Interview with Joleene Naylor
WM had the opportunity to interview author Joleene Naylor, author of the Amaranthine vampire series. She describes the series as “glitterless” vampires. When she isn’t writing, Joleene designs book covers and is an amateur photographer.
Word Museum (WM): Thanks for chatting with us today, Joleene. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got into writing in the first place?
Joleene Naylor (JN): Thanks for having me! My mother is a writer and poet, so writing always seemed normal to me, though I quit doing it for a few years. I got back into it so I could play with the “cool kids” in a Harry Potter Role Playing group. Jorick, the hero of the Amaranthine series, is actually based loosely on a side character – vampire ex-boyfriend of my main character – that I wrote in that RP group.
WM: What are some of your other interests? What do you do when you aren’t writing?
JN: Besides marketing my writing, I make book covers for other authors, illustrate a weekly web comic – The Terrible Turtle Conspiracy – and fancy myself an amateur photographer. And I’m supposed to be working on house renovations. When I’m not doing that, my ideas of fun include petting fuzzy cats, watching anime, or wandering around somewhere with my husband and taking a billion photos of the same thing from slightly different angles.
WM: Favorite season of the year and favorite thing about that season?
JN: Autumn wins, hands down. I love the temperatures, the gray cloudy days, the bright colors of the leaves, the misty rain, but most of all the damp, woodsy, dead leaf smell. It speaks of mysteries and hidden places.
WM: You call your vampire series “glitter-less”, which I thought was really clever. Tell us a little bit about your series…
JN: Thanks! When I wrote the first book, Shades of Gray, in 2005 I’d read a bunch of books where plain Jane human meets a vampire, instantly believes in vampires (despite being a reasonable human being), falls in love in a minute, and becomes a kick-butt killer in five pages. Those stories annoyed me because it’s unrealistic. Sure, vampires are out there, but I’ve tried to add some realism into the world. Katelina meets Jorick and runs away with him (so to speak), but there are consequences: she loses her job, she loses her apartment, her mother reports her as a missing person, and when she goes to the hospital after a vampire attack the staff call the police.
While there is some romance, Amaranthine vampires aren’t tame romantic heroes – and none of them are going to high school. Even the nicest of the group is still a blood drinker and a killer. When life lasts forever, it becomes cheap.
WM: You offer quite a few freebies and extras on your site for your readers. Can you tell us a little about some of those and what readers can find over at JoleeneNaylor.com?
JN: At the website readers can download wallpaper, print bookmarks, vote in polls, cruise through the character gallery (complete with artwork and bios), check out my author blog, and find the links for all the books and freebies. And yes, there are a lot of those. The Vampire Morsels collection features seventeen shorts about background characters. Heart of the Raven Mini-Prologue Collection sets the stage book five, Heart of the Raven. Tales from Island is a supplement to the sixth novel Children of Shadows and tells the stories of the characters while they’re on a tropical island vacation. And I’m currently working on theTales of the Executioners series. Right now it has stories available individually. Unfortunately most of the freebies aren’t on Amazon (because I want them to stay free!), but you can get the kindle versions from Smashwords.
WM: You mentioned that you also design book covers for others. What is your favorite thing about that type of work? Do you create your own covers?
JN: I think the best part is the authors I get to meet. I’ve made some good friends through book covers.
Yep! I do my own. They originally featured hand drawn characters, but I changed in 2012 to the current style. Since some of the fans liked the hand drawn covers better, I still make those for the Collector’s Editions of the paperbacks.
WM: How long does it take you to write one of the Amaranthine books from start to finish on average?
JN: If I were to knuckle down and just write – no DIYing in between, or book covers, or any of the rest of it – I could probably do it in six months including all the round of editing. But since that happy dream world eludes me, it’s usually about a year between books.
WM: What are you working on right now? What other projects do you have in the works?
JN: I have Patrick, a prequel, re-written and ready to edit. I have plans for more of the Tales of the Executioners stories, and there is a Jorick novel in planning stages, but at the moment I am doing to final touches on Masque of the Vampire, release date April 1st. When that’s done, I need to figure out Goddess of Night, the ninth and potentially final book in the series. And I need to get back to work on novels I’m writing with co-authors before they tar and feather me.
WM: What is the best advice you’ve ever received (writing or otherwise)?
