Having a "Secret Identity"

To use a pen name or not to use a pen name?

That's a question all authors must grapple with. Keeping a writer's real name off the cover is not a new phenomenon. Mark Twain was really Samuel Langhorne Clemens. 19th century novelist Amantine Aurore Lucile Dupin hid not only her name but her gender as well by writing as George Sand.

But why would an author use a pen name in the first place? Several reasons. Here are a few:

1. The author's real name doesn't fit the genre they write. Euphiginia Codsworthy may write fantastic YA, but her name doesn't scream cool. I doubt any young readers would pick up her book.

2. The author has a day job that might be compromised if it were known he/she wrote their books. People don't assume murder mystery writers have a bunch of bodies in their basement, but they do tend to think romance writers know a good deal more about sex than most. Some writers use a pseudonymn to keep their professional and writing lives separate.

3. The author's name is changed to protect the not-so-innocent. If a writer uses family and friends as inspiration for their characters, using a pen name keeps others from recognizing them. So if you know a writer, beware. It's a fearsome thing to fall into the hands of an angry author.

4. The author writes in different genres. Nora Roberts writes her futuristics as JD Robb. Jayne Ann Krentz writes historicals as Amanda Quick and paranormals as Jayne Castle. The name becomes a "brand." If you pick up a Quick novel, you know what type of story you're getting. Similarly, my Diana Groe books are Dark ages romance. Emily Bryan stories are light-hearted and my upcoming Mia Marlowe books will have a sparkle of magic.

5. The publisher requests a name change for marketing reasons. Publishing is a tough business. If an authors numbers don't continue to trend up, or hit a high enough level, the book buyers lose interest. A publisher may believe in the author's talent enough to publish them under another name.

6. The author wants to protect their privacy. I've never had a problem, but some of my writing friends have been stalked. Of course, a pen name isn't bullet-proof. There are ways to find the real person behind it, but it does require some additional work.

So have you considered having a pen name? Some writers choose to use their real name. Here's your chance to share why.

For Readers: If you were a writer, what pen name would you pick for yourself and why?

Brenda Novak~Tugging at Readers' Emotions

Weekend before last I attended the NECRWA's Let Your Imagination Take Flight Conference. If you're an aspiring writer and have difficulties with the expense of a national conference, I urge you to check out a regional RWA conference. You're likely to have the same quality of speakers, an opportunity to pitch your work to editors and agents, and a chance to network with industry professionals at a bargain price.

NYTimes Bestseller Brenda Novak was one of the excellent speakers at NECRWA's conference. Her two hour workshop zipped by at lightning speed and after taking notes for a while, I finally decided to just let her wisdom wash over me. Here are the highlights:

To keep the pages turning, authors must engage a reader's emotions. If your book is a tear-jerker, make them go through a box of kleenex. If it's scary, make them keep the lights on. If it's sexy, make them need a cigarette!

OK, how?

Brenda says we engage readers' emotions by pulling them in close with use of really tight POV. We let our readers experience what's going on as our characters do. An omniscient viewpoint, sort of a "God's Eye" view is too far away. We have to get inside our character's head. Here's an example from my STROKE OF GENIUS (and I apologize for using my own work as an example. I'm just more familiar with it so it's easier to find a snippet that illustrates my point.) In this scene, if I used omniscient POV, I might say, Crispin leaned in and kissed Grace more deeply. She liked it more than she should. Instead, I take you inside Grace's head:

Crispin slowly leaned in again, covering her lips for a longer kiss. He slanted his mouth over hers, running the tip of his tongue along the seam of her lips.

Tasting her.

There was a loud roaring in her ears, an ocean pounding in her head. Her world spiraled down to the exquisite sureness of his mouth on hers, to the feather of his breath on her cheek, to the roughness of his chin against her smooth one. She couldn’t move. If she did, the spell might break. All she could do was bunch the extra fabric of the palla in her lap between tightly scrunched fingers.


The second thing Brenda suggested for pulling our readers in close is subtext. When a reader picks up a book, she brings her own experience to the work. She is able to read between the words on the page to infer meaning. In the example above, the sentence All she could do was bunch the extra fabric of the palla in her lap between tightly scrunched fingers shows readers this was a toe-curling kiss and Grace liked it far more than she should have. That's subtext. It's what's really going on beneath the words on the page.


