WHAT DO YOU WRITE?

 

Regency Set Historical Romance is a Romance that is loosely set in the Regency of England, but is only a back-drop to the book’s plot.

 

WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR STORY IDEAS?

 

I think every writer gets asked this question a lot. Mostly, I see something that sparks and idea. In two of my works, it started with the picture of the first scene lurking in my mind.

Plots are where you find ‘em, I guess.

 

WHAT THEMES DO YOU FIND MOST COME OUT IN YOUR WRITING?

 

I have discovered I have a particular fondness for secret identities in one way or another. It has always fascinated me and I only just realized all my stories have this in common…..so far.

 

WHO ARE YOUR FAVORITE AUTHORS?

 

That’s a cinch… just about all of them. In fact, some of my favorite authors aren’t published yet. When it happens, I’ll be the first in line.

 

But just to name a few: Jude Deveraux, Julia Quinn, Linda Howard, Elizabeth Lowell, and Sabrina Jeffries are some of the people I look for in the bookstore.

 

WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE HERO?

 

My husband. Sigh. He has never faltered from his support of me and my writing. He never sees me typing and asks me to get a “real” job and he thinks that I’m cute even when I should have hit the shower hours ago, but got caught up in my latest project.

 

 

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE YOU TO WRITE A BOOK?

 

It varies a lot. Generally, I write about a chapter a day five days a week. I send my chapters off to my critique partners (Terri and Jan) and use free time on Saturdays to look over their suggested changes or catches on things I overlooked.

 

Since I'm someone who writes seat-of-her-pants, I don't outline at all. I have a general idea of where I'm going, but if I create wonderful characters, they tend to take over the story direction--and I let them.

 

So let's see, approximately five chapters a week and 20 to 26 chapters a book, somewhere around a month. Then I revise, revise, revise until I am screaming for the book to be over. That's another month.

 

DO YOU RECOMMEND A CRITIQUE GROUP?

 

Only if you trust them. Jannifer and Terri are godsends to me. They never mess with my voice, they laugh at my jokes and they tell me when I have truly confused them. Jannifer recently told me my secondary male was a clod. I had to go back and find out what made him such a loser and now he's much stronger. And Terri reminds me to take risks, even when I don't want to. Together they catch things I don't and that's important. I trust them completely and never take their comments personally because they don't have a mean bone between them, even if the comments might occassionally pinch.:)

 

I WANT TO GET INTO WRITING. WHERE DO I START?

 

With RWA and an idea. Go to www.RWAnational.org and look around. Find a local chapter. The support and information you receive is invaluable. Then pick up your pen, your laptop, whatever, and write.

 

And where do you start? Someone once told me she had ideas that were better than any TV show she'd seen. I told her to write it down. She asked me how and I asked her to tell me about her characters. She asked me if she actually needed people in her story. Hmmm. I'd start there.