Good Morning!

I feel as though I don't know what to call you! Would you care to introduce yourself?

I don’t know what to call me, either!  Most of my writing friends call me Skully, but my family call me Jennifer, which is my real name, by the way.  Yes, I do remember that!  And I reply to either name.

Can you tell us more about your pen names and what you write under them?
 

Jasmine Haynes writes erotic romance with a side of extra spicy, Jennifer Skully does romantic comedy with a dollop of murder, and JB Skully has an erotic mystery series with a psychic bite from http://www.liquidsilverbooks.com.  My latest book is a Jasmine Haynes offering from Berkley called The Fortune Hunter, which is the first in a trilogy.

How did you choose your names?

Jennifer Skully and JB Skully are just shortened forms of my married name (which is way too long!).  I wanted to have two different names because Jennifer is much more humorous while the JB Skully Max series has a darker tone.  Jasmine Haynes, though, was derived from a high school crush.  You know how you’re 16 and you imagine getting married and you write the name over and over so you can see how it looks, Jennifer Haynes, sigh.  I dated him twice and that was that!  But I always thought it would be a cool writing name.  However, when I sold the erotica, my critique partners didn’t think Jennifer sounded erotic, so we changed it to Jasmine.

How long have you been writing? Which of your pen names evolved first? 

I have always been a writer, almost as soon as I could actually write.  But making a living at writing is hard, so I became an accountant instead!  JB Skully’s style actually evolved first, then Jennifer Skully, as I felt more humor coming out in the writing.  Jasmine was the last to appear.  I really was afraid I couldn’t write something if I didn’t kill anyone.  But lo and behold, Jasmine’s erotic romances were the first to sell.

Do you often feel like you have multiple personalities? *grins*
 

Don’t laugh, I do have multiple personalities! 

Does each of your alter egos have their own publisher or do you cross genre with one publisher?

Right now, yes, the pseudonyms do have different publishers.

How do you set yourself in the mood to write? What inspires you to sit down and start a new plot?

I have very close deadlines for the most part, so I treat writing like a job.  I have a goal of how many pages I need to write per day in order to make a deadline.  I think that’s the accountant in me!  I come up with my new plots while I’m falling asleep at night.  Or driving.  Or waiting in the doctor’s office.  In other words, I’m a daydreamer, always have been.  And if something appeals, I write that down for future use.

Do you write by the seat of the pants or are you a planner?

At heart, I’m a pantser.  However, with being published, I no longer have that luxury.  I need to have the plot already solid in my mind when I begin a book so that I don’t waste time down the road having to rewrite parts where I got lost.  I will say that the first Jennifer Skully book I sold, Sex and the Serial Killer, had a 60 page outline.  I wrote that in a month, then wrote the book in two months.  So, there’s something to be said for planning!

Are you a planner or more spontaneous in your “real” life? 

JH:  I am a planner in my real life.  Maybe that’s why I liked being a pantser when I was writing.  Using the other side of the brain or something.

Which heroine from your novels is most like yourself? Which would you most like to be like?

I think I’m probably most like the characters in the Jasmine anthology Open Invitation.  They are all women in their forties dealing with the fear of getting older, life changes, etc.  And gee, none of them had children, either! The character I’d like to be is Lili in It Must Be Magic.  I really loved the way she always looked on the positive side of life and stopped to smell the roses.  I never seem to have time to do that.  So maybe that’s why I chose to write her character.

How would your family describe you? 

Persistent.  In fact, my brother likes to joke that when he looks up the word in the dictionary, it’s got a picture of me right next to it!
 
What does your family think about your success as a writer?

My family is very happy for me and totally supportive of my writing.  Although my mother would prefer that I wrote children’s books.

When you write are there any quirks that must be in place for you to get in your zone? 

Yes!  I have to go for my hour-long speed walk first.  As I’m walking, I plan out the scenes I’m going to write and sort of get into the characters’ heads again.

Is there anything you change when you write as a “different author”?

With each pseudonym, I concentrate on the facets that make them unique from each other.  Jennifer Skully is the funny one, so I find myself thinking of funny things I can add, characters, sayings, etc.  Jasmine is the sexy one, so I think about the ways to make the book sexier.  Of course, they do cross over.  There is humor in my Jasmine and JB books and Jennifer and JB are also very sensual.  It’s just a matter of which facet takes the forefront.

I have not read a book from you that I did not love… I will admit my all time favorite Skully book is IT MUST BE MAGIC. Which is your all time favorite book you have written?

