Sarah Williams's Blog: Write with Love , page 8

Books on Shelves Annie West

USA Today Bestselling author Annie West loves writing passionate, intense love stories. She has devoted her life to an in depth study of tall, dark, charismatic heroes who cause the best kind of trouble in the lives of their heroines. Creating heroines who are a perfect match for those strong, stubborn men is one of her all time favourite things. As a sideline she’s also researched dreamy locations for romance, from vibrant cities to desert encampments and fairytale castles.

If you like what you see you can become a patron for just a couple of dollars a month. You will also have access to bonus episodes and insider information. Go to http://www.patreon.com/Sarahwilliamsauthor

Transcript:

Sarah Williams:             Today I’m chatting to Annie West. Thanks for joining me Annie.

Annie West:                  Thanks very much for inviting me, Sarah, it’s a pleasure.

Sarah Williams:             Awesome. So, you’ve got a very long and esteemed career behind you, and I’m really interested to talk to you today.

Annie West:                  Thank you.

Sarah Williams:             Can you tell us how you got into writing, and your journey so far?

Annie West:                  Yeah, sure. I’m a writer because I’m a reader. One of my earliest memories is my dad reading to me while I was lying in bed as a kid. Books have been an absolute joy all my life. I wasn’t one of those kids who … I did actually write a book at the age of 12, now I think about it, but I wasn’t one of those kids who thought she was going to be an author. I thought I was going to do something else, like being an archaeologist or whatever. It was only when I had kids of my own that I really thought perhaps that dream might come true.

Annie West:                  It was always a thought, it would be really nice to be able to write, and I could have this big desk with a lovely view and I could type out my books, or write with my hand, with a quill pen or something, and lots and lots of people would read them and love them. I never thought that it would come true, so I had another career. Then when I had young children I thought, oh I could give it a go.

Annie West:                  I took some time off my day job and joined Romance Writers of Australia, and that fortunately gave me the knowhow to complete a manuscript and to send it off. And I’d got to the stage where I’d been reading lots of romances and loved them, but occasionally I’d read them and the ending wasn’t so satisfying, and thinking, oh I’d really like to do my own. Then I started trying for several years to do that. With the help of my friends, who are other aspiring authors, got my first book contract.

Annie West:                  My first book came out in 2000, with a small press, after a few rejections and a few short stories with New Idea, and Woman’s Day, and things like that, which was really exciting, because there were people who actually wanted to read my stories. Sadly, the small press I was with then went out of business, not [inaudible 00:02:31] because of my story. This was the days before the ebook revolution, and they had major difficulties getting distribution rights. The books just … I couldn’t get paperbacks into the stores. So it went down the gurgler so I was left for the next five years or so, writing and trying again with Mills and Boon Publication, which is where I had sent my first terrible manuscript. When I’d sent it, it was about … Instead of being 50,000 words they wanted, it was about 95,000. It was a very self-indulgent manuscript.

Annie West:                  They sent a lovely letter to me saying, no you’re not suited for this, not this manuscript. But the result of that particular rejection, because it was the publisher I really wanted to publish with, was for me to think, “Oh I could never make it with Mills and Boon Modern Presents,” so I tried everywhere else, well not everywhere, but I tried a lot of other places, and I was sending manuscripts off to New York. I got a lot of good feedback. I had editors saying they loved the characters, they loved the plot, but it wasn’t really what they were after. I had a very Australian tonality, which wasn’t what they were after in the United States and had I thought about trying for London, for Mills and Boon. I said, “Ah, I can’t write a good alpha hero. I’ll give up now.” And I actually wrote something completely different for a while, but it was really hard to stop because I really, really wanted to tell these stories. So I thought, I’ll give it one last shot.

Annie West:                  I went to a workshop, a day workshop that was held in Newcastle in New South Wales, and Miranda Lee and several other authors were there talking about writing a manuscript for Mills and Boon and while I was listening to all this wonderful stuff with Emma Darcy, Miranda Lee, talking about the stories they write, I got an idea for a story. In fact, I came up with a title, which didn’t survive, but anyway. So exciting, and I sat there making notes while I was listening to these wonderful authors, and they just gave me the inspiration to keep going.

Annie West:                  I sent that off to a RW Australia conference. It did win a contest, and the prize was to be judged by an editor in the London office. The London editor didn’t ask to see it and I was really annoyed, because I thought, “Oh this is my one chance!” The book that was going to do it. So I kept revising and kept polishing and then I sent it to the slush pile and several months later I got an email saying, “Would you consider revising, and here are the revisions?” I said, “Of course I would consider it.” I did that and then a couple of months later, I got another email. It wasn’t the phone call. People used to say, “Oh you get the phone call.” Didn’t get a phone call. I got an email saying, “We’d like to offer you a contract.” I’m thinking, really? Really? Really?

Annie West:                  And so I’ve been writing for Mills and Boon since then.

Sarah Williams:             Fantastic. So tell us about your stories and the sorts of topics. It is contemporary or?

Annie West:                  They’re all contemporary. I write short contemporary. So I write category. If you think of Mills and Boon or Harlequin, you know the smaller paperback, that sort of size?

Sarah Williams:             Yeah.

Annie West:                  So they’re 50,000 to 55,000 words. I tend to write long and then have to cut. The bane of my life. Don’t tell my editor. So I tend to write up towards 60,000 and then cut. I keep getting asked by people if I would like to write longer. I’m thinking, “Oh maybe one day but I don’t have the burning desire to do that.” It’s taken me so long to learn to write an intense short story that’s really focused. So my books are very emotional, very passionate, so you’ve got an alpha hero and an alpha heroine. They’re contemporary, think billionaires, think women usually in trouble or some sort of strife and usually the hero is the trouble in her life. And they’re always at odds.

Annie West:                  There’s a lot of emotion. There’s that rollercoaster ride that people talk about. You could say they’re a bit melodramatic. Sometimes I sit in a coffee shop with one of my girlfriends, she’s also a writer, and we talk about plots and she tells me what she’s working on, and we discuss that and I tell her what I’m working on and I always end up laughing saying, “It sounds really melodramatic but it works.” And once you’re into that world and it’s a chic romance or it’s a billionaire who’s got a problem and the problem is the heroine. It’s so intense.

Sarah Williams:             That’s fantastic. So you’ve been writing for Harlequin since around about 2006?

Annie West:                  Yeah the first one came out December 2006, yeah.

Sarah Williams:             Oh wow, excellent.

Annie West:                  [inaudible 00:08:07] with them.

Sarah Williams:             Yeah. So you’ve done, so Mills and Boon and then you’ve got some with Presents as well?

Annie West:                  Yeah well Presents … Mills and Boon and Harlequin are the same company, so in Australia the books are published as Mills and Boon. Harlequin bought out Mills and Boon and so my books, in America they come out as Presents. I don’t know whether I’ve got a Presents book I could show you, handy. Of course I don’t. Oh yes I do. So they look … American reader would know what that … That’s a Presents look. I don’t have a UK cover but they’re called Modern in the UK and until about two months ago, in Australia, they used to be called Mills and Boon Sexy. So to my family’s utter delight, I could call myself a sexy author! I loved it. Sadly that has now changed, and I wasn’t sad, but in Australia they’re now called Mills and Boon Modern. It’s just the name of the line.

Sarah Williams:             Excellent. So how hot are your books? Are they really steamy or?

Annie West:                  Yes, if you read reviews on Good Reads or Amazon, yes, they say steamy and sizzling and so forth. It’s not as hot as erotica. It’s a romance rather than erotica, but yes, they’re not on the … There are sweet moments in the book, but it’s not a sweet innocent romance. There’s definitely sizzle.

Sarah Williams:             And have you ever walked into, say Coles or Woolworths, and seen your book in the bookshelves? You have!

Annie West:                  Of course. Every month that I know I’ve got a book out, I go in to Big W usually, or Coles or Woolies, and to my delight, about a week ago I went into my local post office and they know I’m an author. I’m always posting off books as prizes and getting big boxes and books and so forth. And I was waiting for my husband and as usual I was at the book section while waiting, just seeing what there was, and there was a bundle of books and it was, forgot what it was called but it had a cowboy on the front. And then when I tilted it sideways, it was like a plastic back collection of six books and one of them was one of mine! I think [inaudible 00:10:34]. They’re selling at my local post office. Any why it was packaged up with a cowboy story, but you know [inaudible 00:10:43].

Annie West:                  I’ve been in Europe and I was so sad, I missed my next release. I was a little bit too early. I went to the bookstore looking for my next release but a couple of years ago, I was in Munich on my way to a reader conference and I was at Munich airport. If ever you’re at Munich airport, go down the stairs, there’s a really good bookstore. Anyway, this big bookstore, and they had a big section on romance. You know in Australia often you go to a bookstore and there’s not really a romance section? Big romance section. And I thought, “Oh I wonder what the covers look like?” I wasn’t specifically looking for mine, just looking at romances and all of a sudden I saw one of mine! Looking around to find someone frankly who could take a photo with me! I had an old camera, I didn’t have one I could take a decent photo with. I had a little old camera and I’m trying to take a photo. Eventually I grabbed a romance reader who was very understanding. She took a photo of me and the book.

Sarah Williams:             Oh that’s so exciting.

Annie West:                  I met an Australian reader who had been in Indonesia on holiday and she saw my book on sale in Indonesia, so she bought it and sent it to me! Thought that was really sweet. I didn’t need it but it looks beautiful.

Sarah Williams:             I think that’s one of the best things about Harlequin is because it’s bought out Mills and Boon and everything else, it just does have such a wide reach with being able to sell into all these regions.

Annie West:                  Oh yeah, yeah. I’ve forgotten how many countries the books are sold in but a lot. And you get reader mail from all around the world. It’s terrific. As I said, I mentioned Munich. I was recently in reader events in both France and in Germany and I had an absolute thrill of people coming up, and they’d read my books, and they looked at them. Nothing. Perhaps some of that, “It’s Anne West!” And I’m thinking, “Yeah it’s just Annie West.” I was super thrilled.

Sarah Williams:             I think the great thing as a reader anyway for me, is with the Mills and Boon, you get what the title is. They’re very obvious titles. You know what you’re getting. But all you have to do is read one of yours to get absolutely hooked and then you’ll be like, yeah, I’m going to keep reading that author because that’s what I get.

Annie West:                  It’s an interesting process actually, because they market on the series, so Presents or Modern/Sexy, whatever you want to call it, as opposed to a sweeter book or whatever and so the idea is that readers will come in and … The ones who want the [inaudible 00:13:34], the ones who want the Presents will go for those, and they will just read those. Then you get the readers who have tried one of those, and they just happen upon one of your books, and they say, “Now I look for your name.” And that’s so wonderful. I go and I look for your name. I think, “Yes!” Well you know, it’s like you find an author whose style you like. You like the stories, [inaudible 00:13:57] you like the voice and so you want to find more of them. Yeah, it’s terrific. [inaudible 00:14:03]

Sarah Williams:             So as well as still writing for them, you also decided to do some self-publishing as well. Tell us about your “Hot Italian Nights” series.

Annie West:                  Yeah, well I had a gap in a schedule. I was interested in writing more books, and not many people know unless they’re actually publishing themselves that there’s a gap between the time you get the book in and the time it’s published, if you’re with a traditional print publisher. And I had a particularly long gap, and it was made worse by the fact that they asked me to do a special project, which I did. But they had a different schedule for that, so my normal schedule got completely out of whack. And I ended up with a potential gap between books, and I thought… I’d been writing steadily and the books were gonna come out, but there was gonna be a gap, and then lots of books together. I really don’t like not having a chart there. And I wasn’t sure what I could do, and a lot of people I knew had been still publishing, and a lot had also been saying, why don’t you try writing something yourself?

Annie West:                  So I wrote a book called “Back in the Italian’s Bed,” which was a novella. Basically, these novellas are like my Harlequin books but shorter, so they’re about half the length, and they’re intense, very emotional, very high-stakes. And that one was about a couple who had been lovers, and she’d got sick of him for various reasons, which, if you wanna know, read the book. She got sick of him, she walked out on him, and he was furious, because as far as he was concerned, this wasn’t over. And he was insisting that they need to continue this affair. And so it’s all passion, drama. I loved it. But I got to write an even shorter story, which was a different planning instance. And it was such that I commented at one stage, because normally as I said, I write longer and have to cut my books. I remember writing a description and thinking, oh I’ll have to cut that description out. Actually, this story can be as long or as short as I want. I can keep that description in if I want. And it’s something my editors normally say, “Cut descriptions.” It’s just that I’m writing long. I’ll often cut that sort of thing.

Annie West:                  I wrote one and it was really well received, and I liked it, so I wrote another one, and I wrote another one. So I’ve ended up… first of all, I’ve got my [inaudible 00:16:44] “Hot Italian Nights” … and I’ve got an idea for another series I’d like to write. The trouble is these Italians keep popping into my head too. I’m saying, “When is your next ‘Hot Italian Night’ and what is it?” I keep doing the two. And I love it. It’s nice to have the variety and to me, they’re not so different. It’s the same sort of world as I write, sort of longer Harlequin books. But there’s a little bit more freedom about what I write and when I put it out. If I’ve got time, I can maybe do a draft, if I’ve got a bit of a gap. I’m not working to someone else’s deadline.

Sarah Williams:             Yeah, that’s excellent, cool. And you’ve set some really amazing destinations, obviously Italy and everything. So you’ve just come back from some traveling around. Tell us where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing.

Annie West:                  Okay, well travel is one of the things that I love. And I think it’s one of the reasons I really warmed onto romance when I was a teenager, because I got to travel the world. As a teenager I could say “I love you” in about ten different languages. I wanted to go particularly to Europe. I’ve been there a few times, and it’s been a really fertile source of inspiration for stories. I’ve even written my own fictitious royal kingdom in the Alps, which might or might not be based on places like Salzburg and proper towns.

Annie West:                  But this time, I went across to a couple of reader events in France and Germany, which were just wonderful. Any reader event is, but when you get to combine it with travel, it’s good. And I had written a book that will be out later this year, which is set in Italy and after I sent it in, my editor said, “I really loved the way you did this location, setting. Could you do another Mediterranean story?” And I thought wow… because my editor’s lovely, but I don’t normally that sort of comment. I can access somewhere in the Mediterranean, and I was planning this trip to the reader conferences. I was thinking, oh I don’t wanna turn up to a reader conference all jet-lagged. I would really really hate to have five days beforehand.

Annie West:                  So I went to Corfu, in Greece. I’ve been to Greece a couple of times, but years and years and years ago. It’s been so long. And I’ve always wanted to go to Corfu, so I went to Corfu. And guess where my next book, the book that I’m writing now, is going to be set?

Sarah Williams:             Corfu?

Annie West:                  If I manage to finish it, if my editor likes it, yes. It will be in Corfu.

Annie West:                  The Italian books, they’ve been funny too. I actually set the second one up in the Alps in the very north of Italy, and that was inspired from a trip several years ago. I had began one of these reader conferences in Germany, and I’d been talking to an Austrian reader about the trip that I was gonna make after the conference. I was gonna drive down with my husband through Austria into northern Italy to the Dolomites, these amazing mountains. And she said, “Oh, watch out for this,” and got talking about marmots. They’re like groundhogs, these little marmots. And she said, “Watch out for the marmots and don’t feed them.” So I said, “Oh, I wanna see this.”

Annie West:                  Anyway, this trip was amazing, amazing scenery, tall mountains, and hairpin bends, like 12 or 14 hairpin bends in a row. And we did see marmots, and we took photos. I thought they were very cute and cuddly. I got back home, and I was thinking, “Okay, so this next Italian story, I need a setting. Why haven’t I set it?” And I have a mental vision of my heroine who needs to disguise her looks at work, and she dressed down. And she had this glorious long wavy hair that she always pulled back in a bun. And I had this mental picture of her in motorcycle leathers, taking her helmet off and all this hair, so gorgeous. Because it was her day off, and she could just be herself rather than this button-down PA.

Annie West:                  And I ended up using that as the opening of the book. I had her on motorbike going round these hairpin bends, and she’s skids almost off the side of the hill because a marmot runs across. The things that end up in books, it’s amazing. And of course, the hero just happens to be behind her in his Lamborghini or whatever he’s driving. He has this moment of thinking, who are you? Oh, you’re my PA. There’s nothing like a cliché. You can have such fun with it, you can twist them around and do all sorts of things.

Sarah Williams:             That’s fantastic! So what’s the next one out for you? What are we looking out for?

Annie West:                  Well, at the moment, I’ve got one… I just happen to have here, “Inherited for the Royal Bed.” That’s the Australian cover.

Sarah Williams:             Brilliant.

Annie West:                  …Which is a sheikh story. I do love writing sheikh stories. It’s a very honorable sheikh. And it’s an outrageous proposition. When I thought of this story, I just got on to myself. I thought, well you can’t write, of course you can’t. It’s about a girl, and she is a girl at that stage, who is actually gifted the royal sheikh in his country as his concubine, as his slave, by her poor family after her father has died. The new sheikh has just inherited the throne, and he comes in late at night after he’s been busy in the palace negotiating peace treaties, absolutely exhausted. He comes through the palace, he’s stripping off his clothes ready to go to bed. And there’s this person beside the bed. And it’s the heroine, the 17-year old who’s sort of looking up at him. “I’m yours,” and she’s petrified. But she’s got no option but to stay there.

Annie West:                  And of course, being my hero, he does the decent thing and he does not seduce her. But she comes back later, and things get really interesting when she’s back at the palace. It’s one of those… there is definite sizzle, and when she comes back, she is much more confident, sexy woman who knows what she wants as well. And it happens to be him.

Sarah Williams:             Yeah, I’m excited for that one!

Annie West:                  Lots of fun to write. I’ve just been getting reader feedback the last couple of days, actually, and it’s… yeah, it’s been good reading and feedback I must say.

Sarah Williams:             Yeah, oh that is fantastic. So where can we find you online and see all your books?

Annie West:                  I’ve got my own website, Annie-west.com, and I’m also on Facebook, Annie West, easy to find.

Sarah Williams:             That’s it. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Annie. That was really fun.

Christine Wells; Secrets and Spys

Christine Wells worked as a corporate lawyer in a city firm before exchanging contracts and prospectuses for a different kind of fiction. In her novels, she draws on a lifelong love of British history and an abiding fascination for the way laws shape and reflect society.

If you like what you see you can become a patron for just a couple of dollars a month. You will also have access to bonus episodes and insider information. Go to http://www.patreon.com/Sarahwilliamsauthor

Transcript:

Sarah Williams:            Today, I’m chatting to Christine Wells. Thanks for joining me, Christine.

Christine Wells:            Thanks so much for having me, Sarah. It’s great to be here.

Sarah Williams:            I appreciate you spending the time here today. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey to publication?

Christine Wells:            Well, I’m a Brisbane girl, and I started off wanting to be a brain surgeon when I was very young and very soon realized that I didn’t like the sight of blood very much, so I switched and ended up becoming a lawyer, which showed a lot of imagination. But I ended up, when I was a solicitor working for a law firm, I really started to love writing, and I got into it in a big way. I just couldn’t stop. Well, I did stop to do actual work, but I was writing in my lunch hours and way into the night and on weekends. Eventually, I decided to give up the law and become a writer full-time.

Christine Wells:            So, I mainly self-taught. I had a bit of a self-taught apprenticeship for about four years before I actually sold a book, and that was through the RWA, Romance Writers of America. They had several contests where acquiring editors would judge the contests if you got into the final. So I had a few manuscripts with editors over in New York, and one said she wanted to buy it. You never, ever, ever say yes. You say, wait while I get an agent. So I was on the phone overnight to America trying to talk to all the agents that I had been submitting to and ended up with one the next couple of days. And then, it was a Friday. She sent the manuscript around for everybody to read over the weekend, and I think by Tuesday, I had a deal with a different publisher from the one who had originally offered. So, yeah. It was sort of a long lead-in and then a whirlwind sale in the end.

Sarah Williams:            Excellent. So you wrote ten novels before you’ve written these ones, which we’ll come to in a minute. So you wrote those ten novels, and they were published to New York publishers, so tell us about those. What sort of books were they?

Christine Wells:            They were historical romance set in Regency England, and one lot were under the name Christina Brooke. That was for St. Martin’s press.

Sarah Williams:            Excellent. And now, you’ve written three books about historical romance and historical fiction, and you’ve written them under your name, Christine Wells. So, it’s The Wife’s Tale, The Traitor’s Girl, and your latest one is The Juliet Code. So tell us about these ones ’cause they’re all three quite different, but very, very interesting storylines. So tell us about them.

Christine Wells:            Well, the latest one is The Juliet Code, which I happen to have right here. It’s set in World War II England and Paris, France. It’s about a wireless operator who is captured behind enemy lines and survives the war, but then afterwards, an SAS officer wants her to help him find his sister, who was also captured and was lost after the war. He wants to find her, dead or alive. And Juliet has her own secret that she doesn’t want to come out. So actually finding this girl who might reveal it is a difficult challenge for her.

Sarah Williams:            Brilliant.

Christine Wells:            The Traitor’s Girl is also set in World War II, and it’s about a woman who is employed as an agent provocateur, so she will test out the spy school students to see how discreet they are. But she’s got her own agenda because she’s trying to uncover a traitor in the midst of the secret service. So, this one was inspired by the Cambridge Four, the moles in the secret service who worked throughout the war but also afterwards into the Cold War. I read once that a barrister actually, a female lawyer who worked for MI5, was the only one this very famous traitor, Kim Philby, was worried would uncover him because she knew so much about the Russians. And I thought, what a great premise for a story. What if she did uncover the traitor? So, the lawyer and the agent provocateur work together to try to bring down this very clever and evil traitor.

Sarah Williams:            Fantastic. And then a few hundred years before, we’ve got The Wife’s Tale, which is a … it’s a dual timeline, too, isn’t it?

Christine Wells:            That’s right. In The Wife’s Tale, again we have a lawyer. Liz is Australian, and she is asked by her boss to prove that he is actually the true heir to an estate called Seagrove on the Isle of Wight in England. Of course, legally, he can’t reclaim the estate, but he just wants to prove that he’s the rightful heir. And so, she has to track down lots of clues in the past, and of course, then we flash back to the past to the inhabitants of Seagrove in the 18th century.

Christine Wells:            This story was actually inspired by a legal case. It’s a criminal conversation, actually, which we don’t have anymore. But it was a husband could sue his wife’s lover for damages because she was his chattel, and the lover had spoiled the goods. So, I just thought this was such an outrage, and the money that exchanged hands was huge. It could be 10 to 20,000 pounds, which was an absolute fortune in those days, and very prominent people were sued.

Christine Wells:            Actually, Lord Melbourne, the prime minister who is featured in the Victoria series that’s on television these days, he was sued for criminal conversation, and the woman he was sued for having an affair with was called Caroline Norton. She was an author, and her husband was really politically motivated to sue the prime minister because he wanted to bring down the government. But she was a very strong woman, and she was also an author. What made me so mad was that because she was married to this horrible man, he owned even the books she wrote. He had the copyright on them.

