Finding Christmas Love: Author Interview with Emily Mims

My interview today is with Emily Mims who is a prolific writer. Her current book is #34 in her writing catalog. And I know this won’t be her last!

How did you come up with the idea of your current Christmas themed book?

Caitlyn and Tanner both appeared in previous Smoky Blue books.  She always intrigued me-the prickly, frumpy, overweight church secretary trying to make it as a songwriter.  Tanner is the quintessential rich bad boy who needs to love again.  Caitlyn cried out for her own story.  And what better hero to pair her with?  I also am making the point that a woman doesn’t have to be thin and gorgeous to find love.

Could you give me a short synopsis of the story for my readers?
Songwriter Caitlyn Murphy is tired of getting her sister’s hand-me-downs.  From bicycles to men, everything has always been Meghan’s first.  Now forced into a fake romance with her sister’s widower for the sake of her nieces, she begins to fall for the sexy, infuriating Tanner Dyson.  But the plump, prickly songwriter doesn’t want anything else of Meghan’s - including her husband.  Caitlyn wants a love of her own, a man that will sweep her off her feet and love her with romance and passion.  And she won’t have that with Tanner. 

Tanner can’t believe that he’s attracted to Caitlyn.  She’s nothing like the beauties that normally catch his eye.  He’d like to turn their fake relationship into a real one.  But she doesn’t want him.  She wants a love of her own.  She wants a knight in shining armor.  She wants a man that he can never be.  Or can he?  Can the magic of Christmas and Mistletoe give Caitlyn and Tanner the happily ever after they both so deserve?

What made you decide to do a Christmas themed book?

This is my fourth Christmas novel with Boroughs.  My publisher likes to do them, and I love to write them.  There is something magic about the season that makes the books extra special.

What are some of your favorite Christmas traditions?

That’s hard to say.  My life has undergone so much change in the past few years and it would be almost impossible to name something that we do every year.  Some of my favorites that we do as often as possible would be seeing the lights on the Riverwalk, Christmas Eve services at church and recreating my grandmother’s cornbread dressing.  I doubt we will be doing any of those this year, however.  We are going to Tennessee and Georgia for the holidays to see our six grandchildren.

What’s next? (future books, novellas, special appearances you want to mention)

I am working on the seventh book in the Smoky Blue series (Violet).  I am under contract for one more (Amethyst) and then plan to move the stories back to Texas for anywhere from five to eight books set in the world of community theater.  The good people at the Woodlawn Theater are opening their doors to me to see the inner workings of live theater.  I will write a bridge book tying the Smoky Blue series to the new one.

What’s the best writing tip you’ve learned or been given that you’d like to

share?

Nora Roberts has a pithy statement that I will not repeat in its entirety, but what it amounts to is to just do it.  Just sit down and write.

What do you know now about writing and publishing you wish you had learned sooner?

It’s not something I wish I’d known, but something I wish I’d done.  I lost my original publisher in 1986.  Admittedly, there were other things going on in my life at that point that made writing almost impossible.  But I waited too many years before going back to it, and there was a twenty-eight-year gap between my eighteenth and nineteenth book.  That gap should have been much shorter.

That's all for today's interview. If you'd like to learn more about Emily's writing, here's a link to her Amazon page: http://amzn.to/2z9xfYO