AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT: E. JAMIE

Please welcome fellow RWR member E. Jamie for our very first Romance Writer's in the Rough Author Spotlight!

1.) Hi, Nancy. Why don't you introduce yourself and tell us a little about you.

Thanks for having me today! I write erotic romance as E. Jamie (www.ejamie.net) for Amira Press (www.amirapress.com) and I'm also a full time freelance writer, working from home which I love because I'm able to have time to work on my fiction as well as my freelance assignments!

2.) Where do you live? Do you like it?

I live in Toronto, Canada and I really do love it. I'm very much a city girl and Toronto is sort of the Candian NYC. I'd love to have a summer cottage or little vacation house in the country to get away from it all every once in a while but I definitely need to live in the city. I need the noise and vibrancy of it.

3.) What's currently on your iPod/mp3 player/cd player?

Right now I'm listening to the new version of Hallelujah by Alexandre Burke. I love that song in all its version but that one is my new favorite. It's just so big and powerful! I have a mix of songs as my tastes really run the gamut from Classical to Country. I can't write in silence so it's either the TV or music I'm listening to. Maybe this is a sign I'm getting older but lately I find it easier to write to classical or instrumental music. Anything without lyrics. Movie soundtracks are fantastic to write to! Used to be lyrics didn't bother me but now they can sometimes distract me. (sighs) Yep, I'm getting on up there, I think.

4.) Describe a typical (or non-typical) writing day?

I had my first non-writing day in months this past Sunday as I had finished edits on my upcoming release Till Death Do Us Part so I decided that day that I was going to do nothing! Just fiddle around on line and do some reading. Then of course Monday came and I got sick. I am not a fan of irony. I used to have an outside day job so I had trained myself to write in the late afternoon/early evening. Now, I still find that easiest for me. I am sooo not a morning person so I spent the first half of the day doing e-mail stuff, catching up on blogs and promo stuff and then around 2 or so, I pull up the current WIP and get to it.

5.) Do you go by goals? Weekly? Daily? Monthly?

With my latest WIP, We'll Meet Again I worked for 5 pages a day and managed to finish it in about 3 months. I wasn't sure if that was fast or slow but with 350+ pages at the end of I was told that's pretty good. That's usually the page count I try and hit on a WIP, 5 pages a day, sometimes it works, sometimes I don't. Life happens. I don't really set goals beyond the day to day writing wise. I just take it one day at a time. But I'll do that with the works themselves. For example, my last release Redemption hit #3 on my publisher's bestseller list, so my goal with my current release Play ground Of The Gods is to have it hit number one. Next year a goal will be to have one of my books on bookstore shelves.

6.) What's your favorite setting from one of your novels and why?

Oh that has to be Texas in my novella Redemption. One word: cowboys!

7.) What advice would you give any new writers just starting out?

There's the famous BIC (Butt In Chair) but I also say MYA (Move Your Ass) Get our there and submit! Keep submitting because there will always be a place for your work. Rejection is just a part of the game and I truly believe the only unsuccessful writers are the ones who quit and stopped submitting.

8.) What are you working on at the moment?

Right now I am taking a break between WIP's as I've just finished a WW2 romance called We'll Meet Again. It involves an American nurse and an English soldier and I'm hoping to get that published by either Harlequin Spice or Harlequin Historicals. Keeping my fingers crossed.

9.) Are you a panster? A planner? A planster? Which method works best for you? Why?

I'm very much a planner. (Plantser?)(laughs) I can't imagine not knowing exactly what was going to happen when I sit down to write. Though of course, surprises happen that take me in new direction but the basic storyline stays the same. Does that make me a plantser then?

10.) Any new releases coming up?

Well my current release with Amira Press is a sci-fi/futuristic paranormal called Playground Of The Gods and I have Till Death Do Us Part coming out tentatively on June 5th with Amira in ebook and it will also come out soon after in print! It'll be my first print release and I am very excited about that!

Visit E. Jamie's Websites at:

http://ejamie.net

http://freelancewritingservices.net