PAULINE JONES
Interview by Shirley Wetzel
June 19, 2007
Pauline Jones is a prolific, award-winning writer, with published works in mystery, westerns, action/adventure, science fiction, and romantic suspense, among other things. She is currently the president of the Houston Sisters in Crime chapter The Final Twist. She is originally from Wyoming, and came to Houston by way of New Orleans. She and her husband are (almost) empty nesters. Her next book, THE KEY, is being published by L&L Dreamspell.
http://www.thefinaltwist.com/paulinebjones.htm
Your time traveling novel, OUT OF TIME, won an Eppie award. For those who may not know what that is,
please tell us more.
The EPPIE Awards are presented by EPIC (Electronically Published Internet Connection) and have been given annually for the last eight years to recognize outstanding achievement in e-publishing.
The categories are judged by members of EPIC, all published authors. After the first round of judging, the works of the finalists are sent to another panel of judges, and winners in all eighteen categories are selected. The winners are announced at the EPIC conference's gala award ceremony at the annual EPICon Convention.
How did it feel when you learned you won?
It was amazing to hear my name announced and to know that my book had been judged best in the category
by my peers. It made it even more special that both my daughters were there to see me win. Jeff Strand, who
MC's the event and is also a friend, kept my category until last, just to torment me.
Have you won other prizes for your writing?
I've been fortunate enough to win a Dorothy Parker award and several Reviewer's Choice awards, including two from Romantic Times Magazine.
When did you first know you wanted to be a writer?
It's hard to look back and pinpoint the exact moment when I knew. I started writing when I was about twelve,
maybe? Some dreadful stuff it was, but addictive nonetheless.
What steps did you take to reach that goal?
When I realized I wanted to get serious about writing, I went to the library looking for books on writing. I found two. One was awful and I might have stopped there, but the other was Dorothea Brandes' BECOMING A WRITER. It was this wonderful book on tapping into your creativity. Years later I was thrilled to be able to buy it, when it was released once again.
Who were your influences?
I was heavily influenced by my favorite authors, Mary Stewart, Georgette Heyer, Elizabeth Cadell, Alastair Mclean to name a few. I loved the way they created characters I could care for and that they made me satisfied by the ending of the story - and sad it was over.
You are involved in a wide variety of projects and activities - writing, podcasting, blogging, doing the occasional column for your home newspaper, writing a newsletter with marketing and writing tips, and much, much more. You're an officer in the Houston Sisters in Crime group The Final Twist, a vice president for EPIC and you have a family. You've even been known to interview yourself. What is your typical day like? How can you find time for all those things?
Oh wow, just reading it makes me want to go take a nap! I guess I learned to multitask while being a mom and from volunteering for my church.
Let's see, a typical day? Well, I usually wake up grumpy. I'm not a morning person. I go get a Diet Dr Pepper and sometimes a candy bar (Idaho Spud is favorite choice, but hard to get down here) and drag up to the computer to read email. Once I've deleted the millions of spam and gotten it down to the stuff I actually want to read, I'm usually more awake.
I love to write, but seem to spend at least part of my day trying not to write. It makes no sense, but seems to be a common writing problem. When I'm ready to try to write, I put on my iPod, or connect it to my computer speakers and crank it up. For some reason that seems to get my Muse going. When I'm in the zone (when I know my characters and story), I write until my fingers go numb. When I'm not in the zone, well, let's just say it's not always pretty and I may end up playing Solitaire.
I'm not one of those authors who write every day, though I will write five days a week when a book is going well. I've been known to work on several projects at once, but usually work on one book at a time.
I promote one day a week, usually on Fridays. That's not to say I won't take care of some promotion if something comes up, but I try to confine it one day, because it will consume your life if you let it. Promotion is a beast that grows when fed and must be contained and starved if you ever want to write another book.
My husband and I are (mostly) empty nesters so it is easy to save the weekends for him. When family comes home, they go to the top of my priority list. And I try to keep my evenings free, as well.
The volunteer stuff comes in fits and starts but is manageable because both groups are so great. I'm amazed
that The Final Twist members trusted me to be president. I usually try to keep a low profile, so I'm kind of
surprised to be president.
You have several books published in different categories - Westerns, dark Gothic, Comedy/Suspense, traditional mystery. One of your most recent works, OUT OF TIME, is about a woman who goes back to WWII to save her grandfather, and the novel that is about to be released, THE KEY, is a new genre for you, science fiction. On your website, you provide a "behind the book" story about how this came to be. Please tell us about that.
When I look at my published books, I think I've always been moving toward writing action/adventure - which is what I think both OUT OF TIME and THE KEY are. I've always loved Alastair Mclean's a/a books and I've always been mixing it up in my writing. But there is no question that these two books are very strongly a/a.
THE KEY, well, throwing in science fiction is way weird for me. I was lousy at science and feel almost guilty to call it science fiction. That implies that actual science was used in the writing of the book and trust me, it wasn't. It's all made up. But I created this character that had to operate in space. It's really one of my books with a space setting.
Most writers stick to one or two genres in their careers. How do you manage to do so well in so many different kinds of writing?
I think the trick is to just be true to your story, whatever it is, write it with passion and love the story. When I start a book, I just have a great time getting to know my characters and figuring out their story. If I'm not enjoying what I'm writing, then I know my readers won't enjoy it either, so I only write books I want to write.
What are your current and upcoming works in progress and projects?
I'm currently working on a sequel to THE KEY and pondering a sequel to OUT OF TIME. I also have several romantic suspense proposals sitting on my computer and a mystery series. If I were really good at science, I'd clone myself and get them all finished.
But I'm not.
Do you have any words of wisdom for aspiring writers?
I always tell aspiring writers to write from the heart, write the book you'd want to read and then reject rejection. There will always be people out there who will tell you that what you want to do can't be done. They're wrong.
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