J.D. FAVER - Guest Author

Today, my guest is my friend, J.D. Faver.

You will want to read her post all the way through for a special FREE GIFT especially for my readers. Thanks J.D.!


J.D. Faver lives near Houston, Texas. She writes steamy contemporary romance and romantic thrillers/mystery/suspense. She loves to kill people...on virtual paper, that is. Although she writes daily, she still finds time to enjoy family and friends. She is a foodie and an adventurous cook. Determined to preserve generations of family recipes, she is publishing a series of cookbooks entitled A Texan in the Kitchen.

Gardening is another passion (and linked to the food thing) since she has an orchard of fruit trees and berry bushes/vines in her back yard. Tomatoes and other veggies round out her kitchen garden. All other interests (painting, drawing, sewing, quilting, crocheting, weaving, stained glass and pottery) have taken a back seat since they require hands-on participation which is difficult if your fingers are always on the keyboard.

An active member of several Houston writer's organizations, she belongs to National RWA and is a member of Houston chapters. She is owned by two cats and a small, yappy rescue dog. As a former educator and healthcare professional, she is an advocate for children, animals and elderly/disabled individuals. She would rather be sailing or on a beach somewhere, but if not, you can probably find her with her fingers on a keyboard, pouring word images onto the virtual films playing in her head.

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Hi Angela! Thanks for inviting me to be your guest today.

I wanted to share some insights with your readers about my experience with writing series.

As a reader, I can remember waiting impatiently for Sue Grafton and Janet Evanovich to turn loose of the next Kinsey Millhone or Stephanie Plum adventure.  Likewise, James Patterson was very pokey in cranking out Alex Cross mysteries.  I truly couldn’t understand why these authors were so maddeningly slow with their writing. Or so it seemed at the time.

When I finished writing my novel ON ICE, which wound up at 102 thousand words, I found myself feeling depressed. After the dark moment… after the villain had been vanquished…after good prevailed over evil….I realized I had to say goodbye to the characters I had grown so fond of. After all, they shared their deepest inner feelings with me. Their most intimate moments. And I was supposed to wave goodbye as they moseyed off to their happily ever after? Never to be heard from again?
The antidote was to write another book, and another after that…

Finally, when I wrote BAD MEDICINE, I figured it out and planned the next book in the series while writing the first.  Choosing the lower Gulf coast of Texas for my setting was like going home. I had spent quite a few years visiting there for catamaran regattas. I knew the setting so well, I could feel the fine sand under my feet, with gentle waves lapping at my toes. I could smell the tangy scent of the water and feel the offshore breezes lifting my hair.

The characters sprang into my brain fully fleshed out, with flaws and strong personalities. Indeed, they were born as a result of my first foray into the wonderful world of NaNo (National Novel Writing Month) I was a NaNo virgin. I read all the rules and signed up with an army of my writing buds. Being a Virgo, with a tad bit of OCD thrown in, I wanted to be sure I was prepared. I wrote an outline. I had character sketches and conflict guides. And on the stroke of midnight, Texas time, I flexed my fingers and wrote…an entirely different story.  Without benefit of outline or character sketches, these larger than life individuals came bounding into my brain and took over. Yes, possessed is probably the best explanation. I wrote like a mad woman and came out with a completed 56 thousand word novel in the first 18 days of NaNo. I was so hyper, and all my friends were still writing, so I found another partially written work and completed that one in the last 12 days. Wild woman writing.

Eventually, the 56 thousand words became 94 thousand and the story was revised, edited and polished. But, at the same time, the second in the series, BAD KARMA, was being written. I just couldn’t let go of those characters or leave that beautiful dark paradise behind. By the time BAD MEDICINE was published, I had BAD KARMA polished and was finishing the third one, BAD VIBES. Each of the books is a stand-alone, but they are linked in setting and characters.

What I’ve learned is that readers are just impatient for the next adventure in The Edge of Texas series as I was for my next Stephanie Plum fix. I treasure the emails and Facebook messages asking me what’s next. I do have a gift for your readers today, Angela. The second book in the series, BAD KARMA, is FREE on Amazon today, March 12 only. Here is the link to download it: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0081SGPZW

THE EDGE OF TEXAS Series:
• Book 1-BAD MEDICINE
• Book 2-BAD KARMA
• Book 3-BAD VIBES
• Book 4-BAD DREAMS (coming soon)

Please visit me on my website at http://www.jdfaver.com/
Amazon author page:  http://www.amazon.com/J.D.-Faver/e/B0050KEWMM/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/j-d-faver?store=allproducts&keyword=j.d.+faver