Christine Wells:            So, it made me so mad, and I had to write about it. So my character, Delany in the 18th century, is also a writer, so she has to go through one of these cases, and it’s very tough because in those days, you had no rights.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. Yeah. I’m glad that’s not still around. That’s quite funny. Excellent. So how was it with writing the dual timelines? Is it a lot more research that goes into it? How do you go about it?

Christine Wells:            It’s a lot of research. There’s also a lot of piecing the scenes together. So, I used Scrivener for that. It’s great. It’s a software program for writers, and you can really see all of your scenes in a very pictorial form and move them around easily and color-code them and all of that sort of thing. But the research is very full-on for all of these. Because most of them, I was researching a new era to me, it took me a while to really feel comfortable writing in that era. But maybe, I think The Wife’s Tale took me about two years, and the others have taken a year each.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. Brilliant. And they’re all traditionally published. Do they all have the same publishers?

Christine Wells:            Yes. They’re all with Penguin Australia and New Zealand. They’re only available in Australia and New Zealand at the moment, but I’m hoping for more territories.

Sarah Williams:            And they’re available on audio as well?

Christine Wells:            Yes. E-book and audio. The narrator who does the audio is fantastic. She’s a professional actor, and she does all the accents. She’s just brilliant. So, Jennifer Vuletic, who does all three of my books. She’s fabulous.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. Wonderful. Well, what are you working on at the moment, Christine?

Christine Wells:            I’m working on a new book that’s in the French Resistance. I can’t say too much about it at the moment. It’s a bit secret [squirrel 00:09:41]. Yes, it’ll be Paris, fashion, Resistance, really. I’m just really loving writing it at the moment.

Sarah Williams:            Yes. That’s awesome, and I love how so many of these historical fiction books that are coming out, yourself, Natasha Lester, and some others, the women are such strong, female leads. It’s fantastic to see at the moment.

Christine Wells:            Yeah. I love strong, female protagonists. That’s really my bag.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. That’s awesome.

Christine Wells:            [inaudible 00:10:16].

Sarah Williams:            That’s it. We like some kick-ass girls. Brilliant. So where can we find you online?

Christine Wells:            My website is christine-wells.com. I am on Twitter @ChristineWells0. I’m on Facebook, Christine Wells/author, I think it is. And Instagram as well. Anywhere you are, I’m probably there too.

Sarah Williams:            Excellent.

Sarah Williams:            So, I highly recommend everyone goes on and follows her, and if she’s coming to a library or a bookstore near you, go and say hi and have a chat. That’s awesome. Well, thank you so much, Christine. That was really fun.

Christine Wells:            Thanks, Sarah.

Andi Arnt is the voice in your head

Andi Arnt is a Voice Over and Audio book narrator. To date, she has narrated nearly 200 books in both fiction and non-fiction. Her work in romance has earned her particular recognition, with nominations in the genre for both the Voice Arts Award and the Audie Award.

If you like what you see you can become a patron for just a couple of dollars a month. You will also have access to bonus episodes and insider information. Go to http://www.patreon.com/Sarahwilliamsauthor

Transcript:

Sarah Williams:            G’day and welcome to Write With Love. I’m excited today because I’m not interviewing a fellow author, for a change I am going to be talking to a professional narrator, Andi Arnt. Thanks for joining me Andi.

Andi Arnt:                     Yeah. It’s a pleasure absolutely.

Sarah Williams:            Awesome. I love listening to audio books and with audibles New Romance Package, I’ve been listening to a lot of American authors and I first heard you narrate a Lauren Blakely novel, which was just great.

Andi Arnt:                     Which one was it? Do you remember?

Sarah Williams:            The Knocked Up Plan it would have been. So you did a dual narration with a guy as well and I loved it. I just thought it was really good and I love entertainment and I’m a big fan of TV shows and movies and those sorts of things. So being able to listen to audio books, it plays out so brilliantly in my mind. I just love it.

Andi Arnt:                     I’m so glad. I love it too.

Sarah Williams:            So tell us a bit about yourself and your story, how you got into this career.

Andi Arnt:                     Well, I’ve always had an interest in both theater and broadcasting. I found my way to theater kind of on my own, but my dad really inspired me to try radio when I was in college because he was a college radio DJ. And so I ended up working at a radio station and also working in a theater department, teaching acting and teaching voice for the stage. And then I got interested in doing voice over work and I did all kinds of voice over work at first, commercials and corporate training and telephone systems and things like that. But when I found out about audio books, I just thought that would be the perfect combination of my theater background and my interest in kind of I liked the tech side of radio. So I learned about how to kind of get into the industry and went to do some workshops, made a demo, started to get into the community and go to mixers and go to things. And over time built up relationships and now I’m proud to say that I … I can actually show you, I am now in the audible narrator hall of fame.

Sarah Williams:            Wow, look at that. That is really cool. So tell us about how it works. Where do you work out of and all the technical stuff and the behind the scenes.

Andi Arnt:                     Well, I will show you. Allow me to give you a little tour. I’m going to around and I’ve got my regular desk and everything with my computer, and then steps away from my computer I have this booth right here.

Sarah Williams:            Excellent.

Andi Arnt:                     So it’s got a really heavy double pane glass door. It’s made by a company called Studiobricks. And inside the lights aren’t on right now, but I have a microphone, and I’m going to get a new stool. I’m actually going to get the kind of stool that drummers sit on. It’s comfortable for sitting for long periods of time and then there’s a second monitor in the booth that’s not on right now. And so I’m able to control the main computer from the booth monitor and I usually have my script in the lower part of the screen and the recording software window in the upper part of the screen. And so I just start the recording going and start reading until I screw up and then put the insertion point for the audio just before the screw up.

Andi Arnt:                     And there’s this really great bit of technology that actually plays me like about two seconds before the screw up to get me back into the rhythm of what I was doing. And then I just go on like that. When I’m done, I send the finished, what we go raw audio to an editor and the editor goes through and makes sure that I haven’t misread anything. So if I said ‘he’ instead of ‘she’ or something like that, then they’ll point it out to me, which is always every narrator’s favorite part of the job. “You got this wrong and this wrong, this wrong.”

Andi Arnt:                     And also they edit out things like nose noises or loud breaths or long pauses that don’t make sense or things like that. And then they send me my corrections and I re-record just those sentences and they can drop them into those files and scrub out the transition point so it sounds good. And they master it, which is important for the listener because that means that the volume is steady across the different [inaudible 00:04:52]. And also if I have a co-narration and my co-narrator’s studio is not the same volume as mine, you can understand if they didn’t master it then somebody chapters might be at one level and you’re used to that and then you switch chapters and you’re like, …”[crosstalk 00:05:12]

Sarah Williams:            It’s a good fight.

Andi Arnt:                     Yeah. So all of that care is taken through your listening experience, and then we upload to the platform that’s going to distribute it, whether it’s audible or Authors Republic or Find a way, and it makes its way to your ears.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. Wow, that’s amazing. I’ve always wondered what the behind the scenes was like. And it’s funny too saying your screw ups because I never pick anything up. I’m just like, “Wow.”

Andi Arnt:                     Because they already fixed it.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. I just think you’re sitting there and you’re just talking and it’s so beautiful. That’s how good it is, and definitely a lot better than my editing studio here in my little downstairs basement. So that’s brilliant. I love to see all your sound proofing too. That’s awesome. So what kind of narrating have you done?

Andi Arnt:                     I have done a little bit of everything. I myself like variety and so I’ve done biographies, I’ve done amazing memoirs, recently did a memoir by a woman who escaped to a situation of domestic violence. So that felt very important to do that. Maybe somebody would hear it and be inspired to be able to take action on their own life. I’ve done sci-fi, I’ve done a lot of YA, including there was a YA Dystopian that I did last year that Leonardo Dicaprio auctioned the film rights from the author. So, we’re hoping that he exercises that option and I want to go to the premiere of the movie. [crosstalk 00:06:48] That one was called the Sand Castle Empire and it was really fun to do, it was very visual so I could see why somebody wanted to make a movie of it. And I’ve done cozy mysteries, and I’ve done thrillers and been the good guy and the bad guy and about half of what I’ve done is romance and erotica and that fan community is like no other. So I feel really lucky to be a part of it.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, absolutely. So different character dialogues within the same passage. I thought that was awesome how you can go from one accent into another one. Now tell me is it that you’re cutting in between and then coming into a different character or you’re just switching in your head?

Andi Arnt:                     I’m switching in real time. Sometimes I’ll catch myself because one voice will sort of drift into another voice and then I can feel that, that’s happening and I stop myself and go back and fix it. But once I get into a rhythm, it’s a strange sort of head space where it’s more like, do you know what audio description is with a movie?

Sarah Williams:            No.

Andi Arnt:                     It’s when somebody who’s visually impaired is able … Somebody audio describes the movie for them. So they’re “watching the movie”, the parts where there’s no dialogue an audio describer is saying, “And now he’s walking down the hall and picking up a knife.” But it’s a really strange kind of attention to be in, to do that because you really don’t have any room for your own thoughts. You’re just tuned in to what’s going on. And I think when the dialogue is underway and there’s a scene between two people, I get caught up in what’s going on almost as though I’m observing it and not worrying about performing it. That make sense?

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, right. And what you’re reading from, is it like more of a script rather than the actual story that you read from?

Andi Arnt:                     No. I’m reading the book.

Sarah Williams:            You’re reading it? Wow. So when it doesn’t do the tags, you know, the, “He said and she said”, and you’re still able to know who it is coming from, which character and everything okay?

Andi Arnt:                     The thing is every once in a while if there’s no attributions I will have to stop and count, count back to where there was one and also figure out, “Okay, that would have to be that person because every other, every other.” Sometimes the editor will catch me and say, “I think that’s supposed to be this other person.” And so I go in and record it. But with a good writer, I catch myself because their personalities are so distinct that it feels false to speak certain lines in the wrong voice because that character wouldn’t say that.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. Absolutely.

Andi Arnt:                     So that’s always a sign of really good writing to me. It’s like that you know, these two people like, “Wait a second, he wouldn’t talk like that. She wouldn’t talk like that.”

Sarah Williams:            That said. [inaudible 00:10:16] Oh, that’s awesome. So what kind of accents can you do?

Andi Arnt:                     Well, not Australian, which I’m hoping to work on a little bit. I did have a character who had an Australian accent in the very first Kylie Scott book, because they had a friend, an Australian friend visit them. And it was mentioned very clearly that he had this accent. And I went, “Okay.” So I had to go do some research into how the vowels shift, and I know how to write in the phonetic alphabet. And so for those two pages I wrote out in a notebook every word that he said phonetically. And so in that case I did have to actually stop and like practice the sentence and then say it. And it took a lot of takes for each sentence and then near the end of his scene, the character actually says, “You know, well I guess we better be going.” And I was like, “That is a great idea.” You should leave this scene. It’s very difficult for me. You know, that show H2O?

Sarah Williams:            Yes, yes.

Andi Arnt:                     Okay. So we have that here on the kids’ TV network.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, it’s about mermaids or something.

Andi Arnt:                     Yes. And so my younger daughter was really into that show and I would just stop and watch their mouths. And when they say K-N-O-W, see like how would you say that?

Sarah Williams:            Know.

Andi Arnt:                     See, like I don’t understand [crosstalk 00:12:00]

Sarah Williams:            I was going to say because I’ve got a New Zealand accent, so that’s probably different again.

Andi Arnt:                     Well, yeah. And I have a friend with a New Zealand accent who is actually … I’m not going to say who it is because you would immediately know. It’s somebody from a famous rock band. And so I said, “Hey, is that a tattoo on your arm?” And he’s like, “Yeah.” And I said, “What is it? Like what is the tattoo of?” And I remember he looked down and he said, “It’s just a stupid snake.” That’s my New Zealand now, like “Stupid snake.”

Sarah Williams:            Nice. That’s good.

Andi Arnt:                     I actually had to turn down a full length book that required me to be able to do the man’s voice with an Australian accent. Not to say I could never learn it, but the way casting goes, publishers really want somebody who can hold an authentic accent all the way through. So if you don’t have that accent from living there or studying intensely, they either want you to have it authentically or hold it so well that you’re fooling them into thinking you must be from there or lived there. So my specialty accents are more American regional dialects. I grew up in Minnesota and in Minnesota they talk like this. So I’ve got some books coming up that require me to talk like where I grew up and very … I don’t know if he ever saw the movie Fargo.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah.

Andi Arnt:                     It’s kind of like that in Minnesota right now where I live, I live in Virginia and Virginia has definitely like an upper, we’re the upper south. And we also have some Appalachian. But then you swing on over to Kentucky and it gets a little bit more twangy like that. We go down to Georgia, you can get a little bit more refined. And West Texas sound like ‘W’. And also I went to high school in New Jersey, so in New Jersey it’s just a little bit more like business-like, like get to the point, you know, “Where are we going to go?” Sort of that, more up in my nose.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. So, duo-narration with other narrators. So a lot of the romance in particular, it’s a 50- 50 male and female roles. So you often do the female roles and what I’ve been listening to, and then somebody else will do the male roles. So do you guys have to talk between each other and work anything out or do you just go and do your thing and he does his thing?

Andi Arnt:                     Well, ideally we coordinate. We will share a Dropbox folder and put in reference files and say, “Here’s how I did the dad, here’s how I did the kid. Here’s how the snarky girlfriend sounds.” We compare notes like if we share characters across our chapters or I’ve gotten to know Sebastian York well enough for example, or Zafree Weber well enough, we’ve talked on the phone about stuff, that I know how they talk and I know what they sound like. So in a way when I do their character’s voice, I’m just imitating that.

Sarah Williams:            Excellent. Are you kind of thinking about them when you’re doing The Saints?

Andi Arnt:                     I really like both of them and so it’s easy to pretend like I’m with them or I’m joking around with them or even flirting with them because they’re both very social friendly people. Yeah. And I once heard flirting described as just like people who are good flirts just know how to make people feel comfortable and feel good.

Sarah Williams:            That’s true. I guess that could go down a really dirty pathway right here, but I’m all right. [crosstalk 00:16:29] That’s true. So who else have you done some narration for? So we’ve talked to Melissa Foster and we’ve talked Lauren Blakely, who else?

Andi Arnt:                     I just did a Karen Michaels and Melanie Harlow’s first co-write. My co-narrator was [inaudible 00:16:48]Tom, who people are liking right now. I’m working on the third of Lauren Blakely’s new Heartbreaker series. So I realize I’m repeating because you already said lines lately. I’m working on a Kendall Ryan book right now, and before I head out on vacation I’m doing Penelope Ward’s new book next week, also with Sebastian York.

Sarah Williams:            Brilliant. And how long does it actually take you to do a full book narration?

Andi Arnt:                     Well, it all depends on, we could do it by the finished hour, is actually how we would … That’s how we’re billed, how we get paid is by the finished hour. And so it takes me about an hour and a half to two hours in the booth to finish one hour of what you’re going to listen to, with all the stopping and starting and drinking a glass of water. It always takes me a long time to start because I sit down and I realize I don’t have my water, I don’t have my lip balm, I don’t have my … My computer is not set to the right thing. I didn’t shut the door. It takes me a while to kind of land and settle down and concentrate. So if I’m very focused I can go like one and a half hours to one hour of finished. If I’m not so focused it could take me four hours to finish an hour if there’s a lot of interruptions or I’m just having a really spacey day.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. Excellent. That’s very cool. And I’d love to hear a demo if you’ve got something ready that you can read for us, that would be really cool.

Andi Arnt:                     I do. I’m going to hope that … I’m plugging like this because [inaudible 00:18:34] So I think I look weird when I’m reading.

Sarah Williams:            I know the people watching this will notice.

Andi Arnt:                     [crosstalk 00:18:46] video of myself narrating and I think I look really weird. All right. So let’s see. So this is from the knocked up plan. I just pulled up the script. See? So now if somebody really likes the scene the way we did it before, that’s recorded and now here’s the way we did it, it’s not going to be the same. Because I’ve had people say, “Oh, that one scene in that one book, I love how you said …” And I’ll probably never be able to say it exactly that way again.

Sarah Williams:            Exactly.

Andi Arnt:                     Oh my goodness. I pulled up this, one of the first scenes. All right? Okay. So the thing to notice is that it’s not just differentiating between the man and the woman, but differentiating between when somebody is talking and when they’re not talking.

Sarah Williams:            That’s right.

Andi Arnt:                     Yeah. Balancing my laptop and notebook on my hip. I shove my copper colored hair off my eyes. Is that your way of inviting me to take your wheelbarrow out for a ride around the garden? His lips curled up in a mischievous grin. “Nicole, don’t you know you can ride this ride anytime.’ That’s where his teasing end. But holy smokes, the end of your show, he clutches his chest, he clenches his hand to his chest as if he’s in pain. “Were you about to cry too? Oh, it was awful. Wasn’t it? So sad.” He says, shaking his head. “Almost makes me want to take on the job to Rachel myself.” “How thoughtful of you.” “I’m considerate like that.”

Sarah Williams:            That’s awesome. That’s so cool. I love the way you do that with your voice and everything. That’s really great. Well done. So if anyone listening does want to be a narrator, do you have any tips for them?

Andi Arnt:                     Well, the good news is there’s a whole lot of information for free if you google how to become an audio book narrator. The bad news is the reason there’s a whole lot of information up there is because a lot of people want to be audio book narrators right now, and so it’s about as intense as saying that you want to be a professional musician. You don’t just like take a guitar and walk into a club and say, “Can I play?”

Sarah Williams:            I guess it’s the same with being an author as well, a lot of people, “I could write a book better than that.” I mean, we get it often, people who have read Mills and Boon novels and they go, “Oh, it’s easy, anyone can write a Mills and Boon novel.” But the truth is, it’s very, very hard, and there’s a lot of training.

Andi Arnt:                     My own kid said one time, she was waiting for me to be finished with the book and the very last part of a happily ever after is meant to be very sentimental and it sort of zooms out and we’re happy and everything’s great. And she said, you know, “I could write a book like that.” And I said, “Okay, go do it.”

Sarah Williams:            Yup. That’s it. I’d do that too. Yep, go on. I’d like to see it.

Andi Arnt:                     Because the thing is, if somebody wants to be a narrator and they know that secret of secrets, that they really are going to do it and they’re not going to let anybody stop them, just like a musician knows in their heart of hearts, they’re really going to do it, they’re going to figure it out, then they will. But there aren’t any shortcuts.

Sarah Williams:            That’s right.

Andi Arnt:                     Yeah.

Sarah Williams:            Yep. Absolutely. Well thank you so much for that. And so you work with, publishes, traditional publishes, but you can actually be hired from someone like myself who writes and publishes their own work. So tell us if we want to do that, if we want you to narrate because you do such a fantastic job, how do we do that?

Andi Arnt:                     Well, you go to lyricaudiobooks.com and that’s my production company. So lyric, like song lyrics, audiobooks.com. And it’s actually getting an update but there’s enough there now to see who we work for and there’s a form to fill out to express interest in working with us. And then we usually have a conversation with you about what you are looking for and kind of where you are with your business and make sure that we’re a good fit. And talk about distribution for authors who are in Australia. I know that you don’t have ACX yet through audible, but there are distribution channels that will get you into the US market, including on audible. So we know how to advise about distribution and we coordinate production. We can do casting, so I produce things that I’m not necessarily narrating as well.

Sarah Williams:            Excellent.

Andi Arnt:                     And so we really pride ourselves in making it easy in sort of demystifying the process for our authors.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. Fantastic. And I’m going to be lucky enough to meet you on the Gold Coast in September. You’re coming down for Romancing the Coast.

Andi Arnt:                     I am.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. That’s awesome. What are you going to be doing while you’re in the LC?

Andi Arnt:                     Well, I’m arriving in Sydney and touring around there. I have one night in Melbourne which is ridiculous, but I was like, if I’m going to be all that way, I have one day and night where I could fit it in. In Sydney and Melbourne I’m going to be doing narrator workshops through the Equity Foundation Actor’s association in both cities. So there they’ve arranged for a space and I’m going to be teaching a pretty intense narrator workshop in each city and just touring around and seeing what I can see because I’ve never been to Australia. Very curious. And then I fly to Gold Coast and the day before Romancing the Coast, I’m doing an author workshop that I’m really excited about where we can get into some detail about how it all works, what the author’s role is, how we can help and tips and tricks and best practices and things to know, and so we’ll be doing that. And then I’m going to the event itself and I bought tickets for the after party. And the day after I’m planning to just spend most of the day on the beach.

Sarah Williams:            Nice.

Andi Arnt:                     Trying not to get eaten by a shark.

Sarah Williams:            Good Luck.

Andi Arnt:                     And then I go to Brisbane and fly home.

Sarah Williams:            Excellent. Oh, I hope you have an absolutely fantastic time and I will definitely … I’m in the Sunshine Coast, north of Brisbane, so I will be coming down and seeing I’m already booked in to do your workshops. So I’m very excited about that. So that’s just awesome. Well thank you so much for everything today. And just quickly tell us what’s coming up next in case we have already listened to everything you’ve narrated?

Andi Arnt:                     Well, Kylie Scott, it seemed like a good idea at the time is the August release that I’m really looking forward to. I love this story, I loved the character. It’s typical like Kylie Scott has these awesome heroines who just take no crap, and the guy is cranky, lovable, and I had a blast recording that one. So that’s the one that I’m super excited though.

Sarah Williams:            Excellent. Oh, that’s fantastic. And you’ve already mentioned your website and you’re own social media as well in case we want a behind the scenes.

Andi Arnt:                     Yes. I’m on Facebook as me, the narrator. I’m on Facebook and Twitter and my Instagram that I’ve been having fun with this summer is @offmicandi. Everyone always thinks it’s, “Off my candy”. “Off mic Andi” And then lyricaudiobooks.com and we’re getting our social media up and running on that going into the fall.

Sarah Williams:            That’s awesome. Well thank you so much for your time today and I really do appreciate that.

Andi Arnt:                     Thank you Sarah.

Grace Burrowes 73 books and still going strong

Grace Burrowes started writing as an antidote to empty nest and soon found it an antidote to life in general. Now with 73, mostly historical novels, under her belt, she shows no sign of slowing down.

If you like what you see you can become a patron for just a couple of dollars a month. You will also have access to bonus episodes and insider information. Go to http://www.patreon.com/Sarahwilliamsauthor

Transcript:

Sarah Williams:            G’day and welcome to Write With Love. Today, I’m chatting to New York Times best-selling and five time retail award finalist Grace Burrowes. Thanks for joining me today, Grace.

Grace Burrowes:           It’s wonderful to be here.

Sarah Williams:            Brilliant. Of course, we’re talking to you from Maryland and the United States, so it’s always great to talk to an American. Please tell us your story and share with us how you got into this writing career.

Grace Burrowes:           I have always been a writer, whether it’s keeping a journal or corresponding with a large family, excuse me, but it never occurred to me that I would be a published author. I read romance voraciously as I was going through college and law school. Then, single parenting romance was very much my guilty pleasure because as a single mom you can get tired and isolated and overwhelmed, and there’s nothing like a happily ever after to put the world back in perspective.

