What made you decide to be an author? I've always been a writer, for as long as I can remember. In third grade, I won my first writing award. From that point on i've scribbled notebooks
full of stories. Several years ago one of my Beta readers (and a very dear friend) told me that she wasn't going to read another thing I wrote until I finished a novel. That kicked me into gear
and I've finished quite a few since then. lol
What do you like best about being a writer? What do you like the least? Least... nothing. I cannot think of a single thing I don't love of about crafting stories. Story telling is an extension of me, as second nature as breathing. I love the release of finally telling a character's story and
giving them their happily ever after. But the very best thing, is when someone else gets as much enjoyment from reading something I wrote as I did writing it. That sort of bond is unbreakable.
How do you think your life experiences have prepared you for writing? I'm a reader as much as a writer. Since I was a little girl, I would read anything. So, when writing assigments flowed in at school, I would immitate the writer's I was reading. I picked up a lot of style and grammar tricks that way. Over the years I continue to do it. Though not necessarily a "life experience' in terms of what most people would think, but this was probably the one thing that prepared me the most. Reading.
Have you ever felt as if you were being dictated to while you wrote a book--as if the words came of their own accord? If yes, which book did that happen with? All of them! The second I climb into a character's brain, they tell their own story. I just make sure it has all the vital elements and they react, the words coming.
from there.
You’ve written three novels and are working on a fourth novel. What’s your favorite time management tip? Right now? I don't have a time management tip. I wish I had some that I would follow. With the first novel about to release and two stories in with editors at The Wild Rose Press and the fourth being written now, I'm struggling to get all the things done I want done. I try to remember what Nora Roberts said in Love Between the Covers: Ass to seat, fingers to keyboard. That's the only way things ever get done.
Are you a plotter or a pantser, i.e., do you outline your books ahead of time or are you an “organic” writer? I try to be a plotter. I really, really do. And mostly I come up with a skeleton outline of things that have to happen. But, as I said above, the characters tend to take over. Once they do, I'm flying by the seat of my pants!
If you had one take away piece of advice for authors, what would it be? Don't stop writing. Writers block truly doesn't exist. If you get stuck with a story, don't be afraid to move on to something else, writing stimulates your creativity and will eventually, blow right through whatever was holding you up.
Tell me more about The Finish Line. The Finish Line was my way to combine my husband's passion with mine. I love to write and to write romance, he loves racing. At some point, I wondered how easy it would be to write a saga of a small town, filled with street and drag races, and the lives they lead. Next thing I know, I have the Fast and the Furious of the romance genre! This novel is action and emotion packed. The best of both worlds.
Blurb
Another night at the races is more than burnt rubber with a hit of nitrous.
For one young woman, it's navigating trauma, love, and loss in the stifling Texas heat under the watchful gaze of her brother’s best friend and reigning King of the Streets, Jordan Slater. Home in Arkadia again, Raelynn Casey starts to heal from a terrible incident at college.
She finds love in Jordan, a member of her brother’s circle of racing buddies. When another in the racing circle, the guy who took her to her high school prom, exposes his feelings for Raelynn, tragedy erupts like a tank of race fuel.
Guilt, remorse, and pain must be overcome before Raelynn and Jordan can race to
The Finish Line.
How about an excerpt from The Finish Line?
He turned away from me and watched the approaching truck stop several hundred feet from our
hiding spot. The silence seemed to stretch on forever. Again, he said a lot without saying a thing and it made me nervous as hell. I couldn’t handle that sort of silence.
“I’m not going to pretend like it didn’t happen, Jordan.” Because it had happened. It had happened and I’d been left reeling from it. When he’d followed up kissing me stupid in his driveway after my graduation with verbally shooting me down hard, I’d been left with all sorts of unsettled emotions. “For a while, I thought you’d broken my heart.”
“I never meant to.” I barely heard his words over the roar of the small truck Hunter raced as he fired it up.
As much as I’d wanted to hurt him after that, as many nights as I’d spent awake in my dorm room wishing I could make him feel what I felt, I never could have. Not then and not now. I loved him too much for that. I always would.
“You didn’t,” I assured him quietly. The smell of melted rubber from Hunter’s burnout assaulted us. “I had to learn what being broken really felt like to know it.”
He turned toward me, his face and eyes softening in a way very few people had seen or would ever see. My knees went weak.
“Rae—”
I held a hand out to stop him. This line of conversation wasn’t what I wanted out of us right then. I wanted us back to an ease I could navigate with far more clarity. “Life is about learning. Besides, Hunter East taught me more than you ever could have.”
The concern vanished from his face and was replaced with a contorted expression of annoyance.
“Jesus, Rae.”
The smug smile on my face was as genuine as they came. I was proud, in a pesky girl sort of way.
“There are things I could have taught you, Hunter East never would have dreamed of,” he growled.
Where can readers find more about your stories, books and you on the Internet?
Website:
http://lesliescottromance.com/
Facebook:
http://facebook.com/lesliescottwrites
Twitter: @leslieSwrites
Buy Links:
Paperback:
http://bit.ly/2isnD4u
Nook:
http://bit.ly/2A88mjH
Amazon:
http://amzn.to/2A875ZX
Leslie Scott, thank you so much for being with us here today. I know my readers will enjoy your work and your interview.
Thank you so much, for having me!