For other examples of subtext, you might want to refer back to my Red Pencil Thursday with Gillian Layne. She used it deftly in her excerpt a couple of times.

If you get a chance to hear Brenda Novak speak about writing, I encourage you not to miss it. She's a fount of ideas for excellent writing practices. In the meantime, check out her website and look for her books! She also runs an annual auction for Diabetes that features goodies for aspiring writers--critiques by editors and agents for example. You get your work read by top people and a great cause benefits as well.

Have you ever read a book that made you feel you had lived the character's life?

Which Rocks to Polish?

From my Write Stuff pages . . .
Today's post is mostly aimed at writers, but I hope readers will enjoy a peek into some of the issues writers grapple with as we craft our stories.

When my kids were little, we visited a gem mine. They had a ball picking up moonstones and amethysts right off the ground. Of course, they also picked up rocks that even weeks in a rock tumbler wouldn't turn into anything of value. Only the experienced gemologists could tell the precious from the ordinary with any degree of confidence.

So how do writers decide which ideas are worth developing and which will only wear out the tumbler?

First, make sure your story idea is something that ignites a fire in you. There's no point in writing about time-traveling shape-shifting vampire fighters because you think the market is clamoring for them if YOU aren't excited by them. Lack of passion will shout from your prose so loudly, no one will be able to hear your story.

Don't re-tell stories that have been done to death UNLESS you put an exceedingly fresh spin on it. If you want to do the virgin and the rake, make the guy the virgin. Create characters who are not the usual suspects.

A story thrives on conflict. Make sure the place where your story lives has conflict built into it intrinsically. One of the biggest complaints about romance novels is that the conflicts are contrived or so shallow a simple five minute conversation between the hero and heroine would solve the issue. Make your conflicts matter.
 
Your story needs two kinds of conflict--internal (problems stemming from personal tension between characters) and external (outside influences-villains, unfortunate events, forces of nature). Remember the conflict must be strong enough to propel you 400 pages.

Make sure your story's idea kernel does not violate the conventions of the genre. Romance readers will not accept a rapist as a hero. They dislike heroes and heroines who act in less than admirable ways unless there is a hidden heroic reason for it. Likewise, we mistrust protagonists who are too poisonously good. Give your hero and heroine a few flaws. They need a chance for growth.  


Don't forget to ask yourself the eternal writer's question: "What if . . . " When you're in the planning stages, you can run as wild as you like. Don't be afraid to ask yourself outrageous questions. Think about your characters before you go to sleep and let your subconscious bubble the story all night. You might be surprised what your dreams tell you.

When you're brainstorming your plots, take a fresh sheet of paper and write at least 20 possible twists your story can take. Chances are the real gem will be toward the end of the list. It will be something out of the box, something no one else has thought of, something untried and fresh.

Then all you need do is toss that idea in the tumbler of your imagination and let the precious stone emerge.

We interrupt this post for a brief commercial announcement! A CHRISTMAS BALL is almost upon us. If you'd be willing to post this invitation on your blog or myspace to help me get the word out, I would bless your name! Please send me a quick email at emily@emilybryan.com and I'll shoot you the code for this graphic. Thanks so much!

Jennifer Ashley, Emily Bryan & Alissa Johnson
invite you to . . .


RSVP at your favorite bookseller!

Ok, back to the topic at hand. How do you decide which story to throw your heart and time into? Happy Writing!    

Back to School, Back to Writing

Meet my friend Gerri Russell. She's a two time Golden Heart winner and was first published when she won the American Title Contest a couple years ago. Since her debut in January 2007, she's had 3 more books published. She knows a thing or two about writing. Today she's sharing about how to get back into the writing groove after a summer hiatus. My words are in bold today, Gerri in regular type. Take it away, Gerri.

This summer has been filled with one distraction after another. All the distractions might be fun, but they reek havoc with a writing schedule.

Fall brings consistency of daily writing back into the regime. Are you as ready for a change of season as much as I am. Is it time to get back to writing consistently every single day?

But there may be one little problem…are you ready to get into the groove?

In order to be a marathon runner you must learn to train every day. To start with small goals for activity and slowly build to more. You have to get your muscles in shape and prepare for the ultimate test to your endurance. Is preparing for writing any different? Not really. So what's a writer to do when their muscles are a bit out of shape? When the skills and abilities of achieving page goals each day are a bit…let's be polite here…less than toned? It all goes back to the basics--those same principles marathon runners use.

