Maria Jane

I was born and grew up in the rural, southeastern corner of Georgia, USA near the Okefenokee Swamp, a large swamp spanning 684 square miles into Florida. Our house was built in a pecan grove and the trees stood twice as high as our roof. One thing I miss is experiencing the evening summer storms. When the clouds gathered above it got so dark under the canopy of leaves that it almost looked like night. I loved being under the trees with the wind whipping the branches, through my hair, and over my skin before the rain started. The air there is so humid, but the gale seemed to clear it away as if resetting mother nature.

There wasn’t a lot of urban entertainment in my small town, but we managed to occupy our time as teens “cruising” a short strip of highway. Some notable memories include attempting to “tip” cows graduations night, littering our teachers’ lawns with plastic forks stuck in the ground, witnessing a flaming possum being thrown from a fourth floor roof, and getting a guard to let us into the swamp park afterhours to feed the raccoons.

My answer to this question may be a bit cliché. Like me, many indie authors were inspired by the creator of the Twilight series, Stephenie Meyer. What’s not to be inspired by though? She created the whole series from a single dream she had with a scene of a couple in a meadow, a couple that for unknown reasons in the dream couldn’t or shouldn’t be together.

I was an avid reader as a child and still try to be. Because writing is a part time gig for me much of the time I would be reading, I spend writing.

Full disclosure on this question, As Close to Perfect is not my first novel. I initially started writing under the pen name Tricia Copeland. My first series was a new adult, coming of age, college romance series entitled Being Me. After that I began writing young adult fantasy and realized that having YA fantasy titles and romance titles under the same name could be confusing. I created the pen name Maria Jane, inspired by my sister and grandmother, Marie and Jane, to keep my romances separate. But to answer the direct question, it took me three months to write As Close to Perfect then six weeks for the editing process. My editor took two weeks for the first round of edits, then I reviewed and fixed based on her comments, she did a second round of edits, and then the proofreader proofed the document.

This is the third book in the Perfect romance series that began with Perfect and Perfect Always under the pen name Tricia Copeland. They are all stand alone books with different MCs that are connected to each other. I wanted to show with this title that relationships can be great even if they aren’t perfect or don’t seem to be the perfect picture from the outside.

I do not think that hard copies are becoming obsolete. I know readers that will only read hard copies. And with authors offering beautiful bonuses like painted page edges, especially hard cover books are becoming collector’s items.

I usually think the book versions tell the story best compared to the movie production. That said, I don’t always read the books that I see movies for. Although if a movie is made form a book that I liked I always see it. The Twilight series did a great job of sticking to the storyline and feel of the books. Others, like Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instrument series, really didn’t capture the books in my opinion. I love Nicholas Sparks movies and feel like romances may translate to movies better than fantasies or other genres.

The most challenging part of romance for me is coming up with the “drama”. I like my romances to be light and fun but want them to be poignant and something people can relate to as well. Writing this romance, I started to think of the different love interests as antagonist and protagonist or hero and villain. The “villain” love interest was the one who ultimately was not right for the MC. This really helped with plotting drama in the story.

I initially wrote under the pen name Tricia Copeland because I felt like it resonated with the first book I wrote, Is This Me?, which is based on my experience with and recovery from anorexia. When I moved to writing fantasy, I kept Tricia Copeland but then decided it made sense to put my romance under a new pen name moving forward.

I always leave reviews if I enjoy a book. Even more than sales, reviews keep me inspired and excited about writing. When a reader says they felt like they were in my book, that they could relate to the characters, that they wanted to scream at a character, or cried with the characters, I feel I have achieved my goal of connecting with them.

I like each of these formats as well as audiobooks for different reasons. If I have a book I will read multiple times, I like to have a hard cover edition, for vacations, paperbacks are the go-to, for backups, I definitely need my e-reader app, and for car trips or house cleaning, I absolutely have an audiobook playing.

Wow, I am horrible with languages. But I am guessing I would wing it with each situation and whether by gesturing or drawing, I hope I could get my needs met. I am not good at drawing so pointing and gesturing may be my go-to.

My cadence is to switch back and forth between my fantasy writing and romance stories. I already have the next two books in the Perfect series conceptualized. The Perfect series begins with Perfect where Chloe has five different “perfectly-ever-afters” and the reader can choose their favorite. In the second book, Perfect Always, Chloe finds her true happily-ever-after mate. In As Close to Perfect Chloe’s best friend, Bree, is desperately seeking the man of her dreams. For the fourth book, untitled for now, their friend Mira will date a love interest from Austin. This love interest will lead her to meet Mina who is the main character in my Perfectly Tuned newsletter subscriber short story. I love for series to come full circle so can’t wait to dive into Mira’s and Mina’s stories.

I’ve loved AllAuthor from the beginning. It is such a useful tool for authors and now that you can connect and follow authors it truly feels like a community.