I am so pleased to welcome
Pauline Baird Jones for an interview visit. You can't help but catch her humor in these answers.
1Q You have written several mysteries before writing in the science fiction romance genre. How does writing a mystery compare with
writing sci-fi romance? What are the main differences, and what do these forms
of writing have in common?
P: When I wrote mysteries, they trended suspense/action type
mysteries. Then they trended more and more into action adventure. I finally
noticed that and decided that I really liked action adventure because it has
less graphic violence. I like the high adventure as opposed to the blood
soaked. LOL! So I think I was heading toward space for a while before I
noticed. In the past, it was probably easier to write contemporary action
adventure because we had “big” enemies, such as the Soviet Union. Alastair Maclean
made his a/a chops writing World War II, then cold war type fiction, but I
didn’t want to write about terrorists. It hits too close to home. I wouldn’t be
able to sleep at night. (wry grin)
My first wholly action adventure novel was Out of Time, a time travel to World War II. While there is lots of peril
and yes, bad guys and such, it’s lacks the graphic gore that I see in so much
romantic suspense being written now. I know it works very well for many
authors, but for me, I just wanted to go a different direction. After the past,
all that was left was outer space. And let’s face it, it has almost unlimited
scope for action and adventure.
You did a wonderful job of creating new alien worlds and peoples so I am thrilled you went to outer space.
2Q Is your
writing from your own experiences or is it completely your imagination?
P: I was going to say, I wish my books came from personal
experience, then I thought about what happens to my characters (nasty killers
and space battles) and yeah, no, like my life the way it is. So my answer would
be: my books are totally and completely made up (including the “science.”)
I wondered about that time theory perception being spouted by Lurch... it sounded good even if it was made up. :-)
3Q Where did the inspiration for the Project
Universe series (THE KEY, GIRL GONE
NOVA, STEAMROLLED, Steam Time, KICKING ASHE) come from?
P: I have a highly
technical process for obtaining inspiration and plotting. It’s called “pulling
it out of my tush.”
I learned this technique from my daughter who is a graphic
designer and often under the gun to create.
Okay, I will try to be serious for a moment, but it is hard to be serious about a process that
often results in my head wanting to explode. I really wish I knew how and where
I got ideas, because then I could go there without the painful thinking and
pacing and eating chocolate part (okay, maybe I’d still eat the chocolate). I
just start with a character or situation and think, I wonder how I can hose this
person? And then, “How can I make everything worse for this character?” And
then I make things so bad, I don’t know how to fix it, which brings me to the
pulling-it-out-of-my -tush part. (grin)
I think this is the first time I have heard of this particular technique. LOL
4Q What type of research went into creating
your science fiction romance novels?
Since my science is totally and completely made up, it’s
tough to research. I did do a lot of researching of Victorian stuff when I was
mixing steampunk into my science fiction. That was pretty fun and interesting.
I learned a lot of cool (and rather disturbing) stuff about the Victorians. I
blogged a bit about that here: (
http://paulinebairdjones.blogspot.com/2012/02/victorian-quirky-and-book-blurb.html)
and plan to blog more it because it is very interesting. And weird. Did I
mention they were pretty weird?
I will have to go check out that weird stuff in your blog post.
5Q Please share one surprising thing about
your experience writing the Project Universe series, or about something else
related to your career as a writer.
P: My biggest surprise came when I realized I’d written
something with science in it. I really didn’t think it WAS science fiction and
then someone called it science fiction and I was like, I don’t write science
fiction. I almost flunked science in high school! I thought about it some more
and realized that mixing fiction in my science might be why I almost flunked.
Oops.
Ha - Oops - Yes... Science wasn't my top class either.
6Q When you started The Key did you intend the series and did you have each book
plotted out before you started the first one or did the subsequent books flow
from the first book?
P: I did not. Sara, the heroine of The Key, just strolled into my head one day and wouldn’t leave
until I told her story. I had amazing fun writing that book and was sad when it
ended. When it released readers asked for more and one of the characters was
really ticked he didn’t get the girl and demanded a happy ending and so I wrote
Girl Gone Nova and another reader
pointed out that I had an unresolved story arc and suddenly I had a series. Now
I am sad that is had come to an end (for now at least). Though I plan to return
to space soon.
Well - considering how volatile time is... who knows?!
7Q Is there an ancillary character you had
the most fun with?
P: Helfron Giddioni. When he first appeared in The Key, he was supposed to be a villain of sorts, or at least an antagonist, and he is, but he surprised me
over and over. He was so bad, but fun, too. He had such an awful name because
he was never supposed to be a hero. (Memo to self: don’t EVER give characters
awful names just in case.)
Hel did turn out to be a wonderful character even if he was a little scary in the first book. Who knew there was a good guy under that mean attitude?
8Q How do your work career/hobbies/interests
influence your writing?
P: My career is wife/mom/sister/daughter/friend, so not sure
how that affects the writing, though it does give me more time to write now
that the nest is empty. And I get wonderful support from my family and friends.
My hobbies are reading, knitting dish cloths (yeah, I knit large) and jigsaw
puzzles. I do think the puzzle thing influences my plotting. I like the
disorder/creating order part and that’s what plotting action adventure is all
about.
I can see the puzzle solving at work in this series and it would work for mysteries too.
9Q Do you have a favorite mentor or author
that you have learned from?
P: Oh wow, this question could be a whole blog post, but I will
limit myself to just one. When I was a young girl, I had a major girl/fan crush
on Haley Mills. I wanted to be her. She had adventures and did cool stuff and
could sing, too. She did a movie called The
Moonspinners and I saw that it was based on a novel. I looked that book up
and discovered Mary Stewart. I still love to pull out her books and browse
through them, like chatting with an old friend. From her I learned about
plotting, satisfying endings and characterization. And she writes great dialog,
too.
Oh Wow! That movie started me reading Mary Stewart too and moved me from childhood reads into the suspense/gothic romance genre.
10Q What do you have planned for your next
project?
P: I’m actually mulling a steampunk novel, set around
1899-1900. I’m a little nervous, because I’ve dabbled a bit in writing history
(Out of Time, Tangled in Time), but
never wrote an all history novel. Though technically it still won’t be, because
it will be made-up-steampunk-alternate-history.
11Q If you could have readers finish a sentence
what would it be?
P: What I love most in a book is…._________________________???
THANK YOU for sharing!
Project Enterprise (connected) books:
(1) The Key; Bronze IPPY and
Dream Realm Award winner; 2007
(2) Girl Gone Nova,
EPIC Book Award Winner
(3) Tangled in Time
(4) Steamrolled
(5) Steam Time, short
story, Dreamspell Steampunk, Volume 1, 2011
(6) Kicking
Ashe, 2012
Some additional Titles:
Comedy/Suspense Fiction:
Do Wah Diddy Die; Eppie nominee; 2001
(reissued in 2010)
The Spy Who Kissed Me (also
known as Pig in a Park), 1999. reissued in 2010
Dead and Breakfast Anthology; Do
Wah Diddy Die Already, 2007 (free short story now available at All Romance
eBooks)
Mysteries from the Green Mist Anthology; Deleting
Dennis, 2010
Ghostly Dreamspell Anthology; Do Wah Diddy Dead
and 
by Nicole Zoltack - Both Read; setting up author interview with reviews.]