AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. MIRABEL CAMPBELL FROM AUTHOR CJ PETTERSON'S THRILLER, THE DAWGSTAR

Today we sit down for a chat with Dr. Mirabel Campbell from author cj petterson’s thriller, The Dawgstar.

What was your life like before your author started pulling your strings?

Oh my. I was a lab rat, a scientist working on a world-wide genome project and living a quiet life in a small town. If you think it sounds boring, I’ll have to admit I was beginning to think so, too. 

 

What’s the one trait you like most about yourself?  

I like that once I make a commitment to some thing or someone, I follow through. Okay, the divorce was a different matter. I also have a very good work ethic. I know that sounds like I’m boasting, but it’s simply the truth. 

 

What do you like least about yourself?

What I like least about myself is my stubbornness and determination to make my own decisions, a trait that put other people in danger. 

 

What is the strangest thing your author has had you do or had happen to you?

She dropped me out of the sky in a plane crash, had me walking through the desert for two days, and then sat me down right on top of a rattlesnake. Egads, the woman is insane. 

 

Do you argue with your author? If so, what do you argue about?

I like to say I knew better than to argue with her. Who knows what she would’ve had me doing if I made her mad?

 

What is your greatest fear?

What is my greatest fear? You mean besides spiders and snakes? 

 

What makes you happy?

Good friends, good times, success, love. Let’s say after going through what I went through, just being alive makes me happy. 

 

If you could rewrite a part of your story, what would it be? Why?

If I could rewrite part of this story, my dear, sweet friend Dan wouldn’t die. I’d only let him get injured so I could give him all the TLC he needed and nurse him back to health. 

 

Of the other characters in your book, which one bugs you the most? Why?

The character that bugs me the most is Esther, the sheriff’s new deputy. For some reason, we didn’t hit it off from the first second we met. I tried to be friendly, but she just brushed me aside. After the sheriff was murdered, she was really imperious, barking orders and sitting in the sheriff’s chair like it was already hers.  

 

Of the other characters in your book, which one would you love to trade places

with? Why?

I think Lisa would be a good character to trade places with: Tall, model-thin, milk-chocolate eyes, a mane of blond hair, and girlfriend of the most eligible bachelor in town.

 

Tell us a little something about your author. 

cj petterson is the pen name of Marilyn A. Johnston. A Texan raised in Michigan, Marilyn now lives in the hellacious heat and humidity of Alabama’s Gulf Coast. 

 

She writes contemporary suspense/thrillers and mysteries with a touch of romance. I like that her strong protagonists and supporting characters take readers on a fast journey through stories filled with suspense and action. I especially like the sassy dialogue she put in my mouth. Several anthologies have published her nonfiction and fiction short stories, including a paranormal or two. 

 

Marilyn/cj is a member of the international organization Sisters in Crime and their online Guppy chapter, the Alabama Writers Conclave, the Alabama Writers Forum, and a charter member of the Mobile Writers Guild.

 

Where can readers find her website/blog? 

You can follow Marilyn/cj at www.lyricalpens.com

 

What's next for you?

That’s a million-dollar question. The one thing I’m absolutely sure of is that I won’t be spending the rest of my days hiding away in a laboratory. Been there, done that. I’ve got an opportunity to work with a private investigator in Sacramento. You know, doing things like follow cheating husbands and wives. But after my adventure in The Dawgstar got the sheriff murdered, I’ve been thinking I could make up for that by taking up where he left off and run for the job of sheriff. Imagine me, a lab rat being elected sheriff. My ex-husband thinks I’d look pretty sexy with a gun on my hip and a badge on my boob. I haven’t made up my mind yet. What do you think I should do? 

 

The Dawgstar

Mirabel Campbell is a brilliant but bored scientist and amateur astronomer who wants to trade her microscope and telescope for a career with more excitement. She abruptly gets her wish when she spots what she thinks might be a new comet in the night sky. What she doesn't know could kill her because the flash of light is really a top-secret nanosatellite, and its discovery combined with her scientific specialty makes her the target of a mysterious psychopath who sends an assassin to silence her. Instead, friends begin to die around her. As if that wasn't enough, Sully, her CIA ex-husband gets involved, and she has to deal with some long-buried emotions. Mirabel must learn how to stay alive in a covert world of political intrigue where the unexpected is the norm, and she's not the kind of woman who'll wait for her ex-husband or anyone else to make her decisions. She made a promise to find out what's so special about that tiny point of light in the sky, and she intends to keep that promise. 

The Dawgstar is a suspense/thriller filled with international political gangsterism, nanosatellites (real things), assassins, fears of frankenfood, and more!  A Jane Bond-ish read with a touch of romance.

 

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BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--AN INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR CJ PETTERSON

Cj petterson is the pen name of Marilyn A. Johnston whose publication credits include two contemporary romantic suspense novels as well as nonfiction and fiction short stories that have appeared in several anthologies. She is currently working on a mystery series. Today cj sits down with us for an interview. Learn more about her at the Lyrical Pens blog. 