• Retrain your discipline. This is a tough one. How to be disciplined enough to sit down in your writer's chair after a long break from that habit. Two things that have always worked for me are a quote and a kitchen timer. The quote: "Discipline is remembering what you want." by David Campbell The timer: gets set for 10 minutes the first day, 12 the second, 14 the third, and so on. When the timer is on, I write anything that comes to mind. It's a great way to get back in the habit of writing.

• Start with a plan. What do you want to accomplish? You need a map, a guideline of where you are going. Do you want to complete a whole book by a certain date? Do you want to finish one chapter each week? Write one, three, seven, twenty pages a day?

• Set small goals at first, then build gradually over time to increase your endurance. One you have a plan you can break things down into smaller and realistic goals. Setting goals helps you feel like you are making progress forward. I might start my first week off writing three pages a day, then after the first week bump the total up by 2-3 pages a day until I hit my normal daily average.

• Track your progress. I'm a visual person and I really have to keep a log or a graph to show me what my goal was and then how I'm performing. Placing that chart near my computer desk can really keep me focused and inspired when things are going so well.

• Eat a healthy diet and get enough rest. Yes, you actually write better when you each nutritious food and sleep eight hours a night.

• Celebrate the successes. When you hit your milestones, celebrate the moment. One of my favorite ways to celebrate is to go for a hike. I like to think about it as time off for good behavior. It's also a great way to regroup and feed that writer's well with new thoughts and ideas about what to write next.

What do you need to do to get yourself back in shape after a long summer's break?

Thanks so much for sharing those gems with us, Gerri. I'm thrilled to share that a couple commenters are going to make out like bandits today. Gerri is giving away a copy of her newest release, TO TEMPT A KNIGHT and one of her Brotherhood of Scottish Templar's T-shirts! So leave a comment!



To Tempt a Knight

Upon his return to Scotland from the Crusades, Templar knight Sir William Keith is charged with finding a vital holy relic and protecting the daughter of its former guardian--a task that will force him to choose between duty to his vows and desire for the beautiful, courageous woman finally able to soften his battle-hardened heart.

PS. Wanna join me in a treasure hunt? Be sure to click on the NightOwl Webhunt graphic in the right sidebar and have some end of the summer fun!

Four-legged Writing Assistants

Some writers no doubt have neat offices where they sit at a desk and churn out their prose. I however, work in a recliner with my 'writing assistants' snugged at my hips. Allow me to introduce Susie and Mack.

Susie is a 15 year old poodle mix (the little dark face that's blending in with the recliner). She's been with us for 10 years. We picked her up at the pound. Some long-haul truckers dropped her off because she was sick. She'd been abused. When you run your hand along her side, you can feel a bump where a rib was broken. When we first brought her home, a man wearing a ball cap would send her into spasms and it took her six months to warm up to my husband who is the kindest of men. She is the sadder but wiser dog. She knows there are meanie-heads in the world. But she's having a happy life now.

Mack, a 3 year old Irish Jack Russell, came to us by way of my sister and brother-in-law. He is the product of a puppy mill and when he was born with undescended testicles, the breeder was going to put a bullet in his brain. My tender-hearted brother-in-law rescued him and paid for the surgery that took care of his birth defect. Unfortunately, their elderly dog didn't think much of little Mack, so we inherited him. Mack is a delight and surprisingly calm for his age and breed.

My dogs enjoy writing. It's a chance to cuddle for extended periods of time. When I take breaks to walk them, it gives me an opportunity to rethink scenes or gain a fresh perspective. And when I read my work aloud, Susie and Mack are uncritical listeners. I'd be lost without them.

So thanks for letting me share my four-legged friends with you. If you're a writer, where do you write? Do you have a pet that inspires you? If you're an animal lover, do you have a 'rescued pet?' Aren't they the best!

Frustrated at a higher level . . .

I just finished reading my friend, Elizabeth Boyle's most recent blog.

She is a New York Times Best Seller. She's won a RITA! (That's like winning an Oscar for a romance novelist). She's an Avon Super Leader with 13 titles to her credit. She writes inventive, fresh, sensual, witty historical romance. The kind of book other writers read and say to themselves, "Darn! I wish I'd written that!"