Grace Burrowes:           Eventually, my daughter grew up and I had time, I had I guess confidence. One night, I was sitting in the law office working on a deadline document, some motion was due tomorrow, and it was cold. I had reached the point where my productivity had really slowed down and I’d been at it too long. I told myself, I’ll take a break and I always have a book with me, I’ll just read one chapter, and then recharge I will come back and knock out this motion.

Grace Burrowes:           Well, it was not an author, I was all that familiar with but I must have hit her off the book, the book that just you know maybe the deadline overcame the author or whatever, but it hit me wrong. I had a pernicious thought that many an author has. I’ve been I could write one of these. I just started writing and boom first few scenes came out and that was fun, and I didn’t want to work on that motion. But I did and got in on time, but I had started writing would eventually be name Gareth, the first of my lonely lords. I just wrote for fun, I just wrote because it was a happy place, I was raised without television, and I raised my kid without a television in the house. I still don’t have a television in the house. This frees up an awful lot of time.

Sarah Williams:            It does.

Grace Burrowes:           So I just started writing and it didn’t occur to me to get the books published, but I have six brothers and sisters. They began to say to me things like, “When are you going to get that stuff published?” This would have been in 2008, 2009 self-publishing was not really a thing yet. They meant, when you just pluck a contract out of the sky, and I know publishing is difficult particularly traditional Russian. Somebody said, you’re more likely to get hit by lightning until a traditional contract.

Grace Burrowes:           I also know that there is this organization RWA and I had heard they will help you perfect your craft. They will help you get published. I went to an RWA chapter conference and I wish I didn’t know anybody, and this was one of those conferences that happens over the weekend and the first thing you do on Friday night is an agent and editor panel. All of these very knowledgeable competent people were sitting in the front of the room and they were using terms I didn’t understand, ARC and GMC and HCA and big black movement.

Grace Burrowes:           I had no idea what they were talking about, and I sort of collapsed. I’ll never be published, this is pointless. I’ll just go up to my room and write. I went up to my room by way of the bar, and I stopped I got myself a White Russian and it was pretty good. I don’t drink much but I figured I’m going to be here all weekend, and I’m grown up so why not lubricate the writing level.

Grace Burrowes:           Until I had another White Russian and it was good too, but then I noticed the lady in line beside me at the bar had a knitting bag, and one of the people on that agent and editor panel that had a knitting bag. I asked her, “Am I supposed to pitch you?” This is probably the worst way to make a first impression on an industry professional, but she smiled and she said, “Would you like to pitch me?” At that point, my brain stopped working, I had never pitched anybody, I hadn’t practiced to pitch, I didn’t know pitching was a thing.

Grace Burrowes:           She pulled, I mean she just interviewed me. “What do you write? How many books have you completed?” When I said, “I’m not sure a couple dozen maybe.” That is when the exchange became substantive, because when you run across somebody who has a lot of completed manuscripts if they are any good that gives you a lot of options. If you’re not so good it doesn’t help at all.

Grace Burrowes:           This was Deb Werksman of Sourcebooks and she was sufficiently interested to ask for Parshall’s, and she asked for three and then three more and then three more and she eventually put together a trilogy and made me an offer.

Sarah Williams:            Wow.

Grace Burrowes:           That’s how I started down the yellow brick road.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, oh that’s really fantastic and it’s great to hear that sort of a story now from a complete novelist to like that, that’s amazing. You’ve done 74 books that they all being with Sourcebooks?

Grace Burrowes:           No, Sourcebooks and I parted ways amicably at least for now. They did the first 35 or 40 books, and some of those titles you say 74, some are novellas, some are novella duets so I can’t say I have written 74 novels, yet. But Indie Publishing came along and I even Sourcebooks who at one point was publishing a book every month for me. It felt like a market saturation had to be factored into their publication schedule.

Grace Burrowes:           I had some titles that Sourcebooks wasn’t interested in, they were completed manuscripts, I felt like even though they were written a while ago I had the craft to buff them. So I self-publish them and I really like self-publishing, so I do both. I write were Grand Central forever and I self-publish.

Sarah Williams:            Excellent. We love the self-publishers as well, and I’m a self-publisher and think half the people who come on here are indie, yeah indies. That’s awesome, and your books have predominantly historical novels. Tell us about writing historical, do you have a particular way of researching or anything like that, do you get to go on travel?

Grace Burrowes:           I do get to travel, I go to the UK a fair amount and I think one thing that factors in here is my age, I am old enough that I recall when the only romances there were, were historical. You could have regency, you could have medieval, there were even a few people dabbling in Victorian, but it wasn’t really until Danielle Steel in the 1990s that contemporary romance became a thing. My preference for historical is somewhat rooted in just the fact that that’s where I started reading, and I read there for decades.

Grace Burrowes:           The other thing is, I do have an interest in history. My first university degree was music history, and I love how the times shaped the people and the people shaped the times. They’re such, our historical narrative is so broad and fascinating. You ask, how will I do my research? To the extent possible, I’d like to dip into original sources so you get the voice of the times.

Grace Burrowes:           You hear how folks in the Regency addressed each other, how did they write? They wrote to each other and they all sound so erudite and insightful, and I think some of that is because when you write little pen it is a slow laborious process, and you have time to polish the thought as it travels down your arm onto the page. Whereas now with 90 words a minute at the keyboard pretty much it’s stream of consciousness writing for many of us in many circumstances. Writing has become a different cognitive process for us than it was for the people in my stories.

Grace Burrowes:           As a reader, I’m drawn to historical romance as just as a hobby I’ve always loved history and various sort of the connection with music that recreated from a historical standpoint.

Sarah Williams:            Fantastic. So we’re talking some Regency, I think you’ve got some Scottish novels up there too. Tell us about some of your books, which are some of the ones that you like the most and you want to tell our readers about.

Grace Burrowes:           Well, I love them all. The first book that was published was The Heir and H-E-I-R are kind of there, I didn’t realize when that title was chosen that it doesn’t speak so well. Why would anybody read about it? In this case, it was a ducal heir and Deb Worksman plucked that book out of a choice of maybe 20 manuscripts because she could make a trilogy of Brothers, but also I think she understood that that was a very representative story from my brand.

Grace Burrowes:           I am one of seven, seven children and I grew up in a large family and these three brothers are from a large family, they have five sisters and I have four brothers. It was a representative story from my perspective as a sibling in a big family. How do you relate to your different siblings that all you, each one is unique. For example, I realized the other day pretty much each of my siblings has a different nickname for me.

Grace Burrowes:           Kind of like caller ID. I tell who’s saying pass the butter whether they’re calling me Gracie or Grace Anne, because that’s two different brothers. The Heir was the story of the ducal heir and the soldier was his or her illegitimate brother. Then the virtuoso was the family musician, and I realized that the heir himself studied law, he read law, the virtuoso was a musician. The soldier had to reconcile the fundamental problem I gave him was an orphaned five-year-old child.

Grace Burrowes:           As an attorney, I’ve done child welfare law. It’s sort of in these first three books put three very large pieces of my heart was a good place to start.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. Oh, that’s absolutely fantastic. It’s so lovely. A little cat.

Grace Burrowes:           It’s a cat.

Sarah Williams:            I see another one sleeping on the counter of your home [inaudible 00:12:40]. That’s it, yeah. As well as the historical, you’ve got some nonfiction books as well. So Twelve Tweaks To Perk Up Your Prose is one, Making a Scene is another, and Putting the H in HEA which of course stands for happily ever after. When did she get into writing your nonfiction books?

Grace Burrowes:           Well, those are more essays than books, they’re sort of brief, I would call them workshop crib sheets, because I do like to present a chapter conferences and I do think I love to work on craft. I think as writers, there’s comfort in working on craft because it’s one thing we can control, it’s one way we can decide what direction our brand goes. There’s so much about being a writer that you don’t control, that to be able to shape the actual words and control the prose is just gratifying, and it helps me manage anxiety.

Grace Burrowes:           Actually in college was a copy editor for the campus newspaper which I had a circulation of about 20, 000 so it’s a real newspaper. Then my first job was as a technical writer and a technical editor, so I’ve always had an interest in the mechanics of writing. Certainly as an attorney you’re writing all the time, and the more effectively you can write the better your clients are likely to do, because before the judge ever sees you in courtroom he or she reads your pleadings, the things are able to start the lawsuit.

Grace Burrowes:           I feel like if somebody has a good grasp of novel craft and prose craft there’s almost an obligation to share it. It’s that part of the job we all share and we all struggle with.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, absolutely. And of course while we’re talking about the teaching, we’re recording this in July, the end of July and of course you’re coming down under. Romance writers of New Zealand come first which is on a couple of weeks this week. The romance writers of Australia which is on the week after, and you’re also doing a presentation for the ARRA, which is the Australian Romance Readers Association. What are you going to be doing about all of these and what will you be talking about?

Grace Burrowes:           Oh first, we’ll talk about prose with my friends in New Zealand but I’m just so excited to be going, it’s a big adventure and if anybody had told me five years ago, “You’re going to be making friends all over the world with your writing,” that would have been a wish come true. I’m very pleased to be going and very honored and flattered.

Grace Burrowes:           In addition to talking about prose in New Zealand, we’re also going to be talking a little bit about how do you keep your balance in such a difficult industry? First of all, as writers what we do is subjective, which means there are writers who may not be particularly talented who are doing quite well. There are writers who are very, very talented and working very, very hard and they don’t have a lot of compensation to show for it. That’s daunting, that it is just. We’re also be talking about the fact that the industry has changed so much so fast.

Grace Burrowes:           What can you do to protect your creativity, protect what I call your [Shwa Deplume 00:16:37], your joy of writing. Feel a sense of progress even when there may not be a whole lot of money come, because we don’t just do this for the money, it’s too hard. I’ll just do it for me. Then, I’m meeting with readers in Melbourne and Sydney, and that’s the best one, readers … I’ve never met a reader I didn’t like, you sort of feel like if you get my books you get me, and have yet to be proven wrong about that. Then at the Sydney conference, I’m talking about why historical romance is still relevant and why I still write mostly historical romance? Because I can’t see that changing, I just love historical romance and I feel like it’s a good fit for my voice. That’s for the itinerary with a lot of frolic and detour thrown in if I’m lucky.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, hopefully you’ll get to see a bit of the countries and I’m going to be at the Romance Writers in New Zealand, I will attend to see you. So that would be fantastic and the lucky people who get to see it at the ARRA and WA here. Of course, just literally last week, we’re at the dean for our conference for the Romance Writers of America, which I know is going to be a very different from the conferences down here a lot more people from what I’ve heard. Do you still go every year to the conferences and you keep in touch and still present?

Grace Burrowes:           I go most years, I mean sometimes there are just too many deadlines or the travel logistics given where else I’m travelling are a little daunting, but in one regard I think all of our romance writing conferences are the same and I couldn’t put a name to this feeling until a few years ago. It’s a place where I feel like I’m a round peg. It’s not a situation where I’m too smart or I’m too old or I’m too female or I’m too outspoken or I’m too abstract.

Grace Burrowes:           When I’m in that environment, unlike when I’m being a lawyer with my neighbors here in rural Maryland. I fit in more than I fit in, in almost any other [Milyu 00:19:05]. Oops, there’s a dog here create some mischief. I was in my 50s the first time I went to Romance Writers Conference and put my finger on that feeling that I’m not an outsider here. Now, that said you can still feel awkward you don’t know anybody, you’re shy or introverted and I certainly am introverted. But I still know when I get to these conferences these are my people, and that’s a good feeling.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, that’s lovely and I know we’ve got some and Gracie who every year and you’ll say there’s Romance Writers of Australia, she at the awards dinner. She does the stand up if you’re wrote manuscript this year. Everyone by the end of it stands out and she says this is your child, these are your people. It’s always just the best part of the conference for all of us who attend, and that’s why I do this podcast so I can talk to people who are just moms and they are just people in my town, and they’re other writers.

Sarah Williams:            You always inspire, everyone I get on this podcast inspires me and tells me something new and I love it. I heard that people watching and listening and enjoy it as well, the same way I do. That’s just lovely, what’s coming out next? You’re a very busy woman.

Grace Burrowes:           I am very busy, I recently closed my law practice after 25 years of doing child welfare law. I am now free to just write and write and write and write. In September, let’s start and go forward, my next Scottish contemporary comes out which is Scotland To The Max, it’s the third book in a Trouble Wears Tartan Series which features usually a Yank and the Scot, and I have such fun with that series and the research is just the best. Then, also coming out in September is a truly perfect gentleman which is a regency in the true gentleman series, and putting the finishing touches on that one now, while there’s a kitten climbing up my leg.

Grace Burrowes:           Then in November, I’m starting a new series with Grand Central and that is the series is Rags to Riches, and the first book is my one and only Duke. For that book, I thought you know Dukes, we love them but we’re getting kind of tired of them, really where all those Dukes in the Regency know that one. So I thought what is the farthest person from a Duke? Now, what is the sort of, how far away from a Duke can I get and still write a Duke book? Our hero is convicted of murder and he’s in Newgate awaiting execution. I got my lawyer out and I did research on Newgate and banking and all was the best. I’m very much looking forward to all three of those releases.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, oh that’s fantastic. Well, so we can keep in touch with you and see you when you’ve got all these new releases and your covers and everything else which is beautiful by the way. Where can we find you online?

Grace Burrowes:           You can find me at Graceburrowes.com but also follow me on BookBub, if you want to know when a book goes on sale or when there’s a new release, BookBub is very good about just telling you what you want to know and not, keeping pictures and a lot of Facebook nonsense. I steer people as much, in my website you can find the book certainly but if you follow me on BookBub you’ll get the news without that nonsense.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, absolutely and BookBub is definitely just getting bigger and better every time I log on, I see something new, so yeah, that’s fantastic. BookBub and your website. Well, thank you so much for that, Grace, I’ve really learned a lot and appreciate your time today.

Grace Burrowes:           Thank you very much.

Nalini Singh and her series obsession

Kiwi, Nalini Singh is the NYT bestselling author of the Psy-Changeling and Guild Hunter paranormal romance series. She also writes contemporary romance novels.

If you like what you see you can become a patron for just a couple of dollars a month. You will also have access to bonus episodes and insider information. Go to http://www.patreon.com/Sarahwilliamsauthor

Transcript:

Sarah Williams:            G’day, and welcome to Write With Love. Today I’m chatting to New York Times and USA Today best selling Kiwi author, Nalini Singh. Thank for joining me today.

Nalini Singh:                 It’s nice to be here. Thank you for the invite.

Sarah Williams:            No worries, and I always love talking to the Kiwi’s. Always just so amazing people, and you are just absolutely doing amazing things. Everyone keeps on telling me, “When are you gonna talk to Nalini?” I’m like, “I’m planning on it.” So let’s get into it. Tell us your story and how you got into this amazing career that you’re having.

Nalini Singh:                 So it’s a long process. I started writing quite young. When I was … and then when I was in high school, that’s when I got super serious. And I wanted to write novels. Until then, I had been writing already, but you know, shorter pieces. In high school for some reason, I decided that I would now write novels.

Nalini Singh:                 So I just started trying to write them, and I remember sitting in the kitchen. I must have been 14, 15 or something like that, and I had hand written this whole science fiction book. It had a prince, and he had lasers coming out of his eyes. I was reading it aloud to my mum going, “What do you think? What do you think?” You know, my mum’s cooking dinner, and she’s like, “Oh, that’s very nice dear.” So she’s always been wonderful, you know.

Nalini Singh:                 I just kept going, and eventually I moved on from handwriting and actually started typing out manuscripts. I was really into romance then. I found science fiction and fantasy first, and then I found romance. I really loved them all, and I decided I would try to write a romance. I thought I can do this just like everyone. Everyone thinks they can read or write a romance. I have an excuse. I was like 16 or 17. So you know when you’re a teenager you think, of course, this is easy, and this is fun. I can do this.

Nalini Singh:                 So I did, and I’m actually really proud of myself. I wrote that romance and no need to rewrite it. I sent it off to London. I submitted it. I found out how to submit, and this was pre-internet. So there was nothing online. So I actually rang up a distributor in Auckland, New Zealand, said, “How do I send this book to this publisher?” And they’re like, “Um, we have these guideline things they give us sometimes. Do you want those?” So they sent me the guidelines. They were lovely, and I followed and sent it off.

Nalini Singh:                 Immediately got a very quick rejection. It wasn’t even on full piece of paper. It was like this tiny little piece of paper. It’s like, yeah, this book is not suitable for our line, but I didn’t even care because by then I had started writing my second book. And I was like, okay fine. They didn’t like the first one. They’ll love the second one. Here’s a spoiler. They did not love the second one either.

Nalini Singh:                 So I don’t actually know how many books I wrote before my first sell, but I would say probably say seven to 10. I think all that writing, I just kept writing. I think it just made me a better writer because I was just producing so many thousands and thousands of words and writing all the time. Eventually I sold to Silhouette Desire. That’s my first book, and I’ve got the cover here. ‘Desert Warrior’ was my first ever book, came out with ‘Silhouette Desire’, and even though I started off submitting to London, I actually ended up selling to a New York publisher ’cause at a certain point I started submitting to New York as well.

Nalini Singh:                 I wrote six books for Silhouette Desire, but you know, I had this excitement at the start of my career which is, I thought, oh this is it. I’ve found my place, and I’m gonna write lots of these, but I never quite fit. And that was kind of a sad realization to come to. Also, quite debilitating as a young writer because I thought this was the start of my career, but I was having real trouble. So I remember I was just, okay fine. I’m just gonna write whatever I feel like.

Nalini Singh:                 So I wrote this crazy book with telepaths and shape shifters and this huge world and politics, and I just wrote it. I wrote it manically. I had a first draft in three weeks, and I was working full time. Then I thought, oh, what do I do with this now? So then I went looking for an agent, and yeah, my agent, Nephele Tempest. She sold to Berkley, and that was probably a real [inaudible 00:04:54] to my career because until then, I was just having such a hard time. Each project, so many revisions, but this Slave to Sensation, Psy-Changeling world, it just fit me. The editor at Berkley, Cindy, my editor, she loved it. I had the perfect storm. Sometimes people say overnight success, and I’m like, “Yes, after about 10 years.”

Nalini Singh:                 I’ve got the covers for these too. This is the first Slave to Sensation cover, my purple guide, and this is the reissue after 10 years. So the series was 10 years old in 2016. So they did a reissue for the first book. So that’s kind of like a long story.

Sarah Williams:            Yes. So you’ve been about 12 years now as a published author?

Nalini Singh:                 Yes. So my first book came out in 2003. So almost 15.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. Excellent.

Nalini Singh:                 Yeah. Yeah. From September 2003, I think. Yeah.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. Fantastic. So you’ve definitely had a lot of success as a paranormal romance, and you also do some contemporary as well.

Nalini Singh:                 I do. I mean I’ve always loved contemporary. I didn’t start out in trying to write contemporary just because I thought that’s what I could be published in, you know. I truly enjoy contemporary romance, and the ones I wrote at the start of my career, I still love those books. So I’ve always had a joy for contemporary romance even though probably paranormal and [inaudible 00:06:34] fiction of every kind is probably my home. I’ve found … It’s that collision of all the things I love. Science fiction, fantasy, romance, mystery. Paranormal romance as urban fantasies have all of that. So that’s fantastic, but every so often I also still like to tell that contemporary story.

Nalini Singh:                 So a few years ago I had this idea for a rockstar series, but I just wasn’t … I didn’t feel like I could do it justice then because it’s quite a gritty series. It’s not a light series, and then I got to a point. I was like, “Yeah, I think I can actually write this now.” So I did. Then it flowed on to my rugby players. So it’s fun. I also think as an author who has been in the industry for a long time, that it’s good to just have different things to excite you and interest you. And then each new project is different and is a challenge. So I think it probably goes in cycles. Every so often I need to do something different and rejuvenate myself because I love my paranormals. I absolutely love them, but now, with doing the contemporaries as well, I’m just so much more excited to go back to the paranormals after that break. Yeah.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So let’s talk about some of your series. You’ve got a few different series there. That’s brilliant. So your Psy-Changeling series, tell us what was going on in those books and why you wrote those ones.

Nalini Singh:                 Yeah. So that was the book I wrote when I couldn’t sell anything. So that was the book I wrote when I was so angry, and I was like, “I can tell good stories.” It actually built over a long time. As I said, I’ve long been a science fiction and fantasy fan as well, and one of the things I always interested in as a concept was the idea of mental abilities, telepathy and telekinesis. Not just [inaudible 00:08:36] true ability. We could have this conversation, but you would be in Australia and I’m in New Zealand. But we wouldn’t need any technology because we could talk to each other with our minds.

Nalini Singh:                 So that was the kind of thing I was thinking about, and I was always fascinated by the idea. I did a lot of reading on it, actually, in high school and just fell down the rabbit hole of all these research studies that people had done. The guy who could be in spoons. Sort of found out all about him, and tried to do a science fair project on telepathy. I don’t think the science teachers were too impressed, but it was just something I found fascinating. The idea of the human brain, and what if there’s that potential there? What if we just don’t know how to access it?

Nalini Singh:                 So I came up … I had these people and said, “You know, they would have amazing abilities. Wouldn’t that be wonderful to have telekinesis, for example?” And then, just [inaudible 00:09:33] what if it drove you mad having that much power, mental power? Having telepathic voices coming at you every minute of every day. What would you do to survive? That was the birth of the psy, and so what they to survive was they decided that if they eliminated all emotion, it would allow them control over their mental abilities as well. They wouldn’t get angry. They wouldn’t lose control. They wouldn’t hurt the people they love. They somehow thought it would stop insanity caused by their abilities.

Nalini Singh:                 Yeah, that was the psy, and as for my shape shifters, my changelings, you know, it’s funny. If I had actually stopped to think about what I was writing, I would have thought this is really weird. I’m putting telepaths and shape shifters together, but I didn’t. I was just telling the story, and I was just caught in the grip of it. I wanted to know the end, and in the end, it just worked because my changelings, they’re the warm heart of the series. They’re passionate. They get angry. They’re very physical. They are the polar opposites of the psy, and they just came out of my love. My shape shifters love to shape shift. They are not … It’s not a curse. It’s not something that happens with the moon. It’s a part of them. That’s why I call them changelings because they are as animal as they are human and vice versa.

Nalini Singh:                 Then caught in the middle were humans, and so then I had this triumvirate of this world that I had to figure out.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. Fantastic. So how many have you got in that series so far?

Nalini Singh:                 So what happened was, I did what I call season one. So I had finished a complete story arc, and that was 15 books.

Sarah Williams:            Wow.

Nalini Singh:                 Yeah, and I’ve just had … So I’ve started the second season, and the second book in that has just come out which is, ‘Ocean Light’.

Sarah Williams:            Lovely.

Nalini Singh:                 But if somebody hasn’t read the series and is kind of put off by 15 books, they can start at ‘Silver Silence’ which starts off the second season of the series. I think it’s a really good place to start because it’s another beginning for the world. So we got to an end, and I had originally thought that would be the end of the series. But I got to the end, and it was like, oh, okay. Now what? Because the end actually turns out to be a different beginning. So yeah, there’s so much to explore. It’s fun, but yeah, you can definitely dive in with ‘Silver Silence’. I don’t think you’ll be lost at all.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. Well they sound like something which would make an awesome TV show at some point.

