Author Introduction: Jenna Rhodes

[jpskewedthrone]

Everyone say hi to Jenna Rhodes, aka Emily Drake, aka . . . well, I'll let her list them all. *grin* Jenna is the latest invite in my Author Introduction series and she's here to talk about her latest book, The Dark Ferryman, as well as talk about herself and writing. So without further ado, heeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's Jenna!

"Hi, and thanks to Joshua for inviting me into his journal. Excuse me while I take a moment to swipe a crackled finish vase that seems to be just sitting here forlornly…

I juggle seven or eight pen names, and my license plate says I’m a PRO WRTR. More often it is mistaken for PRO WRESTLER and I’ve been asked if I know Hulk Hogan or (insert your favorite wrestler here). I’ve been known as Emily Drake, Elizabeth Forrest, Anne Knight, Charles Ingrid and R.A.V. Salsitz. Different names for different marketing audiences. I’ve been autographing and paneling as Jenna Rhodes this last year.





Today is somewhere around the middle of July. I use calendars for the pretty pictures and watches not at all unless I’m sitting on a panel or giving a lecture in which case I must pay attention to the passage of time. Otherwise, I try to ignore it. Unless you count the little post-it notes attached to my monitor which exhort me 15 pages a day or 7 and 5 and 5 (which is my new mantra except that post-it note dried up and fell off somewhere which means either my deadline is forfeit or I have to find a better way to attach my goals to my work machines). I’m currently working as Jenna Rhodes. Book two of The Elven Ways was released in June and has gotten some really nice comments from readers who also loved book one. I think Josh is inserting a link here to The Four Forges [Amazon, Mysterious Galaxy] and The Dark Ferryman [Amazon, Mysterious Galaxy]. So, my post-it notes refer to my current deadline for book three, as yet untitled, and some back works I need to also have in progress. I love writing and only wish I could make a living from it. Fifty + published novels from where I started, I still can’t depend on any income, good reviews and great covers aside. That’s neither here nor there, though, as right now my business is to craft a thumping good tale and answer some of the plot questions that have been hanging and hint at intriguing and shocking developments for book four. I think I’m up to it, as long as I have fun.

The more I write, the more I think of to write. I keep my hard disk full of intriguing two and three liners for possible ideas down the line which may or may not get developed. One or two I will simply have to write on spec because the characters are nagging me. I probably ought to turn up the music louder to drown them out, but past experience has shown me it probably won’t work. If characters begging to be heard aren’t enough, there are titles which spring up as though ejected from some universal toaster. I caught one last night as if it were a cannon-fired eggo: The Late, Great Wizard. Now I know there’s a YA I’m going to have to write in the next six months and hope my intrepid agent can sell it.

So, to paraphrase, dying is easy . . . writing is hard. But it’s the only way to go."



Books by Jenna Rhodes


The Four Forges [Amazon, Mysterious Galaxy]


The Dark Ferryman [Amazon, Mysterious Galaxy]

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Amazon.com Widgets

Comments

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

I'd be interested to know how she went about choosing each of those pen names, and what was the reasoning behind each one?

[(Anonymous)]

I chose Elizabeth Forrest because I have always liked both names, and they went well together. That's my suspense thriller author personna. There is another Elizabeth Forrest (or was, publishing in late '90s) that isn't me, though, and her poor reviews and sales killed my successful career in that field. I'm going back to it, albeit cautiously. Emily Drake...well, that's my middle grade author name for fantasy...Emily because it's a name I like and Drake because it's another world for dragon. My young readers enjoy telling me they "got that". Jenna Rhodes was named for a British neighbor of my nana, a woman who used to bake wonderful apricot pies and lousy persimmon cookies(the neighbor, not Nana. She was an incredible cook!) Charles Ingrid was chosen for my soft SF series because Charles is a nice name and one of our family's best and long time friends, and his wife is Ingrid, so they had to go together.
Most of my pen names are chose to be apropos for the genre and because they are a name I'd like to have held. My mother named me something rather off the wall (for then) and it's always been a bit of a burden. Proud but difficult.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

Oh, jeez, I loved THE UNICORN DANCER and DAUGHTER OF DESTINY when I was a teenager. I had no idea she wrote under so many names. Guess I've got some book-hunting to do. :)

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks, Mizkit. I loved writing those books. It was even kinda nice when I met Terry Brooks at the huge American Booksellers Association convention signing The Black Unicorn and he confessed to me that he stole the idea of a dark unicorn from my book! Only he made a few million on it, while I didn't. :)