And she's fretting over her next release as if she were a debut author.

Heavy sigh. I keep hoping there will come a time when I can just write and not worry about promo or buy in or sell through. When I can get over my sense of inadequacy and enjoy my accomplishments.

What I'm seeing in my friends who are a little further along the publishing path than I am is that they are all still a bundle of self-deprecating nerves. We never think our writing's good enough. We never stop worrying. We always gloss over the stellar reviews and obsess about the luke-warm one. God forbid we get a bad one. That'll put us in a real tailspin.

So it appears I've chosen a career guaranteed to give me frown lines.

Unless I can find a way to enjoy the journey, to take my joys where I find them instead of worrying over the ones I fail to achieve. Once I type THE END, there are very few things I can do to insure the success of my book. And if I did all that people recommend to promote my work, I'd never find the time to write another.

I'd really love to hear from you. If you're a writer, how do you handle the dichotomy between expectation and reality? If you're a reader, did you have any idea writers were such neurotic messes? Any suggestions?

And oh, yes, while I'm stressing, let me remind you about MY current release, PLEASURING THE PIRATE, available at your bookstore now or at Amazon! Shiver me timbers, I'd admire a good sell-through! Aarg!

Running the Writing Marathon

Watching the Olympics this week, I was mesmerized by the women's marathon. First, the idea of anyone running 26 miles impresses the heck out of me. When 38 year old Constantina Tomescu from Romania pulled away from the pack, I was spellbound. Every now and then, she checked her watch. She wasn't running against the other athletes. She had a plan. She knew exactly where she needed to be all along the route in order to finish like she intended. She was running her own race, running against her own time.

I thought it was a little like writing a novel. Ok, I know only a writer would make that sort of leap, but hear me out. Writing a novel is no sprint. It's a distance activity. When I start a new manuscript, I know I will live with this cast of characters in my head for months.

Like a marathon runner who can't let another runner dictate her race, I can't compare my progress to anyone else's. My story is my own. I'm writing against my own synopsis. Another writer may breeze by on the way to THE END, but if I keep at it, I'll arrive at my own finish line as well. Speed isn't the issue. Finishing is.

There's pain in a marathon. Watching those women run, I saw agony on two legs. Sometimes, there's pain in writing as well. Writing means you have examine parts of yourself you may not be comfortable with. All my characters, the good, the bad, the downright horrible come from some place inside me.

Sometimes, the writing itself is not going well. I may be experiencing 'word constipation'--I refuse to think of it as writer's block. I have to power through a rough patch, knowing I'll come back and redo it later.

At the beginning of a new story, 400 pages seems like a distant finish line. But if I keep plugging away at my plan, if I keep racking up my page count, I will complete the writing marathon and meet my goal, the big THE END.

Now if only writing 400 pages would burn as many calories as running 26 miles!

Getting Published

PLEASURING THE PIRATE, my 5th book, will be in stores tomorrow! I'm thrilled. And grateful. And feeling like this is an opportunity to look back a bit over the last few years since my debut in May 2006.

When one of my MySpace friends asked about how to get published, I thought there might be others who'd like to know as well. Everyone's journey is different, but if others will be helped by my experience, I'm willing to share. So, here's a brief stroll down my path to publication.

I'm not like Susan Elizabeth Phillips, who scribbled a proposal and sold her first book before it was even written. I had to learn my craft. I started in 2001 with the naive notion that since I was a reader, I could be a writer. That's right. It took me 5 years to publish. You may take less time. Or more. It's the journey that's important, not how long it takes.

I wrote 2 complete manuscripts that will forever gather dustbunnies under the bed. They were my teachers. I learned about story arcs and POV and dialogue. And generally how not to write a romance novel. Even so, the 2nd one (a sad little western) started to win a few writing contests. It was enough encouragement to keep me going.

Then we moved to Seattle and I joined Eastside RWA. Finally I wasn't on my own, trying to reinvent the wheel. I had help in learning how to write. And at one of the chapter meetings during a writing exercise, my heroine Rika from my debut novel MAIDENSONG was born.

I was just typing THE END on MAIDENSONG when my husband lost his job in a corporate downsizing. We moved to Missouri to lower our expenses. I took a position as a banker to help make ends meet, while he looked for work. While I struggled to learn a new job, I also struggled to learn to write in the evenings and on weekends, when I was tired, whether I felt like writing or not. I wasn't playing with this. It was not a hobby. There was far too much of my blood on the pages for that. I was determined to be a real writer.