Nalini Singh:                 [inaudible 00:12:16] from your lips to a producer’s ears.

Sarah Williams:            I know. Right. Fantastic. So you’ve got some other series as well. There’s the Guild Hunter series. Tell us a bit about that one.

Nalini Singh:                 So my Guild Hunters … So I had been writing the Psy-Changeling series for several years at that point, and I was writing two Psy-Changeling books a year. I thought it would be really good to do some stand-alones in between. Because I had worked full time for so long while also writing, I ended up quite an efficient writer in terms of my output because prior to that, I was going to law school and also writing. So I got very good at using tiny blocks of time to just get out as much as I could, and so when I became full time, I just though, oh my gosh. I can actually write more books because I have all this time now where I don’t have to go to a job or don’t have to go to university.

Nalini Singh:                 So I thought no, I’m already doing one big complicated series. I should do a stand-alone. So that was the plan, and I started writing. I had this … I saw this archangel in a tower in New York with a cell phone, and I thought, hmm, that’s not quite the image you think of when you think of archangels. Then I started writing, and my archangels are not biblical. They are another species. They’re true immortals, and I think that was a core idea I went in with. I had read some stuff with immortals, and I felt like they acted too human. I thought if you’re 10,000 years old, you are not going to care about this measly human that you can crash under your boot. That’s gonna be dead in the blink of an eye to you, and so my immortals are very, they’re deadly. They’re dangerous, and they don’t act human. They are truly inhuman.

Nalini Singh:                 That’s where I began, and I just started writing. Suddenly I had this guild hunter who retrieved, and there were vampires. It all just somehow worked. So the Guild Hunters series is much darker than the Psy-Changeling series. The Psy-Changeling series has quite a family heart. It’s got a warm heart. The Guild Hunters series by contrast is quite dark. There’s a depth of sensuality to it. There’s also a lot of violence. It straddles the line between urban fantasy and paranormal romance. So a lot of people call it urban fantasy rather than the paranormal romance. I think it depends on you as a reader, but definitely if you’re more into action oriented stuff, that’s the series I would nudge you towards.

Sarah Williams:            Fantastic. So another series you’ve got, Hard Play.

Nalini Singh:                 Hard Play, yes. So the Hard Play series is a spinoff from my Rock Kiss series. The Rock Kiss series was four books and a novella. So it was about a rock band, contained series, and then one of the people in the series had brothers. I never actually intended to write about them, but everybody fell in love with the romance. So I was like, oh. I fell in love with the brothers too. So I thought okay, well now I’ve got to write all the brothers.

Nalini Singh:                 Yeah. So the first book in the Hard Play series came out last year, and it was ‘Cherish Hard’. It’s my gardener hero. He’s a landscape gardener. I mean, they’re contemporaries. They’re fun. They’re romantic. As I said, the Rock Kiss series is slightly darker, grittier, but if you want something lighter, try the Rock Hard which is my sort of … He’s not a rock star. He just kind of happened to get into the series because it was a connection through another character. [inaudible 00:16:15] book and everyone’s like, you have to write this book. So I did, and then ‘Cherish Hard’ and the Hard Play series, they’re a bit lighter. There’s again, it’s that family focus. It’s people finding love in a contemporary world.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. Oh that’s fantastic. So there’s definitely plenty to choose out of all of those ones. And of course then you’ve got some stand-alones and everything else. Wow. So yeah, full time writing now. How many hours a day do you reckon you spend writing.

Nalini Singh:                 It depends. I’m more like … I’ve never measured my daily achievement in my writing by hours spent. I’m more of a how many words have I written? Or how many chapters do I need to hit it? Because I don’t like that stress of that last minute trying to finish a book. I just feel like I don’t produce my best work if I’m trying to do that. So I like … I’m one of those people who needs slow, steady progress and get my book in on time kind of thing.

Nalini Singh:                 So what I do is, for example, I know I have to turn in a book at the end of November. So I will have it broken down what I need to achieve each week. Right? The reason I do that is it’s so easy to waste time and say, “Oh, I spent two hours at my writing today.” And really all you were doing is fiddling with your chat here and looking up names there. Some days, mainly I’d say I would have to do 3,000 on a draft every day until I have my draft, and some days 3,000 words maybe takes me two hours. And it’s done, or even less. Others, it’s 2:00 o’clock in the morning, and I’m still sitting here because I’ve got three of those 3,000.

Nalini Singh:                 So it just depends on the day and how the writing is going, but [inaudible 00:18:11] speak to any writers who are listening. For a long time career, you’ve also got to give yourself downtime, especially if you write full time because just like with any job where you’re self employed, it’s so easy to work all the time. You’re desk is always there at home, especially if you work at home, and we love what we do. I love being a writer. I can’t think of anything else I would rather do. So it’s easy to just work all the time, but I’ve found that if I give myself those breaks, if I do have the weekends off, I give myself time to read other books, or watch some television, or go traveling, whatever. It just makes me so much more energized when I’m back at my desk. So I’m still writing multiple books a year trying to have a little bit more balance.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. That’s brilliant. So the Romance Writer’s of New Zealand conference is coming up in just a couple of weeks, and you’re going to that one.

Nalini Singh:                 I am. I always go to the New Zealand conference. I think I missed, since I joined, I think I’ve only missed like maybe two or three. Most of those were when I was living overseas in Japan, but yeah, I love it. It’s a small little conference. Even the Australian conference, I think, is several hundred people bigger than the New Zealand conference, but the good thing about a smaller conference, and when I say smaller I would say probably between a couple of hundred people, is that you really get to know everyone.

Nalini Singh:                 Most of the guest speakers, and we have some amazing guest speakers, you can get one-on-one time with the guest speakers. You don’t have to be pushy or anything. Just because it’s a smaller group and they’re out there. They’re hanging out. You can join in, and everyone’s really friendly as well. I think that’s another outcome of having a smaller group. It just feels friendly and sort of intimate, and you can join in groups. And no one’s gonna be like, “Oh. Who are you?” They’ll just be like, “Oh, hey. What do you write?” And off you go.

Sarah Williams:            That’s it, and I know there are a lot of Australians who are coming over this year. I think personally, I think it was Bella Andre and Nalini Singh. So yeah, I think it’s gonna be a fantastic conference, and I’m really excited. You’re doing a presentation, aren’t you?

Nalini Singh:                 I am. I’m giving a presentation on how to write series.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. Excellent.

Nalini Singh:                 So I have this problem of not being able to write stand-alones. Sometimes it’s a virtue. No, I’m looking forward to it. I’ve written most of it already, and the only problem that I’m having is that’s too long. So I’m gonna tell everyone no questions. I have 60 slides. We’re gonna have an hour. It’ll be like a slide per minute.

Sarah Williams:            Oh my gosh. It’s gonna be fantastic. I’m pretty sure, wasn’t you were going to be a stream so, so many people could come, and then they said, “No, no. Everyone’s gonna want to come.”

Nalini Singh:                 Yeah, no. I think it kind of booked up straight away, and people were like, “But I wanted to come.” So that was kind of nice, and then they said, “Oh, can you do the main?” And I was like, “Oh, that’s fine.” I just had to … I was gonna do it on a white board ’cause I thought it would be a little room, but then now it’s a big room. So I’m putting it on slide show. So it’s gonna be fancy and have graphics and stuff. Don’t get excited though because I’m terrible at PowerPoint.

Sarah Williams:            Oh, I’m just so excited. I just can’t wait. I think Romance Writer’s of New Zealand, Auckland this year, it’s just gonna be awesome. So what have you got coming out in the next couple of, well the next, almost the end of the year already. So what have you got coming out this year?

Nalini Singh:                 Okay, so I just had a release in June, which was ‘Ocean Light’, and then I will have a contemporary come out … We haven’t got the specific release date yet just because just wanna make sure it’s absolutely set in stone before I announce it ’cause I would hate to say it’s this date, and then have readers expect it and not be able to deliver. The book is done. It’s with the copy editor. So it’s definitely coming out this year. Probably I would say in our spring. So that’s the American fall. I should have an exact date for that in the next month, and then after that, I have my next Guild Hunter book which is ‘Archangel’s Prophecy’. I have the two most amazing covers for that. So please, please go to my website and have a look. I’ve got a British cover and a North American cover. So the British and the [inaudible 00:23:12] cover and the North America, and they’re both fantastic.

Nalini Singh:                 They’re just beautiful, and I love them to pieces. And I cannot wait for the books to be out so then I can display them everywhere. Just randomly leave them places so people can admire my cover. The book itself, I mean, I love the book. I think that so much happens in this book. If you want to start series, this is one series I would say definitely start at the start. ‘Angel’s Blood’ is the first book, and it’s not as long as my other series. So you can jump in, and it’s kind of a critical book in the series because it just puts all these things in play for the end game which isn’t quite yet. But it’s coming, and so, things are building to a crescendo.

Sarah Williams:            That’s awesome, and I should just add too that I saw you have audio books which is brilliant. I love audio books.

Nalini Singh:                 I’ve just actually got into them this year myself, and I really, really like them. The funny thing is, I can’t listen to my own audio books because it’s … I just can’t, but I love people’s audiobooks I love.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, I always find I’m reading completely different things. So where I’ll read pretty much nothing but western romance and cowboys and rural romance, when I’m audio, it’s no. I’ll be listening to paranormal. I’ll be listening to erotica or something like that which is really interesting to listen to on audio with four kids in the car. But yeah, no I just love audio, and I definitely think we’re just moving forward into the future of what’s gonna be next.

Nalini Singh:                 Yeah. Yeah. I mean it’s … yeah, it’s going to be interesting what’s next because there’s all this … because I like technology. There’s talk of automatic audio where there’s a robotic voice that sounds human doing the reading. So I can’t imagine that.

Sarah Williams:            They’ve trialed something the other day. I remember listening on a podcast, and they said, the person that this robotic voice is having conversation to. Couldn’t tell that it was a robot answering really good questions. It’s so exciting. In translations as well.

Nalini Singh:                 Yes.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. I know you’re translated into a lot of countries, and congratulations ’cause that is a big achievement. So it’s onwards and upwards, and you’re definitely leading the way. Congratulations, and I can’t wait to see you in Auckland.

Nalini Singh:                 You too. I can’t wait for the conference. Yeah.

Sarah Williams:            It’s counting down now. I just can’t wait for a few days away from my kids really. So where can we go and find you online and keep in touch with everything that you’re doing?

Nalini Singh:                 Yeah, so the easiest place to find me is my website which is NaliniSingh.com. N-A-L-I-N-I-S-I-N-G-H.com, and all my links are on there. I’m on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and it is me on all those three platforms. My assistant helps out sometimes just on Facebook, but she’ll always sign it as her. So other than that, it’s me that you’re talking to online. I really enjoy that interaction. Yeah.

Sarah Williams:            Well that is brilliant. Well thank you so much for joining us today, Nalini. That was really great.

Nalini Singh:                 Thanks Sarah. That was great.

Sailing to success with Helene Young

After 28 years as an airline captain in Australia, Helene Young has swapped the sky for the sea to go in search of adventure with her husband aboard their sailing catamaran. The rural and remote places she visits, along with the fascinating people she meets, provide boundless inspiration for her novels.

If you like what you see you can become a patron for just a couple of dollars a month. You will also have access to bonus episodes and insider information. Go to http://www.patreon.com/Sarahwilliamsauthor

Transcript:

Sarah Williams:            Today I’m chatting with Helen Young. Thanks for joining me Helene.

Helene Young:              Thanks for having me Sarah, it’s lovely to be chatting to you.

Sarah Williams:            We’ve known each other for a few years now. We’re both Queenslanders. Originally met you up in Cannes when you did the Tropical Writers Festival I think in 2016 with Anna Campbell.

Helene Young:              Yes, that was a lovely event and we’re going back up for another one at the end of this year as well, in August this year there’s another Tropical Writers Fest so we’ll miss you if you’re now down in South East Queensland but yeah, I guess it’s like writing life, isn’t it, you get connections in all sorts of strange and wonderful places and it’s nice to still be in contact so thank you.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, no and it was absolutely fantastic and I know you’ve read, reviewed my couple of last books and of course you’ve got the quote on the cover of my new book so thank you for that.

Helene Young:              Well done, you’ve done a sterling job of capturing country life and building some really lovely romances there so well done, watching your career with interest and I’m sure it’s going to continue to take off.

Sarah Williams:            Thank you so much. Because of people like you who are really leading the way with Australian fiction I can’t wait to hear, tell us about your writing journey and how you got into it.

Helene Young:              Mine’s a little longer and little more convoluted than perhaps some authors. I was one of those kids that loved reading, always wanted to be an author but when I eventually left school I really didn’t have any direction and any idea of where I was going to go. I wanted to be a pilot, I knew that as well but really there wasn’t the finances available to just whip off and do a pilot’s license. I went off and did a host of other things before I eventually in my mid thirties I came back to writing. That ironically came about because of flying. We moved from Brisbane to Cannes for my new job with Quantis Link as a first officer and I suddenly found myself having been a flying instructor working long hours to working pretty nice hours in the little Quantus Link airline. I had time on my hands so I sat down and wrote that very first manuscript.

Helene Young:              They say that your first manuscript is always likely to be largely autobiographical and mine was about an Australian girl who goes to Lake District in England and ultimately falls in love with her boss. For those of that know me well, that’s where I met my husband. Anyway I wrote this story and it wasn’t us, it wasn’t about us but it was very much set in the place that we worked and there were people there that way too clearly identifiable, you don’t put real people in your books but certainly they color your story. There would be people up there who would go, “That’s me.” So that story will never see the light of day but it was because of that first manuscript which I shoved in the bottom of a filing cabinet drawer and my husband read it when I was away and rang me to say, “Did you write this? I had no idea you were even writing.” Oh my God, how embarrassing, he’s going to recognize himself, this is horrendous.

Helene Young:              Anyway, one thing led to another, he was the one who said to me you need to submit this, you need to do something with it. I sent it off to a company called [inaudible 00:03:09] Manuscript. I don’t even know if they still exist but down in South Australia and they did manuscript assessments. They sent me back 32 closely typed pages of what needed to be done and the biggest thing was learn your grammar and learn to write again, you can tell a story but you’ve forgotten all the basics. The second great piece of advice was to go and join Romance [inaudible 00:03:29] of Australia. That’s what I did and I put that manuscript in a competition they used to run called the Indasi Award and it came second to ironically, Anna Campbell.

Helene Young:              Anna was the winner that year. I went down to the conference and there was this amazing tribal woman with all this support and all these workshops I could go and so much learning that I could do so I just kept plodding away but I’m not a plotter, I’m one of those people who sits down and goes on a journey with my characters and then gets [inaudible 00:04:03] and goes, “Wow, now what do I do with all this?” And then I start to plot backwards and shape it and put a story arc in it and check the characters acts but that first manuscript will never see the light of day as I keep saying. It really was like I think of it as an apprenticeship, I learnt a great deal about it. I wrote four more manuscripts before the fifth one was finally picked up by Ashead and published as [inaudible 00:04:26] Wings of Fear.

Helene Young:              Along the way I really was never brave enough to submit it. I submitted once to Harlequin and waited 18 months and got the predictable no, sorry, you don’t meet our guidelines and you don’t fit with our story group. I went okay then, never mind. I still didn’t really know what I wrote at that point. I wanted to write romance but I also love action. I’m a John McCuray tragic from way back so I love action in a story, I love suspense in a story, I love intrigue so until finally somebody said to me you write romantic suspense and I went, “Oh, do I? No idea what you’re talking about.” It was a whole journey of discovery of that fact that there are genres and you kind of need to be able to not necessarily pigeon hole yourself but you need to be able to say to readers and also publishers, this is where I fit on your bookshelf because without that they’re a little likely to buy you.

Helene Young:              For me what worked in my favor was eventually someone saying to me, “Write what you know.” I’m like, “All I know is aviation.”. “Well?”.”Okay”. At the time I was flying out of Cannes and going up to [inaudible 00:05:33] Island looking down at this massive coastline that’s largely unpopulated and thinking all the what ifs. There was a group of young men that came to fly for Quantus who had come from the border watch. No, that’s what my name is for it, custards, what do they call it, Coast Watch was the name of the organization at the time and they were coastal [inaudible 00:05:54] Australia. They had all these amazing stories about all sorts of things they had seen and done in their flying career and I went, that’s it, I get intrigue, they’re mostly good looking, strong young men, they’ll make a perfect hero and now I just need some feisty heroines to go with it.

Helene Young:              A big part of my writing journey has been wanting to tell the story of women, strong, capable women or ordinary every day women who simply step up to the plate because I think women sell ourselves short. I think as a gender we spend too long going, “Oh, maybe not.” Whereas we need to be at the [inaudible 00:06:27] saying, “Yes, of course we can do that.” Being able to put those sorts of characters in stories has been wonderful and they reflect the sort of women that are around me, the women who struggle with juggling motherhood and careers and parents and all of that that the great big workload that goes with quite often being the woman in the family are the sorts of things that I wanted to be able to show in my stories so hopefully I’ve done that, certainly with the new book I’ve taken even more a step in that direction.

Helene Young:              Back to the journey of topic. [inaudible 00:06:57] eventually picked up my fifth manuscript after it finaled in the American Golden Heart competition. RWA America runs a thing called the Golden Heart Front Published Manuscripts and that book, I can’t even remember what its working title was at that stage, Beyond The Borders, I think, it finaled. I went to America and then when I came back to Australia I pitched to Benedict Foley at the RWA conference and she picked it up from there. Again, for those of you writers, viewers who are writers, that first letter that I got back from Bernadette said the manuscript’s not there yet but if you’d like to consider, and then she went on for two paragraphs then I’m happy to read a resubmission. I say to people when they say oh, I got a rejection, I say no, no, no, read it to me, is it really a rejection or is this an opportunity to work with the publisher or the editor or the agent and the resubmit?

Helene Young:              It’s important for writers to remember that a no is not necessarily a no. It might be a not yet and then if you’re prepared to take that extra step, and it took me six months to incorporate Bernadette’s suggestions before I resubmitted and she bought it in the two book deal for it and Shattered Skies.

Sarah Williams:            Fantastic. Yeah, like you said, sometimes that can be the most important training you can do. I know when I worked really closely with my editor, I’d done so many workshops before that but it was working with the editor, one on one, she was telling me specifically this is wrong or you can do this better. Oh my God, it was just like oh, okay, I get it.

Helene Young:              I know people hate, some writers, friends of mine hate editing, for me that’s really where the joy is. I love telling the story, get that down but it’s always a rough and dirty draft because I don’t plot, because it just goes with the flow organically and that means the editing is where you really start to bring it into shape. You realize how easy it is to shape it by shifting scenes around by looking at actually moving the story forwards and if it’s not, well probably it was fun writing it but that needs to go to the cutting room floor. You learn that and you just continue to learn that. A good editor is just a gift. I’m so blessed that I have Ali Watts at Penguin in my corner, both because she supports my stories and the new direction but also because she’s just very insightful. She can dust out 6,000 words out a manuscript and I wont’ even know they’ve gone but you go wow, that’s a skill.

Helene Young:              Editors have a specific skillset and I think it’s important that we do learn from them but also that we’re open to their suggestions. Sometimes you get to go, “No, it’s my story, this is staying because this is something I feel strongly about.” But nine times out of 10, they’re right and even if it’s just a matter of thinking about reworking it you’re not seizing control of your manuscript to them but you’re working with them and that’s what it should always be, collaborative, to make it the best possible manuscript you possibly can.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, absolutely. We’ll talk about Wings of Fear. It was your first one published and that year, in 2011, you won the Ruby, the American romantic book of the year. Congratulations.

Helene Young:              It’s the Australian romantic book of the year. I’d love it to be the Rita but it was the Ruby so it’s only the Australian version but that was still, that was a turning point for me. This is one of those conversations we’re having where we bare it all. Border Watch had come out in 2010, Shattered Skies came out in 2011 and unfortunately as much as I love Shattered Skies, it came out at a time when the Red Book Group fell over and that took out Angus & Robertson and about 30% of the book selling market. Cyclone [inaudible 00:10:44] ripped down the coast of Queensland and put Brisbane under flood waters so poor little Shattered Skies sunk without a ripple. It since trumpled on quite nicely but at the time the sales figures weren’t there so Ashep said we’re really sorry but we don’t want your third book which I’d been working on with them.

Helene Young:              It them became a matter of, I had an agent by then, lovely Claire Foster from Curtis Brown and she said there are other options, let’s see who else is around. We pitched to Penguin and Penguin ended up accepting that particular story but 2011 was a turning point because I’m sure that competition win helped enormously with getting a third contract. It made me feel like the end wasn’t nigh because when your publisher says, “Listen, I’m sorry but your figures aren’t good enough.” It just, it’s gutting but at the end of the day it’s also important to remember this is a business, they’re not in it for a charity, they’re in it to make money and a book, when you have a publisher who is your champion as Bernadette Foley had been for me at [inaudible 00:11:54] it also, not easy for them to then have a book that they’ve invested so much time in not do well on sales.

Helene Young:              That can happen for any number of reasons but it’s important not to take it personally because at the end of the day it is sales. Just like if a designer puts out a top and nobody buys it, well they’re not going to be asked to do the collection for next summer because it’s not sold. You have to remember that when you’re writing, that there will be rejection along the way and there will be times when your sales figures don’t stack up but it’s not the end of the road. It may be that you need to look at a different genre or it may be it just hasn’t worked this time for any number of reasons and there are many authors like myself that came out at that time in 2011 who all had a little hiatus before we got our next book out because the world just got in the way and that’s why.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah and the publishing industry is very up and down at the moment. A little bit like we’re seeing on your yacht, your catamaran. We’re seeing the sky in the background kind of coming in and out.

Helene Young:              Do I need to shut the curtains?

Sarah Williams:            No, it’s fine. It’s really cool.

Helene Young:              I don’t want to make anybody seasick, that would be horrendous.

Sarah Williams:            I probably should have warned everyone earlier on that you’re on your yacht.

Helene Young:              My beautiful boat, yes, I’m at home, well, you know so really. I know that keeps flaring the lights so I hope that’s all right too. I’m at home at the boat so all is well.

Sarah Williams:            Which is the wonderful thing about writing, you can do it anywhere.

Helene Young:              You can, it’s portable, absolutely portable and we’ve all seen photos and we’ve all done it where you’re writing on a kid pick up or you’re waiting for somebody to arrive at an airport and you sat there madly bashing away on your laptop or your iPad or whatever it is that you’re writing on because you’ve got 15 minutes, half an hour spare time so let’s get some words down, it’s important.

Sarah Williams:            Excellent. You’ve got this new book out and we should talk about Return To Rose Glen. So it’s out on the 2nd of July, 2018 as this goes to [inaudible 00:13:54] and tell us the premise and what inspired you to write this one?

