July is Author Interviews Month here on the good ol’ blog! Since I’m finally publishing the third book in the Lovers and Liars series on the 7th, I thought it’d be a wonderful time to open up the floor to my fellow authors. Everyone deserves a little time in the spotlight!

So, please join me in welcoming the fabulous Pippa Jay, a stay-at-home mum who writes fantastic sci-fi.

Let’s do this!

Questions:

What was your first experience with writing?

Hmm, experience? The first one I can remember is badgering my dad to show me how to write my name (my real name is a complicated affair which is why I opted for the shorter pen name) so that I could practice writing it out myself. But more than that? I’ve been writing all my life so it’s hard to remember. I think the most significant things were a poem about a scorpion and a short scifi story that both got into my school magazine back in my early teens.

How do you get through days when you just can’t write a single thing?

I’ve learned to go do something else, be it the hated housework (which is actually pretty good at getting me unblocked and writing – wonder why?!), take a walk, update things, or do something else creative. Just lately I’ve expanded my cosplay making somewhat by doing a General Hux (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) outfit for my 11yo, and currently Rey’s outfit for my 13yo, and I’m itching to do more.

Where do you generally do most of your writing? Is there a specific room that has been dubbed “The Writer’s Cave”?

These days my ‘cave’ is usually on the sofa in the front room with my laptop. Or if I’m feeling really lazy, on my bed. Although that is the room that gets the best of the sun, which is a bonus in the winter when it’s chilly.

Do you see some of yourself in your main character? What traits have passed from you to them?

My first main character was someone I very much aspired to be. She looks like the teenage me and has a lot of my traits such as my temper, curiosity, a twisted sense of humor and stubbornness, but she’s far braver and generally more compassionate than me. But more recent characters are often complete opposites, otherwise it would get boring.

What was your main character up to for his/her summer vacation this year?

I’ll take that first character. She’ll be sitting on a tropical beach covered in pink sand with giant bamboo for shade, listening to the sea crashing and the leaves rustling while watching her tattooed hero spear fishing. Then they’ll <spoilers hidden>  😛

A Sample from Keir:

Sudden light scorched his vision, blinding after the long hours of darkness. He closed his eyes, but it continued to glow blood red through his eyelids. Pain spiked into his head. He raised an arm to shield himself from the glare, hoping he was still safe from sight in his niche. Had this woman been sent merely to add to his torment?

Once his eyes adjusted, he squinted into the light and saw a moving figure draped in heavy robes, styled—like his own—to be all-concealing, though they were not as threadbare or tattered. The dark, luxuriant material shrouded her in shades of green from head to toe without managing to disguise the slightness of her figure. Her hands explored the walls, and as she reached up, the hood fell back, revealing thick reddish hair unlike anything he had ever seen. It gleamed a fiery orange in the torchlight, like a halo of flame.

Curiosity overrode his pain-fogged senses, and he leaned forward. She turned toward him, her gaze skipping across his hiding place as she lifted her lamp higher—the strange light a wand of white fire clutched in one hand. She had a slim, elfin face with steel-gray eyes, a small nose wrinkled by a slight frown of irritation, and translucent skin dusted with freckles. Pretty in an unusual way, perhaps, but not beautiful. He doubted most men would give her a second look, though the color of her hair alone marked her as an oddity, and something to be noted. Was that the reason the Corizi had taken her prisoner? The rarity of her coloring could be reason enough in Adalucien. Otherwise, she seemed too frail a thing to justify sharing his punishment.

Then she moved toward him, and his old suspicions flooded back.

“Another step,” he growled, “and I will kill you.”

Buy a copy of Keir today:

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http://myBook.to/keirprint

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/keir-pippa-jay/1121992283?ean=9781512012798

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The Author:

After spending twelve years working as an Analytical Chemist in a Metals and Minerals laboratory, Pippa Jay is now a stay-at-home mum who writes scifi and the supernatural. Somewhere along the way a touch of romance crept into her work and refused to leave. In between torturing her plethora of characters, she spends the odd free moment playing guitar very badly, punishing herself with freestyle street dance, and studying the Dark Side of the Force. Although happily settled in the historical town of Colchester in the UK with her husband of 23 years and three not-so-little monsters, she continues to roam the rest of the Universe in her head.

Pippa Jay is a dedicated member of the Science Fiction Romance Brigade and Broad Universe, blogging at Spacefreighters Lounge,Adventures in Scifi, and Romancing the Genres. Her works include YA and adult stories crossing a multitude of subgenres from scifi to the paranormal, often with romance, and she’s one of eight authors included in a science fiction romance anthology—Tales from the SFR Brigade. She’s also a double SFR Galaxy Award winner, been a finalist in the Heart of Denver RWA Aspen Gold Contest (3^rd place), the 2015 RWA LERA Rebecca (2^nd place), the 2015 EPIC eBook awards, and the GCC RWA Silken Sands Star Awards (2^nd place).

You can stalk her at her website, or at her blog, but without doubt her favorite place to hang around and chat is on Twitter as @pippajaygreen.