Autumn Authors: Scarlet Rose Bonnett

Hello! It's Monday and that means it's time to meet a new author. Here's Scarlet Rose Bonnett, author of Call Me Ana. Here's a bit about her:
Scarlet spends her time writing, chasing feral children (her own, mostly), and caring for her chickens, dog, cats, mice, and guinea pig. 
Scarlet writes romance and has some lovely quotes over at her Twitter page. I also found out that Scarlet has some flash-fiction writing prompts on her blog. Fun city! She likes to post some of her own there, as well. 
She's got a novel coming out on October 12th, just two days from now. Here's a picture of the cover! You can click it to pre-order.

D.R.- Do you have a writing routine? 
S.R.B.- I write whenever I can. I’m trying to get my butt out of bed in the morning since that is the one time I know I will consistently be left alone, but it’s really hard for me to wake up early. I tend to write during my son’s nap time since my daughter is old enough to entertain herself for brief periods, and when the kids are in bed.

D.R.- Beach or woods? 
S.R.B.- Both. I was sixteen when I first saw the beach. Now, I live about an hour away from Galveston, Texas, so I go to the beach every chance I get. I love taking my kids there and catching anything that isn’t fast enough to get away from us – crabs, fish, snakes. It almost makes up for the fact that my kids won’t get to partake in sledding every winter like I used to. As for the woods, I grew up surrounded by them and spent many hours of my free time there. My best friend and I had favorite places that we had names for – the waterfall, the cliff, the vine. The vine was great – we found it growing from the tippy top of a tree all the way down to the ground. My best friend’s dad cut it for us so we could swing on it. It happened to be in an area that was naturally clear of trees, but it was right in the middle of the woods. Someone had also dumped a bunch of huge tires there, so we stacked them up to give us more of a jump. It was awesome. We caught salamanders, we hiked up the waterfall (a creek that ran downhill in a series of small waterfalls), we made forts out of logs and moss. Many of my favorite memories happened out in the woods. 

D.R.- Share a guilty pleasure with us. 
S.R.B.- I write and read romance novels. I write in other genres as well, but I still have a hard time telling people I write romance. Many of my friends and old coworkers are in the science world, so that’s probably why.

D.R.- Who is your favorite TV or movie character and why? 
S.R.B.- It’s hard to pin down a favorite, so I’ll just say that right now, the one who comes to mind is Jessica Jones. It’s nice to have a female lead in a comic series who gets shit done.
 
D.R.- Who is your favorite character of all time and why? 
S.R.B.- How can I possibly answer this?  I will say, if there was a character I could trade places with, for at least part of a story, it’d be Arthur in Once and Future King. Only in the beginning of the story though, when he gets to turn into a bunch of different animals to learn life lessons. 

D.R.- What's the food or drink you always tell other people to try? 
S.R.B.- Crawfish. It’s so good, especially with a light beer. Not light as in low calorie, but flavor/body wise. There is a scene in the movie A Time to Kill when Matthew McConaughey and Sandra Bullock are eating crawfish and doing tequila shots. It makes me want crawfish every single time I see that movie. So good. I’m pretty sure I’m part Cajun. Love Cajun food. I’m originally from New York and whenever I get a friend to come down to Texas to see me, I take them for crawfish if it’s in season. 

D.R.- What book do you recommend the most?
S.R.B.- Lamb by Christopher Moore. It is a delightful read. Despite the fact that it is a wildly inappropriate account of the first 33 years of Jesus’s life (the bible doesn’t talk about this period except for the part where he runs away from his parents around the age of 12 to spend time in the temple), it is actually taught in seminary school in some places. It’s my favorite book.

D.R.- Where is the one place you think everyone should go? 
S.R.B.- Ithaca, New York. Home of Purity Ice Cream (bittersweet is the best flavor) and a bunch of beautiful waterfalls to hike around. One of the loveliest places in the US for sure.

D.R.- How do you get ideas for stories? 
S.R.B.- I get ideas from the strangest places. Usually it’s from people watching. I tend to be character driven and people are interesting to me. Sometimes I have a weird dream that sparks an idea. A lot of my sci fi projects are from dreams, and the book I’m releasing in October – Call Me Ana (a coming of age/romance) started off as a dream. 

D.R.- What do you do if you see your idea has already been done? 
S.R.B.- Cry. J/k. But it’s always very sad. I do remember reading that if something has been done before with success then it’s worth doing again, but I think you can only take that philosophy so far.