It's guest blog Wednesday and Jaye Ford has dropped in to talk to us about her new, about to be launched thriller, Blood Secret.
How did Blood Secret come about – what
inspired the story for the book?
Blood Secret had a definite birth moment. About two years
ago, my husband and I were caught up in a road rage incident while we driving
to a local restaurant. A kid in a four-wheel drive cut us off in a roundabout,
followed us to a parking area, yelled abuse and threats before tailgating us in
his car as we walked to the restaurant. It shook us both up but when we’d
ordered our meals, my husband decided to go out to check on our car. I sat on
my own thinking, What if he doesn’t come back? He did and we spent the rest of
the meal discussing that question. So the road rage incident became the start
of Blood Secret, and when Max Tully
goes to check on his car, he doesn’t come back.
What is it about the thriller genre that
draws you?
As both a reader and a
writer, I love a story that sucks me in, that’s intense and visceral and pulls
on a whole bunch of emotions – and the crime genre is such a great vehicle for
that. A crime itself creates danger, fear and angst of all sorts, add friends
and family or a relationship developing in that highly-charged atmosphere and
the dynamics can be powerful – and as a writer, a lot of fun to play around
with.
You’re producing a novel a year which is
pretty impressive. Talk to me about your writing schedule.
I hate writing under
stress and I get stressed at the thought of running late with a deadline so I
try to stay ahead of myself as much as I can. Most days I keep office hours,
starting around 9am and finishing around 6pm. But life is life and I’m my own
boss so if I need to spend time with my mum or have a coffee with a friend or
go for a walk, I do. I also aim to get down around 5000 words a week. Mostly
it’s more than that, sometimes it’s less but I don’t beat myself up if I don’t
make it. It just seems to work well as a target that I feel is achievable and
will get the manuscript delivered on time. I’m a goal-oriented girl!
Talk to me about your other pseudonym Janette
Paul. Do you plan more books as Janette, and does it require a different
writing hat?
In February this year, my
romantic comedy Just Breathe, written
under the pen name Janette Paul, was released as one of the launch titles for
the Random Romance digital imprint. I wrote the book before I started writing
thrillers and it had some interest from a publisher but was shelved when my
first crime novel, Beyond Fear,
sold. It was an unexpected surprise to see it published and quite a challenge
going back to edit it while I was in the nasty, complicated throes of writing Blood Secret. And yes, Janette
definitely needed a different hat to Jaye! Just
Breathe is possibly as far from a gritty thriller as you could get, which
was a nice change from the blood and guts of my thrillers but for about six
weeks, I had to remind myself who I was every day. I’d get into a scene and
have to stop and say, ‘Oh right, today I’m meant to be funny!’ Or, ‘Oh no, she can’t
be cute when she’d got a knife in her hand!’
As to writing another
Janette Paul novel, in an ideal world, it would be great to balance both sides
of my personality with grit and humour so I wouldn’t say no to that idea but
for the moment, my focus in on my next thriller, which is due out in September
next year.
Beyond Fear is being released
around the world in different languages and even in Braille – do you feel
that your book is taking on its own kind of life.
I started Beyond Fear after about seven years of
trying (and failing) to get published, with a blunt message to myself not to
get my hopes up because it was possible I might never get published. So now, three
years after it was publishes, I feel like I’ve sent my first baby out into the
world to make a life for itself. Every so often another version of it arrives
at my door and it’s like a postcard – Hey,
Mum, still going strong! Remember the days? It’s very, very nice.
Can we have a little hint about the book
in the pipeline?
Love to give you a hint!
I’m about halfway through my fourth thriller. Titled Already Dead, it centers around Miranda Jack, who is carjacked by a
gunman and forced to drive for hours before surviving a bloody end to the
drama. She’s told the man was suffering delusions but when she attempts to find
out how much of what he talked about was real, she discovers not everything was
in his imagination and asking might get her killed.
BLOOD SECRET is Jaye
Ford’s third thriller. Her first, Beyond Fear, was Best Debut and Reader’s
Choice at the 2012 Sister’s in Crime Davitt Awards and her second, Scared Yet?,
was also published to critical acclaim. Jaye is a former news and sport
journalist, was the first woman to host a live, national sport show on
Australian television and has also run her own public relations business. She
now writes fiction full time.
Jaye Ford’s third
thriller, BLOOD SECRET, is released in Australia and New Zealand this week.