Thank you so much!  That’s an honor to have you say.  From Jennifer Skully, I would pick Sex and the Serial Killer as my favorite, although I loved T. Larry in Drop Dead Gorgeous.  For Jasmine Haynes, I’d choose Somebody’s Lover.  The family element in that book always makes me cry.  But my all-time favorite would be the Max series by JB Skully, probably Vengeance to the Max, Book 5, because everything was tied together in that book.  Perhaps it was because I wrote the five books in quick succession and I actually became those people.  I fell in love with Witt, my hero, I mean, Max’s hero.  I also think those are my favorites because I believe with those books I found out who I was as a writer, where my “voice” came into being.

How about all time favorite book from another author?

Now that is the absolute hardest question.  I have so many favorite books and authors.  But I would have to say my all-time favorite is In Ice by Leigh Wyndfield.  She is my critique partner, so you probably think I’m biased.  But that book is my favorite because her hero War was so tortured.  Right from the beginning he was hopelessly in love with the heroine and knew he could never have her.  I am such a sucker for the books where the guy is hopelessly in love, where the hero and heroine have a history, and my heart was just so wrapped up in War’s story.
 
THE FORTUNE HUNTER from Jasmine Haynes will be in stores this month, can you share some information for those of us who are still waiting impatiently for it to be released?

Thanks for asking.  From Berkley Sensation in trade paperback, The Fortune Hunter will be in stores on Nov 6^th.  It’s the marriage of convenience story with a twist.  Connor and Faith make a marriage bargain, he gets her father’s company and she gets the family she’s always wanted.  But when Faith wants fidelity, too, hot sex becomes the bargaining chip.  And that’s when Connor makes it his mission to make sure Faith lets go of all her inhibitions.  He turns her into his mistress, and what woman wouldn’t want to be her own husband’s mistress?

THE FORTUNE HUNTER was one of the steamiest books I've read in a long time. So just WHERE did you do your research? Or should I ask how?

Thanks for finding it steamy!  I have a very active imagination.  And my husband is always willing to throw in his two cents to help me out.  I will also admit that I did do some research on different toys down at a local adult store...and that scene is actually in the book!

Faith goes through an amazing transformation through the story. Her personal demons are portrayed with great sensitivity and humor at the same time. What was it like for you creating her?

Thank you, that’s quite a compliment.  I believe we all have insecurities, about our looks, our bodies, our age, our intelligence, etc.  In creating Faith, I tapped into my own insecurities.  Hopefully that’s why she came across as realistic.

Connor is beyond hot...is he based on anyone you know in real life?
 

My husband thinks Connor is based on him!  So I really shouldn’t disillusion him by saying Connor is completely fictitious.  Nah.  That would just hurt his feelings.  Actually, my husband’s a very funny guy, and I hope I gave Connor the same kind of sense of humor.

THE FORTUNE HUNTER is part of a series. What do you do to keep up the momentum in each book? How do you keep the writing fresh?

The heroines in the three books are completely different types of women.  The next book, Show and Tell is Trinity’s story, Faith’s best friend in The Fortune Hunter.  She the so-called gorgeous one, the debutante type, so her insecurities are totally unlike Faith’s.  Who Trinity is as a person also makes the loves scenes have an entirely different feel to them.  And that always makes the writing seem fresher.  Because I’m not writing the same character over and over.  In the third book, the heroine, Josie, Faith’s cousin, is a career woman, so again, her insecurities are of a different nature.

The second book in this series SHOW AND TELL will be released in July of next year, have you started writing the third book?  Any idea when it will be on book shelves?

I just turned in Show and Tell to my editor yesterday.  I have an anthology to write for Berkley in between Show and Tell and the third book, Josie’s which is called Games People Play.  I don’t have a release date on that yet, but hopefully it will be in the early part of 2009.

What is up next for J.B. Skully and Jennifer Skully?

I would say that JB Skully is on hiatus right now, but I hope to at some future date find a New York publisher for the Max series.  Jennifer Skully is working on a new book, but at this time, it doesn’t have a home.

How many books do you write a year?  How long from start to finish does it take you to get a novel written and ready to be sent to an editor?

I do 3 books a year.  I tried to do 4, but it was overwhelming.  It takes me 2 months to write a full length book, 100,000 words, then I take a month to revise and have it critiqued, so the process is 3 months, but of course, then there are editor revisions and line edits, also.

Do you have an agent or do you represent yourself?

I have a wonderful agent, Lucienne Diver with Spectrum Literary Agency.

Before closing, I must ask… Can you tell us one thing about you that no reader will ever have known before reading this interview? 

Hmm, let me see.  I know!  I have to go and buy a corset because the novella I’m writing for that Berkley anthology has to feature a corset.  So I need to know what they feel like when you wear them.  Gee, I think that makes the corset tax deductible. 

I’d like to say thanks so much for having me.  I love to hear from readers.  I can be emailed at skully@skullybuzz.com or contacted through my web site, http://www.skullybuzz.com or MySpace, http://www.myspace.com/skullybuzz.  I’ve also got a contest going on my site with several other authors and we’re giving away lots of free books and other cool prizes.