Friday, March 25, 2011

Fridays off the Wall with Jean Joachim

Today, I'm hosting Jean Joachim for Fridays off the Wall.  Jean is a fellow Astraea Press author and her most recent book is Sunny Days, Moonlit Nights.

Welcome Jean, who would you cast as the main characters in a movie of Sunny Days, Moonlit Nights?


    Jean:  Dermot Mulroney as Mike, Reese Witherspoon, as Sunny, maybe. It’s harder to come up with a blonde actress that captures Sunny. Our cover artist, Elaina Lee, captured Sunny very well on the cover.  Hugh Jackman would also work as Mike.

Joselyn: I would be quite happy to have Hugh Jackman as any of the main characters in my books whether he looks like them or not. :-)   What is the most unexpected thing that has happened in one of your books?  As in you didn’t expect it to happen until you wrote it?

Jean: One of my characters killed another. I expected her to shoot him, but not kill him. Considering she was protecting her son, it made perfect sense. She was right and I was wrong. If she only wounded the man, then he would have had the strength left to kill her son. She had to kill him to save Danny. It made perfect sense, but it shocked me completely as the words “she shot him until he stopped moving” appeared on the computer screen!
I love when characters take over and move the plot in a different direction. It means when I sit down at the computer to write I’m not completely sure what is going to happen. It makes the process more fun as I learn to expect the unexpected and enjoy it. It sounds weird but you let go of something conscious and connect with your characters in a way you never connected to anyone before. They become real and tell you what should happen. You write it down and you have a story.

Joselyn: That's incredible, but it's so much easier when the characters start telling you what is going to happen, then you just have to take dictation. What is your favorite line from Sunny Days, Moonlit Nights?

Jean: “She felt his stare as if it was a warm hand moving gently down her body…”

Joselyn: That's an incredible image. If your main character could invite anyone to dinner (fictional or otherwise), who would it be?

Jean: It would be Andrew Wyeth, Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh or a famous painter of memorable landscapes because she is an artist. She admires their enduring style and ability to capture the stunning beauty of the natural world.
Mike would probably invite Albert Einstein or Neil Diamond, his favorite singer. Singing has taken over his life as he left physics behind.

Joselyn:      Do you have any characters who keep bugging you for their own book? Will you give them one?

Jean: Yes! Gavin, the firefighter from Sunny Days, Moonlit Nights has been bugging me and he is next in line. I’m working out plot details of his story, now that I’ve found him a woman of his own, before I proceed…I’m close to starting. Two characters from my first book taking place in New York City, Miranda and Penn, got me to write the first 80 pages of their story. They want me to continue but my publisher wants me to write Gavin’s story, a sequel, first. Now a new character, Rook Devlin, is camping out in my head. I put together a loose plot outline for him yesterday. Things are very busy in my brain these days!

Joselyn: Sounds like you have a lot of ideas bouncing around and just need some time to work on them. What one thing would make your writing space perfect?

Jean: No people coming in and out! I need complete quiet to concentrate, unless I have music on. I use music, every book has a theme song, to channel my characters and get into the story. I love the music angle, choosing songs is fun. 

More information about Sunny Days, Moonlit Nights
Caroline Davis White is a well-known artist married to a philandering multi-millionaire. She has everything any woman could wish for except love. Brad refuses to give her the divorce she so desperately wants.  With no money, family, or friends, she flees to the small community in Catskill Mountains where she spent her summers as a child.
Mike Foster, Caroline’s childhood crush grown up, achieved success and made more money than he could ever have dreamed, but it destroyed his marriage and cost him his son.  He is wary of women who find his wallet more attractive than his good looks.
Caroline reconnects with the life she had and friends from long ago. Mike steps out of her teenage dreams into her life again, looking more handsome and tempting than ever. She knew who he was then…but who is he now?


I just downloaded Sunny Days, Moonlit Nights to my iPod.  You can find it at Astraea Press, Amazon and Barnes and Noble

To learn more about Jean and see what else she's written, check out her website (http://nowandforeverbooks.com) and blog (http://jeanjoachim.blogspot.com). 


4 comments:

  1. Congrats on the release. And well, Hugh Jackman is WAY hot (LOL). Your book sounds fabulous...

    Great interview!

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is a must read.

    ReplyDelete

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