Ask the Author: Juliette Harper
Answered Questions (18)
Juliette Harper
Yes. Our audiobooks will all be available on Audible.
Juliette Harper
I'm so glad you asked this question. Yes, we plan to have all of our Jinx Hamilton books in audiobook format. We hope to get our first audiobook for Witch at Heart out later this month.
Juliette Harper
Thank you. I'm glad you liked the Selby books as much as we loved writing them. We are not done with that world. There are plans for more Selby Jensen books.
Juliette Harper
We'd love to do a tv series for the Jinx Hamilton books, unfortunately, no one has contacted us to do one...yet.
Juliette Harper
Since Juliette is really two people, (Patti and Rana) each of us will respond to this question.
Patti: I enjoy romance and women's fiction. Elin Hilderbrand and Pamela Kelley are two favorites. I read tons of non-fiction books as well. I'm a real research nerd.
Rana: My reading tastes are all over the place. I’m currently deep into an 800+ page biography of Woodrow Wilson—part of a new project to read presidential biographies. Last weekend I binge-read Kendra Elliott’s Widow’s Island novellas. I have something called Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake on my Kindle about how fungi affect our lives, and before that, I read Kickin’ Up Dust, Loretta Lynn’s memoir of her friendship with Patsy Cline.
Patti: I enjoy romance and women's fiction. Elin Hilderbrand and Pamela Kelley are two favorites. I read tons of non-fiction books as well. I'm a real research nerd.
Rana: My reading tastes are all over the place. I’m currently deep into an 800+ page biography of Woodrow Wilson—part of a new project to read presidential biographies. Last weekend I binge-read Kendra Elliott’s Widow’s Island novellas. I have something called Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake on my Kindle about how fungi affect our lives, and before that, I read Kickin’ Up Dust, Loretta Lynn’s memoir of her friendship with Patsy Cline.
Juliette Harper
Sorry it has taken so long to respond to this. I have not participated on the Goodreads platform until now. I hope you are still reading the Jinx adventures. I plan to visit Goodreads often now as I understand what a great place to be able to stay in touch with readers. You can always check out my author page on Amazon to see all 13 books in the Jinx Hamilton series. Thanks for getting in touch.
Juliette Harper
Sorry it's taken so long to respond to you. There is good reason. I haven't participated on the Goodreads platform until now! I hope you are still enjoying Jinx Hamilton and her adventures. Are you still having trouble finding the books? Check out my author page on Amazon where you can find all 13 books in the series. Thanks so much for writing to me.
Juliette Harper
We're hoping to get the next book out in January. In the meantime, there are three novellas in the Jinx world that might tide you over if you haven't read them already. :-)
Juliette Harper
Yes, there will be a third book sometime in 2019.
Juliette Harper
So sorry to have missed your question! We do hope to go into audio, but we don't have a set schedule for when that will happen.
Juliette Harper
Don't fear the things that go bump in the night. Dread the silence more.
Juliette Harper
Hi Mary, "Witch at Odds" will be released in January. I think my readers will enjoy what Jinx has gotten herself into this time. :-) -- Juliette
Juliette Harper
We wrote the first book in The Lockwood Legacy, Langston's Daughters, really quickly -- in less than a month. Early in that story, Jenny, the middle sister, rides up to Baxter's Draw. At first, we thought we'd use the place as the pretext for a land dispute with a neighboring landowner, Josh Baxter, but then we just liked him too much to make him a bad guy.
The more we wrote about the Draw, the more it assumed a mystical importance. Then one of our beta readers demanded to know, "What's up that damn Draw?!" We decided to write a book that answered that question. What we came up with even surprised us, and then before you know it, the third book started falling into place.
The more we wrote about the Draw, the more it assumed a mystical importance. Then one of our beta readers demanded to know, "What's up that damn Draw?!" We decided to write a book that answered that question. What we came up with even surprised us, and then before you know it, the third book started falling into place.
Juliette Harper
We've found that writing begets writing. Our "day" job is doing ghostwriting, mainly "how to" stuff. Those projects don't inspire us, but they do keep us stringing words together. We literally spend all day every day writing something. It's a muscle that has to be exercised. Typically we work on our own material early in the day, and then get to the client stuff. One line of work feeds the other. It's all about the words.
Juliette Harper
Right now we're doing the third book in the Lockwood Legacy series. It's called Alice's Portrait. That should be out in April. Shortly after it's published, we'll be debuting our second series, which is a post-apocalyptic / zombie landscape, but with some interesting paranormal and metaphysical twists. That one should appear in early June.
