I confess! I read them along with several million other women. I love the regency period when men were gentlemen and women were ladies, in the drawing room. Subtle, and full of innuendo, I like something left to my own imagination. And Julia London delivers! Now I landed an interview with one of my favorites.
Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing? (please provide a photo/s of your shed, room, closet, barn….) Or tell us about your ‘dream’ work space.
JL. This is my current office, however I’ve just invested in a treadmill desk and am about to change the 
way I spend my day, as in upright and not hunched over. But where is that sucker going to go? I haven’t figured that out yet.
Q. Do you have any special rituals when you sit down to write? (a neat work space, sharpened #2 pencils, legal pad, cup of tea, glass of brandy, favorite pajamas, etc.)
JL. I can’t sit down and write until I’ve exercised in some way. I have a variety of activities to start the day: either taking my dog out for a jog (rather, he trots happily along, while I wheeze through a jog), yoga, biking or Pilates. It clears my head and gets the creative juices flowing. I’ve worked out a lot of plots while sweating profusely.
Q. Could you tell us something about yourself that we might not already know?
JL. I majored in political science with an emphasis on Middle Eastern Studies. Mainly because I paid my own way through college with a patchwork of jobs and scholarships. The best was a National Defense Education Act scholarship for which all I had to do was study a critical language for three years. The deal was that if the country needed your language skills within some specified time frame after graduation, they could call on you. So I studied Arabic (I know, right?) and took some classes in Middle Eastern religion, economics, and culture. I should point out that I have forgotten most of it. As it turned out, there wasn’t a big call for that expertise.
Q. Do you have a set time each day to write or do you write only when you are feeling creative?
JL. I work all day, every day, and I write every day. Sometimes not as much as I’d like, sometimes only material such as this interview. But I’m a firm believer in doing it every day. It’s like exercise—once you stop physical activity, it is so hard to get those muscles geared up for the activity again. Same for writing muscles. My preference is to write a couple of hours in the morning, take a break and grab lunch or and catch up on housework and errands. Then I have another session in the afternoon until happy hour. And usually, at night, I take care of the business of writing, or doing publicity work, or editing.
Q. What’s your best advice to other writers for overcoming procrastination?
JL. Write something every day, touch your work every day. Even if you eke out only 100 words, write something every day. It will add up. Write whether you feel like it or not.
Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing and for how long?
JL. Not really. Writing has become harder and harder for me over the years. I’ve learned more about writing and I’ve grown as a writer, but with that comes the pressure of trying to make each book better than the last. So the writing becomes a struggle of finding the right words to convey the right emotion and the right sense of place and characterization. It’s sort of magical when the book is done, but in the course of it, wow, I am very aware of what I’m doing. Nothing flows out of my fingertips. I’d be golden if it did.
Q. Who or what is your “Muse” at the moment?
Write a Comment here and WIN an autographed copy of one of Julia’s new books: The Trouble with Honor, or The Devil Takes a Bride, or The Scoundrel and the Debutante
(Drawing to be held after Part 3 of Interview)
Enjoy part 2, Oct. 19th and part 3 on Oct 24th.
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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Julia London in October and Matt Jorgenson later this winter. Coming in December! My review of a new release by Dean Koontz, Ashley Bell.
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THANK YOU! I needed that reminder- every day means EVERY DAY! And . . . I love your work! When I just can NOT grade another essay, your books take me to my “happy place!” By
I liked the answers you gave the interviewer especially the part about writing something every day. That takes discipline and that’s what makes a writer good. You stick to your guns and do it whether you feel like it or not so that’s why your books are a joy to read.
I like her honesty about it being harder and harder to write.
Love to know how a book have been compolished, and it’s not an easy work.
I love the different techniques that you use in your books to keep them fresh and different. When reading Jiloa London, I can see the work that has gone into crafting the book, whether it is historical or contemporary, and I am constantly amazed.