Happy Monday! 

Today on 20 Questions With, please help me welcome another fellow Indiana RWA member, Valley Brown!

Welcome, Valley!

Here’s a bit about Valley…

Speeding Tickets is Book One of Valley Brown’s romantic suspense series The Rocky Road. Book Two, Rough Piece of Road, debuts this summer.  She has written articles for niche magazines, and won several awards, including 12th Place in the 2007 Writers Digest Poetry Contest.  Valley lives in Southern Indiana, along the Ohio River, with her husband.  When time and weather allows, she cruises on her ’99 Honda Shadow, which is painted “Perfect Purple.”

Connect With Valley Here:

Website / Blog / Facebook / Goodreads

Valley’s latest contemporary romance, Speeding Tickets, is available now from Broken Glass Publishing! 

Back Cover Blurb:

The day a handsome dark-haired biker saved Christine Cassler from the edge of a cliff–really the edge of a drainage ditch–was the day her life began anew. Recently widowed, she had just started to manage her life alone when he barged in, taking her mind and body by storm.

Excerpt: 

Rolling back onto the highway, we followed the river a few more miles, then cruised small country roads, passing farms, stretches of woods, and occasionally other bikers. Doug gradually picked up his speed on the curves, and I kept up. The exhilaration of zooming around curves quickly became addictive.

Ahead of me, Doug pointed emphatically to a sign for a state park. Down-shifting, I trailed him into the entrance. We rode along the edge of a woods that skirted a small lake, then pulled into a graveled parking lot, stopping under the shady branches of a massive oak tree. The summer sun’s heat convinced us to lose helmets and jackets in a hurry. Fluffing my hair, I stretched my arms and legs. Doug walked over, stretching his arms behind his head as he came.

“How you doing so far?”

“I’m having a wonderful time,” I breathed, crunching the kinks out of my shoulders. “It is so gorgeous out, and the curves back there were great.” Doug nodded, eyes a-twinkle.

“I thought we could both stand a break, maybe take a stretch and walk down around the lake,” he replied. “It’s a short hop to the next town. We can grab lunch there.”

“Sounds good. I could definitely use a walk right now.”

Doug herded me toward the trail, one hand at my waist – a simple gesture, but even so, it sent a chill up my spine. The rough-hewn path was punctuated with exposed tree roots and decaying branches. Snagging a toe, I lost my balance. I fell, but strong hands caught me and pulled me upright.

“You okay?” Doug’s deep voice was calm, his grip firm, but gentle.

 “Yes,” I exhaled, embarrassed at being such a klutz, yet thankful that he was not making a big deal out of it. Doug’s hands slid behind me. The muscles in his arms tightened, drawing my body squarely against his. He leaned into me.

 Trembling, I looked up into those twinkling hazel eyes and found myself being kissed. It was a great kiss – soft, long, warm as the July sun. It melted me away as if I were little more than a big chunk of butter. Doug kissed me again, his firm lips lingering, enticing, seducing.

 My brain spiraled out of control. No one had kissed me like this since . . . since that incredibly cute guy at the football game . . .oh, God . . . Wheeler! Oh, geez! I struggled to catch my breath. My face sought refuge against the solid expanse of Doug’s chest, his heart beat pulsing against my cheek as he tenderly nuzzled the top of my head.

“I, I think we’re speeding.” I swallowed, afraid to look up at him. If I looked into those eyes right now, resistance would definitely be futile.

BUY IT HERE:

Amazon / Barnes & Noble 

Welcome, Valley!

Now on to The Questions.

The first ten are the ‘author-ly’ set:

1. How did you come up with the title for this book?

Christine, the main character/heroine, can be overly cautious and somewhat timid at times, given all the garbage life has thrown at her.  Doug, her hunk-a-hunk-o-burning-rubber love, wants their relationship to kick into high gear and stay there. Chris feels that Doug is making her life speed up and out of control. She thinks he needs little reminders when he’s pushing her speed limits, and given that their motorcycle riding brought them together, “Speeding Tickets” seemed perfect.  The series title is “The Rocky Road” which is also quite appropriate.

2. What did you learn from writing this book?

This was my first finished novel. It came at the end of years of struggling with other story lines that led nowhere.  Once this story line clicked, the thing took on a life of its own, and dragged me along for the ride. I learned what it meant to “write” 24/7 because your brain never shuts off. I learned that no matter how good I thought something was, it could always be better, and some things just aren’t going to work no matter how much you love them. Revision – major revision – is not pretty, but the results are what your mind really wanted all along. Aside from a whole mountain range of technical stuff about writing, publishing, and marketing, I was forced to look long and hard at human relationships. People cannot go from Point A to Point B without wading through, and creating, a lot of complications in between. Because my two main characters are survivors of multiple traumatic situations, they suffer from PTSD, each in their own way. I had to research what that means for a person on a daily basis. With PTSD, your life can be heartbreakingly tough at times and rip all your relationships to shreds, or it can bottle up your entire life and make you an unapproachable loner.  The best therapy currently out there is worthless without unconditional love from someone to back it up.

