Random Acts of Writing: A Guest Post by Julia Kent

Julia Kent stopped by to talk about her journey writing Random Acts of Crazy. Check it out!

 

I never intended to pick up a naked hitchhiker wearing nothing but a guitar. A guitar. Really. I don't collect guys like that (don't ask what kind of guys I do collect), but when you spot a blonde, tanned, sculpted man with a gorgeous smile and his thumb poking up and practically begging you to stop - you stop. And I definitely never thought I'd be staring into the bright blue eyes of Trevor Connor, the lead singer for Random Acts of Crazy, an indie rock star I followed like the slobbering fileshare fangirl I am. How he came to be nude and lost six hundred miles from home is quite the tale, but how we fell in love is even more unreal. Because someone like Trevor Connor, headed to Harvard Law next year, isn't supposed to want someone like me, a rural Ohio chick majoring in Boredom at Convenience Store University who is all curves and frizzy blonde hair and manners so unpolished they have sharp edges that make you bleed. But he did. When his best friend, Joe Ross, the bass player for Random Acts of Crazy and a man who makes Calvin Klein models look like Shrek, drove eleven hours through the night to rescue him, though, it got real complicated. It's one thing to like two different guys and be torn. What do you do, though, when maybe - just maybe - you don't have to choose? As my Aunt Josie says sometimes, "It's always complicated." * 

 

Random Acts of Crazy is a standalone, full-length novel featuring Darla Jo(sephine) Jennings, the 22-year-old niece of Josie Mendham from the Her Two Billionaires series. It has, like many New Adult novels, an exploration of sexuality for the three main characters, doesn't shy away from mature content, and Darla has a sailor's mouth.

Release date: May 21st 2013

Purchase: Amazon 

Goodreads
 

About the Author

Julia Kent turned to writing romance novels after learning that she could not work as a fighter pilot because her fear of flying disqualified her. Turning to her second love, she became a dog groomer, but had to abandon that job after adopting too many strays. Writing about very real, very flawed people is a natural extension of her life and, well, her. She lives on the east coast with her partner, two small children, seventeen dogs that weigh less than fifteen pounds each, and a monthly consumption of Nutella, brie and french bread that makes cardiologists cringe.

 

 

jkentauthor.blogspot.com | @jkentauthor | facebook.com/julia.kent.100

 

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Random Acts of Writing

 

by Julia Kent

It was late March. I'd just experienced a wonderful level of success with a new book, called Maliciously Obedient, which hit #6 on the bestseller's list in the Nook store on Barnes & Noble. My Her Two Billionaires series was doing well, and I'd promised readers I'd write a spinoff book about Josie, the best friend from the Her Two Billionaires series.

And I was. Swear. I really was.

Then out of the blue one day, while driving on the Interstate, two thoughts hit me. One was an image of the Times Square Cowboy, this guy who wanders around Times Square playing a guitar, wearing nothing but underpants (tightie whities!) and a cowboy hat.

The other was this question: what if I came across a naked guy wearing a guitar and nothing else while driving on the turnpike?

Now, that would have been interesting enough, but then BAM! This female voice started telling a first-person story out of the blue, in my head.

And that is how Darla Jo Jennings was born.

The first 10,000 words of Random Acts of Crazy just poured out of me. POURED, like someone else's voice was in my head. And that's kind of true: this wasn't a planned book. I don't write in first person (I guess I do now, huh?). I was writing another book that readers really wanted (and had asked for, in email after email). New Adult wasn't HUGELY popular in late March (though Abbi Glines, Mimi Strong and H.M Ward would soon see to it that it was...) like it is now.

I'm from Ohio, you see. I know people like Darla. Heck, parts of her are me. I also live in a town very close to where Trevor and Joe are from, so I balanced what I know with the fiction that makes up Random Acts of Crazy.

When it was published and hit the top 100 on Amazon, I was shocked. Thrilled, amazed, and shocked. When it hit #21 I was over the moon, and I hit #19 in the Nook store.

Hitting the USA Today Bestseller list on June 6 put me into the stratosphere. I still had to finish Suspiciously Obedient (the second in a trilogy in my Obedient series) and It's Complicated. I got an agent in NYC. People came out of the woodwork to ask me all sorts of questions, to offer services, and to give their opinion of the book.

It's a unique book. Controversial. Readers seem to LOVE or HATE it. (Just look at the Amazon and Goodreads reviews). Then again, readers who know what a “Julia Kent” book involves know that when there are two men and one woman in a situation, there isn't a love triangle.

There's a love triad.

On the other hand, some of my upcoming works don't involve triads, and in a very interesting twist, that worries me. Will readers expect a “Julia Kent” novel to always end in a HEA of three? Branching out is going to be interesting, but it's also exciting. I have so many projects lined up. Something new is coming out every single month from now through December, so I'm busy with planned books.

Here's my question: will another unplanned voice slam into my head one day?

Man, I hope so. :)