The Same Six Questions - Nate Granzow

Where has the year gone!? Can you believe it's the 19th already? This is the 5-month anniversary of The Same Six Questions feature and I'd like to welcome my 45th guest, Nate Granzow!

Thanks, Andy! I'm a journalist by trade and I currently work as an editor for Meredith Publishing (of Better Homes and Gardens fame) in Des Moines, IA. When I'm not writing, I enjoy woodworking, leatherworking, hunting, fishing, weight-lifting, and playing the guitar.

The Same Six Questions

1. Have you published a book yet?


Yes. My debut novel The Scorpion's Nest is available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the iBookstore as a digital download. It's a piece of historical fiction told as kind of action-adventure thriller. Essentially, a terrible virus is discovered during WWII, and recognizing its promising lethality, a band of German scientists are sent on a clandestine mission (Operation Scorpion's Nest) into the American southwest to unleash it upon the unsuspecting US. Seventy years later, my protagonist, Scott Kretschmer (an unemployed aircraft mechanic) witnesses a violent bank robbery where the crooks leave the money and take the last logbook from the Nazi operation. Scott suddenly finds himself trying to stop a pharmaceutical company with a Nazi past from replicating the virus and releasing it upon the world as the only provider of the antidote.


2. When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

After reading Jules Verne's The Mysterious Island where the character Gideon Spillett so impressed me with his dashing behavior, bravery, and worldly knowledge. It spurred me to start my school's first newspaper out of my Dad's study when I was in the fourth grade.


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 on an American Civil War kick for a few years when I was 10 or so. I wrote some short fiction emulating Jeff Shaara's work, and I'm sure if I looked hard enough, I could find it tucked away somewhere. My folks would probably have a copy—they're the kind that kept everything I wrote.


4. When was your first indication, "I can do this (write)"?

Writing has been such an integral part of my life—namely that it isn't just a hobby, but also my profession—that I never really had a moment where I realized I could make this work. At many points I've stopped and wondered how I got to where I am, but I sure wasn't cognizant of it when I first set out!


5. If you could meet one of your characters in real life, which would it be?

While I genuinely like my protagonist, Scott, and find him to be a compelling character, he doesn't seem like he'd be much fun to hang out with. I'd go with my comedic relief—Professor Timothy Alejo. The guy has a childish, inappropriate, wildly enjoyable sense of humor.


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?

A time portal sending me back to high school.

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Fantastic, Nate! thanks so much for sharing with us. For more of Nate and his writing, be sure to check out his Web site and Facebook Page.

Thanks for stopping in! Thursday's guest will be A.P. Fuchs. See you then!

The Same Six Questions - J.S. Dunn

It's Thursday, December 15th (nine shopping days left if you're counting)! Welcome to The Same Six Questions. Today's guest is historical fiction author J.S. Dunn.

The Same Six Questions

1. Have you published a book yet?

Bending The Boyne, a fresh take on ancient Ireland; this novel shows the new ideas about who were the first Celts.

Circa 2200 BCE: Changes rocking the Continent reach Eire with the dawning Bronze Age. Well before any Celts, marauders invade the island seeking copper and gold. The young astronomer Boann and the enigmatic Cian need all their wits and courage to save their people and their great Boyne mounds, when long bronze knives challenge the peaceful native starwatchers. Banished to far coasts, Cian discovers how to outwit the invaders at their own game. Tensions on Eire between new and old cultures and between Boann, Elcmar, and her son Aengus, ultimately explode. What emerges from the rubble of battle are the legends of Ireland’s beginnings in a totally new light.

Larger than myth, this tale echoes with medieval texts and cult heroes both modern and ancient.


2. When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

My postgrad studies and career have always involved writing. Learning the tools for writing fiction was a challenge, even though I’ve always read historical fiction.


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?

Here’s the humorous answer: the first piece of “fiction” was probably the first appellate brief, where one is massaging the facts from trial to make persuasive arguments that will win on appeal. If I recall, that brief was a winner.


4. When was your first indication, "I can do this (write)"?

Uhm. See prior answers. Also, when this debut novel won a national, judged competition. That was a fairly clear sign. Winner, historical fiction, Next Generation Indie Awards 2011.

In addition, my first indication that I probably would not use a NYC publisher was when an editor there actually asked the following question regarding 2200 BCE:

Were there people in Europe then?