When did you realize you wanted to write novels?  

After I retired from Chrysler in 2001. My job required a lot of travel and long hours, and when I retired, I had the time to do something else. I took a class at the University of South Alabama in 2003 called “Storming the Walls of the Publishing Industry,” got positive feedback on the first seven pages I wrote, and was hooked on learning as much as I could to scale those walls. Those seven pages became the start of my second novel that was published in 2015.

How long did it take you to realize your dream of publication? 

My first three short-story memoirs were published in 2008: “Don’t Ride the Clutch” in Cup of Comfort for Divorced Women, “The Blue-Eyed Doll” in Christmas is a Season 2008, and “Dancing with Daddy” in Christmas Through a Child’s Eyes.

Are you traditionally published, indie published, or a hybrid author?  

I am traditionally published so far, but looking into indie publishing for the novella I’m working on.

Where do you write? 

My Dell computer is in a bedroom I converted to an office that I share with my photographer son and his Apple computer and a slew of other equipment and furniture.

Is silence golden, or do you need music to write by? What kind?  

I like to listen to music without lyrics. My son likes the white noise of a fan so I have both going on when I write.

How much of your plots and characters are drawn from real life? From your life in particular?  

About fifty-fifty. There is a part of me, real or wished-for, and/or my personal adventures in all of my female protagonists. That’s especially true in one of my romantic suspense novels. I once spent five-and-a-half days whitewater rafting in Colorado and a year later spent two days driving a doors-off, stick-shift Wrangler on a Jeep Jamboree off-road adventure in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The protagonist in my romantic suspense novel Choosing Carter enjoys some of these same adventures.

Describe your process for naming your character? 

That’s a challenge always. I read newspapers, magazine, obits, and do Google searches, but I would never use a complete name from anything I’ve read. I want character names to reflect their nationality or where they live. Because I correlate words and names as musical, my character names have a rhythm. The names are, hopefully, a bit unique even if they do, I am sure, really belong to somebody somewhere…Mirabel Campbell. Bryn McKay. Carter Danielson. Anders Olsson.

Real settings or fictional towns?  

I have to say both, but even the fictional ones are based on real places I’ve been to or lived in. My short story, “Bad Day at Round Rock,” is a historical fiction piece based on real events that took place in 1878 in the real cow town of Round Rock, Texas.

What’s the quirkiest quirk one of your characters has?

I think of quirky old Talley Munroe, the unwashed prospector in “Bad Day at Round Rock,” who dreams of finding a hidden cache of stolen gold then loses both his life and the gold when he finds it.

What’s your quirkiest quirk?

I used to do all my ironing wearing high heels, but I do very little ironing now and I’m wearing aerobic trainers. However, I still love to hang my laundry out to dry on the clothes lines outside my laundry room.

If you could have written any book (one that someone else has already written,) which one would it be? Why?

I would love to have written Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, because I think it’s the ultimate romance novel.

Everyone at some point wishes for a do-over. What’s yours? 

I wish I had started college in my teens or twenties instead of waiting until I was thirty-seven and divorced.

What’s your biggest pet peeve? 

People who assume they know what I’m going to say or do in a given situation…and then I do it! Ticks me off to be so predictable.

You’re stranded on a deserted island. What are your three must-haves? 

Survival things . . . a way to make potable water, a way to fish, and my Bible.

What was the worst job you’ve ever held? 

I worked in the labor relations department of a large corporation early in my career. My boss was almost intolerable. I started every morning with a prayer that I could get through the day without quitting or getting fired. As sole provider for my mother and my son, I couldn’t afford to do either. I felt like I was in jail.

What’s the best book you’ve ever read? 

There are too many to choose from, so I’ll pick the one that hooked me on action, adventure, and historical stories: Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper. I was about ten years old when I read that one. It took me several weeks one winter, but once a week, I tramped through snow (seriously) to the Mark Twain Library in Detroit to read it. Sounds a lot like the old saw of walking five miles to school, barefoot through the snow, uphill both ways, but hey, the story absolutely fascinated me.

Ocean or mountains? 

Mountains.

City girl/guy or country girl/guy?

Slightly citified country girl.

What’s on the horizon for you?

Gosh, I hope there are more novels, either the second book in a possible detective series or a stand-alone. But I’m not a fast writer. I’ve never been able to throw words at a piece of paper and then go back later for edits. Like computer coding, the next scene doesn’t work for me until the one before it is as good as I can make it . . . at the time. Of course, it gets changed later. Writing that “decent first draft” means it takes me a long time to complete a novel. I know. I know. Hiring a development editor could speed up the process.

Anything else you’d like to tell us about yourself and/or your books? 

