About K.J. Gillenwater

K.J. Gillenwater has a B.A. in English and Spanish from Valparaiso University and an M.A. in Latin American Studies from University of California, Santa Barbara. She worked as a Russian linguist in the U.S. Navy, spending time at the National Security Agency doing secret things. After six years of service, she ended up as a technical writer in the software industry.

She has lived all over the U.S. and currently resides in Wyoming with her family where she runs her own business writing government proposals and squeezes in fiction writing when she can.

In the winter she likes to ski and snowshoe; in the summer she likes to garden with her husband, take walks with her dogs, and take trips into the Big Horn Mountains nearby. She has written multiple books, including several short story collections.

Book Talk with K.J. Gillenwater

I started out as a full-on pantster. I plotted nothing. I started with an idea for a book, an opening scene and knowing where I wanted to end things. The rest was up to me to figure out along the way. This resulted in a long, painful writing process, and I’d get stalled out…sometimes for months. I think it took me two years to write The Ninth Curse from beginning to end, including the edits.

Then, I went on a writers’ cruise several years ago, just as I was getting back into writing again. The speaker said this: if you are a pantster, you will eventually become a plotter.

I mulled that one over and wondered if my difficulties lay in the fact I didn’t at least come up with a simple plot ahead of time. Since that time, I have attempted to refine my process. I have written simple outlines of 1 to 3 pages to give me at least a path to follow. Sometimes I expand on that outline to get into the deeper elements of the story, which has seemed to help me with my writing.

I wrote Illegal in about seven months from beginning to end, so maybe this has helped! I used the process outlines in Romancing the Beat by Gwen Hayes for that one. And I recommend that book to anyone who might be struggling with the plotting or pacing of a romance.

But these days I am of the mindset that I write what I feel like writing. That is why I now juggle multiple books at once. I have ideas in my head that get me excited, where before I’d see them as distractions from completing the current project I was working on. I see these ideas as a ‘strike while the iron is hot’ opportunity. Whenever I come up with an idea or a scene, I write it. No matter if it’s out of order from the plot of if I’m in the middle of writing something else.

I want to encourage my creative side more by getting as much as possible down on paper while it’s in my head. I also have started to use a voice-to-text app on my phone and tablet when I don’t have time to type things up.

In fact, I’m writing a whole three-book series (at least I think it will be a three-book series) using voice-to-text 95% of the time. I want to stop limiting myself, slowing myself down and getting in the way of my creative brain. I am trying whatever I can to get down those ideas on paper as quickly as possible.

My goal for the next year is to finish five separate projects. I don’t know if I can do it, but I sure as hell want to try!

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About the Book

Illegal by K.J. Gillenwater
Genre: Romantic Suspense

Synopsis

Alone, desperate, and beautiful. When bullets fly, she must rely on a handsome stranger or face death. Together, they will risk it all for love.

Her whole life was a lie…

After discovering she was brought to the United States illegally as a young child, Selena Hernandez decides to do the responsible thing and return to Mexico, her country of origin. Selena vows to become a legal immigrant.

When she asks for help with a visa at the US Embassy, she meets attractive Wyatt Demko, a helpful embassy employee. But they are surprised to discover shocking details about her past and connections to a notorious drug cartel.

Wyatt escaped a painful upbringing in a Wisconsin trailer park for a stable career with the State Department. A chance meeting with Selena reveals an instinctual desire to help. But falling for a beautiful girl with dangerous enemies on her trail complicates his meticulous plans.

Wyatt knows he can’t afford to trust Selena. Still, he’ll do whatever it takes to keep her safe and win her heart before time runs out.

But Wyatt and Selena only have a few days to accomplish the impossible: hide from the brutal drug cartels and corrupt law enforcement to make a daring getaway that will take them from the streets of Mexico City to the sandy beaches of the Yucatan Peninsula.

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