Helene Young:              There’s a beautiful book. I’ve just picked up my author’s copy so that’s always an exciting moment where you want to stroke your book baby. It’s a departure from my romantic suspense. I guess it’s come out the fact that I’m now older. When I first started writing I was 35, I’m now middle fifties, I don’t know when that happened, I really don’t know when that happened but things start to become, different things start to become more important. Over the last few years we lost both my mum and my mother-in-law also died and also a lovely old friend who was in her early nineties passed away in Trinity Beach. In the scheme of things it got me thinking about matriarchs and the fact that when a matriarch does die they leave a vast space behind, a power vacuum in many cases but it also changes the relationship between the siblings because everybody’s got a different opinion of that parent and it’s interesting the way those different opinions color the way we see our own childhood and how we perceive that we grew up. I find that sort of stuff fascination.

Helene Young:              I went righto, this is what I want to write. Penguin was very happy to see me go off in a new direction. They were like, “Romantic suspense is doing okay but we think that there’s more you can do is if you want to try that give it a shot.” It’s been nice to have that support but it does make it almost like you’re relaunching a new brand in some way because I’m sure some of my readers who loved the action packed books that I used to write will be going, “Well, there’s not quite so much action in this.” Hopefully the fact that the characters are still there and they’re hopefully quite rich and the landscape is still Queensland they’ll come with me on this change of direction. It’s very much a book about families, it’s about three generations of women who are drawn together underneath the faded homestead roof as a matriarch is wishing that she was dead because she’s old and she’s had enough. I think we’ve all had grandparents and some of us mothers who got to that age where they just simply had enough.

Helene Young:              That’s a difficult thing to come to terms with as well and again, siblings deal with it in very different ways. The back story I guess you could call it is the idea of elder abuse which was something that wasn’t strongly there to start with in the story but the more I started to talk to people the more horrible, terrible, tragic stories that I heard of family members doing the wrong thing. It was fascination to go, “Well, why did your mum let that happen?”, “Well because she loved him.” Right and getting my head around the fact that a mother or a father could be forgiving of a child’s misbehavior, an adult child’s misbehavior because it’s still their precious child and it’s very hard for them to then turn to the other siblings and go, “You’re right, that was the wrong thing.”

Helene Young:              Newspapers are full of it, it’s something that’s become topical and this book’s taken three years to write so in that time it’s become a whole lot more topical so I’m kind of glad that it’s out there. I hope that readers when they’ve read it will pick up the phone and ring their children or ring their parents and say I love you and say, “Hey, at the end of the day we’re in this together.” Because at the end of life is a journey that we should all take together not say well, there’s my elderly parent over there and I’ll just lock them up in a nursing home or vice versa. I do know plenty of older people who put quite strong demands on their very busy children as well. It’s got all those mixed bits and pieces in it this story as well as in the heart of it there’s a secret, a family secret which will take a very long time to be revealed in the book.

Helene Young:              It’s all set west of Cannes, I’m sure you know the [inaudible 00:17:44] area and Mount Mulligan. I hadn’t necessarily planned on it being out there but I always loved the [inaudible 00:17:50] limestone caves and there are caves in this book so that was a natural place to set it. A friend whose a helicopter pilot took me for a flight over Mount Mulligan and I just went oh my God, the escarpment has to be in the story, it’s got this amazing presence all of its own and it’s surrounded by [inaudible 00:18:07] country, it’s also had some tragedies. One very big tragedy with a mine up there back in the early 8, 1900’s but yeah, for me it was important. They’re the sort of things I that I think of as serendipity, if he hadn’t said let’s go for a flight and we hadn’t gone over Mount Mulligan there would have been a whole train of thought in that story that didn’t actually happen so I think as a writer you take your opportunities where you can find them.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, absolutely and it is a stunning area up there. I lived in Cannes for four years and yeah, its’ absolutely beautiful. There’s more than just the reef and the rainforest, there’s the whole outback.

Helene Young:              It is and it’s amazing out there and many people don’t get that far out and really [inaudible 00:18:50] not very far west of Cannes, it’s only a couple of hours. If you’re going on a flight,  got to [inaudible 00:18:53]. Catch the limestone caves, they’re as good as [inaudible 00:18:58] caves down in Sydney. They really are extraordinary limestone formations.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, absolutely. You doing some promotion and you’re going to be touring the South East Queensland, if we’re lucky enough to be around Brisbane, the sunshine coast which is where I am we should come and check you out. You’ll be touring with Barbara Hennay and Christine Wells, both of which I’ve interviewed. I’m not sure if Christine’s interview is going to get out before or after yours though.

Helene Young:              Well her beautiful book, The Juliette Code is out now and if you like an historical action packed spy story it’s wonderful. I think she crafts her characters so beautifully but as well that the setting is, she started writing historicals and I think that that eye to detail really shows through in her stories so yeah grab The Juliette Code and I’m desperately waiting for Barbara Hanney’s new book to come out. Hers is about four weeks after mine I think that hers releases and her stories have always got so much emotionally heart in them, they’re always a wonderful read. Really looking forward to being on the road with the two of them for the week in Brisbane and we get to tour as well so that will be wonderful.

Helene Young:              What else have we got promotion wise? We’re off to Harvey Bay in September for the Lines in the Sand Festival and prior to that, of course, we’ve got Tropical Writers Festival in Cannes with Barbara and I are doing a joint book launch. We’re hoping it’s going to be a high tea so if you’re into high tea’s please send your friends along for afternoon tea with us. I think it’s the 10th of August, high tea as whatever the conference hotel is so looking forward to that. Barbara is somebody who when I first started writing was very much a gentle mentor and we had a little group in North Queensland and she was the leader of that group with so much to give and so much that she was willing to share so yes, she’s kind of going back to mum. Not that she’s anywhere near that old but you get that sense, she’s such a wonderful inclusive person. It’s great to spend time with her.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, Barbara’s the reason I write romance. She was the one who did the workshop, my first workshop and she did it on romance and just everything she said clicked in, I go, “Oh, that’s what I write.” I remember as soon as that workshop finished I went home and I plotted what became The Brothers of Brigade re Station.

Helene Young:              That’s brilliant.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah.

Helene Young:              Have you told her that?

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, I’ve told her and I owe a lot to her as well. She’s held very deeply in my heart as well.

Helene Young:              She’s lovely, very generous.

Sarah Williams:            And you’ll be at RWA in Australia, in Sydney?

Helene Young:              Yes, at RWA, I’m on a panel with Christine, Jeanette, no, not Sasha, there’s two others. Did I say Jeanette? There’s five of us on it, I’ve just lost one name there, Anthea Hodgson, one of the WA girls. We’re doing a Penguin panel for Love Between the Pages and part of what we’ll be talking about is the different ways you can love and romance in the story and how your genre can change as you write and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. That’s something that as a writer you probably do want to develop and grow different areas so it’s good to be able to get out and explore those. We’re looking forward to that panel on Saturday at the RWA conference.

Sarah Williams:            Fabulous. Then you’re off to WA for the west coast fiction festival in November.

Helene Young:              Excited about that. We have to go to England, we don’t have to but we’re going to England for my lovely niece’s wedding which we’re very excited about so we’re putting Ruby into a mariner birth for about a month, we’ll fly off and do that and we’ll come back to wherever Ruby’s been left via Perth so really looking forward to the west coast fiction festival. It’s 60 odd authors, I’m sure they’ve probably got a few more by now but it was 60. They’ve got some big name stars coming from overseas but just about anybody whose anybody in the rural romance world will be there. You’ve got Rachel Johnson, Joanna Palmer, I’m pretty sure Mandy Magroes going, Pamela Cook is definitely going to be there, Jenny Jones is there, Tess Woods, she’s not rural but Tess Woods will be there. She’s one of the big organizers behind it all and of course it’s all about share the dignity and raising money for the handing out essentially sanitary pads to homeless women and young girls. I think that’s something that we kind of take for granted.

Helene Young:              I know something when we were packing to go to New Caledonia in [inaudible 00:23:22], we didn’t get there but we’re going next year in the boat, one of the things they suggest you take is the sort of reusable sanitary pads because the girls in those countries don’t have access the way we do and you forget how expensive they are. If you’re on a budget or you’re homeless then it’s something that’s really difficult, makes a big change to your life if you can access it so I think it’s a wonderful thing that they’re doing. I’m very happy to support it. I get to play with writers again, and readers. That’s a wonderful thing to do in November and WA, we had a holiday there, whoopee, was probably 10 years, maybe longer than that. Anyway, it was a while ago, it one of those impromptu holidays where other holiday plans fell over, we spent a month in WA just going, “This is amazing.” Really looking forward to going back to visit again and have another little sticky bit.

Sarah Williams:            I think they’re trying to do the west coast fiction festival every two years, I think [inaudible 00:24:21]

Helene Young:              WA in so many ways gets left out. I did a book tour there for Half Mary Bay I think it was around WA and they were just so delighted to have somebody from the east coast because people don’t make the trek. I’m going it’s not far. Now, maybe my perspective is skew because I’m a pilot, it’s like you can fly, come over here, I don’t get it. It’s a beautiful place, they’re really welcoming, the food that the libraries put on, “I’m going to go home a stone a weight, would you stop feeding me.” But just delightful and the readers were so welcoming so it was a lovely place to go so if you’re out there and you’re looking to plan a book tour, go to WA, they’re amazing.

Sarah Williams:            Perfect, all right, so what’s next, what are you working on now?

Helene Young:              The next book’s just started to take shape and it’s another family drama with a little bit of a difference and there may be a character from Return to Rose Land who gets to make an appearance because she doesn’t get her full resolution in the story, it didn’t need need to be part of the story arc so I think it will be nice to pick up her thread and carry on with that. It’s going to be set probably more in the city because I think the issues I’m dealing with it, and again it will have three generations but they won’t necessarily be family, they’ll be three generations of women that are dealing with a similar problem of being a woman in a modern world and the fact that it can all fall apart and then be quite difficult to just carry on with all the expectations and where you get a job.

Helene Young:              Some of it came from being in Hobart where we spent four months touring around Hobart in the boat and while we were in, well not Hobart, we toured around Tasmania, you couldn’t tour Hobart for four months in a boat but around Tasmania and we were stopped in Hobart and they were talking about the fact that there were issues with accommodation because Air BnB had just taken over so much of their affordable accommodation so there were people in living in tents on the showground in a Hobart. It’s freezing cold and pouring with rain, what is going on in Australia that this sort of thing is possible? That’s kind of the general direction it’s going, that it’s easy to suddenly find yourself in a position where you don’t have a roof over your head. Does that make you homeless or if you’ve got friends to [inaudible 00:26:39] well, no, you’re probably not. It’s having a look at that and how that can happen so suddenly and so easily but then there’s a whole lot of other stuff going on with families, sisters and mothers and aunts so it’s fun.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, that’s awesome and I love family sagas and I love the matriarch as well, I’ve always got a big matriarch in my series too. That sounds absolutely fantastic so Return To Rose Glen’s out in July, a couple of days before mine, I’ll sneak that in there. My next one’s out July 4th, yours is July 2nd.

Helene Young:              Should be having a launch party on the 3rd or something, a combined one.

Sarah Williams:            We’ll do a Facebook live. Well that’s fantastic. What’s your website? Where can we find you online?

Helene Young:              You can find me on www.helene so it’s spelt H-E-L-E-N-E, Young, Y-O-U-N-G as in not old yet. Com so that’s www.heleneyoung.com and it’s got all the links to the other social media platforms and my favorite one is my Instagram account because I get to put up all the photos of the beautiful places we get to visit so go to [inaudible 00:27:49] Instagram account.

Sarah Williams:            Beautiful photography, I’m so jealous, it’s gorgeous.

Helene Young:              [inaudible 00:27:55] lovely places.

Sarah Williams:            That was fabulous, thank you so much for coming on the show today Helene.

Helene Young:              My pleasure and all the very best with your new release as well, look forward to reading it.

Sarah Williams:            Thank you so much.

 

Ravishingly Romantic Avril Tremayne

2018 RITA Nominee, Avril Tremayne writes fast-paced, witty banter, which can tend toward the screwball, delivered with a strong emotional punch.

If you like what you see you can become a patron for just a couple of dollars a month. You will also have access to bonus episodes and insider information. Go to http://www.patreon.com/Sarahwilliamsauthor

Transcript:

Sarah Williams:            G’day, I’m Sarah Williams, romance author and independent publisher at Serenade Publishing. Today I’m chatting to 2017 Ruby Award Winner and 2018 RITA Finalist Avril Tremayne.

Sarah Williams:            Thanks for joining me, Avril.

Avril Tremayne:            Pleasure to be here.

Sarah Williams:            Now you say in your bio that your hallmark is ‘fast-paced, witty banter which can tend toward the screwball, delivered with a strong emotional punch.’ I love that.

Avril Tremayne:            It’s quite strange to hear it said back, actually, but it is true.

Sarah Williams:            It’s so awesome. So, tell us about how you got into writing and your journey so far.

Avril Tremayne:            Well I think like most writers … Well, I wanted to be a writer my whole life probably. I have a thing about Jane Eyre. When I read that as a teenager it kind of ignited all sorts of strange passions in me, and I’ve been thinking about becoming a writer ever since then, but life often gets in the way.

Avril Tremayne:            I consider my writing career in two tranches. The first one was when I was probably in my 20s, when I had a good go at it, which came to nothing and I have some fairly hideous manuscripts tucked away that will never see the light of day from that period.

Avril Tremayne:            Then my career took off and I had a fairly strenuous, stressful career, and really I kept writing all the way through but I didn’t have my heart and soul into it because I was so preoccupied with work.

Avril Tremayne:            My last corporate job was over in the Middle East, and when I came back to Australia after three years there I found that I had a little bit of time to think about what I would do next and take a breath, and that year was 2013. I entered the Harlequin So You Think You Can Write competition, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Sarah Williams:            That’s awesome.

Avril Tremayne:            I got my first contract. Actually, I entered two books. That was a particular year they had two competitions, one which was for the main competition and one which was for new adult stories. I won the new adult one. I was one of six winners, and I was a top 10 finalist in the other, and I don’t know, I think at that particular time in my life all the lessons I’d learned about writing somehow coalesced and, you know, [inaudible 00:02:40] to me I supposed. I made a deal with my husband that I’d give it a shot for a year and see if I could get a book accepted, and if I did then I really have a crack at it, so that’s it, that’s me. Here I am.

Sarah Williams:            So, it was because you entered that competition that you got the deal through that?

Avril Tremayne:            Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yes. I got a publishing contract for one of the books straight off, that was part of the prize, and for the top 10 finalist book, which was my third book, Here Comes The Bridesmaid, a book I still love. That book was a top 10 finalist in the main So You Think You Can Write competition, and I got a contract for that one as well.

Sarah Williams:            Oh, wow.

Avril Tremayne:            And that was it. I think it’s kind of like sometimes you just need a bit of a burst of luck, and I got mine.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah.

Avril Tremayne:            And those books both came out in 2014.

Sarah Williams:            Oh, wow, so did you submit to slush piles before doing that?

Avril Tremayne:            Oh, yeah. Yes, of course. Back in that first go of having written, trying to have a go at it, I submitted quite a few books, quite a few dreadful books, and actually quite a few books that I still don’t mind, but you know. I think I made the chronic mistake of many authors when they first start out in forcing my characters to do things.

Avril Tremayne:            If I go back to those early books and read them now, they’re still well written, they’re still quite good stories, but you know, there’s all sorts of drama going on that’s driven by me, the author, not by the characters, and I can quite plainly see why they didn’t make it.

Avril Tremayne:            A category romance, I’ll tell you, they are the hardest books to write. The hardest. They are the hardest books to write. You have got your hero and heroine on the page almost 100% of the time. Very little room to play. Every word has to count, so what is the reader picking up a romance for? They’re picking it up for the hero and heroine, and in a 50,000-60,000 word book, you are giving them those two and not much else.

Avril Tremayne:            A single title book, you have a little more room to play. You can have a bit of fun with their friends, you know, off the side, as long as it’s still driving the story.

Avril Tremayne:            But the process for me, no. Sometimes it will take me as long to write a 50,000 word book as it takes to write a 95,000 word book. It just depends.

Sarah Williams:            Oh, wow. Oh, gosh.

Sarah Williams:            So, Escaping Mr. Right won the Ruby last year in 2017 for the Romance Writers of Australia. Now, it was really funny because I didn’t know you before that, and I went to conference last year in Brisbane, and I was sitting in a table and everyone like stood up, and they were so excited when you won that.

Avril Tremayne:            I was pretty excited myself. Shocked.

Sarah Williams:            It would have been fantastic, and everyone was turning to me, “Oh, my God, I read that book. It’s so good. She so deserved to win,” and I’m just like, “What? Who’s she?” And they’re like, “You must read that book. If you don’t read anything else, that is the book you have to read.”

Avril Tremayne:            That’s lovely to hear.

Sarah Williams:            So, it was so funny. I said, “Well, if you’re all saying that, I better buy it.” I picked up my phone, Amazon, there you go, buy it.

Sarah Williams:            Oh, fantastic. So, tell us about Escaping Mr. Right. Give us a little insight.

Avril Tremayne:            Okay, well that is a book two in a series. It started life very interestingly as a NaNoWriMo project. There’s the first book in the series, it’s called Wanting Mr. Wrong, a book that came out of one of my last jobs actually, when I got a massive crush on Matthew Macfadyen, who plays Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. My favorite adaptation.

Avril Tremayne:            I am not the type of person to get a crush on a celebrity, but I was absolutely drooling over this guy, and I was so obnoxious about it. My whole team of PR people kept stirring me up a little bit, and giving me photos of him, and helping me cyber stalk, et cetera, so I decided I’d write that book. I actually started that book in one of my last jobs, but didn’t finish it until relatively recently I suppose.

Avril Tremayne:            There were three friends in that book, two girls and a guy, and I always wanted to write three books. The third book’s not out yet. I started the second book as the NaNoWriMo project, and I keep saying to … I mean, was that the first? That’s my first ever time of doing NaNoWriMo.

Avril Tremayne:            For people who don’t know what that is, it’s National Novel Writing Month, and it happens in November, and you write 50,000 words from the 1st to the 30th of November, and it is bloody difficult to do.

Avril Tremayne:            I don’t write by word count, so to me this is excruciating. I finished that month with 50,000 words. They were atrocious words. It was the biggest mess you had ever seen. That was the end of November, and I just had to keep pegging at it, pegging at it. I think I finally submitted it to Penguin Random House probably about March or April, and by then I was really, really happy with it.

Avril Tremayne:            I have an amazing editor at Penguin Random House who suggested a few changes. It was up to around 75,000 words by then, and it was a brilliant, brilliant story, and I don’t know what it is about that book.

Avril Tremayne:            I mean, you know, a lot of people don’t like reading third person stories, so that’s probably one reason why I was so shocked it actually was the Ruby Prize winner because it was book two in a series, it was written in the first person, and it really is a romantic comedy. Now, all my books are romantic comedy, but they finish up with quite a lot of emotional intensity.

Avril Tremayne:            When you think about an award-winning book, it’s not really the first thing that … That kind of combination is not really the first thing that would get you [inaudible 00:09:05], so never to say I was shocked, but it does seem to hit a really good place for many people. That makes me absolutely thrilled.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, that’s so cool to hear too, that you can’t actually say, “Yeah, that’s why it’s so good.” You know?

Avril Tremayne:            Why is it do good? I don’t know. I mean, I think it’s because it’s kind of like an unusual … Is it an unusual story? It’s set a bit in Australia, and a bit in Manila. It’s got a really tough rugby league playing hero, and the heroine is a journalist who’s pretty, I wouldn’t say uptight. She’s very super controlled as a result of the way she grew up. She likes control and she has an image of perfection, and the hero is not obviously that image.

Avril Tremayne:            There’s a weird kind of love triangle in there, and I don’t know, it’s just … You know, I’m not really a plotter, so when I start writing a book, I just usually start with how the hero and heroine meet, and in this instance, they met a year before the book began, but the meeting of the book starts on a cruise, end of year rugby league cruise, in Sydney Harbor, which to me sounds ghastly to be on, but anyway, there we are.

Avril Tremayne:            What can I say? It all just happened. That’s how my books … You know, usually you go through the first draft and you’re tearing out your hair because it’s so vile, and then suddenly it all comes together. I can’t explain it.

Sarah Williams:            Well, that’s awesome.

Sarah Williams:            So, talk about writing romantic comedy. I mean, you must just be a hilarious person to be able to write. I know I couldn’t do it.

Avril Tremayne:            Well, I have my moments. I have my moments.

Avril Tremayne:            Romantic comedy, what does it take? Okay, you have to really let yourself go, but interestingly enough, the humor doesn’t really happen in the first draft for me. It happens after I’ve gotten to know the characters. Usually on the second draft through, you can start to see some funny stuff. That’s because life is funny, you know?

Avril Tremayne:            When I think about all the great times, and the not so great times, I have with my husband, it’s the times we’re laughing that are the best. For me, you know, people will often ask you, what is it about a man that’s attractive? It’s always someone who makes me laugh.

Avril Tremayne:            Humor is a really intimate thing for me. You know, you don’t really go in off the bat and crack jokes. It’s not about cracking jokes, it’s about humor in the situation, and finding the [inaudible 00:11:54] moments that you can really understand someone. If they’ve got your sense of humor, you know you’re on the same wave length.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah.

Avril Tremayne:            But it’s fun. It’s fun to write. When I’m reading, if I’m not having a laugh, I’m pretty … You know, I have to have a couple of laughs as a reader. Even if the book is not a comedy, I need to have a few laughs going through.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, that’s really awesome.

Avril Tremayne:            There’s a blog I wrote once called … What was it called? Romantic Comedy and the Black Moment because, you know, in every romance there is a turning point.

Avril Tremayne:            I once saw a play, I think this play is stuck in my mind, and really does, I think, it describes my writing process. It was called The Beauty Queen of Leenane, it’s an Irish play, and it is … You know, I was sitting in there. I mean, this play blew me away. I was sitting in the audience, and I was laughing, and laughing, and laughing, and then there’s this turning point – I’m actually getting chills thinking about it right now – where it’s not funny at all.

Avril Tremayne:            To me, the power of romantic comedy is that it can lull you into something where you think, ‘Oh, that’s kind of light-hearted,’ and then if you twist it, it makes the intensity that much more vibrant. That’s what I try to do in my books.

Sarah Williams:            Oh, wow.

Avril Tremayne:            There’s always a point where it’s not funny anymore, and that’s when they … It can end up funny again, but that’s when the romantic development really kicks in and it gets really serious.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah.

Avril Tremayne:            Oh, my God, I hope I haven’t put anyone off reading my books, but if they are [inaudible 00:13:40].

Sarah Williams:            Thought-provoking, and you know, escapism. I love it.

Sarah Williams:            We should talk about the heat level in case anyone does want to run out there.

Avril Tremayne:            They’re all sexy. All my books have got sex.

Sarah Williams:            Excellent, so sexy, if you’re-

Avril Tremayne:            Some more than others. Oh, I’ve got three Harlequin Dares coming out. They are very, very hot books.

Avril Tremayne:            Aside from those, I’ve got one Harlequin book called The Millionaire’s Proposition, and that is very, very steamy. I think my editor said that when she read that it was the hottest category romance she’s ever read.

Sarah Williams:            Oh, wow.

Avril Tremayne:            So, there you go.

Avril Tremayne:            If you’re looking for a really hot read, that is the one, but there’s also, I have a book with Penguin Random House called Now You’re Mine, which is very, very, very hot.

