Interview with Jessica Aspen

Thanks for having me as your guest today Bernadette. I had a great time answering these questions, and I’ll be looking forward to responding to comments.  Leave a comment today on Warrior Princess and register it HERE to enter to win prizes. I’m giving away books, chocolates and more, in celebration of the upcoming release of Little Red Riding Wolf, my sensual novella due out on February 18th.

What genre(s) do you write?

I write paranormal romance, and it’s a little on the spicy side, so watch out! My current novella is a fast paced werewolf meets boy story twisted off of the fairy tale, Little Red Riding Hood. I love fairy tales, paranormal and romance, so it seems a natural fit. One of the things I love about writing paranormal romance is the strong women and alpha men I can fantasize about. Worlds where anything can happen, as long as you stay within the world building rules, and that’s pretty easy since I build the worlds!

What was the hardest part of writing your book?

Actually Little Red Riding Wolf was pretty easy to write. When working with a twisted fairy tale, you have a framework to start with, so all I had to do was re-work the characters, time period, and some of the plot. Okay, I had to re-work the whole thing. But it’s like re-decorating an empty house, I still had walls. And since this is a novella, it moved very fast. This is the first novella I’ve ever written and once you are used to writing long stories, novellas seem pretty easy. That’s why I’m working on the sequel right now. Zipping through a novella after slogging through a long novel is exhilarating.

Are you a plotter or a pantser?

Oh this is a toughie! I am a pantser by nature, but I am working hard on switching to being a plotter. Each book I write gets a little more plotting and a little less pantsing. And I’m finding that the more I plot, the easier the writing. That may be one of the reasons Little Red Riding Wolf was written so fast, I was able to outline most of it before starting. My current WIP, about Red’s moody brother Seth, has been outlined using Randy Ingermanson’s Snowflake method, which is fast and still leaves a lot of room for creativity.

Do you work on one project at a time? Or do you multi-task?

I’m a multi-tasker. Put it down to a lifetime of juggling kids, jobs and whatever else life throws at me. I like to have more than one project going at a time. That means I almost never deal with writer’s block. If I am having trouble writing, I can move on to editing a different project. Not feeling well enough to edit, I can always plot or write a blog. Or  whatever needs doing. Having said that I find that the flip side of being a multi-tasker is sometimes I need to sit down and tell myself that I need to finish what I’m working on and not dance off to something else. Multi-taskers can also be great justifiers of why they are procrastinators.

Has your life changed significantly since becoming a published writer?

Good question! Wish I could say that I now spend many hours writing on my yacht in the Virgin Islands, but the truth is that my lifestyle is pretty much the same. I’m still working at my job and still worrying over the bills. But I am hopeful that the yacht is somewhere in my future! Actually the thing that has changed the most is my attitude about myself. I used to sort of apologetically tell people I was writing. It’s taken a little while, but now I say I am an author. And I am confident. There is something about having a book in hand (or nearly in hand) to boost an author’s confidence. The other major change really started before I even came close to publishing. That happened when I started to think of writing as a job and not as a hobby. But I’m not sure you can publish successfully without that attitude change. Either way I’m on my way now, and Little Red Riding Wolf is just the beginning.

A little more about Jessica Aspen

Jessica Aspen writes paranormal romance near the foothills of the Colorado Rockies. Her books are full of elves, were-wolves and sexy men who walk on the dark side of the knife. She loves dark chocolate, walking the dog, hiking and is obsessed with her new lap-top. Jessica is also obsessed with writing and learning about writing. She is a member of RWA, CRW, FF&P and PRO. You can find Jessica the first Friday of the month at http://ParanormalFreebies.com and most days during the week at http://jessicaaspen.com

Follow Jessica on twitter @jessicaaspen and on Facebook.com/Jessica.Aspen and don’t forget to enter her contest HERE to win novellas, chocolate and more!

Come into the woods with Little Red Riding Wolf, Jessica Aspen’s spicy paranormal novella due for release February 18^th from Passion in Print Press. What if Little Red Riding Hood was a werewolf and a sexy forest ranger wandered into her woods?

Little Red Riding Wolf:

Fraternizing with humans is taboo, but when feisty werewolf Red runs into hunky new forest ranger Evan Brewster, she jumps on the opportunity to let loose her desires. Evan is stoked when he meets the petite red haired hottie, and combined with his new discovery of wolves in Colorado, thinks his career and life are made. Then Red pushes him away, her hostile brother threatens his life, and things begin to spiral out of control. Caught between her sexy lover and her pack can Red trust Evan with her secrets, or must she sacrifice her human lover and her heart?