About author, Jessica Scott: USA Today Bestselling author Jessica Scott is a career army officer, mother of two daughters, three cats and three dogs, wife to a career NCO and wrangler of all things stuffed and fluffy. She is a terrible cook and even worse housekeeper, but she’s a pretty good shot with her assigned weapon and someone liked some of the stuff she wrote. Somehow, her children are pretty well adjusted and her husband still loves her, despite burned water and a messy house.
She’s also written for the New York Times At War Blog, PBS Point of View Regarding War, and IAVA. She deployed to Iraq in 2009 as part of OIF/New Dawn and has had the honor of serving as a company commander at Fort Hood, Texas twice.
Most recently, she’s been featured as one of Esquire Magazine’s Americans of the Year for 2012.
**Contact Jessica: Website Facebook Twitter
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INTERVIEW
Describe your writing style in five sentences: I can do it in one: pure chaos. Just kidding. I start with characters – usually a name gives me a sense of who they are. Then I start figuring out what their strengths and weaknesses are. Then I figure out what their problem is: what do they want and why can’t they have it. After that, it’s figuring out where and what they’re doing and who the supporting cast is around them.
You knew you wanted to be an author when…: I don’t really know. I started writing seriously back in 2007 and basically didn’t quit.
Hard/paperbacks or eBooks? Depends. I love physical copies and I’m much better able to find my notes in a physical copy but I’m doing more and more reading on digital these days.
What is the writing, editing, and publishing process like for you? I usually have a very ugly first draft, get it as reasonably unscrewed as I can, send it to my editor who usually tells me to add more emotion and make things sexier, then I revise, have multiple people proof read for me bc I am incapable of seeing my own mistakes and hit publish.
What is the last great book you read? Black Hearts by Jim Frederick. It’s absolutely hands down one of the most powerful books about the Iraq war that I’ve read.
Do you have any writing rituals? Not really. I tend to write the first draft in Scrivener then edit and revise in word. I really like seeing track changes. Helps me feel like I’m really cleaning that sucker up.
Is social media a help or a hinder? I like it. I get to interact with other authors and I love the interaction on my Facebook pages with readers.
How do you come up with the titles of you books? Magic 8 Ball 🙂
Salty or sweet? Depends on what time of the month it is.
Where do you feel that you work the best? Coffee shop, hands down. I get so much work done at Barnes and Noble, too. I love being surrounded by books.
As an author, what is the best advice you’ve been given? When I was first starting out a very good friend of mine told me: write the book only you can tell. There’s a story and it’s yours. Tell it the way you need to tell it. Now that I’m published, the best advise I’ve gotten is: what if you never hit it big? What if you only reach a small amount of readers with every book. Will you still be a writer? And my answer to that is yes, definitely. But it changes your perspective: focus on the story. Everything else is secondary.
What are you working on right now? Finishing up the next two books in the Homefront series and then working more books in the falling series.
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“Homefront” by Jessica Scott
Blurb:
He’s always loved her…
First Sergeant Gale Sorren waited a war and half a lifetime for a chance to get stationed near the ex-wife who left him years ago. When he finally musters the courage to see her, the life he imagined she was living was nothing close to the reality.
She’s never stopped loving him…
Melanie never stopped worrying about Gale each time he headed off to war. But he’s never been there when she needed him and she’s had fifteen years to steel her heart against him.
But when Gale moves to Fort Hood, he finally has a chance to make things right with Melanie and the daughter she raised without him.
Can Mel trust her heart to a man who has always let her down?
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