That's cj petterson” (Yep, that’s right. No capitals and no periods.)
When did you realize you wanted to write novels?
I’d been piddling around with the idea of creative writing for a few years, but didn’t get serious until after I retired from Chrysler and moved to Mobile, AL. I wanted something to do with my free time, so I took a class at the University of South Alabama and got positive feedback on the first seven pages I wrote. Those seven pages became the start of my second novel which was published in 2015. My first romantic suspense was published in 2013.
Are you traditionally published, indie published, or a hybrid author?
I am traditionally published so far, but the hybrid author idea is becoming more and more interesting to me.
Where do you write?
My Dell computer is in a 12x14 bedroom I converted to an office that I share with my photographer son, his Apple computer, three printers, fax machine, scanner, paper shredder, TV, two bookcases, two desks, two executive chairs, a small file cabinet, plus a leather chair and sofa. The walls are covered with photographs and artwork and every flat surface is littered with some part of a work-in-progress, either his or mine. Hmmm. Reviewing that paragraph makes me think I might be a bit overcrowded in there.
How much of your plots and characters are drawn from your life? There is a part of me, real or wished-for, and some my personal adventures in all of my female protagonists. I once spent five-and-a-half days white-water rafting in Colorado and another time spent two days driving a doors-off, stick-shift Wrangler on a Jeep Jamboree off-road adventure in the Sierra Nevada Mountains (watched the Jeep ahead of me roll over). The protagonist in my Choosing Carter romantic suspense novel enjoys some of these same adventures.
Real settings or fictional towns?
I have to say both. My short story, “Bad Day at Round Rock,” (in the 2017 anthology The Posse) is a historical fiction piece based on real events that took place in 1878 in the real cow town of Round Rock, Texas. In the two stories I’m working on currently, one is set in Mobile, AL, and the other is set in a fictional town in Nevada. Both require a lot of research to ensure their descriptions are authentic.
Staying in the research vein, I’ve just signed up for a “citizens police academy” in Mobile, because that’s the setting for my private detective mysteryWIP. A few years back, I attended (and recommend) Lee Lofland’s top-notch Writers Police Academy where I gained a lot of general police procedural knowledge. The guest of honor for the 2017 WPA is Craig Johnson, author of the Walt Longmire mystery series. (http://www.writerspoliceacademy.com/ )
What’s the quirkiest quirk one of your characters has?
One of the supporting characters in “Bad Day at Round Rock,” is a bank robber who, as he’s being chased out of town by the law, yells at someone to get a child out of the street and out of the path of the horses—allegedly a true story.
What’s your quirkiest quirk?
I used to do all my ironing wearing high heels, but I do very little ironing now and when I do, I’m wearing aerobic trainers. However, I still love to hang my laundry outside on a clothes line to dry.
If you could have written any book (one that someone else has already written,) which one would it be? Why?
I would love to have written Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, because I think it’s the ultimate romance novel.
What’s your biggest pet peeve?
My biggest peeve might be people who assume they know what I’m going to say or do in a given situation…and then I do it! Ticks me off no end to be so predictable. I know, I know. Predictable is comfortable, but I wish I were a bit more eccentric.
You’re stranded on a deserted island. What are your three must-haves?
Survival things . . . a way to make potable water, a way to fish, and my Bible.
City girl or country girl? Ocean or Mountains?
Slightly citified native Texan who loves the mountains but is living on the Gulf Coast. Oxymoron, right?
Tell us about your latest work:
The Posse is an anthology of Western human interest short stories that includes my historical fiction piece, “Bad Day at Round Rock.” The Posse has all the action you’d expect from stories about cowboys in the old Wild West, but it’s not your average shoot-em-up Western anthology, and “Bad Day” is not your average Western story.
When the outlaw Sam Bass robbed the Union Pacific train of $60,000 in uncirculated gold pieces, he set off a chain of events that culminated in a “Bad Day at Round Rock.” Men lose their lives seeking their fortunes, outlaws are shot down in the streets, an innocent man is accused of murder, and a girl becomes a woman in a story of history, mystery, myth, greed and love torn from the pages of West Texas history.
Everything in the story about Sam Bass is as true as newspaper reports and lore can make it. And Lilly Malmstrom is a composite of my imagination and my tiny, black-haired, blue-eyed, maternal grandmother, Selma, who emigrated alone from Sweden in 1904 at the age of 18. Like Lilly in the story, Selma had to work off a debt because her money was stolen on the ship.
Seven authors contributed short stories to The Posse. All are human interest tales but with all the action you expect in a story about the Wild West.
Lyn Horner: The Schoolmarm's Hero
Franks Kelso: One Way or Another
cj petterson: Bad Day at Round Rock
Charlene Raddon: The Reckoning
Chimp Robertson: Headed for Texas
Jim Stroud: Savage Posse
Chuck Tyrell: Set a Thief
Bonus- Frank Kelso: Tibby's Hideout.
BIO
Author “cj petterson” is the pen name of Marilyn A. Johnston whose publication credits include two contemporary romantic suspense novels as well as non-fiction and fiction short stories that have appeared in several anthologies. When she’s not writing—currently a mystery series that features a private detective named Jannicka Konnor and a modern-day Western about a man named Austin Burnette—she’s watching her granddaughter’s soccer games, yanking weeds, renovating her house, or curled up in her velour, leopard-print chair, reading.
Marilyn has served as a judge for Romance Writers of America’s Daphne du Maurer contests and is a member of the international writers group Sisters-in-Crime and their online Guppy group, the Alabama Writers Forum, the Alabama Writers Conclave, and a charter member of the Mobile Writers Guild.
Find out more about cj petterson at:
blog at: www.lyricalpens.com
Coming 2017—“Bad Day at Round Rock” a short story in The Posse, a Western anthology of tales of action, romance, mystery, myth, and truth. Available for pre-order at http://amzn.to/2lQRvcD
Thanks, Charlene, for hosting this post.
ReplyDeleteMarilyn (aka cj)
PS: Your blogsite looks wonderful.