Juliette Harper
Write. Every day. It doesn't matter what you write. There's this great site called 750words.com. Rana starts over there every day with 15 minutes of free writing just to get limbered up.
The better we get to know our characters, the more we live in their worlds. That's also important. Then, life becomes an exercise in experience gathering. It's nothing for one or the other of us to overhear a fragment of a conversation or see something on TV and say to the other, "Can we use this?"
Also, realize that not all writing is done with your hands on a keyboard. Patti writes in her head a lot and then comes into the office and talks the scene out. Respect your creative process. If you're the kind of writer who has to wander around with a bag stuffed full of notes scribbled on random paper napkins, so be it.
Just get the ideas in a form that pushes your story forward, and do it every day.
The better we get to know our characters, the more we live in their worlds. That's also important. Then, life becomes an exercise in experience gathering. It's nothing for one or the other of us to overhear a fragment of a conversation or see something on TV and say to the other, "Can we use this?"
Also, realize that not all writing is done with your hands on a keyboard. Patti writes in her head a lot and then comes into the office and talks the scene out. Respect your creative process. If you're the kind of writer who has to wander around with a bag stuffed full of notes scribbled on random paper napkins, so be it.
Just get the ideas in a form that pushes your story forward, and do it every day.
Juliette Harper
If we're perfectly honest, there are two "best" things about being a writer. We get to work from our homes and set our own hours -- and we have a little bit of a God complex.
A few days ago Patti asked me how a character died and without thinking I said, "I'm guessing from a heart attack." She laughed at me and said, "We are creating this world. He dies the way we say he dies." Now let's face it folks, that's power!
In all seriousness though, world-building is a really attractive part of the writing process. We can put our people in situations and have them grapple with ideas and events that interest us.
We have two more series in development. One is a post-apocalyptic world, and yes, there will be zombies. The real point of that world, however, is the idea that no two people survive the same way. We write about strong women, regardless of the setting and in those books, you're going to get to meet a couple of gals for whom dead men walking just aren't that much of a challenge.
A few days ago Patti asked me how a character died and without thinking I said, "I'm guessing from a heart attack." She laughed at me and said, "We are creating this world. He dies the way we say he dies." Now let's face it folks, that's power!
In all seriousness though, world-building is a really attractive part of the writing process. We can put our people in situations and have them grapple with ideas and events that interest us.
We have two more series in development. One is a post-apocalyptic world, and yes, there will be zombies. The real point of that world, however, is the idea that no two people survive the same way. We write about strong women, regardless of the setting and in those books, you're going to get to meet a couple of gals for whom dead men walking just aren't that much of a challenge.
Juliette Harper
Since there are two of us working as a team, writer's block doesn't get its way with our alter ego Juliette Harper often. Certainly there are days when no matter what we do, the words don't happen, but generally our work day starts with a conversation. We like to explore our characters' motivations. Why do they say what they say? Why do they use those words? What experience in their background is a driver in any given situation?
Just after we finished the first book in the Lockwood Legacy series, we took a course on "story beats" taught by Sean Platt (who writes with Johnny B. Truant.) We have a lot of respect for the guys over at Realm and Sands. They are prolific writers with fantastic ideas about process. Their book "Write. Publish. Repeat." is, in our opinion, indispensable for Indie authors.
The story beat process forces us to "tell" our books to each other first. The process creates the roughest first draft you can imagine, but it also builds a blueprint for the story. That lets us come in and really hit the chapters at a good clip.
Writer's block feeds on hesitation. We think that being able to write at a steady pace with a clear direction in mind is a huge safeguard against getting stalled. Between that and being able to turn to one another and say, "What do you think should happen next?" we really don't grapple with writer's block that often.
Just after we finished the first book in the Lockwood Legacy series, we took a course on "story beats" taught by Sean Platt (who writes with Johnny B. Truant.) We have a lot of respect for the guys over at Realm and Sands. They are prolific writers with fantastic ideas about process. Their book "Write. Publish. Repeat." is, in our opinion, indispensable for Indie authors.
The story beat process forces us to "tell" our books to each other first. The process creates the roughest first draft you can imagine, but it also builds a blueprint for the story. That lets us come in and really hit the chapters at a good clip.
Writer's block feeds on hesitation. We think that being able to write at a steady pace with a clear direction in mind is a huge safeguard against getting stalled. Between that and being able to turn to one another and say, "What do you think should happen next?" we really don't grapple with writer's block that often.
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