Please welcome K.D. Van Brunt with an interview !
It’s
All About the Author…
1) Please
tell us 5 interesting facts about yourself that readers might not know about
you …
Well, I don’t know how interesting they are,
but here goes:
* I
wrote my first ‘book’ when I was a teenager (mercifully, it was lost a long
time ago).
* My
biggest passion outside of writing is hockey.
I’m a long-time Washington Capitals season ticketholder and I’ve been to
nine different Stanley Cup finals (woot!).
* I
love to cook . . . my mac ’n cheese recipe is the best; I dare anyone to beat
it.
* I
have lived in eight different states: CA, WA, ID, MA, DC, VA, MD, and AL.
* I
love fast cars, and I have the speeding tickets to prove it (currently driving
a 2012 Camaro SS).
2) What do
you like to do in your spare time?
When I’m not working my day job, almost all
of my time is spent reading and writing.
3) Is there
one book that you love to read over and over again? If so, what is it and what is it that keeps
you coming back to it?
I’m going to use an expanded definition of
‘book’ to include a series, and I’m going to say Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of
Time. Like a lot of fans, I enjoyed
re-reading the previous books while waiting for the next one in the series to
come out (there are 14 books in the main series). The characters and plots are so nuanced and
deep, I always pick up on something I missed before.
4) How did
you get started writing and have you always wanted to be an author?
Always. I’ve been publishing non-fiction,
professional material almost all of my adult life, but only in recent years did
I finally publish fiction stories.
5) If you
for some reason couldn’t be an author, what would your other choice be?
I think my other calling in life was to
teach.
6) Did you
like school? Were you a good student?
I hated high school and barely maintained a
D average. However, I managed to get
into a four-year college based mostly on test scores (it wasn’t Harvard by any
means), and I loved it, graduating with straight As and BA in
philosophy/religious studies. Go figure.
7) When you write, is there a specific way you
have to write, ie: certain room, noise
or quiet, computer or paper etc…
I’m pretty flexible about where—I write
everywhere, including at Starbucks often.
I only use a computer, although when doing revisions I’ll often mark up
a print out. Probably the most
distinctive aspect of my writing regimen is that I mostly write in the early
morning, often as early as 4:30 am.
8) If you could write a collaboration with
another author, do you have one in mind and what would you write?
This is pure fantasy, but I’d love to team
up with David Weber and write a new book for the Treecat series. Alas, he already has a collaborator for
that. Sigh.
9) How do you come up with your story
ideas?
It starts
out with a one or two sentence theme:
e.g., what if a girl discovered evil aliens living among us and had to
run for her life to escape them? Then, I
start writing and see what evolves. The
problem with this is that sometimes what evolves isn’t very good (I have seven
or eight stories I abandoned after ten or fifteen thousand words because they
didn’t evolve well), but when it clicks, it really clicks.
10)
Do titles stump you or do they come easy? When do you pick a title, before the story is
written or when it’s done?
I have
written six books. The title was always
written after the story was done.
Sometimes it comes easy, sometimes not.
For example, the third book of the Cracked Chronicles is done and I
still haven’t been able to settle on a title yet.
11)
Do you keep a notebook near you for when new ideas
pop into your head?
I have a
file on my computer where I jot down my story ideas.
12)
If you write a series, do you re-read your
previous books before you begin the new one?
Yes.
I find it necessary to maintain continuity and consistency of story and
character.
13)
How does your family feel about your writing?
My wife and daughter are both writers
themselves, so they’re very supportive.
I read their stuff and they read mine.
Thanks
for sharing “you as an author” with us !
We hope you’ll come back and visit again soon!
*********
Dance of the Pink Mist
The Cracked Chronicles, Book 2
K.D. Van Brunt
romance/paranormal/urban fantasy - 100K
Editor's Pick
In the sequel to Win the Rings, Gray is now
a prisoner at Cracked, forced to undergo combat training under the supervision
of his nemesis, Jace. He soon learns first hand why all the other kids at
Cracked are scared to death of her, but he also finds a chink in her armor and
they both realize they have an eerie connection to one
another.
Gradually, Gray is drawn into Jace’s
dangerous world of Special Ops missions, where death waits like a shadow in
every corner.