Avril Tremayne:            You know, they’ve all got sex, but I’m a reader who can actually skip over sex scenes quite easily if they’re not emotional, or fun. If they’re just in there because you have to have a sex scene, there’s no point.

Sarah Williams:            I want to read a funny erotic scene.

Avril Tremayne:            Oh, God. Oh, definitely read, I think The Millionaire’s Proposition is pretty funny. I think Now You’re Mine is pretty funny too. It’s got some very, very funny moments because in Now You’re Mine the heroine, she’s a bit of a smart ass girl from Boston, and she goes to the Middle East. This book is my love song to the Middle East. She goes to review a resort, her first time out of America, and she ends up at the hero’s house. He is, of course, a millionaire living in a palatial, gorgeous abode in the middle of the Abu Dhabi desert. She stumbles upon him and they have this really hot, intense night, and then she goes back to Boston and he follows her.

Avril Tremayne:            I think what people love about that book is that he is so determined. This is something that this book has in common with Escaping Mr. Right, and they both review really well on this point, that the hero knows what he wants, and he is very single-minded in his pursuit of the heroine. Not in a horrible stalking way, but he is very determined that she knows how he feels, and he’s not hiding anything.

Avril Tremayne:            You know, there are other books where you get to the end and the whole big reveal is the fact that the hero tells the heroine he loves her. Well, this is not the case in either of these books. It actually makes for a very steamy time, and a lot of [inaudible 00:16:45].

Sarah Williams:            Yep, excellent. Sounds great.

Sarah Williams:            So, 2018 is a big year for you. You’ve been shortlisted for the RITA, which is the Romance Writers of America big competition, so congratulations.

Avril Tremayne:            Thank you.

Sarah Williams:            That one’s for The Dating Game. Are you going to Denver to see if you win?

Avril Tremayne:            I am indeed. Now, I’m working my way through the RITA, I’m reading all my competitors at the moment. There are some cracking good reads in there, so I’m not going to be depressed if I come home without the trophy because I keep saying to my husband, “Oh, this book could easily win,” and then I jump to the next one, “Oh, this is a great story. This is really going to win.” Anyway, what can you do? There’s fantastic authors I’m in the mix with over there. Fantastic.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, Aussies have done really well this year in the RITAs. There’s you, there’s Amy Andrews, and you know, it’s a good year for us, so good luck with it, and gosh, that will be just amazing.

Sarah Williams:            So, The Dating Game, tell us about The Dating Game.

Avril Tremayne:            Well, that happens to be my favorite book. A lot of authors won’t tell you this, but I’m pretty upfront about it. I love all my books for various reasons, but The Dating Game, I guess I’ve got two books that flew out of my head onto the page. The first one was Here Comes the Bridesmaid, and The Dating Game is the other one. It is very funny. It is really a romcom. It’s got a romantic comedy plot that would be perfect on the screen. Actually, this came out of one of my jobs too.

Avril Tremayne:            There was a year when I was working in aviation, and I had a really fantastic team working with me, and one of the girls, a beautiful, beautiful, clever woman, she decided she wanted to find her husband. That year she got everyone involved. She decided she was going to say, “Yes,” to every man who asked her out. She is a lovely person as well as a very beautiful one, so she was getting asked out a lot. She had the whole of us working, you know, looking at her emails, how to respond to this guy, should she go out there, critiquing the dates, et cetera, for the whole year.

Avril Tremayne:            That year was absolutely hilarious, and that’s the idea behind The Dating Game, where I’ve got the heroine who is a PR person, she decides that she’s sick of getting dumped every three weeks. That’s what happens on average, so she needs someone to teach her how to date, what is she doing wrong, and so she runs into this hot guy at an art event, I think. It’s an art event, a gallery opening, and they do a deal. He’s a budding artist, she’s shocking with dates, he will teach her how to date properly if she will pose for his painting.

Avril Tremayne:            It’s much more complicated than that, but there is the plot. The plot is them working through this. Of course, there are other things at play. One of her best friends [inaudible 00:20:26] the hero, so she’s got a bit of a girl code thing happening. Sarah, the heroine, her brother hates the hero because her brother is in love with her best friend. I mean, can you see [inaudible 00:20:40], right? There are mixed messages and people in love with each other, and then the hero, he’s really a very experienced man, older than the heroine, and older in life terms as well as in age. He is completely bowled over that he’s falling in love with this girl and does not want a bar of it.

Avril Tremayne:            I’m not doing it justice. It is so funny. One of the early readers of this book said to me, and I will remember this til I drop dead, that this is the first book she’s ever read where she could see them falling in love, and she could completely understand how they would end up together. That doesn’t happen that often. It’s just so unforced. It just rolled out of me, that book. I just love it.

Avril Tremayne:            For it to be a RITA … I mean, like always, I did not expect this to be nominated because it is a pretty zany story, and it’s a book two, and it’s, you know, it’s a romantic comedy. I think it’s the only romantic comedy in the Long Romance section. I’ve got two more to read, so I’m not 100% on that, but it’s just a really light-hearted, rompy kind of a book, but of course, turns intense towards the end.

Avril Tremayne:            I was so thrilled for it to be a finalist, my favorite book. I mean, so thrilled.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, it sounds absolutely fantastic, and I’m definitely on my phone right here, I’m about to download it now. It sounds awesome.

Avril Tremayne:            I can’t speak highly enough about that book. Look, but just because it’s my favorite, it doesn’t mean that it’s going to be everyone else’s, even of my own books, but it was so much fun to write, and I still can read it. I’ve read that book a million times, and I still laugh, and I still bawl my eyes out towards the end.

Sarah Williams:            That’s awesome.

Avril Tremayne:            What can I say?

Sarah Williams:            Well, all the best for that one, and so what’s out next if we’ve already read everything else of yours? Is there something else coming out soon?

Avril Tremayne:            Yeah, well I’ve got my first Harlequin Dare. It’s on the shelves in Australia, New Zealand, the U.K. in late July, and it’s everywhere on ebook from the 1st of August. I call that my secret baby story without the secret.

Avril Tremayne:            It is a very hot story. It’s my first friends to lovers story, and it’s the first of a trilogy, which are called The Reunions Series because the basic premise for all three of the books arises from a group of friends who met at college in Washington D.C. 10 years ago, and now they’re kind of meeting up.

Avril Tremayne:            The first story, which is Getting Lucky, as I said, that’s a friends to lovers. Two people who, well, she probably has been hankering for him ever since they met, and he’s pretty stand … Well, he’s not standoffish. He cares about here too much to be involved with her is the basic premise.

Avril Tremayne:            Then the second book, which is Getting Even, that comes out on the 1st of November. It’s super, super hot. That is second chance at love. These two, they get a mention in book one, but they don’t actually appear.

Avril Tremayne:            And then the third book, which I have just submitted, and I’m just about to start revisions on, that book is called Getting Naughty, and is my favorite of the three. That comes out in February, I think. Very, very crazy story, and a little bit different, I think. A little bit [inaudible 00:24:32], opposites attract.

Sarah Williams:            Yep. Oh, that sounds awesome. Well, that’s definitely given us all a lot to read and to download now, so go and do that people.

Sarah Williams:            We can find you online. Your website is?

Avril Tremayne:            Oh, yeah. My website is avriltremayne.com. I think I’m the only Avril Tremayne in the world, so it’s not too hard to find me. Of course, I’m on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and you can get to all those accounts by my website.

Sarah Williams:            Yep, that is awesome.

Sarah Williams:            Well, thank you so much for your time today, Avril. That was really fun.

Avril Tremayne:            My pleasure. Always fun to talk to books.

Double Rita nominee Amy Andrews

Amy is an award-winning, USA Today best-selling Aussie author who has written seventy contemporary romances in both the traditional and digital markets. Her books bring all the feels from sass and quirk and laughter to emotional grit to panty-melting heat.

Liked it? Take a second to support Sarah Williams on Patreon!

Transcript:

Sarah Williams:            Today I’m chatting to Amy Andrews. Thanks for joining me, Amy.

Amy Andrews:              Thanks for having me, Sarah.

Sarah Williams:            So, you have written over 70 books and sold over 2 million copies. So, first off, congratulations.

Amy Andrews:              Thank you, thank you very much.

Sarah Williams:            So, tell us about your journey so far and how you got into writing.

Amy Andrews:              Well, I was never one of those people that you often meet in writing circles who just knew, from the second that they stapled paper together, that they were gonna be a writer. It never occurred to me to be a writer at all, really. I was very good at english, I loved creative writing, but it never occurred to me that people did that as an actual job, which is stupid ’cause clearly there are books, so people must do it, but, I don’t know, it was not in my realm of things I could do.

Amy Andrews:              And then we moved to the UK after I first got married, where I was temporarily unemployed for about six weeks, and it was our first winter in the UK and it was freezing cold. One week it didn’t get above zero and there were frozen cobwebs in our house, and it was just really cold. And I thought “What can I do that involves me not getting off my electric blanket?” And I thought “I’ll write that book that’s in my head.”

Amy Andrews:              And that was an epiphany, ’cause I was like “I have a book in my head?” And it was then that I realized [inaudible 00:02:11] so then I wrote long hand, a chapter a day for ten days, 50 000 words, and it just flew out of me, just fell out of me. And I’d written a book and that’s when I realized … Then you open that portal, when you do that you open almost a like portal and I realized then that actually I had always had thoughts in my head, I just never really realized that’s what they were, I just thought it was a bit of an active imagination. And so, it took me till I was 22 to really realize they weren’t really people talking in my head, they were actually plots. So, that was a relief in lots of ways.

Amy Andrews:              This was back in the days before we had PC, everybody had a computer in the house, so I had to pay somebody to type it [inaudible 00:02:59], it cost me a hundred pounds, out of my scribbled notes, and sent it off to the somebody in the UK, so I sent it to Harlequin, and nine months later got a rejection.

Amy Andrews:              And that was … So, I always feel that was my moment when I knew I wanted to become a writer, because I thought “Alright well, I’m gonna show you, I’m gonna teach you a lesson. I’m gonna show you that I can write a book that you will publish, if it kills me.” So, I always say that rejection made me bloody minded.

Amy Andrews:              And so, I kinda went on from there and when we got back to Australia, I thought to myself “Well, clearly I’m not as good as I thought I was, clearly I’m not going to have a millions of dollar advance and get a movie deal straight off the bat, so, okay, what can I do, I’ve gotta learn.” So I looked around to whoever could help me, so I rang [inaudible 00:03:58] and asked if there was a romance writing group anywhere in Brisbane and I found BRISROM, from there I found RWA, I went to conferences and workshops and I bought how-to books, and I always say I feel like I just spent years learning the craft and writing and getting rejected.

Amy Andrews:              So it took me 12 years before I finally got the call from London to say that they were accepting my first book. Although, that was really on my third full novel in that time. ‘Cause I was working as a nurse and I had babies and I wasn’t very productive in that 12 years. I really wish that I had been more productive, ’cause maybe I might have been picked up earlier. Well, you never know, maybe that’s just … that was just the way my journey was.

Sarah Williams:            That’s it.

Amy Andrews:              I do get a bit cranky thinking I should’ve been a bit more focused in those 12 years.

Amy Andrews:              So yeah, 2004 I got the phone call, and my first book was published in 2005.

Sarah Williams:            Wow so … Yeah, we’re not talking decades or anything, you’ve done 60 books in 12 years.

Amy Andrews:              70 books, yeah.

Sarah Williams:            70 books, sorry.

Amy Andrews:              Please don’t take those ten books away from me.

Sarah Williams:            No! You need every single one.

Amy Andrews:              Yeah.

Sarah Williams:            So, wow, that’s really impressive. So yeah, you really must’ve just worked your socks off for the last few years.

Amy Andrews:              Yeah, I guess I’ve been putting out between … I suppose I’ve averaged about four to six books a year, but there have been some years, like a couple of years ago, I had 11 books out in one year. Although, that was not quite the way it was meant to work out, I just had books that were carried over from the previous year that weren’t supposed to. But yes, I did have a crazy year a few years back. I am prolific, not as prolific as some. I’ve retired from nursing a few years ago now and I write full time and it’s my job.

Sarah Williams:            Oh wow. So what kind of word count are we talking about here?

Amy Andrews:              Well today, not that many. When I’m writing or working on a book, I try to do two to three thousand … I’d like to two thousand words a day, but usually I’m running behind on schedule so I have to get to three thousand words a day.

Amy Andrews:              I went for a lot of years with much bigger word counts and that, five thousand words a day was quite common for me. Sometimes up to eight. But the mere thought of writing those word counts now makes me want to vomit. If I have to write anything more than three thousand words a day, it’s daunting to even think about. So, I don’t know what happened there, but … I mean, I can and do occasionally do five to eight K days, but I’m literally exhausted after them, I feel like I can’t write for another week. So I would say between two and three thousand words when I’m writing on a book.

Amy Andrews:              Today I’m praying that I’m gonna get to two thousand by the end of the day. Fingers crossed.

Sarah Williams:            A few more wines, you’ll be alright.

Amy Andrews:              Yeah sure, I always write drinking champagne. Not really. I’d never get anything finished. [crosstalk 00:07:05] thing, you’re supposed to write drunk, edit sober?

Sarah Williams:            Yeah.

Amy Andrews:              Yeah. I like that one.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, yeah, that’s awesome. And in the books themselves, are we talking 50 000 word books or even longer?

Amy Andrews:              Yeah, most of them are 70 000. I guess in the category romance, some of them between 50 to 60 000.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah.

Amy Andrews:              I’ve had quite a few single titles in there though. I don’t know how many, maybe 10, so they’re 80 to 100 000, and there’s a couple of novellas in there as well, 20, 30, 35 000 words. But mostly 50, 60 000, yeah.

Sarah Williams:            Brilliant. So, when you were picked up by Harlequin or Mills & Boon, what sort of a book was that to start with? So I know you’ve got a background in nursing, so was that a medical book?

Amy Andrews:              It was. My first book that was picked up was a medical book. The first book I wrote wasn’t a medical. That book that I wrote in ten days was not a medical, although it did have a doctor as a hero. I have a medical background, so it was easier. But I hadn’t planned on writing medical, so I didn’t really even know the medical line existed until, in my apprenticeship I was reading widely in the Harlequin lines, and I stumbled across it and I read a few of the books.

Amy Andrews:              And I read a particular book that had some inaccurate medical information in it and I thought … Actually, there was a scene where a doctor gave a bedpan to a patient and I was like “Well, okay. If only that were true.” And so I thought at least I can get my medical content right, so that’s what actually put me on the path of writing medicals, that’s how I ended up … And as I switched, I changed to writing medicals from then on.

Amy Andrews:              Later on I did write for the Harlequin Kiss line, for those three or four years that it was operational, and I loved writing those books, it broke my heart when the line shut down. But I was lucky, I actually had another line that I could still write for as well.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, fantastic.

Sarah Williams:            So you’ve got lots of different genres that you do write for, you’ve got your medical, your small town, urban family, mystery, sexy, and sport.

Amy Andrews:              Yeah.

Sarah Williams:            So a little bit of everything.

Amy Andrews:              A little bit of everything, yeah. The mystery one is … I’ve only got one book that I did in that sub-genre. I’ve got two more coming out in that series, in the Limbo series, The Joy Valentine Mysteries. And that was a weird book that came from nowhere. Joy had been in my head for a couple of years, she was this weird character that landed fully formed. It doesn’t often happen that way, I just knew Joy straight away. But she was like a ex hillbilly, punk rocker, [cadana 00:09:59] makeup artist person who sees ghosts, and I was like “I don’t know how to write that book. I can’t write you. You need to go away ’cause I’m busy writing the stuff I know how to write.”

Amy Andrews:              But she just persisted and persisted and persisted, and after a couple of years I just knew, I had finished my book and I knew that she had to be written, so I wrote her. And I love her, I love that book and I love … There’s a new cover on, Escape recently re-covered it, the one with the goldfish bowl on the front. And I love that book, it just didn’t sell very well. So, people, go buy, it’s really good! And there’s gonna two more out as well.

Sarah Williams:            Excellent. Oh brilliant. So, you’ve had your books translated into 12 languages as well, as well as having Manga?

Amy Andrews:              Manga, yes.

Sarah Williams:            Manga-

Amy Andrews:              Yeah, these are my … I’ve got a few, just to show you my lovely, beautiful, Manga translations. And they have these beautiful, gorgeous pictures … Here I’m upside down, pictures in them that are … They’re the most prized translation, as a Harlequin author, that you get. And I didn’t … Everybody else I knew, practically, at Harlequin had Manga translations and I didn’t. And when I got my first one, I almost peed my pants, I was so excited.

Amy Andrews:              And they’re quite beautiful, ’cause their covers are really glossy, they’re very beautiful. Obviously I can’t read Japanese at all, but when you know what the story is and you look through the pictures there’s actually … You go “Oh, I know what that scene is,” you can tell from the pictures what scenes they are, they seem to be a very accurate representation of what you wrote. So, yeah. Lovely.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. That’s fantastic.

Amy Andrews:              [crosstalk 00:12:03] of signing things and one of the reasons why people say “Well, you know, why do you write for Harlequin when you could go Indie and …” because they have such an amazingly huge … For lots of reasons, ’cause I’ve been a Harlequin reader, I love them.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah.

Amy Andrews:              But they have such a huge market share and they have a massive translation market. And I got the Japanese translation the other day and it’s just such a thrill to know that all over the world people are reading, hopefully, [crosstalk 00:12:36]

Sarah Williams:            So, they are definitely one of those really good ones.

Sarah Williams:            So, as well as Harlequin, Mills & Boon, are you published with anyone else?

Amy Andrews:              Yes. Actually I’ve had quite a few books published through Escape, Harlequin Escape Australia, which is a digital line for Harlequin in Australia. Limbo was published through them. And I’ve had a couple of books out with Harlequin Mirror here in Australia which is a [inaudible 00:13:05]. Mostly now I write for Entangled Publishing, I’ve done 12 books or something for them and they’ve the sports, the Sydney Smoke Rugby series with them. And I also write for Tule Publishing, which is another independent digital publishing house out of the U.S.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, brilliant. So, with your Tule ones, I’ve read Tule published books which have been really like cowboys and western. Is that what you’re writing for them as well, or is it something different?

Amy Andrews:              I’ve written a few things for them and that’s what I really love about writing for Tule, is that there’s a lot of creative freedom. The first book I wrote for them was a collaboration with three other authors and it was set in New York, a modern, contemporary romance [inaudible 00:13:57] sisters … Sister? No, friends, all set in New York.

Amy Andrews:              I’ve written a series I was gonna self-publish, but they said that they were interested so I gave it to them, which is a small town Australian. They’re not cowboys exactly, but sort of a family [inaudible 00:14:14] a small town. And the one that’s up for the RITA this year is also a Tule one and it’s a cowboy one, it’s an Australian cowboy on the American bull riding circuit, so it is. So I’ve written a variety of things for them.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, excellent. So let’s talk about the RITA nomination, congratulations!

Amy Andrews:              [inaudible 00:14:36]

Sarah Williams:            And that’s fantastic, you were saying that it is an Australian character-

Amy Andrews:              [inaudible 00:14:43] with two books in the same category, so Troy was one and A Christmas Miracle, which was that Harlequin medical.

Sarah Williams:            Brilliant. And this is the first time you’ve got a nomination for a RITA?

Amy Andrews:              It is. I actually didn’t enter last year, ’cause I thought “I’ve been doing this for 12 years [crosstalk 00:15:03] getting anywhere.” And it costs money and you have to … I actually didn’t do it last year, but you usually have to mail them a copy, so it’s expensive. Thought “Ah, I’ll do another year.”

Amy Andrews:              So that ended up being quite fortuitous as it was, and then … ‘Cause what happens with the RITA is, you get rung by them to say your book’s finaled in the RITA competition. And because I [inaudible 00:15:33] Australia, because we just moved house and I had a different phone now, to the one that was on the form I entered, I wasn’t rung. And I didn’t even know that they were being announced over night, I’d rather not know those things because it’s better to be surprised than to be sitting there by the phone thinking “Is it gonna ring, is it gonna ring, is it gonna ring?”

Amy Andrews:              So, I didn’t even know, so I went to bed and I woke up at half seven to a text from Claire Connelly, it said “Good morning RITA queen.” And I reckon there’s never been a [inaudible 00:16:09] on the face of the planet that had done a sit-up faster than I did [crosstalk 00:16:12] got that message. I just bolted upright in bed and said to my husband “Oh my God! Oh my God, I finaled in the RITA!”

Amy Andrews:              And then I noticed that I had all these tweets and I just ignored all of them, because I knew I didn’t get a phone call, so I went straight to my email, I knew I must’ve been emailed. And so I was desperately searching through my email, it was my fan email, from Damon Suede by the way, who you are gonna be interviewing-

Sarah Williams:            Excellent.

Amy Andrews:              … and that’s when I found out that it wasn’t one book, it was two books.

Sarah Williams:            Wow. That’s awesome.

Amy Andrews:              ‘Cause she hadn’t said two books, I hadn’t even responded to her, I just flew straight to my email and then I found out I had two books. So it was a very exciting day. I think I cried, I don’t think I wrote for a week after that, I was too busy celebrating everywhere.

Sarah Williams:            That’s just so exciting. Are you going over to Denver to be there?

Amy Andrews:              I’m definitely going to Denver. It’s so funny, because last year I had planned on going to Denver because I’m writing some books set in Colorado. I’m writing a series for Entangled, well, Macmillan in the U.S., set in Colorado and I thought “Well, that’s good, I’ll be able to go, I’ll be able to do some research.” And then we sold our house, we moved and we … And my husband, we kind of closed up his business and I said to him “Look, I won’t go to Denver, because money’s gonna be tight. Unless I final in the RITA and then, of course, I’ll have to go.” And we both had a laugh about that [crosstalk 00:17:38]

Amy Andrews:              And so, then when I finaled I said to him “Well, I’m going to the RITA now.” [inaudible 00:17:45] get off and get on again bus. So we’re going up, [inaudible 00:17:47] my airfare, I’ve booked the hotel.

Amy Andrews:              I’m up against eight other authors in that category and I’ve read all their books and they’re all great, so whoever wins, good on them, because they’re awesome books. It’s just gonna be great to be there on the night and be a part of that whole thing. ‘Cause I’ve been to RITA ceremonies before, but I’ve never been one of the ones that’ve been up on the screen with their book, so that’ll be exciting.

Sarah Williams:            Ah, that’s fantastic. Well, all the best for that one, I can’t wait to hear [inaudible 00:18:18]. I hope they stream it or something.

Amy Andrews:              They do stream it, you can watch it online, yeah.

Sarah Williams:            Oh, fantastic. So we’ll all be-

Amy Andrews:              [crosstalk 00:18:27] Oscars, red carpets. Yeah, it’s good.

Sarah Williams:            It’s so exciting.

Sarah Williams:            Well, so what have you got that’s coming out next that we should all be keeping our eyes peeled for?

