Babe in the Woods by Jude Hopkins

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Jude Hopkins will be awarding a $20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Welcome to It's Raining Books. Why do you write in your genre? What draws you to it?

I wrote women’s fiction because I’m interested in addressing an audience of women (and men) who are drawn to certain issues, such as the over-arching need (it seems) to find a mate and settle down, at least for a large percentage of women, regardless of their other interests in life.

What research is required?

My book is set in two places: the first in a rural town in upstate New York; the second, Los Angeles. I’ve lived in both places (the rural town being western Pennsylvania, close to western New York state). So, drawing upon my experiences helped enormously in writing the settings for these two places. I can also say that hang-outs, like the local bar/restaurant in my book’s small town, could be the same from town to town in atmosphere and clientele. I worked in a record company when I lived in L.A., so that provided a lot of the details for the California part of my novel.

Name one thing you learned from your hero/heroine.

Passion and drive are positive qualities, misplaced though they may be at the outset.

Do you have any odd or interesting writing quirks, habits or superstitions?

I remember reading an old book titled The Creative Process edited by Brewster Ghiselin about quirks different authors must have before writing. One needed the smell of rotten apples in his desk before he could write. Another needed endless cups of tea. I would say my quirk for writing the book was listening to background music, in my case, an instrumental titled “You’re Stuck in the Passage of Time” that I found on YouTube.

Are you a plotter or pantser?

Both. I started out as a pantser, just writing to get ideas down for the first few drafts. After the book began to take shape, I got an art book, one with a landscape (as opposed to portrait) page format, so I could write down (and across) each page what the chapter’s synopsis and its characters were. So, after the first few drafts, I become very anal and want to make sense of the chaos I’d written. This helped in checking times and dates in the story, too.

Look to your right – what’s sitting there?

A tsundoku (a pile of unread books). In fact, If I looked to the right or behind me or in front of me, I’ll also find a tsundoku.

Anything new coming up from you? What?

I’ve got an idea for a second book and have started writing down some scenes (pantser), but so much has been going on in my life (good and bad) that I haven’t had much time to devote to it. I can’t say much about it because it’s still at the fragile stage, but I’ve amassed a lot of notes that I hope to use to fill it out and make it shine.

Do you have a question for our readers?

What qualities in a female protagonist make you want to invest in reading about her journey?

It’s September 1995, the first year of the rest of Hadley Todd's life. After living in Los Angeles, Hadley returns to her hometown in rural New York to write and be near her father. In addition to looking after him and teaching high school malcontents, Hadley hopes to channel her recent L.A. heartbreak into a play about the last moment of a woman’s innocence. But she seeks inspiration.

Enter Trey Harding, a young, handsome reporter who covers sports at the high school. Trey reminds Hadley of her L.A. ex and is the perfect spark to fire up her imagination. The fact that Trey is an aspiring rock star and she has L.A. record biz connections makes the alliance perfect. She dangles promises of music biz glory while watching his moves. But the surprising twist that transpires when the two of them go to Hollywood is not something Hadley prepared for.

Read an Excerpt

She picked up her books. She felt alive, all senses on the alert. If Trey reminded her of Derek, then they must be part of a type, members of the same genus and species. What was the proper name for a conclave of these guys? An assembly of assholes? A gaggle of gigolos? A bundle of bounders? Oh, but they had something these guys. They could make her life a dream whether she was sipping Dom Perignon with him at The Plaza or swilling moonshine with him on a back porch. Those guys could change the lens all right.

Trey would be easy to observe, too. He was an alpha male in a jungle of willing women out in the middle of nowhere. He had enough girlfriends around here that she could easily watch and record his interactions with them. As long as these women were OK with being snookered by such a playboy, she might as well learn as much as possible and make the proverbial lemonade out of a bowl of sour fruit.

“Have you forgotten? You were one of them,” an inner voice reminded her.

She corrected her posture and straightened up to her full 5’8” height. All of a sudden she was twenty again. It wasn’t only the play that interested her. He interested her. Besides, their names were linked. They formed a chiasmus – almost.

About the Author:

Jude Hopkins has published essays in The Los Angeles Times, Medium, the belladonna—and poetry in various journals including Gyroscope Review, Timber Creek Review and California Quarterly. She is currently working on her first novel, Babe in the Woods.

It has always been her desire to write. She was featured in Dickinson College’s literary magazine when she was an undergraduate. One poem in particular, “Mixed Metaphors,” contrasted two viewpoints in a lakeside scene: one of a romantic young woman who thought the wind was blowing through her hair like an Aeolian harp; the other, that of her suitor who believed the water looked as cold as hell. Ah, love’s different sensibilities! What she lost in that relationship, she gained from her sojourn at Dickinson, earning her Phi Beta Kappa key while there, as well as a desire to continue her education.

Then it was on to graduate school at Arizona State University where studying for her master’s degree in English and grading essays as a teaching assistant took most of her time (and partying — it was ASU, for Pete’s sake). However, she did have a germ of an idea for a self-help book that she began outlining, fueled by many a Thermos bottle of Dunkin’ coffee.

It wasn’t until she moved to L.A. that she thought about writing a proposal for that self-help book. She got some bites from agents. Top agents. But working three jobs took precedence. (One of those jobs was at a Hollywood record company where she met a Beatle, among other artists.)

When she finally moved back to Pennsylvania, she began seriously writing again, squeezing in time to pen some poems between endless essay grading at one of the University of Pittsburgh’s branch campuses. As an adjunct English instructor, Jude was uncompromising on what she expected from her students, knowing they were capable of achieving great things when challenged, but she tried to balance the hard work with humor. Nevertheless, she knew that discipline and knowledge could turn even the most reluctant student into a pretty good writer. To achieve that end, the cellphones had to be put away, and attention had to be paid. The result? Some model research papers and essays from memorable students (she taught English in Pennsylvania, New York state, California and Arizona).

The need to write something besides comments on student essays gnawed at her. One day, she took out her old self-help book manuscript from a cobwebby drawer and began the process of turning it into a novel. That novel became “Babe in the Woods” and will be traditionally published by Wild Rose Press sometime in 2023. She blogs about that novel, so, readers, please follow her blogs as she updates everyone on the book's progress. Please also check out her essays and poems, also featured herein.

Website: https://www.judehopkinswriting.net/
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/HeyJudeNotJudy

Amazon buy link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1509248439/

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