Q: You have an incredibly touching story to how you began writing. Can you tell us what the main reason was that convinced you to start your stories?
Samantha — feel free to cut and paste from my website on that one:
When our oldest son was eight years old his kidneys failed. I had two other young children at home; I was pregnant. And here I was, on the Critical Care floor of a children’s’ hospital seventy miles from my husband, my other children, surrounded by sick children, injured children, dying children … and sleeping on a cot beside my own very ill son. For weeks on end. For nine long months, until his first transplant (and three weeks after the birth of our daughter), I performed dialysis on our son at home and in the hospital. I rode in too many ambulances, I watched too many children die, I sat, unable to sleep, in the Parents Lounge with other mothers going through their own hells – and I noticed something.
The nurses who lived with all this pain and suffering every working day, all seemed to have romance novels stuck in their pockets as they rode the elevators to the lunch room in the windowless basement. The mothers hid inside the pages of romance novels when they couldn’t sleep, knowing they could be interrupted when the words “Code Blue” blared over the loudspeaker, knowing one of those calls could be for their child. A librarian friend kept me supplied with romance novels – I had a special small suitcase for them and lugged it to the hospital with me along with my pajamas, maternity clothes, and stash of cookies.
We mothers would read, share, trade the books that kept us sane. We all lived in a real world in that hospital, a world too real; we all functioned at the highest level, because there was no choice but to function, to persevere – and we all occasionally escaped that world into the hope and happy endings of romance novels. Those moments of “escape” made it easier, never easy but easier, to deal with the real world.
I’d written my first book, THE BELLIGERENT MISS BOYNTON, just before our son’s kidney failure. It wasn’t a career move, it was just an idea I had and wrote with little thought to a career. I wrote my second book during those long nine months, staying awake all night twice a week, to scribble it in longhand at the dining room table. A Regency romance, a very funny romance, this book became THE TENACIOUS MISS TAMERLANE – and, looking back now, as I write this, I guess the word “tenacious” was, sub-consciously – a pretty good choice.
Years later I was told, by a reviewer, that she called this book her “rainy day” book, because if she felt down, she knew reading this book would make her laugh. I wrote that book for me, and for those nurses, for those mothers trying to make it through just one more night. So that’s how it really began, with that second book, before the first one was sold. It was that second book that told me, yes, you have a chance for a career here. You can do something for yourself that just might make somebody else’s day a little brighter. It sounds hokey, but that’s how it happened…
Q: You write a variety of romances, including contemporary and historical. How do you get the ideas for both genres?
I’m supposing you’d like honesty here, so I’l be honest: I have no idea how I get my ideas. I just seem to think in ‘what if.’ I’ll see something, hear someone say something…and the next thing I know, I’m scribbling on napkins, the backs of envelopes, whatever is handy. There truly are times I’d like to shut it off for a while, this idea factory that seems to have taken up residence in my head. But, mostly, I’m grateful to have it!
Q: Is there any particular book that you have written that you especially loved, either the characters or doing the research for?
That’s rather like asking which of my four children I love most, and of course the answer is that I love them all equally. I am always most involved with the next idea, the next character, but I love them all. All my books, over one hundred now, are all also my children. I’m just glad I don’t have to buy them shoes…
Q: You have received numerous awards for your work. How did it feel winning that very first award?
Thrilling and terrible. Thrilling because, heck, it’s an award, who wouldn’t want it, right? And terrible because I’m very comfortable in front of a computer … not so much in front of a huge banquet room filled with people who expect me to say something brilliant. I think I stumbled through a mumbling ‘thank you,’ and quickly took me and my boneless knees back to my seat. Has either feeling changed? Nope, not at all.
Q: How long does it take you to finish a novel once you’ve gotten an idea for the plot and characters?
