CLP Blog Tours: Interview, Guest Post & Excerpt: Crisis of Serenity by Denise Moncrief
**Interview**
What are 5 items you never leave home without.
My cell phone, my purse, my keys, my debit card, and dental floss
For your own reading, do you prefer eBooks or traditional paper/hard back books?
I love the feel and the smell of traditionally published paperbacks. There’s nothing like turning real pages that an e-reader just can’t copy. With that being said, I read 99% of new books I buy on my Kindle. The truth is that I ran out of room in my house for another bookshelf, and carrying a whole library around is a lot easier on a Kindle. Plus, every time I bought another book I thought I could hear the trees groan.
What is your favourite color?
Red
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Never stop writing. Never stop researching and studying the art and craft writing. Engage in conversations with other writers. Pay attention to what readers say about what they like and don’t like. No matter how much a writer loves her book baby, publishing something no one wants to read is discouraging at best and depressing at worst. No matter how successful a writer becomes there is always something that can be added to the writer’s set of writing skills.
Which writers inspire you?
I have a great amount of admiration for writers who have consistently produced published works for years, whether the writer is published by a big house, a small press, or is an indie. Releasing books year after year takes a lot of persistence and courage, because the publishing industry can be hard on the ego. Right now one of my favorite writers is Heather Graham. The success of her Krewe of Hunters series encouraged me to start a series of paranormal romantic suspense books.
Do you have a favorite snack/drink while you write?
Coffee, coffee, and coffee. And when I run out of coffee, I make another pot.
Do you write in silence or do you have background noise?
My family makes a lot of noise. I’ve learned to tune out the distractions. I don’t intentionally listen to anything while I write, but there is always noise in the background. Someone is playing a video game or watching NCIS or listening to music. As I write this, the dishwasher is churning. There is always white noise in this house.
If you met the characters from Crisis of Serenity do you think you would be friends or foes?
Definitely friends. I think I’ve created likeable, easy to get along with characters. Tess is the kind of person I’d love to know, and Jake is the kind of man that could easily become my hero.
**Guest Blog**
Ten Things That Might Surprise An Unpublished Author
You should have heard me squeal when I got the email offering my first publishing contract. There is nothing more magical to an unpublished writer than the words, “If your story is still available, we would like to offer you a contract.” My family thought I’d found a snake in the house…again.
Before my first release, I didn’t know much about becoming a published author. I thought all I had to do was write a great story. Silly me! After two years, I’m still finding out what it means to be published. Here are a few things I’ve learned along the way.
Hiring an agent is not like hiring a plumber to fix your sink. — Because there are so many unpublished writers wanting access to the big publishers, agents can afford to be choosy about whose work they represent. One doesn’t hire an agent. An agent hires a writer.
People can be blunt, thoughtless, or even mean-spirited when reviewing a book. – It is easy to be harsh hiding behind the Internet. Sometimes reviewers forget there is a human being with real feelings behind the book. The key to understanding the reviewer is that she considers the review to be her review of your book not your review of your book.
Books do not sell themselves. – Readers will not automatically know a book is available for purchase. Promotion can be both time-consuming and expensive, sometimes with very little return for the effort, but there is nothing more satisfying to an author than the words, “I bought your book and I loved it.”
Readers have certain expectations and some of them will get testy when those expectations are not met. — An author’s vision for the book is useless if no one is interested in the premise or the way it’s delivered. A writer must be familiar with generally accepted expectations for her genre and remember to give the reader what she wants.
Most authors will support you instead of treating you like the competition. – There is a definite vibe of “we’re all in this together” running throughout most of the writing community. Some of a writer’s best friends are writers she’s never met face-to-face.
Unless you make time for it, there will be less time for writing. – Promotion can consume a writer’s every waking thought if she lets it. If a writer does nothing else to further her career as a writer, she should make time to write.
Writers leave gaps in their stories and don’t realize it. – A writer’s mind will fill in plot gaps because she knows the backstory, the details, and the reasons for her characters’ behavior. A writer should ask people she trusts to read her work, people who are willing to tell her when her story is missing something. Which leads me to my next thought…
A good editor is priceless. I’ve had some good editors, and I’ve had some less than stellar editors. If a writer is lucky enough to acquire an editor who knows what she’s doing, she should make sure she lets her know how much she appreciates her.
Success will not come overnight for most writers. – What writer doesn’t dream of being discovered and having her book baby turned into a movie? The truth is that most writers will never make a living from being published. A successful writer has committed to a long-term publishing career, sticking with it until she has an established fan base. Which leads me to my last thought…
Once a writer is published, it’s too easy for her to forget why she writes. — Being a published author can be the most rewarding thing in the world for a person who loves the power of the written word, but a writer can lose her joy if she becomes bogged down in everything that comes after releasing her first book. The writer should never lose her focus and remember every day why she began writing.
Why do I write? It’s a compulsion. If I can’t write, I might as well not breathe. I promote what I write because I want someone to read it.
