What city are you originally from?
Big Rapids, MI
Do you have any interesting or unexpected history/lineage/ancestry that you know about?
I am a very mixed ‘breed’ 😁 some family history I have is my paternal great grandparents (and family) were bootleggers for Al Capone during Prohibition. My paternal great grandmother (Bulgarian) was supposed to board the Titanic to come over to America but she missed the boat that day! 🍀
What did reading and writing mean to you as a child and how has that meaning evolved for you over time?
Honestly I didn’t read much as a child. My love for reading didn’t come until after I had graduated high school. But I was always creating my own stories. Sometimes my vivid dreams inspire me.
When, in general, are you most and least inspired to write?
I am most inspired to write when I listen to music. It’s a soundtrack in my head where I can picture a scene from a story playing out. I am least inspired to write when stressed, especially if my house needs cleaning! It’s hard to focus on writing when I’m worried about my surroundings.
What would you say is the most tricky part about writing paranormal romance?
The trickiest part for paranormal romance, as with many fantasy fictions, is keeping track of the things that are and are not possible in the universe you've created. I like to keep track of these things in a notebook 📓
What was the event or idea that started the Love and Bloodlust series?
Love and bloodlust started as a dream I had when I was a teenager. At the time, my friends and I liked to create short movies, usually comedy. So I wrote a script for this and we started filming, but with everyone going off to college and the military (etc) we never finished the movie. So I turned my script into a book. The book is actually longer than the movie would have been, as I took the ‘two-part movie concept’ and put all of it into one story.
Who was your inspiration for the character Delilah Daniels in "Thorns and Darkness"?
My sister, Katherine Starfall, came up with the characters and the plot of this book. She wrote a short story that I helped her expand into a complete novel 😁
Did you ever have moments of uncertainty while writing the Love and Bloodlust Series or did you plan everything from the get-go?
I plan everything I write beforehand; but my uncertainty came when I thought ‘What if no one likes this?’. These doubts hit every author eventually, even the well-established ones.
As a writer, what are you afraid of more: that your writing will get bad but everyone will be too nice to tell you? Or be criticised for something that's good and begin to doubt yourself?
I know when something is good to my standards, and I’m not everyone’s cup of tea. I’m okay with that. But if it were to be horrible and no one gave me any constructive criticism? That would be a fear of mine that the standards of entertainment and good writing weren’t worth anything anymore. I don’t want to just push out books because people like me as an author. I want people to read my books because they enjoy my style and stories genuinely. ❤️
How has been your experience of being a veterinary technician?
I have been a licensed vet tech for 5 years now and there are days when you love it, days when you hate it, and emotional days when it hurts. The latter is usually when there’s just so much death in a small timeframe. It’s rare but it happens and I have experienced burn-out before. A vacation to get yourself back together is always a good refresher.
What do you believe are some of your greatest accomplishments so far and what are some other goals you want to set for yourself?
I think my greatest accomplishments were when I re-did my covers to be more appealing and I have gone back and realized how much my writing style has evolved since my first book. Someday I’d like to make a complete, livable career out of writing and be able to have time to get more than two books out a year 😁
How many hours in a day do you write? Have you ever pulled an all-nighter writing?
On average, with my full time job as a vet tech and mother of two small children, I only get 1 hour a day to write if I’m lucky. Sometimes I will get a day completely to myself, if the children are with family, to write for 4-6 hours. I love days like this ❤️
What are some ways in which you try to keep challenging yourself as a writer?
I’m always trying to come up with different concepts and characters that aren’t like any other character I’ve written. I love that individuality of each story instead of writing generic copies of things that some authors tend to stick to.
Which is the next book you are working on? Give us an insight into it.
The book I am currently working on is called ‘Oh My Merman!’. I am usually writing darker fantasy, but this one will have lighter, sometimes comedic points that my other ‘Sirens’ book did not have. It is about a merman named Crow who steals the water God’s artifact that allows him to walk amongst humans. He desires to be one, and has heard that a siren before him had permanently become human by kissing one. He meets a girl named Raelynn that he’s not initially attracted to, they actually bicker often, but they come together as a team when they have a common goal (enemies to lovers trope). It’s about his journey in realizing what makes someone human, and she learns that not everything can be explained with logic- that there’s magic out in the world that she needs to be open to.
Judging from your experience so far, how would you rate and review AllAuthor?
Very consistent with mock-ups. I wish there was a better way to advertise as Twitter has very little followers. Perhaps expanding to TikTok and Facebook? Other platforms?
