Brynn Kelly - romantic suspense author

Romantic suspense writer Brynn Kelly has reaped high praise with her Legionnaire’s adventure series featuring broken brothers-in-arms who meet the right woman at the worst possible time. Sounds irresistible, doesn’t it?

Hi there I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and today Brynn talks about her hot series, the importance of not quitting, and why she thinks she’s got the ideal life.

Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode:

The fun of being allowed to 'make things up.'

How writing fiction has made her a better journalist

Breaking through by writing what she likes

Talking about her new series

The writers she admires most

The one thing she's done that has contributed to her success

Where to find Brynn Kelly: 

Website: http://brynnkelly.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brynnkelly

 Twitter: @brynnkellywriter

What follows is a "near as" transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions.

Jenny: But now, here’s Brynn. Hello there Brynn and welcome to the show.

Brynn: Hi Jenny, it's nice to be joining you on this nice spring morning.

Jenny: It is. Most of the time, my writers are way across the world, but this time we're almost neighbors so it's lovely. You're a little bit further north than me in New Zealand, so we do share the same spring day!

Brynn: It's funny; I deal with a lot of people in the US, and often they wish me a "Happy Fall" or a "Happy Winter", but actually I'm sitting in whatever sunshine right now!

Brynn Kelly - romance author

Jenny: Beginning at the beginning - was there a “Once Upon A Time” moment when you decided you wanted to write fiction?  And if there was a catalyst, what was it?

Brynn: For me, I don't think I could pinpoint a particular time. It was just something that I had always known. I was one of these kids who read ferociously. I loved words, loved reading, loved anything at school to do with reading and writing.

I always knew that I was going to be a writer or a journalist. It's interesting; I have an eleven year old son, and a couple of years ago I was reading a book to my boys. It was very action heavy, and my son put his hand on his chest and he said, "Mum, my heart's beating really quickly. This is stuff that is happening to this boy in this book, but it feels like it's happening to me!"

It was just this beautiful moment, because that's exactly what reading feels like to me. I feel like that's why as a child, reading was everything because I had that empathy and sensitivity - I could really relate. So when he said that, it clicked in me. That's the magic in it, that's why I've always been on this journey. So I became a journalist basically so I could get paid to write, but with the idea that I'd do fiction writing on the side. Unfortunately, my journalism career became all encompassing and I wasn't writing enough.

So I guess the catalyst came for me when I was in my early thirties. I thought, what am I actually doing to achieve this goal I set myself? I'd always been playing around with bits and pieces of writing, but I'd never finished anything, and it was only ever tinkering. I took a job sub editing for a magazine which was a little bit less intense, and with more regular hours. I was able to claw out some time to write a novel. I wrote it, sent it off and thought "this is it! I'm going to start my fabulous writing career!" And it was rejected, of course, as first novels always should be. From there, it was actually a long stop- start process of figuring out how to switch from journalism to fiction writing. I finally did at the age of forty.

Jenny: It's quite a big switch, isn't it?

Brynn: It is. Your story structures may be the same in some respects, if you're doing non fiction switching to fiction. But that creative process must come from that whole different part of your brain,