Welcome J.Q. Rose, author of Sunshine Boulevard

Before we get to her interview, let me say that Janet - the name her comrades are allowed to call her - has so much warmth, humor and good will, it radiates from every word she writes. Get a load of her picture. This is a lady bubbling over with life!
If you haven't read Sunshine Boulevard yet, hie thee to the MuseItUp Bookstore http://tinyurl.com/7usad6m and get a copy. It's a novella and absolutely mad fun. I mean, how and why is everybody getting offed in such a peculiar a way? You'll have to buy the book to find out! But first, a little bit more about this imaginative author:

1. What is your favorite book?
I think I am in good company with so many who fell in love with Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird.”


2. Who is your favorite writer?
My role model is Mark Twain. He is such a great storyteller and so witty.

3. How old were you when you were first published?
Other than “published” in my school paper, the newspaper published a poem I wrote for the dedication of the city library, but I don’t remember what was dedicated!! It could have been a section for the area museum. I must have been in high school.

4. What writing style do you most abhor?
I like beautiful, flowing descriptive paragraphs, but not when there are paragraphs and paragraphs to read that they stop the action in the story. So give me more action, and not all the description.

4. What is your favorite word?
Today it is 'transcends'. The choice will probably change tomorrow.

5. When and how do you write? (typewriter, Mac, in a café, for four hours each morning, etc?)
Since I am trying to finish my WIP, I have dedicated an hour and a half after lunch to work on it. I usually sit at the desk and type on the keyboard. No pencil and paper for this gal. I type at the speed of sound so I can get my brilliant ideas down as fast as I think of them!!

6. What is your greatest fear when you first turn in a manuscript? Did I get the editor’s name right?

7. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
I overuse “just” and “that.” I just never realized that I used just just as much as I do that.

8. Which talent would you most like to have?
I took piano lessons for about six years as a child and HAD to take a year of piano when in college. I am still a mediocre player. I admire those who can make the keys sing and can play without music. My dad could play any song if you just hummed it to him. Oh yes, and one of his tricks was sitting UNDER the piano keyboard and playing a song with both hands. He was a talented musician, but only for his own enjoyment. I guess I didn’t get that gene. Today would be his 95th birthday, so he his in my thoughts.

9. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
This is a topic we discuss in my workshop for Life Story Writing. So many people think the answer has to be something like I discovered a new planet or developed a new medicine or changed the world. But there are so many kinds and degrees of personal achievement in our worlds. My greatest achievement some days is following a recipe and it comes out delicious. At other times it is listening to my beautiful daughters and realizing how much of a contribution they make to our society. Of course, as a writer, finishing a satisfying project has to be at the top of the list.

10. How would you like to die?
Quickly with no hanging around waiting for it. I am sure all of us wish to die with no pain. After death, I will join a whole choir of angels and we will sing our way to Heaven.

Thanks so much, Heather, for this opportunity to be a guest on your blog and to meet your readers.
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Bio: J.Q. Rose
J.Q. Rose grew up in the Midwest amid flat lands blessed with fertile fields of corn and soybeans and wide horizons colored by vivid sunsets. The hard working people there have influenced her life values and writings.
Janet is a wife, mother, and grandmother. Those are the most important facts about her. She is a wife to Ted, mother to their two grown daughters, mother-in-law (ouch), and grandmother to four young grandsons and one two-year-old princess. (Aren't grandmas supposed to sit in a rocking chair on the porch and wear their white hair up in a fly away bun? Not anymore!! )

She taught elementary school, then moved into the small business world when she and her husband owned and operated a floral shop, garden center and greenhouses. After the sale of the business, full-time RVing was the next life adventure as she and her husband chased the sunshine across the country seeing new places and making new friends while working on various projects. This fantastic lifestyle afforded many opportunities for writing travel articles and stories on the RVing lifestyle. Her first published mystery, Sunshine Boulevard, sprang from her experiences as she traveled the state of Florida. Her latest humorous holiday short story, The Good Neighbors, is the result of living in a Florida retirement community.