The reading public are sharper than that NYC editor for historical fiction. --- No wonder the mainstream publishers are going broke.


5. If you could meet one of your characters in real life, which would it be?

As it happens, the characters are based on people I met while living in Ireland during the past decade, so I’m very glad to have met them already. Eire is a lovely island with wonderful people who chat, wind you up, spend quality time, and make every day a delight. For example, my postman (whose surname also happened to be Dunn) used to sneak down the lane to fish my section of the river. But he'd throw part of a fresh salmon in through the window every now again. He knew that I knew, and that was his thanks. So I lined the windscreen and side windows of his postal truck with blackberries. That was to say, You're very welcome.


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?

My next novel in its still incomplete form, and it won’t go away, the unfinished manuscript stands like a naked orphan and keeps knocking and begging to come in....come in from the cold, finish us finish us finish us. You get the picture.

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Thanks for sharing with us, J.S.! For more on J.S.'s writing, check out Facebook.

My guest on Monday will be Nate Granzow. See you then!

The Same Six Questions - Pearson Moore

Good Thursday to you! Today's guest on The Same Six Questions is author Pearson Moore!

The Same Six Questions

1. Have you published a book yet?

Cartier’s Ring hit the Amazon shelves in May of 2011. I wanted a book that people would enjoy regardless of their genre preferences. I call it an adventure story because that’s a better descriptor than any traditional genre designation. The opening scene establishes the problem: An eleven-year-old girl is in danger. Two dozen men have travelled eight weeks over rough terrain, and they intend harm toward the girl—or do they? We are not so sure anymore, until the end of the chapter, when an even more diabolical plot appears. Yes, the girl is in danger, it turns out, and it’s worse than we ever could have imagined. Cartier’s Ring tells the story of the first contact between Native Americans and Europeans in 16th century North America. It’s an epic that spans eight decades, following Myeerah from those first terrifying moments on the shore of the Atlantic through her triumph over slavery and into her old age as respected matriarch of a large clan. I chose to tell the story in first person, present tense; many readers have told me it’s the most engrossing novel they’ve read this year.

2. When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

Writing is in my blood. My father was a journalist and my mother was in theatre. I was writing as early as I can remember, even before I could string words together into a coherent sentence. I wrote my first story as a first-grader, but I didn’t begin writing seriously as a novelist until decades later, in 2005. I’ve always seen writing as a dialogue. This idea was probably influenced by my impression of my father’s work. He would write his column and later in the week letters to the editor would appear, commenting on or taking issue with what my father had written. Sometimes my father would mention these comments in future articles, so it really was an honest-to-goodness back-and-forth between writer and readers. This kind of daily contact with the realities of journalism made me aware that, whether or not we know it, any idea or opinion we express is subject to interpretation and re-formulation by those to whom we convey the thought. In Cartier’s Ring, I make certain statements regarding the impact of trade on early Native American societies. I don’t expect that these statements will be taken as historical truth. Rather, I hope they will act as a springboard to ongoing discussions regarding the nature of human interaction.

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?

My first bits of writing appeared so long ago, and in such a different mental frame, that I retained no copies. Until recently, I saw writing as a kind of evolution. The first incarnation of a story was Version 1.0, and then a year or two later I’d write Version 2.0. It wasn’t until I began to understand writing as an art—something with definitive beginning and end, something containing a perfection within itself—that I started to see written work as embodying unique ideas worthy of developing into a story sufficient in itself. I completed two novels prior to creating Cartier’s Ring. Those earlier novels certainly tell a story, but I don’t think they achieve the standards I set for myself in Cartier’s Ring. Is the story complete? Are the ideas fully amenable to in-depth discussion with my readers? I wanted anything I wrote to rigorously adhere to those two standards. More than anything, I want to engage the reader.

4. When was your first indication, "I can do this (write)"?

I never questioned my ability to write, and I’ve been doing it from a young age. My efforts soon turned to technical scientific writing, though, and it wasn’t until well into my career as an R&D chemist that I finally decided to attempt a novel. I knew the rubrics were different, and I knew my understanding of the underlying principles of fiction writing was not well developed, so I joined a critique organization. After five years I had given nearly 1200 critiques, but more importantly, nearly a thousand people had given me first-rate advice on my writing. I think a major problem with much of indie writing is the fact that it has never been vetted. My stories have been torn apart hundreds of times over a period of years. They’re better because of it, and they have broader appeal than most indie novels.

