It’s All About the Author…
1) Please tell us 5 interesting facts about
yourself that readers might not know about you …
1.
I’m addicted to
white chocolate mochas from Starbucks and I’d drink one every day if my husband
didn’t grumble about the cost.
2.
My favorite movie is
Overboard with Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell. I watched it with my mother when I
was little and I’ve been hooked ever since.
3.
I’m rough on
electronics and I’ve been through four Kindles. My latest is only two months
old so we’ll see how long it lasts.
4.
My favorite candy is
an almond Hershey bar. I would happily eat one a day, if I thought my pants
wouldn’t protest my waist expanding.
5.
I was nearly
homeless two years ago. Our home was going through foreclosure and with two
days left until we had to be out of our current home, we still hadn’t found a
new place to live. I’ve never been so scared in my life.
2) What do you like to do in your spare time?
Read! If I’m
not writing, I’m usually reading. That’s not to say I never watch TV because I
do, but I’m very selective about what I watch. If I’m taking a writing break,
I’ve been known to read 3-4 books in one day.
3) Is there one book that you love to read over and
over again? If so, what is it and what
is it that keeps you coming back to it?
Well, it’s not
so much one book but a series. New Species by Laurann Dohner is probably my
favorite book series. The men are alpha and sexy and don’t hesitate to go after
what they want. The women are smart and curvy. The stories are so hot the pages
steam, but it’s the storylines that draw me
in.
4) How did you get started writing and have you
always wanted to be an author?
After reading
my first romance novel, I knew that I wanted to create my own
happily-ever-afters. It started with writing assignments in school and by high
school I had a floppy disk (yes, I’m dating myself) full of partial stories.
The Boyfriend Deal is my first published story, but I’m hoping there will be
many more.
5) If you for some reason couldn’t be an author,
what would your other choice be?
Probably a
psychiatrist. When I was in high school, my first job was working as a
part-time office manager for a counseling center. I really enjoyed the work and
the atmosphere, so I could easily see myself becoming a psychiatrist or
counselor.
6) Did you like school? Were you a good student?
I absolutely
hated school, but I made A’s and B’s, except for AP Calculus. That class
completely destroyed my GPA. It was my mother’s idea that I take it, and since
she’s an engineer, she was determined I was going to excel at math like her.
Little did she realize it was going to be my worst subject.
7) When you
write, is there a specific way you have to write, ie: certain room, noise or quiet, computer or
paper etc…
I usually write
in my living room with a movie on for background noise. Or if my kids are
playing on the Xbox, then I’ll put on headphones and listen to my Amazon Music
Player. I do most of my writing at night, except for weekends, because of all
the distractions during the day. On weekends, there are distractions whether
it’s day or night so I just try to tune everyone out and focus.
8) If you
could write a collaboration with another author, do you have one in mind and
what would you write?
I’ve never
really thought about a collaboration. I’m horrible about deadlines and
following a schedule, and I can’t plot to save my life, so I’m not sure
something like that would work for me. I’m a by-the-seat-of-my-pants type of
writer and need the flexibility that writing solo gives me. Now I could see me
working on a series with another author where we each wrote our own books but
helped create the world together.
9) How do
you come up with your story ideas?
Sometimes they
come to me in a dream, and sometimes I’m driving my kids to school when I’m
slammed with a new idea. There might be a song on the radio and one word or
sentence stands out and a new story starts to blossom in my mind.
10)
Do titles stump you
or do they come easy? When do you pick a
title, before the story is written or when it’s done?
I usually pick a
title when I have a decent start on the story and know where it’s going. The
Boyfriend Deal came to me in the first chapter, but sometimes it takes a little
longer.
11)
Do you keep a
notebook near you for when new ideas pop into your head?
I probably
should, but I don’t. I’m on my laptop pretty much all day either working on a
book, marketing, or talking with other authors, so it’s easy enough to pull up
a Word doc and jot down a few notes. It’s when I’m out running errands that I
end up repeating things in my mind all the way home so I don’t forget.
12)
If you write a
series, do you re-read your previous books before you begin the new one?
The Boyfriend
Deal is my first published book, but I think I would probably re-read the
series or at least any notes I may have on it before starting the next book.
13)
How does your family
feel about your writing?
My kids love
telling people I’m an author, and my husband tries to give me time to write.
Several members of my family will happily purchase any books I write, while others
are more reserved. I have an aunt who is happy for me, but refuses to read
anything I write because my stories usually have a few bad words thrown in.
Thanks for sharing “you as an author” with us ! We hope you’ll come back and visit again soon!
* * * * * *
THE BOYFRIEND DEAL
by Charity West
Contemporary YA
Evernight Teen Publishing, 97 pages
When Hadley’s
ex-boyfriend becomes something of a stalker, she decides it’s time to take
drastic measures – and kisses the first boy who walks past her locker. But she
isn’t prepared for the kiss, not at all, or what happens afterward.
Tyler Robbins, the captain of the
football team, is every girl’s dream guy. He has something of a reputation
though for using girls and tossing them aside, not that it stops them from flocking
his way. All of that changes the moment Hadley’s lips touch his.