Janet spends her winters in Florida and her summers up north camping and hunting salamanders, toads, frogs, and snakes with her grandchildren. Blogging and photography occupy her spare time as well as playing her favorite board game, Pegs and Jokers

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Sunshine Boulevard, mystery/light horror
Tag line:
Mysterious deaths upset the Florida retirement community interfering with their seasonal activities and turning up more than dead bodies

Blurb:
Who or what is killing the seniors on Sunshine Boulevard? Follow Jim and Gloria Hart, snowbirds who annually migrate to Florida for warm sunshine, fun, and games in snow-free winters. However this season, Jim Hart, a volunteer First Responder in his retirement community of Citrus Ridge, is drawn into the investigation of the mysterious deaths. Even in the midst of the unfortunate demise of the residents on Sunshine Boulevard, the Harts try to enjoy the winter with friends. They don't realize that their friends are getting together for their own kinds of affairs with each other. The neighbors are in a dither over the deaths, but perhaps more intrigued by the gossip about the affairs and why the naked lady was found lying in the geranium bed.

Excerpt:
“Jim, Jim!” Gloria threw her keys on the kitchen counter and then stashed her mat and barbells in the hallway closet.
“Jim!” She called louder. He was not in the Florida room. She gingerly stepped from the kitchen to the carport. She darted into the attached shed housing the laundry room with storage in the front and Jim’s workshop in back. She walked through the workshop and out the door to the neat little back yard and found him watering their garden plot.
“Did you hear about George McDonnell?” Gloria shook her auburn hair, compliments of her favorite brand of hair color #118. Her clear blue eyes filled with tears.
“Yes, I heard.” Jim kinked the hose to stop the water flow and dragged it to the faucet on the back of the house. He slowly turned the tap to cut off the stream of water and dropped the hose to the freshly cut grass.
“How sad that he died alone. Oh, Jim, he wasn’t discovered for so long his body just ro...” She couldn’t say it.
“Gloria, come in the house. I have to tell you something. I don’t want the neighbors listening in on this conversation.” Gloria knew her husband of thirty-five years well enough to realize something wasn’t right.
As they stepped into the bright kitchen, Jim turned to her. Looking straight into her eyes, he said, “Royce called this morning. George’s death was peculiar. I guess, that’s what the Medical Examiner is saying.”
Jim was friends with the county M.E., Royce Williams. They worked together on investigations involving the First Responders Unit. Living in a retirement community, the Medical Examiner and medics were frequent visitors. An ambulance at a home was not a significant event at Citrus Ridge. It was part of life and death.
“Royce told us George’s body did not rot. It couldn’t have decomposed that quickly because Miss Lottie checked on him every day when she brought him the mail in the afternoon. She delivered it the day before he died. He was alert and talked about the weather.
“When Lottie called 9-1-1 at one o’clock yesterday, she was so upset she couldn’t even speak. They traced the call to her house. When the police arrived, she only pointed to George’s house.”
Jim stopped a minute. Gloria saw the anguish in his face. “They discovered George sitting in the living room in his recliner. His body was mustard yellow. His clothes were melted to his body. The odor was not a rotting smell, but rather like burning or scorching. In fact the fabric in the chair was charred. Ron was the first responder. He told me when he and the paramedics touched the body, it turned to powder.”
Gloria cried out in disbelief. She covered her face with her hands. “Dear God. What happened, Jim? What could have caused such a thing?”
“Ron arrived at the scene first. You know Ron. Always talking and telling greatstories.” Gloria remembered the usually fun-loving raucous Ron.
“Royce told me there was such a look of horror in Ron’s eyes. He was traumatized by what he saw. Ron told him he moved George’s wrist, and his hand fell making a pile of yellow ashes on the floor.”
“Dear God.” Gloria sat down at the dining room table feeling nauseous. Jim wiped his eyes. “I don’t know how Ron and Lottie will ever forget this nightmare.”
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Links:
Sunshine Boulevard is available at Muse It Up Publishing Bookstore
http://tinyurl.com/2c53noz and

Amazon.com http://tinyurl.com/4czwr6h

bn.com http://tinyurl.com/4442b94

as well as at many online booksellers.

The Good Neighbors is available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0066CYXQI
All royalties support local food pantries.

J Q Rose Website http://www.jqrose.webs.com

J Q Rose Blog http://www.jqroseauthor.blogspot.com