In the beginning (back in the Stone Age…), it took me seven to nine months to write a book. Now, thirty years later, a lot of my research has morphed into a “store of knowledge,” so that I am not stopping every five minutes to look up something or search my brain for just the right word. So now it takes me about three months or less (depending on the deadline and whether or not my family greets me with daily emergencies). I’d like to keep a schedule, but that’s impossible, so sometimes I can write 3,000 words a day for a while and actually have a life, and sometimes I end up working twelve hour days for two or three weeks in a row (weekends included), rarely even having time to get out of my pajamas. Staying in your pajamas, by the way, greatly limits pleas to play hooky and go to the mall, to dinner, etc.
Q: How do you enjoy spending your free time?
I don’t understand that expression: free time. You don’t write three to — my record — seven books a year and still have anything even remotely resembling a life. If I’m not at the computer I’m thinking about what I’ll do when I get back to the computer, or another idea comes knocking and I have to pay attention. In fact, when I do declare that this is it, I’m taking two weeks off, within a week my family is none-too-gently urging me back to the computer, as I’m much happier when I’m writing. This may have something to do with my extreme disenchantment with housework, but I haven’t been able to prove it… I do have one vice: I love the penny slot machines, and do try to visit our local casino every few weeks and happily, mindlessly, watch the reels go around and pretty much “zone out” for a few hours, let my mind go blank. These little excursions invariably end with an idea sneaking into the void, either to solve a problem in my current manuscript or to give me an idea for a new book. Really, penny slots should be tax deductible for writers…
Q: Do you have any “guilty pleasures?”
M&Ms, definitely. I could not produce a word without chocolate. I buy them in the giant economy size and keep them in a cookie jar on my desk. I’m so ashamed…
Q: What are some of your favorite books?
It’s easier to list favorite authors, I think. I’m a voracious reader, and once I discover an author I pray he/she has a huge backlist, then devour it. Lee Child, Jonathan Kellerman, Michael Connelly, Harlan Coben, Tami Hoag, Carl Hiaason — name a ‘thriller writer,’ and I’m there. Georgette Heyer, definitely. Terry Pratchett is way up there — I read his books over and over and over again, and always discover something I’ve missed, another “level” to his writing. I only read romance when I’m not writing it; otherwise I can’t enjoy it just for the pleasure of reading. There are too many great romance authors out there for me to even begin to list them.
Q: What would be your best advice for aspiring writers?
Read. Then read some more. I wrote my first book after realizing two things. 1, I would get to the bottom of a page of a book I was reading and know what was going to be on the next page, and 2, I would read a book and think, “No, I would have done this…and this…” It’s difficult for a writer to truly get submerged in a book, because we read critically, watching style, how the author handled a plot twist, etc. When I find myself lost in a book, not looking at it clinically but simply drawn in, then I know I’ve found an exceptional writer and I will read the book for pleasure, then read it again to try to figure out why I was able to suspend my disbelief and simply enjoy.
For aspiring romance authors, the natural answer is to join RWA. This is where you will find kindred spirits (who understand things like writing in your pajamas and/or talking to the people who live in your head). My other advice would be to worry less about what you’ll put on your website and how you’ll design your bookmarks and other promo than you do about writing a book a publisher will buy. It’s great to know about the nuts and bolts of the business — but don’t put the cart before the horse; first, learn your craft. I’m also not a huge fan of writing contests, only because many aspiring writers seem to take entering contests to the extreme, get too much feedback, too many varying opinions from contest judges, and suddenly the book is a “book by committee,” no longer your own idea, your own work — and the joy disappears. Don’t write for contests — write for you.
Q: What is or do you think would be your favorite place to travel?
I’d be up for going anywhere in the world, were it not for my abject fear of flying… In the past year I’ve been to Colonial Williamsburg and Florida, and I’ll be traveling back to Florida in the fall, for the Novelists, Inc., conference (www.ninc.com). I can’t get out of that because I’m the conference chair — but much as I look forward to the conference, I’m already shaking in my shoes about the flights. I may write about courageous heroines…but I’m a wimp. LOL
March 12, 2010
