Joss Landry has
worked as a consultant for more than twenty years, writing copy for marketing
firms and assisting start-up companies to launch their business. She recently
made the switch from composing copy and promos, to writing fiction and prose.
She is developing her style through courses and the support of other writers
and is presently working on honing three other novels for publication.
Blessed with four
children and six grandchildren, she resides in Edmonton,
Alberta with her husband, a staunch
supporter, and enjoys spending time biking, rollerblading, playing tennis, and
swimming. She loves creating stories as she says they fulfill her need to think
outside the box.
Her latest book is
the urban fantasy/paranormal, I CAN FIND YOU (Emma Willis Series #2).
WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:
WEBSITE | TWITTER | FACEBOOK
Emma just turned fifteen. Her powers have spiraled to include unusual
magic, and she gladly relies
New friends around
Emma surprise her. They appear to be like nothing she could have imagined, and
their goals stir more disturbance than their presence until she bumps into the
scourge of her existence: entities who wish to control what humans do and say.
She learns they are powerful, vindictive and will stop at nothing to obtain
what they want. Will Emma be able to protect the people she loves?
ORDER YOUR COPY:
Amazon
We
welcome you to My Bookish Pleasures! Can you tell us how you got started
writing fiction?
Walking
on the beach in Miami,
Florida
with my little dog, Chief. Sometimes I would walk with a friend, but since I
enjoyed to catch the sunrise, Chief and I often walked alone, listening to the
ocean’s surf and giving into the aura of peace surrounding us. There, one
morning, characters for the first book I ever wrote began to talk and argue and
live out their lives inside my head. I got back to the condo and started typing
as fast as I could. Luckily, I’m a fast typist, because, in 45 days, I had
200,000 words down and a completed novel. Of course, I couldn’t catalog the
story’s genre or realize the novel had too many words at the time. I just wrote
the story as it unfolded in front of me. Even all those years ago, you might
have called the novel an urban fantasy, grounded in current, everyday reality,
submerged in mystery, and displaying paranormal tendencies—not to mention a
touch inspirational.
My
husband has reread the manuscript three times, at least, and says he would like
to see me publish this one. The story will be a trilogy when I complete the
hat-trick. My husband also states this happened to be the loneliest time of his
life. Good thing my nineteen-year-old son still lived with us at the time. The
company helped.
Describe
your writing process. Do you plot or write by the seat of your pants? When and
where do you write?
I don’t
plot. Tried it once as in all the courses I have taken since the episode in
Miami, and teachers tell me it is imperative to plan, well the good teachers at
least. I can’t. Catastrophe ensues when I do. The story never goes remotely in
the direction I predicted. I plot by amassing pics of my characters, their location,
their education (schools, universities) their families their likes and dislikes
pics of their pets and cars … The story unfolds from there.
Of
course, I also discovered how my location is important. I need to hear and see
the story unfolding in front of me. Listen to the characters thoughts, wishes,
and words. I found some areas give me better reception than others. At first,
people around me thought this was crazy. When you analyze the concept, this
does sound a little out there. Even to me. In Miami
reception came through loud and clear. Amazing. Then in Montreal
Canada
where we lived, nothing, or a bare trickle. Took me a year or so to decipher
the impression of a novel and I would be sitting at the typewriter facing a
void of silence. When my son moved to Alberta,
and he asked me when we were also moving since we moved so many times in our
lives, I laughed and joked that we would soon be there. I was in the throes of
Exhale and Reboot, another book I wrote. When we visited him and his family, I
realized that reception in Edmonton,
Alberta
was phenomenal. Didn’t know why. I still don’t know why. No ocean close by and
the ground elevation is quite higher than it was in Montreal.
However, impressions, thoughts, and plots unfold at incredible speed. A little
like some portable radio you turn and twist to get more channels and better
reception. I had started the book I’m launching now, I Can Find You in Montreal.
When I arrived across the country in Edmonton,
I finished the book in less than thirty days. Then when I reviewed from
beginning to end, I needed to redo the first ten chapters I wrote somewhere
else. I have since found out I'm not the only one with this reception problem
and a famous writer I know of also moved from Montreal to somewhere near the Chesapeake
Bay to get better reception.
Can you
tell us about your most recent release?
I Can
Find You is the second book in the Emma Willis Series. Emma is now fifteen years old, and she still
has her friends, Amelia Swift who knows nothing of her powers and Thomas Carson
who does, and who attempts to curb Emma’s use of them. OBE, for instance, gets
Emma into trouble now and again as she can transport corporeally through after
life portholes. Emma can also conjure, something she usually refuses to do as
the magic put her in danger more than once. Going through the portals, she
connects with new friends and discovers their goal and their reason to be here
on Earth, frightening. What are all these aliens from other worlds doing here
on Earth? She still helps Hank Apple, the detective who was promoted Captain
with some of his difficult cases and likes the company of Christina Tyler, her
fifth-grade teacher who has become the older sister she never had. While
helping Hank, she discovers incredible talents in her grasp. Gifts once dormant
are emerging and Emma wonders about her origins and their stunning potential.
When she reaches for the big book of spells her grandmother left her, the book
many of her ancestors contributed to writing throughout the ages, she can’t
find any reference to some of the talents Emma just discovered she owns. Emma
packs of a lot of action and adventure in this book.
How did
you get the idea for the book?
Good
question. In fact, I Can Find You brings us another adventure in the life of
Emma Willis. The first book came to me while I was doing a course, a 48-hour
course of complete and total devotion to a story, any story. As the trainer
outlined what I needed to do, I did, and from this course sprung I Can See You.
Although, I was never keen on writing a series. All my author friends were
writing up series, some two and three at a time, and I just wanted to write a
story and be done with it. Why? Simple. Emma is always with me, discovering new
ideas, mumbling in my head what she intends to do next. I’ve already started
the research for Emma Willis Book III, I Can Help You. Once I finish the
research, the story will write itself. In fact, familiar characters take over
your life a little. They are never far behind—and sometimes invade my life.—or
even quiet about their intentions. Thank God, Emma is a gentle, sweet person.
Otherwise, I would not be able to curb the enthusiasm of a bossy character.
Of all
your characters, which one is your favorite? Why?
Impossible
to pick one character over another. The exercise would be like picking a
favorite, child. Here are some of my favorite characters. Emma Willis, in the
series of the same name. Barnum, in a book soon to be published: What About
Barnum? Hank Apple in Emma Willis Series, and Kat Bonner in Mirror Deep. I also
like Candice Newman in Exhale and Reboot. She is a sophisticated and elegant
character.
What
advice would you offer to new or aspiring fiction authors?
Don’t
wait like I did. I needed an ocean to prompt me to write. There is never a
perfect time to start writing even if you just jot down the preliminary ideas
of a book. These notions will brew and percolate, and at a moment’s notice when
you least expect it, you will find the inspiration to write down your story. In
the meantime, you might like to join groups of other writers. One of the ones I
joined was called The Next Big Writer dot com. It’s a free group of more than
five thousand authors that are submitting their chapters for review by others.
When you do a review, you amass points, and this allows you to post your
writing and get it reviewed. A most friendly group, they helped me tremendously
before I began to write. I am still with them, and I like to run chapters by
them as I’m writing. Also, get Grammarly dot com. You cannot write without it.
No comments:
Post a Comment