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Jodi Thomas, Rewriting Monday – Author Guest Post & Giveaway…3.31.09

Please welcome Jodi Thomas as she talks about her newest book Rewriting Monday.  The Book Faery Reviews will be doing a review of her book April 7th so be sure to come back to check out what I thought.

Book Trailer from the author's website...

The Book Faery Reviews is giving away ONE copy of
Rewriting Monday to a lucky reader (and commenter of course)!

The giveaway will be running from March 31st - April 7th.  After reading her post you must first leave a "hello" for Jodi and then complete the form (if you do it in reverse, you'll end up on another page outside of The Book Faery Reviews...currently working on this issue...) to enter in the giveaway for a chance to get a copy of Rewriting Monday.

Happy Tuesday Everyone and Good Luck!

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Jodi Thomas...About Her Book Rewriting Monday

In my twenty years as a working writer I often began a story from one line I hear someone say.  At a wedding shower a woman met me and said, “If I could be a writer, I’d go back ten years a rewrite a part of my life.”  This lady I didn’t even know got me to thinking that everyone over the age of ten probably feels that way.  We all wish life got a chance at rewrites.

I began my newest story with a woman, Pepper Malone, who has always defined herself by her work.  She has nothing except her job.  When she makes a mistake and has to leave town, she’s lost.  Out of desperation, she goes to the small town where her mother grew up.  There is a little house in Bailee, Texas that she’s inherited from her Aunt and she thinks she can rest and regroup.  Only problem is, the house is a trailer and her aunt is still very much alive.

Pepper decided to take a job opening at the paper in town and discovers a world totally different from anything she’s ever known.  The people she meets don’t accept her distant air and she learns to care.  She’s not only attracted to her new boss, but also caught in the tangle of a mystery that may get her killed.

By the time I wrote REWRITING MONDAY I felt like I’d walked the streets of Bailee and knew all the people.  Sometimes the hardest part for me is ending the story and saying good-bye to all the friends I’ve had living with me for a year.

I think it’s funny that people think writers don’t live in reality.  In truth, I do most of the time.  I remember to pay the bills and pick up milk at the store.  But every evening I step into fiction.  For a few hours the world in my mind is real.  I laugh and cry with my characters and mentally hug them good-bye when they leave.  People often ask me if I know the end of the book when I begin and I have to admit that some nights I write longer so I can see what happens.

I like people, real ones and imaginary ones.  Over the years I’ve had favorite characters that I’ve loved writing.  I also love writing characters who are not perfect, but the readers learn to understand them.

I’ve been greatly blessed in my writing.  In 2006 Romance Writers of America put me in the Hall of Fame when I won my third RITA, (an award given for writing the best book of the year in your category.)  The awards are grand but the real satisfaction comes when I meet fans and they tell me how much my writing meant to them.  In Arlington last fall a woman told me I helped her through the months her husband was deployed.  I almost cried remembering how books helped me once years ago when my husband was in the army.  It made me proud to know I’d been able to help her.

My day is usually divided into three parts.  I’m the writer in residence at West Texas A&M University so I usually get to my office about 9 or 10.  I enjoy teaching and working with students who want to be writers.  I teach one class in the spring and this year I’ll be teaching at the West Texas A&M Writing Academy for a week in June.  I think this will be great fun.  Writers wanting to know how to make a living in the fiction world will come and stay for a week in the dorms and they can talk writing all day from June 8-12 with a half a dozen multi-published writers. If anyone wants info on the academy just call continuing ed at WTAMU.  806-651-2037  They’ll send you the information.

The second part of my day is with family.  My husband always, and sometimes friends and family, have dinner together.  Often we talk books over the meal.  Sometimes, my characters and their problems become put of the conversation.  We’ve spent entire meals trying to figure out what to do with a fictional body or how to kill someone in 1880 and make it look like an accident.  (That may explain why my son got his master’s in criminal justice.)  After dinner my husband and I take a walk through our neighborhood of hundred year old homes and tree branches that canopy the streets.

Then, at about 8 or 9 at night, I step into my study upstairs and walk into fiction.  I usually work until after midnight and once in a while until dawn.

Thanks for asking me in for a visit.  I hope you’ll visit me at www.jodithomas.com.  Please pick up one of my 22 historical novels set in Texas or one of my 5 mainstream modern times novels.  We’ll go on an adventure together.

Jodi Thomas

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About The Book Faery

Farrah is from the Raleigh, North Carolina area and married to her high school sweetheart. She's a 30-something mom to 3 crazy yet loveable kids who keep her constantly on her toes. Books can be found in every room in the house and bags as well. Reading is done every moment she gets the chance and a typical afternoon of fun would often find her and the 3 kiddos at a local bookstore or library hunting for the next book. She's currently working towards her goal to one day owning a cafe/bookstore in a historic downtown area where it's all about the reader's experience...community, atmosphere and the love of books.