Welcome L.J. Holmes

Today I have L.J. Holmes stopping by for an in-depth interview. And, as she is my mom I can get away with asking her things other people can not. So, without further ado, here's my interview with L.J. Holmes.



1: Thank you for being here. Would you tell us a little bit about you?

I’m your Mom, so you know all my deep dark secrets, but if you think I am going to blab them all here…HAH! With that aside, I am a mom…yep yours and your brother’s…oh and I suppose we should toss in the two kitties, Mama Bear and Spatz too. I have a MA degree in Special Education and used to be a Teacher of the Handicapped, specifically I worked with children born with Down Syndrome; they have such an amazingly cheerful way of looking at life despite the many limitations life has forced upon them. But I’m retired. My job now is to be the burr in your saddle and may I say I am thoroughly enjoying it. Giving you reasons to roll your eyes at me, give me the raspberries, or just groan rather dramatically takes a lot of work and forethought on my part.

2: I have to ask the obligatory question. What inspired you to begin first writing?

Now you want me to get serious…Okay. You know the story, but those visiting your blog don’t, so here goes. I was lucky enough to grow up with my Grandmother living with us and acting as my primary parent 95% of the time and two incredible 80 plus year old ladies, Katie Sickle and Mary Powers living two doors away who regaled this rapt little girl with the many stories from their lives. I was hooked. If only I could weave tales half as well as those three women did, I knew I would be one step closer to heaven.

3: Is there anything you do to get ready to write, any specific thing you need to get in the mood?

Curse my muse because she’s usually yanked from a deep sleep and is dancing around eager to speak and won’t wait until it’s a decent hour. Naturally I have to grab pen and paper and try to write without my glasses on and in the dark. It’s always crooked, by the way, but she doesn’t care. All that matters to her is that I didn’t ignore her, like she’d let me, and I’ve committed her words to hard copy for sprucing up after I put my glasses on and turn the lights on.

4: When you are not writing, whom do you enjoy reading?

Hold on a minute while I go dive through our crates of books for the names of all the authors. You expect me to remember them all? Me? With my stellar memory? You know me better than that. (Play some music here while I dive away.)

Okay, I KNOW I am going to leave out hoards of those that I adore, and to them I ask your forgiveness…believe me I buy and read your work all the time. First, Glenn Kleier, author of one of the most incredible stories I have ever read THE LAST DAY…Glenn thank you for finally coming out with your next book. I can’t wait for February and Amazon to put it up on the pre-order list. Dame Agatha Christie. No matter how many times I read and reread her works I am astounded by how many clues are woven right there for you to catch throughout the body of her writing, if you were smart enough to pick up on them. J.D. Robb’s IN DEATH series. Do you think we will really be flitting around off planet the way Roarke does in 2060? Lynsay Sands…ah the Argeneau Vampires, especially Marguerite, I LOVE that Vampire! Mary Janice Davidson’s King Al. I adore King Al’s Alaska and MJD we need you to give us more of King Al. And although I have only read snippets so far, I am so looking forward to reading many of my fellow Muse authors up and coming works. The Alvarez family intrigues me. The dust cloud with the menacing face swirling within it, the bishops atop a checkerboard playing field and one of them is bleeding, dragons, witches, warlocks, and poor guys lost in the 15th century.

5: What do you do for fun?

Besides teasing you? Hmmm…let me think. I love playing toss with a crinkle ball and Spatz, our youngest cat, and giving the oldest one the evil eye when she sits on my electronics and sucks the heat right out of them. What I want to know is why MINE and not yours?

6: What is the one thing you’d most like people to know about you?

I love my daughter and more than anything else I don’t want to embarrass you but always make you proud of me. No matter what I write, it has to pass the Kat test first because ultimately your opinion matters most.

7: If you could go anywhere in the world where would you go and why?

I think Montana so we could meet all the members of our new family in person. Until 2008 it was just you, your brother and me against the world, and now we have tons of family…and that’s such a blessing to cherish.

8: You are now multi-contracted with both MuseItUp and her hotter sister MuseItHot. Can you tell us about how many books we can look forward to from you starting in December and going all through 2011?

I received my SEVENTH contract on June 3rd.
1. Santa is a Lady-the First in my Christmas Miracles series; release date 12/1/2010 from MuseItUp
2. The Pendulum Swings; release date March 2011 from MuseItHot
3. Twilight Comes; release date May 2011 but I don’t know which side that will come from.
4. In From the Cold; release date June 2011 from MuseItHot
5. Beyond Yesterday: release date September 2011 and I’m not sure which side it will come from either.
6. The Christmas War; release date December 2011 the second Christmas Miracles from MuseItUp.
7. This Time Forever: I don’t have a release date or the side it will come from yet.


