Author Spotlight: Jacalyn Boggs

• a free-spirited woman always looking for new adventures. And a writer who just can’t keep the fantasy out of her romances, or is it that she can’t keep the romance out of her fantasy novels?

Readers! Let’s give a good, hearty welcome to Jacalyn Boggs!

Jacalyn has too many hobbies, not enough time, and a dog that doesn’t understand her need to constantly be on the move.

She has traveled the world, hopes to travel more, and believes laughter is the best medicine.

Jacalyn, thanks for agreeing to be here today. Most interviews start off with bios and such, and while I’ll get to that as always, let’s start with the important stuff!

If you could have any pet (real/fantasy/no-allergies/no worries about feeding it) what would it be?

If I could have any pet in the world, it would probably be either an alicorn or a dragon.  They both flight and they both have ways of dealing with people who bother you. In real life, I have a lovable chihuahua who is absolutely convinced the world revolves around him and his cuteness.  I’m not really a dog person, but I love him like he’s my third son. 

Ooh! Fierce flying creatures are an excellent choice. And the world does revolve around dogs, so… your chihuahua isn’t wrong.

What do you write and how did you get started?

I like to tell people that I’m a science-fiction and fantasy author, but I have come to accept that I am really a romance author and that’s OK.  Honestly, I don’t know how because the latter is definitely more my forte, but these naughty characters say that they just want true love. So I primarily blend the two together, after all every story has some romance in it!

The first thing I ever really wrote was fan fiction (though there was no such name at the time that I knew about) of “The Happy Hollisters”.  I felt like the Hollister kids needed more science-fiction in their life so I wrote a short story called “The Happy Hollisters Meet Bad Luck Alien.”  I think I was in third or fourth grade. I honestly haven’t stopped writing since, though most of that early stuff is utter rubbish and/or been lost to the annals of time. 

Fanfic is a popular way to get started, despite the occasionally spotted stigma. And I do enjoy some fantasy (or at least urban fantasy) in my romance, so I’m your target audience. As the market for your subgenre is huge, ignore the naysayers and embrace it!

What do you like to read?

Yes. 

It’s probably safer to say what I don’t read.

I don’t read erotica.  I don’t have a problem with people who do, and some of the people closest to me write erotica. I just don’t personally consider sex a spectator sport.  Some things are meant to be enjoyed, not read about, and sex is one of those things. Hope that’s not too racy for your blog.

I’m also a fan of fade-to-black, myself. But, that’s a small category to exclude, leaving multitudes of books and genres to enjoy. They say being widely-read is always a good thing for writers, so keep at it!

Name one commonly accepted piece of writing advice that doesn’t work for you.

Outline.

I despise outlines.  Somewhere in Hell they make you outline for eternity.  I’m pretty sure the crime must be really bad because outline is awful.  I’m a pants-er all the way.  When I have outlined, it’s never ended well.  I studied journalism and I’ll full on admit now that I’m no longer in classes that I’d write my articles and papers and then build the outline and claim I did the outline first.  Not even kidding. 

Wow. I’m sorry that outlines don’t work for you. For me? I’m a plantser for life. I write very high-level, not-detailed outlines that I proceed to ignore unless I get stuck. Luckily, this is writing, where, as long as we write well enough, we can ignore any advice that doesn’t work for us.

Name one commonly accepted piece of writing advice that they can pry out of your cold, dead hands.

People watch.

Hmm, that’s a good question.  I’m going to say it’s “people watch”.

I have most definitely put people I’ve met in to my writing. It may only be a chance meeting as I watched an interaction from across a food court to something someone once told me that I tweak to make my own. 

Just know, nothing is off the record and so if I witness it and it is interesting, it’s probably going on in a book. 

You cannot stop me. 

Truth is most definitely stranger than fiction.

I’ve seen some lovely prose come out of people watching. The only problem is… novels have to be believable while sometimes reality stretches the bounds of understanding.

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Shameless Self-Promotion time!

Jacalyn’s debut novel: Juan of the Dead: The Reanimated World Tour Book 1 was released May 1.

Go on a cruise, they said. Learn about other cultures, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.

Yeah, I thought my birthday cruise would be all sexy pool boys with fruity drinks and me working on my epic summer tan. Instead, I sacrificed my favorite Jimmy Choos and my gorgeous Coach handbag to some awful earthquake while shopping in a crappy Mexican port. That place is getting zero stars.

Oh yeah, and I sacrificed my life. Lucky for me this totally hunky (but nerdy) anthropologist, Jon, hauled my hot corpse in to the nearby ancient Mayan or whatever temple and performed some sort of creepy voodoo ritual on me.

Forget all the garbage from Hollywood about shuffling, brain-obsessed, homicidal corpses. Maybe that’s how it was in the 70’s but those misguided souls also thought polyester was a good fashion statement. What the movies got right is that someone always wants to kill off the undead, and I’m no different. I’m too young and too hot to leave the party this soon. I’ve got a second chance, but Jon and I need to know what’s going on with my post-life situation before someone finishes me off for good.

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