Welcome Guest: Pauline Baird Jones

Give a BIG welcome to my friend, Pauline Baird Jones. I'm excited to have her here on my blog.

Tell me five things I probably don’t know about you and that most folks wouldn’t guess.

I’m not sure there is anything about me that folks couldn’t guess, thanks to facebook and twitter. And I’m not that interesting. That would be why I write fiction. I’ll try to stick to non-fiction, but no promises.

1) The girl can’t dance in real life. When I was little, back in the dark ages, all little girls in my town took dance, tap and tumbling, yes, tumbling. We learned how to cartwheel and do somersaults and not much else. We also got our hair permed into ringlets, because our parents secretly hoped they had given birth to another Shirley Temple. (If you don’t know who she is, I can’t help you—and let’s be real. You don’t need my help with Wikipedia and Google.) At our first dance, tap, tumbling recital, I made it through the tap routine okay, but when I put on the tutu, things went South fast—all on account of my nervous stomach. There is something particularly noxious about a hurled upon tutu—and it never recovers. Ever.

2) You can probably guess my second “secret.” I get nervous in the public eye, though I have refrained from hurling now that I’m a grownup. I suspect it is a combo of my hermit personality and where I grew up. In Wyoming, even when sitting on a float, you are supposed to be noncommittal. My dad has totally mastered the “Wyoming index finger wave.” I have heard there is a marginally warmer two finger wave, but I’ve never actually seen it. It’s not noncommittal.

3) I knit dishcloths. That’s it. Just dishcloths. Why just dishcloths? I have pondered that myself. I believe there are two reasons for my knitting limitations. One is the climate here in South Texas. It is mostly hot (until this year). I can’t knit with sweaty hands. Even inside, in the summer, with a/c, I can’t do it. My hands feel hot when they know it is hot outside. Or my brain tells my hands to feel hot. The other is probably my attention span coupled with the climate issue. The “winter” isn’t usually long enough to knit a larger item and by the time I get back to a larger item, I can’t remember how to do it. It takes me some thinking to remember how to do the dish cloths again. And I don’t need that many knitted items when winter is usually a day and a half. This year I have knitted a record ten dish cloths. And it’s still cold. Mother Nature has a sense of humor. Or she needs dish cloths, too.

4) In case no one else interviews me about my books? I interview myself. Seriously. Me interviews myself in a series called Behind the Book: The (mostly) True Story behind the writing of (fill in the title here). I even interviewed me about what it was like to interview myself.

5) I have a small collection of Lilliput Lane houses. I also collect pewter dragons, wizards and castles. And Elizabeth Cadell books. I know, not that interesting. I’m scraping the bottom of my barrel here. I did mention that my life isn’t that interesting. I’m all tapped out. If I have any more secrets, I’ve forgotten them because I was born in the dark ages.

Good thing I didn't ask for TEN things *G*...

Fill In the Blank: My mother always said ________

My mother always said I’d go blind if I didn’t eat my carrots. I used to hide them in the hollow leg of the kitchen table until I started going near sighted in the second grade. After that I ate my carrots until my eyes kept getting worse. Then the carrots when back in the hollow leg until my parents got a new table. Now I eat them when I feel like it.

Write me a paragraph using the following three words. Alert, Clerk, Rainbow

The weather alert came while the clerk was ringing up my order. Neither of us looked outside. We didn’t consider a rainbow a dangerous event, even if the guy with his finger on the alert button did. We all had theories about his fear of rainbows, most revolving leprechauns and pots of gold. Not that original, but you try to be original with rainbow conspiracy theories.

Many thanks, Marianne! Fun interview (now that it’s over! LOLOL!)

I'm sneaking in to share Pauline's book video for her release, "Girl Gone Nova". She didn't ask me to, but I was busting at the seams because I made it! Hope you enjoy:



Pauline Baird Jones is the award-winning author of nine novels of science fiction romance, action-adventure, suspense, romantic suspense and comedy-mystery. Her latest release is Girl Gone Nova, the second book in her Project Enterprise/Garradian Universe series. She's also written a steampunk novella called Tangled in Time that will release in 2010. She's written two non-fiction books, Adapting Your Novel for Film and Made-up Mayhem, and she co-wrote Managing Your Book Writing Business with Jamie Engle. She’s been awarded a Dorothy Parker award, an EPPIE, an Independent Book Award Bronze Medal (IPPY) and a 2007 Dream Realm Award. Originally from Wyoming, she and her family moved from New Orleans to Texas before Katrina.

You can find Pauline at: www.perilouspauline.com , http://paulinebjones.livejournal.com and http://worldsapage.blogspot.com

With the release of her ninth novel, she'll be running some fun contests, so be sure to check her website or subscribe to her ezine.