"Cold Call" Friday with Julie Lessman!

Welcome Julie, to your “Cold Call” interview!!  For those of you who don’t know what the “Cold Call” feature is, at the beginning of the month I have a poll, the winning author YOU then get to interview!! Julie Lessman won this month’s vote and I am thrilled to present her here with YOUR questions. Without any further ado, heeeerrrre’s Julie!

What is your secret (if you dare tell us) to write such long page turner books?  Books that hold the reader’s attention and draw them back to the book?

Well, as many of your readers know, I am a card-carrying CDQ (caffeinated drama queen) who likes LOTS of drama, both in my books AND my life, much to my husband’s angst! I am mesmerized by drama, be it a 30-second commercial during the Super Bowl or a tumultuous movie like Gone With the Wind, so in order to sit down and pen a 500-page book, there has to be enough drama to keep even a CDQ like me engaged, much less a reader.

I absolutely LOVE to yank at the heartstrings in every way possible, from a tender and emotional scene between a father and daughter, to a knock-down, drag-out love scene between two people who both love and hate each other at the moment. Anger seems to be a favorite of mine, and I wonder if that’s because I came from a pretty volatile family where tempers ran high. Who knows? All I know is as an emotional human being, I am infusing my roller-coaster emotions, reactions and feelings into my characters.

To do this, every scene I write is like a movie in my mind—I hear the dialogue and I see the facial expressions—every muscle and body movement, every tilt of the head, every tic in the jaw and swallow of the throat. I feel absolutely everything I am writing as if I am going through it myself, even utilizing a mirror to capture how I am reacting. I literally laugh, cry and get anxious as I am writing each scene, which translates onto the page, I hope, giving the reader the same roller-coaster experience I am experiencing at the moment.

Since you are all about passion, what is the most romantic location you have visited?

I would have to say Kauai, Hawaii because to me the very air smells like flowers and the beaches are beautiful and secluded, surrounded by lush scenery.

When you go out in public to do some shopping, post office, etc, do you often get recognized by readers? Has anyone ever been “starstruck” when they recognize you?

Uh, no. J

What inspired you to write? And what continues to inspire you?

Well, initially, it was Margaret Mitchell and that white-hot attraction she gave Rhett Butler for Scarlett O’Hara! From the moment I read Gone With the Wind at the tender age of twelve, I was hooked on romance. So much so, that I immediately set out to write (along with thousands of other love-struck young girls, I’m sure), what I hoped would be “the great American novel.” Obviously my dreams of grandeur didn’t go anywhere (grin), but I did write 150 single-spaced pages of a story that is actually the basis for my debut novel, A Passion Most Pure.

To me, then and now, there is nothing more intriguing than a man who wants a woman on his terms but can’t have her on any terms but hers. In the case of A Passion Most Pure, we have a bad-boy hero angry at God who is drawn to a heroine who will settle for nothing less than a relationship with God in the middle. From there, it was just a matter of borrowing from my own past (playing 2^nd fiddle to an older sister who was prettier and more voluptuous than me), and the ideas took flight.

The final inspiration for A Passion Most Pure, however, came one day while I was sitting in a beauty shop. I was reading a July 2001 Newsweek cover article about how Christian books, movies and music were on the threshold of exploding when something in my spirit said, “Now is the time to finish your book.” So I started my novel the next month. Hard to believe that almost forty years passed before God breathed new life into that early attempt and inspired me to finish my childhood novel of passion—only this time the “passion” would be for Him!

 (Just in case this one was missed) When/where will you be signing in GA this summer (if you know for sure yet!)

Unfortunately, I am not 100% sure that I will be signing in Atlanta this summer, but I hope to be and If I do, it would be at the Life Way Store at the Mall of Georgia near Atlanta.

And for all your many, many stalker fans…where can they find you online? J

I LOVE to hear from readers, so they can contact me through my Web site at www.julielessman.com, either by sending an e-mail via my site or by signing up for my newsletter at http://www.julielessman.com/sign-up-for-newsletter/. My newsletter is chock-full of fun info on my books and there’s always a contest featuring signed book giveaways. Also, I have a cool feature on my website called “Journal Jots” (http://www.julielessman.com/journal-jots/), which is a very laid-back, once-weekly journal to my reader friends that would give your readers an idea as to my relaxed style of writing. Then finally, I can be found daily at The Seekers blog (http://seekerville.blogspot.com/), a group blog devoted to encouraging and helping aspiring writers on the road to publication.

THANKS, CASEY, AND TO YOUR READERS FOR ALLOWING ME THIS COLD-CALL OPPORTUNITY! IT WAS FUN!

HUGS, JULIE

Hey everyone, it's Casey again! I need your attention for a sec. Julie is being drawn and quartered in a thousand different directions right now. Deadline, her aunt is not well (please be praying) and other everyday tasks. She'll be in as she can, but I've told her not to worry about returning everyone's comments. I'm sure you all understand as well! Spread some love and have a FANASTIC Friday. :-))


Friday's note:
The winner of Roseanna M. White's Jewel of Persia is...

Noseinanovel!

The email has been sent, thanks everyone for stopping by!