Joy Palmer talks about Love, Lace and Minor Alterations

What a pleasure to have Joy Palmer here. V. Joy Palmer is an avid blogger and is co-founder of Snack Time Devotions. She is a youth leader at her church, and loves acting crazy and drinking coffee with the teens. When Joy isn’t urging the elves that live in her computer to write, she’s hanging out with her husband, their adorable baby girl, and their two socially awkward cats. This is her debut novel.

Q & A with Joy Palmer and Melony Teague

Q: Tell me about why / how you chose the genre you write in (Love, Lace and Minor Alterations) and what about it appeals to you?

Joy: I’m twenty-four, so I started writing while I was a preteen. I wrote songs, and gradually that transformed into tinkering with several different stories. I’m all about the romance, so the issue was finding the right subgenre. Historical. Suspense. YA. Fantasy. Then one day I read Match Point by Erynn Mangum. I remember thinking, “This! This is what I want to be, how I want to write! My English teacher would skewer me if I tried that.” I read books by other authors (Jenny B. Jones, Janice Thompson, etc.) with similar styles. I finally settled on the Chick Lit genre. Then I went to my first writers conference and learned that Chick Lit was sleeping with the fishes, so I decided to hang out with her cool older cousin, Romantic Comedy. But the short answer would be that I wrote what I wanted to read. I enjoy making people laugh with my craziness, letting my sarcastic side show, and then sharing what God’s taught me. I love that RomCom lets me share all that with readers.

Q: Your “point of view” (POV) is first person for your main character, Isabel Vez. Talk to me about why you chose that POV for her and about the style and tone you settled on and why? (I love it by the way)

Joy: I fell in love with first person while I was studying other author’s writing styles. I always feel like the character comes alive. I’m not reading a book; I’m having a conversation with one of my best friends. So that’s how I try to write. Plus, I get to say all the things I’m thinking, but am too shy to say out loud. But when I started to write the first draft of Love, Lace, and Minor Alterations, I was actually possibly ranting about the man who is now my husband. (Love you, my Sam!) All of a sudden a frustrated Izze took over and started chattering in my head.

Q: What do you do to get into “the zone” when you are writing?

Joy: I usually try to remove myself from distractions – my book pile. I lock myself in a separate room or go to a coffee house to write. If I can’t do those things, I usually put on music to help me focus. However, if I feel stuck and want to bash my head into a wall, I’ll turn on Gilmore Girls in the background for some witty inspiration.

Q: When you are writing, what treat do you like to keep you going? Coffee OR Chocolate?

Joy: Coffee OR Chocolate?!?! OR?!?! People actually pick one over the other? The horror. 🙂

Melony: All right! My kinda girl, grab some chocolate and a coffee ya’ll.

Q: Please give me one fun fact about yourself that readers may not know.
Joy: I love to play mini golf, and I’m actually pretty good at it. I always thought regular golf was…uh, boring…not for me.

Q: Where and how can readers connect with you?

Joy: I love to connect with readers! I’m on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram .Check out my website, and I blog regularly at www.vjoypalmer.blogspot.com. You can also e-mail me at v.joypalmer@gmail(dot)com!