**Excerpt**
With my purse strap crossed over my body, I ventured out my front door, but not without drawing in a quick breath of bravado and glancing right and then left. No one seemed to be lurking in the shadows, waiting for me to make a dumb move, like leave my apartment to do my laundry. The weight of the .22 caliber handgun hidden in the depths of my purse bounced against my ribcage. It wouldn’t do anyone much damage, but maybe it would injure a bad guy enough to slow him down for me to get away.
I winced. The rhythmic pounding of the gun on my chest would probably leave a nice purple bruise. When I approached the entrance to the small Laundromat on the grounds of the apartment complex, I shifted the basket to my hip and then pushed the door open with my butt. Before I could take another step, the basket slid out of my arm.
Anger shot through me. So much of my paycheck had been surrendered to retailers who sold me towels and underwear. No one was going to take my laundry. I turned to face the thief, ready to yank my weapon from where I had concealed it. My hand stalled when it should have kept moving. I froze as I stared into the eyes of Iverson.
He passed me and entered the small coin-operated laundry, then deposited the load on a nearby washer before turning to me, a smirk of pure delight covering his handsome features. I never understood how someone so good looking could be so heart ugly. He seemed to be waiting for me to speak first. I bit my lower lip to keep from blurting what I was thinking. My thoughts had to do with him and the fires of hell and how I might help him make his journey there, but he was still law enforcement, and there was nothing I could do to speed his journey that was even remotely legal.
Finally, he took a step toward me. I remained frozen, still propping the door open with my backside, my hand clutching the shoulder strap of my bag, fingers twitching and itching to dig inside the purse’s depths to retrieve the gun. I refused to run like a scared little girl. I’d faced off with the coward before; I could do it again. He didn’t scare me…much.
“So, Tess…” He smiled, a wicked glint in his brown eyes. “Can I call you Tess? Or have you assumed a different identity again?”
I closed my eyes, hoping Iverson was only a nightmare. When I opened them, he was still standing two paces away from me.
“You know what name I use or you wouldn’t be here.” I glanced at the nametag above his left breast pocket. It appeared someone besides me was using a false identity. “Officer Jacobs.” Our eyes met, understanding passing between us like a bolt of electricity. There was no way his presence in Gatlinburg was a coincidence. I stepped closer to him, the door bumping my butt as it shut behind me. “I’m a live and let live sort of girl. You live your life and I’ll live mine, and let’s don’t get in each other’s way. Agreed?”
He laughed. “You’ve always had more guts than someone in your position should have.”
I groaned. I’d heard that before from his partners in crime. No one had been able to tie Iverson to the killings, but I was certain he had played a part in the double murder of Les Corona and Mark Padget, as well as the stabbing death of Anya. Both Iverson and I had left the shadow of those crimes behind in Colorado.
He glanced up and down my body, causing me to shiver with disgust. Why did men like him always look at me that way? I studied my reflection in my full-length mirror every morning. I wasn’t what anyone would call hot. Not by any definition. Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t have body issues. I was fine with me the way I was. Always had been.
I had changed my appearance so many times over the years when I was running from the law and the bad guys that it was satisfying to look like me for a change. My dirty blonde hair was long and unruly, tied in a ponytail at that moment. My hourglass figure was bottom heavy, accentuated by the tight pants I was wearing. A man once said I had a bubble butt. Height-wise, I probably came up to the shoulder of Iverson’s six-foot frame. My proudest feature was my trim waist. I was what the fashion industry derisively called a plus size. An insulting label, since I was a size 10.
“Do the local cops know who you are?” he asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Do the local cops know who you are?” I countered with just as much scorn.
A mischievous fire glinted in Iverson’s eyes. “I’ll stay out of your way and you stay out of mine.” I didn’t believe he meant to leave me alone. He closed the final step between us, so close I could smell his cheap cologne and the sickly sweet scent of chocolate-covered donut. “But if you cross me, Tess…” His eyes shifted over my shoulder. From where he stood, there was a clear view between buildings 8 and 9, straight across the street toward the side of Joyce’s daycare center.
I narrowed my eyes. In that moment, Iverson and I had a moment of total understanding. His threat to Joyce snatched my breath from my lungs. My knees wobbled a little. I was afraid I’d go down if I didn’t say or do something quickly. I sputtered the first thing that came to mind. “Leave her alone or I swear I’ll kill you.”
Author Bio:
Want to know a little bit more about Denise? She’s a Southern girl who has lived in Louisiana all her life, and yes, she has a drawl. She has a wonderful husband and two incredible children, who not only endure her writing moods, but also encourage her to indulge her writing passion. Besides writing romantic suspense, she enjoys traveling, reading, and scrapbooking.
Accounting is a skill she has learned to earn a little money to support her writing habit. She wrote her first story when she was a teen, seventeen handwritten pages on school-ruled paper and an obvious rip-off of the last romance novel she had read. She’s been writing off and on ever since, and with more than a few full-length manuscripts already completed, she has no desire to slow down.
You can connect with Denise at
http://www.denisemoncrief.com
http://www.facebook.com/DeniseMoncriefAuthor
http://www.twitter.com/dmoncrief0131
http://www.amazon.com/author/denisemoncrief
