Lisa's World

My interview guest today is Meggan Connors.  You can find her online at http://www.megganconnors.com and on Facebook.  Her new book is called The Marker and it is currently available at Amazon.com, Soul Mate Publishing, and Barnes and Noble.

 

If you’d like a chance to win a free copy of The Marker, be sure to leave an interesting comment!

 

So let’s get to the interview!

1) What genre do you write and why?

I write across various genres of romance. I love romance, and I love that there will be a happy ending—or at least the illusion of one. Life is hard enough—unpaid bills, screaming kids, flat tires and broken heels. At the end of the day, I want that happy ending, because real life won’t always give me one. I love romance because I know that’s what I’ll get.

For the most part, I write historicals or historical fantasies like steampunk. I have a particular fondness for the Victorian Age. All the adventure and the excitement, the newness of the technology that was going to change the world. The juxtaposition of the very proper, straight-laced Victorians with what I know of the mining towns of the West (and what the Victorians themselves did behind closed doors). These places were rough and tumble towns that make us modern folk look positively tame and chivalrous by comparison. There’s something rich and unique in that.

3) What would you like readers to take away from your stories?

I want my readers to have a good time reading my stories. I think of my stories as being an escape from real life. When they put my book down, I want them to think, “Well, that was fun!”

4) What inspires your stories?

I’ve been inspired by a variety of things. The very first manuscript I ever wrote was inspired by a headstone we found on my parents’ property, underneath an old bush. The Marker was inspired by The World Series of Poker. The steampunk I’ve been working on was inspired by an old map of the mineshafts underneath Virginia City, NV. I’ve even been inspired by a show I watched on food trucks.

5) Will you be attending any book or writing conferences this year? If yes, which ones? Where and when?

I’m hoping to attend RWA Nationals this summer in Anaheim, because it’s so close to me. I’ll also be attending the Emerald City Writers’ Conference in Seattle.

6)  What is your writing schedule like?

Crazy! I usually sit down to write after the kids go to bed, so between 8:00 and midnight. I plot in the car on the way to work, and on the commute home, while I’m making dinner or walking the dog.

7) Do you have any other passions besides writing? If yes, what are they? Why?

I love hiking with the family up in the mountains. The kids like the desert, and I like it, too, but I love the mountains. I love the colors of the trees, and how the landscape changes with the passing seasons. So I guess you could say spending time with the family hiking is probably one of my favorite things to do.

8) What is your best memory?

I have so many good ones.  But I guess one of my favorites is the trip that my husband and I took to England. We were part of a tour set up by one of my professors, and little did we know we’d be going with a bunch of high schoolers! (Husband was 28 and I was 24 at the time). So there we are, trapped on a bus with a bunch of hormonal teenagers, my parents, my professor, and a very bored tour guide. One day, when everyone else on the bus was asleep, I dared my husband to tell jokes over the microphone. So he took the mic from Tim, the tour guide, and told a very dirty joke about Scotsmen and sheep that I’d just told him. Of course, he gave me the rather dubious distinction of telling him the joke, and my parents were aghast. (Which is weird, because they’ve met me)

I laughed until I cried.

Unfortunately for everyone on that bus, I had an entire repertoire of sheep jokes that I’d shared with him, and husband told at least one a day. The best part of it was when M took longer than usual to go up and take the mic. The next thing I know, Tim is on the microphone saying, “Well, it looks like everyone is asleep. M, would you like to come up and tell your joke now?”

The whole bus cheered.

9) What relaxes you?

I like long drives and going someplace I haven’t been before, and hiking in the mountains. I kind of zone out and just live in the moment. There’s something wonderful about that.

10) What is your favorite guilty pleasure?

Typically, I like moody, broody music. Husband calls it my “navel gazing, whiny boy, depression music.” Only, I recently developed a thing for Ke$ha. Imagine his surprise when he came home and I’m listening to a song about “glitter on the floor.”

11) What decade has been your favorite? Why?

I like the 90s. I lived in Europe for about nine months on scholarship, and that was super fun, though I was so broke I once had to make the terrible choice between eating and having beer (beer won. All I can say is I was in college). I also met and married my husband in the 90s. Both things were awesome. It was fun to be young and free and in love. And able to eat whatever I wanted without gaining weight.