For Jace, Gray poses a new kind of threat. Although she’s proficient in all types of combat, Jace’s training hasn’t prepared her for him, and she is forced to confront feelings she has never experienced before.
Excerpt:
I give three
raps on Jace’s door, precariously balancing an armload of her clothes in one
hand and her newly pressed uniform jacket in the other. I’ve been Jace’s
personal valet and general all-around slave for over six weeks now, bustling
from one task to another, while trying not to incur her prickly wrath.
And even though much of what she makes me do is demeaning, curiously I find
myself stealing looks at her when she’s not paying attention to me.
“Come in,”
Jace says through the closed door.
I try to
stick my thumb on the bio-sensor pad next to her door, but the action causes me
to lose my balance just enough to send the pile of clothes cascading to the
floor. There are no outside doorknobs here, just these small rectangular
pads beside every door, which read your thumbprint and release the lock.
“Shit!” I
curse.
I drop to my
knees to salvage what I can and refold the rest. The door opens behind me
causing me to flinch. I look up at Jace wondering if she’s going to give
me a swift kick to the ribs for this, but she just stands in the doorway
tapping her foot impatiently on the floor. She has her arms folded across
her chest looking peeved, and I see she’s dressed in old sweats and a
loose-fitting camo tank top. She doesn’t have a bra on. For some
reason I blush at this, as if I walked in on her while she was dressing.
“I should
make you re-wash all of this, Gray, but I’m feeling generous tonight.”
“Excuse
me. Did you say Gray, sir?” This would be the first time she’s used
my first name since I got here. Until now it’s been rookie, rook, newbie,
new meat—among others terms of endearment.
She
shrugs. “I suppose you’ve earned the right to be called by your first
name. Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Thank you.”
“Whatever,”
she says with a sigh. “Now listen up. My bathroom needs
cleaning. So get this mess picked up and get to work on it.”
Five minutes
later, I’m standing in front of her dresser putting away her newly refolded
clothes. I’ve memorized by now the layout of her drawers—underwear and
socks in the top drawer, shirts and pajamas in the second, pants, etc., in the
third. There’s a fourth and fifth drawer, but I’m not supposed to open
those, so I don’t know what she’s hiding in there. Finishing, I glance
over at Jace, who’s sitting cross-legged on her bed flipping through a
magazine—Jane’s Intelligence Review. Gee, that looks like a fun
read. Her blonde hair is so fine and soft I feel this irrational
urge to run my hands through it, even though she’d probably kick me in the
groin if I tried. She’s leaning forward to study the magazine and my eyes
lock onto her tank top, which is gapping enough to almost flash her entire,
braless chest at me. I gawk for a moment, but then feeling like a
perv, I advert my gaze.
“Don’t stare
at me, Gray. Get to work. The cleaning supplies are under the
sink.”
I nod, but I
think I detect a subtle, knowing smirk on her face.
Every room
in the dorm is laid out the same—a main living area and a small bathroom off
one end of the room. The best that can be said about the bathrooms here
is they’re functional: toilet, sink and commode, and a shower. No
bathtubs. Sighing, I pull out a bristle brush and get to work on
the stainless steel toilet bowl.
“You ever
been to Alaska, Gray?” Jace asks after a few minutes, when I’ve moved on to
scrub the shower stall.
I hesitate,
puzzled by the question. “Once. Anchorage, sir.”
I hear her
sigh loudly. “You can call me Jace from now on. What was it like?”
I hesitate,
briefly surprised by the realization I don’t have to call her ‘sir’ anymore,
but at this point it’s been so deeply drilled into me I’m not sure I’m capable
of calling her anything else.
K.D. Van Brunt
During
the eight hours of the day when I’m not writing, reading or sleeping, I’m a
lawyer in Washington, DC. I grew up in Southern California, moved to
Seattle before coming east to Boston to go to school. Now, I live in the
great state of Maryland with my wife, my dog—a standard poodle named
Buffy (and who do you think named her?), and my hot Camaro. One of the
few things I like better than pizza is driving fast. So, if you happen be
in the DC area and a black Camaro with a red stripe and a rear spoiler roars by
and blows your doors off…thaaat could be me.
Giveaway: $50 Amazon GC
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