5. If you could meet one of your characters in real life, which would it be?

I would love to meet Myeerah, my 16th-century protagonist from Cartier’s Ring. She is from a culture so different from my own. What would I think of her? How would I attempt to communicate with her? What would she think of me and the way I lead my life? Despite the vast differences between us—different culture, different time, different place, different gender—I am excited by the truth that we share dozens or hundreds of things in common. It would be exciting to see the ways in which those similarities or shared concerns came to light as we began sharing ideas and experiences with each other.

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?

I would be screaming like a little girl, but also crying like a baby abandoned, and shedding adult tears of empathy, compassion, and deepest disappointment. It is not the end of life or a physical threat that I find most frightening. What most frightens me are threats to my expression of who I am. Close-mindedness, selfishness, the complete lack of desire to move beyond self-centered ideas and dreams—these are the elements of existence that are the most frightening, because they are themselves entirely outside the scope of true existence. Existence is dependence. I did not come into this world of my own accord. I did not learn to read, write, and create mathematical equations all on my own. I did not learn to respect and honor human dignity by my own lights. I had parents and teachers and counselors and pastors. When I attend conferences, I do not prepare my hotel room beforehand. I do not jump into the hotel kitchen to prepare my meals. All of these things are done for me. What I see on that doorstep is the person who views herself as self-made, as independent, as not requiring human interaction because she is perfect in herself, the woman who leaves the maid a one-dollar tip because that is all the maid is worth in her jaded and selfish eyes. That is frightening, and it is sad and disappointing too, all at the same time.

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Thanks for sharing with us today, Pearson! For more of Mr. Moore, be sure to visit his Web site, art site, and blog.

My guest on Monday will be author Kimberly A. Bettes! Be sure and stop by.

The Same Six Questions - Cecilia Gray

Happy Thursday Everyone! Welcome (back) to another edition of The Same Six Questions! Today, my guest is multi-genre author Cecilia Gray!

Hello Andy! I live in San Francisco. I'm obsessed with food and the apocalypse. And being able to find food during an apocalypse.


The Same Six Questions


1. Have you published a book yet?

Totally! Make that two books.

In Falling, Alexis is an adventure athlete who loses her competitive mojo after a bad breakup. But after she falls for a sexy, cursed immortal with the same taste for danger she used to have, she needs to rediscover her mojo to break his curse.

A Delightful Arrangement is a historical romance novella about two betrothed friends who start to see each other as so much more.


2. When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

Like a lot of writers, I always wrote. I don't remember not wanting to be a writer. My teen diary is filled with angst over the only way I'd ever be happy is if I became a writer.


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 wrote a pretty spectacular hot mess of fiction when I was in the fourth grade about a group of teens who land on a booby-trapped island and have to fight their way through an underwater system of quickly-flooding caves to survive and find the treasure. Yes, it's eerily similar to The Goonies. I've since thrown it away but that gem lives on in my mind.


4. When was your first indication, "I can do this (write)"?

I'm still waiting for that one. You let me know where to find it.


5. If you could meet one of your characters in real life, which would it be?

Laurie is a hot, redheaded witch in my Fallen Idols series. She's sassy, brilliant and always get what she wants.


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?

My friends. I'm excited to see them whenever I see them because it means a good time is around the corner.

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Thanks so much for sharing with us, Cecilia! For more of Cecilia and her writing, check out her website and Facebook page.

On Monday, my guest will be author Mike Fontenot! See you then!

The Same Six Questions - Richard Sutton

Another edition of The Same Six Questions! Today's guest is historic fiction author, Richard Sutton. Welcome, Richard.

Hello, Andy. I'm an ex-hippie commune goat herder who spent twenty years in the trenches of NY Advertising. Born in California in '52, I hitch-hiked to NYC in 1972, to see if I could find something useful to do. I became a copy writer and advertising designer. In 1985, on a lark, my wife and I decided to try our hand at trading in American Indian arts. I sold my Design business in 1989 to pursue full-time trading, opening a bricks and mortar gallery which took most of my time until 2007, when we moved the business online. I had written two novels, behind the register, those last five years, and finally decided fiction was my game, since my steel string guitar playing wasn't ever going to make me a living!


