Running With Quills! 
Drop by to read Susan's blog where she will blog every other week. Catch Susan's sister Quillers Jayne Anne Krentz, Stella Cameron, Ann Maxwell, Suzanne Simmons and Lori Foster as well.

Within a week after each of Susan's blogs, they will get posted on this page. Keep checking back regularly if you can't make it to Running With Quills on blogging day.

posted online at Running With Quills July 20, 2010

Susan's Turn Up to Bat, Part 1

Hey, all. It’s my turn to answer some of your questions. I’m going to do it in a few parts, taking them in the order you all posted during Stella’s original blog. I love this--it’s fun finding out what inquiring minds wanna know. Because, you know me. I want to know everything.

LYNNE T, yes indeed, I, too, love a good eavesdrop. It gives me ideas for dialog. One time, years ago, I overheard a conversation going on behind me that was just too darn good not to stea—er, that is, use. I was at the DMV waiting for my number to be called to renew my driver’s license and I overheard a little girl asking her daddy what this, that or the other thing said in the paper he was reading. About the fourth time she inquired, he asked what she thought it said. Without hesitation, in a sweet little voice, she said, “McDonalds to-day!” I was writing Exposure at the time and just knew that was a perfect line for Gracie, my heroine’s daughter.

GILLIAN, first off, congrats on the Golden Heart nomination! I’ll be rooting for you a week from Saturday!

Regarding how I approach revisions, I prefer a whip and a chair. Okay, kidding--mostly. In all honesty, revisions are where I shine in my personal writing process—at least if you’re talking self-revised polishing. I find original writing killer difficult. But if I can get down the bare bones of my idea, no matter how sloppily written, then I can flesh them out little by little. At the end of each chapter I do what I call a print and polish, which is pretty much what it sounds like. I print the chapter and sit down with it and an erasable red ink pen to delete, add on, rearrange and expand. I plug the changes in, print it up, and start all over again, doing and redoing it as many times as I need to until I’m reasonably satisfied.

If you’re talking revisions suggested by an editor I employ what I call the Rule of Thirds. I try my best to comply with what she wants revised and often find that her suggestions make the book stronger. Invariably, however, there is something I absolutely feel too strongly about to change, so I end up writing a note as to why I can’t. It pretty much says the same thing each and every time. (Editor, I tried and tried, but something just won’t let me do that--so I didn't).

Next are the little things that I don’t necessarily see the need to change. But since I don’t feel all that strongly about them and they don’t alter the context of what I’m trying to say, I change them. Finally come the suggestions that I just plain ignore. And since I’ve played nice on the majority of the requested changes, I'm rarely ever re-asked to address them.

I call this one my neon hooker cover. Such a bad cover for a book I'm really proud of.

MARY, I was always (and remain) a rabid reader. Occasionally I’d try writing bits and pieces but they never went very far. It wasn't until I was thirty that I felt I had enough life experiences to attempt an entire book. Before that, however, I’d often put myself to sleep at night mentally writing scenes.

Growing up, I thought what I really wanted to be was a dental assistant (this was after my Princess stage). But then I became one (a DA, not a princess) and realized it wasn’t meant to be my life’s goal. I was also (among other things) a receptionist for a doctor and a couple dentists, a messenger girl, a file clerk, an office manager, and an auction coordinator. Gotta tell you: none of those jobs were quite as satisfying as being a writer.

BARBARA, you’re right: it often seems that the writers who could most use a boost get the least amount of promotion. I think the very best promo, however, comes from word of mouth. So if you love a book, talk it up. Even those of us who have been around awhile can use extra reader support at times, because genres within the genre rise and fall and it affects our sales.

It'd certainly be nice if all books had a shot at good placement in the stores and a good cover. They say that if a reader picks it up, you have a 50-50 shot of selling it. But that's hard to do if readers don't notice it in the first place. My early Zebra covers had covers that landed them, more often than not, in the thriller or horror sections. Consequently I had a lot of men and fourteen-year-old-boy fans, the latter of whose mothers would probably have been appalled to know their kids were reading books with fairly explicit sex in them.

