We have an awesome guest today! I love her tagline: “Bad Girls Need Love Too.” Like alot of us, she hears voices. LOL Sometimes they whisper; sometimes they scream. Whatever the message, she writes it.
Welcome J.D. Faver! Please tell us a bit about yourself.
When Sister Anastasia, my second grade teacher, gave me a box of colored chalk and allowed me to draw my sets on three chalkboards, she kick started my writing career. I was able to write, direct, produce and star in my 3 act plays. I hope this recollection repaints the bleak image of Catholic education. I never stopped writing after this freeing experience. In college it was angsty poetry and later, short stories and novels.
Out of all the books you’ve written, do you have a favorite? What sparked the idea?
The first novel I’m proud of took 5 years to complete. I was working full time in health care management and caring for my mother in my home. My writing time was my mental health outlet. I couldn’t decide what the genre was so I entered it in contests and it did quite well. It got first place in 6 Mainstream and 6 Mystery/Suspense categories and a second place in the SW Writer’s. It’s not published but I hope to get it in shape later this year. The next novel I finished resulted from my first NaNoWriMo. I wrote a 56k word novel in 18 days. It evolved into 93k words upon revision, but it was great to just write the story in such an intense word flow. I do write every day and have a 100 word challenge on my Facebook page.
Have you always written suspense?
Most of my novels are Mystery/Suspense. Badlands is a Romantic Suspense set in the Texas panhandle. The heroine is a young doctor who inherits a vast cattle ranch after the murder of her great aunt. It continues to be my best seller. Bad Habit is also a Romantic Suspense set inSan Antonio,Texas but there are no cowboys, horses or Stetsons. Strangely enough they both wound up on the Amazon “Hot New Releases in Western Romance” list. Go figure…
I always take part in the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and crank out at least 50,000 words of a new novel during November. A few years ago, I was writing a NaNo book. I got to page 100 and no one was dead. No body parts had been discovered. No sinister plots…I thought, “OMG! I’m writing a romance.” My contemporary romances tend to have complicated plots with humor and a generous dose of snark. Painted Lady was loosely based on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. The mistaken identity theme was fun to play with. A second contemporary romance, A Twist of Fate, was released in July. The hero and heroine are the most opposite characters I could create but they have major attraction in this sexy little romp.
Can you give us a brief look into what your writing schedule is like?
I always have more than one project in the works. I think this prevents writer’s block. If one project doesn’t excite me on any given day, something else will. I generally start writing a new project without plotting first, but I reach a point where I stop and develop a brief skeleton of a plot, making sure there are plenty of twists and a character arc for the main characters.
Do you have a secret writing quirk? Like favorite bunny slippers, or a special music that helps spark your creativity?
My secret quirk is that I listen to sexy music when I’m writing. B.B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughn , Janis Joplin, Bonnie Raitt, Amy Winehouse. The music definitely puts me in the mood. Words flow with the music. Sometimes, I jump up and dance and then sit back down to write more words. I’ll bust loose with some belly dance moves or a zydeco step and feel much more energized when I return to the story.
Thanks for joining us today, J.D! Best of luck with your books! Looks like there is something for everyone! 
Bio:
J.D. Faver lives near Houston, Texas with two spoiled, rotten cats, Emily and Daisy, and a rescue dog, affectionately called Heart of Darkness, Horrible/Adorable, or Minx for short. She writes humorous contemporary romance and romantic suspense, both seasoned with plenty of steamy passion. Even the darkest murder/suspense is riddled with numerous snarky sentiments. She is actively involved in several writer’s organizations, including National RWA and three of its local chapters, West Houston RWA, Houston Bay Area RWA and Northwest Houston RWA. She also belongs to Bay Area Writer’s League and Houston Writer’s Guild. She loves to spend time with family and friends. She writes daily but has time for other interests including painting, cooking and gardening.
She Tweets. http://twitter.com/#!/JDFaverauthor
She FaceBooks. https://www.facebook.com/pages/JD-Faver-Author/
She loves to hear from readers.
http://www.jdfaver.com/
BADLANDS-Mystery/Suspense-Steamy Romance; 70k
http://tinyurl.com/3fda7ty
The murder of her only relative forces Camryn Carmichael, a lonely young doctor to choose between her dream career in a Houston research hospital and a rural practice close to rancher, Breckenridge T. Ryan the man of her dreams. (The T stands for Trouble) When her suspicions about her great-aunt’s death prove to be true, she decides to stay and uncover the villain herself. Breck tries to convince her that the community needs her just as much as he does but when she uncovers a decades-old crime, she puts her own life is in danger.
