The lovely Jane Lovering answers Hayley's Q&A

I asked Jane to answer some questions for us here at Dark Readers and here are the results. My Hubble Bubble review and another treat from Jane will follow shortly.

1. When did you know you wanted to be a writer and what inspired you?

I didn’t even know that writing was a job, not for a long time. I used to read books my dad brought home from the library, some of which I loved so much that I created stories in my head where I was ‘in’ the books I enjoyed. I’d write stories of my own, using the characters I read about (early Fan Fiction!), and then graduated to using my own ideas.  At that point I realised that this was a Real Thing, and other people did it too, and I knew I wanted to be one of those people.  So I was inspired by a mixture of story and writers who actually wrote. Plus, one trainee teacher at my primary school, who read something I’d written and told me ‘you could be a writer’. I was ten, and he was right.

2. What kind of books do you enjoy? Has your reading style changed over the years.

I enjoy almost every kind of book, although I don’t really read much suspense, life is scary enough already... I love ghosts and time slips and romance; romantic comedy I adore. I like paranormals and fantasy, sci fi and ...well, just about everything, really! Although recently I’ve gravitated to reading more non-fiction, I’ve no idea why. I think it’s because I’m reading on my Kindle a lot, and, for some weird and bizarre reason, non-fiction ‘sounds’ better on a Kindle. Yeah, I know. But I’m a writer, I’m allowed to be bonkers – it’s practically in my job description.

3. Where do you get your inspiration for your stories? I've read both Hubble Bubble and Vampire State Of Mind and they are so different yet both awesome.

I’m a big fan of ‘what if?’ What if vampires were real?  If they were, you can bet that there would be a hell of a lot of paperwork, and someone would have to do it... Hubble Bubble was the ‘what if you could make a wish?’ So I start from that concept and also characters. I get people traipsing into my head and hanging around, making a nuisance of themselves until I finally notice them and say ‘okay, who are you and what is your story?’. And from that, I get a book. Or sectioned.

4. You often mention going back to the day job on Twitter when you're not writing where do you work?

I’m a Biology Resource Technician in a local secondary school. It basically means I sort out lungs and eyeballs. Oh, and photocopying, there is a phenomenal amount of photocopying...

5. So you now have four books. What's been your favourite one to write and why?

Actually, I’ve got six books (there are two ‘stealth’ books, published by Samhain which...ssssh...no one seems to know about, even though they’re perfectly good books). Of them all, I always think that the most recent is my favourite, although it’s as hard to have a favourite book as it is to have a favourite child – I love them all, just in different ways! But, yep, I think Hubble Bubble is my current favourite, because writing it was a breeze, as though the story was just hanging there in the air, waiting for me to pluck it and set it on the page. Plus it’s very typically ‘Yorkshire’, the terrible weather and the mud...

6. What can we expect next?

There’s the book I’m just wrapping up, which is about an astrophysicist, a heroine with a horse called Stan and some suspect lights in the sky, and then I’m starting a new book, which will hopefully be called ‘I Don’t Want To Talk About It’, which is about a woman who writes books about graveyards, her identical twin sister, and an old mill in the throes of restoration.

7. What can we expect from the follow up to Vampire StateOf Mind? I cannot wait!!!

Now, this is in the nature of an exclusive, but I just signed the contract for the sequel!  Yep, just today I put the contract in the post! The book is called Falling Apart, it’s hopefully out in June next year (2014, for forgetful people out there), and it features quite a lot of zombies. Oh, the vamps are there too, but Sil has got himself into serious trouble, and Jess has to come to terms with a lot of stuff. Zan is his usual self, and Liam is...well, he’s still Jess’s sidekick. And the zombies? Well, you’ll have to read it to find out where they fit in... (shesaid, teasingly).

8. Do you read paperbacks or ebooks or both?

I read both.  Whatever is lying around, really.

9. Are any of your characters based on you?

All my heroines have a huge slice of me about them, but they are all prettier, taller, have better hair and are much faster with the funny lines than I am.

10. Tell us something we wouldn't already know about you?

Given the way I gab, there’s very little that people don’t know about me already. Honestly, I’ve probably even told half the people at work what colour my knickers are today, I just cannot shut up about anything! So...ummm... the best I can offer is that my eyes are two slightly different colours. One is grey and the other one is a greenish colour, it’s most noticeable in dim light, and if you ever want to freak me out just say quietly to me ‘your eyes are different colours again today’. Drives me MAD!