Today’s Tease…Zrinka Jelic

Welcome! Pull up a seat and enjoy a chat with Today’s Tease Zrinka Jelic

Your Name or Pen Name you use:  Zrinka Jelic

Title of the book you are promoting:  Love Remains

 Link to purchase your Book:  Amazon B&N

 Genre:  Time travel romance

Welcome  ZJ…I, LH have some questions for you 😉

LH: I wanted to be a ballerina, race car driver and a private detective when I was little. What did you want to be when you grew up?

ZJ: At one point I had a really hot desire to become a veterinarian but when I found out about the university program and what kind of grades I needed to get in, it was a rude awakening. After that it took me quite a few years to figure out what I’d like to be when I grew up and by the time I figured it out, I was grown up with a college diploma of my second choice, something I picked on a whim and never really like it.

LH: I didn’t really have a literary influence, I just decided one day to start writing. Who influenced you in your writing career?

ZJ: I’m kind of like you in that aspect. Or there were too many authors whose writing inspired me that it’s hard to pin point just one. I like C. S. Lewis, Tolkien, Reverte, and I did like D. Steele at one point,  to name a few, but their writing style is still a bit stiff. I enjoy books that flow and don’t feel like I’m reading them.

LH: I self published all of my books and was then “discovered” by a publisher. Are you an Indie or published author?

ZJ: I’m a published author, but both of my publishers are small publishing houses that have been in existence for a year or two.

LH: This is easy for me…I’d invite Johnny Depp and I would not discuss movies! Who would you invite to dinner, living or dead, and what one topic would you NOT discuss with them?

ZJ: Probably Barnabas Collins and would not discuss what’s it like being a vamp.

LH: I personally think that there is way too much sex and violence everywhere in society these days and it’s everywhere but that Hollywood is one of the biggest contributors.  Do you think that society as a whole is subjected to too much sex and violence and are you concerned about it? Ever feel conflicted and if so, why?

ZJ: No doubt, but look what books are flying off the shelves. Fifty Shades and now there are spin offs on that. Is this how women would like to be treated by their men? If a guy proposed to me something like that, I think I’d run to the nearest police station and report him. Instead the heroine from the book agrees to this. In all writing workshops we were taught that our characters (especially main characters) must not be too stupid to live. Yet, this became a best seller.

Violence too, just look at the Hunger Games. Do our teens, whose perception of reality is screwed up as is, need more reasons to pick up a weapon and go on the shooting rampage. Well, it was OK to kill in The Hunger Games, how come they can’t do it in the kindergarten?

LH: I’m a huge softy and by no means a beauty queen… lol but, I truly would want world peace in the blink of an eye if I could make it happen…If you could change one thing in the world, in the blink of an eye, what would it be?

ZJ: I’d love to have teleportation available in every home. Just picture this—in the morning you get all ready and enter co-ordinates of your destination then poof you arrive to your work place. No sitting in traffic, burning gas, wasting time, loosing nerves and arriving late to work, and same on your way home. Yeah, my commute is long, I have lots of time to think about it.

LH: With the traditional bookstore becoming obsolete and everyone turning to buying books online, I don’t buy the hype that “the cover is everything”. How important do you think book covers are now that almost all shopping is done online?

ZJ: I was taught not to judge a book by its cover, but I know a few authors who hit it big with the cover only. What was between the pages didn’t matter. There’s a saying in Croatian “packaging sells the goods”. Who cares what’s in the box as long as everyone is buying it. Sad but true, same goes for book cover and I know people who declared if the cover isn’t appealing to them they would not look at the book and they don’t care how many good books they might’ve missed because the cover just didn’t speak to them. But cover is a visual art and therefore subjective. What my appeal to you, for example, may not be attractive to me.

LH: I can remember wanting to write as a kid. I got a really late start! Have you always wanted to write and when did you start?

ZJ: I think I had a late start too, considering that I hand wrote my first book in high school then didn’t go back to writing until a few years back. In the meantime I was writing my school assignments.

LH: I love to see if I can see myself in a character. What interests you most about a story?

ZJ: The characters’ history, the back story, what drives them to become what they are, how they came to be in the situation they are, and what experiences they’ll drive from their past.

LH: For me, I just get hit with this whole movie in my head and start writing. How do you come up with your stories?

ZJ: Usually, it somehow just comes to me. It could be a sentence I heard in a movie, or read in a book, or just a fragment of a dream, but then the characters start to pester me to write about them and before I know it, it becomes their story not mine. I develop them the way they come to me to be written about and what many readers don’t understand when they don’t like the story, it’s the characters’ story the author is just used as an vehicle to deliver the story to readers.

LH: I can’t tell you or I’d have to…lol Are you working on anything now?

ZJ: I always have a story on the go, at the moment I’m working on two projects. I’m trying myself in a YA adventure story (with some romantic elements) and my second attempt at the short story is turning into a novella.

LH: I’m working on #6…3 are published and the other 3 are due out this year… How many books have you written? How many have been published?

ZJ: Three published, one is half way through, the other one (I call ‘my training wheels) is done but needs lots of editing and revisions, and my two works in project that I mentioned above.

LH: I write for fun I don’t even dream of riches…Do you write for fun or money?

ZJ: For fun of course, though many think I’m rich and famous just because I’m published author. No, I don’t write on a huge yacht anchored someplace off the coast of Greece, while tended to by glowed servant. I’m just happy someone wants to read my books.

LH: I have never experienced writers block…I have experienced writers “don’t want to”… Have you ever experienced writers block and if so, how did you overcome it?

ZJ: Can’t say I have. There have been moments where I just didn’t feel like working on a story but I picked it up and after a while got into it and couldn’t stop from plowing away. I just had to get that scene I was working on out of me.

LH: I would not change one thing in my life as I would not be me if I did… If you could go back in time and change one thing in your life, what would it be?

ZJ: Only to start writing sooner.

LH: If I could go back in time and tell someone something, I’d go back and tell the founding fathers they were doing a few things wrong…If you could go back in time and tell someone something, who would you tell and what would you tell them?

ZJ: Tell my younger self not to date that guy, because things will end ugly, very ugly. But knowing my younger self, I probably wouldn’t listen anyhow

LH: I would freak out if someone contacted me and said they wanted to make one of my books or my series of book into a movie as I am really very shy in person and I’d probably go into hiding. I don’t think I could handle it. How would you handle it? Who would be the first person you told?

ZJ: I’d probably freak out too, but wouldn’t go into hiding. My family would be the first ones to know about it.

Thank you for that fun and frank interview ZJ…Now… for the fun stuff! 

Favorite Beverage? Coffee
Exercise or Bubble Bath? Both
Favorite Color? Orange and brown
Take out or Dine in? Dine in
Camping or Hotel? Hotel
Sports or Chocolate? Sport then chocolate
Dogs or Cats? Cats, but am allergic

Favorite Food? I could live of fruit and veggies, cheese, legumes, breads, seeds and nuts
Favorite Song? Ah, can’t think of just one
Favorite Movie? The Mona Lisa Smile
Favorite Car? Porsche Boxter Spider
Sex or Chocolate? (The answer “Both” is totally acceptable 😉 Of course

And now for the essay part of the interview 😉 

If you could go anywhere for a week, with anyone you wanted and no one would ever find out about it…where would you go, what would you do and who would you take?

ZJ: Any remote islet where the supplies would be dropped off with me and the person of my choosing for the week and no other contact with people would be made during that time. Who’d I take? My hubby of course.

Thank you for spending this time with us. Make sure to pick up your copy of Zrinka Jelic’s

Love Remains

at

 Amazon or B&N