BAD HABIT- Mystery/Suspense-Steamy Romance; 60k 
A Twist of Fate-Contemporary Romance-Humorous/Steamy; 60k Like this:
Filed under: Author Interview, Melissa Ohnoutka Tagged: | A Must Have, Guest, J.D. Faver, melissa ohnoutka, romance, suspense, Writing
Hi, June! Nice to see you here..:) And thank you for adding to my TBR list….:)
Thanks so much William. I think my TBR pile is falling over, both the actual and the virtual piles. Good reading.
~J
Hey, Will! I don’t think I’ll ever catch up on my reading! So many great books out there and yes, I’ve just added a few more too.
Thanks for joining us today, JD!
Thanks so much for inviting me, Melissa. I’m really enjoying it. This is a very hot blog and I’ll continue to follow it. Lots of excellent writers on board. Thanks for a great experience.
*hugs*
~J
Hi, JD, thanks for being here at ENALR!
The books sound great. Congratulations on hitting the “hot new releases” list! Doesn’t matter if it’s not a “true” western.
Thanks so much. I didn’t even know about the list but, my friend, Anne Marie Novark sent me a screenshot and I spent days watching both novels bounce around on the list. They got as high as #21 before they weren’t “new” any longer.
Texas is in my heart, so I will continue to write about adventures in Texas. Cain’t hep it.
And I heartily agree…Everyone needs a little romance.
~J
This is so cool!! And what a Wonderful surprise!
Congrats!
Hi JD, Welcome!!
Thanks for sharing some information about yourself with us. What a great interview.
I love your tagline – it’s awesome.
I’m so glad you love my tagline. I was never into those tame, simpering little heroines. If you’re a Bad Girl or a closet Bad Girl, check out my website to enter the contest to win a Bad Girls Need Love Too tee shirt. http://www.jdfaver.com. Good luck.
~J
Hey Lady!
I love the fact that your stories carry a lot of your personality and look forward to reading more
Blessings!
Thanks, Angela, both for reading and for the blessings. I need lots of both. I’m afraid I was born to be a Bad Girl so I might as well write about it.
*hugs*
~J
Hi JD!
Great to see you here. Really enjoyed Painted Lady. I see I’ll have to read faster.
Hi Tara!
I’m so glad you enjoyed Painted Lady. Well, if you’re going to read faster, I guess I’ll have to write faster. My next novel, Kill Shot, will be released soon. I hope you enjoy it.
*hugs*
~J
I can just picture you jumping up and dancing to your music at the end of a hot scene. Good blog and all your books look great!
Thanks for being here.
Judi
Thanks, Judi!
Yes, believe it. Music is one of my major sensory delights. And you don’t have to be good to belly dance. My favorite song to belly dance to? I Said I Loved You But I Lied by Michael Bolton. Yeah, that’ll do it. Who says you have to belly dance to traditional music? I know…I’m weird. But I’m a writer. What can you expect?
*hugs*
~J
June, it is so nice to see you here and congratulations. Very nice interview.
Vicki Batman
http://vickibatman.blogspot.com
Hi Vicki!
So nice to see you here too. I really enjoyed this interview. Missy is a phenomenal writer and I am happy to share a space with her.
Thanks for the visit.
~J
Hey gal,
I share your concept of having more than one work in progress. I find it stimulating too. I’m one of those who can get a jump-start if I bounce in another direction for awhile. I try not to analyze it…god knows what I’d come up with…(short attention span?:) lol…whatever it is, it works for me:)
Great blog:) I found it all interesting, and loved hearing about your beloved fur people:) I have a beloved also, named Lil’ Dickens, so I know whereof you speak!
Lo
Hey Lo!
My WIP file runneth over. But a very smart lady, Colleen Thompson, set me free. No more guilt over unfinished manuscripts. She described it as “dating” an idea to find out if you wanted to “marry” it. That lifted a huge burden off my shoulders. Whew! Now I can just write in all directions and eventually, everything worthwhile gets finished.
The fur people rule at my house. I am but a lowly and favored servant.
*hugs*
~J
It’s so great to get to know more about you, JD. These books sounds intriguing and will be added to my TBR list.
Happy sales!
Jenn!
Thanks Jenn!
I appreciate the support. Writing is my addiction and reading is my reward. They go hand in hand, it seems.
And great luck with your very exciting pirate novel, Blood and Treasure. It was impossible to quit reading until the last page.
*hugs*
~J
Enjoyed your interview.
Hi Raven,
I’m so glad you enjoyed it. I really love being here. Please visit my website to enter the contests. You may be a Bad Girl…
~J
I bought Bad Habit last week and can’t wait to read it!!! Good luck with everything, JD!! I too always have more than one project I’m working on!! I can’t write any other way!
Hi Tess!
So good to see you here. I hope that Bad Habit treats you right.
Thanks for letting me know that I’m not the only writer who writes using the shotgun method. Maybe I’m not as far out there as I think I am.
