If there is one thing that I've learned from reading countless romance novels is that there are hundreds if not thousands of published authors out there, and honestly I don't know exactly how they managed to get published. But if you look them up they have quite a few works under their belts. After reading DJ Parker's "Dipping Into Sinn, I knew she wasn't one of those authors, but I would never have guessed that this book was her debut project. No sooner than I finished with book one I was chaffing at the bit to dive head first into book 2 Dipping Deeper Into Sinn, which had just come out. Read my review here - Who Knew That Sinn Could Be This Good! D.J. Parker Dipping Into Sinn 2 (Dipping Deeper Into Sinn)
From the cover to the last page, these are two books that you seriously need to have on your "To Be Read" List. As a matter of fact, I'll wager that everything that DJ Parker writes will end up on that list. But you didn't start reading this to listen to me wax poetic. So without further ado, let's hear from DJ Parker, debut author from Jessica Watkins Presents.
PE - Dipping
Into Sin is was your debut novel. Talk to us about your journey to romance
writing?
DJ
- My
journey into writing came from reading. Ever since I was in elementary school,
I’ve always had a fascination with story telling. At first, I would recite my
stories to my mother, get her opinion, and then write it down. Unlike most
other writers, I never participated in any contests—mainly because I was always
shy and self-conscious. Even in writing Dipping
Into Sin, I wrestled with the idea of sending my manuscript to Jessica
Watkins Presents.
When I entered high school, I decided to be apart of
the newspaper committee. For fours years, I did not do any other form of
creative writing that was outside of my English assignments. I lived, ate, and
breathed my high school newspaper. I became the International News Editor and my primary focus was writing about
public policy and politics on all of the countries outside of the United
States. Even my choice of books changed while I was in high school.
By my senior year of high school, I had decided that
I wanted to pursue journalism. Upon entering college, I started to become less
interested in writing about international news and more focused on trying to
define myself outside of my high school newspaper. For two years, I only wrote
when it involved school assignments.
As I approached my senior year in college, I won a
Kindle from a raffle. Instead of storing the Kindle in my desk drawer, I
decided to research how to use a Kindle. The first book that I purchased was
from the author, Brenda Jackson. Realizing how convenient and accessible my
Kindle was, I decided to purchase more books. In less than a month of having my
Kindle, I had purchased over twenty novels and managed to read every last one.
I fell in love with story telling all over again. I forgot how truly amazing it
is to have the ability to paint a story together and create a masterpiece.
After reading my first interracial novel by Theodora
Taylor, I decided to try my hand at writing again. At first, it was
difficult trying to outline, format, and place all of my ideas into one story.
I suffered a dry spell in which I did not know how to be my own writer. This
stemmed from the years that I spent only tailoring my writing to fit that of a
newspaper and college assignments. So, I put my story away and decided to spend
the next year free writing and being creative.
"Reading is fundamental." We all heard it when we were young. For me reading has been more than fundamental. It's a way of life. I'm most comfortable when I have a book to read, and when I finish that one, it's almost a compulsion to look for another one. I was smack in the middle of not so great place in my life and at times I needed to be able to take a break from reality. Books, stories were right there the way they had always been. At this point I had barely begun to scratch the surface of paranormal romance. I started reading Sherrilyn Keynon and JR Ward, both authors par excellence, but I needed more, I needed to be able to see myself represented in what I was reading. I found just that in Seressia Glass' Shadowchaser series. For the first time I was reading a paranormal romance where the heroine was not only smart, strong, and sexy as all get out, but she was also a Sister. But that wasn't all that made me fall headlong into Seressia's writing. It's the fact that the series is a modern story, but it's beautifully and thoroughly interwoven with rich African and Egyptian culture. 
