When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?
Like many writers, it was while I was still in grade school that I made the decision. Was twelve and ran out of Nancy Drew books to read so I started my own, though I invented my own people rather than use Nancy and her crew. Still took me to age 42 to land a contract but I got distracted by dating and getting married (a couple times). J
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
My “quirk” probably isn’t that new or interesting but it works well for me. I always go back and reread the last ten pages I wrote (sometimes more to start at the beginning of a scene) before writing anything new on a manuscript. It gets me back into the story, back into “being” the characters. It also gives me an opportunity to edit out some crap and improve on what I’ve got. So perhaps my “quirk” is that when the first draft is competed, I want (and do have) a fairly clean manuscript. Then I reread and tweak it anywhere from five to ten or more times before releasing it into the wilds. Over the years there has been less and less that editors do on any of my novels because I’ve already covered it.
Where do you get your ideas for your books?
Good question. Wish I had a good answer! Will have to ask the muse who has an office in my subconscious. He’ll probably give me one of those looks. Sometimes it’s a scene. I’m tinkering around with a historical romantic adventure currently that is more mystery (have to keep reminding myself there is supposed to be a romance) where the opening sequence popped into my head and then I had to decide when and where it was happening, how the couple knew each other, and of course how to solve the mystery. For the urban fantasy that I have sitting on an editor’s desk currently (collecting dust) the idea of a writer being able to bring her fictional character to life had been kicking around in my head since the late 1980s, back when I was still one of the many unpublished. Casey Michaels did a version of it, but in the St. Just mysteries it was two of the characters who decided to cross the fiction line. By the time I realized my hero wasn’t a romantic one, he’d morphed into the protagonist in a fictional well selling urban fantasy series and his author was dragging him across the fiction line for nefarious reasons…which gave me the chance to weave that into an urban fantasy series. With my Steampunk in-progress stuff, what started out as a novella with romance as the niche, got such a working over that it’s now a trilogy…which means a lot of changing of concepts along the way. Still trying to sort things out on it but because I’d already written six historical romantic adventures set in the Old West, I knew the Steampunk stuff had to be in the Weird West niche. So, lots of ways that ideas drop into play.
How long does it take you to write a book?
I used to write them faster, back when I was doing romantic-comedy. But I dislike doing bedroom scenes and really like the challenge of writing mysteries. The historical romances had mysteries woven in and were longer books with lots of delightful historical…er…stuff in them. I liked them better, but they do take longer to write. Fortunately, I love all the research. Blame the BA in History. I also love word play (blame the MA in English Composition and Rhetoric). When I sit down to actually write the word count can mount up quickly most of the time. If I didn’t have to do other things (laundry, cooking, grocery shopping, yard work…all that crap), it wouldn’t take but two or three months to write and edit a 100,000 word manuscript. Unfortunately I don’t have a “wife”, like most male writers have, to do all that stuff for me. I’ve been trying to do NaNo each year lately because it forces me to the computer for more than dealing with social media. Once December hits, the shopping, decorating, wrapping, and going out to dinner with various friends all brings manuscript construction to a standstill.
What do you like to do when you’re not writing?
Read, naturally! But I tend to do that for a couple hours in bed every night anyway. There are the Netflix marathons, of course, and watching movies…using ones I’ve bought and enjoy watching over and over again. They usually involve superheroes, things blowing up, magic, or witty comedy (something there hasn’t been a lot of in a long time). My best friend from high school loves movies that make her cry and I’d rather be suiting up with Iron Man so finding someone who likes the same sort of viewing material is tough sometimes. The only sporting event I ever watch is horse racing, and that’s limited to the Triple Crown. Frankly don’t understand the fascination some women have with football or NASCAR. You’d think I would considering my movie tastes, but sporting events have no plot line. I think that makes them sorta ho hum. Horses, on the other hand, are beautiful when dashing for the finish line, and it’s all over in a few minutes. J
Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?
Be persistent. Finish those manuscripts. Listen to what others say, suggest and then consider whether they are on to something that will improve the story or the presentation. I think a lot of beginners’ manuscripts suffer from presentation. They’re up against writers who have honed their craft to a fine point and need to show they can run with that crowd. Make sure there is logic in the storyline, that the characters act in an appropriate way for their age, their upbringing. Spin a story that is exciting, suspenseful (even a romance, and it doesn’t have to have a mystery in it to be so), something that will keep the reader turning pages to find out what happens next…and then begins looking for something else you’ve written to buy and read! There are two things readers have said to me that made it all worth the effort I put into things. The first was a co-worker who, when my first book was released, leaned on my desk and said, “You rat. Do you know how late I stayed up last night to finish your damn book? Do you realize what time of day I have to be back here to work?” The answers were 2 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. The second was what a reader wrote to me in a letter redirected from the publisher. It said (and I paraphrase here), “I felt like you were writing about my life because the same thing happened to me as to Mallory. Like her, I found a wonderful man who not only loves me but loves my son.” It’s things like that that make being a novelist well worth all the mental swearing, the sweating out the times when I get stuck on what should happen next. For diving into the creation of yet another story when I finish writing one. For the most part, I think the decision I made at 12 to become a novelist was a damn good one.