When Tyler proposes that Hadley
pretends to date him as a way to save them both – him from his mother and her
from her ex-boyfriend – Hadley is reluctant to give it a try. In the end, she
agrees, but she’s nowhere near prepared for the journey she’s about to embark
on.
Excerpt:
Seeing Hunter head my way, a
determined, slightly psycho look in his eyes, made me panic. I did the only
thing I could think to do. I grabbed the first boy I saw and kissed him like my
life depended on it, but as my body pressed against my unsuspecting target and
my lips crashed against his, three things became very apparent to me. One, the
boy knew how to kiss; his lips were divine and the hands going around my waist
weren’t so bad either. Two, I was slightly in over my head, as he pressed me
back against my locker. And three … well, I was still reeling from one and two.
Three would have to wait for later.
“If you wanted me to kiss you, Red,
all you had to do was say so.”
My eyes popped open and I stared in
open-mouthed shock at the boy who had just made me melt with his kiss. Tyler
Robbins. The one boy I should avoid like the plague. The only boy who had the
power to completely devastate me, rip out my heart and stomp on it, and do so
without any true effort on his part. I’d had a major crush on him since
pre-kindergarten. Perhaps crush was too tame a word. When you’ve obsessed over
a boy since the age of four, it escalated things beyond crush level.
He winked at me and moved along down
the hall, as if the earth hadn’t just moved, as if lightning hadn’t just
struck, as if … well, you get the point. He was everything I’d ever wanted, and
the one thing I’d never have. Tyler flitted from one girl to another. He didn’t
have a flavor of the month; he had a flavor of the day. Or maybe it was a
flavor of the hour. Except for Alicia Thompson. She was his on again off again
girlfriend for the last two years, and she was a total witch. The last time
they’d broken up, she’d egged the car of his next conquest.
It took me a moment to realize Hunter
was standing beside me, looking both livid and hurt all at the same time, but
really, the entire thing was his fault. If he hadn’t cheated on me, then turned
stalker, my lips never would have touched Tyler’s. Then again, maybe I should
be thanking him. Now I could cross off a major item on my wish list. I’d been
dreaming of kissing Tyler Robbins since the first time I saw him, on my very
first day of school. Of course, that was before he started crushing on the
snotty girl in our class, then I just wanted to pelt him in the face with a mud
pie at recess.
“Why are you doing this, Hadley?
Tyler Robbins? Don’t you know he’s going to use you and toss you aside like
yesterday’s garbage?”
“Yeah, because there’s no one around
here who hasn’t already done that, right? In case you missed it, Hunter, we
broke up. You have no say in who I do or do not kiss. If I want to make out
with him in the janitor’s closet, that’s my business and not yours. And stop
stalking me! I’m not taking you back. Not now, not ever.”
I snatched the books out of my
locker, slammed it shut, and took off down the hall. I could feel his gaze
boring into my back, and I wasn’t not going to lie, it seriously creeped me
out. But what could I possibly do about Hunter? My own family thought I should
give him another chance; every girl in school was praying I wouldn’t, and no
matter what I said to the boy, he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
What I needed was a boyfriend.
Someone who wouldn’t be intimidated by Hunter, who would stand up to him and
tell him to back off and leave me the heck alone. What I needed was a jock, but
no self-respecting jock was going to be seen with a band geek like me. And I
wasn’t even in the marching band, the semi-cool band geeks because they kept
the audience revved up during football games. I played the flute, but I wasn’t
coordinated enough to walk and play at the same time. Not without landing on my
face at any rate.
I sat through first period in kind of
a daze, not really hearing anything the teacher said. I managed to write down
my assignment and shuffled toward the door when the bell rang. It seemed I
wasn’t the only one in a daze and ready to leave Mr. Bertram’s math class
because everyone bottlenecked at the doorway. As I was squeezing my way
through, someone grabbed my arm and I found myself plastered against Tyler for
the second time that morning.
Startled, I looked up at him,
wondering why his hands were on my waist, and more importantly, why was he
looking at me like that? You know, in that you’re the only girl in the
world kind of way. Not even Hunter had ever looked at me like that. He
didn’t say anything, not at first. He just stood there smiling down at me. I
took a moment to admire his perfectly gelled hair and—sniff—his heavenly
scent. I had no idea what type of cologne he wore, but if I could wrap myself
in that scent—preferably by way of his arms being around me—then I would die
happy.
Author bio:
Charity West is a young adult romance
author who has always had her head in the clouds. She had her first crush when
she was four, and it lasted for six years. Then she quickly fell head over
heels for another boy, until she had to move away and leave him behind. Jumping
from one boy to another, she finally found a keeper when she was twenty, and
she’s been married to him ever since.
By the time Charity was twelve, she
was sneaking her mother’s Harlequin romances and reading them in secret when
she was supposed to be asleep. Teased throughout middle school and high school
for the bodice ripper covers on the books she openly read in class, she knew
that one day she wanted to write her own happily-ever-afters.
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