Meet J.l. Baldwin | Romance Author & Book Editor

We had the good fortune of connecting with J.l. Baldwin and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi J.L., why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
There really was no question as to why I chose a creative career because I had always been drawn to books and storytelling. It was not long after I wrote my first short story for a school assignment where I fell in love with writing and telling a story. Being able to create an entire world where I came up with characters, a plot, setting, resonated deep down within me. It was in that moment I realized okay, this is what I want to do. I want to do this for the rest of my life.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
What I’m most proud of is getting to sit down and churn out a new story. Having a blank document in front of you is like a blank canvas to me. What am I going to create? Where will this story take me? The blank page may be intimidating but it’s also starting fresh with something new and I feel like that’s a beautiful feeling.

Getting to this point in my career has not been an easy road. Not one bit. I always say don’t let anyone tell you writing a book is easy, because it’s not. When you sit down to write a book, you have to play the long game honestly. There’s character development, plot points you have to make sure you hit, and every part of the story has to flow into the next part and its an exhausting process, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

After almost ten years of being a published author, I feel like a lot of challenges I’ve faced have been personal. A lot of mental road blocks that morphed into writing blocks that lasted for weeks and sometimes months at a time. I will go months without writing a single word and as heartbreaking as that is when it happens, I know that it’s not forever and the words will come back.

What I want the world to know about me is no matter what I write, I always put my whole heart and soul into it. I would never put out a book I am not 100% happy with and no matter what, I will never put out anything that isn’t my best work and I believe in quality over quanity and that is something I will continue to believe in forever.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Living in a small town, there’s very little to do that doesn’t involve anything outdoors. I live right near Skyline Drive which is about 105 miles of scenic views. It’s beautiful in the fall and I encourage anyone who is coming into town to take that drive. Along that drive, there are tons of hiking trails that lead down to beautiful waterfalls. I hiked one that was about two miles down and back and the waterfall I saw at the bottom of the trail was breathtaking.

Afterwards we would walk down Main Street where there are tons of little shops and restaraunts that have some of the best local cuisine.

And if we ran out of things to do in my small town? I’d take them into Washington DC, which I don’t live far from. There are museums and historical landmarks that everyone should see and experience at least once in their life.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I was a book blogger in my early days in the book world, and I feel like a lot of my success can be summed up to all the great connections I made in the early days. Authors, other readers and bloggers, the list goes on. Despite being such an introvert, I found common ground being surrounded by other book lovers. Joining the book community so early on really gave me a good foundation to be where I am today and to have the type of connections I have. I learned so much by being on the reader side before jumping over into the author side, and it shaped who I am as an author and made the journey that much more fun.

In my blogging days, I was reading so many romance novels. I went from reading YA fantasy romance in my teens to dirty romance novels in my adulthood and it changed the game for me. They inspired me to pivot my focus from wanting to write fantasy romance to writing romance. So, if it weren’t for diving into reading romance novels, I don’t think I would be where I am today. So, I’d like to really think the authors who came before me for writing so many amazing books that inspired me and gave me the courage to take the leap myself and become a romance author.

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