Interview with Bokerah Brumley

Thanks for having me, Lela. It’s great to be here digitally.

I’m a blue-haired, home-schooling mom-weirdo from a tiny town in West Texas. My name means Morning, and I live on ten acres with five kids, four peacocks, three dogs, two cats, and one husband.

At what point did you know you wanted to be a writer?

When I was seven or eight, I wrote a poem for my mother. It was awful, but I loved it. Since then, I’ve written scads and scads of letters. In my teens, I went on to write bunches and bunches of angst-y poetry, a few short stories, and a couple of novellas. I didn’t know enough to know how bad it all was, but my grandmother always read whatever I sent to her and encouraged me to continue. It took a while, but here I am.
Tell us about your writing process.

When I hit a wall, I bounce on the trampoline.

Hahaha. I just re-read that. My process sounds terribly painful. Let me try again.

Basically, I’m a reformed “pantser.” I write with beats now. (Check out Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder) Usually, I work out a story around a character that I’m usually already infatuated with. I love characters. I love all the uniqueness I can dump into all the people that I make up.

I make up life stories for people. I do this in lines, at church, at restaurants. I eavesdrop and make up whole lives for the characters around me.

The best part? Throwing a speculative fiction spin on it.

The guy in front of me is the son of cyborgs and only he can save our planet from their kind.

That’s not a walker that grandmotherly lady is pushing. It’s a rocket booster.

It can be crazy living in my brain.

When I plot myself into a corner, I gather up our five kids and go jump on our trampoline under the limbs of our Live Oak trees.

I am Speculative Fiction, through and through. I love to read it and write it. I love answering “what if.” It’s my favourite thing.
What are you passionate about?

Besides writing? My husband and my kids and my church. After that… peacocks.
What is something you cannot live without?

Coffee. But I like to read dystopian fictions, so I understand that someday, I may have to live without. If I have to, I’m praying that the zombie apocalypse happens while I’m in the middle of withdrawals. It’s the only way I’ll survive.
Oh, yeah! Don’t bother me before I’ve had my first cup of the morning. When you are not writing, what do you do?

I am trying to parent five unique little people. I actually do that more than writing, but otherwise, I obsess about writing and what it might feel like to “make it.”
Where do you get the inspiration for your novels?

Wal-Mart. Just kidding. (Not really)

I would love to write a hard science fiction (like The Martian). But since I can’t cram a physics degree into 24 hours with Google, I write mostly the hand-waving science fiction. Or magic. Fantasy can be fun. Alternate histories… Dystopians…

Wait.
What was your question again?

Oh! Research! 24 hours with Google or ask somebody I know. If I can’t get the answer quickly, I make it up.

If someone who hasn’t read any of your novels asked you to describe your writing, what would you say?

It’s full of lots of imaginative dramatics from real life gone wrong (I don’t shy away from the grungy side of life), but without the cursing or graphic sex. I like to write fight scenes, also, but not gratuitous gore.

Do you head-hop?

Nope. And if I do, I edit it out before release day.
I’m going to drop you in a remote Alaska cabin for a month. It’s summer so you don’t have worry about freezing to death. I’ll supply the food and the mosquito spray. What do you do while you’re there and what do you bring with you? If you’re bringing books, what are they?

I watch the sunrise. Every morning. I walk in the woods. Lay in the grass. Watch the clouds. Swim in an icy cold stream. I listen to the heartbeat of Creation without the hum of technology to get in the way.
Talk about your books individually.

I write secular (clean) fiction under B. Brumley. Most of what I’ve published right now is under B. Brumley.

Dogwood Sprocket is a steampunk romance that you can read for free in the anthology, Seasons: A Multi-Genre Story Collection (Volume I).

Cold Water Bridegroom is a sweet paranormal romance written from the bearded hero’s point of view. (PG-13)

Woe for a Faerie comes out April 2016 with an anthology called Enchanted: The Fairy Revels Collection. It’s Urban Fantasy Romance. In it, we meet a fallen angel named Woe as she learns to be a mortal.

Wings Over New York will be out in July 2016 with another anthology. It’s the second book of the duology about Woe. They’ll both be a little like City of Angels meets League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. With heavier, rougher themes in them, both are PG-13, for sure.

In November 2016, we get to meet Jane Jones in Feather. She appears as the baddie in Wings Over New York, but she deserved her own story. And I have some other things planned for some of my supporting characters in both Woe for a Faerie and Wings Over New York. (PG-13)

I also write Christian works under Bokerah Brumley. I do have a Christian Science Fiction short called Circular Horizon that will be out in an anthology later this spring under Bokerah Brumley. I’ve dedicated that to the Challenger crew. The 30th anniversary of the Challenger Disaster happened while I was writing Circular Horizon.

Fun facts: I try to include the word “peacock” in everything I write. Series of numbers are usually important dates to me (anniversaries, kids birthdays). And I have a science fiction manuscript that I’m shopping that contained planets and ships named by my kids.

What do you want readers to think or feel after reading one of your books?

Hopeful. No matter how bad things get, the night passes, the morning comes, and hope blooms again.
What influenced your decision to self-publish?

I’m impatient. I want to learn the marketing side of the industry, and I had to have something to market. Besides, I had been dreaming forever. It was time.

What do you find to be the greatest advantage of self-publishing?

Control over every aspect of your work.

Conversely, what do you think self-published authors might be missing out on?

Bigger publishers have access to bigger marketing outlets. Also, reviews are important. Big publishers often have access to review groups that an indie doesn’t.

Who designed your book cover/s?

Lori Parker with Contagious Covers designed the covers for Woe for a Faerie and Wings Over New York. She’s AWESOME! Tell her that I sent you.

Do you believe that self-published authors can produce books as high-quality as the traditional published? If so, how do you think we should go about that?

It comes down to taking the time and cost to go through all the same steps. Cover design, content editing, beta reading, line editing, and proofreading… It takes all these steps to turn out high-quality content.

Where can readers find you?