Janet lane Walters was born in Wilkinsburg, Pa on July 17, 1936 reported to be the hottest day of the summer. She has been a published author since 1968 beginning with short stories and moving into novels when an editor told her a short story sounded like a synopsis for a novel. In the 197os and 1980s she published 4 sweet nurse romance novels. Then she returned to school to earn a BS in Nursing and a BA in English. Returning to work as a nurse to help put four children through college she put her writing career on hold. In 1993 she retired from nursing and began writing again. A new nurse romance followed in print. Then she discovered electronic publishing and since 1998 has been electronically published.
Janet calls herself an eclectic writer since she moved from genre to genre. There are mysteries featuring Katherine Miller a former nurse who seems to stumble over bodies wherever she goes. Using her interest in Astrology, she has several series that use Astrology as a premise for the stories. Once she earned enough money to travel to Ireland by casting charts for people. She has many books in the romance genre, some of them are contemporary and are nurse romance, and others fall into the fantasy or paranormal forms of romance. Interested in reincarnation, she has used this as a jumping point for at least two novels. Two of her novels deal with alternate worlds using a love affair with Ancient Egypt.
Under her other name J.L. Walters she has written a YA fantasy series
called Affinities. She has also written a non-fiction book when her co-author
Jane Toombs that won the EPIC Award in 2003 for best Non-fiction. During her
career she has received other awards and has a number of great reviews.
Besides her four adult children, she has seven grandchildren. Five of
them are the models for the YA series. The other two arrived too late to play a
large role in the series. Four of her grandchildren are bi-racial and 3 are Chinese
so the eclectic even invades her family. She has been married to the same man
for more than 50 years. He's a psychiatrist who refuses to cure her obsession
for writing.
MELODIC DREAMS
Five Secrets
1. You may learn things about me as well as Melodic Dreams. I really
like writing medical kind of romances and was questing for something other than
nurse/doctor as hero and heroine. My daughter who is an Occupational Therapist
popped into my head and so I picked her brain for some of the details. Problem
was I almost became lost in all the information and ended up with much more
than I really needed. Maybe another book will find a few of the interesting
things I discovered.
2. In the past I composed music and even had some pieces I'd written
performed. My experiences with composing music went into developing Jay's
working habits and the pain of not being able to make the fingers move without
pain. Jay the hero is a driven man. He has put nearly everything and everyone
out of his life except his child. The arrival of his supposed child troubles
him. The boy looks like Jay's dead wife except for the eyes. He feels he
doesn't have time for this since he wants to concentrate on the music he's been
commissioned to write.
3. When casting for a name for the four year old child I was reading a
note from one of my publishers and the boy was named Jamie after her. Choosing
names is very important. Finding the right name makes the character pop. Often
wished I could have done this with my children. Fitted their name to what their
personality became. Jamie is very important to the story. He wants a father and
he decides his father is "sour" a term his grandmother used to call
him when he was tired and grouchy. Jamie decides his father should have candy
to sweeten him.
4. Maria loves her nephew but she has been involved with him since his
birth as a premature infant. She strongly feels he should have a connection to
his father, Some of the feelings found here were triggered by family members
who either did not know their father or their fathers had no time for them.
Maria turned out to be a very stubborn woman and able to take on a stubborn
man.
5. The town created for these early stories doesn't actually exist. I'm
not even sure I know where it is other that in the northeastern part of the
United States and several hours from a large city. The town needed to be large
enough to support a hospital, have the kind of landscape I wanted so instead of
taking a place I knew and changing the name, the town is totally a fictional
place.
Blurb from MELODIC DREAMS
When Maria and a child she says is his arrives on Jay’s doorsteps,
he is in the middle of composing a musical. Though the four year old has his
eyes, Jay can’t be sure this isn’t a scam. He believes his dead wife took steps
to rid herself of the child. A need for his assistance to help with childcare
while she works is Maria’s reason for arriving in Fern Lake. She also believes
her nephew should know his father. Can Jay accept and learn to love his child
and deal with the attraction to a woman who physically looks like his dead
wife? Can Maria deal with his trust issues and a threat from her own family?
You can find Janet on Twitter JanetL717
http://wwweclecticwriter.blogspot.com/ Website http://janetlanewalters.com/home
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/janet.l.walters.3?v=wall&story_fbid=113639528680724
Thanks
for checking out Janet and her secrets. If you have any comments or questions, Janet
will be around to answer them today.