JN: Use the delete key. As writers we sometimes think every word we pour out is gold, but it’s not. I find that if I delete at least 10,000 words from my final manuscript it’s much smoother. I can’t count the number of books I’ve read that would have been amazing if the author had deleted 12% of the useless fluff. Instead they were just “okay”.
WM: Do you have any favorite shows or books about vampires that you find smart and inspiring for your own work?
JN: Like many vampire lovers in my generation, Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire was inspirational. Laurell K. Hamilton’s early books in the Anita Blake series were as well. In a roundabout way, a lot of the movies/shows/books I’d term bad also inspired me because they showed me what not to do: like making one dimensional characters, for instance.
WM: Anything you’d like to add?
JN: Thanks so much for having me, and for such awesome questions! Interested readers can get the first book in the series, Shades of Gray, free from all ebook retailers, or they can dip their toes into the free short stories first. Links to all of them can be found on my website at http://JoleeneNaylor.com.
Thank you for the interview, Joleene. WM wishes you the best of luck with your series.
Author Spotlight on Lori Soard
I’ve known Lori Soard for forever, so when she mentioned she had a new book out, I thought it would be a great opportunity to interview her. She owns this site and has spent untold hours interviewing other authors and featuring them so I jumped at the opportunity to interview her.
As long as I’ve known Lori, she’s always been writing stories, spinning tales. She is one of those natural born story
Jen: Lori, tell us about Cupid’s Quest.
Lori: This is the first in my new series called Cupid’s Crossing. It is a contemporary inspirational romance. I adore the characters in this book, particularly Libby Henderson, who is in her 80s. Libby is always getting into trouble and most of the time it is pretty funny.
Blurb from Cupid’s Quest
Here is the blurb from the back cover of Lori’s newest novel:
The only life Gracie has ever known has been the nursing home and the residents who are like family to her. Now, she risks losing it all and her friends scattering to different homes if she can’t come up with the money to save the business.
Between caring for his ailing mother and running the family farm, Brandt is stretched thin. Too thin. When his mother begs him to enter a local scavenger hunt, win the prize money, and convert the farm into an orchard, he knows he can’t refuse her anything, so he reluctantly agrees.
While seeking clues to the scavenger hunt, Gracie and Brandt keep bumping into each other. Gracie’s always had a crush on him that keeps her from stringing two coherent words together. Brandt doesn’t understand why she dislikes him so much she won’t even talk to him. If the nursing home residents would settle down and stop getting into crazy shenanigans long enough, the two might figure out that they have more than a little in common.
You can probably see why I was so excited to read this book and Lori didn’t disappoint me. I loved it!
Jen: I’ve asked you before what inspires you to write different books, but what specifically inspired you on this one?
Lori: Libby. I “met” her first. I was at the grocery store and I helped this sweet little old lady who couldn’t reach something on a top shelf. It got me to thinking about what would happen if a little old lady wasn’t so sweet in a grocery store. And, from that, Libby was born. You would think my main characters would be the heart of this series, but it is actually Libby Henderson. She will appear in future books, too.
Jen: What are you working on?
Lori: I am working on Book # 2 in the Cupid’s Crossing series. It is Sinclaire’s story. You’ll meet her in Book # 1. Sinclaire is broken and it is going to be tough for her to be healed enough to love again. Her book will be called Change of Heart. The theme of this book is all about redemption and second chances. It is about how much Christ can change a person, too.
Jen: I know you are a lover of animals. Tell readers about your pets.
Lori: I have a miniature dachshund named Maya. She is really my daughter’s dog, but when Caitlin went away to college she bonded with us very strongly. She is my baby. She lays by my side all day, sleeps with us, and even went on vacation with us recently.
Jen: What advice do you have for new writers?
Lori: Don’t give up. If you simply must write, just keep writing, keep sending your work out into the world, and keep telling your stories.
Jen: Any other thoughts?
Lori: My goal with each story is to reach some reader in some small way. I don’t write for the masses but for that one reader whose perspective can be changed. If God can use my writing ability to plant a seed, then I’ve fulfilled His purpose for me.
I want to thank Lori for agreeing to this interview. She was reluctant at first since she said she started this site to help feature other writers and get news to readers, but she has a lot of fans out there, so I know you’d all appreciate her perspective. She said to tell you all to connect with her on social media. She loves to chat with her readers.
Get your copy of Cupid’s Quest. I promise you’ll love it as much as I did.
Jen