about forty other hopefuls and tried to forget about it.

I got a call from Nina Bruhns, the managing editor of the Suspense line in January, telling me she wanted to offer me a contract. I don't really remember much after that...

A couple of days later, I told my friend Jessica Lemmon that I'd gotten a call, and she suggested that I query her agent, Nicole Resciniti, of the Seymour Agency. So I submitted the same unfinished, unedited manuscript to her. She must have been drinking the same left over eggnog as Nina, because she called me, too, and I signed with her shortly afterwards.

THEN I finished the manuscript.

Do you buy books based on the cover or the blurb?

The cover might move me to pick it up, but I buy based on the blurb.

What were the last three books you read?

My reading is all over the place. The last three books I read were After Hours, by Cara McKenna; Red, by Kate SeRine; and Heir to a Desert Legacy, by Maisey Yates.

What do you do when you're not writing?

We have a boat that we keep at a little trailer parky campground near the Ohio River, so most summer weekends find us floating around or slapping at mosquitos. I also like to knit and stuff...I got a spinning wheel a couple of years ago, so sometimes I like to get it out and pretend I'm Ma Ingalls. I can't get Mr. Stanley to dress up like Michael Landon, though.

Fast Facts:

Coffee or tea?

Yes, please.

Morning or night?

A little of each. I'm an early riser, but it takes me a while to get moving.

Rivers or oceans?

Either

White wine or red?

Neither

Champagne or liquor?

Seriously...I drank my lifetime allotment of all of the above a few years ago, so I stick to Diet Coke these days.

Cupcakes or ice cream?

Oh, come on. Is that even a fair question? How can you--I'm not going to answer that.

Laptop or desktop?

Laptop! Finally, something I can be definitive about!

Casual or couture?

Casual all the way

Ponytail or headband?

Well, my hair's pretty short now, but when it wasn't, I'd have to say "ponytail."

Shower or bath?

Bath

Summer or winter?

Summer

Motorcycle or bicycle?

Jet ski

 

Isn't she awesome?!? Be sure to check out her Romantic Times Hangover post!

 

I love her bass-ackwards story of how she joined The Seymour Agency and snagged Nicole!

 

xoxo ~Marisa