Welcome Heather Wardell

Welcome Heather Wardell. I am super excited that you have stopped by today.

1. Tell us a little about  yourself.
Here are a few things not everyone knows about me. 1) I have four tattoos, one of which features prominently in my free novel "Life, Love, and a Polar Bear Tattoo". 2) Before becoming a writer, I was a software developer and then an elementary school computer teacher. 3) I am a natural speed-reader, regularly clocked at around 1200 WPM. 4) I am obsessed with crocheting and am nearly always wearing something I've made. 5) I never wear pants unless I'm running. I'm a skirt girl all the time, even in the Canadian winter!

2. You have had an impressive year in 2011. How many books have you released?
Four! I set that as a goal in December 2010 and I'm thrilled to have managed it. "Stir Until Thoroughly Confused" was officially launched in January, "A Life That Fits" in May, "Live Out Loud" in September, and "Blank Slate Kate" in December. I'd love to manage four again next year but it might turn out to be three. Still, that's not bad. :)

3. You actually just released Blank Slate Kate. Give us a little info on this.
Poor Kate wakes up, naked, in a strange man's bed and can't remember her name or how she got there. As if that weren't bad enough, she and the man (Jake) quickly realize she has lost fifteen years of her life. She and Jake work to figure out who she is and where she comes from, but as time passes and she still can't remember she begins to wonder whether she'd be better off starting fresh with Jake instead. 

It was an interesting book for me, because I didn't know how it would end when I started! (I usually do.) I had several ideas, but I wrote the first draft until it was about 75% done and all of my ideas were possible and then planned out the ending. It's more of a mystery than I usually write, as Kate struggles to find her history and how and why she ended up in Jake's bed, and that was neat for me too.

4. I follow you on Facebook and you always nickname your work while you write it. I do this too. Do you wait until its finished to name it?
I generally do. I work on more than one book at once (at the moment I am in the second draft of Flying Squirrel and also planning Hippo) so the nicknames help me keep everything straight. I don't usually know what to call a book until it's done and sometimes not even then! (I wasn't sure I wanted to use "Blank Slate Kate" but the feedback of my buddies on my Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/heather.wardell.author) made it clear it was the right title.)

5. What is a must have snack while you write?
Tea and a glass of water so I have a choice. I work at Starbucks once or twice a week, to get me out of the house, and there it's nearly always a cinnamon dolce latte. I generally don't eat when I work because it's bad for the laptop and the waistline. :)

6. Is there a genre that you hope to write one day that you haven't?
So far, I'm very happy working in women's fiction. If an idea in another genre hit me and wouldn't let me go, I would go for it but would likely publish it under a different name so as not to confuse my readers. But at the moment all my ideas fit with what I've already written, which isn't a big surprise since I write what I love to read: stories about strong smart women getting control of their lives.

7. If you  had to choose one, which of your books that you've written is your favorite?
This is such a hard question since I love them all for different reasons. Today I feel like it's "Seven Exes Are Eight Too Many", my story of a woman who signs on for a reality dating show but instead ends up on an island with seven of her exes, because it taught me how to juggle lots of characters and I need that for Hippo!

8. What are you working on now?
This is the first week of planning for my book Hippo, which involves a woman showing up for her cruise-ship wedding and meeting her fiance's brothers only to realize that one brother broke her heart and she broke the other one's heart. She's going to be trapped on the ship for two weeks and her mother-in-law-to-be and her own mother are insistent that the wedding go ahead, but I'm not sure she feels the same way. I'm excited about it and I think it'll be a lot of fun to write!

I'm a little ways into the second draft of Flying Squirrel, which features a "do everything for everyone else" woman trying to overcome this damaging tendency by becoming a marathon runner. It's tough for me because the main character is quite unlike me but I am enjoying it for the same reason.

9. Anything else you would like to share.
Just that my books are available through my site at http://www.heatherwardell.com and that "Life, Love, and a Polar Bear Tattoo" is always a free download. Oh, and also thank you so much to Lacey for letting me chatter away on her blog! :)


Buy links for Blank State Kate: Amazon / Smashwords

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