Thursday, February 10, 2022

Guest Author Naima Simone







What do the words ‘writer’s block’ mean to you? 

Pain. LOL! Seriously, I’m laughing, but at times, it can be an emotional pain because there’s a struggle to push through and get the words out. And fighting to obtain each of those words, sentences, paragraphs and pages is almost like waging a battle, and it’s a victory when I do. Yes, I do know how melodramatic I sound. LOL! I’m a writer, what can I say? I’ve experienced writer’s block a few times over my career, and it’s always been after something big and emotionally difficult occurred in my personal life. And that affected my creativity for a while. Every writer has their own way of dealing with burn out or writer’s block or exhaustion, whatever they call it. For me, it’s a painful blockage that you can’t always bulldoze your way through. Sometimes you just have to work your way through it. Whether that’s writing one hundred words a day or a thousand or three thousand. Or reading one day and writing another. Or crying one day and pouring that emotion into the book on the next. It’s whatever gets you through. As long as you don’t quit.

 Do you read your book reviews? If yes, how do you process negative reviews? 

I’m only human, so yes. Or should I say, I’m a glutton for punishment? LOL! Always, before a book releases, I can never resist reading the early reviews. And then the closer I get to release day, I slow down and have my sister read them for me. It’s self-preservation.  Otherwise, it would be all I did, and I wouldn’t get anything else done. As far as negative reviews, I break them up into three different categories: critique, not my kind of reader and oh-you-just-mad-and-wanted-to-take-yo-ish-out-on-somebody-today reviews. The critique or critical reviews are thoughtful and insightful, and I take away something from them even if I don’t necessarily agree with their points. Still, I might consider some of those points in my next books. The “not my kind of reader” review is simply that. My writing style or the book just might not have gelled with the reader, and that’s okay. Now were they nice about relaying that? Weeeell…  And the last one? Well, that’s self-explanatory, too. LOL! The critical review I don’t consider negative. But the last two? I just let them roll off my back and keep it moving. You can’t please everyone and you’ll only lose your sanity and pollute your spirit trying to.

If you could time travel, would you go back or forward in time? 

Oooh. I think I’d travel forward in time. I already know what’s in history so I’ll take my chances in the future. Like faaaar in the future. Like Robin Lovett’s sex planet future. LOL! 

 In one word, describe yourself. 

Blessed. 

 Do you find yourself getting emotional when you write? Is there a scene that sticks out as being the most emotional to write? 

Oh most definitely. I like to joke and tell people I’m emotionally stunted, but the truth is I pour so much of how I feel into my books. So yes, there are times when I’m writing, and I become swept up in whatever is happening with the characters. The scene that immediately pops out to me as one of the most emotional I’ve written was in Christmas in Rose Bend where the heroine Nessa confronted the truth about her mother, who passed from cancer several months earlier. She did it with her estranged, younger half-sister as well as with the man she’s fighting falling in love with. There were so many bruised and healing relationships there, and she’s facing that all while literally unboxing her mother’s secrets. It had sadness, hope, faith heartbreak and joy all in one scene. So it was definitely tough to write but incredibly satisfying. 

 What are you working on now? Can you give us a sneak peek? 

I sure can! I’m currently working on the fourth book in my Rose Bend series, Mr. Right Next Door. It’s a mean girl redemption story, and I’m both super scared and excited to write it. LOL! I’m also working on a novella that will be the first in my new Trapper Keeper Diaries series. All the novellas will be based on 80s songs. The first one is titled Jesse’s Girl. Because haven’t we all wondered what would’ve happened if Rick Springfield had just told his best friend’s girl he loved her? I mean, I have! LOL!

 So here’s a sneak peek at Jesse’s Girl! Excerpt from Jesse’s Girl 

“You knew,” India accuses again in that hoarse voice that sounds as if a carpenter took several feet of sandpaper to it. “It wasn’t mine to tell.” My voice, even and deep, doesn’t reveal how there’s an angry, wounded animal howling inside me. It’s demanding I go to her, wrap myself around her like a living blanket to soak up the hurt, that agony that damn near vibrates in her husky tone. “Wasn’t yours to tell?” she repeats. A harsh, hollow bark of laughter follows as she tips her head back and stares at the ceiling for a brief moment. When she looks at me again, anger flickers, mingling bright and hot with the pain. “You were supposed to be my friend.” “I am, India.” The fingers of my right hand curl into a fist. One I wish I could plow into the nearest wall. Or my best friend Jesse’s face. “I am your friend. Never doubt that.” “Yeah, Asa,” she scoffs, her full, bottom lip-heavy mouth twisting into a bitter caricature of a smile. “That’s why you let me walk around with my head up my ass for how long? You let me live a lie. You let me be a fool.” She shakes her head so hard, her dark brown, tight curls brush her cheekbones. “And for the life of me, I can’t figure out which one is worse. Finding out the man I loved—the life I lived with him—was a figment of my dumb ass Pollyanna imagination. Or that I was a willfully blind idiot, and everyone I trusted was in on the joke. The joke being me.” “Baby,” I murmur, risking her wrath, her disgust and stepping across that line in the sand to stand in front of her. To…touch her. I’ve been very careful about touching this woman. Brief hugs. Deliberate but friendly distance. Even a fucking pat on the head. But now, with the hurt beating off of her in red-tinged waves, I can’t not put my hands on her. Even if it’s just her slim shoulders. But it might as well be on those just-less-than-a-handful and utterly perfect breasts. Or those feminine, rounded hips. It doesn’t matter where my palms skate or where my fingertips press into her gleaming chestnut skin. It’s all sexual. It’s all dirty. Because it’s all her. For me, it’s always been her. My fantasy. My sin. My joy. My regret. My best friend’s woman. Jesse’s girl.




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