I am especially happy with “Bad Day at Round Rock,” and was thrilled when the publisher accepted it with a one-word edit. Everything in the story about Sam Bass is as true as newspaper reports and lore have made it. The character Lilly Malmstrom is a composite of my imagination and my black-haired, blue-eyed, maternal grandmother, Selma, who emigrated alone from Sweden in 1904 at the age of 18 and truly did have to work off a debt because her money was stolen on the ship.

Seven authors contributed short stories to The Posse. The are Lyn Horner, “The Schoolmarm's Hero”; Frank Kelso, “One Way or Another” and “Tibby's Hideout”; Charlene Raddon, “The Reckoning”; Chimp Robertson, “Headed for Texas”; Jim Stroud, “Savage Posse”; Chuck Tyrell, “Set a Thief”; and of course my own “Bad Day at Round Rock”.

Check out the trailer here. 

The Posse

The Posse is an anthology of Western human interest short stories that includes cj petterson’s historical fiction “Bad Day at Round Rock.” The Posse has the action you’d expect from stories about cowboys in the old Wild West, but it’s not your average shoot-em-up Western anthology, and “Bad Day” is not your average Western story:

When the outlaw Sam Bass robbed the Union Pacific train of $60,000 in uncirculated gold pieces, he set off a chain of events that culminated in a “Bad Day at Round Rock.” Men lose their lives seeking their fortunes, outlaws are shot down in the streets, an innocent man is accused of murder, and a girl becomes a woman in a story of history, mystery, myth, greed and love torn from the pages of West Texas history.

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#CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--GUEST AUTHOR MARILYN A. JOHNSTON/CJ PETTERSON

Author Marilyn A. Johnston is an award-winning writer whose short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in several anthologies. She also writes under the pen name cj petterson. Learn more about her at the Lyrical Pens blog.

I love crafting, really. I love the precision that a well-crafted product requires . . . unless you’re a Jackson Pollock.

When my sons were small, I created artificial flower arrangements, first in plastic then in silk. I ran out of interest at exactly the same time that I ran out of venues to display my treasures—my home, my family’s homes, my friends, my neighbors, gifts to unsuspecting acquaintances.

Next, I took up sewing. Bought scads of material and made every curtain, drape, swag and jabot in the house. My frugal husband admired my handiwork, and I put the sewing machine away.

Then I spent a lot of money on glass cutters, soldering irons, copper came/tape, lead came, flux, pliers, etc., etc., and took classes in leaded glass. That lasted until I had completed a colorful but poorly constructed piece to hang in my kitchen window (it never got there.) Some lucky crafter was able to purchase the box of remaining glass and all the tools for about $15 when I moved.  

After I traded months of snow and ice in Michigan for months of hot and humid on the Gulf Coast, I took classes in Spanish, how to construct a Koi pond, and creative writing. I bought a camera, thinking I would love to get into photography and discovered I don’t have my son’s skill for putting out a beautiful final photo. (Gosh, he’s good.) I took art classes and painted two fairly wonderful lighthouse scenes, gave them away to a friend who lives on Dauphin Island, and put my easel and art supplies away. Several bags of jewelry-making baubles and wires reside in a container in my bedroom. I never built the Koi pond (too much work to maintain,) but I can still speak a little Spanish.

I’m a been-there-done-that kind of person. I love learning new things, but I jump from one thing to the other. Except words. The creative writing class stuck, and I’ve managed to stay with writing. I not only love the syntax of words, but I can (and do) jump from one form of writing to another, from haiku and free verse to nonfiction and fiction to short stories and novels.

Choosing Carter, my latest contemporary romantic suspense novel, is a result of the writing class. I wrote the first scene, seven pages long, in that class, then put it away and wrote other things. I had it ready for publication three years ago but put it away again. Then I took a deep breath and submitted it to Crimson Romance in May of this year. The ePub version launched August 17.

Many scenes in the novel are variations of things I’ve done. I once took an Outward Bound trip and spent five-and-a-half-days white water rafting in Colorado (the setting of the novel.) I spent two days driving a doors-off, stick-shift Wrangler (also in the novel) on a Jeep Jamboree off-road adventure in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, sometimes over boulders as big as my living room! It seemed natural to let my protagonist enjoy my adventures since she was in Colorado. Just so you know, those adventures of mine were more than twenty years ago.

Choosing Carter

Bryn McKay has always tried to save her brother from his risky choices, but a near-tragic truck accident landed him in prison and her in the hospital. Now, a year later, he's converted to radical Islam and escaped, vowing revenge on the people who put him there, including his sister.

To clear her mind, Bryn goes on a rafting trip with her best friend, naturalist and outdoor guide Carter Danielson - and she wouldn't mind if things turned romantic. Unfortunately, Carter is a recovering alcoholic who shies away from commitment. That is, until the two of them stumble across her brother and must flee for their lives.

Will Carter figure out where his heart lies, or will Bryn face her biggest fear: watching someone she loves die?

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