Author Interview with Bella Moxie

What are your favorite kind of characters to write? Do you have a specific trope that you’re drawn too?

My favorite characters to read and write are the super alpha heroes! It’s funny because in real life I am all about the cinnamon rolls. Give me a kind, supportive, trusting, respectful man with a good sense of humor and a heart of gold any day. (That describes my husband to a tee!) But when it comes to books? The more alpha the better, as far as I’m concerned. There’s something so satisfying about watching a strong, seemingly impenetrable hero get cut down at the knees by love.

Where is your favorite place to write? Does it change depending on where you are in the process?

My favorite place to write is…all over the place! For the first fifteen years of my writing career I held down day jobs to make ends meet while writing and querying and then self-publishing in my free time. Some of these day jobs were better than others, but I always dreamed about the day that I could work wherever and whenever I wanted. The day I went full-time with my writing career I promised myself I’d never be tied to a desk again (or wear control top pantyhose!) So, while I do own a desk and have a nice little office setup, you’ll almost never find me there. Instead, I ramble around our house, sometimes writing on the couch, other times at the kitchen counter, or if it’s nice out I’ll be out on our porch. Oh, and you’ll never ever find me wearing control top anything.

Which comes first for you: the plot or the characters?

It one hundred percent depends on the book. Sometimes the book starts as a vague premise, other times it’s the characters who demand to tell their story. A few of my stories have started out as just the opening sentence or a catchy tagline! With The Duke’s Defiant Angel, the characters definitely came first. I had this idea for a heroine who was painfully shy, and because of this was mistaken for being a doormat, basically. The hero, in contrast, would be so aggressively confident that he can’t see that the woman he wants to marry has no interest in him. I’d recently re-watched Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and was tickled by the idea of a hero like Gaston (alpha to the max!) who finds himself in love with a woman who despises him. And voilá, Raff and Evangeline were born!

Do you write better in the morning or evening? How do you handle the distractions of working from home, especially if you’re sharing the space with others?

I am a morning person. To a fault, some might say. Friends and family who don’t love the mornings tend to despise my early morning energy. (Though, in my defense, by the time they wake I’ve usually been up and well caffeinated for quite some time.) I’ve always preferred to write in the mornings as my brain turns to a heaping pile of goo by around three in the afternoon, but during Covid when everyone was home and my house was distraction central, I realized that I actually do really well work-wise if I get up very early. Like, four am every day kind of early. I love having a quiet house all to myself while I work!

What do you like to read when you’re not reading in your genre? Did you have a favorite book or series when you were growing up?

Oh gosh, I read EVERYTHING. When I first started writing, the most confusing piece of advice I kept getting was to write what you love to read. It’s excellent advice…except when you love to read ALL the genres. So now, I write in multiple genres under different pen names so I get to do it all. I like to read a different genre than whatever I happen to be writing at the moment, so my TBR varies from light and fluffy romcoms to super angsty mafia romances to nonfiction self-help books. I’m very much a mood reader (and a mood book buyer) so my TBR pile continues to grow with no end in sight. One day I’ll read them all (she tells herself as she one-clicks yet another irresistible regency romance.)