My Mind Grid Interview

Here is an excerpt from Adri’s interview:
FULL INTERVIEW HERE

First off, introduce yourself – Stella the person vs Stella the Author.

Stella is a pen name. Why? Because there was someone already writing romances under my legal name. I chose Stella because it’s so fun to say. Everyone goes Steeellllaaaa, the first time they hear it. I always laugh. Marie is my middle name. Alden is interesting. I am descended from the Pilgrims.

John Alden was a cooper; someone who repaired the barrels. Good for Priscilla for choosing the man who could make her a house as opposed to the leader, Miles Standish, the man with a gun. I’d like to think I’d be that smart.
I was born in Vermont, a small state in New England just south of Canada into a family that still doesn’t get me. I am all about the highs and lows of life. I love the ocean and painting with watercolors. For a while, I flirted with being a professional musician. I had a career in the eighties repairing recording studio electronics. Now that is a story for another day. I sing, I Zumba, I yoga, and I love life to its fullest. I believe, as Stephen Covey did, that one should live life in crescendo.

I have a day job as a software architect which feeds the other side of the brain. In case you haven’t noticed, I hate being bored.
I must mention, too, I have two grown daughters, one lives in Rome, the other in Brooklyn who come from opposite sides of the spectrum. We talk often and share our ambitions as if the same age.

2. Now, tell me about your writing Stella.

I’ve only been writing for about three years. When I was a kid, I worked in the local public library. Often, when I was supposed to be straightening shelves, I read. When I found the fairy tales in their original version, I was shocked. They’re perfectly gruesome. Do you know that one of Cinderella’s sisters cut off a toe, the other a heel to fit into the slipper? They were found out because there was blood left on the road. There can be a gory road to a happily-ever-after and maybe we need that.
This is the strangest thing about why I started to write. I was looking at my credit card bill for Amazon and shocked to see it had gone close to two hundred dollars when I was trying to be frugal. I vowed I would spend less and then my heart sank. What would I do? I figured in the morning I could spend less, if I started writing my own romance instead of reading. I kid you not. So now I write every day from 5:30AM until I need to leave for work around 8:00AM.

3. About your book “How to train your Knight” – how on earth did you come up with that?
Oh my God. Do you know its original title was “Dyed in the Wool?” hahhahah. Gah. What was I thinking?
But as for the genre? I remember thinking, after reading a particularly insipid whiney romance, that I would like to read a book where the concept of “romantic love” was not so fully ingrained into the human culture. That was the spark, the rest came from that. My thought process always starts with a “what-if.”
What if that key I found was to a safety deposit box? What if some people were hiding in society with just a little magic? What if a woman wrote an intelligence program far beyond what is known today?

4. What are you working on now? Can we expect more? When?

I am about two-thirds done with book two. Not sure of the title, but in it, Sir Thomas comes back from his travels as a merchant to find out he has a son, and some land near the border of Scotland. The giggling girl he fell in love with, has grown up, and her heart was broken when he left. It will take some doing to win her back. I’m working to have this book done in six months. There. I said it. I’ve set a goal.

5. Do you have a ritual, or a strange habit before, after while you write?

Hahahah. Lemme think.

My brain is most creative first thing in the morning. So I’m oft times writing in my pajamas with a cup of coffee. I write until I’m almost late for work. So snack food is usually oatmeal while my cats whine to lick the bowl.
I write at what used to be the dining room table. My husband usually sits kitty-corner, studying online to be a holistic nutritionist. He gets the groceries so my days of chips and cookies are long gone. I love fresh berries, though. We eat paleo, but I have been known to sneak out for warm bread, like a crack addict.

6. Now, I verbally kidnapped you for a few minutes and you mentioned your hubby helping you out with your editing & you have an editor on hand too – does hubby write too?

Hee hee. I am published by Soul Mate Publishing, a small but growing house, and Cindy Brannam is my editor there. She pushed me through a lot of the new-writer issues and I am so in her debt. The funniest was how many times I address people by their given name in conversation.

“I say, Thomas, what goes?”
“It is naught, Marcus”
Get it? Oh my God. There were hundreds of instances. I actually rolled on the floor, laughing, as I began to mock myself.
Now my husband-editor knows me best and fixes my quirky misspeaks and plot holes. He started out by editing a king-fu scene in my first book, (contempory, not yet published.) and then it went on from there. He is not a writer, but his brilliant ADD brain catches the smallest of dots and quotes missing.
The sex scenes, which might be embarrassing to some, or perhaps kindle a need in others, we treat like other scenes. For us, having been married so long, in a healthy relationship, sex is just another way that couples communicate. That’s why I don’t skip those scenes and put them behind closed doors. How people make love is important to see, because it shows the growth of the relationship. I don’t equate gentle love making with porn.

I would love to know how we can stalk – I mean, uhm, follow you – so could you please provide as many or as few social media contact links as you wish?

BUY
Facebook
Twitter: @stellamariealde
Goodreads

————******* Please add in ANYTHING you think is relevant [education etc,] or simply ignore questions you do not wish to answer. Write this out as little or as long as you wish… We’re easy going!!

Thank you again for taking part in this, and for sharing your time! I really appreciate it!