Nothing says romance quite like a knife through the heart!

I didn't discover Romance Writers of America until my second book was coming out. As an organization it is, hands down, unbeatable when it comes to disseminating industry information. The thing I found as a rookie writer was that editors didn’t volunteer information unless they were specifically asked—and at the time I didn’t have enough knowledge to know what questions to ask! But between RWA and the Internet, things have changed immensely since then.

Interviews at the time of our books' release is a good suggestion. We used to do that here on Quills. I’m not sure when and why they disappeared. Probably just because everyone got so busy.

See you all in about a month with the next installment. Meanwhile, Happy Reading, my friends!

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posted online at Running With Quills July 6, 2010

Belated happy 4th!

We missed out on wishing you all a happy 4th of July! Hope yours was fabUlous. Here in the Pacific Northwest it was cold and wet. Now, Seattle summers historically begin on the 5th of July, but we usually have a week or two of gorgeous weather in May to help get us through until then. Not so this year. In fact yesterday, which turned out nice in the afternoon I spent scrubbing moss and mold off my back steps and off my fence (where I could reach, anyway--I should have done this in the Spring before my garden filled out--but it was too freaking wet). It looks sooo much better in today's sunshine.

But I digress. We had a really quiet 4th this year. Often we'll go to the children's parade in our neighborhood and watch my great nieces and nephew. But we slept in and caught the pics on Facebook instead. We had Doug and Mimi (our closest friends) over for dinner. Which reminds me--I've got a great recipe for you meat eaters (and would probably be tasty on tuna for you piscatorians). It's called Korean Broil and it goes like this:

1 scored flank steak
1/2 teaspoon pepper
3 tablespoons sesame seeds
1/2 heaping teaspoon ginger
1/4 cup salad oil
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 green onions sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced

Mix all but first ingredients together.

Place steak in a gallon baggie and pour mixture over it. Seal and marinate overnight or longer in fridge.

Broil or grill, then slice at an angle and serve.

I'm telling you, this is So Good! We served it with corn on the cob, fruit salad and pasta salad. Good stuff.

We'd planned to go to a house overlooking the sound to watch the fireworks, but the weather was too crummy so we stayed put and just kicked back and visited instead. It was very relaxing if not exactly holidayish.

How did you all spend your 4th? Got any recipes for me?

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posted online at Running With Quills June 21, 2010

Susan Interviews Stephanie Laurens

I first got acquainted with Stephanie Laurens--as well as you can get to know someone via the Internet-- sometime in '96 or '97 on an Avon Romance Writers loop Julia Quinn had set up. We didn't meet face to face until the RWA conference in Anaheim, California in July, 1998. We've been friends pretty much ever since, although we're generally lucky to see each other once a year, as I live in the Pacific Northwest and Steph lives in, oh, Australia. Not exactly next door neighbors, don'tcha know. But we have a bunch in common. For instance, did you know we write just alike? Her first novel was published in 1992 (mine in 1989) and she's been publishing steadily ever since (Okay, I've been bounced from a few publishers in my career and have had raggedy gaps between my books). The Brazen Bride is her 42nd work. Forty-freaking-two books! My 18th will be published in September.

So, yeah, yeah, we write nothing alike. Well, what the heck. I love her anyway--and I know you will, too. So please forgive the changing font sizes (stupid blogger!) and join me in extending a big Quills welcome. Take it away, Steph!
******************************************************************

Susan: Welcome, girlfriend. It’s wonderful to have you visit us here in Quillsville, especially with your hot new novel out–#3 of the Black Cobra Quartet, The Brazen Bride. You’ve got a shipload of published books out there (she said not at allll jealously). What is it about your works that you feel has changed over time? What’s remained constant?

