Q: Can you tell us a little about how you started writing? Was it something you have always wanted to do?
A: I think I come from a long line of story tellers. My grandmother was fabulous, entertaining us for hours with tales she would weave that included us all as main characters. I personally have written since I was a kid, I'm sure I would have always written, whether I'd pursued publishing or not, it's just something that soothes my spirit and I love getting lost in creating a story.
Q: What do you consider to be the key elements of a great story?
A: Characters you remember long after you've read the last page. If the characters don't come to life, don't grab you and make you care about them, I don't see the point to the story, especially in the romance genre. The other key element is Emotion. I need to feel the love growing, the passion. I want to feel empathy for the characters and what they've gone through in life and thrill with them when they succeed.
Q: Which author or stories inspire you?
A: It seems to me, that anytime I read a really wonderful story, it inspires me to write. At the end of a good book, I usually feel two things, contentment and a need to write something equally as wonderful. LOL. That being said, Catherine Anderson is certainly my favorite author. I feel a connection with her stories. It was after reading Blue Skies, and after I'd stopped crying ;-), that I knew I had to be an author of romance novels.
Q: How does reader feedback matter to you?
A: It's the best part of the whole thing. I think as writers, it sometimes feels as though we're writing in a vacuum. You spend all this time writing, polishing and editing a story and then it goes out into the real world. By that time, I've come to love the characters and feel as if they are close friends, so to have someone else "meet" them so to speak and be moved enough to write you about them, it inspires me to keep writing.
Q: In 5 years, where do you see yourself in general and in your writing career?
A: Most of my life I've felt my life would truly begin at 40. I got my first publishing contract 2 weeks before my 40th birthday and from there, my life has gone down a path I never saw coming. So far it's been fabulous and hard and exciting and a myriad of other things, but five years from now, these are my dreams: The "dream home" lovingly restored and decorated with a thriving garden. I'll be spending every day with the man I love. Holding hands and making each other laugh. I also want an intimate wedding on the beach at Disney World and I'll take my first trip to Italy. I see myself more defined as a writer. Creating stories and characters who live and love and hurt and become real to the people who read them, but most of all, I just want to live and love and laugh as often as possible. Life is good, don't forget to enjoy it.
