May Featured Author
What made you choose Red Adept Editing?
The service was recommended to me by a fellow author, so I checked it out, and I really liked that I could choose either a full edit or more narrow aspects, such as just line edits or proofreading. I was very happy with my first edit and have used Red Adept ever since, except for one occasion where I thought my manuscript was pretty clean and I needed an immediate turnaround. I regretted going elsewhere because it turned out to be more expensive, and there were still lots of errors reported to me by readers after the book was published. Now I stick with the professionals!
You’ve worked with Irene more than once. What did you enjoy most about working with her?
I’m hopeless at seeing errors of a proofing nature in my own books. I read, reread, and read it aloud, but there are always some that slip through and this is where the Red Adept proofreaders are great. They also catch the odd homonym and details that are just plain wrong. They’ve saved my butt many a time.
Do you have a favorite place or time of day to write?
I like to write in the mornings, before I tackle anything else. I find it impossible to write after I’ve put in time at my day job (as a psychologist in private practice), so I’ve organized my schedule to write first and do therapy later in the day, most days. I usually write at a desk tucked into the corner of my lounge at home, and I prefer to have silence while I write.
Do you like to plan before you write? Or do you prefer to start and see where the story goes?
I feel lost without some kind of a plan, so I do plot loosely in advance and then again in more detail just before I write the next section. But I leave lots of room for improvising because that’s where the fun and creativity is for me.
This was especially true of my most recent release, The First Time I Died, which is a crime mystery with a slight paranormal twist.
You have some fabulous covers. Which of your covers is your favorite and why?
This is like being asked to choose a favorite child! I think my three top covers are for The Law of Tall Girls, Dark Whispers, and The First Time I Died. They were all designed by Jenny Zemanek at Seedlings Design Studio. She worked closely with me through several iterations of each cover until we had the perfect designs, and I love them!
What part of self-publishing do you enjoy the most?
I love the control and the speed. My first five books were traditionally published, and while I had a lovely editor and a good experience with my publishers, I was very frustrated with how slowly the industry moves. I love being able to pivot more quickly and to write the types of books I enjoy and think will sell, rather than those trad-publishing wants to publish. I feel closer to my readers this way, too!
Does your day job ever influence storylines in your books?
While my characters are informed by my knowledge of personality types, psychological traumas and psychopathology in general, I’m religious about keeping the specifics of my therapeutic work and my fiction writing completely separate. My clients’ confidences are sacrosanct—they go into a locked vault in my brain and will never appear in one of my fictional characters or stories. What happens in therapy stays in therapy!
I think that being a psychologist helps me have a deeper understanding of human nature and the problems that can occur. Many of my characters (like many people in real life) have problems of, for example, anxiety, depression, or post-traumatic stress. And I think I write more accurately about this because I know what it looks and feels like. I think (I hope!) that my writing, guided by my learning and experience, is deeper, more nuanced, more complex and realistic when it comes to psychological issues.
My training and experience as a psychologist obviously also influences how I write therapy scenes in my fiction—those, too, are regularly portrayed in very inaccurate ways in fiction. I get a kick out of writing characters who are psychologists, and who are not themselves unhinged, callous, or unprofessional in any of the clichéd ways so popular in fiction and Hollywood tropes. My psychologists are ethical experts, though flawed and inevitably impacted by the weight of the pain and cruelty they hear and absorb on a daily basis. It has always bothered me that psychologists in books and movies are so often portrayed as severely dysfunctional, sexually predatory, and unethical. Most of us are really nice, compassionate, responsible, and (mostly) sane professionals!
In my practice, I use a lot of stories and metaphors both in both “talk-therapy” and in hypnotherapy. I’ve collected these into a self-help manual called Self Help Stories, so it’s fair to say that book was definitely inspired by my day job.
What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever been given?
“Just begin.”
I was sixteen years old and sitting in my grade-eleven English class, staring at the blank sheet of paper in front of me and getting panicky because time was slipping away and I had no idea what to write. My English teacher placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder and said, “Just begin.”
I did, and it worked! To this day, when I’m staring at a blank screen, wondering what the heck to write, those two precious words come back to me. I just begin writing, and then it starts to flow. It’s like the muse is prepared to meet me halfway. LOL! If the first words aren’t the best quality, I can always fix them later. But you can’t fix what hasn’t been written.
Where can readers find you?
Jo Macgregor on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Jo-Macgregor/e/B07B53D5DZ/
Joanne Macgregor on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Joanne-Macgregor/e/B006BUB91W/
Website: http://www.joannemacgregor.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JoanneMacg/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JoanneMacg
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joannemacgregor_author/
