Skip to main content

Interview with Jaycee Weaver part 2

I’m back with the second part of my interview with Jaycee Weaver!

Jaycees’ Bio:

Jaycee Weaver lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with her awesome husband, three daughters, two crazy Shih Tzus, and a dwarf rabbit. When she’s not writing, she’s busy balancing the mom-wife life. Jaycee loves to read books in multiple genres, drink too much coffee (honestly, when are they going to make the coffee IV a real thing?!), sing, take landscape and floral photos, sew, cook, bake, and craft nearly anything. She considers herself a recovering perfectionist and sometimes hot mess. She does her best to live her faith in action, being open, honest, and real; letting God be Lord over the good, the bad, and the ugly even when it’s hard.

Camy here: Jaycee is one of the twelve authors participating with me in the Christian Contemporary Romance anthology, Save the Date, which releases September 15!

If you haven’t yet, be sure to preorder Save the Date for only 99 cents! The price will go up after the book releases.



Jaycee’s novella in the boxed set is Braver With You. We’ll be talking a bit about the book and also Jaycee’s family life.

And now, here’s me and Jaycee!

Tell us more about Braver With You, the novella that will be in the Save the Date anthology. How'd you come up with the story idea?

It's a funny story, actually. Within the anthology discussion group, one of our authors posted a ton of wedding dress-related ideas. I was burned out last fall and not feeling particularly creative until one of the ideas—and overbearing mother insisting the bride wear her old dress—started my wheels turning. I imagined a boy and girl who'd known and loved each other so long that their mothers had essentially planned their wedding from preschool. But what if that wedding wasn't the one they wanted? While looking at photos for further inspiration, I found a gorgeous shot of a bride running toward a hot air balloon, which is perfect because the tale is set in October when the city hosts the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. Elements began to fall into place. What if Conrad is an adventurous sort, and he's always been the one to help Ashlyn find her courage? What if he's the reason she's able to stand up to her mother and fight for the wedding she wants? It's still a work in progress, but these are the questions that sparked my creativity again.

Now that I know more about your story, I can see how that book cover is so perfect!

Your heroine in Braver With You, Ashlyn, does yoga. Is there a cute story behind why she chose yoga for exercise?

Honestly, I haven't written much of this story yet, so I don't have a cute story! What I do know is that Ashlyn feels very trapped and yearns to be brave. With her inner turmoil and her overbearing mother, yoga is a wonderful outlet to keep her focused and centered.

I’ve only done a little yoga, but my husband has been doing it for a few years now, and he says the same thing, that it helps keep him calm and centered when work is very stressful.

What ministry do you do at your church or in your community? Why do you like doing it?

Everything I do is cyclical to fill a need or niche, so while right now I'm only an occasional greeter at church, I've taught Sunday school, sang on the worship team, run a church blog, been part of the elementary PTA board, volunteered in the classroom when the kids were little, among a host of other things. I love being involved wherever my kids are and wherever there's a need.

I think that’s fantastic! Our church’s deacons say that sometimes they just need someone to step up where there’s a sudden need.

What are your favorite TV shows?

I haven't really been able to focus on television in the last few years, but when I do, my tastes are eclectic! I love Virgin River, but my go-to streaming favorites are Doctor Who, Chuck, Psych, Gilmore Girls, and The Office (which I hated at first!).

I totally loved Chuck! I think I just like nerds.

If you adopted a chimpanzee, what would you name it and why?

I wouldn't. Primates creep me out. LOL!

Oops, sorry about that question!

You're off the hotseat! Any parting words?

Thank you so much for having me!

Camy here: Next week, I’ll post a knitting pattern for the yoga bag that Jaycee’s heroine Ashlyn uses in her novella, Braver with You, one of the books in our Christian Contemporary Romance anthology, Save the Date, which releases September 15! Preorder now to get 12 novellas for only 99 cents!

