Interview

Hi Shara and welcome. I am so glad you could join us here at RomanceJunkies. To start, will you please tell us a little bit about your current projects?

 

I am always hoping from project to project. As much as I try to stay on task, I can’t seem to force myself to do it. I have an ongoing series, sold in installments exclusively on my website. It’s a prequel to the CHEVALIER series, kind of how it all began. I am also adding to a previously released historical, GEORGIE’S BEAU. I decided to take it right on through WWII. Then there’s yet another CHEVALIER book, tying up loose ends. I want to finish the sequel to ONE GOOD MAN at Cobblestone Press, then of course the sequel to GREAT SCOTS. There is just so much to do.

 

Do you remember what your first “real” writing project was?  Did you write it out by hand or use some other method?

 

My first attempt was hand written when I was in junior high. I had three notebooks going of an epic Duran Duran saga. I was so busted when my teacher confiscated it in English class and hand delivered it to my parents. It was a beginning of a lifelong friendship with my English teacher but man was I ever grounded. The love scenes were a bit much for the seventh grade.

 

You’re pounding away the keyboard, and it is time for a break.  How do you spend the time?  Walking around?  Checking email? Something else?

 

I am a huge nerd so I love research. I can spend hours and hours researching obscure topics. I sometimes find it impossible to tear myself away from surfing the net long enough to actually write.

 

What skills would you like to further develop as an author, be it with respect to your writing, or the publishing and marketing side of the business?

 

I really think I need to develop my stories more. I love to read people like Eve Vaughn who really get you in the heart. I think I might entertain, but to able to write like that - that is my ultimate goal.

 

Which room in your home do you like best?  Which one would you love to change?

 

I love the living room, but I am never in there. It is all light and comfy, but I don’t want to clutter it with my writing mess. If I can change any room it would be the den. I would like to make it more like the living room, but then, I wouldn’t be able to write in it anymore. I am a mess when I write.

 

When you want to watch a movie, do you prefer going to the theatre or do you like to be all comfy and cozy at home?

 

We have the whole widescreen surround sound set up in the den, so it is way better than a theatre in my opinion. I can eat what I want, pause a movie, or yell at the screen. We love just laying around watching movies.

 

What is one of your favorite activities that your friends and family consider to be rather weird?

 

I daydream like complete movies in five minutes. I will just zone out and come up with a complete scenario, from start to finish. My husband usually waits until I snap out of it then he asks me to tell him about my latest “movie”.

 

If you could meet and spend the day with anyone in the world, famous or not, who would you choose, and why?

 

I would have loved to meet and chat with Nina Simone and Josephine Baker. They fascinate me. I would love to talk to Julia Child about her brief career as a spy, and I would love to get Ian Fleming to reveal if he was the real 007, and if not who was? Of course, they’re all dead, so I’m out of luck.

 

Describe the "perfect" hero?  What about the "perfect" hero for you?

 

Wow, personally I like my heroes ultra-Alpha. Any man secure in his manhood with just a touch of jerk is perfect - in fiction. In real life, my husband is as close as it gets to my perfect hero. Not the perfect man, but perfect for me. Sometimes patient, sometimes not; usually confused by mercurial moods, he is generally a good sport.

 

What is this romance writer's idea of the "ideal romantic evening"?





I am so easy. Feed me excellent food and I’m in seventh heaven. I love eating on the water, maybe a small jazz club. I don’t require much excitement. Bu then, my first date with my husband was an all day date in Hawaii so how do you beat that?

 

How do you describe Shara Azod?  How do Shara Azod’s family and friends describe her?

 

I am basically a homebody. If I could be a hermit I would. I think my kids would say I am weird and funny, my friends probably call me strange. I am ultimately a huge nerd so I can usually be found reading something about subjects no one else is interested in.

 

MORE FUN...



 

Spring is in the air!  What signals spring for you?  Do you do the annual spring-cleaning-thing?

 

I am so not domestic. It is so very sad, but I have someone come and clean for me. Spring to me is the beginning of my allergies getting out of control. It’s just awful.

 

Name the one bug that will have you run screaming from the room?

 

Ants terrify me. I stepped in a red ant hill as a kid and never got over it.

 

What does this romance writer wear at night?

 

I usually wear my husband’s clothes at night. I demand his shirts and he just gives them to me.

 

Are you a breakfast person?  Do you like breakfast foods at other times of the day?

 

Breakfast is a couple of cups of coffee unless it’s after eleven. Not a morning person. SO much so, my husband wakes me up with a steaming cup of coffee. He is such a wise man.

 

And lastly, no interview of a writer would be complete without this question:  what is your favorite comfort food?

 

Any form of chocolate. I am such a cliché. Dark, light, mild, doesn’t matter. Chocolate is just about the closest thing to heaven you can eat. 


 

Thank you, Shara, for your time!  Best of luck with your writing in the future!

By Brooke Wills

Romance Junkies Publishing Editor

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