9: What advice would you give to a new author?

Never give up your dream, no matter how long it takes, and write, write, write.

10: Your first book, coming out December 1st of 2010 is a Christmas story, first in a series. What inspired you to create this story?

One of our local Santa Claus’s was arrested a few days before Christmas last year and I couldn’t help wondering what a store would do as the crunch time comes and their Santa is arrested. All the “professional and male” Santas will be working, so if you are a woman with a confectionary shop, who do you call on to help? Your best friend and of course because she’s your best friend you know how to push her buttons so she can’t say no to you.

11: There is a very cunning cat in your story. Can you tell us a little bit about the cat who inspired the character in your book?

You do know it is very wicked of you to ask this question don’t you? Now everyone will know I am NOT creative at all. {lowering my head in shame, my shoulders drooping too.}

I admit Mama Bear in the story is our very own Mama Bear, the eldest of our two cats and the things she does in the story are all things she does in real life. Is that plagiaristic? Do I need to get Mama Bear to sign some kind of a release contract? OMG...given how much of a Sarah Bernhardt she is when she gets a paw wet…(Mama Bear has caused Kat and I few heart attacks over the years when she comes out limping on three paws while holding her front fourth at an angle before her…why is she doing this? Because the offending paw is WET.)…can you imagine how she’ll be if we ask her to dip her paw in ink and sign a contract?

12: What was the driving force behind your creation of both the hero and the heroine for your tale?

You are nosy, daughter of mine. Angie, the female is very loosely based on my own history. I was the one in that car accident and the one who endured the years of rehabilitation. You are not Beck though…you’re much nicer than Beck.

Cam is loosely modeled after your uncle, the bringer of all that new Montana family I spoke of earlier. Your war hero uncle Eric, who served several tours in Iraq and served with the Army Corp of Engineers, has the blue eyes, the buzz cut and the height and brawn that I gave to Cam.

13: Would you please share a brief blurb about what Santa Is A Lady about?

I’m just working through my first edits, so I don’t have anything yet that I can take and quote from the actual manuscript, but I can give you a sort of a synopsis.
Once Santa is arrested, Angie’s best friend Beck coerces her into donning the red suit, but Angie still needs a cane to walk with and is never going to be 100% stable on her feet.

Children high on sugar and the expectation of Christmas are rambunctious. Angie’s body is still fragile. Disaster is bound to happen, and it does.

Cam, who has finally managed to gain custody of his half Iraqi daughter after nearly two years, wants his daughter to have the perfect American Christmas. A lady Santa is not his idea of the perfect Christmas and when his little girl reveals the lady behind the beard, he is enraged.

Little Jo unveils Santa but not before calling Santa “Mama” What does the child know that the adults do not?

14: The beautiful cover for Santa Is A Lady was done by the very talented Delilah K. Stephens. What was your first thought when you saw the completed version?

Oh My God I’ve been blessed by a Cover Art Goddess!

15: Thank you so much for being here today. Lastly, is there anything else about you or your writing that you’d like people to know?

Writing is a joy for me. I love seeing my words come together, but once I have written them I forget them and they get buried in the depths of my memory. Weeks, months, years later when I locate them again, pull them out and read them I shake my head in awe that I actually wrote them. That’s what I hope my readers will feel when they have finished reading my stories.

One other thing…I have been asked what genre I write and I have to answer that I don’t know if I even have a genre. There is romance in many of my stories, but in others there is darkness that leaves no room for romance or even happiness. So do I write romance, fantasy, paranormal, dark, suspense, or do I write it all? I really don’t know and I’m not sure I want to pigeonhole myself that way. I write whatever my muse sends to me to write. Sometimes the stories come so quickly I don’t really know what it is the muse is channeling through me until it is done and I go back and read it and wonder, “Where did that come from?” I only know writing is part of the beat of my heart and the blood flowing through my veins. It is who I am, and who I have always been. I cannot suppress it, but I’m glad because in the final analysis I think my Grandmother, Katie Sickle and Mary Powers are all in Heaven nodding their heads in approval of the storyteller I have become.

Thank you so much for being here. This was such a lot of fun. If you'd like to learn more about L.J. Holmes feel free to visit her blog. And check her out on the MuseItUp website!