JANE AUSTEN LIED TO ME
Jeanette Watts
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GENRE: Romantic Comedy Audiobook
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BLURB:
What college girl doesn’t dream of meeting Mr. Darcy? Lizzy was certainly no exception. But when Darcy Fitzwilliam comes into her life, he turns out to be every bit as aggravating as Elizabeth Bennett’s Fitzwilliam Darcy. So what’s a modern girl to think, except….
How could my hero be so wrong?
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EXCERPT:
Feb 7
This afternoon I got further confirmation that I’ve been seeing an awful lot of Michael. I was wandering back to the apartment, when Lon hailed me from one of the couches inside the lobby doors.
“I have a message for you from your boyfriend,” he said, kind of stiffly.
I looked at him stupidly for a moment. “My what?”
“Your boyfriend was here. He said his phone was dead, so he couldn’t call or text you to tell you that he can’t stick around for dinner tonight. He has a late meeting with a new client and he had to rush back to the office.”
I was still having trouble with the boyfriend thing. “Wait – do you mean Michael?”
“If that’s the guy you’ve been seeing the last couple of months,” Lon said with a shrug. “The one you’re always having dinner with.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I protested. “He’s an old friend of the family. We grew up together.”
Lon’s head was back at his computer screen. “Boyfriend, friend. The guy who kisses you goodnight all the time after he takes you out for dinner. He’s not coming tonight. I’ve delivered my message, that’s all I’ve got.”
Right then Allie walked up. “Hey, Lizzie! Waiting for Michael?”
“No, he’s not coming tonight.” I headed to the elevator with her.
“That’s a shame. I know how much you enjoy having dinner with him, even if he does aggravate you a lot.”
“Yeah. It’s kind of a love-hate relationship,” I agreed.
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Interview:
Where are you from? Tell us a little about yourself!
Where I’m from gets to be an interesting question. I was born in Chicago, but I’ve lived in 9 states so far. We moved a lot as a kid, and as an adult I’ve also lived in several places. So, in chronological order, I have lived in Illinois, Montana, California, back to Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, California, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, and right now I am back in Illinois. But am interested in moving to West Virginia.
Everyone assumes from that history that I am an army brat, but I’m not. My dad was in research and development, and when the funding would run out, so did his job. And we would up and move again. Going to college and grad school meant being in Wisconsin and back to California, and now it’s just out of coincidence my husband’s job offer took me back to Illinois.
It has been something of a revelation, living two hours from where I was born. People from Chicago – and at least as far south as Central Illinois – are very gregarious. I have been described at various times of my life as a golden retriever: I am now living in a land of golden retrievers. We are all very sociable. We have conversations talking with the cashier in the grocery store. We make friends standing at the corner while waiting for the streetlight to change. We make friends waiting for the elevator. We talk in the elevator, who does that? My outgoing nature has usually been explained as “that’s just Jeanette” but it’s bigger than that. It’s what it means to be from Illinois.
Tell us about your book? How did it get started?
Jane Austen Lied to Me is a quirky romantic comedy, and sort of an in-joke for Jane Austen fans. Most Jane Austen fanfiction is a rewrite of one of Jane Austen’s novels,; this one is a satire of all six of her published books.
My heroine is a Janeite who really wants her life to be a Jane Austen novel. But no matter how hard she tries, life around her just refuses to cooperate.
The book has been published for a while, but I am now finally able to release the audiobook! My vocal talent, Kristyna Zaharek, is amazing. She puts so much feeling into her narration: I am not sure I have ever heard an audiobook narrator have so much range of expression for nuances between frustration and anger, happiness and excitement; she even manages to create several different shades of nuance when what the character is feeling can only can be best described as lust.
I feel very very fortunate to get her! She has recently signed a contract with Penguin Random House, so when she is an audiobook star, I can say “I knew her when…”
How do you create your characters?
Is It a fair answer to say I have no idea? They are all inside my head, banging on my skull to get out. I just have to faithfully report what comes out of my pen… well, figuratively. What comes out of all my fingers when I put them on the keyboard.
Someone asked me how I get my characters to behave, and I found that extraordinary. Characters don’t behave! They tell you what they’re going to do, and it frequently does not match what you thought they were going to do… There are those who will force characters to their will, and make sure they stick to the outline. Stifling creativity like that sounds like something you would expect out of AI, not out of a human brain. So I trust my characters, and I let them tell their stories.
What inspires and what got you started in writing?
My best friends have an important role in my writing history.
My best friend from fourth grade, Terri, was my audience for all the stories I used to write that I would tell her while we walked to school. She is insanely smart, with the world’s best memory. She would ask me to retell my stories to other kids on the playground, and I would forget things. She would have to stop and correct me as I was retelling and missing parts of the story. One day, she looked at me and exclaimed, “Are you writing these down!?” And that was when I started writing. So it’s all her fault.