The Same Six Questions


1. Have you published a book yet?

Those first books became The Red Gate, which was released in 2009, and its sequel, The Gatekeepers, in 2010. Both are historic fiction with a touch of fantasy. Set in County Mayo, Ireland, my readers first met Finn O'Deirg in a muddy pasture sink-hole in 1911 as he discovers an ancient secret in the meadow below his sheep. The second book takes place during the Irish Civil War, ten years later, as the family struggles to hold onto their secret legacy. Both are available from Amazon and B&N (in ebook and print formats) and in other eformats through Smashwords.


2. When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
I've always enjoyed writing. Probably the first time I consciously thought I'd like to write stories for other people was when I'd uncovered one of L. Frank Baum's lesser-known Oz books in my grandmother's attic. I read it in one sitting and decided to learn how to do that. It took me another forty years to get around to finally testing what I'd learned. Standing up behind my gallery cash register, when business was slow, I began to assemble some notes and ideas into a novel draft. It took five years to do it and by that time, after nineteen years, it was time to close up the bricks and mortar operation and move it online, so I got more time to write as a side-benefit.

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'd written stories in College, of course, and a few in the years that followed, as well as some really, really awful poetry. I lost most of those in the move to NY, but hung on to a couple of the poems -- for what reason I can't tell you. They will never see the light of day. I wrote a couple of short stories, longhand in the margins of my day book during the 1990s, based partly upon our experiences as traders in New Mexico. The longest was titled Leaving Santa Fe. I will probably work it up with a lot of other tales into a memoir of our trading experiences since 1985, but that story actually transformed sideways, into a novel tentatively called Sullivan's Homecoming, set in Santa Fe, which I'm currenhtly shopping around.


4. When was your first indication, "I can do this (write)"?
If you mean, write well enough to sell, it was during my time running the Main Street Association in our small town where the gallery was located. I wrote an emotional appeal/proposal for some Federal/State funding for an improvement project we had in the works and it netted us $50K. I'd by that time been writing press releases for clients for years, as well as advertising copy which I'd been paid for, but I really didn't get the idea my fiction was saleable until some of my beta readers for The Red Gate, told me so. I do my own covers, which helps cut down costs, too.


5. If you could meet one of your characters in real life, which would it be?
Finn, of course. We have some things in common including truncated formal educations and our understanding of solitude as well as sheep and goats, who I still think are some of the best folks I've ever spent time with. We agree on most things, although he places a lot more trust in the Grace of Providence than I do. He also is a secret musician -- me too.


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?
One of my cats. We never let them outside, but worry about them escaping every day. Every time we leave the house. I guess you could say we're a little obsessed, but inside cats live longer than outside cats. We've had both kinds over the years, and have learned the hard way.

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Thanks for stopping by, Richard! For more information on Richard's books or his occasional political and social rants, be sure to visit his blog and news site. You can follow his tweets and there is an evolving Author Page on Amazon.

Thursday's guest will be Riven Owler! See you then!

The Same Six Questions - Bill Grasso

Welcome one and all! Today's visitor to The Same Six Questions is historical fiction author, Bill Grasso! Welcome, Bill!

Thanks, Andy! I grew up on Long Island, NY, but my wife and I have spent most of our adult lives someplace else. After graduating college in 1970, I did a stint as an army officer. Once a civilian again, I gravitated to technical pursuits and NY rock and roll bands (guitar/bass). By 1976, the need to feed a young family was paramount; I took a job as an aircraft mechanic for a major airline in Miami, Florida. Airline jobs tend to be mobile and sometimes fleeting: over the next 30 years, we moved to Atlanta, Georgia; had that airline die under us; then moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma for a series of managerial jobs with another airline. After retiring in 2006, I spent another 2 years as an airline consultant. Good money...but ultimately, the job interfered with my writing (I had gotten the fiction-writing bug pretty strong by 2005).

We’ve been in Tulsa since 1989. We have one son, grown and married, with two boys of his own. He’s a professor of English Lit. at a university in Oklahoma. I seem busier in my retirement than I ever was in my working days, spending my days writing, fixing a never-ending parade of broken things, and flying radio-controlled aircraft. I can still rock out on guitar pretty well, too.

