Guest Blogger Jack Kilborn (a.k.a. JA Konrath)

Today we welcome our guest blogger, Jack Kilborn (pseudonym for JA Konrath), whose new release Afraid will hit the shelves March 31.  Click here to read a sample.  Be sure to check out Joe’s popular blog—a must for writers–A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing.  The month of March has meant a whirlwind blog tour for Joe—he’s visiting several different blogs every single day of March.  Wonder if it’s working?  He reports that on March 1, Google had 68,400 listings of his name; on March 19th, the same search brought up 79,000 hits.

Thanks to Joe for stopping by.

Do you outline or wing it?  Or a combination of the two?
Sometimes my contract requires I turn in an outline in order to get paid. While outlines are useful, and make the book easier to write, I prefer winging it. But I always have notes nearby, reminding me which scene comes next, where to add clues and reveals, that sort of thing.

Do you occasionally get writer’s block?  How do you work through it?
Never. Getting a paycheck is a powerful motivator.
There are times where I don’t feel like writing, but what does that matter? If you work in an office, can you avoid going in just because you don’t feel like it?
If you’re truly tortured by writers block, and getting words down is absolute agony, consider doing something else less painful with your time.

What type of writing schedule do you follow each day?
If I’m on a deadline, I write up to fourteen hours a day. If I’m in between books, or working on something not yet under contract, I spend about three hours a day writing, and five or six doing promo stuff–blogging, updating social networks, etc.

Are you working on something now?
I’m finishing the rewrite for TRAPPED, the second Jack Kilborn horror novel, and also working on a stand alone novel and a few short stories.

Any tips for successfully writing suspense?
I’ll tell you tomorrow. :)

What was behind your decision to use a pseudonym for your new series?
A new genre means a new demographic and readers. While the Jack Daniels thrillers I write under the name JA Konrath have some scares in them, they’re also filled with laughs. The Jack Kilborn books are scare-machines, no laughs at all. While some of the Konrath fans will also like the Kilborn books, a lot of them won’t, and vice versa. So it’s best to keep the brands separate.
Remember that books are a commodity, like cars or white bread. Branding is important, and the goal is to establish a connection in a customer’s mind between an author and a certain type of book. JA Konrath is funny but scary. Jack Kilborn is all scary. If I ever do something all funny, I’ll have to invent a new name…