Are you going to do NaNo? I have a bunch of friends who are gathering to make a group effort. It’s great to have a cheering section as you cross the 50k finish line.
*hugs*
~J
June: Wonderful spot! (we are FB friends) I never knew you wrote so many books! Great Interview! Leanore (Bonnie Lea Elliott)
Hi Miss Leanore! (aka Bonnie Lea)
I’m so glad to see you here. I have another novel completely polished and ready except for the cover. My cover artist is in Virginia and her power is out for maybe a week. Wah! Thanks a lot, Irene.
Look for Kill Shot soon though.
And I’m eviscerating another one. This is the zillionth time I’ve revised it. I changed the plot and have been tossing out huge scenes and writing new ones. It was pretty painful in the beginning but now I’m numb to the pain. Just rip it out and make another part work. Slice, dice and move on. The funny thing is that I HAVE a cover for this one.
Keep your fingers crossed and I may get both of these out soon
*hugs*
~J
Sexy music, huh? I thought I was the only one that did that….bad girl music equals some pretty awesome bad girl moves! wink wink, nudge nudge HAHAHAHA
Great post!
Hey Stacey!
I love to dance and I love all kinds of music.
When I was in college I took a photography class and we were in the lab with our B&W film in a canister. We were supposed to be rotating it so the developer fluid would reach all the film surfaces. I was shaking my little can (well, both of them) and dancing around to the great music. When I looked up everyone was staring at me. I realized they didn’t hear any music. There was a crashing silence as I meekly began rotating my can. This was the first time I realized that I heard music all the time. But in my defense, most of the lab classes had music playing.
Yeah, we Bad Girls like to move it, move it.
*hugs*
~J
Hi June, Great post and I really love your titles. Such talent. Hope to read your books very soon.
Hi Velda!
I’m so glad you like the post and my titles. Go to my website to enter the drawing for free downloads as well as a tee shirt.
Hope you enjoy the reads.
*hugs*
~J
Hi June,
Loved your interview. We have a lot in common. I went to Catholic schools and my stories are all set in Texas. I haven’t read your books, but they sound like my kind of reading. Looing forward to reading Badlands and Painted Lady. And, for the record, Good girls need love too. LOL Love it.
Linda
Hey Linda!
I’ve read your books. Lots of them. I especially love your heroes.
Yeah, I suppose Good Girls need love too. I was one once, but then I crossed to the dark side and became a writer. If Sister Anastasia only knew what she started. Oh, my!
I hope you enjoy Badlands and Painted Lady.
*hugs*
~J
Hey June, I didn’t know you got into Stevie ray Vaughn! Oooh and belly dance too. Great taste in music there lady.
Rose Anderson
Hi Rose!
I luvs mah Stevie Ray. Gimme some blues, a little rock ‘n’ roll and a side order of zydeco. I never told you that I was the girl singer with the band, did I? I can still feel the amp thrumming bass through my sternum. Oh, and I love Latin music. And those angsty Irish ballads…and…well, you get the idea.
*hugs*
~J
June, great interview. I have started reading Painted Lady and love it.
Keep dating those unfinished manuscripts. Just think when they all get completed at the same time!
Hey Meb!
I’m so glad you’re loving Painted Lady. I loved Harbinger of Evil too, but it scared the hell outta me. And New Orleans is one of my favorite places. Love the music. Love the food. Love the peeps.
I don’t think I will ever get all my WIPs completed. But as long as I can keep cranking them out I will be a happy little writer.
It’s a disease, you know. An addiction…maybe an affliction. But don’t send me the cure. I like to wallow in it…or as they say here in Texas, “waller in it”.
~J
Welcome to ENLR!!
I really enjoyed the interview and the descriptions of your books. They sound great. I’ll hop over a pick up one!
I like your theory of working on a couple of different projects at a time. I do that. Some days I just don’t feel like talking to some of my characters!
Hope you come back regularly to ENLR. Thanks for visiting
Hi Cynthia!
Thanks for picking up one of my books. I hope you enjoy it. I’m having a great time here at ENLR. Thanks for the hospitality.
I have a challenge going on my FB page to write at least 100 words for 100 days. This is my second go round but this is day 699 for me and some others are chugging along with me. So I have to write whether or not anyone is speaking to me. Sometimes, I have to slap my muse awake, but he looks like Matthew McConaughey and he whispers in my ear with that deep Texas drawl…Then I can write.
I appreciate the opportunity to guest blog on your site. Will return anytime.
~J
Now that’s what I call my kind of muse!! LOL How do I get one of those?
Way to go, J. D.! Nice interview! I loved “Painted Lady”. I wish you great success!
Hey Michele!
Thanks so much. I’m glad you loved Painted Lady. I appreciate the good wishes. Right back atcha’, girl.