I sent queries (I'll talk about query letters in my next post) to agents, since I knew I didn't have time or the expertise to submit MAIDENSONG on my own. Thanks to a faithful e-critiqueing friend, during this time I finished ERINSONG, and wonder of wonders, I finally was offered agent representation in 2004.

I continued writing. Each time I finished one story, I didn't wait to see if it would sell. I started on the next one. In June 2005, I got THE CALL. Leah Hultenschmidt from Leisure Books had found MAIDENSONG languishing on her desk and loved it. (Bear in mind, MAIDENSONG had been there for a year. Most of the time, publishing grinds with glacial slowness.) MAIDENSONG came out in May 2006 and I wept when I first saw the cover.

Now, I have 5 books in print, another due out next March and a contract for one after that. I'm writing full-time now (Thank you , God and my dear husband!). I have been extremely blessed and I feel I must share that there is an element of luck in who gets published and who doesn't. It's a matter of the right manuscript on the right desk at the right time.

But it's also a matter of perseverance. The clinical definition of that word is "continueing an activity past the time when it makes sense. To persist in an idea, purpose or task, despite obstacles." I used to think 'perseverance' meant going to grad school, but it fits trying to be published to a T.

Persevere. Keep writing. Once you start down the path, don't give up on the journey. You'll find places in yourself and others you never knew existed. Good luck!

* * *

"I simply couldn't put this one down!" ~ Reviewer Top Pick, NightOwl Romance on PLEASURING THE PIRATE

Scene Stealer

Back when I was singing professional opera, occasionally one of the supernumeraries (spear carriers, we used to call them) would do something to upstage the main characters. (Dare I confess to doing it myself sometimes when I was spear carrier?) It’s not always planned, but it happens.

It happens in fiction too. An unsuspecting writer creates a secondary character to fill a need in the hero or heroine’s life and all of a sudden, the bit part refuses to stand quietly holding the spear. It happened to me when I created my heroine’s mother for PLEASURING THE PIRATE, my July 29th release from Leisure Books.

Meet Isabella Wren, better known as ‘La Belle Wren’ in demimonde circles. That’s right. She’s a courtesan and she’s good at it. She moves in the most exalted circles. As the 18th century counts celebrity, she’s a rock star. She’s bone-deep beautiful, wickedly sensual and calculatingly clever. She’s used to being the center of attention.

Why did I ever think she’d fade into the background until she was needed?

First she began poking her way into the story through my heroine’s memory. Isabella sent Jacquelyn to the finest schools, but couldn’t leave her education totally to the headmistress and her minions. She sent her distant daughter detailed letters schooling her in the art of love. “Ignorance is not always conducive to bliss,” she says.

When I turned in the initial manuscript for PLEASURING THE PIRATE, my editor said, “I love Isabella! She’s outrageous, but she sucks all the air out of the room. You have to tone her down.”She was right. When ‘La Belle Wren’ made her entrance, the rest of the cast faded a bit. Isabella knows how to ‘take stage.’

But instead of toning her down, I opted for ratcheting my heroine up to meet her. I gave Jacquelyn an extra dollop of her mother’s spine, courage and wit. When the two of them join forces, my formidable pirate hero doesn’t stand a chance.

Isabella was too much fun to let go once PLEASURING THE PIRATE was finished, so she makes an encore appearance in my next book, VEXING THE VISCOUNT, due out March 2009. If you’d like to read an excerpt of both stories, please visit http://www.emilybryan.com/.

You can pre-order your PIRATE today!

10 Ways to Make Sure You'll Never Publish

Anyone can give you ideas to help you get published. Here's a few helpful hints to make sure you never have to worry about getting The Call.

1. Never finish a manuscript. Surely just your premise scrawled quickly onto the back of a napkin ought to be enough. It's the idea that counts.

2. Don't accept critique from others. It's your story. You should be able to tell it from 37 different points of view if you want. And be sure to ignore the publisher's guidelines. Do they want your manuscript double-spaced in Courier New 12 pt? Well, isn't that silly? You can fit twice as many words if you single-space. And if you use Ariel 8 pt. I bet you can cram even more on each page.

