I would like to welcome author Candice Gilmer to Simply Romance Reviews.  Candice is a very talented author and not only that, she's a great person and friend.   I would like to personally thank Candice for being a constant source of support for me not only while I developed SRR but also my previous ventures.  (Candice - you're the best!!)
 

SRR:  Can you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?

CG:  Sure.  My name is Candice Gilmer, and I’m thirty-three, and I live in the thriving metropolis of Wichita, Kansas.  I grew up in Kansas, and I’ve always been an overly imaginative kid.  I was the kid you could lock in a room with a sheet, a box and a clothes pin, and I’d be set for the day, creating adventure after adventure with my props. 

SRR:  Was there a point in your life when you knew you wanted to write books?

CG:  As a teen, I had horrible grades, because I wouldn’t do my homework – I didn’t understand the importance of doing fifty algebra problems to understand one concept.  So I’d get grounded when my grade card came out.  I’d lose the phone, television, Nintendo, my car, leaving the house, and anything that I enjoyed to do.  I couldn’t even read books to entertain myself.  The only thing I had was our old DOS computer or the typewriter, so I’d make up my own stories. 

Eventually, it became a hobby. 

I can’t say I ever KNEW I wanted to write, but I got serious about my hobby about nine years ago, when I got the internet for the first time, and found a writer’s group.  I realized that it wasn’t stupid to write, and that I did have some actual talent.  From there the writing got serious. 

In the last few years, I’ve started truly thinking of myself as a writer – making time to do it every day, and pushing myself to finish things that aren’t done, and learning as much about the business as possible

SRR:  Is there a certain book or author who inspires you even today?

CG:  No, no one that I sit down and go “I WANNA BE LIKE THAT,” but there are a few that I really admire.  Janet Evanovich’s tight storytelling always inspires me to keep my writing tight and focused.  Steven King’s “On Writing” is like a bible for me.  It was the first writing instructional book I’d ever read where the author said it was okay to not plot out a book and just write it, which is how I write.  I’ve probably read the book a dozen times – I have passages underlined and everything. 

SRR:  What are some of your favorite books and authors?  Do you also read e-books?

CG:  I read everything, I have a palm, so I regularly download e-books, and I almost always have a print book with me.  I can’t say that I have any favorite books, really.  I have a few that I’ll read over and over, one is Stephen R. Donaldson’s “The Mirror of Her Dreams” and “A Man Rides Through.”  Part of me loves it because it’s fantasy that I can deal with; there’s no fairies or wizards or clunking deux ex machina that ends the story, and the world building is so intense and complete that I love it. 

I could sit here and name names of books and stories, but heck, I can’t even keep up on what all I read.  I think it’s a fair estimation to say that I read anywhere from 80-100 books a year (and that’s a conservative estimate, since I can usually read a paperback in a day.)

SRR:  Where do you get the ideas for your stories?

CG:  Everywhere.  Any little thing can set off an idea – the way the clouds look in the sky, a strange dream, a picture, a movie, a television show.  Currently, I’m toying with the idea of a time travel story, because I’ve been watching too much Quantum Leap.  Though even if I get a story idea together, it’s on the back burner because of other projects. 

SRR:  Can you tell us about your book, the science fiction romance called Unified Souls published by Aphrodite’s Apples?  

CG:  Sure.  Unified Souls, or rather, Jasmine Storm, has been with me for a long time.  She’s evolved over years of world building and character creating.  Unified Souls is the first story in the series, talking about Jasmine’s beginnings and what she went through when she met Devin Cartell, and how he seems to take over her life, helping her evolve to a more human form of her cyborg self. 

She has to learn to deal with the fact that she’s not a part of a collective intelligence anymore, and that she has to take care of herself, because no one else is going to do it for her. 

Oh, and there’s this whole war that she gets wrapped up into in the midst of this journey of self discovery. 

SRR:  Is there a little bit of you in your heroine, Jasmine Storm?

CG:  Sort of.  Jasmine was created as the perfect image of what I wished I was – someone who was unemotional, who didn’t have to deal with the conflicts of emotions.  But I found as I wrote her, she was much more emotional than I expected, and she was like a child, really.  She may have had the body of an adult, but the mind and morals of a child.  A perfect moment that illustrates this is the following scene: 

             “Can you not end the binding?” Jasmine asked Devin.

            “Not like you think.  The only way to end a binding is for one of the binded to die,” Devin said.

            “I could perform such a task,” Storm said, looking at the door.  Mayd would be in her bed, almost asleep by now.  It would be easy for her to walk in and snap her neck. 

            “But you won’t.  You don’t kill unnecessarily.” 

            “How do you know what I am capable of?”  With Mayd gone, the two of them would be able to explore these sensations, understand what it was they did to one another. 

            “Because you can kill someone doesn’t mean you should!”  Cartell sighed.  “Even you should know that.” 

Her blatant innocence and lack of human morals feels childlike and naïve, like she missed the lessons in morality that we all have grown up with. 

And she can kick butt, which is always a fun thing. 

So is she like me?  Not really, but I wish I could kick butt like she can. J  Which is why she’s so fun to write. 

SRR:  What is your idea of the perfect hero?

CG:  The perfect hero to me is a man who’s a balance between strength, conflict, and honor.  If he’s got too much strength, he tends to be overblown, a walking muscle head.  Too much conflict, and he winds up whiny.  Too much honor and he won’t change who he is.  The point of a hero in a book is to show how he can evolve. 

I have been really lucky – I’ve grown up with a strong family and honorable men around me all my life.  My father, my brother and my husband are all good, respectable men.  None of them are perfect, by any means, however, they all are strong men that I’d trust my life to (and I do trust them all completely).  Together, the three of them combine to influence all the heroes in my work. 