Amy Andrews:              Oh, I’ve got Rugby book number six, which is Playing Dirty, it’s coming out the second week in July. Probably should know the exact date, but I [crosstalk 00:18:49] Yeah, so that’s coming out and then I’ve got another medical coming out in October, there’s my book after that. And the seventh Rugby book should be out, I think it’s in October or November. I don’t have it ready yet, I need to do that, that’s what I’ll be working on next.

Amy Andrews:              So yeah, it should be out this year as well. So yeah.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, that’s fantastic. So there’s always something coming out.

Amy Andrews:              Usually four or five books a year, yeah.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, that’s absolutely fantastic.

Sarah Williams:            Oh well, again, congratulations on the RITA nomination. So where can we find you online?

Amy Andrews:              Oh, I’m all over social media, I’m on Twitter and Facebook and all those kind of things. Probably the best place to go is my website, amyandrews.com.au, and it’s got all my social media links there. People can also click to join my newsletter where they can find out about things that are coming up and all that kind of things as well.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. That’s great. Well, thank you so much for today, Amy, I really enjoyed it.

Amy Andrews:              No worries, thank you very much.

Sarah Williams:            Thanks for joining me today, I hope you enjoyed the show. Jump onto my website, sarahwilliamsauthor.com, and join my mailing list to receive a free preview of my books and lots of other inspiration.

Sarah Williams:            If you like the show and want it to continue, you can become a sponsor for just a couple of dollars a month. Go to patreon.com/sarahwilliamsauthor and remember to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel and leave a review of the Podcast.

Sarah Williams:            I’ll be back next week with another loved up episode. Bye!

Staying Grounded with Sarah Williams

Sarah Williams (yes, that’s me!) is a Bestselling Australian Author who was nominated for the Best Debut Author of 2017 for AusRom Today and the Australian Romance Readers Association. Her third novel, The Sky over Brigadier Station was launched last week to rave reviews.

If you like what you see you can become a patron for just a couple of dollars a month. You will also have access to bonus episodes and insider information. Go to http://www.patreon.com/Sarahwilliamsauthor

Transcript:

Sarah Williams:                  Welcome to Write with Love. I’m your host, Sarah Williams. Best selling author, speaker and creative entrepreneur. Each week I talk to passionate and inspiring authors about their journey in creative writing. Some are traditionally published, some do it themselves. Everyone’s journey is different, and everyone has something interesting to say. We all love, love and love what we do. Today’s show is brought to you by our amazing fans and supporters on Patreon. If you’d like to help support the show and get some awesome bonus episodes, go to patreon.com/sarahwilliamsauthor to learn more. Now here’s today’s show.

Sarah Williams:                  Good day, good day, I’m Sarah Williams. Thanks for joining me for episode 29 of Write with Love. Today’s episode is all about me, because this past Wednesday I launched my latest novel, The Sky Over Brigadier Station, which I’m going to show you on my eReader. There we go. Unfortunately, I don’t have the print copy just yet. There’s a little bit of a hold up. So that one went to launch on Wednesday, the 4th of July and it’s had some really brilliant reviews. I’ll read some of those in a little bit. I did a Facebook live on Wednesday night, Australian time. It was so nerve-wracking. The first time I’ve ever done a Facebook live and I learned a lot from the experience. So hopefully the next time I do it will be a little bit better. We also had a power cut at the very end. It’s school holidays and it was just before bedtime so my kids were all watching things on their iPads and stuff like that. Our power board obviously didn’t handle it very well and cut out.

Sarah Williams:                  Thank you to everyone who did watch, and who commented, and asked me questions, and congratulated me and everything like that. And who hung around when I did my second little bit at the end. Some of the questions that I was asked, or things that we talked about, I will talk about again in today’s podcast. This is the third novel that I’ve written. It’s the second in my Brigadier Station series, so we met Lucky and Darcy McGuire in my first book, ‘The Brothers of Brigadier Station’, which I also just happen to have here. That one with the pretty cover that’s also in the background. That one was published in May 2017 and this time in ‘The Sky Over Brigadier Station’, we get to meet the youngest brother, who is Noah.

Sarah Williams:                  The blob for it goes: “Noah McGuire stayed away from Brigadier Station for a reason. He spent a decade in New Zealand’s south islands trying to forget his past. But the memories still haunt him and the last thing he wants to do, is see his estranged family and attend his brother’s wedding. However, the only way he can collect his inheritance is if he returns to his family’s property, and faces the demons he’s been hiding from. When it comes to rounding up hundreds of cattle in a day, doing so by horseback doesn’t do the trick quite like a helicopter does. And Riley Sinclair is one of the best pilots in the country. It’s a dangerous job, but she has nothing to lose until she meets Noah, and her bravery is finally tested.”

Sarah Williams:                  It’s the second in the season, but it can also be read as a standalone, and like the first one, it’s set in Julia Creek in the isolated Queensland Outback. Thank you so much and I just want to read a quick review that came in. This one’s from Teresa. A real heartfelt, emotional read. An intense story line with plenty of raw, rough, grueling edges that will forever open the reader’s heart and eyes. A heartbreaking read that keeps you on edge, burning through the pages. Hoping, needing the happily ever after to pull you from the emotionally havoc the gripping drama puts you through. A myriad of emotions, engrossing twists, and tense enjoyable and moving passion-filled chemistry. An absolutely amazing must read. Thank you so much Teresa. I really appreciate that one.

Sarah Williams:                  There you go, you can get ‘The Sky Over Brigadier Station’, it’s available in eBook from all the major platforms and in print. Digitally, print on demand and it should be available in most Australian libraries towards later in the year when I get organized and do that.

Sarah Williams:                  So just a little bit about me. Of course, I normally start these interviews saying, “So tell us about yourself and your journey to publication.” So here we go. I grew up on a organic kiwi fruit orchard in Hawksbury. The lovely wine region of Hawksbury in the north island of New Zealand. I have a brother and my parents, and we lived in this orchard. There wasn’t much to do growing up, and everywhere involved having a 20 minute drive into town. I was always intrigued by storytelling and I loved watching TV shows and movies. New Zealand in the 80s, it was mostly American TV shows, so I was a big fan of things like Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place, Friends, those sorts of things. But I also loved reading and when I was a teenager, like most of us writers with mums who read as well, I went and raided my mum’s romance bookshelf, which consisted of things like Daniel Steele. I loved reading the Danielle Steele novels because I watched her movies when they became mini-sodes and those sorts of things on TV.

Sarah Williams:                  I would stay at home and on the weekends or holidays I’d be watching the soapies with my mum, The Days of Our Lives, The Bold and the Beautiful, that sort of thing. Of course a little romantic. I would just start making up my own stories because we didn’t have Netflix and all those sorts of things. So when I couldn’t be watching TV or reading a book, I would be making up my own stories. So endlessly long bus rides to school and that sort of thing, I would make up these stories. And then by the time I was in high school, my best friend was loving me telling her these stories. She’d ask me at lunch time, “So what story have you made up today?” I’d tell her the story that I’d been thinking about all morning. Then over the lunch time we’d be, “Oh, she could do this, or he could do that.” They were always romantic because we were going through puberty and boys were what we were interested in at the time.

Sarah Williams:                  That’s how it all started and my dad, I said to him when I was 14, “Hey, dad. I want to move to America. Because Hollywood, and I want movies, and I want to be a screenwriter or a director or something like that.” That was the first thing I wanted to do and I said, “Well, if I can’t be a screenwriter, I really want to just write novels.” He said to me, “Well, that’s all well and good, but do you want to maybe do journalism?” I said, “No, I don’t want to do journalism, not interested. It’s gotta be fiction.” And he said, “Okay.

Sarah Williams:                  Well, if you’re going to write fiction, it’s still based on real people and real situations. So go and get some life experience.” He said, “If you wanna go to America, that’s fine. Go and have a great life and get some experience and really take things in and watch people, and learn. Then you can be a writer.” Okay. So I took that on board, my dad’s pretty smart. So thought I’ll do that. When I was 17 I finished school in New Zealand. I didn’t go all the way, I just finished. I went on a student exchange to the United States, and I went to North Carolina, just near Charlotte. That was great because I was also a fan of Dawson’s Creek at the time and that’s exactly where it was filmed, in Wilmington, North Carolina. That was wonderful and I did see a lot, and I love America.

Sarah Williams:                  That was 1999 to 2000. I graduated high school in America in 2000. Got to see a lot of the country, fell in love with it. We went up to New York, we went to Washington, we went to Florida. I’d been to America a couple of times before that too. Then I finished the exchange and I decided I wanted to go to university over there. So I applied to the University of North Carolina in Wilmington. Because they had this course which was all on American history and a big emphasis on Native American history. I love Native American culture, and I’ve always been a bit obsessed with westerns and cowboys and Indians, and that sort of thing. So I thought, “Well, I really wanna do this university degree in Wilmington.” I had to leave obviously because of the visa restrictions. So I left, but New Zealand just wasn’t gonna cut it. So I moved to Melbourne in Australia because New Zealand, once you’ve been out, is a very, very small country, especially back then before technology really.

Sarah Williams:                  I was living in Melbourne, in the city. It took a while to try and get all these visas sorted out and then September 11th happened. There was no way my visa was gonna be approved after that. They pretty much cut them off. So I was stuck with my backup plan. I was working at Office Max, if anyone knows the stationery shop. I had a good fantastic time going out, because I was legal to drink, which I hadn’t been ever before, 18 thank God. And having a great time in the city, doing what my dad said. “Go out, meet people, do things, experience things. Think about situations you can write about later.” That was great and I based myself in Melbourne for a few years and I traveled around Europe. I became a travel consultant in order to get my travel fare very discounted or free.

Sarah Williams:                  That was brilliant. I just had several years just seeing the world, seeing Australia. I’ve done all the major cities. Ayers Rock, Uluru, Darwin. Yeah, Western Australia. Seen pretty much all of it. And then I had enough of the freezing cold Melbourne winters, so I decided to move to Cairns, and at that point writing was one of those things. I was like, “Yeah, I’m going to get around to it and when I’m in my thirties or forties and I’ve got the kids and maybe a husband who can support me or something like that, that’s when I’ll write.”

Sarah Williams:                  So I decided I wanted to go and wrestle some crocodiles because that was my latest infatuation, was crocodiles after a trip to Darwin. So I decided to move to Cairns, and I ended up in tourism again and one of my jobs there was I worked at a helicopter company. And I would book people on these tourist flights over to the Great Barrier Reef and doing day tours and just flights. And I got to meet all these amazing pilots and talk to them about their careers and their training and all these sorts of things. I just loved these helicopters. There were really big ones, six-seaters, they were fantastic, they’re called squirrels. And one of my favorites there was a stinky little Robinson R44. And I really liked this. It was just a little two-seater. It was very maneuverable, so it was really cool.

Sarah Williams:                  So I kind of stored all this information that I took on board and just put it in there. “I might chuck a helicopter and then I will one day … Yes, I’d want to go there. So along the way though, after I’d done that, I tried to do the crocodile thing. Turned out you need a zoology degree and that was like way too much university for me, so I said no. And then I met my husband while I was living in Cairns and we got married, and then I got pregnant and we decided to move to Townsville. We bought a business and I was doing the admin for the business, and it just kind of ended up being that the admin for the business and the marketing and everything was only taking up kind of 50% of my time.

Sarah Williams:                  The twins went off to kindergarten three times a week. So I was like, “Well, I’ve got some time now, maybe I should write that book.” So I started, nothing really fantastic. It was really just an experiment. And then I was reading the paper and they said, “Oh, we’re going to have the Savannah Festival”, they called it. It was a writer’s festival and there were a couple of people in there, no one that I really knew the names of at the time. But one of the workshops that caught my interest was how to write a romance with Barbara Henney. So I thought, “Well, it’s in my town. My husband can look after the kids on the weekends and I’m going to go and do this.” It was free, the council was paying for it, so why not?

Sarah Williams:                  So I went to that and I met Barbara Henney, who I’ve had on the show and she is … one of those moments, meeting her, doing that work shot light bulbs left, right and center. “I want to write romance. I want to write rural romance like she writes Outback Australia, and I want to have a career like her.” So I went home after that workshop, outlined ‘The brothers of brigadier station’. It took two years to write, mostly part-time writing too because I still had the kids and I was doing every single workshop online that was possibly available to learn the craft of writing and also some of the business. I decided once I had this book finished, I pitched it at the Romance Writers Australia Conference in 2016 in Adelaide. I pitched it to three, I got full submission requests from these agents and publishers and  I’ve been told I pitched a couple of other places as well. And everyone really loved the story and a couple felt it was too short or whatever. So that was fine.

Sarah Williams:                  And then I did get seen to contract, which just from the beginning felt wrong. It was from a big publishing house, very reputable. I’ve got nothing against them, but the contract for me didn’t fit. It was digital only and Australian only and I just … Yeah, I’m ambitious. If I’m going to do something I want to go big and I want to make lots of money. And so I tendered down and I decided to go [inaudible 00:15:38] So I continue to learn everything I possibly could before launching ‘The Brothers of Brigadier Station’. Got a few nice little sales coming through, but I didn’t put a lot of effort into it because everything that I was reading said “Wait until you’ve got more than one book out, until you start spending any money on the advertising.”

Sarah Williams:                  So that’s what I did. I had a great writers group in Townsville at that time. And so we all started writing these novellas. So I wrote ‘The Outback Governess’, which I have here. Which I published in November last year. I call it, it’s the sound of music without the religion and the singing. So I put that one out in November and I put it down for 99 US cents. So I had over a thousand pre-orders in the 30 days that I had in pre-order. And so that was like, “Oh, this looks like it’s going to do pretty well.” And by the time that we launched it, it really did. My sales from ‘The Outback Governess’ just played into my sales, ‘The Outback Governess’, which have since played into my sales for this one. So it was definitely one of those pieces of advice that I’m really glad I listened to.

Sarah Williams:                  So, I’ve got the three out now. I’ve also in my spare time earlier this year, I decided to put out your creative journal, which is this one here. This is only available via my website. You’ve got to email me if you want a copy. But basically there’s some blank pages, there’s lots of pretty things you can color in, there’s some advice. So there’s one of those … That’s the adult version there, if you’re interested. They’re 20 Australia dollars. And that’s the children’s version because I was writing the first one and my 10 year old who’s also interested in writing and technology and all sorts of things. He helps me with the podcast actually. And he said, “Mom, can you do one of those for me because that looks really cool.” I said, “Yeah, sure. Okay.” So I altered some of the information, made it a little bit shorter, and did that for him as well.

Sarah Williams:                  So if you’re interested in either of those, you have to go to my website and send me an email and we’ll sort that out. And so technically I’ve written five but three are novels, so I’m going with that. They describe a brigadier station, like I said this is it in the series. I’m going to finish off this series next year. I’ve got two more books, at least two more books planned. Of course the next one has to be Lucky’s journey to happily ever after. And I have a really interesting idea that I want to put into that one, but it’s simmering at the back of my mind because I’m about to start when school holidays finish in a week. I’m about to start a book which will be based here, sorry, which would be based here. So we ended up moving at the end of last year. We moved to Maleny in the sunshine coast, which is just an absolutely beautiful, subtropical location.

Sarah Williams:                  And I jusT adore this region. it’s just beautiful and the people are lovely and there’s lots of dairy farms and cattle, dairy cattle, dairy cows. So I have this great idea for a book and I’m writing that one which will be out before Christmas. So stay change on that. And then of course I’ll go back into the Brigadier Station series next year, so that’ll be great fun. ‘The Brothers of Brigadier Station’ has been free digitally for the last week, so I hope if you hadn’t read it, you’d already picked up a copy. If you didn’t, too late, now you have to pay for it again. Sorry. So as well as writing and running the podcast in Serenade publishing, I also run writer’s workshops and I do some speaking as well. And of course I’ve got the four kids at primary school, so I am pretty busy, but I do some mentoring as well and some business consultancy.

Sarah Williams:                  So, that’s all listed on my website as well if anyone is interested but I do like to keep myself busy. In 2017, of course I published those two books, ‘The Outback Governess’ and ‘The Brothers Brigadier Station’, and I was nominated for the 2017 best debut Australian author for the AusRom today, and also for the ARRA, which is the Australian Romance Readers Association. So I got nominated twice for 2017, so that was really great. That’s nice to be recognized by the readers. So some of the questions that came up in our Facebook live the other day, people were asking me why do I write short novels? So my books average between about 40 and 60,000 words. That’s simply because I am busy and I like things that play out kind of like a movie. So I always like to think, “Well, if Steven Spielberg or someone like that wanted to put it into a movie, which I’d love by the way, what would they have to edit out?”

Sarah Williams:                  And I didn’t want them to have to edit anything out, because everything that’s in there is important. And so I thought, well, you know, I’d rather write a book that takes four or five hours to read and it keeps the fast pace. So that’s what I’ve tried and all the feedback that I’ve had is, “That’s what I do.” So that’s fantastic. It takes me roughly six months to write a novel. So that’s preparation, planning, writing the first draft and editing it and uploading it. So it’s about six months. That’s fine. I put two out a year. I’d love to be faster and I am getting faster. I’ve definitely noticed that. So who knows, maybe one day it will be four a year. That would be awesome. My writing process is I use Scrivener, which if you’re an author you probably know what Scrivener is.

Sarah Williams:                  So I use scrivener to plot and do my first drafts. I also use Dragon dictation. so I read everything, I say it, and that’s all transcribed into my Scrivener format via Dragon dictation. And then I use Vellum to upload it in all my different formats. So if you’re a writer and you’re interested in any of those, I do have links for my tools for writers page on my website so you can go to that and their affiliate links. Be helping me out. I started Write with Love last year, which is obviously my weekly podcast where I interview a different author each week and we talk about their journey to publication. At the moment, those are all either romance or strong romantic elements in their books. So that goes out every Monday morning and it’s on YouTube and it’s on podcatchers, it also gets transcribed.

Sarah Williams:                  So if you’re on my mailing list, you’ll get an email on about the winds afterwards and that’ll all have their transcription in there as well. So I’m, I’m having great, great fun with that. Almost 30 episodes so fast, so that’s brilliant. And I really enjoy that because I know a lot of these authors and I really wanted to talk to them and learn more about them. What makes them tick? What inspires them? All those sorts of things. So I’ve got some interesting people coming up, like Nalini Singh, Grace burrows, Eva Tremaine, Helene Young and Bella Andre will be on the show when I get to interview her live. And that’s going to be from the Romance Writers of New Zealand Conference, which is in August, a little over a month now. I’m loving the idea of being able to go back to New Zealand and go and see this amazing Kiwi Conference that I’ve been hearing so much about for the last few years.

Sarah Williams:                  I’m finally going. So I’m totally excited about that. And of course the week after the Romance Writers in New Zealand is the Romance Writers for Australia conference, which I have attended the last two years. I’m not going to the cocktail party this year because of other commitments and because I’ve just been to New Zealand, so I can’t do everything. Unless you want to be a Patreon supporter and help me out with all these EFEs. But I’ll be at the cocktail party, so if you’re there come and say hi. I’ll dress up in whatever the theme is, I can’t remember. But there are some big names going there and Maisey Yates is going to be there and I love her. She writes American Westerns or Country inside small town. And I’m booked into interview here too on the Friday, so that’s why I’m going to be there.

Sarah Williams:                  So that will be fantastic. Somebody asked who would I love to interview the most and that was pretty easy. I would love to interview Diana Gabaldon from Outlander fame. Oh my God, I would love to pick her brain. I’m sure I would just fangirl like crazy because I absolutely am in love with Jamie Fraser, and I know a lot of us are. And I just adore the relationship that she wrote between the hero and heroine. I just don’t even know how she did that and I can’t say they’re such good couple because it’s just so well thought out that I love it. So I would love to pick her brain and check to her. So if anyone has any contacts to Diana Gabaldon, get her to contact me. I’ll pick them out, trust me, I’ve tried.But I would absolutely love, love, love, love to have Diana on the show. I think that would be brilliant.

Sarah Williams:                  I think that’s pretty much wrapping it up. I just thank you all for watching the show over these past few episodes and I’ve got some amazing huge names coming out, so please do stick around and keep listening. It’s less than 30 minutes so, yep, do that. You can find me online via my website, which is sarahwilliamsauthor.com. I have ‘Readers of Sarah Williams’ group on Facebook, so feel free to request to join that group. I’d love you to. Write with Love has a new Facebook page, it’s Write with Love. So go on there if you like, and I’m personally also on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook as well. So, if you go by my website or my Facebook page, you can join my mailing list, which will give you the weekly podcast nights and it’ll update when I have something coming out. Usually once a month I’ll talk about something and I like to review other authors and talk about if I’ve read anything good and any primaries or updates that are going on.

Sarah Williams:                  So, if you do enjoy a book, the best thing you do for an author is leave a review on Goodreads, Amazon, those are the main ones, iBooks, Kobo as well are helpful. So leave a review, recommend it to someone. It’s the absolute best thing you can do for an author that you love. So coming up next week on the show, I’ve got Writer nominee Amy Andrews who’s in Jose who just lives up in Rockhampton now. She’s nominated this year in the Writers. So that will be a really, really great show I reckon. And of course that’s going to be tying in, It’ll be Romance Writers of America week. So it’ll be all fun and thank you so much for joining me today and I hope you enjoyed this little look into my life and my journey to publication. So thanks so much and I’ll see you next week. Bye.

Sarah Williams:                  Thanks for joining me today. I hope you enjoyed the show. Jump onto my website, sarahwilliamsauthor.com, and join my mailing list to receive free preview of my books and lots of other inspiration. If you liked the show and want it to continue, you can become a sponsor for just a couple of dollars a month. Go to patreon.com/sarahwilliamsauthor, and remember to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel and leave a review of the podcast. We’ll be back next week with another loved up episode. Bye.

Playing for Keeps with Maggie Wells

By day, Maggie Wells is buried in spreadsheets. At night she pens tales of people tangling up the sheets. This author of feminist, sex-positive romance is the product of a charming rogue and a shameless flirt. Trust us, you only have to scratch the surface of this mild-mannered married lady to find a naughty streak a mile wide.

If you like what you see you can become a patron for just a couple of dollars a month. You will also have access to bonus episodes and insider information. Go to http://www.patreon.com/Sarahwilliamsauthor

Transcript:

Sarah Williams:            Welcome to Write with Love. I’m your host, Sarah Williams, bestselling author, speaker, and creative entrepreneur. Each week I chat to passionate, and inspiring authors about their journey in creative writing. Some are traditionally published, some do it themselves. Everyone’s journey is different, and everyone has something interesting to say. We all love love, and love what we do. Today’s show is brought to you by our amazing fans and supporters on Patreon. If you’d like to help support the show and get some awesome bonus episodes, go to patreon.com/SarahWilliamsAuthor to learn more. Now here’s today’s show.

Sarah Williams:            G’day, g’day. Sarah Williams here, just sprooking out my format of the podcast, because it’s my show, and I can do what I want. So, just a little personal update on Wednesday, July 4th, 2018, my latest book, The Sky over Brigadier Station is being released. So I’m totally excited about this. It’s number two in my Brigadier Station series, set in Julia Creek in the Queensland outback of Australia. So that is coming out, and it’ll be on all your digital platforms: Amazon, Kobo, iBooks, Google Play, et cetera, and it’ll also be available in print. If you do want to get a copy of that it’ll be available through Book Depository, Booktopia, and all those usual spots. So it’s very exciting and as part of my promotion, my launch will be on Facebook Live. That will be on Wednesday, 4th of July at 7:30 PM, Brisbane Queensland time, it’s +10 if you’re trying to figure that out on the time zones.