But I have to say, right now is pretty fantastic. My kids are getting old enough that we can do things with them, but not so old that they’re embarrassed to hang with their parents. I got my first book published. And husband is cuter now than he was 15 years ago. At least I think so. I’m not sure it’s fair that men get better looking as they age, while I just get older.

12) What is your favorite way to promote your work?

I love interviews. I think they’re a really fun way to let people know about your work and your personality. And it’s always kind of fun to talk about yourself.

13) Where is your favorite place to write? Why?

I write in my bed on the laptop. Usually, husband is beside me, so we can chat and be together, even though we’re doing different things. It’s usually me, the husband and the cat all curled up in the bed together.

14) What is your favorite fairy tale? Why?

I love Sleeping Beauty. Of course I love the old version, but the Disney version is my favorite. Gadzooks, I know. But Mellificent is the best villainess ever. I mean, she’s a moody, aging beauty who, when she gets peeved, breathes fire and turns into a dragon (I had a boss like that once. It got better once she got through “the change.”). But with Mellificient, there’s no messing around with hunters or poison apples or other b.s.. Nope, for Mellificient, when it’s go time, she brings her A game. She’s a go big or go home kind of girl. I want to be like that.

I suspect the husband would argue there are times when I am like that.

15) What was your favorite vacation?

I think the trip to England I mentioned earlier, or the reasons mentioned earlier.

16) If you had another career, what was it?

Actually, writing is my other career.

17) If you didn’t write, what would you do instead?

My house would probably be cleaner, that’s for sure. Um…well, I took up knitting briefly right before I decided I was going to write, so maybe I’d try to get better at that?

18) If you could describe yourself in only one word, what would it be?

Zany?

19) Are you a cat or dog person? Do you have any pets and if so, please tell us about them.

I have both dogs and a poor, maligned cat (I love that cat). They’re generally good pets, though the big dog eats everything in sight. He once ate a travel mug. I’m not sure why since there was a perfectly good sandwich right next to it. I guess my only excuse for him is that he’s not a bloodhound and he’s going blind?

20) What is the one thing you most want to do that you haven’t yet?

I want to go to Tahiti and stay in an overwater bungalow. Husband is desperate to go to Belgium and do a tour of all the breweries (on a bicycle, as if either of us has ridden a bike any time in the last decade. I’m sure that will be pretty when we’ve been visiting breweries all day. If we do that, I’ll stop up on Neosporin and bandaids.). I’d go for either one!

Actually, an adults-only vacation sounds like heaven. I’d go to Sacramento for an adults-only vacation. I’m sure I could find something to do!

21) When the zombies take over, what will you do?

I love this question. The joke in my house is that my plan for the zombiepocalypse is to die. My pretty little self will last about five seconds without modern conveniences. I’d get bitten in half a day. Or, more likely, I’ll be patient zero. Sorry, y’all.

My husband spends entirely too much time thinking about the zombie horde, so I’m sure he and the kids will be just fine without me.

22) Vampire or werewolf?  Why?

Vampires. I’m not into animals (unless they look like Alcide, and then I might make an exception), although I suspect if anyone would understand your monthly moodiness, it would be a werewolf!

28) Please tell us about your most recent release and where we can purchase it.

Here’s the back cover copy:

When her father loses her in a poker game, Lexie Markland is sent to work in the household of Nicholas Wetherby for one year to pay off the debt. Innocent but not naïve, she is savvy enough to know she must maintain her distance from this man who frustrates her with his relentless teasing but whose kisses bring her to her knees. Because although she may be just another conquest to him, the marker he won at the card table, it’s not just her heart in jeopardy should she succumb to Nicholas’ considerable charms.

Since his brother’s death almost a year before, nothing has held Nicholas’ attention for long–not women, not booze, not even an excellent hand at cards. Nothing, that is, until he meets the woman he won in a drunken night of poker. Intrigued by his prize and her chilly reserve, he makes it his mission to crack Lexie’s cool demeanor. But even as passion explodes between them, the question remains: will Nicholas be able to take the ultimate risk… and gamble on love?

 

Be sure to leave an interesting comment before you go visit Meggan at www.megganconnors.com and go like her Facebook page!