Interview and Tour: Courting Sparks

Today I'm excited to host Joselyn Vaughn on her virtual book tour for Courting Sparks.

 

1) Why and when did you begin writing?

I began writing seriously about five years ago. I always knew I would at some point, but hadn’t put the pen to paper until then. I got about three chapters then the excitement wore off. Shortly after that I ran into an old friend who was writing also. We ended up becoming critique partners and pushed each other to complete several books. She also has two published and a third coming out next summer.

 

2) What inspired you to write your book?

Courting Sparks was inspired by one of my friends. She has been in several weddings and I wondered what a romance could be like for a bridesmaid. Originally I thought the main character would meet a handsome groomsman, not fall in love with someone she’d known since second grade.

 

3) How did you come up with the title?

I have a great critique group with a title maven in it. She is fabulous with coming up with titles.

 

4) What books or people influenced your writing? Was it positive influence, or negative?

Where to start? I think everything I read influences me, especially now that I am writing. I look at how another author describes an action or an emotion or how they work out a plot. Before I started I could read books for fun. Now that is much harder. I have to consciously turn off the analyzer in my head.

 

5) How do you go about researching for your books?

For a couple of them I asked my husband a lot of questions that started with ‘if you were to do X, would Y happen?’ Mostly he would say ‘no.’ One of his friends is a volunteer firefighter and knows a lot about how fires can be started. For Courting Sparks, I needed a way for Aaron to start a fire that would spread. I would ask my husband ‘if Aaron lit his shoes on fire with hairspray, would that catch the couch on fire?” and he would say ‘no.’ It took a while to get a plausible scenario for that one.

 

6) Did you base any of your characters on real people?

No. A character may say things that a friend says or do things that someone I know does, but I try to only pick one characteristic from friends and family. I had one character that would say things that one of my friends does, but the rest of his character was completely different.

 

7) What’s the most exciting part about being a published author? What is the hardest part?

For me, it is holding the book in my hands and thinking I wrote this and someone else thought it was good enough to be published. The hardest part is promoting it. Marketing dollars are tight everywhere. It’s hard to get your book out there and noticed.

 

8) Do you have any other books planned in the future?

Several, of course. I am working on one about Minnie Schultz, the owner of the Lilac Bower from CEOs Don’t Cry. It is turning out to be a really fun story and I am excited to be working on it.

 

9) Which of your characters is your favorite? Do you dislike any of them?

I think Minnie Schultz is my favorite. She is so bold and strong. She doesn’t let anything or anyone get her down. I’m not sure I dislike any of them, although there are surely ones I wouldn’t want to be friends with. Chuck Silverman is not a nice guy and Peggy might be a little to exuberant for me, but she’d be a lot of fun to watch from a distance.

 

10) What advice can you give to young writers who want to publish their books?

Learn as much as you can. Listen to constructive criticism and apply it. Find some beta readers or critique partners that you trust. Those second sets of eyes can greatly improve your story by helping you see what you are missing.

 

Just for fun:

 

1) What are your ten most favorite things?

My husband, my three kids, my home, my community, my family (it’s big – it counts as two), my critique group, and the ability to do something I love.

 

2) What do you do when you’re not writing?

I’m assuming you mean fun things like reading, sewing or running. Usually when I’m not writing, I’m chasing my youngest up the stairs which she has not mastered going down yet, changing diapers, doing laundry or picking up toys.

 

3) Do you have any pets?

I have two beagles. They are incredibly lazy, overweight and really loud. They bark at everything, the mailman, the dog next door, the neighbor boys when they drive in and out fifteen times a day and even their own shadows.

 

4) What are your favorite (and least favorite) foods?

I love chocolate ice cream, but during my last pregnancy my lactose intolerance worsened and so I can’t indulge in it like I used to. I suppose that my pants still fit is a benefit of that.

 

5) Is there a specific place in the house (or out of the house) that you like to write?

There is a coffee shop not too far from my house that is a great place to camp out for a while. My critique group meets there and it has great energy. We always come away motivated to work.

 

At home, I have a beat-up desk that used to be my mother’s sewing table. It was my sewing table until I had kids and didn’t have time to sew anymore. So it’s been privy to a lot of creativity. It has a wide black surface and narrow spindle legs. It’s not pretty, but I like it. I also have a two-drawer legal-size filing cabinet next to my desk. We scavenged it from my husband’s work when they were selling off some old furniture. The idea was that it would fit under the desk and I would have some storage. Silly us that did not measure. The filing cabinet is two inches taller than the lower edge of my desk.

 

My desk sits next to our couch, so I can keep an eye on the kids when they are supposed to be sitting quietly on the couch watching a movie and resting.

 

6) Do you have a specific snack that you have with you when you write?

For a while I ate chocolate chips hoping the trips up and down the stairs to get them would negate the calories. I have replaced them with hot chocolate, but I don’t think that is any healthier. At critique group, we often all order turkey artichoke sandwiches, chai teas and chocolate no-bake cookies. Yum. In fact, I specially thanked the turkey artichoke sandwiches in the acknowledgements of Courting Sparks.

 

7) If you could go anywhere in the whole world, either for a vacation or to live there, where would you go?

Italy for the history, the culture, the food and the climate. Maybe someday.

