Let’s talk all about your writing style first… 

What comes first, the plot or characters?

KB: This can change with me from book to book, series to series. I write like a soap opera with carry-over characters, so it is usually the characters that lead the way. However, there are times when a storyline is in my head and I’m able to line a character up with that.

Where is your favorite place to write?

KB: I like to write at my dining room table when I want to feel connected with my family. When I need to have silence, then I write at my desk in my office in my finished basement.

How much ‘world building’ takes place before you start writing?

KB: As I stated before, I write like a soap opera with carry-over character, environments, and storylines. Some of my stories, do not have a whole lot of world building. I might mention the environment but it’s not that big of a deal for the story. With my current project (Falls Village Collection), it’s been huge. The collection focuses on the town so there was a ton of world building. I have various authors from RomantiConn also writing in the collection, so we needed to coordinate our characters and the town shops…it took a few excel spreadsheets and a map.

How do you come up with the titles to your books?

KB: This changes with me as well. My first series, The Stone Series all start with the letter S (Sliding, Stoned, Siblings, Second Chances, Screen Play, Stealing Home, Surrender, Starting Over, Silence, and Survivor…the Holiday edition is called A Stone Family Christmas *insert shrugging emoji*).

My doctor trilogy was originally titled as follows: Anatomy of Love, Dissection of Love, and Sutures of Love. I named them with “medical” terms. Once scooped up by an online publishing house, they required that they be renamed as Anatomy of Love Book 1, Book 2, and Book 3. I also kind of like the AOL shortened version.

Vines of Ivy (VOI) was named that because it’s about friends attending an Ivy League university.

The Compatible Companion Trilogy was named after I fell in love with the song You Are the Reason by Calum Scott. The first book is You Are My Reason. Not really sure how I landed on My Forever Maybe or After You for the second and third book. The trilogy is the CC trilogy because it’s named after the dating company opened in VOI.

My new project (Falls Village Collection) is named after the town I created called…Falls Village. So far, I have named my books in the collection: The Rest of Forever, From Then Until Forever, Promise Me Forever, Forever To Go…see where I’m going with that? The other authors in the collection are not using Forever as their title motivation. 

How many books have you written? Which is your favorite?

KB: I have 18 books published and I am currently working on a collection with some of my RomantiConn authors now. That collection (Falls Village Collection) is beginning to release on 04/21/2020. I have completed 2 books in that collection, and I am currently writing my 3rd. By the end of the summer of 2020, I should have 21 published books.

Who is your favorite character that you have written? If so, who? And what makes them special.

KB: I think the favorite character of mine is Dr. Wilson Anderson (male) from The Anatomy of Love Trilogy and Brooklyn Taylor Adams (female) from Sliding (The Stone Series Book 1). I’m going with Brook because she was my first female lead and she has a lot of me in her. Will is my male pick because, even though he is nothing like him, I went with a neurosurgeon as a nod to my son.

Which of your books was most enjoyable to write?

KB: I’m going with You Are My Reason because I enjoy the comedy angle of it.

If you had to recommend one of your books to a new reader, which would you recommend?

KB: I would tell them to begin with You Are My Reason and read the CC trilogy then head into the Falls Village Collection. 

Where can readers find out more about you and your books?

KB: Readers can join my reader group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/197426327440415/) or come meet me face to face at an author signing. My next is RomantiConn which I host in CT (https://romanticonn2020.eventbrite.com). If they live in CT, I try to go out to eat every few months with a few of my CT readers. Readers can also keep up to date with me on any of my above social media sites.  

Would you rather be in a room full of snakes or a room full of spiders?

KB: Neither…never going to happen!

Would you rather have an endless summer or an endless winter?

KB: Endless summer, hands down!

Would you rather always be an hour early or be constantly twenty minutes late?

KB: I’m always early.

Tea or Coffee

Coffee

Movie or Book

Book

Paperback or EBook

EBook

Thanks for chatting with me, Ginger. I thought we could start the conversation talking about the obvious… WRITING. 

When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?

GS: When I was in third or fourth grade, I did a book spotlight for our library’s local access cable channel. It was on Judy Blume’s Super Fudge series, which I was a huge fan of. A woman from the local paper came to interview me, and I thought she had a pretty cool job (because she had a very nice pen and this long, skinny notepad that she scribbled on while I talked). I thought maybe I could do something like that when I grew up. Fast forward a few years to pre-teen me. I was in a Goodwill with my grandmother and looking at the books, and I discovered a chapter book by Judy Blume titled “Forever.” We bought it for a quarter. I took it home and read it in a night, staying up and reading by the light of my digital clock. It was the first book I read for teens about teens that was authentic and real. I decided in that moment that I wanted to be those women, to write real stories, fact and fiction. I graduated with a journalism degree, worked for several papers and magazines, and when I finally conquered my fear of sharing my fiction, I made the switch and my life has been forever changed.

What comes first, the plot or characters?

GS: It is different for every story. For my Waiting series, my heroine, Nolan Lennox, came first. She was clear as day and guided every turn of all three books. The same happened for Wild Reckless and Owen Harper. I had this little boy in my head who witnessed something horrific and I just kept worrying about what that would do to him, and I imagined him growing up and carrying the weight of it all as a teenager. For other stories, though, like Cowboy, Villain, Damsel, Duel, the plot drove everything. That book more than any I’ve written, really. It’s twisty and strange, and the story itself is almost a character.

Where is your favorite place to write?

GS: Outside, either at a baseball field or on my back patio. There is something about the Arizona air, the breeze in the shade, the birds chirping. It all feeds my creativity.

Do you prefer writing in silence or to music?

GS: A little bit of both. Sometimes I just have to have quiet. Some scenes call for still concentration and I need to go there in my head and live in the scene and moment. Any sound can be distracting. I always use music to form my mood, though. I do a lot of my plotting to music while I walk, and I make a playlist for every book. I have a few go-to bands and musicians that feel like my voice, too. The National and Greg Laswell show up on a lot of my playlists.

How do you come up with the titles to your books?

GS: What a great question! More often than not, the title is the first thing that comes to me. Sometimes even before the characters. I usually have a faint idea of the plot in my head and words will start to form. Hold My Breath just felt like the perfect marriage for speed swimmers, and Memphis had the right feel for both a title and a character, and I don’t think my boxing book could be anything but that. The Hard Count came along with the plotting. Everything about my hero’s life was challenging—hard. But he was so good and so strong, and the hard count in football is one of those things that, when done well, is a game changer. Nico Medina, my main character in that book, is the exact type of quarterback and human who can change games.

Would you rather be in a room full of snakes or a room full of spiders?

Oh man. I guess spiders. I feel like I’m bigger and have a shot.

Would you rather have an endless summer or an endless winter?

Endless summer.

Would you rather always be an hour early or be constantly twenty minutes late?

Always an hour early. Makes me anxious to be late.

Tea or Coffee

Tea

Coke or Pepsi

Coke

Toilet Paper: Over or Under

Given the times, any way I can get it.

Morning Person or Night Owl

Night Owl