SRR:  Will there be a sequel to Unified Souls?

CG:  Absolutely.  I’m still fleshing out all the plot threads from Unified Souls, making sure that I don’t forget anything – there’s so many plotlines and stories going on in that book, I don’t want to miss anything.  I almost have a working idea of where I want the next one to go…

 But I can say this – Jasmine and Devin won’t be together in the next book. 

SRR:  Can you also tell us about your short story, Unholy Night, in the anthology Spellbound published also by Aphrodite’s Apples?

CG:  Absolutely.  Unholy Night is about Marissa, who refuses to celebrate Halloween because of a personal tragedy.  She’s forced to attend a Halloween party, where she meets Neil.  Neil has his own secrets, but neither of them can deny the instant attraction they have together.  The story itself is about redemption, and learning to move forward and to let go of pain. 

SRR:  Are you working on any books as we speak?

CG:  Always.   I’ve always got two or three stories in the mix. 

Currently, I’m working on a book about Kandi Kayne, who makes a brief appearance in Unholy Night. 

And there’s a couple of contemporary novels I’m working on, though I have no idea if they will be print or e-books yet.  They’re not done.  

Also, AE Rought and I are fleshing out the idea of a scifi fantasy novel. 

SRR: Every Wednesday on your blog, you play a game called Useless Movie Knowledge.  Are you a big movie buff?

CG: 

Well yes, I am. I love movies.  I’m the gal who sits there hushing other people in the theater, because I get so lost in them.  I’m also the one with a pocket full of tissues because I usually wind up crying. 

 My folks used to tease me relentlessly, by turning on HBO or some other movie, and giving me three seconds to figure out what movie it was.  95% of the time, I was right.  Sometimes, I can even guess just by the sounds or the music. 

SRR:  I read somewhere that you are a huge fan of the Star Wars movies.  Which is your favorite movie and why?  Which character do you have most in common with? 

CG:  Huge is hardly an accurate word.  At this moment, I’m looking at my twenty Star Wars toys hanging all around my living room, and wishing I had the room to hang up all my toys and posters.

I can’t say that any one of the movies is my favorite – it’s more the whole story arc.  It’s such a well developed world and the characters, how they are intertwined and connected over so many years is incredible to me. 

I think Princess Leia will always have a strong place in my heart, because when I was a kid, a princess was dainty and sweet and didn’t speak until spoken to.  And then there was Princess Leia.  She could fight, she had quick retorts, and she wasn’t about to back down just because she was a girl.  She was still beautiful, but she didn’t take any crap from anyone. 

It completely changed the way I viewed princesses, and women for that matter.  That a woman could be tough and still soft, that image has been imprinted on my mind ever since I was a kid. 

SRR:  Talking about movies and books, have you based any of your characters on any celebrities – whether it is by physical appearance or personality?

CG:  Ewan McGregor.

Wait, uh, oh, well…  (Don’t look at the pics of him that wallpaper my writing area)… No, I don’t. 

Actually, after Star Wars: The Phantom Menace came out, I got a huge fascination with Obi-Wan Kenobi, both because McGregor is handsome, and I had this whole other image of the character.  Kenobi captivated me.  Kind of like trying to imagine your grandmother as a teenager or young adult. 

So inspired, I started writing fan fiction with Kenobi (again another honorable man), and even now, my heroes tend to be a merge of Kenobi and other men in my life. 

SRR: What advice would you give to aspiring authors?

CG:   I have three pieces of advice. 

1.  Shut up and do it.

Seriously.  Just write.  A lot.  Set a daily or weekly word goal –1000 words a day, at least 5 days a week.  Give yourself the weekend to “catch up” if you don’t get it all done that week.  Carve out 1-3 hours a day to devote to writing.  If that means getting up two hours early to write while everyone is asleep, or at night after everyone’s gone to bed, then do it.  If you’re surfing the channels and nothing appeals, turn off the dang TV and start writing. 

Don’t spend months or years trying to work out the details.  They never end up where you expect anyway.  Just let the characters come alive, let them do what they wanna do, and you’ll have a great story.  Don’t make them do what you want them to do, let them do it their way.  You’ll always be pleasantly surprised.  Occasionally, you might want to yell at them (I’ve been known to do this myself), but if you have no idea what they’re doing until they do it, then how’s the reader?

2.  Read.  Everything you can. 

If you write romance, read historicals, paranormals, scifi, contemporaries, category, stand alones, series, dark, light, comedy, and drama.  Every book will help you write better.  If it’s a stinker, you can imagine how you’d do it better.  If it’s really good, it’ll inspire you do better.  It’ll help you develop a voice and style all your own; you’ll learn what you like, what you don’t like and help you figure out what works best with the kind of story you like to write. 

And all this happens subconsciously as you read.  You’ll know if a book is really good.  You’ll also know if it’s really bad.  You can’t put your finger on the why all the time, but when it resonates with you, it’ll sink inside your mind, helping you be better.

3.  Have a good support system around you. 

Writing is a very lonely business.  Having someone who supports what you do is extremely important.  I have my husband.  He may not like romance stories, but he’s very supportive.  When I want to write, he takes care of our daughter, no questions asked.  Heck, he even has a copy of Unified Soul’s cover in his car’s back window.  I would not be where I am without his support. 

There has to be someone who supports what you do.  Someone who believes in you.  It might not be a spouse, but if it’s a good friend, a family member, someone who sees and understands that this is your dream and that they’re there to do whatever you need.  Even if all they do is ask “So how’s the writing?” and mean it – that can mean the world. 

SRR:  Thank you so much for sharing your time with us.

CG:  Thank you, this was fun.  I enjoyed it quite a bit.