WELCOME Juanita kees!
So glad you could pop in and share a little about yourself and your writing.
1. What is the theme of the book you are working on?
Home to Bindarra Creek is a small town story about a girl who has loved and lost, and a guy who thinks he’s lost everything until he finds love where he least expects to. It’s time for both of them to leave the shadows behind.
2. What was/is one of the hardest things about writing one of your books/current manuscript? (Did you or do you want to throw it into the fire like frodo?)
Midway I want to rip them to shreds. By the end I want to burn them, and somewhere during the edits, I’m always convinced they’re not publishable. The hardest thing is trying to get your characters out of a situation that wasn’t written into the plot. Characters often develop a mind of their own 🙂 (Oh I totally understand!)
3. Because everyone always wants to know. Are you a panster or plotter?
I’m a plotpantser, a hybrid author who sometimes gets the plotting right until the characters decide to fly by the seat of their pants instead. (Ha ha ha, you gotta love those unpredictable characters!)
4. How important are reviews to you? Do you get upset when they aren’t favourable? (Like stalk the reviewer and wish they get infested with a thousand fleas.)
Reviews are important. They are the yardstick other readers use to decide whether or not to buy your book. A bad review can rip your heart out and destroy your spirit, but reviewers don’t have to be mean, nasty trolls. A good constructive review can help an author give the reader what they want in the next book or a revised issue. Not everyone will enjoy your writing. I have to remind myself of that often. The only time I get upset is when a reviewer leaves a one star review and doesn’t take the time to tell me what it was they didn’t like about the book. (We do need thick skin, don't we?)
5. How do you market your books? (Stand at the top of a building and shout buy my book?)
I believe in doing everything in moderation because the most effective marketing tool is still word of mouth. So if you loved Home to Bindarra Creek, please tell your friends about it. 🙂
6. Social Media – Love it or hate it? Where do you hang out the most? Any tips to share?
I’m not so keen on Twitter and Instagram. I’m on LinkedIn, but seldom even look at it. I love Facebook because it’s a mix of interaction, pictures, quotes etc. I can always find something there I can relate to or share. (It's the hotel California, where you can check in and never leave. Lol)
7. What is your favourite motivational phrase or positive saying?
Many years ago, racing legend Peter Brock told me to live my dreams … so I did. (Brilliant!)
If you want to know more about Juanita, you can reach her here:
Website: https://juanitakees.com/
Home to Bindarra Creek
Buy Links: https://juanitakees.com/shop-now/
Park Ranger, Alice Pritchard lives with the ghosts of her past. As long as she has her rescued wildlife to rehabilitate and Bindarra Creek parks to care for, she’ll never need a man again. Now, with rejuvenation of the town in the pipeline, she has no choice but to let go of the past.
Dan Molyneaux roars into her life in his high-powered V8 and reopens the Riverside Pub forcing her to face her ghosts, his possum problem, Curly the cockatoo who swears like a sailor, Old Man Jake who’s appointed himself caretaker of the property, and Grandad Charlie who’s determined to find her the man he thinks she deserves. Alice would love to ignore them all and keep living in the cocoon she’s created for herself in sleepy Bindarra Creek, but fate has other plans for her.
Dan isn’t looking for love or the friendship of the two crazy old men who appear to have ‘adopted’ him. All he wanted was the peace and quiet of the country, away from the city highways. Soon he’s swept along by renovations, fundraisers, hell-raisers and the problems of a small town coming back to life. But it’s the park ranger he’s curious about. Why would a girl as beautiful as Alice bury herself in a backwater town so far off the main highway, it was merely a blip on the satellite map? What he uncovers raises some of his own ghosts from the dead.