3. Never be willing to revise. Why mess with perfection? Your mother loves your story just as it is.

4. Agent-schmagent! Who needs another hand in your pocket? Sure, the publisher's guidelines require agented submissions, but that's just for those other less-inspired writers. Besides, if you're a tough negotiator on your advance, that editor will think twice about trying to cross you with pesky revision requests.

5. Be as nasty as you can to other writers. After all, we're all going for the same finite number of slots. Leave the encouragment and mentoring of other authors to the Mother Theresa's of the writing world.

6. When you pitch, make sure you tell the editor how lucky he/she is to have found the next Nora Roberts. Of course, once she reads your 800,000 word manuscript, she'll realize how brilliant you are. But it never hurts to be cocky . . . er, I mean, confident.

7. Don't join RWA or some other writer's group. If they knew so much, they'd all be published. Besides, one of them might steal your idea for that genre-bending futuristic, erotic, chick-lit western mystery.

8. If you attend a writer's conference, be sure to stalk the editors. They like the attention. If you want to be totally memorable, shove your complete manuscript under the bathroom stall door to them. That'll get your work noticed! And I guarantee they'll remember your name. They might even tell their friends.

9. If you do finish a manuscript, make sure you don't start a second one before the first one sells. Just keep sending the same manuscript out to as many houses as you can, whether they publish your type of story or not. For good measure, if one editor at a publishing house rejects you, make sure you send it to all the other editors at the same house. Won't that first editor feel silly when the fifth editor buys your work? After all, it's not as if they talk to each other or, heaven forfend, consult with each other on their acquisition decisions.

10. Don't give away the ending in your synopsis. What better way to make an editor request the full manuscript than to finish up your outline with a coy, "If you want to know how it all turns out, you have to read the full manuscript!" Besides, they really need to read the whole thing to understand why you decided to kill off the hero on the last page.

If you follow these guidelines, I can virtually guarantee you'll never be bothered by a contract offer. However, if your goal is actually to see your writing in print, you might want to forget these rules or even do the opposite.

Happy Writing!

My husband didn't know he married a hooker!

Ok, I know what you're thinking and you're wrong. Sorry, I just practiced a little "catch and release" on you.

I'm talking about making sure my writing has hooks, those little barbs of tantalizing information that keep a reader turning the pages. Last night, my dear husband was reading my current WIP (VEXING THE VISCOUNT) --yes, I am the luckiest writer on the planet to have him. He's my faithful first reader--and he kept saying he was going to stop as soon as he hit a chapter break. But the end of the chapter came and I "hooked" him into reading on. He finally had to stop mid-chapter at a Point-Of-View switch.

So what exactly is a hook? It's a sliver of promise of what's to come. A twist that sends the readers' thoughts in an entirely new direction. It's a surprise, an element so out of place and yet so inevitable, it makes the reader plough forward even though it's long past midnight and they have to rise at 6 AM.

For examples of prime hooking masters, read Dan Brown or Mary Higgins Clark. They propel their readers along, setting hooks with almost every sentence. There's a smooth pathway in their prose and if there's any sign of slowing, they throw in a twist that sends the reader careening forward.

Sometimes it's the initial sentence that so smacks the reader with questions, they have to read to figure out what in the world is going on. Nora Robert's opener for Carolina Moon is one of these. When I read 'She woke in the body of a dead friend.' I knew this was not your average story. Have you read any good hooks lately? I'd love to hear what caught your eye.

My hooking skills are still in the refining stage, but I'm working on it. So be forewarned. My goal is to keep you up some night.

www.emilybryan.com

Interview with USA Today Best Seller Jennifer Ashley

Jennifer Ashley, creator of imaginative paranormal/historicals and the wildly successful IMMORTALS series, sat down to visit with me about her work, her writing style and what's next for her.

Emily: I'm still trying to get used to two names, Emily Bryan & Diana Groe, but you write under FOUR different pseudonyms. Can you tell us about all your incarnations and something about the latest title for each?

JA: Ah, yes, my many pseudonyms. I took each for a couple of reasons--1. contractual obligations I didn't want to violate, and 2. my style and feel are different for each one.

