All the Questions

I did a chat with readers on Facebook Monday night and asked them to ask their most burning questions about the Marked Men. Several people asked the same thing so I thought I would take a minute and throw out the answers to the seemingly most common questions people have about the boys and myself.

This is going to be raw and unedited so grammar-police read on at your own risk!!

1: Will there be another book/novella about Rule and Shaw?

The simple answer is no.
The more complicated part of that is- I don’t see another story for them. I don’t feel it and as an author if you aren’t invested in the book you are writing, the journey your characters are taking then it’s going to suck. I’m honored so many people loved Rule and Shaw, but I’m on to different things, different stories and that’s all there is to it. I’m not about to create drama, a silly storyline to cause conflict in their love story because so many readers would like another book about them. I’m not one to take the easy road, to do what’s expected and that’s what I feel like I would be doing if I wrote a hundred more books about Rule and Shaw. Pretty soon it would just be Rule and Shaw at the grocery story arguing over cereal and nobody would buy that book.


2: Will I ever do a prequel about Remy?

Again the simple answer is no. I love Remy. I love the role he plays with his brothers. He is very necessary to both Rule and Rome’s storylines. Early Remy though, I think would be so sad and heartbreaking to write. He was in the closet. He was using Shaw in a really harsh way. Shaw was in love with Rule and he didn’t know she was alive. There was just so much angst and dishonesty going on at that point I feel like it would taint the way I want his memory to be depicted in the rest of the series.

3: How many books in the series and what order do they go in?

6 books for sure…who knows if anymore hot dudes will fall out of my head after that?
Rule-Jet-Rome-Nash-Rowdy and Asa are all getting a story.
First 3 are out now. Nash will be out April 29th, Rowdy will be here in fall and Asa will be here end of the year or early next year.

4: Am I working on anything else?

Yep but its secret for now. Maybe in a few months I’ll have more to say but it’s very, very different from the Marked Men. Not paranormal, but still different.

5: Are the guys or the books pulled from real people or my real life?

Sort of. The guys have some physical attributes of guys I know or guys I think are hot. I do live in a military town so there was lots of inspiration for Rome running around! Rule is a mix of my ex-husband and my very first boyfriend ever in terms of inspiration for looks. I think all writers put their life and personality into their books. It’s hard not to. I mean I worked in bars, I know a million and one band guys like Jet, I’m super tattooed, I have friends that are my family, I live in Colorado-all of that can mirror the books but nothing directly in my life has found its way into a plotline yet.
I draw inspiration from all the things around me. I’ll see a guy or a girl on the street. I’ll hear a really cool lyric in a song. I’ll be tossing stuff back and forth with my book bestie. My secret project was spurred by the fact so many people didn’t like Jet when he was first released. I felt really misunderstood-felt like no one was going to give me a chance to write anything but Rule and I was really frustrated by it. So I had this idea and went way into left field and created a whole new world out of everything that was churning and burning inside of me. I get inspired by anything and everything around me-I just have to remember to pay attention to it all.

6: How long does it take to write a manuscript?

A really rough unedited draft takes me about 2 months. I can write a chapter a day which breaks down to 5,000-8,000 words a day if that’s ALL I’m doing for the whole day. Editing, proofreading, rewrites, copyedits take way longer than that. All around from the first word on the page to publication it’s about 6 months (if I make my deadline) and remember the publisher sets the release dates…NOT ME!

7: Who/What do I read?

I love JR Ward. I will read anything Jennifer Armentrout writes. I really dig KA Tucker’s vibe and the slick kind of story she tells. I’m in author love with Lisa Desrochers. Kimberley Knight and Anne Leigh are both really good friends of mine and they both tell really sweet-thoughtful love stories that aren’t my typical read but I think they are both really talented authors so I read their stuff and get mushy. Kristen Ashley is an automatic one-click for me and I almost passed out when she followed me on Twitter. I don’t get the chance to read as much as I used to which is a shame-but I always try and keep a finger on the pulse to see what’s happening in the book world and if it was a hit I’m sure it’s on my Kindle.
My favorite, favorite author of all time is a lady named Anne Stuart. She’s been in the game for a long time. She wrote the original bad-boys. Her stories have no comparison in my mind and I tell myself if what I’m doing is half as creative and half as cool as what she does then I’m doing alright. I literally screamed and jumped up and down in front of my computer when I got an email from her. (Thank you Barbara Samuels for making that happen!)

8: Where do the names for my characters come from?

I honestly don’t know. When your name is Jennifer you tend to gravitate towards more interesting names. In real life my bestie’s name is Settie...see different. I knew the boys had to have names that were cool enough and interesting enough to stand alone as the title of a book and when you have a guy named Rule you can’t put him with a Debbie or a Joan so I needed something that sounded expensive and classy. Shaw fit the bill. It just kind of followed suit with the rest of the gang. Each guy had to have a unique name to carry the book title so that meant the girl had to have something cool to balance it out. I’m actually running out of them!! Pretty soon I’ll be writing about Mark and Susan 

9: Do I have any quirks when I write and what is my writing space like?

I write at a desk in my master bedroom. I’m pretty OCD so everything has a place and a purpose in my creative space. I don’t ever write in the morning. I don’t do much of anything until after noon in all actuality. One of the perks of working from home and being my own boss now. I either leave the TV on Investigation Discovery or turn on I-Tunes when I write. I do need some kind of background noise to counteract the noise in my head. I generally sit down to write and work a solid 5-9 hours like a real work day because if I get distracted by the dogs or errands or my phone than my mojo goes away and it takes me a full other day to get back to it. Like I said I’m pretty OCD so if I start a chapter I HAVE to finish it the same day even if it means working until 4 in the morning. And I always have a Pepsi on hand…because I need it to live!!!

10: What made me want to write?

I always loved to read and write. I had a huge library when I was just a little girl-my parents bought me books for xmas every year. I was totally that girl. I wrote in high school-won a few contests here and there but then real life happened and I had to have a job and pay my mortgage after college. I still wrote, still had ideas for books in my head but never had any follow-through.
When I got divorced in 2012 I was having a hard time sleeping and I was really stressed out so I turned to something that had always been comforting to me-writing. I started Rule and all the stress and bad feelings, sadness and anger went somewhere creative. When I didn’t sleep I wrote. Rule was the first full novel I actually finished. I started looking into self-publishing and just kind of went for it. I never planned on it taking off or it turning into a career but it did and I basically won the literary lottery.
I never planned on being a writer but now that’s what I’m doing I appreciate that it’s a dream job-that I am so fortunate to get to call myself that and I do my best to live up to the opportunities provided to me every single day. All I can do now is be the best writer I can be.