What was your inspiration for Friends Who Move Couches?
Friends Who Move Couches is almost a memoir and is based on a severed friendship I experienced. When I admitted my “breakup” to others, I found most women have lost friendships over the years.
I decided to write a memoir; however, three chapters in, I realized how common and boring my suburban life had been. I decided to spice it up—mostly at the expense of my husband.
My husband and I have been faithful to each for many years, yet Nikki Grey’s husband (to spice it up) is cheating on her. While Nikki mourns her lost friendship, she’s unaware her marriage is slipping away.
Most of Nikki’s friends are true friends in my life. The main characters, Jody and Val, are childhood friends whose personalities are so interestingly opposite, I transplanted them from my childhood to my adult neighborhood. All other good (body-moving) friends are real except Evy and Ellie who are a culmination of all my friends.
One friend, Carol, helped me weather through my friendship losses and has become my best marketing tool. You can see her in my ads.
Do you find inspiration in your own life for your other writing?
All of my novels are somewhat inspired by my life but Friends Who Move Couches is the closest I can come to a memoir. Many scenes were inspired by true-life events. Because of this, I believe readers can relate to Nikki’s friendship and motherhood struggles.
Carol Crandall is one CJ Zahner's friends who would move a body for her.
Tell us about the book.
Nikki Grey's idea of living dangerously is not wearing a seatbelt, yet calamity always seems to find her.
Friends Who Move Couches is a laugh-out-loud yet insightful story about life, friendship, quieting your inner critic, and surviving rejection.
Married to a workaholic, mothering three rebellious kids, and feuding with neighborhood friends, Nikki Grey forgets her problems one afternoon by smoking marijuana. That blunder ignites a lifelong yet dormant medical condition, and she loses her driver’s license. Suddenly stranded in her home, she’s forced to stare out the window at women who have ostracized her.
Her true friends encourage her to concentrate on her health, but Nikki is her own nemesis. She embarks on a scheme to win back neighborhood friends and plunges into efforts that only end in muddying her reputation. She becomes the butt of neighborhood jokes.
Foolishly, her ache to mend her broken relationships escalates.
Not until her two-timing husband asks her a question that catapults her frivolous suburban life into a tailspin, is she forced to stop reaching for others and stand on her own
If you like novels like Three Wishes by Liane Moriarty, you’ll love following Nikki Grey’s hilarious journey in Friends Who Move Couches as she figures out…
Whom should she keep in her life and whom should she kick to the curb?
Tell us about your experience with the publishing process.
I self-published Friends Who Move Couches but used a small press for an earlier novel. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. Self-publishing is much work. You are the sole driver and the ride can become lonely and tiring. If you chose this route, prepare for a tedious journey.
Any new projects on the horizon?
I am currently writing the sequel to Friends Who Move Couches and loving every minute of it!
CJ discusses one of her other books, Dream Wide Awake,
on Book Circle Online:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H1tqVqFv7M
And let’s end with an Excerpt:
…My first two or three or twenty shots go nowhere. Eight times I miss the ball completely. My inability is embarrassing. The eighty-year-old lady beside me is knocking the names off the balls from her rubber square of the driving range, embarrassing me further. At least her direction faltered. She couldn’t hit a ball down the middle to save her life. She was slicing? Splicing? I’m not sure of the correct term, but she had a wonder ball. You wondered where it was going.
Once, when I am about to swing, she hollers over to me, “Honey, you’re tense. Relax a little.”
At this, the smiling pro agrees. “You are tense.”
He steps up behind me like they do in the movies. He leans close and sets his arms and hands over the top of mine. His chest rubbing against my back and shoulders is disconcerting and yet nice at the same time. While he blah blahs on, I think, gee, this is what it’s like to spend time in another man’s arms. Even if he is gay, it feels fine.
In twenty years, no one has been that close to me other than Mark and one homeless guy who roamed the streets downtown where I worked before the kids were born. Before my stretched, child-bearing hips began knocking lamps off end tables.
The homeless guy’s name was Winky. He had one eye.
I still had it going on back then.
So the smell of Blake the Pro’s cologne as he breathes down the back of my neck seems up-front and personal. A little too sexy for an old married mom. I don’t hear a word he says. At the end of his little speech, he manipulates my fingers into an extremely uncomfortable position on the grip of the club, and all I can remember of any instruction before I swing is that the little old lady told me to relax.
I relax, swing the club, and it sails through the air—the club, not the ball. That’s still perfectly perched on the tee.
Humility overpowers me, and I burst forward out of my little rubber stall and run for the club. The last thing I hear before the eighty-year-old lady’s ball makes a line drive to my temple is Blake the Pro yelling, “Don’t go after your club.”
I regain consciousness and refuse the ambulance. Blake the Pro says he’ll give me a ride home, but once we are riding in the car, he admits he lied. He’s taking me to the hospital. Anger and delirium overpower me. I try to get out of the car at every red light, but I keep rolling down the window instead of opening the door.
Once we arrive at the emergency room, he does all the talking. He strolls into the room with me as if some of this was his fault.
I don’t dare to admit I am a hopeless born loser.
We make glib chat in the sterile silver and white room while we wait for the doctor. I encourage him to go home several times, but he says he’ll wait for Mark. Finally, an hour later, the door opens and in walks—you got it—Doctor Death.
“Well, hello again, Ms. Grey.”
I look at Blake the Pro. The twinkle in his eye has re-sparked. Is he laughing inside?
“Do this often?” Blake the Pro’s teeth are so straight and white that it strikes me. I may have found the perfect match for Evy.
Mark walks in and Blake the Pro apologizes but, oddly, stays. Maybe the look on Mark’s face as he traipses through the door arouses Blake’s curiosity.
Furious, irate, and enraged with me, Mark wanders off on a teeth-gritting tirade, ranting about some lunch opportunity with a client being rushed.
Embarrassedly, I counter, “Do you think I got hit in the head just to ruin your lunch?”
“You’re always getting yourself into these fixes,” he grumbles.
My mind whirls. I can’t respond calmly. It’s hard concentrating with Blake the Pro and Doctor Death listening. I become enraged. I progress to screaming.
“I’m not doing these things on purpose!”
Then, Doctor Death enters my ring of fire.
“You passed out,” he doesn’t yell, but his tone closes in on disgust. “I’m adding the time to your license suspension.”
No, no, no. That will take me past Christmas.
“I took a blow to the head,” I yell.
“Nikki, lower your voice,” Mark chides.
“Doesn’t matter.” Doctor Death is heartless. “You lost consciousness.”
I pick up a tall metal IV holder off the floor. Mark tries to pry it from my fingers, but this time my grip is firm. I step toward Doctor Death.
“How about you run for the door, I swing this with all my might and knock you on your ass. Let’s see if you lose consciousness.”