Stephanie: Looking back, I’d have to say that my storylines—the skeleton of the stories I tell, the type of plots I use, the way I weave the threads—has remained, if not constant, then very strongly recognizable—almost a signature, if you will. The way I tell the stories, however, that unquestionably has changed and continues to change, but more as a process of evolution, an ongoing one at that. With every book, I consciously strive to do better with my “telling,” and that does lead to gradual shifts in the way I construct scenes and deliver dialogue or descriptive passages. I would have to say that I think that sort of developmental evolution is healthy for any storyteller wanting a long-term career. Our audience constantly evolves, and how they want their stories told evolves with time, too.

Susan: All your works are chronologically set in or around the English Regency era. The Black Cobra Quartet, for instance, is set in 1822. What attracts you to this period?

Stephanie: There’s two very strong reasons why I write stories set in that era, one of which I’ve known about for ages, but the other I only recently realized. The first is that the Regency-era was the first period in history in which members of the British aristocracy, in approaching marriage, faced the questions: Do I marry for convenience (dynasty, wealth, social standing)? Do I marry for love? Or do I remain single? These are the same questions men and women face today, but in that time, with that group of people, those questions were new and the answers were by no means clear and definitely not automatic. The romance movement, driven by poets, writers, and artists, had flowered in the 1790s. By 1810, it had at last become at least marginally socially acceptable for aristocrats to engage in love–matches. Not that such things had never before occurred, but they had previously been frowned on. So in setting my stories in Regency times, I can have my hero and heroine grappling with those eternal questions, and all without the distractions of the internet, and telephones and, because they are aristocrats, they don’t even have to cook dinner or go to work.

The second reason is that, apparently, one of my favorite groups to write about are archetypal warrior-males returning from war and having to merge with civilian society again. As noted, I didn’t realize this until recently, but the Cynsters, the Bastion Club, and now the Black Cobra Quartet, are all based on heroes returning from war. In Regency times, this translates to books set in the years after Waterloo. In terms of my readers, this is of course a very emotive, engaging aspect, because we live in a time when once again we have soldiers returning from war, and having to reacclimate to civilian society, and one of the most difficult aspects of that lies in the emotional connections.

Susan: Do you have favorite characters—heroes, heroines?

Stephanie: Not as such. It’s more a fascination with characters for whom I’ve yet to write their stories. Once I’ve written about a couple and seen them into matrimony, other than casting a curious glance over them from time to time—as I do when I use the couple as secondary characters in later books—I tend to focus on the characters I’m wrestling with at the moment, or that are, figuratively speaking, hovering over me, waiting their turn to be given life on the page. I do love exploring characters—they truly surprise me at times, which is one of the joys, I think, of being a romance author.

Susan: Tell us more about the Black Cobra and The Brazen Bride.

Stephanie: The Black Cobra Quartet came about through wondering what happened to the rest of the heavy cavalry troop who fought with the Cynsters at Waterloo. The answer that popped into my mind was that five of them went to India, and were officers in the British Army there, which at that time was under the command of the Governor-General of India, who was appointed by the East India Company and was essentially in control of all company activities there. From that, the story of the scion of an English noble house setting up a villainous cult, the Black Cobra cult, for his own gratification grew—and of course our heroes were drafted in to stop him. How they achieve that is the story told in the quartet. It’s been something of an experience writing four books that run concurrently, with all four heroes leaving Bombay on the same day, all going by different routes, each carrying a copy of crucial evidence back to the Duke of Wolverstone and the Cynsters in England. Believe me when I say I’ve been learning a lot about geography in 1822!

The Brazen Bride is the third volume in the quartet. Major Logan Monteith, the third of our heroes, is attacked by Black Cobra cult assassins during a horrendous storm in the English Channel, and is thrown overboard, badly wounded, when the ship wrecks. He’s washed ashore, almost dead, on the island of Guernsey, where he’s rescued by the household of the local lady of the manor, who rules over the area rather like a queen. But when he comes to, Logan has lost his memory. There’s plenty of twists and turns, and surprise discoveries as he bit by bit remembers who he is, and then sets out to complete his mission, racing across the Channel, then across England.