Many years later, another best friend, Leah, is why I am not just a scribbler, but a published author. Starting stories is easy, finishing them is much harder. I had been working for years on my first novel, Wealth and Privilege. It’s historical fiction that is filled with research, and of course, writing out the story is just a lot of work. To finish the book you really have to crack down and write. Frequently. So, Leah made a pact with me one New Year’s Eve. She would call me every single day, and ask me one question: “Have you worked on your book yet?” When we started this process, I would say no more often than I would say yes. And that was my cue to drop everything I was doing and go sit down and write for a while. Eventually, I remembered that phone call was coming and I would make the time to write before she called. It felt so good to say yes instead of no when she asked her question. It helped me create the habit for writing, for prioritizing my life and my time to give my manuscript the attention it needed. It worked, and my first book got finished. They say the first book is the hardest one to write. It’s true. Every book I have written takes less time than the one before.
Where do you write? Is there something you need in order to write (music, drinks?)
I like to write in pretty places. Once, when I was doing the Tucson Festival of Books in Tucson, Arizona, after the festival, I spent the day writing in Saguaro National Park, sitting in a stone picnic pavilion built by the CCC, completely surrounded by saguaro cactuses.
Today, I am writing this while sitting in a winery that happens to be 10 minutes from my house. It’s very hot, and they have delicious wine slushies. It just seemed like the perfect thing to do today, spend the afternoon sitting in the shade on a porch, overlooking the Illinois countryside with a very sugary wine slushie and my laptop.
I need a place with few distractions. My own back porch is a good fallback during nice weather. During the winter when I have to write indoors, my breakfast table is just inside from the patio, but I am far more likely to jump up and pour another cup of coffee, or open the refrigerator for no reason, or go throw in a load of laundry, instead of focusing on writing.
How do you get your ideas for writing?
My brain hates me and won’t leave me alone. I don’t have time to finish the last idea it came up with that takes me 100 hours or so, when it comes up with three more ideas that are going to take 100 hours apiece.
A lot of stories are the result of conversations with people in a variety of contexts. My first published book was inspired by the back covers of my friend’s romance novel collection. Jane Austen Lied to Me is the result of conversations after the Jane Austen Festival. A Woman’s Persuasion was inspired by a lecture I went to at a JASNA conference. There was something the lecturer said, and somebody responded to, and I sat there, listening, and thinking, “That’s not true at all. You just have to have the stakes right.” Another unfinished novel was the result of a conversation at my birthday party. My Dearest Miss Fairfax is the result of a conversation in a Reddit group.
What do you like to read?
While I mostly write historical fiction, (with the exception of 2 of my Jane Austen books), most of what I like to read is history books. I love biographies, I love giant volumes like Shelby Foote’s Civil War series, I love anything by David McCullough. My To Be Read shelf is always full because whenever I travel, my car has a funny way of stopping at history museums. I just paused in Philadelphia on my way home from a conference, and somehow three history books ended up coming home with me.
What would your advice to be for authors or aspiring in regards to writing?
Understand yourself, and why you’re writing. Are you writing because you want to be rich and famous? Keep in mind that the way to be a successful writer is to be famous first, and then write a book. Are you writing because you have a story in your head that you really need to get out in print? Do not be afraid of editors. No one’s writing is perfect, and after you’ve gotten your manuscript in the state fit to be seen by other eyes, you want a lot of other people to read what you’ve written, and find all your mistakes. Having editors and beta readers finding all your mistakes saves you the embarrassment of having your writing released to the general public, and the public thinks you’re an idiot because your writing isn’t very good, or you got your facts wrong, or you really need some help with proper grammar and punctuation.
Anything else you’d like to share?
If any of your readers out there are also history buffs or historical clothing afficionados, check out my YouTube channel, “History is My Playground.” My life is a costume party filled with dancing and pretty clothes. My sewing room is very prolific, and my car has a funny way of stopping at nifty old houses and museums, it’s fun to share all that with everybody.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Jeanette Watts has written three Jane Austen-inspired novels and two short stories for Jane Austen Fan Fiction anthologies, two other works of historical fiction, stage melodramas, television commercials, and historical dance manuals. She is a regular contributor to MOMCC Magazine.
When she is not writing, she is either dancing, sewing, or making videos for her YouTube channel and TikTok accounts, “History is My Playground.”
Contact Links
Website: https://www.JeanetteWatts.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JeanetteWattsAuthor
Twitter: @JeanetteAWatts
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6967936.Jeanette_Watts
https://www.goodreads.com/author/dashboard
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/jeanette2420/_saved/
Instagram: @jeanetteamlwatts
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClz5LwyUEhPYhBS6piNpBqQ
Or YouTube handle: @historyismyplayground1827
TikTok: @historyismyplayground
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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION
The author will be awarding a Jane Austen Coloring Book (US only) to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter.
2 comments
Thank you so much for hosting and featuring this author today.
This sounds like an interesting book.