Interview with Jean Williams and #giveaway!

Today we welcome back Jean Williams. Jean is very graciously giving away a copy of Just Claire. Include contact information. 

Jean, thanks for coming back to visit us. Where do you get your inspiration for your books?

From people past and present. I study character traits and with Just Claire, I drew from my past when my mother almost died in childbirth. Afterward she suffered depression the rest of her life.

What's your key environment that helps you get to writing? Do you have a writer’s nook, corner, getaway? Where do you do your most productive writing?

I learned a trick for first draft creative process. I use pencil and yellow ledger paper and the color yellow releases my creativity. Using this trick, I’ve written in the car while in the passenger’s seat and on my sofa at home by a warm fire in our wood stove. I can be most productive anywhere, but I must admit, I have to consciously tell myself to get to work when I’m at the stages of entering the words in a document on my computer. This includes the many edits which seem to go on forever!

What are you saying in your book(s) that will encourage Christians today?

God loves you and cares about you. He’s our mighty Father and without Him life is a hollow shell. Nothing is impossible when we’re within His strength and when we put aside trudging forward on our own might.

How do you pick names for your characters?

I pick my characters from people watching. I like to choose bits from people I know and are interesting to me and expand on this. If someone has a bit of spunk and sass, I flesh out these traits and inflate them.

How important are reviews to you?

They are important, not as much as the ratings, which I do enjoy the five stars, but in gathering the many which will help bring awareness to my books. And I learn from the reviews which point out problems in my work. I decipher the negative comments which are subjective or in error on their part (something they have missed which was obvious to other readers) from the comments which truly help.

Who are some of your favorite authors? What genre is your favorite? What books have you enjoyed lately?

Tracie Peterson, Kim Vogel Sawyer, Bonnie Leon, Jane Kirkpatrick, and more recently I’ve discovered Sydney Tooman Betts, who is a top-notch storyteller and writer. I read these authors’ books in my favorite genre Christian Historical Fiction (my favorite are Alaskan life stories). Right now I’m reading Kim Vogel Sawyer’s ten book Prairie Series. For contemporary young adult reading, I enjoy the up and coming author, Cynthia T Toney and her Bird Face Series. She writes honest, heartwarming stories.

One mother damaged. One family tested. One daughter determined to find her place.

ClaireLee’s life changes when she must take charge of her siblings after her mother becomes depressed from a difficult childbirth. Frightened by the way Mama sleeps too much and her crying spells during waking hours, ClaireLee just knows she’ll catch her illness like a cold or flu which hangs on through winter. ClaireLee finds comfort in the lies she tells herself and others in order to hide the truth about her erratic mother. Deciding she needs to re-invent herself, she sets out to impress a group of popular girls.

With her deception, ClaireLee weaves her way into the Lavender Girls Club, the most sophisticated girls in school. Though, her best friend Belinda will not be caught with the likes of such shallow puddles, ClaireLee ignores Belinda’s warnings the Lavenders cannot be trusted. ClaireLee drifts further from honesty, her friend, and a broken mother’s love, until one very public night at the yearly school awards ceremony. The spotlight is on her, and she finds her courage and faces the truth and then ClaireLee saves her mother’s life.

Downloads available at Amazon: http://ow.ly/XmCJ5

See the trailer: https://youtu.be/s8x5lJKZFHU

Jean Ann’s Site: http://jeanannwilliamsauthor.com/

Author Jean Ann Williams, the eldest in a large family, enjoys digging into her fascinating childhood to create stories for children. Having written over one hundred articles for children and adults, Just Claire is her first book http://ow.ly/XmCJ5. She’s a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and she writes regularly on her blog. Jean Ann and her husband live on one acre in Southern Oregon where they raise a garden, goats, and chickens. Her favorite hobbies are hiking through the woods and practicing archery with her bow.