Help me welcome Jennette Marie Powell to my blog today.  Be sure and leave a comment to be entered in the drawing for a prize.

 

What is your typical day like?

I work a full-time paycheck job, so that takes up a lot of my day. When I get home, I get on the treadmill, and get some fun reading in. It’s the first exercise habit I’ve been able to keep for more than a few months!

After that, I read and answer email and check in on Twitter and Facebook. By the time I’m done with that, it’s usually dinner time.

I’m blessed to have a husband who cooks, and our teenage daughter cleans up. That gives me time to write, work on a little promo, and get in some relaxation (usually in the form of computer games) before it’s time for bed.

What advice do you have for other authors wanting to self-publish?

Get the craft down first! Odds are, your first book won’t be ready for publication, even if you think it is. I know mine wasn’t, even though it was contracted by an e-publisher! I wrote five more books before I published myself. The sixth was actually a complete rewrite of that first book, so even though the first one may not be publishable when you first write it, that’s not to say it won’t be later. But either way, always keep learning and improving your craft!

What is most difficult for you to write?  Characters, conflict or emotions?  Why?

Definitely emotions. Characters are fun – that’s what gets the story started. Conflict is easy – all I have to do is ask myself, how can things get worse? What’s the worst that can happen? Then figure out how to get my characters out of the fixes I get them into. Emotions are tricky for me, I think, because I’m not a particularly sentimental person. The other reason they’re tricky is it’s a challenge to come up with ways to show them (as opposed to “telling”) that are fresh and not overused.

When did you start writing toward publication?

I’ve always wanted to write, and started a number of novels while I was in high school and college, but never finished anything. Then I got busy getting a life, and only came back to writing a couple years after my daughter was born.  In the late nineties, I read a really bland romantic suspense, and thought “I can do better.” At first, I just wanted to see if I could. So I bought a book – How to Write Romance by Vanessa Grant, and by the end of 1999, had written my first complete novel. To my surprise, it didn’t totally suck!

Has your muse always known what genre you would write and be published in?

Yes, even though I didn’t! When I was in high school and college, I read almost nothing but fantasy, and that’s also what I wrote. Only my stories always ended up being as much about the characters’ relationship as about the other stuff going on. What I thought was a fantasy was actually a fantasy romance – I just didn’t know it at the time because there was no such thing being published. And now, I can’t imagine writing something without romance in it, or without a speculative element, because that’s what I love.

Please tell my readers a little bit about your book. 

In Time’s Fugitive, my American time-travel romance, Violet Sinclair remembers nothing of her past, but she’s certain she loved Tony Solomon… and did something terrible to him. Time-traveler Tony Solomon is sure he never met Violet, yet she bears an uncanny resemblance to the woman he loved and lost decades before he was born. After an impulse encounter leaves Violet pregnant with his child and targeted by killers from the future, their only escape is to jump into the past, something Tony swore he’d never do again. But when they jump back much further than planned – to prehistoric times –  their troubles are only beginning—and secrets can get them killed.

Time’s Fugitive is Book #2 of the Saturn Society series, which is about a secret society of time travelers. Book #1 is Time’s Enemy. Although they’re probably better read in order, it’s not a necessity.

What’s next for you?

Hangar 18: Legacy is a science fiction romance  about a  psychic AF researcher, and a skeptical developer of mind-control software, who must team up to rescue an imprisoned extraterrestrial thought dead for decades. I’m planning to release it sometime this summer. Readers can subscribe to my newsletter on the home page of my website (www.jenpowell.com) to be notified when it’s out!

An Excerpt from Time’s Fugitive

Violet’s head stopped spinning to leave her with a prickly, scratchy sensation beneath her hands and her fanny. She opened her eyes and looked down.

Weeds and brush, bathed in ghostly white moonlight.

Everything was deathly still. No traffic buzzing by outside. No TV. No sirens blaring from the nearby hospital.

From a few feet away, a cricket chirped. Not one hundred percent quiet, then.

The hospital wasn’t there. Nor was the House. No street or traffic. The Society House’s parlor had disappeared, replaced by forestland and budding trees stretching up in the moonlight.

As if to confirm her conclusion, a tree frog croaked.

Like on television. A chill rushed down her throat.

A breeze ruffled her sleeve, her arm cold when Tony withdrew his hand. Her chills turned to quivers at the realization he’d been touching her. An ache swelled beneath her breast. She longed to lean into him, soak in his warmth, but she didn’t dare.

He gazed around with a wide-eyed, open-mouthed stare.

“Where on earth are we?” Violet asked. The crisp tang of recent rain hung in the air. In the distance, the frog croaked again.

“Hell if I know,” Tony said. Something rustled in the underbrush. Probably a squirrel or some other woodland creature.

“We jumped, didn’t we?” As the ground’s coldness seeped into her skin, Violet pushed herself up. Undergrowth crackled beneath her. She took a few tentative steps, her legs and arms growing heavier with each motion. “Only we must have jumped in space, too.”

“I’ve never heard of it working that way.” Tony rose beside her. “All I know is, recovery’s already hitting me. We need to find somewhere to crash, fast.”

Heavens, he was right. She needed to lie down. Now. “Yes, but where?”

They surveyed their surroundings again, as if wishing would make a Paradise Motel magically appear.

Tony took another wobbly step. “Doesn’t look like we have much choice, I’m…” He yawned.

Violet’s eyes fell closed. Her knees buckled, and she started to collapse, but Tony caught her.

He helped her to a pile of undergrowth at the base of a gigantic tree, one that had to have been over eight feet in diameter, with a little hollow formed by the roots. As soon as he released her, she sank into it. A breeze lifted a few dry leaves, and she shivered. Underbrush crackled as Tony lowered himself to the ground and squeezed in beside her. “We’ll need to keep warm, okay?” She mumbled an assent as he wrapped his arm over her and pressed against her back. He’s only being practical.

She wouldn’t think about how good he felt, or the heat rising inside her that had nothing to do with physical warmth. Necessity. Nothing more. Her worries about the baby, the killers, and what Tony thought of her slipped away. There was only now, cold, and recovery.

A shiver drove down her. Not from the wind, but something she remembered Mr. Pippin saying: You jump in time, never in space.

They’d gone back indeed, much further than intended.

Not decades. Centuries.

 

Visit Jennette Marie Powell at: http://www.jenpowell.com
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