And from the Eclectica Bundle, another awesome author ansering my writerly questions! Her story of socks and aliens is really funny! Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Thea Hutcheson!

Where do you live and write from?

In my lovely lavender lair located in a small Denver Suburb, high atop the shoulder of a great hill.

Why do you write?

I love story telling, I always have. I used to creep out of my bed at night when I was little and slip into my little sister’s bed and tell her stories when she couldn’t sleep, all sorts of outlandish tales of tiny cowboys and fluttering ghosts and baby doll’s that told secrets to special little adventure girls.

When did you start writing?

When I was nine I started to write them down. When I was thirteen I started my first novel, but the next door neighbor lady got hold of it and I nearly died of shame from the way my adventure came out of her mouth.

What genre(s) do you write?

I love to write SF, fantasy, urban fairtales, time travel, and a thriller, just to prove that I could do it.

What is your goal as a writer and what are you doing to achieve it?

I would love to become a full-time writer as it has been my life-long dream. Unfortunately, the achievement comes in dribs and drabs as I juggle two jobs and caring for my mother. But now I am concentrating on developing enough product to have something to market.

What is the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever been given?

Oh, Heinlein’s rules, of course.

1. You must write.
2. You must finish what you write.
3. You must refrain from rewriting, except where you agree with editorial suggestions.
4. You must send what you finish out into the world to look for a home.
5. You must continually refuse to let it back in the door so it must stay out in the world until it finds a home.

6. Rinse and Repeat.

Outliner or improviser? Fast or slow writer?

I have improvised, but I have been trying out various outlining methods to avoid some of the rabbit holes I have chased myself into.

I am fast. I can crank out a thousand words an hour. Not all will be good. But some will be awesome and I can get lost in the tale I am telling myself.

Tell us more about your book in the bundle

I wrote a story a long time ago as an answer to a fellow writer’s claim that no one could make a story about laundry interesting. I flipped the idea and flapped silly thing about, and it became “Fishing”, a story postulating one idea about what happens to the socks in the laundry. It was also my very first professional SF sale. Jim Baen’s Universe published it and then included it in the first Best of Jim Baen’s Universe.

So, I thought it was time to flip that story again and look at it from the other side and came up with “Sock and Pins and Aliens”.

When Megan moves into her new house, things begin to disappear. Weird things like socks, and decorative pins, and a cheap class ring. Things she just saw recently and don’t have a lot of value, but she misses them all the same. She can’t decide whether to blame it on her cheating ex or a klepto ghost. When her best friend sends a geeky ghost hunter her way, Megan finds a new chance for romance and something she never expected in her wildest dreams.

I will have you know, I never lose socks in the laundry anymore as I use these super fancy clips to keep them together. Except that there was this one pair I really like, lacy and slinky, that I never did find after I put them in the washing machine.

Tell us about your latest book (add link if published)

Weird Wild West

…some of the weirdest and wildest western tales that you could shake a rattlesnake at.

Edited by Steve Vernon

Featuring “Over the Wire”

Brice Sebastian is a half-breed riding his Iron Horse across the White Man’s West stringing telegraph wire.

He knows these things: copper wire shouldn’t hum or tingle before it’s live.

It shouldn’t open a door to a new land full of fantastic beasts, either.

But it does, and that opens up a dangerous new door onto his life.

Any other projects in the pipeline?

I am working on the third in a time travel series.

The first is about a young woman from the near future who takes on a job delivering a message for a goddess. The goddess never mentions traveling four thousand years into the past to save the people an entire culture, the eruption of Mount Thera that will destroy the Minoan civilization, or that she’ll fall in love with a handsome animal magician she can’t have.

The second book is set in the same time period, but the main character is a young forensic anthropologist from the 1980s. He takes on a quest to protect a young shamaness when the world blows up, but finds himself sold as an oar slave almost as soon as he arrives in the Bronze Age Middle East. He hates the goddess, he hates the ocean, and he hates sailing, but he falls in love with woman he is sent to protect and must keep safe when Mount Thera erupts.

This third book sets both of them and their newly found lovers from the ancient Middle Eastern culture in a new quest to rescue animals in the path of a flood for this goddess. They learn they are part of the goddess’ secret organization whose job is to travel into the past to save those parts of the Earth’s inhabitants that the goddess cannot bear to see lost forever when disaster strikes. But Chaos has other ideas about the tide of time and fate.

I love research and ancient cultures, so for those who love the past and lots of magic, these stories are crisp and well-fleshed out.

Thea Hutcheson web site

if you haven’t heard much about my vampires series (historical fantasy), check the excerpts here!