Meankitty interviews Cleo

Writer & Cat: Jennifer Lynne interview

Find out what Jennifer has to say about the felines in her fiction – such as Lancelot in the recent Red Sage Secrets Volume 28 novella, Seducing Serena – and what part her own cat Cleo plays in the overall writing process.

Princess Cleo’s interview will be available later in the week!

Are you a cat person, a dog person, or something completely different? Read Meankitty’s interview and let us know!

Happy reading!

Jennifer Lynne

2. I don’t like ice cream or chocolate but I do love coffee, cheese, salt & vinegar crisps and seafood. Not all at once.

3. I got my head stuck in a hole in a cave at the beach when I was a child and now have a fear of not being able to escape enclosed spaces. For half an hour I thought the tide was going to come in and drown me.

4. My favourite colour is green. It reminds me of nature, large rambling parks and the hills around Melbourne and helps me feel at peace.

5. I know how to make a pair of spectacles, and how to read the prescription in a lens.

6. I sold Avon while at high school and used to go into strangers’ houses after school to teach them makeup tricks. Would I let either of my daughters do that now? No way.

7. My aunt went to Sean Connery’s BAFTA party and I helped her choose the dress she wore!

8. No matter how much time I spend in the sun my legs never turn brown. Even fake tan fails on my legs. Why?

9. Worst hair day ever – while having my hair dyed the hairdresser became ill and left for some time. When she returned my hair was dead white. So she tried to fix it by adding auburn. It came out bright orange. Seriously bright. I cried all the way home. They couldn’t fix it for two weeks.

10. Favourite holiday destination – Port Douglas & Palm Cove in Far North Queensland. Hoping to get back there one day soon.

My favourite Twitter post recently was the one from author Jeaniene Frost, posting a link to  her latest Night Huntress book, where you actually get to read some of it online. Way cool!

There are too many demands, none of which leave much space for writing.

Until recently, I just made the time anyway, and whether it was for half an hour while the girls were at diving training, or at 11.30pm when the costume business had been put to bed, I always tried to write for at least a short while every day.

So what has changed? Lately, every time I sit down at the computer, I am racked by a fit of ‘the guilts’. I should be putting on another load of washing to get ahead for tomorrow. I should be checking out our costume competition on the web, designing a new Google ad, analysing visitor trends to the Costume Illusions website, reviewing the checklist for tomorrow’s seminar to ensure I haven’t forgotten anything, ringing my mum, feeding the cat… the list goes on and on.

So I open my work in progress, look at it for a couple of minutes, then sigh and close it down.

On my priority list, writing has become firmly entrenched at the bottom.

But as corny as it sounds, without writing I’m simply not complete. And I’ve decided it is time to take back control of my life. Rein it in just a little, so that the part of me that needs to write, can.

This blog is the first step in that process, and from here I have a whole afternoon ahead of me. The significant other has been banished back to his house, the children are out with friends, the family are on notice not to call, the washing is done  and Costume Illusions… well, its Sunday, damn it, and everyone deserves a day off.

So I’m closing now with the blog, and I’m going from here to open my work in progress, and to keep it open, for as long as it takes to get back into the swing of writing…

That sense of guilt can go to Hell.

I am a writer.

I was in the middle of a sensual feast, halfway through writing a chocolate body paint sex scene when I heard the screaming from downstairs.

I ran, only to discover one daughter standing on the coffee table, the other on the kitchen bench, my cat Cleo sitting next to the cat door looking very smug, and my first ever mouse in the house streaking across the floor.

I thought screaming and jumping on furniture was a myth. Apparently not.

I joined my daughter on the coffee table, and we all stood there awhile, wondering what to do. As the only adult in the house it was incumbent upon me to find a solution to this tricky state of affairs.

Could I get to the laundry and find my broom, somehow sweep it out of the house? Er…no. What if it crawled up the handle?

Could I let my cat finish… no. Too mean. Too messy.

So I did what any sensible gal would do in this situation. I crept to the phone and rang my significant other, who was just heading into the gym for a relaxing sauna and spa.

And he, of course, did what any sensible man would do in this situation. He laughed.

But to his credit he also came home, and calmly herded the little creature towards and eventually out the back door into the garden. Too late in the end to go for his sauna, but not too late to show the girls and I that even the smallest things can expose a real-life hero in our midst.

Sometimes it is good to step outside our fictional world for a time, and to remember that even in our everyday lives, no matter how unlikely the situation, there are people out there willing to step up and be heroes.

That said, nothing beats the enticing hero of our imagination, right? Hmm, now where was I? A drizzle of chocolate body paint across a perfect set of abs…