I’m really pleased to introduce a New Thing this week! I’m going to occasionally invite other authors to answer questions about themselves and their work and anything else they want to chat about. The first person brave enough to subject themselves to this is Nell Iris! Welcome, Nell.
Firstly, why are you doing this interview? Inquiring minds need to know!
Because answering questions is always fun? ? Nah, just kidding. I have a new book coming out on August 3, a M/M contemporary short (app 5500 words) story called Team Luker. It’s a story about a couple, Jools and Ellery, who have been together for 25 years and who love each other dearly, but now face some difficulties in their lives.
What started you writing?
I’ve always adored books and reading. I learned to read as a very young child due to my mom’s illness that made her unable to be as active as she wanted, so to keep me occupied, she taught me how to read. Since then, I’ve always existed with my nose in a book and have always been interested in the art of writing.
I’ve always loved writing, since my early school days. My teachers encouraged me and for a while, after high school, I thought writing was something I was going to pursue. But then life happened, as it so often does, and my plans for my future changed. Not until decades later, when at 39, me and my husband left our old life in Sweden behind and moved to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, did I decide to actually try to achieve my dream. It wasn’t even my idea at first; when I was out to dinner with my husband one evening, he looked at me and said, You know, honey, I think you should write a book. So I did.
What I didn’t realize at the time is that I have actually written in some form or other most of my life. I started a personal blog back in 2006 and wrote every day until 2018 when I decided I was done with that blog. In my day job back in Sweden, I did a lot of writing: I wrote routines for our customer service, I wrote offers, I composed letter templates, and I wrote campaign letters.
So I guess I’ve been writing my entire life. But not until 2016 did I sit down with the intent on writing a book I would try to get published.
Where do you write?
Most of the time I write at my desk, that’s jammed between the couch and the dining room area of our living room. It’s where I have all my pens and notebooks (I write longhand), where I have a little Funko-Pop Professor Snape glaring at me if I don’t do the work, where I feel most comfortable. But sometimes, I take my notebook and venture outside the door. Sometimes I like sitting in a coffee shop, or someplace I can have a glass of wine and write. Mostly, because I don’t want to end up becoming a complete shut-in recluse ?
What do you like to read?
Right now, I read mostly M/M romance books. But I also love poetry and am so happy about the Instagram poets who are bringing back interest to this long ignored artform. I’m also in love with children’s books, mainly middle-school books. It’s before all the teenage drama sets in, when kids are curious and still innocent, wondering about the world and their place in it. Where they still believe in magic and are open-minded, and the books written for that age group reflects that. My dream is to one day write for kids.
What are the three books you’d take to a desert island? Why would you choose them?
The Complete Works of Jane Austen (it’s ONE book, I swear, I have it!!) – because it’s six fantastic stories in one (all right, five, I’m not that fond of Northanger Abbey) and I love Jane Austen.
I would bring the book of Catullus’ poems. Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Roman poet who wrote love poems to a married lady who he called Lesbia in his poems, and some witty, and very vulgar stuff, about life in Rome. I discovered him in my Latin classes in high-school and have read and loved them ever since.
And I would bring Ronia the Robber’s Daughter, by Astrid Lindgren (the author who wrote Pippi Longstocking) because it was my favorite book when I was a kid and all Lindgren’s female characters are strong and independent and excellent role models even for grown-ups.
Writing is an intrinsically solo occupation. Do you belong to any groups or associations, either online or in the ‘real’ world? How does that work for you?
I’m a member of a Goodreads M/M writing group which is currently not very active, but it’s where I met a couple of my most cherished writer friends. And over the years (I haven’t been active for that long yet) I’ve collected a couple more. All my writing friends are online; I currently live in Malaysia where homosexuality is against the law, so my genre isn’t very big here. I don’t know of any other M/M writers here, and only one reader that I’ve encountered so far (Hello Amanda! *waves*)
I kind of like it that way most of the time, because I’m an introvert who easily gets overwhelmed in busy social situations. But sometime,s when my friends are going on writing retreats, I wish I could go. Maybe someday ?
What do you like to do when you’re not writing?
I LOVE reading. I read all the time, every second I get. Music is also very important to me and I listen to it a lot. I like to listen consciously, and by that I mean not just something that’s on in the background as I do other stuff, but put on a vinyl record (yes, we have those!), pour a glass of red and listen. I love going out to dinners with my husband, I like drinking bubbly with my friends (not too often though, introvert remember?), I love my bullet journal, going to bookstores, and drinking tea. And I’m currently trying to revive my old German skills (I took a lot of languages in school – except for Swedish since I’m a Sweden, I learned English, French, German, and Latin) and right now I’m trying to un-rust my German. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy learning languages.
Tell me a little bit about your most recent release. What gave you the idea for it? How long did it take to write? What did you enjoy about writing it? What did you hate?
My husband had a health scare recently, of the “we have to rule out cancer”-kind. For a while, I was really frightened and anxious; we’ve been together for more than 25 years, he’s my best friend, and I can’t imagine my life without him. And the c-word is just so damned scary, especially considering a couple of my friends have just recently battled it (or is currently battling it). So to deal with my anxiety, I decided to write.
The words poured out of me and I finished the story in a day. Granted, it’s only about 5500 words, but I sat down, wrote a beginning, a middle, and an end in only one day (then it needed some beta reading and editing and all the other frills, of course, like books always do).
The story is about Jools and Ellery and it’s inspired by my husband’s health scare and my feelings at the time. I loved writing it because it gave me something to focus all my nervous energy on, instead of just sitting around thinking “what if?”
In the end, the story turned out great and my husband doesn’t have the big scary C, and when it comes to Jools and Ellery…well, you just have to read their story and see what happens to them, don’t you? ?
Nell’s new release, Team Luker, is out on August 3rd.
What if this is the last time we lie like this?
Uncertainty is keeping Ellery Luker awake at night and robbing him of his appetite. It’s been five days since the love of his life and partner of twenty-five years, Jools, went to the doctor. Five days since the biopsy. Five days of going crazy with worry and what ifs?
What if Jools suffers from the same disease that stole Ellery’s mother when he was just eleven?
What if all Ellery’s worst fears come true?
What if…?
Read an excerpt and buy from JMS Books
Find Nell elsewhere!
Email: contact@nelliris.com
Web – Twitter – Facebook – Goodreads – Instagram – QueeRomance Ink – Bookbub
The Cricketer’s Arms, Garrick Jones
Thrown to the Wolves, Charlie Adhara
Tournament of Shadows, S. A. Meade
Hither Page, Cat Sebastian
Outbreak, Melissa Olson
Rebellion, Naomi Aoki
Owl and the Japanese Circus, Kristi Charish
The last few weeks’ research rabbit-holes have been pretty varied. I’m still flailing around in the Himalayas and in eighteenth century India for Flowers of Time and on top of that I’m still fact-checking for Inheritance of Shadows. This is the stack of reading I took away on holiday last week.
I’ve done a load over the last month, but not much of it actual writing.
Which brings me to actual writing! Inheritance of Shadows has another three thousand words, which went out yesterday – newsletter usually goes out on the first Tuesday of the month, barring disaster. If you’d like to get the monthly installments of Matty and Rob’s adventures, 
Flowers of Time has had another few thousand words, but I’m still sidetracked by Katie Hickman’s She-Merchants, Buccaneers and Gentlewomen and feel like I need to get that under my belt before I write any more. I’m writing completely outside both my historical period and my geographical area and I don’t want to mess either up.