And now for The Same Six Questions!

1. Have you published a book yet?

Yes. East Wind Returns, my first novel, was published as an ebook in March 2011. It became available in paperback in May 2011. It’s a story I’ve lived with, developed, and refined over the course of six years.

I’m a lifelong student of history. When you realize how little it would have taken to change most historical outcomes completely, your mind can’t help but speculate. I love alternate historical fiction—my credo is change one thing...and watch what happens. East Wind Returns is set near the end of World War II—July to November 1945—and explores a very different road to that conflict's conclusion. To quote my book blurb:

The American war leaders grapple with a crippling setback: Their secret atomic bomb does not work. The invasion of Japan seems the only option to bring the war to a close. When those leaders suppress intelligence of a Japanese atomic weapon poised against the invasion forces, it falls to John Worth, a young photo reconnaissance pilot, to find the Japanese device.

It’s full of political intrigue, exciting aerial action and passionate romance. John Worth is an everyman turned quiet hero—my favorite type of protagonist. I really loved writing this book.

2. When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

I’ve wanted to be a fiction writer for as long as I can remember. The trouble is, I couldn’t come up with a story to save my life. I knew I had a talent for writing, though—in my aviation career, I was a prolific writer of tech and industry articles. But coherent fiction? That didn’t start until about 2005—when I was well into my 50s.


3. What was your first lengthy piece of fiction?

East Wind Returns was the first piece I started that didn’t quickly fall apart. I’m not sure of the exact chronology, but in the year it took me to write the first draft, I completed a few short stories (and submitted them, to zero acclaim). One short story is about an over-the-hill NY doo-wop guitarist, from a very bigoted background, who realizes he might have fathered a daughter with a black woman in a drunken haze some 20 years before. The others are about a clever Chicago policewoman who yearns for success as a sculptor. I’m considering expanding the cop/artist stories into a series of short novels and releasing them as ebooks. I think I’d publish them under a pen name, as they’d be radically different in genre from the alternate historical fiction that preceded them under my own name.

4. When was your first indication “I can do this (write)”?

I’ve known I could write in a clear and engaging manner since I started writing non-fiction, aviation-related articles many years ago. I didn’t know I could write fiction that people wouldn’t laugh or spit at until I began shopping East Wind Returns to traditional publishers and agents in 2006. In my hundred or so rejection letters, no one ever said or implied don’t quit your day job. I took that as encouragement.

I received some reinforcement over the next few years. In 2008, I became enamored with screenwriting. I took classes at the local university, ultimately becoming a member of a screenwriters’ workshop that met weekly. From 2008 to 2010, I wrote six feature length and two short screenplays, often adapting stories I had already written in prose. Two of my works (one short, one feature) were semi-finalists in international contests. I took that as a sign that my sense of story (and craft) had finally arrived. Ultimately, I had to make a choice: I could not write novels and screenplays simultaneously—it had to be one or the other. While I loved both mediums, there seems to be almost no commercial outlet available for the works of a novice screenwriter in his 60s who lives outside of LA. Direct e-publishing, on the other hand, provides opportunity to anyone.


5. If you could meet one of your characters in real life, which would it be?

I’ve already met the vast majority of my characters, either in person or through the media. The names may be different, but the personalities and traits are the same. I owe a great debt to some of our recent political buffoons for providing models that are wonderfully hateful, intellectually challenged, and morally deficient.

There is one exception, though, and she’s the one I’d most like to meet. I’m currently wrapping up my second novel entitled Unpunished, and she is completely a product of my imagination. Her name is Pola Nilsson-MacLeish, a Swedish economist who falls desperately in love with an American airman interned in Sweden during WWII. She’s brilliant, passionate, and multi-lingual, speaking English with a maddening Scottish accent, the result of honing her language skills with the help of the Scotsman she met and married at the London School of Economics. Ultimately, she proves herself terribly courageous. As an added bonus, she constantly created her own dialogue with very little help from me.

6. It’s a dark and stormy night…What makes you scream like a little girl/boy?

It’s a barrel full of snakes—big ones, with the spade-shaped heads that identify them as poisonous. They’re escaping the barrel, forming a carpet of slithering menace that’s growing quickly across the front yard.

