Jaye, Jaye, Jaye, you greedy girl. TWO Davitt awards for Beyond Fear? (And you ate all the red velvet cup cakes BEFORE I arrived.)

Please explain:

Jenn, I thought I was getting scones and a cuppa delivered to me while I wrote this. Since it’s you who’s getting the treat, I’ve made myself my standard ‘work’ cuppa – a black coffee made in a single-cup plunger and drunk from my ‘Raymond Chandler: The Big Sleep’ mug, in the hope some of his coolness rubs off on my writing! For you, though, I baked some delicious red velvet cupcakes (thanks for the hint) and brewed a cup of Earl Grey tea. Enjoy!

Well thanks for the tea and…ahem…dry crackers, Jaye. So tell me…

At home…

My mum says garden gnomes make a house a home! Are you loud and proud in your love of garden gnomes at home, a closet gnomer or with a strict ‘no gnomes’ policy at your place?

No gnomes here. Although I’ve got a couple of large urns and a few quirky pots and lamps in amongst the greenery.

(And did I mention TWO Davitt Awards!)

What vegetable (or fruit) have you always wanted to grow at home?

I’ve always wanted to grow tomatoes successfully. I try almost every year and there’s always some disaster – grubs or possums and now my dogs, one of which thinks the unripened fruit are green balls, picks them off and tosses them around the yard.

If I came to your home and looked in the refrigerator, what would I find?

The best thing in my fridge today is the lasagne cooked by my two kids last night. They are 23 and 21 and sometimes I think I’ve failed to pass on my cooking skills then I realise what I failed to do was get them to cook when their mother is home.

If you sorted your wardrobe by colour, what colour would stand out? (Ahh, do you sort your wardrobe by colour?!)

Green – and no, it’s not that I’ve sorted by colour, it’s that there’s so much there. It’s an addiction.

What are you wearing now? (Be honest!)

Fifteen layers and a green lap rug – my office is always cold.

Whose home would you like to housesit and why?

Someone who lives in Tuscany and can pay my airfare. Do you know anyone like that, Jenn?

(Yes, and red velvet cup cakes might have loosened my lips!)

Country curiosities…

We love a sunburnt country (slip, slop, slap and all that). What’s your ideal hat? Or are you a boots person?

I’ve got a small head and hats that don’t make me look like a pinhead are hard to find. I’ve got small feet, too, but I love boots – not only because they make my feet look bigger.

If you were a tree (or animal) what kind of tree (animal) would you be?

I’ve been both, actually. In a college play, I had the role of a tree that turned into a deer. I hear you snigger at the kind of acting ability that lands one such a role but I was the only tree deemed worthy of turning into an animal. That has to count for something!

Now for the big question… Why did the chicken cross the road?

To escape the knife-wielding psychopath closing in on her – I write thrillers, can’t help it!

(Wow, you and Juliet Madison – last week’s blog – are seriously scary dudes!)

About you…

Your turning point: when was that point in your life that you realized that being an author was no longer going to be just a dream but a reality and a career?

The first offer I had for a manuscript came after almost ten years of trying to get published. It started a bidding war for my thriller Beyond Fear and suddenly, instead of just hoping someone would read it, I was making decisions based on what I wanted for a career. A startling and immensely satisfying moment.

What is the hardest part of writing for you?

I find the early chapters quite difficult. I don’t do much plotting but I usually have a good idea of how a story will open. I have a little fun with the opening scenes and the voices then chapter two turns up and it suddenly feels as though the rest of the story is a huge, unwieldy object that I’ve got to try to wrangle into shape. At that point, I’m still working out who everyone is, what drives them and how the story will unfold. There’s always a moment when the book takes on a life of its own but until that arrives, there’s a fair bit of stuffing around and thumb twiddling that makes it all pretty frustrating.

If someone was to write your biography, what do you think the title should be?

Don’t tell her she can’t do it. My mum used to tell us we were generalists, meaning we weren’t the kind of people who were ‘good’ at any one thing but average at a lot of things. It used to bother me – I didn’t like the idea of ordinary, I wanted to be ‘good’ at something. It made me work hard at stuff. I should probably thank my mum for that.

What question have you always wanted to be asked in an interview? How would you answer that question?

Can you speak faster? To which I would answer, how fast can I go? I’m a fast talker anyway and when I’m nervous or fired up, I sound like I’m on fast forward.

Fun stuff

What does your protagonist think about you? Would he or she want to hang out with you, the author, his/her creator.

She probably thinks I’m a pain in the butt. Always asking why she’s doing that and what she’s thinking and getting all pernickety about how exactly she’s going to do it, instead of just letting her at it.

If I said to you, “Just entertain me for five minutes, I’m not going to talk,” what would you do?

Have massive performance anxiety!

What food would you be?

Something sensible and relatively healthy with a twist. Maybe an apple with a couple of jelly babies on the side.

Name 5 uses for a stapler that has not staple pins.

Paper weight, book holder, page holder, door stopper … does it have to be five?

(No Jaye, of course not, Jaye. It can be any number you want, Jaye. Just put the knife down, okay. It’s just a chicken and it’s just fiction!)

How weird are you? Rate yourself on a scale of 1 (not) to 10 (very).

I’d give myself a 7 – not so weird that people wouldn’t let me in places, weird enough that they’d wonder ‘what the hell’ if they asked a few searching questions.

And a 10 for seriously scary and seriously clever. (Scared Yet? Umm, yes!)

More about Jaye and her gnome…I mean her Davitt collection…and her books can be found at www.jayefordauthor.com The third thrilling book, Blood Secret (Random House), is due for release September next year (2013).

 

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