Welcome J. A. Belfield (aka Julie)! Julie is the author of Darkness & Light. She’s visiting me as part of her blog tour promoting her latest release, Blue Moon, a sequel to Darkness & Light.

I took the opportunity to ask her a few questions about her writing and what else she has in the works concerning a certain pack of werewolves:

Claire:  Let’s talk about writing in general first. When and Where do your best ideas come to you?

Julie:  Often in the shower or when washing up … hmmm, I sense a water theme here.

Who DON’T you tell you’re a writer / have written a book and why?

Dude, I tell anyone who asks. LOL. I’m proud of my achievements.

Finish this sentence for me:  “You know you’re a writer when…”

… Your husband finally gets your attention after talking to you for three hours and says: Where the hell did you just go?

Yeah, this happens a lot in my house. 😉

LOL… I hear ya!

How do you get past writer’s block / avoid burnout?

I don’t actually believe in writer’s block. In fact, I wrote a blog post quite a while ago saying pretty much that and why. To me, as I work at my writing career full time, it’s just like any other job. Some days, you’re just not in the mood as much as others. It’s as simple as that. But, just like a regular job, even on the off days, you’ve still got to give it your best shot. And if you only succeed in writing 74 and half words? So what? Just make sure they were worth it—either because they ROCK! or because you learned something from them—and you have no reason to be p****d at yourself.

Let’s talk about your UK-based werewolves–The Holloway pack. The pack’s stories, specifically Sean and Jem’s, occur in both contemporary times and historical periods, implying reincarnation or time travel. If reincarnation, I always wondered how it was they had the same names even though they were different people…or were they?

Ooooh, this is one of those dodgy questions, LOL. Nah, Jem & Sean are definitely reincarnated. No time travelling involved. Yep, for sure, most times reincarnation is involved in a story—or real life (if you’re a believer)—the soul doesn’t come back with the same name or body. That isn’t the case for Jem & Sean. They do return to life with their names from before and into replicating bodies. Don’t forget, an Eternal binding spell has been placed upon the duo, stating one cannot exist without the other—which means in order for either of them to survive in each lifetime, history must repeat itself and one has to be recognizable by the other if a reunion is to take place. So artistic license was definitely used in this area. 😉

Might there ever be futuristic / urban fantasy Sean and Jem like the Jetsons?

Oh lordy! Hehehehe, I’d never even given it a thought. Futuristic Sean stalking an unsuspecting Jem on hover-shoes? Too funny.

I guess that’s a possibly not. LOL.

When you sat down and wrote Darkness and Light, did you have all the books of the series at least loosely conceived or has each story come to you in succession? If the latter, is there a series arc that is unfolding?

I had absolutely nothing beyond Darkness & Light in my head when I set out. Jem & Sean’s tale came to me as a standalone and that’s exactly how I treated it. About a week after I’d finished, I realized I missed them, and within days the concept for Blue Moon was born—yet another story I planned to write as a standalone. Then, whilst writing that, more ideas began kicking up a storm in my mind, and I think I was about halfway through Holloway Pack 3: Caged when I fully understood the potential of the world and characters I’d created. At the moment, I’m now planning for there to definitely be six full length Holloway Pack novels to the series

If you were going to do a spin off series from your book, what character or characters would you “borrow” or make-up, drawing upon the same world, and what type of events would you write about?

I’m going to try responding to this without giving too much away. Rather than write a spin off from the Holloway pack series, I kind of ended up doing exactly this in reverse. You see, I have a short story that released on December 3^rd also—it’s called Escort to Insanity, part of the Make Believe anthology, and is my first release that was not anything to do with Holloway Pack. By the time I’d finished, though, I’d fallen a little in love with these new characters and world, and I’m already planning ahead to a potential trilogy for the main duo. However, there are some smaller part characters in there who have somehow ended up woven into Holloway Pack 4. And that’s all I’m saying on that one.

Other than the Holloway Pack, what else is percolating in your imagination for future tackling. I hear rumors of a YA book or books. Anything you can share?

I have had YA ideas percolating. It started out as a singular idea, then another popped in, followed by another. Right now, I think I have four openings to YA ideas waiting for attention. But I told myself I’d finished Holloway Pack 4 first. When I do write my YA ideas, I plan for them to be standalones—and none of my ideas are anything alike, so I’m excited about each of them, all for different reasons.

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Thank you, Julie for visiting me today!

Julie is currently running a giveaway on her blog. Take a peek at what she’s got up for grabs. If you know about her books, you’ll recognize the names on the jewelry.

Be sure to shuttle over to her blog for a chance to win her giveaways.

Buy Blue Moon here: