Hello, Andy! I'm addicted to Oreos and White Knight drinks from Perks. My favorite color is green and the uglier the shade, the better. I get bored of my hairstyle easily which has resulted in numerous hair colors in the last ten years. My hair is currently red, but who knows how long that might last. I grew up in a small town and was the oldest of three girls. My family took in foster children and by the time I moved out we’d had over thirty in our home over the years. When I'm not writing, I enjoy traveling, killing zombies on the Xbox 360 with my hubby, playing guitar, going to concerts, and spending time with friends and family. I also love to decorate cakes. I now live in Southern Utah with my husband and five-year-old son where I enjoy the sunny weather and the palm trees.
The Same Six Questions
1. Have you published a book yet?
Summary: When Aurora meets Trey, a famous singer and musician, she’s only hoping to get her fill of human blood for the week. The last thing Aurora expects is for Trey to make her feel alive for the first time since she was, well, alive. It begins with a casual painting lesson at her art studio, The Waking Moon, and quickly turns into a forbidden romance. Aurora is forced to hide her true identity from Trey, while keeping her relationship with the human a secret from other vampires in her Brood.
Trey’s band is recording a new album and with Aurora as his muse, Trey is writing songs like never before. After being hired by their record label to paint the album cover, Aurora has a legitimate reason for spending so much time with Trey and his band mates. Aurora can’t deny the unexpected connection she has with Trey, which is fueled by glimpses into his emotions every time they share a kiss. Caught between two worlds, Aurora must attend celebrity award shows and vampire rituals, find time to feed, and protect Trey from the dangers of the night, all while preserving her secrets.
For print copies or e-book copies in any format, visit www.heatherjensen.info. The second book in the series, Immortals And Melodies, will be released Summer of 2012.
2. When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
I’ve always known that I wanted to write. It’s not something you have as an option in front of you when you meet with guidance counselors in school to talk about your future, but I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. It’s hard to pinpoint a specific moment when I realized I should be a writer because I was constantly making up stories and putting them on paper. In a way, I guess I knew before I was ten for that reason. I started winning awards for my writing in elementary school, which eventually resulted in scholarships for college. Even then, writing was something I thought I just had to do as a hobby on the side. It wasn’t until after I was married that I realized I could do it full-time while being a stay-at-home mom. That’s when I started calling myself a writer, although it really happened long before that.
3. What was your first lengthy piece of fiction (say, >1000 words)? What was it about? When did you write it? Do you still have it?
I was writing at such a young age that I couldn’t tell you exactly which piece of work reached that length first. I do remember that my best friend and I were constantly making up stories when we were eight or nine years old. We would act them out when we were together, but when we were apart we would write them out. We’d stopped acting them out by the time we were twelve but I continued to write about what was happening. I remember going to junior high school with pages and pages to give her. She would read everything I had written and respond back. This is the part where I throw in an apology to my teachers for writing stories in the back of my notebook during the middle of class. The plots were nothing to brag about, but I learned a lot about writing and character development in those days. I have my friend to thank for sticking with me through my early work when my brain was moving faster than my hand could and my hand-writing left something to be desired. Also, I always wrote in first person point of view because the stories had started out as stuff we’d act out, so I think that’s why I love writing in that point of view still to this day. We still laugh about those early stories but, unfortunately, I didn’t save any of them. I’ve always been especially prolific, so they’d probably require an entire room in my house now if I had.
4. When was your first indication, "I can do this (write)"?
I remember stumbling across a writer named Amelia Atwater-Rhodes when I was a sophomore in high school. Oprah had named her as a teenager that would change the world or something like that. I saw an article about her in a teeny-bopper magazine and I was fascinated by the fact that she had been published at thirteen. Other than Dracula and Anne Rice novels, she wrote the first vampire fiction I had seen, which fascinated me. I realized then that if she could write a full-length novel at such a young age, then I could too. A trip to Europe the next summer inspired my first novel, The Rift. I still remember which parts of the story I was writing on the plane ride home after visiting all the historic castles and taking a boat down the Rhine. My family and friends were very supportive of me writing that book, and that definitely motivated me to finish it and self-publish it. I even have a sequel in the works.
5. If you could meet one of your characters in real life, which would it be?
Trey Decker, hands down. He’s one of the two main characters you follow in Blood And Guitars. Not only is Trey an incredible guy, he’s the culmination of the lead singers from my favorite bands all thrown together in one body. If I could meet Trey in person today, I’d hope he’d let me sit front and center at a Catalyst concert, or at least let me come to the studio and watch the band record. As long as it involved him singing and slamming on his guitar in some fashion, I’d be a happy girl. Actually, I might even try to talk him into jamming with me. I love to play guitar and since he’s my ideal rock star he’d play all my favorite songs with me, right? I could go on and on with this answer so I’ll just leave it at that.
6. It's a dark and stormy night...you're alone in the house...there's a knock at the door...you open it, look out, and proceed to scream like a little girl. What's on the doorstep?
Trey Decker ... hehe. (See above answer.)
________________________________
Thanks for sharing with us, Heather! I definitely had to Google "White Knight drinks from Perks". ;-D For more on Heather and her writing, be sure to check out her Web site, Facebook page, Twitter feed.
Be sure to stop back on Thursday, when my guest will be Tessa Stokes! See you!
No comments:
Post a Comment