I’d like to welcome one of the best beta readers on the planet and good friend, Jayne Ormerod to the blog today!

Things you never want to run out of: Diet Coke, Wine, and Books.

Things you wish you’d never bought: In an attempt to avoid dog urine spots in my yard, I bought this fire-hydrant-looking thing that supposedly encourages my canine companions to wee-wee in a certain area. I placed it in a no-man’s-land area of mulch. They sniffed it and walked away. It’s still there, testament to my gullible nature.

A few of your favorite things: My comfy sweatshirts, my Crabby wine glasses, and my gardens.

Things you need to throw out: Early printed versions of manuscripts, 100+ rejection letters, and a box of chocolates that got left in a hot car and melted into puddles. But, well, throwing out chocolate is a class-3 felony, isn’t it? (If not, it should be!)

Things you need for your writing sessions: My muses (aka:dogs) at my side. And a really good idea!

Things that hamper your writing: Facebook. ’Nuff said.

Hardest thing about being a writer: Selling books!

Easiest thing about being a writer: Working from the comfort of my La-Z-Boy. Feet up. Music playing. Words flowing!

Words that describe you: Goal-oriented and slightly superstitious.

Words that describe you, but you wish they didn’t: Unathletic and “Fluffy”. (I think the two might be connected?

Favorite foods: Anything from the potato family, be they fries, chips, baked, au gratin, etc.

Things that make you want to gag: Seafood. Just the smell in the grocery store has me scurrying for the odorless cereal aisle.

Favorite smell: Flowers: Gardenias, Magnolias, Honeysuckle, Ligustrums, Lilies!

Something that makes you hold your nose: Collard greens simmering on the stove!

The last thing you ordered online: Construction truck-themed birthday decorations for my grandson’s 2-y/o birthday party.

The last thing you regret buying: A pair of shoes that looked really fun on the web page, but they are bright and garish and fan out in the toe area…think “clown shoes”.

Most daring thing you’ve ever done: Skied down a double black diamond in Banff! (Truth be told I slid on my backside most of it!)

Something you chickened out from doing: Parachuting. No way. Un-unh. Not gonna do it!

The coolest person you’ve ever met: Sue Grafton! So cool! Beyond cool. Amazing person.

The celebrity who didn’t look like he/she did in pictures/video: J.B. Fletcher, of Murder, She Wrote fame. Donald Bain (the actual author, along with his wife Renee Paley-Bain) bear no resemblance to the author photo, that of Angela Lansbury, who of course, played J.B. on the TV show.

Some real-life story that made it to one of your books: The “fire” my son “put out” in my oven, the first time he cooked with my new gas range.

Something in your story that readers think is about you, but it’s not: That I stumble across dead bodies all the time. I do not! Only ever seen one “prettied up” at a funeral.

About Jayne:

Jayne Ormerod writes coastal cozies with a splash of humor. She grew up in a small Ohio town and attended a small-town Ohio college. Upon earning her accountancy degree, she became a CIA (that’s not a sexy spy thing, but a Certified Internal Auditor). She married a naval officer, and off they sailed to see the world. After nineteen moves, they, along with their two rescue dogs Tiller and Scout, settled in a cottage by the Chesapeake Bay. Jayne writes what she knows: small towns with beach settings. The dead bodies are purely a figment of her imagination.

Let’s Be Social:

Website: http://JayneOrmerod.com

blog: http://JayneOrmerod.blogspot.com

Facebook: Jayne Ormerod (be careful there are two of us) or Jayne Ormerod, Author