Interview Jacqueline McGuyer

by

Steven M. Cross

1) Some authors have interesting stories about how and when they started writing. What about yourself?

I've always loved to read. I read anything with print on it. I'm not sure I do have an interesting story. I think I've always loved to write almost as much as I love to read, even though most of my writing will never be read--and that's probably a very good thing.

My first novel, Blood Secrets, was inspired in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. What a glorious place to live. When I began that book, I had something quite different in mind. However, I wasn't long into it before the characters seemed to take control. Before I knew it, I was just going along for the ride.

2) Who would you consider to be your biggest influence, writing-wise?

God. Then, all the other great writers I've read.

3) Could you give your readers details on what Blood Secrets is about?

A story woven in the past and the present, Blood Secrets is set in the beautiful ski country of Colorado. When Sara Connelly inherits the beautiful Escondido Ranch adjacent to a world-class ski resort, she and her fiancé, Paul Sabine find a naked body hanging in the barn.

As Sara completes the restoration of the old house on the ranch, Paul accepts Christ and tries to support Sara while he struggles to change his life to follow the Christian path he has chosen. In the meantime, Sara is hearing voices in the house, seeing the vision of a young girl, learning of old and terrifying occupants she believes are her kindred spirits. She is dealing with the reappearance of her psychotic twin sister Amy, and has no time for Paul’s new religion. The phrase, Born Again takes on a completely new meaning when, at forty years old, Sara unexpectedly discovers the Blood Secrets hidden on her ranch--she and her sister Amy are not who they thought they were!

4) Authors have various ways to get ideas. Where did you find your inspiration for Blood Secrets?

The inspiration of the story was the Rocky Mountains. The story evolved as I was writing, as I said before. The Secret--the reason the twins were apart for so many years… was just as much a surprise to me as it will be to the reader.

5) What advice would you give to people who find themselves in similar situations as the characters in your book?

A professor once took a large jar and filled it with golf balls and put a lid on it and told his class, "This jar is your life and the golf balls inside are the most important people in your life. Is your life full?" The class said, yes. Then the professor took off the lid and put some pebbles into the jar. They fell all around the golf balls. He asked if the jar was full and the class answered, yes. The jar really was full now. Then he took the jar, filled it with sand, and asked the class if it was now as full as it could possibly be. They said yes. He took a cup of coffee and poured it in. "Now your life is full," he said. "However, you can barely see the golf balls through all the other stuff. It's the golf balls that filled the jar in the first place." The moral is, focus on the Golf Balls--be sure you can get around all the other Stuff.

6) Are you working on a project right now? If so, can you tell us a little something about it?

Dearest Georgia

In the year 1915, Andréa Lourdes stands outside the Haley House late at night in a horizontal snowstorm with her maid and her Chinese chow dog, Singapore. Staring at the portentous structure outlined through the gauzy vale, she has no memory of how she and her little entourage came to be here--or why.

As it turns out, Andrea Lourdes is transported from her comfortable and privileged life as a single Connecticut socialite in the year 2006, to the year 1915. The Haley House is an Orphanage, where she is to become the superintendent in charge of 100 little girls and boys of unknown heritage. The one thing Andrea has always been sure of--she never wanted children. Now she has 100 children--and more to come.

Before long, Andrea's memories return--everything except where the portal is located through which she and her little family came. Georgia Redollar, Andrea's best friend since childhood, and her husband Jarvis, a physicist, live in the Haley House, where Jarvis has also set up his laboratory. Jarvis is working on a time machine… Andrea became his first passenger. Andrea, now trapped in a distant time, takes comfort in knowing her best friend is wandering around in the same house--sleeping in the same room as she… at the same time--91 years later.

As Andrea becomes a part of her new life, she meets a doctor and falls in love. Will she find the portal? If she does, will she stay… or go back? Will Georgia and Jarvis ever find out what happened to Andrea?

7.) What effect do you hope Blood Secrets has on its audience? (e.g. teach, inspire, entertain, etc.)

I don't pretend to be a teacher, but I certainly hope to inspire and entertain.

8) How has your own faith influenced your life?

I only climbed onto the Jesus train about eight years ago. I can't even begin to tell you, in the time and space we have here, what a difference it made in my life--and the lives of those around me. I highly recommend it.

9) Is this is a first publication for you? What are some of your other works you have completed and/or published?

I've written many articles that appear on line, some on Faithwriters. I've had devotionals published in church magazines and in our Yearly Advent Guide. My second novel, The Java Pump, is due to for release in May by Wings.

10) What would you like people to know about you and your life?

That I love God and my family and my friends--I love to write--I pay attention to the Golf Balls.

11) Five years from now, how do you see yourself as a writer? What do you hope to accomplish in the way of works?

When you get to be my age--65--you handle life one day at a time. Let's see what God has in mind five years down the road. I hope it's a Best Seller!!!! Don't we all?