I can imagine the fool who placed the barrel there laughing his head off from a safe distance. I can’t help it...I have an Indiana Jones thing about snakes.

There must be hundreds of snakes in the woods behind our house, but they have the good sense to stay away from civilization—most of the time. Once or twice a summer, though, I seem fated to tangle with one.

Like Indy said, “Why does it always have to be snakes?”
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Entertaining stuff, Bill! The book sounds great. Thanks so much for stopping by.

For more on Bill and his writing, check out his Facebook page.

Be sure to stop back on Monday, when we'll indie author Patrick Johnson!

The Same Six Questions - J.R. Tomlin

Welcome back to another edition of The Same Six Questions! Today, we have author J.R. Tomlin. Take it away J.R.!

Thank you, Andy! Born in the US, in Texas to be specific, to a Scottish father and very native-Texan mother, I grew up both in South Texas and in Edinburgh, Scotland. I attended university at the University of Texas at Austin and now live in Oregon where I enjoy hiking on the rare occasion it isn't raining. I write historical fiction set in the Scottish War of Independence and co-author fantasy novels with C.R. Daems.

Now, for those Same Six Questions

1. Have you published a book yet?

Yes, several. I think the best introduction to my writing is my historical novel, Freedom's Sword, which is set at the end of the 13th century in Scotland. You see, before William Wallace... before Robert the Bruce... there was another Scottish hero. In 1296, newly knighted by the King of the Scots, Andrew de Moray fought to defend his country against the forces of the ruthless invader, King Edward Longshanks of England. After a bloody defeat in battle, he was dragged in chains to an English dungeon. Soon, the young knight escaped. He returned to find Scotland under the heel of a conqueror and his betrothed sheltering in the hills of the Black Isle. Seizing his own castle, he raised the banner of Scottish freedom to lead the north of Scotland to rebellion in hope of defeating the English army sent to crush them.

2. When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

I started writing poetry when I was about eight. I gave that up when I realized I would never be a W.H. Auden. However, I always knew I would be a writer, if not a poet. I hardly remember a time when I didn't write. I worked for various publications writing non-fiction and as a journalist and also in advertising, but my love and goal was always writing fiction. About five years ago, I decided that I would work to achieve that goal even though it meant financial sacrifices. Starting as a fiction author in today's market is not easy. Worthwhile, but not easy.

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 wrote my first fiction, it was about Scotland and Robert the Bruce the day he killed the Red Comyn, when I was fifteen. I no longer have any of my early writings. I destroyed them because I wasn't happy with them. I was right that they were not publication worthy, but sentimentally, I wish I had kept them anyway.

4. When was your first indication, "I can do this (write)"?

This will sound terrible, but I always knew I could do it—as long as “it” isn't poetry. I still rather mourn that I can't write poetry. I won awards for my writing all through school and non-fiction comes very easily to me. Fiction? That's harder, but I think an author has to have a pretty sturdy ego about their writing. If you believe people who say you can't, you won't, because, believe me, there are plenty of people out there who will tell you that you can't write. I will never forget the editor who responded to one of my early fiction pieces by telling me, “Stories like this are why I stopped reading fantasy.” Well, he was right that it didn't deserve publication, but if I hadn't known I could do it, I would have stopped writing that day. Or any number of days since either when I hate something I've written or when someone else tells me they did in less than kind terms.

5. If you could meet one of your characters in real life, which would it be?

I'm not sure he is “mine” since he is a real historical person, but the great fighter, Sir Andrew de Moray, would be welcome to show up at my door any day. I'd love to ask him how he managed the courage to fight against such overwhelming odds and about the other great heroes who fought beside him. Fictional characters? I am very fond of Tamra, the heroine in my coauthored Blood Duty, which will be out at the end of July.

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?

Oh, the monster from Blood Duty called an Ixich: “Between the ranked masses of the soldiers stalked the mammoth Ixich. Its scaled black body towered three times the height of any man. As it walked, its two heads glared ahead, teeth snapping and dripping venom. Each of its four arms ended in a fist empty of weapons except for its sword-like talons.” It's a nasty, nasty thing to meet on the doorstep.

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Thanks so much for stopping by, J.R.!
Be sure to check out J.R.'s blog for more information.

Stop back on Monday and visit with author Jason Kristopher! See you then!