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: : Past Guests : : Guest Writer's Recommended Writing Books : :
: : Guest Writer's Favorite Quotes : : Jacqui's Recommended Writing Books : :
Dean Koontz has been there. So has Nora Roberts. The story of Stephen King tossing Carrie into the garbage and his wife, Tabby, digging it out is a well known story.
All of them started out with a blank piece of paper. All of them. At one point thought “Wow, I’ll write a book...”
We’re having guest writer’s come to visit, to share their stories of the beginning. How many books did they write? What gave them the inspiration to do it. How was it when they got those rejections... and trust me... they got them, too!
Writer to Writer Guest Interview
 Spotlight: Janet Evanovich
With the release of the thirteenth in her Stephanie Plum series, Lean Mean Thirteen, Janet Evanovich is back in everyone’s hands.
But it wasn’t always an easy ride for Janet. Not at all. She started out in this writing business just like everyone else. She had an idea and she made the time and she spent ten years turning out a multitude of books before she finally got the call that put her on the bookshelf.. Rejection letters were the norm, filed in a big three foot by four foot cardboard packing box. The worst one she ever got? “The one that was written in purple crayon on a bar napkin.”
“There is no such thing as a good rejection,” she says. And her method for dealing with them probably contributed to her success in the business. “I just went back to work, trying to figure out what was wrong with my current book, if I should start a new one, and what I needed to do to get published. You can’t take rejection letters personally.”
The trick to writing, she learned early in the game, was to set up a schedule and follow it. “You have to have a schedule and ‘shut the door’ ...even if you are only writing part-time. You have to think of it like a part-time job at 7-Eleven. You show up on time and you stay there until it’s time to leave. Even if it’s only for two hours.”
That is the hardest part of writing: the writing part, she says. “I just sit down everyday and do it.”
 And it seems to be working. Her books are hot. Readers wait with barely-controlled impatience for them to come out and then, after they have bought it, they read it straight through, only to start over again with a second read right away. And whether it’s Gra’ma shooting the chicken, or secondary character Kloughn getting stuck in the dryer at the laundromat, the laughs just keep on coming ... right along with the sexual tension. Will Stephanie pick Joe or Ranger, Ranger or Joe?
Though Janet may have started out just like every new writer, she carved a niche with her Stephanie Plum series and has a loyal fan base that waits with baited breath.
Says New Jersey native, Caroline Dunsheath, “The big pull about Janet as a writer is that she’s not an ‘over night success’; she is, however, an excellent example about writing your way to success. She’s developed her style by learning what worked best in each book and building on it. Through a long career, she’s come to find the most endearing of characters and set them in a fictional world that’s not only tailor-made for them but for the witty, fast-paced, smart-assed style she writes with perfection.”
Janet can be reached via her web site at: www.evanovich.com
Past Guest Writers
» Suzanne Brockmann
» Stella Cameron
» Denise Domning
» Christine Janssen
» Pauline Jones
» Donna Kauffman
» Kay LeGrand
Body Count Productions and Jacqui Jacoby share many opinions with our guest writers, however all of the opinions found in the interview are not necessarily those of the company or Ms. Jacoby herself.
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