Welcome guest author Vivien Jackson

A warm July greeting to you! (Though in fact it has been raining all week here, sigh.) Over the summer I'm enjoying hosting some great guest authors, and this month we're welcoming RWA RITA Award-nominated author Vivien Jackson. She and I have some fun connections that I will share shortly! 

Release day for The Absinthe Earl is drawing ever closer, and I am hard at work on some important promo stuff, including a redesigned website that I expect to reveal in the next newsletter! I've also played around with creating some graphics, including this mood board...

Many thanks to the awesome photographers on Pixabay whose work I've used (though the photo in the bottom left corner I took myself!): enriquelopezgarre, Lindsay66, and alandiaspirits.

The website is going to have some fun new features, including a section all about my new trilogy, The Faery Rehistory, and a bookstore where you can pick up copies of the books that I recommend in this newsletter! It's kinda my version of a tip jar—if you get the books there, I'll get a small cut from the retailer, which will help me keep the lights on so I can write more books. And I get to promote books I love!

I'm also going to be putting together a Street Team—a group that will help get the word out about the upcoming releases. I'll be reaching out to my biggest fans with a special invitation. If you'd like to make sure you're included, feel free to reply to this newsletter and let me know!

Okay, time for Vivien! We first met after I judged her entry for an RWA subchapter contest. I loved her story, and when she announced she was a finalist, I introduced myself. Since then she's published that novel, Wanted and Wired, and two others in the series. (By the way, Wanted and Wired is currently on sale for $1.99, and it is geek girl crack, let me tell you!) More Than Stardust is the brand-new release, and it has an amazing premise (not to mention a gorgeous cover). Vivien and I also discovered we share the same Myers-Briggs personality type, INFJ/P (borderline between two rare types). Since she's from Texas and I'm originally from Oklahoma, we've decided we were separated at birth! Welcome, Vivien...

Sci-fi romance author Vivien Jackson

Hey, Sharon, thanks for letting me chime in on your lovely newsletter. It's so comfy in here already, so it's hard to think about my comfy writing spot. I'd rather nap. Or maybe it's hard to think about because I...don't really have one? I mean, there's a short-person desk appropriate for a hobbit-sized me upstairs (see pic), and you'd think I'd do almost all my writing work there. But the truth is I've done maybe an hour's worth of writing in that space.

Compared with, say, the parent lounge while my kids are in their music lessons. I've gotten a lot done there. And the coffee shop with the fun and humorous art (more pic). And the line for pickup at kiddos' school. And...okay, so I don't have a very disciplined routine/space for writing. The only two things necessary for making the words happen are: 

1. A computer.
2. The ability and/or courage to read stuff out loud.

See, when I'm writing, I tend to read aloud as I go, to make sure my characters are acting like themselves. This is especially important in dialogue, but even in narrative, in close-in character point-of-view, I need to hear what they are saying and thinking. I even do the silly accents. Badly. Oh yeah, I crack myself up. Oh, and the best scenes to do this for, to really get the mood and pacing and tension right? Are the sex scenes.

You can imagine what fun this is at a public coffee shop.

Or better: whilst waiting out in the hallway for kiddos who are lallygagging after school. (I haven't been kicked out by the principal yet! Though, I'll confess I do censor myself when I'm there. Not every parent teaches their kid the swear words by showing them videos of George Carlin at Carnegie.)

I guess the best writing I've ever done was when I was holed up in Playa del Carmen while the Caribbean rain was beating against the window and I had no responsibilities whatsoever—no kids to care for, pets to feed, internet to peruse. Just me, the computer, and a whole empty room for me to read aloud to. 

Basically, bliss.

p.s. ...The book I was writing down in Mexico, the one with all the bliss, came out earlier this month. It's called More Than Stardust. You are welcome to imagine me reading it out loud to myself and giggle accordingly.

Thank you, Vivien! And see you all next month!