3. What made you become an author?

The story. I am literally compelled to share this evolving relationship between my characters with other people.  It has been so satisfying to hear feedback from readers that they feel great affinity for these characters and easily relate to them and everything they have gone through.

4. How do you get the ideas for your books?

The life around me is a limitless inspiration, although I refuse to copy it verbatim.  Speeding Tickets actually began as a writing exercise, a “what if this happened to someone like…” scenario. It clicked deep inside of me and took off.

5. What’s your favorite book on the craft of writing?

I don’t know that I have a single favorite textbook-type book. I keep Jane Friedman’s “Beginning Writer’s Answer Book” as well as Leigh Michaels’ “on writing romance” and The New York Writers Workshop’s “the portable MFA in creative writing” on my reference shelf.  Those have been helpful, but I think that the novels I’ve been exposed to during my life have been the biggest influence. If you read books that are exceedingly well written, you internalize a lot of lessons without realizing it. You expect that language should have a certain cadence, and sophistication of structure and meaning.

6. What’s the toughest criticism you’ve received as a writer? The best compliment?

Ouch. My first effort rated the comment that I had no plot and wrote too passively. I have grown a lot since then, and have to remind myself to crank up the action and passion past the edge of my comfort zone.

The best compliment came from an older gentleman reader. He has an extensive collection of fiction, mainly romance. He loves to analyze writing and told me he firmly believes I will someday be on the same shelf with the “best authors”.

7. Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

Yes.  Be absolutely certain this is what you want to do, because to do it right and do it well, you must be willing to be chewed up and spit out. You must be willing to consider and accept devastating criticism and see it as constructive, and then rebuild with it. You also have to accept that you are an integral facet of your writing and readers demand some of that along with the book. As long as you really do believe in yourself and what you have to say, it’s all good. But, first and foremost, Language is a magnificent tool we use to share the wonder of our imaginations. Learn to love it and use it with as much skill as you possibly can.

8. Who are your favorite authors?

Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Anne McCaffrey, Sandra Brown, Beth Kendrick, J. R. R. Tolkein, C. S. Lewis — just to scratch the surface. To be honest, I didn’t read that much straight romance growing up. I read mostly nerdy stuff, sci-fi and poetry. I’m still playing catch-up on romance. There are a lot of amazing romance authors that I’m only now discovering.

9. What’s the funniest experience you’ve had so far in your writing career?

Thank God you didn’t ask for the most embarrassing! Funniest:  I worried that my mother, who I sometimes think should have “saint” in front of her name, would be offended by some of the more graphic events that are part of the overall plot, and so I hesitated to give her a copy to read. Then I found out my young nieces had already read it and they assured me that it wasn’t too rough for her!

10. What are your new releases/projects on the horizon?

Book Two is nearly ready for release.  I’m planning for it to be available July 1st, but I ran into some minor snags that have the potential to set that date back a couple of weeks.  The title for this one is “Rough Piece of Road” and continues the saga of Chris and Doug.  I won’t go into it here except to say that they might be jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

I’m also accumulating poems for an eventual chapbook, and I have a treasure trove of anecdotes gifted to me by a dear friend (no longer with us, unfortunately) who grew up in the early 20th century, that I think will someday make terrific mid-grade chapter books or a YA book. All of that in between The Rocky Road books, of course, and in one of my lifetimes…

Fantastic, Valley! Now for the fun stuff…

11. Morning person or night owl?

Hard to say – I prefer being up early, but some of my inspirations seem to come when I’m on the verge of exhaustion.

12. Favorite color?

Violet purple – not that “pinky” stuff. (I’m a purple snob, I know.)

13. What’s your comfort snack?

Buttered popcorn, because I can inhale mass quantities all by myself if I want!

14. If you had to be an animal, what would you be?

A hawk. Not because I’m aggressive, but because I would love to fly up high, and want to be big enough not to worry about a bigger bird eating me!

15. Favorite writing location?

The inside of my head.  It’s very private in there, and I have infinite rewrites available at all hours. Seriously. Otherwise, any quiet place where I can hole up with a pad and pen or my laptop.

16. Top 3 songs on your I-pod right now?

Oh, don’t own one of those, but my top 3 CD’s are by The Moody Blues, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Credence Clearwater Revival.

17. Reading Preference: E-books, paperback or hardcover?

While I do download ebooks, I still love holding a physical book, especially paperback. They fit in my purse, I can stick all kinds of strange bookmarks in them, and there are no battery or wi-fi issues.

18. Best vacation spot?

The Great Smoky Mountains in eastern Tennessee.  Of all the places I’ve been to, my heart still goes back to them.

19. If you weren’t a writer, what else would you be?

I would probably just do my other competing passions more intensively: art glass and art fabrics/quilts.  As a teenager  I would’ve said I wanted to be a paleontologist, or a DJ!

20. What are three things in your refrigerator right now?

Dark chocolate fudge that didn’t quite set up hard, Greek yogurt and spicy deer sticks (it comes with the marriage).

Great interview, Valley! 

And thanks for starting your week with me here on 20 Questions With…

Until next time… 

Please comment below. We LOVE interacting with readers!