Ashley Gardner writes gritty, noir, historical mysteries set in the English Regency period. No light-hearted Jane Austen stuff here! That's at http://www.gardnermysteries.com

Jennifer Ashley writes hot romances, both historical and paranormal. They have more humor, though they're not completely light-hearted. Sort of a combination of gritty action-adventure and romance and humor. http://www.jennifersromances.com

Allyson James goes for it on the erotic romance side. Her paranormal romances at Berkley Sensation are less raw than her erotic romances at Ellora's Cave or Berkley Heat, but still on the very hot side. She writes paranormals and futuristics with a sexual edge. http://www.allysonjames.com

I also wrote one book as Laurien Gardner, which was part of Berkley's wives of Henry VIII series.

Emily: Wow! Talk about versatile. Last year, you won a RITA—the Oscar of the romance writer’s world—for LADY RAISED HIGH. What was that like?

JA: I was completely floored when Alyssa Day called me up to the podium. Not only are the odds of winning the RITA astronomical but the other nominees were fantastic writers, and I was certain one of them would win. I hadn't even prepared a speech. So there I was at the podium with this heavy statue in my hand, having to come up with an acceptance speech off the cuff. I think I did ok--I invoked my husband for some comic relief, which always helps. In short, I was stunned, thrilled, and so grateful to the judges who loved the book. I treasure the RITA and it has a place of honor in my living room.

Emily: I'm always fascinated by other writer's methods. Can you describe your writing process? Are you more a ‘plotter’ or a ‘pantser’?

JA: Definitely a panster. I have tried again and again and again to plot out my books first, because everyone says I'm supposed to, and I just can't do it. I've written about twenty-five books now (I think), all of them by the seat of my pants, even though I tried on some to use note cards or timelines or white-board charts or grids or whatever the plotting tool of the day was. I gave up. My books sell fine, get great reviews, and win awards, so I've stopped worrying about it.

What works for me is to have a kernel of an idea (for both plot and characters), sit down and write as much as I can off the top of my head, and then brainstorm the rest as I go. I find that my stories are much more fresh and fast-moving if I do that than if I think I have to stick to what I've written on my little sticky notes. If plotting tools work to keep other writers organized and not panicked, I say go for it. If you're like me and can't get your mind around plotting first, I say go for it.

Emily: The IMMORTALS hit the USA Today Best Sellers list. What’s next for that series? Can you share a little about collaborating with other writers to produce the related stories?

JA: Because the first four books did so well, the publisher agreed to let us continue the series. The second series starts with Immortals: The Redeeming, which is the story of Tain and Samantha (September 2008), written by me. Then follows: The Crossing, by Joy Nash (Mac's story); The Haunting, by Robin Popp (with a new, very cool hero); and The Reckoning (anthology, with a novella by each of us.)

This was the first time I'd collaborated on a writing project, and I'm happy to say it worked very well. I came up with the core idea of the novels and the idea for the heroes and heroines, and then Robin, Joy, and I brainstormed to do the world building and make the characters individual. Joy and Robin had wonderful ideas about the world and the kinds of creatures in it. I had the premise that *all* paranormal beings we read about in fairy tales and mythology are real, and that it's perfectly normal to go to work side by side with a werewolf or vampire or something from Celtic mythology. We took that idea and ran with it. Robin and Joy are wonderful to work with--we all share ideas without feeling like we're each stifling the other. It's amazing.

Emily: What’s the best writing advice you ever received?

JA: I have to say I receive a lot of daft advice when I first started, most of it completely off track (although I didn't know it at the time). The best line of advice I remember was from a writing book whose author and title I can't remember (which makes me crazy). But what he said stuck with me, which was:

It really isn't who you know, but how well you write a good story that will get you published. A recommendation from a top author to her agent or editor might grease the wheels and get your book read faster, but what will sell the book is the still book itself. There are no shortcuts.

That gave me great hope because at the time I knew absolutely no one--no bestselling best friends, no cousins of NY agents. Many disgruntled would-be authors told me that I had no chance because agents only took things recommended by their top clients. A nobody beginner like me had no chance.

Well, guess what? I did it without doing anything but writing books until they were good enough, and persistently sending them in until they caught an editor's and agent's attention. And now I'm a multi-published, award-winning, bestselling author. In other words--against all odds, it can be done!!!

Emily: Thanks so much, Jennifer. It's such a pleasure to hear from someone who's writing spans so many styles and sub-genres. Be sure to look for HIGHLANDER EVER AFTER.