Comments

Popular Posts

"Sincerely" by TRUE (from Violet Evergarden)

I’ve been watching the anime Violet Evergarden on Netflix and it is possibly the most beautiful anime series I’ve ever seen. The animation by Kyoto Animation is top notch, the storyline (based on the light novel series ヴァイオレット・エヴァーガーデン by Kana Akatsuki (暁 佳奈)) is emotional and unique, and the original soundtrack by Evan Call is out of this world. The vocal songs in the series are also really beautiful, but the best one is the opening song, “Sincerely” by TRUE. She not only has a beautiful voice, but the melody and lyrics are absolutely gorgeous. I can’t rave about this song enough. 知らない言葉を 覚えていくたび おもかげのなか 手を伸ばすの Each time unknown words come to mind, I reach my hand toward the traces they leave. だけど一人では 分からない言葉も あるのかもしれない But there may be words That I can’t comprehend all alone. さよならは 苦くて アイシテルは 遠いにおいがした 例えようのない この想いは とても怖くて だけど とても愛おしくて “Goodbye” is so bitter, While “I love you” carries a far-off scent. This incomparable feeling Is so very frightening… bu...

Window shopping

Captain’s Log, Stardate 03.14.2005 Knee update: I went to the doctor today for a checkup, and saw his assistant. I’ve been concerned because there’s still inflammation in my knee joint, and it’s been almost 4 months since the surgery. She said she’d talk to the doctor about it tomorrow and call me. Sometimes he suggests laying off the PT to see if that causes the inflammation to go away, but I don’t know if that will work because lately I’ve been pretty active outside of PT. At PT today, the therapist did ultrasound and some sort of electrical current on the joint. Hopefully that will make the inflammation start to go down. I’ll know by tomorrow, probably. Writing: Mt. Hermon conference starts this Friday! On Thursday night, I’ll be at the Santana Row Borders bookstore to help out (and hopefully learn a bit, too) at a booksigning for several of the ACFW authors who are attending Mt. Hermon . That should be lots of fun. I had a good brainstorming time at ...

Tabi socks, part deux

Captain's Log, Stardate 07.25.2008 (If you're on Ravelry, friend me! I'm camytang.) I made tabi socks again! (At the bottom of the pattern is the calculation for the toe split if you're not using the same weight yarn that I did for this pattern (fingering). I also give an example from when I used worsted weight yarn with this pattern.) I used Opal yarn, Petticoat colorway. It’s a finer yarn than my last pair of tabi socks, so I altered the pattern a bit. Okay, so here’s my first foray into giving a knitting pattern. Camy’s top-down Tabi Socks I’m assuming you already know the basics of knitting socks. If you’re a beginner, here are some great tutorials: Socks 101 How to Knit Socks The Sock Knitter’s Companion A video of turning the heel Sock Knitting Tips Yarn: I have used both fingering weight and worsted weight yarn with this pattern. You just change the number of cast on stitches according to your gauge and the circumference of your ankle. Th...

Grace Livingston Hill romances free to read online

I wanted to update my old post on Grace Livingston Hill romances because now there are tons more options for you to be able to read her books for free online! I’m a huge Grace Livingston Hill fan. Granted, not all her books resonate with me, but there are a few that I absolutely love, like The Enchanted Barn and Crimson Roses . And the best part is that she wrote over 100 books and I haven’t yet read them all! When I have time, I like to dive into a new GLH novel. I like the fact that most of them are romances, and I especially appreciate that they all have strong Christian themes. Occasionally the Christian content is a little heavy-handed for my taste, but it’s so interesting to see what the Christian faith was like in the early part of the 20th century. These books are often Cinderella-type stories or A Little Princess (Frances Hodgson Burnett) type stories, which I love. And the best part is that they’re all set in the early 1900s, so the time period is absolutely fasci...

Got my contract!

Captain’s Log, Stardate 07.06.2006 For all you writers —check out my Story Sensei critique service Summer Sale ! Get a 10% off coupon just for entering! Blog book giveaway: My Thursday book giveaway is LOVE ONLINE by Kristin Billerbeck and Nancy Toback . My Monday book giveaway is RECONSTRUCTING NATALIE by Laura Jensen Walker. You can still enter both giveaways. Just post a comment on each of those blog posts. On FRIDAY (not Thursday), I'll draw the winner for LOVE ONLINE and post the title for another book I'm giving away—PLUS . . . Save the date! On Friday July 7th, to celebrate the release of THE REDEMPTION by M.L. Tyndall (my good friend), I'll be posting a contest for a free book AND two free tickets to see the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Curse ! But you can only enter all day on Friday, July 7th! Ronie’s trip to California: I got to spend some time with Ronie and her family when they visited Dineen ’s place yesterday! TMI: Writing: I got my contrac...