*hugs*
~J
Welcome to the blog JD! glad to have you here. I too like to write to music. Only instead of dancing, I often sing!
Thanks for the welcome, Keri! I’m really glad to be here.
I WAS the girl singer with the band, and I sang in the A Capella choir in college, but now, with all the Houston area airborne allergens I sound like a bullfrog. Better that I dance You sing though.
*hugs*
~J
Hi, JD. Great interview. I loved Painted Lady, BadLands, Twisted Fate and Bad Habit. Looking forward to the next JD Faver book! Congratulations and many sales.
Hi Carol!
So good to see you here. Thanks for reading all the books so far. Lots more coming down the pipe. My wish is to entertain you.
*many hugs*
~J
Hi June! I think I need to adopt the multiple projects method…I have a very short attention span too
Good interview!
Brandie N.
ROTFLMAO!!!
Hey Brandie!
I guess that’s the case. Short atten…Oh, look! shiny!
Maybe you can join me for NaNo. The Push Me/Pull You approach seems to help. Keep chuggin’ along.
*hugs*
~J
jd, it was great to find out all of those interesting tidbits about you! Now I know more about my Twitter friend. Sure would love to be a fly on the wall when you’re doing the belly dancing. LOL!
Me too, Chicki! I’ve heard belly dancing is great exercise.
Hey Chicki! Now you know how crazy I am. The great thing about belly dancers is that many are, shall I say jucier? Not all, but it’s good to have a little meat on one’s bones to shimmy.
Thanks for dropping by. See you on Twitter.
*hugs*
~J
Welcome, JD. Sorry I’m late to the blog. I usually try to be a good hostess and get here sooner. Better late than never
I recently wrote my first romance with a suspense element. Jeez, it was harder than I thought! How do you get your ideas? I’m hoping I didn’t miss the answer to that above…
Congrats on your success
Hi Liz! I really appreciate the hospitality! This is a great site.
I have no idea where the ideas come from. I just write what the voices tell me. And then I dip them in a great big batch of “what if”. I try to torture my main characters and then when they think things are going to be okay, I twist them in another direction and torture them some more. Great fun!
I got a couple of ideas from the Houston Chronicle. Great source of mystery and intrigue. One of my romances, Painted Lady, sprang from Shakespeare’s mistaken identity plays. I mean, what if…
~J
Fabulous post, June. You failed to mention one of your other sources of inspiration, though… The Houston Firefighter’s Calendar! As many links as you’ve sent me over the years, I know this is one tried and true visual reference that you use over and over again!
Loved Painted Lady, Badlands and Bad Habit… Reading A Twist of Fate now! Keep them coming!!!
Candace
Ah, yes, Candace…I suffered a memory lapse. How could I omit the gorgeous Houston Firefighters? When it comes to inspiration for heroes, just check out those luscious guys. It couldn’t get much better. It makes one want to start a fire…maybe just a small one
I actually did have a small electrical fire in my townhouse when I first moved to Houston. The place was filled with men who looked even better in person. Oh, Mama!
I’m so glad you loved Painted Lady, Badlands and Bad Habit. I hope you love A Twist of Fate as well. I should have Kill Shot released soon. Keep your fingers crossed for the power to be back up in Virginia so I can have a cover for it. Keep reading and I will keep writing. Great deal all around.
*hugs*
~J
Great Post, June! It’s always good to hear how other writers do this. Love the covers.
CC
J.D., great blog post! I’m loving Bad Habit and am almost finished, dad gummit. The suspense is killing me.
Best wishes for a great writing career!!
Jane
June–so good to kow that you’re writing up a storm! Long time no see (we writers NEVER use cliches, just fresh, new langauge.) Good luck! Enjoyed your blog.
Jane Myers Perrine
Hey, Jane!
My long lost friend. (Yeah, we never use cliches) So good to hear from you. Glad you enjoyed the blog. I really enjoyed participating here on ENLR. Can’t stop writing. I’ve always got something going on, at least on virtual paper. Hope we can catch up soon.
*hugs*
~J
June–Sylvia here from the FB Mentors page. Sarita Writes is my sis-in-law. I got a notice about your ‘appearance’ here today and read through the interview. I wish you CONTINUED AND GREATER SUCCESS!
Hi Sylvia!
Thanks so much for dropping by. I appreciate your encouragement and support.
~J
for some reason my post did not show up yesterday i wonder what happened to it?
so weird I aw it posted now its gone.
anyway I said good luck and hope all goes well i have not read any of your books but i think i will try some. I will find out more about ths late I am so busy these days i dont have time to go to the powder room.
good luck.
if this shows up twice sorry.
julieb
Hi Julie!
Sorry your post didn’t stick! But I appreciate your tenacity in coming back. Thanks for your good wishes and I hope you let me know your opinion of my work. I look forward to hearing from you.
*hugs*
~J