Please introduce yourself, who are you and what do you do?
My name is Laura Susan Johnson. I think of myself as a writer, since that's what I've been doing the longest. I am also a nurse and land property manager. I have been writing since I was 11 years old.
What first inspired you to start writing?
I was with my brother and cousins at the babysitters and we started drawing pictures of dogs with crayons and a story began to come out of those pictures. Later I concentrated more on writing than drawing, but to me, a story begins as a picture. I'm a visual person.
Do you still have any of your family pet stories?
I wish I could say I do, but they've been lost to history. I wrote about my Grandpa's dog Candy (who was a male dog) who went missing and then came home a year later. I also wrote lots of dog and cat stories with schoolmates in the 6th grade :) But I don't have any of them now :(
Who is your favourite author and why?
I have several favorite authors. Standouts include Michael Hornburg (Bongwater and Downer's Grove), and JT LeRoy (Sarah and The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things). Even if "he" turned out to be a hoax, she's a hell of a writer!
If you could write anyone's biography, whose would it be?
I would be honored to be asked to do anyone's autobiography no matter how famous they may or may not be. At present, I have this idea to write a fiction based on a real plane crash story that occured in North Carolina in 2003. I watched a documentary on this crash, and every key character in the story is female: The pilot, the ATC, a firefighter, a young college student, and finally, the NTSB investigator who found out why the crash occured. It just seems like a wonderful story to be told factually or as a fiction.
What advice would you give new and aspiring authors?
I consider myself a greenie so my advice is to tell your friends about your baby, talk about it on twitter and facebook, support other indie authors as much as you can, even going as far as giving them pro bono PR. Give of yourself, and you will be blessed in return :) And above all, never ever doubt yourself for a moment. If you wrote it, it was a story that needed telling, and if you love it, I guarantee, others will. There will always be those who don't "get" you or your work, but as for me, I cannot complain. I first published "Crush" in 2011 and though it takes some time for an indie author to get noticed, word of mouth is a powerful thing!
Do you have a favourite place in which to write?
I write erotica, so I require privacy and quiet. I write late at night in my room, door locked, my favorite love songs in my earphones. Sometimes though I'll come up with the best stuff while I'm doing things like drywalling or spackling on the job!
What are you working on at the moment?
Right now I'm at work on novel #2, which is most likely going to be titled "Bright". It's another gay "emotica" novel about a married gay couple who are trying to begin a family.
Tell us about your latest work and how we can find out more.
"Bright" is about Monty, a flamboyant vagabond. En route to Vegas after his latest boytoy dumps him, he accidentally drives off the road into a river in the dead of winter in Idaho. He is rescued by a young man named Walter and his sister Kendall, who happened to be nearby when the crash occured. Almost immediately, Monty and Walter find themselves irresistibly drawn together for reasons they can't even explain.
I have a website for "Bright" which includes excerpts:
http://bright-the-book.snack.ws
Thanks to Laura for sharing her thoughts with us, tomorrow we invite L M Steel to the hot seat.
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