 

8) What was your favorite and least favorite subject in school?

I loved English and history or any class that challenged me. I even liked chemistry for that reason. I disliked classes that were meant to bolster some of the football teams’ GPAs because they didn’t challenge me. I gave one of my teachers a hard time quite often because he was a football coach and made sure his team would remain eligible. If he asked us to write a half a page on something, I wrote three pages. When he complained, I counted the lines and wrote exactly half a page and ended in the middle of a sentence. He gave me full credit.

 

9) What book are you reading right now?

I just started The Book of Scandal by Julia London and Run Like a Mother by Sarah Bowen Shea and Dimity McDowell.

 

10) Tell us a random fact about you that we never would have guessed.

I get teary-eyed during sports movies. Especially racing movies. Running, horse races, even car races. My kids love the movie Cars and for the first fifty times they watched it, I couldn’t watch the end where McQueen ‘bump-drafts’ The King across the finish line. I am a runner and I identify closely with the pain of crossing the finish line in victory or after overcoming obstacles.

 

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Thanks Joselyn! Below is an excerpt of Courting Sparks, and some more info on the book. Remember if you comment here and on the other tour stops, you have a higher chance of winning! She is giving away copies of Courting Sparks and CEOs Don't Cry.

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Blurb:

Dusting off the ashes of a failed relationship, Daphne Morrow decides she is ready to date again. But when her scorched prom photos are discovered to be the ignition point for a small forest blaze, marking her as the prime suspect for the arson, she finds they’re not the only part of her past sparking interest. After a friend’s wedding provides a romantic interlude with her longtime friend Noah Banks, Daphne tries to explain away her attraction to him: the atmosphere of the wedding, his resemblance to her ex, his heroic efforts as a volunteer firefighter. Still, their desire just won’t sputter out.

When the arsonist strikes much closer to home, Daphne fears she must risk Noah’s friendship to find the culprit and clear her name. She’ll know their love is real if his interest isn’t put out by her need to uncover the truth.

 

Excerpt

Sandalwood and a touch of wood smoke.

The scents drifted from behind her and Daphne knew the man was sexy. She closed her eyes as she stood on the corner of the dance floor and breathed deeply. Maybe passing out candy bars for the Dollar Dance wasn’t such a bad thing. Her Magic Eight Ball could be right. For once.

She tried to adjust the neckline of her fuchsia bridesmaid dress to enhance her cleavage, but the double-sided tape holding the mermaid-style dress in place wouldn’t budge.

Sure, when you want the dress to come off, it sticks firmly in place. She sighed. She spun on her bare feet to greet the dream date behind her and stopped so abruptly her basket of candy bars tipped over, spilling chocolate at his feet.

“Noah?” she gasped.

A light blue madras shirt covered his broad shoulders. His dark hair still damp from his shower. She looked at him like she’d never seen him before.

And she saw him almost every day. He was the athletic director and she was an English teacher and the cross-country coach. She was in and out of his office with student eligibility reports and questions about the team schedule. Besides all that, they’d been friends since second grade. She’d never had this reaction to him before. What was different?

Noah bent to pick up the candy. His shirt pulled across his muscular shoulders as he reached for the scattered bars. Daphne continued to stare at him. Water droplets clung to the hair on the back of his neck and she itched to brush them away. She extended the basket for him to dump the bars.

“Fire call?” she said, trying to cover her stunned silence and hoping he didn’t notice her blushed skin.

“Yeah. Out at The Willows. Could have been really bad, but we were able to contain it. Do I still smell smoky?”

Daphne leaned closer and breathed deeply. His sandalwood cologne flooded her nose again. A touch of smoke lingered behind it. She forgot to breathe out.

This was Noah, she told herself. Not George Clooney. Get a grip.

“Your cologne covers it. How much burned?” she asked, stepping away to put some fresh air between them.

Noah shrugged. “The flames kept smoldering in this heat. Hot spots were flaring up all afternoon. Most of the trees are singed. I’m not sure they’ll come back.” He tugged at the front of his shirt as if he still felt the high temperatures.

“I can’t believe The Willows is gone. No more hidden trysts out there. Where will the teens go to make out now?”

“They’ll find some place. They always do. There’s that place by the river, but the landowner is pretty adamant about kicking them out once a month.”

She hugged the candy basket to her chest. Bittersweet memories of The Willows haunted her, now that Aaron was no longer in her life. They’d gone there to do all the things teens do in the shaded alcoves of the draping willow trees. The fire was a relief in a way, another reminder of him gone.

“Was Miranda angry I wasn’t here?” Noah asked.

She glanced at the bride twirling on the dance floor and pushed away the gloomy thoughts. Good ol’ Noah. He could always divert her depressing thoughts. “I think she’ll forgive you.” Daphne bumped him with her basket of chocolate. “Not to dash your ego, but she didn’t notice. She was so nervous before the ceremony, she peed every fifteen minutes. I’m glad I didn’t pull bathroom duty this time.”

Noah laughed, the tone soft and deep. “I don’t want to know. Anything else happen?”

“If you’re asking if Max fainted, you owe me ten bucks. He turned green during the solo, but his knees never buckled.”

 

 

Don't forget to leave a comment to win! and thank you Joselyn for stopping by!