While many of my books are much in the vein of Errol Flynn meets Jane Austen—lots of dashing derring-do grounded by a healthy dose of feminine common sense—in this case my heroine isn’t the sort to stand back and let the hero have all the fun.

Susan: You can learn more about Stephanie’s latest book, The Brazen Bride, and watch a rockin' trailer for it and for the previous two Black Cobra books as well at http://www.stephanielaurens.com

Pssst. But, first,I how much you guys like your hunks. So here's a little teaser:

He was startlingly, heartbreakingly, breathtakingly beautiful.

His face, all clean, angular lines and sculpted planes, embodied the very essense of masculine beauty--there was not a soft note anywhere. Combined with the muscled hardness of his body, that face promised virility, passion--and direct, unadorned, unadulterated sin.

Such a face did not belong to a man given to sweetness but to action, command, and demand.

Chiseled lips, firm and fine, sent a seductive shiver down her spine. The line of his jaw made her fingertips throb. He had winged black brows, a wide forehead, and lashes so black and thick and long she was instantly jealous.

As usual, her instincts had been right. This man was--would be--dangerous. To her peace of mind if nothing else.

Men like this--who looked like he did, who had bodies like his--led women into sin.

And into stupidity.

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posted online at Running With Quills June 8, 2010

How Nora Roberts Got Me Past My Slump

Let me just preface this by saying I've never actually met Nora Roberts. But a week or so ago, when one of my stinking cats woke me up at 3:15 a.m, she became my new best friend. I know, I know, usually they're my darling cats. Not so much, however, when Mojo is jumping on the bed, stomping across my body and piercing my brain with his dentist drill meow, then launching himself from my hip to the floor, only to immediately repeat the process.

Which....is not the point. That would be that by the time I let both cats out and came back upstairs, I was wide awake. I had alllllll sorts of time to angst over the way I'd recently started spinning my wheels with my WIP. Listening to my iPod didn't help me back to sleep. Listening to the trains pass through the Sodo didn't either--although it did give me an idea for a scene. Finally, giving up the idea of any more sleep that night, I turned on my bedside lamp (the soul mate was out of town) and picked up Nora Roberts' Savor The Moment, the 3rd in her Brides Quartet, which I had had a hard time putting down the night before.

The woman has seriously mad skills. She writes wonderful dialog and such real guys. I just dug the heck out of that book. And as a wonderful, marvelous bonus, it broke the block I'd been experiencing.

Good writing has always done that for me (inspired me, that is, not broken a block, as this was the first I'd ever experienced) It has nothing to do with the subject matter of the book--there is just something about reading excellent writing that somehow inspires me to improve my own. I think it's because it drags me out of my left brain--and I've always had my best writing ideas when I'm in the right half. And that's how it was that ungodly hour of the morning--I just suddenly knew the direction I needed to go in.

So although I doubt you'll ever read this, NR, I thank you. Your writing rocks and I appreciate more than I can say that it got me back in the game with my own. The words are--well, not flowing, exactly, since they never do that. But they're dribbling out at a much faster pace.

How about you all? What, or who, inspires or motivates you? Have books ever gotten you past or helped you through a bad time?

Inquirin' minds wanna know.

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posted online at Running With Quills June 1, 2010

Contest Winner and Susan's New Release

Hey all. Just butting in for a moment to tell Michelle Benard that she won Christie Craig's contest. Sorry about the delay--I was out of town for the weekend, so didn't get a chance to post it earlier. Please email Christie at ccraig6@earthlink.net with your address and your $15 B&N gift card (how cool is that!) will quickly wing its way to you. :)

Also, I forgot to tell everyone I have a book out as well. It's a reissue, but I'm a happy girl, because Skintight was one of those books that just sort of disappeared fast the first time around. For those of you who might have missed it, here's its new cover. This was book One in my Showgirl Duo.

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