Hey guys! My apologies – we’re going to pretend this is totally on time, okay? :X As you see we have the wonderful Carolyn Jewel as our special author for March! Whee! She also chose an Author Interview (what’s with everyone picking them?! We’re going to need to come up with new and even better questions!) So without further ado, the questions. As usual, littered with covers. Which adorn awesome stories. You should read them.

1. What five dead authors would you invite to a dinner party if you could?
Assuming they would not be zombies or some other undead creature after my brains or my blood:

1. Kit Marlowe because I’d like to know if he was as hot as his pictures suggest. Also, does he know how he died? Was it espionage or something else?

2. Charlotte Bronte so I can tell her she was right and, hey, look, it’s WAY better now, even though it’s not perfect.

3. Erma Bombeck, because, damn, I miss her writing.

4. Oscar Wilde, because I would like for him to know it gets better. I’d also like for him to know how enduring his legacy has been.

5. Emily Dickenson. So many questions for her. So. Many.

2. Do you have any writing rituals or superstitions? Either for before you begin a book, while you’re writing it, or around the time the book is released?
Nope.

That’s such a boring answer. Let me make one up.

Why, yes! I do. How strange that you should ask me that. Before I write a word, I light three candles, one blue, one yellow, and one red. I let them burn for precisely 30 seconds and then pour the wax onto a sheet of paper and plot my day’s writing from the patterns in the wax. If any of the blobs are shaped like the planet Saturn, I have to run three times around the house and kill off any character whose name starts with S.
(Isn’t Carolyn such a great sport? ;D)

3. If you could be a super hero, what would your nemesis be named? Along those lines, what is the super power you would most like to have? And least like to have?
My nemesis would be named Pete the Pitiless. It’s such a lame nemesis name that he would be easily defeated. My superpower would be the power of negation. Whatever dread weapon a Criminal Mastermind attempted to use against me would be negated. My least favorite superpower would be the ability to read minds. That would be…awful. I do NOT want to know what people are thinking.

It reminds me of this book my son loved where there were talking cookies, and this one certain kind of cookie was always making inane comments followed by “Isn’t that interesting?” Like this, “Peanutbutter is made of 20% yak hair, isn’t that interesting?” Well, no, it’s not. I think the ability to read minds would be a lot like that.

4. What is your secret plan for world domination?
I signed an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) so all I can say is it involves cats, uncut diamonds, and telekinesis.

5. If you were to become a spammer, what product would you peddle? And what would your message be? Come up with the most attention getting, creative, crazy thing. Yes, that’s a challenge.
I would send kind spam. Spam that compliments. My spam would be like this:

Hello Fellow user of the Interwebs!
My name is E.S. Pam, and I think you have the prettiest eyes. Thinking about your eyes makes my day happier and I want to thank you for that. If you’d like another compliment, please wire me $5 (pay pal accepted!) and I will send you one compliment a day for the next ten days. Free of further charge.
Thank you, and hey, the color looks GREAT on you!

Love, E.S. Pam.

6. What’s the first type of alcohol you ever tried to drink? What is your current favorite alcoholic drink? (What about non-adult beverage?)
Wine. But I don’t drink so, sorry, no favorite drinks in that category. I do have a fondness for limeade, and I’m not just saying that. I love summer because that’s when Odwalla sells its limeade. Also, it’s when our local smoothie shop sells an amazing smoothie called Lime In The Coconut. Mmmm.

7. What do you think is the best commercial of all time?
Uh, oh. I also don’t watch TV.

8. What’s the most unique/strange silly skill your possess?
Oh, geez. I don’t have any unique skills. No strange ones I’m willing to confess to, either. However, I am somewhat ambidextrous and if I’m tired, I will sometimes start writing left handed and not realize it for a while. It’s kind of convenient, actually, to be able to write legibly with either hand. My right hand is dominant, but I do a lot left-handed. Sometimes I switch up just because.

9. What’s the most embarrassing thing to ever happen to you at school? What about at a conference?
Guys threw stuff at me in High School. It was awful. That was why, when I got to college, I thought the guys who were asking me out were playing a joke on me.  I looked one guy in the face after he asked me out and said, with complete sincerity and rather hurt feelings, “Right.”  I know how stupid that sounds now, but I truly believed that.

10. How do you feel about the dentist? And what about clowns?
I floss religiously. I love the dentist because I can nap and they say nice things about my dental hygiene. I have no issue with clowns. No really. None at all.

11. What’s the best admonishment your mom ever gave you, or that you’ve ever given a kid? e.g. if you make that face it’ll freeze like that. or… if you walk from the kitchen to the table w/ a fork in your mouth you’ll stab yourself through the throat and die.
Years ago, my mom said, “The only reason people complain about Madonna is that she’s a woman.”  And she was right, I realized. Her comment made me think about the way women are portrayed and treated in the media, as well as examine a few of my own internalized beliefs at that time.

And that thing about the fork, Lime, are you kidding me? That only happens if you run with the fork in your mouth.

12. What was your first job? Your most interesting one?
My first job was as a janitor in a Catholic Church. I am not Catholic but the Church was an equal opportunity employer for non-religious jobs. There were always TONS of peanut shells in the balcony and the day after Palm Sunday was the worst because people with nervous hands shredded their palm fronds. Those things were hard to sweep up. To this day I puzzle over the carefully concealed picture I found in the room where the priests prepare for the sacrament. It was in a handmade, asymmetrical paper envelope smaller than one’s palm and it contained a much and oft folded picture of lady parts. It was also carefully hidden, but I was a very thorough duster. I suppose it may have been surrendered by a conflicted parishioner. Or something.

13. Describe your perfect day.
Sleep late, wake up refreshed, perfect shower temperature followed by the perfect cup of coffee. Then, after I win twenty million dollars, I get lots of writing done in time to go on a fun outing with my son. Also, I eat delicious chocolate that has no calories. Then I meet Arjun Rampal and I don’t make a fool of myself AND he agrees to be on the cover of my next book.

14. Why did the chicken cross the road?
Because Arjun Rampal is on the other side. Doh.

15. Tell us two truths and a lie. (The catch is you have to tell us which is what at some point.)
My day job is in tech, and I am usually the only woman doing in-the-trenches tech stuff. I once had a job where one of the programmers refused to do any work that came from a woman so whenever I needed him to do something, I would either send the email to one of my male colleagues to send as if the request were acutally from him, or I’d send the email and we’d take bets about how long it would take him to jump up and curse. (We had low cubes.) On the other hand, there’s fun to be had in tech. A third party vendor told us a certain functionality we needed in their application was not possible, but they would be happy to send us a quote for the customization. That really cheesed me off because it was an obvious thing to offer and the lack of that feature was causing serious, serious production errors. I downloaded a hex-editor and with a little help from one of the other programmers (I’m a DBA not a programmer) located the code we needed to change and then made the update. He showed me now to recompile and voila. All done. And it worked perfectly. When the quote came–for $50,000–we declined. Seriously. We updated their code in about 20 mintues. $50K FFS.
(I’m saving the truth for later – I want you guys to guess it :D)

One lucky commenter wins 3 of Carolyn’s books – so go on. Ask her any crazy question, or something about her books. She writes hot historicals, and also paranormals. As for the fan letter contest? That winner gets a good prize too. 🙂