BINGO'S AUTHOR INTERVIEW: JENNIFER HAYMORE

JENNIFER HAYMORE

FROM HACHETTE BOOK GROUP:
"AUTHOR BIO"

I’ve been writing since I could pick up a pencil….

Wait, no…that’s what every other writer says! I started writing just before my eighth birthday, and it wasn’t on my own volition. I was sailing with my family in a 42-foot sailboat across the Pacific, and since there were no local schools (except those pertaining to fish) nearby, my mother homeschooled me. She was a strict taskmaster! A veritable slave driver! She demanded a new story every day.

So I’d sit in the boat’s galley and write. And stare out the porthole, and write some more. And doodle, and write some more. By the time we arrived in Hawaii the following year, I had a portfolio of stories, and I was hooked. Since then I haven’t stopped. (Well, much. I did take breaks now and then, for things like college, young kids, and a master’s degree.)

I love to read just as much as I love to write, and actually the reading bug hit me at about the same time my mom was cracking the whip over my head and commanding me to write. What else to occupy your time with when there are no other kids to play with and nothing to do but stare at the endless sea? Some of my most recent favorites: The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, River God by Wilbur Smith, and anything by Laura Kinsale and Loretta Chase.

BINGO'S INTERVIEW

WITH

JENNIFER HAYMORE

Jennifer's website is http://www.jenniferhaymore.com/ and other than the Hachette Book Group Information, here are some questions I asked Jennifer that I thought you might be interested in reading. Welcome Jennifer to BOOKIN' WITH BINGO!

Can you tell us anything about the next or current book you are working on?

I’m currently working on A TOUCH OF SCANDAL, the sequel to A HINT OF WICKED featuring many of the same characters from the first book. I’ve loved writing this book, because I feel it gives satisfying closure to some of the conflicts left open in A HINT OF WICKED.

What have you just finished reading?

I’m just about to finish a reread of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. Loving it and feeling it all over again, even after having seen the movies and read it so many times! I’m paying special attention to the language this time around, to the sentence constructs and the dialogue and I’ve noticed that I’ve avoided some of the phrasings Austen uses because they’ve sounded “too modern.” I am tempted to highlight some of them, but I just can’t bring myself to mark up a book.

What books would you say have made the biggest impression on you, especially starting out?

OUTLANDER by Diana Gabaldon. I felt like Claire and Jamie were a part of my family. I’d love to read that book again for the first time.
What gets you started on a new book? A character or story idea or….?

Usually the story idea comes first for me. I start out with a concept, a “what if…?” question. My husband is great at this stage—he brainstorms with me and helps me hammer down the Big Problem of the story and a vague idea of how to solve it. The characters generally fall into place after that—but not always. Sometimes the characters come first, and sometimes, as in A TOUCH OF SCANDAL, the characters are established well in advance of the Big Problem.

What is your best advice to anyone, including young people, who want to be writers? (I teach middle school Reading to gifted students)

Never stop reading, and never stop writing. Don't let rejection stifle you--rejections is a milestone, not a failure!

Thanks to Jennifer for the Interview, to Anna and Hachette Book Group for hosting A HINT OF WICKED Blog Tour, and to all of you who continue to stop at the Tour Stops....keep entering! Remember, here on BOOKIN' WITH BINGO you have until June 6!