Sarah Williams:            Join us, it will only go for about half an hour, it’ll be Q&A so you can ask me anything you want. What I do to promote or how I found inspiration, or my research, or whatever you want to ask. If you want to ask about the podcast you can do that as well. And I will be giving away some copies of my latest book, so that will be fantastic and I hope you can join me there. I’ve not done a Facebook Live before, so I’m a bit excited, but also very nervous about it. In the week of my launch, I’m also discounting the first in the series, so The Brothers of Brigadier Station will be going free for a week. Jump online and it’ll just be free digitally. So, Amazon, Kobo, et cetera. You can definitely do that, and I think you’ll get all ready for the second book.

Sarah Williams:            And talking about The Brothers of Brigadier Station, I had a great week this past week and it actually made number three on the paid, bestseller list for amazon.com.au. It was number three. One, two, three. That was it. Very exciting. It also topped number one in the contemporary romance, which knocked Nora Roberts off first place. Yay. My book sold more than Nora Roberts that day. Whoo. Yup, it’s up there and it’ll be free next week, so if you haven’t already, you should definitely grab a copy.

Sarah Williams:            All right, so what else am I up to? I have, now that I’ve got the Brothers, number one and number two out in the world, I am on to another book. So starting again and I am in the early stages, so I’m just doing my research. I’m basing my next one on a dairy farm in Maleny on the Sunshine Coast, which of course is where we moved at the end of last year. I’m excited to learn about dairy cattle as opposed to beef cattle that I’ve been writing about for the last three years. That’s exciting, and I’m also planning the third Brigadier Station series if you can believe it. That’s going to be Legacies of Brigadier Station, and it will be out next year. Early next year.

Sarah Williams:            If you haven’t already booked your tickets to Romance Writers of New Zealand Conference in Auckland, of course I’ll be there, and that is open so you can definitely still book. So go and do that. If you’d rather go to the Australian one or you’re doing both, the Romance Writers of Australia Conference, it will be in Sydney in August as well, and you can definitely still register and attend to that, so both should be absolutely fantastic events.

Sarah Williams:            All right, so today’s interview is coming up next and I hope you enjoy it. And next week, I am actually going to be interviewing myself. That should be interesting. I’ll probably bare a little bit more than I have before, so I hope you’ll stick around and learn a little bit about me and why I do this podcast and why I’m a writer and try and find time with all my four kids, which will also be on school holiday, so it might be a little bit noisy. Hopefully not too bad. So, thanks for joining me, and I hope you enjoy the interview which is coming up now.

Sarah Williams:            Today I’m chatting to Maggie Wells. Thanks for joining me, Maggie.

Maggie Wells:              Thanks for having me, it’s great to be here.

Sarah Williams:            Excellent. Can you tell us about yourself and your journey to publication?

Maggie Wells:              Sure. Well first I’ll explain my kind of crazy accent. I am from the Midwestern United States, I grew up in Illinois, but I married a man from Arkansas. So I live in the South now and they tell me down here that I talk funny. And when I go home, they tell me I have a drawl. So even more confusing, too, your Aussie was there as [inaudible 00:05:56] viewers. I have a crazy confused accent even for here in the States, so I’m going to apologize for that right away.

Maggie Wells:              I published my first book in 2011. I started out small press published with a company called Turquoise Morning Press, had a fantastic experience with them, did a number of books with them all the way through when they closed in 2014 I believe it was, and talk about we’ve had our ups and downs in publishing with publishing houses closing and that was a fantastic experience. She was wonderfully generous and helpful with all this, all rights reverted without drama. It was wonderful.

Maggie Wells:              But I have subsequently published with Carina Press, Harlequin E, when they had the E imprint, Kensington’s Lyrical Press Languages, their contemporary romance, Digital First, and just this year I had my first mass market paperback releases with Sourcebooks Casablanca and my Lumpkin series.

Maggie Wells:              So it’s been a long journey, lots of ups and downs along the way, but right now everything’s on the up, and I’m very excited to be here.

Sarah Williams:            And you’re up to 38 books published. That’s pretty amazing for, what was it, seven years?

Maggie Wells:              Yeah, and you have to remember we had that little spurt in 2012 and ’13 when everyone was writing shorter and faster. So about 20 of those titles would be novella length, somewhere in the 25,000 to 35,000-word range. I hate to discount ’em, because I still do the work on ’em, but they’re not full-length novels. Everyone’s like, “Oh, my God, 40 books.” I’m like, “Well, yeah …” We’ll call it 20.

Sarah Williams:            But I think novellas are really making a comeback. We have so many distractions between Netflix and everything else and so many books to read. I love novellas.

Maggie Wells:              I do, too. I love a short read. I like it when it’s fast paced and can move right along, and like you said we have so many things and in between projects I sometimes want to read a book that’s not going to take me a week to get through. I want to sit down and read it in a couple hours, so I really enjoy short work.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, absolutely.

Sarah Williams:            So Lyrical Press, who you’ve got a lot published with at the moment, so that’s Kensington, so that’s a line of Kensington. I hadn’t even heard of that one before, so tell us about that and how you got in with them.

Maggie Wells:              They started, I think it was back in about 2013 or 14, they had Kensington E was their electronic book line, and they decided split off into some different sub-genres, and so they came up with Lyrical Press and Lyrical Shine, which is what their contemporary romance was then. There were are a couple of other imprints from mystery, one that’s a little darker, and so it’s been a fun experience with them because I think by going with the Lyrical imprint has given them a lot of freedom to publish some things that you may not find in other mainstream bookshops.

Maggie Wells:              I have a few series with them, one of them is the Coastal Heat series, which is your 30-something contemporary romance based around the beach and not so going deep and one of my favorite ones is called Flip This Love because they just had this horrible chemistry. I had some fun during. They had this bantering thing that just kills me. And then Love & Rockets where the guy actually is a rocket scientist, which I’d like that. So all the male characters in my head was kind of geeky scientist edge, so I had to like that. I like the smart boys.

Sarah Williams:            I think that’s great. The Big Bang Theory is huge over here. It’s making a comeback with all these Marvel movies and stuff.

Maggie Wells:              Yeah. And I love superhero stuff so there’s a lot of superhero jokes all through that series. So, I was raised by comic book brothers who actually had comic book collections [inaudible 00:10:15] and had the whole marvel vs DC debates [inaudible 00:10:20]. And I think, too, it was correcting someone [inaudible 00:10:25] one woman is not Marvel. I love her. She’s DC.

Maggie Wells:              So anyway, but they gave me some freedom there with that, and then we also had a lot of creative freedom with a line called Worth the Wait romances, which are hot contemporary erotic romances for main character is 50 and over, proving we’re not really dead yet. And that’s something that we found is a little bit of a hard sell in most mainstream publishing, is to get anybody over, really, 35. We’ve actually started a Facebook group called Seasoned Romance, we just coined a term that we thought didn’t sound horrible, for people who have a little bit of life experience under their belt, and we’ve actually just clicked over 1200 members in that group, because there are a lot of people like me who are in their 40s that have kids in their 20s, and it’s a little odd to be reading about people who your children’s age. We want to read romances that do have some characters that look like us and may feel like us and have some of the “I’m not 24 year old” flush. So that’s been a lot of fun.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, that’s great. I’ve been reading, actually, a few books like that at the moment, and, yeah, I’m really enjoying and I’m in my mid-30s and I still have young kids, so I can just imagine what it’s going to be like reading about people in their 20s.

Maggie Wells:              It makes looking for cover art really interesting, ’cause when you start looking at these young models, you think, ‘Oh, he’s cute.’ And then think, ‘Oh, he’s my son’s age.’ [inaudible 00:12:08].

Sarah Williams:            Something [inaudible 00:12:11].

Maggie Wells:              Yeah. There’s a reality check for you.

Maggie Wells:              And then the third series I have going with Lyrical has been a lot of fun for me personally, because it’s about single dads and it follows these three single dads who’ve banded together as friends and support group for each other, because they are full time dads on the job. And I married a full time dad and became an instant mommy of the minute I said, “I do.” And so it was a project near and dear to my heard because it’s the life I’d lived, and it comes at you a little bit differently when you’re not there from the get go.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. Absolutely. Oh, that’s brilliant. And your tag line is “Author of feminist, sex-positive romance.” How did that all come along? I love it. It’s awesome.

Maggie Wells:              It came, actually, out of my agent’s mouth, when I first admitted Love Game was the book that sent to Sara [Megabault 00:13:10] whose my agent. And when she offered for it, one of the things that came out of her mouth was, “I love this book. It’s very feminist, very sex-positive,” and the minute she said it, I thought, ‘Yes, yes, that’s what I want. That’s what I want to write.’ I want to write things where women don’t feel bad about their sexuality or aren’t meant to be 48-year-old virgins, and where they can be equal to their partner and confident in their accomplishments, and I think that’s one thing that we’re always working on as women, is owning our expertise and owning our accomplishments, and so when that came out of her mouth, she’s like, “This is who you are. This is what you write. This is what come through [inaudible 00:13:59].” It was the best thing I’d ever heard.

Sarah Williams:            It is. I love it. It’s very modern, very positive. I love that. It’s awesome.

Sarah Williams:            And so the series you’re writing at the moment, or have in there, it’s Love Games. So it’s [inaudible 00:14:16]. So tell us about those.

Maggie Wells:              It is. I had such a good time writing this book, because I got to combine a couple of things I really love, and I probably need to explain a little bit, because I know things are different over there than they are here, but it’s based on collegiate sport. And the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the NCAA, as we call it here, feeds most of the NBA and NFL American football programs over here. So, in order to play professional sports, most of the time you have to go through college to get to that level. They want to see you play, at least a few of those four years of college before they’re going to contract you. So it’s almost like an audition.

Maggie Wells:              Because of that, collegiate sports in the United States are huge. They’re big money business. I live in the South, and football is everything down here, American football.[inaudible 00:15:14] is everything here. We spend our Saturday afternoons, I’m on Arkansas Razorback fan. I know how to Call the Hogs. I’m not going to do it here because it’s ridiculous. But we spend our afternoons watching football, tailgating and that kind of thing. So college football is everything. We don’t have a professional sports team here in Arkansas. The closest would be the Dallas Cowboys or the New Orleans Saints. So your college teams really become your teams.

Maggie Wells:              And I was raised going to college football games. My dad was [inaudible 00:15:51] alumni in Indiana, and we would travel every weekend to the football games and so when I met my husband and I came to Arkansas to visit for the first time, he knew I liked Broadway musicals, so he said, “We can go see the damn Yankees at the [Robinson 00:16:05] Center or I can get tickets to a Razorback and then I said, “Ooh, I love college football.” And we got married. ‘Cause that’s how it happens down here.

Maggie Wells:              Anyway, so I have to explain that, because most sport romance that you read does take place in a professional level. This is pre-professional, but it’s still big money stakes. Most colleges pay their head football coach more than they pay anybody else. The highest paid person in the state of Arkansas, paid by the public payroll, is the football coach. So you don’t realize these people make millions of dollars. And I actually had to explain to my editor when we were going through edits. [inaudible 00:16:51] “how can you afford this ring?” “I mean, do you have any idea how much these football coaches make? Hold on, let me pull up some figures for you.” So it’s a multi million dollar industry. I have to preface that, because a lot of people don’t really realize how much we are an American college football fan.

Maggie Wells:              So this is a lot of fun for me, because I got to take … There was a woman’s basketball coach who coached for the University of Tennessee for a number of years. She’s passed away now, but her name was Pat Summitt and she was a legend in coaching in general, period, men’s or women’s. And she was one of those women who just owned it. From the very beginning she made no apologies for who she was, she knew she was good, and I said I’m going to write a character like that, who’s basically a superhero without a sword or a shield. She’s just that confident in her ability. So [inaudible 00:17:46] Olympic champion and she played in the WNBA and all these things, so she has all the credentials. She’s now the school’s winningest coach, and this is Logan, this is Kate and she’s fantastic. If I had a girl crush I’d have it on Katie. question had an item say.

Maggie Wells:              I just wanted to make her just that unapologetically awesome woman, that we know so many of them in real life. We all do. These women who just are kicking ass in everything they do. And then I wanted to giver her a man that didn’t make her apologize for it. And then I came down a notch. He’s got to be coming up while she’s riding up high, right? So he’s kind of a a disgraced football coach which we had a situation like that where a [inaudible 00:18:39] football coach here in Arkansas was ridden out of town on the rail after an indiscretion, and so these are inspired by real life people, kind of, but they’re much more attractive. And they have a lot more fun.

Maggie Wells:              But it’s fun, because I like to say it’s a modern day battle of the sexes, and it’s between a woman at the top of her game and a guy who’s just looking for a comeback and then he [inaudible 00:19:09] So that’s Love Games. And then the second book in the series is Play for Keep, and that is the men’s basketball coach, and the PR woman at the university, ’cause he gets in a little bit of hot water surrounding the demise of this marriage and she has to put the spin on it. And they get involved and that’s a lot of fun, too, because it takes place … Men’s basketball in the United States is another big high stakes thing. If you’ve heard anyone use the term March Madness, it’s all about college basketball, and it’s the entire month of March. The country shuts down and we all watch basketball whether you like it or not.

Sarah Williams:            Well, excellent. It definitely sounds like we’re going to get a slice of American culture when we read those books.

Maggie Wells:              [inaudible 00:20:03].

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, which is brilliant. And you’ve got a lot of standalones and you’ve got the series and then you also have time once a week to write a blog.

Maggie Wells:              Usually on Sunday night, because it’s due Monday. This is one of those commitments I made to myself. I think I’ve been blogging steadily since about 2013 on Mondays and usually it’s less than 500 words, and most of the time it’s just whatever is going on in my life. So it’s like five people probably didn’t care, and they said, “Hey, that’s great. Carry on.” And I just said, “Okay.” But it’s a lot of fun to be able to put a little bit of myself out there. A lot of times in writing fiction, we do insert a little of ourselves into our characters, but we never really get to be ourselves unless we’re putting a blog or something like this in the podcast or something in video out there where they’re not seeing who’s really behind the words. So I like to do the blog, and it’s usually about my dog or weather, heading out that weekend, but sometimes I talk about writing stuff and the behind the scenes, because I think there’s a lot misconception of what a writer’s life is like. I think people think once you’re published, you publish and everything just rains down from Heaven and you never get rejected again.

Sarah Williams:            So tell us about how you do this, because you also have to work. And so when do you find time with these kids and this husband and everything else?

Maggie Wells:              Well, luckily, the kids are grown now, so that’s made it a lot easier [inaudible 00:21:57]. When I started writing, my kids were home. They were teenagers. I actually started out writing fan fiction, and that was my escape from raising adolescents ’cause I would go write fan fiction for Gilmore Girls. I don’t know if you watch Gilmore Girls down there, but that was my show. I was a giant Luke and Lorelai worshiper. Still am. And that’s where I found my love of writing and y escapism, and I also found a group of friends through that fandom who encouraged me to write something original. So that’s where my first book came from, was actually out of that fan fiction era and juggling the home and the work and finding myself and coming into who I was [inaudible 00:22:52] time in your 30s and 40s where you start to realize “Who am I and what have I done? Where am I going and what am I going to have to show for it?

Maggie Wells:              And I had a friend who said, “I want you to write something original,” and I was like, “You know, some day I’ll write a book.” And she like, “Well, when is some day gonna be?” And, “I don’t know. Well, I guess it’s now.” So that’s how it came up. But I haven’t been employed full time throughout. I know it’s a little different here in the States for us, but we don’t have universal health care, so I just did a workshop on writing full time and working full time and how people juggle it, because it’s a very real concern, particularly here in the States. My husband is self employed; he’s a real estate appraiser. He works for himself and that means my job provides our health insurance. So when I don’t have a job, we don’t have health insurance. So, for me being a full time writer isn’t really … Well, I’m still a full time writer, ’cause I’m still cranking the books out. But doing it for a living isn’t really going to be a possibility for that reason, we have to have and for your basic health care we need the second income because we all know that a writer’s income isn’t steady even if you’re getting a good one, there is those peaks and valleys that are really, really hard to weather.

Maggie Wells:              So working full time, writing full time, really, really tests the time management skills. I had to learn to let go of some things, mostly housekeeping. [crosstalk 00:24:32] and cooking. But I’ve learned to use tools, dictation software, I started just recently in the past year dictating, and I do dictate usually in the car, I’m one of those crazy people you see with the headset on driving down the road talking to themselves. And I have a short commute, but in my commute I can speak for about 12 or 13 minutes uninterrupted, which will me 600 or 700 words. And when I have those transcribed through the Dragon software that night, that gives me a place to start.

Maggie Wells:              So I have a couple little tricks. I start Scrivener, when my computer starts up I set it to boot up so I have to make a conscious decision not to write and close it down without putting any words in it, so that makes it a little harder to stomach the thought of just saying, “No, I’m going to be lazy tonight.” Click. And it gets rid of that fear of opening up the project, which for me I’m a terror of blank page, so I learned to leave myself leftovers in the next scene, so that I never start in blank that I’ve always got the first few lines in the next scene going because if I can stare at it for a while I won’t go.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah. [inaudible 00:26:00] Exactly. Wow. And you’re a part of a Romance Writers of America, and heading down I saw your name and one of the signing sessions. So tell us about how long you’ve been with the RWA and-

Maggie Wells:              Yeah. I joined RWA National in 2010 and found my local romance writers groups, we’re called the Diamond State Romance Authors, because you can actually mine for diamonds at Arkansas [inaudible 00:26:26] realize [inaudible 00:26:28] up your own diamonds, you find it, you can keep it. But the Diamond State Romance Authors were a very small chapter because Arkansas is not a very populated state, but we’re very close and very supportive of one another. We’ll predominantly publish in our chapter which is unusual. I’d say probably 90% of us are published, but we don’t get a huge influx of new members but we usually get one or two a year that’ll come join our merry posse. It’s an excuse for having Mexican food every month.

Maggie Wells:              They’ve been fantastic. Those local groups are, I think, a godsend, especially to those of us who are a little bit isolated or hemmed in by the day job or hemmed in by family responsibilities. I have a friend that has two small children and she was about two hours from Little Rock, but she will drive up once a month for that meeting because that’s her day of getting away and talking to other writers and I think there’s the greatest value. There is the opportunities to speak to other people who are going through the same thing. We can talk about “My rejection.” Or, “Oh, it’s so frustrating, this Lion shutdown …” Yeah, so there’s a lot of where you can vent and you celebrate it. So we always make sure that we celebrate each other’s wins, because that’s a big deal.

Maggie Wells:              And I like to go to other RWA chapters when I can. I just went up to the Chicago North RWA conference that they had in April, which was a lot of fun for me, because I have a lot of family in the area so I can combine friends and family and writing all in one big weekend so that was a lot of fun. And then I’m going to Denver for Nationals. I’m very excited about that ’cause I’ve never been to the Rocky Mountains. I’m a Midwest girl, I’m used to corn fields and soy bean fields. There are no hills in Illinois except for landfill. So I’m pretty excited about that and my critique partner is Canadian, and so we’re going to meet up there and have a week of bonding time.

Sarah Williams:            Oh, fantastic. I’m quite jealous. I have been to Denver in my younger days. I did do a stint in America for a year there, and loved Denver. Yeah, but I can’t make it this year; I’ve got other things to pay for at the moment, but I’m already … I keep saying this onto the podcast, so it’s going to happen. I am coming next year to New York.

Maggie Wells:              Yay! Have you been to one in New York?

Sarah Williams:            Well, I’ve been to New York, but I’ve never been to a RWA conference. So it’ll be exciting, and I haven’t been to New York since pre 9/11 either, so that should be interesting, too. So, that’s exciting.

Sarah Williams:            So, do you have books coming out soon that we can pick up your latest?

Maggie Wells:              Well, I just had that April release, which was Play for Keeps and there’s time away from [inaudible 00:29:35] here. And then in August I don’t have a calendar for it, but this the first book in the series, the Play Dates series, book number three comes out in August. It’s called A Ring for Rosie. Book number two just came out in March, which was called Easy Bake Lovin’ which I have to tell you I had the most fun because I made … The heroine has an adult bakery, that caters to bachelor and bachelorette parties so she does all of these pastries that look at [crosstalk 00:30:05] … three time making out. So we laughed and laughed, my editor sent it back to me, she was like, “This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever read. I’m sorry I loved it.” But it’s been a fun series to write and so the third one in that series will be out in August and that’s Something for Rosie which is much sweeter story than Easy Bake Lovin’.

Sarah Williams:            Oh, fantastic. And what are you working on at the moment? I see you’ve got a few things that you do at once.

Maggie Wells:              I’m working on the third book in the Love Game series. It’s a series does revolve around three female friends and this will be Avery’s book, and I’m really excited about it because it’s a mommy by choice story so she’s going to be pregnant in the story and it’s an interesting twist. So I’m really excited for it because I like to explore all the different options that, especially women who are in … we have to face these do it now or do or die kind of situations when it comes to motherhood and children and marriage and all that stuff, so it’s been a lot of fun doing that. I also have a completed manuscript that I have not started revising yet, it’s in the hub resting. And it’s kind of a national meets a star’s blond sort of thing. It’s a family saga drama there with the mother and daughter relationship.

Maggie Wells:              And then I have just started another one that’ll be targeted towards category romance and here in the States we have a show, I don’t know if it goes all over the world, but [inaudible 00:31:50] television ha a show called Fixer Upper which is a really big home improvement show, so it’s kind of a husband and wife doing, so I thought, ‘Well, what if they were divorced?’ And worked together on this show and then start dating other people. So it’s kind of this Fixer Upper meets It’s Complicated. [inaudible 00:32:12] what happens if we throw this complication in their life. [inaudible 00:32:14] loves them together. But they’re not together in the book.

Sarah Williams:            Yeah, that’s so exciting. It sounds great. Well, where can we find you online?

Maggie Wells:              I’m everywhere. My website is maggie-wells.com and I do blog as you said every Monday, I have Monday Mayhem there and I have my newsletter signup there as well. I tend to hit and run on Twitter, have a good time there and run away before things get too political. And I can be found at @maggiewells1 and you’ll know me because it says author of feminist sex-positive romance so it’s really easy to find. I am also on Facebook as author Maggie Wells and Instagram Maggie Wells 1, so all the usual places where everybody is.

Sarah Williams:            Excellent, well thank you so much for that today, Maggie, that was really fun.

Maggie Wells:              Thank you. I was glad to be here. Thanks so much for having me.

Sarah Williams:            Of course.

Sarah Williams:            Thanks for joining me today. I hope you enjoyed the show. Jumping on to my website sarahwilliams.com and join my mailing list to receive free preview of my books and lots of other inspiration. If you like the show and wanted to continue you can become a sponsor just a couple of dollars a month. Go to patreon.com/SarahWilliamsAuthor. And remember to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel and leave a review of the podcast. I’ll be back next week with another loved up episode. Bye.