Interview with Talia Quinn Daniels, Two-Time Golden Heart Finalist!

 

Today, I’m thrilled and honored to be interviewing two-time Golden Heart Finalist Talia Quinn Daniels. Talia’s first manuscript, No Peeking, won the Contemporary Single Title category in 2012, and this year she finaled in the same category with a second manuscript, What’s Yours is Mine. Here’s the blurb:

 

 

Darcy Jennings just bought a one bedroom condo, a gorgeous cliffside property in a coastal community north of Santa Barbara. It’s the first time in her life she’s ever had a permanent home, and it means everything to her. It’s especially sweet after what happened four years ago. That’s behind her now, and the rat who nearly ruined her career, one Will Dougherty, is history.

Will Dougherty just bought a one bedroom condo. He helped build the property with his green, clean designs, and he earmarked this unit to make his own. It’s up the road from his newly divorced sister, and it means everything to him. He’s come a long way since the day four years ago when his underhanded coworker, one Darcy Jennings, got him fired.  Thankfully, he’ll never have to see her again.

They couldn’t be more wrong. Darcy finds this out the hard way when she stumbles into her condo after a long business trip, crawls into bed, and discovers a man there. Will Dougherty. And he says it’s not her bed, it’s his.

It seems they bought the same condo.

Now Will and Darcy have to live together twenty four hours a day until one of them admits defeat. When these two strong willed people are stuck together, sparks fly, in more ways than one. They get under each other’s skin and then some.

Doesn’t it sound great? I had the great privilege of reading What’s Yours is Mine, and you should all be wild with jealousy, because this book is amazing. Sexy, smart and fun, with a little bit of mystery and characters that are just a little bit outside of the box. And did I mention sexy? Today I’m talking to Talia about her writing process and what’s next for her in this journey.

 

Talia, one thing I loved about What’s Yours is Mine is the fact that your characters are so believable. Even your side characters have depth and heart. What can you share with us about your character development process?

Aww, thanks! *blushing now*

It all happens fairly organically, I think. I bounce between plot and character, and each informs the other until the whole thing hangs together. The best analogy for character development may be oil painting. You block out the major shapes in swaths of color, and then each time you go back over the area, you refine and add detail until it feels three dimensional and complete. Some of it happens in the brainstorming process, some of it on the page as they start to talk and breathe and act like real people.

Secondary characters are fun. I live in NYC, which is amazing for people watching. I often make up little stories in my head about people on the subway. Everyone is the hero of his or her own story, after all. I like to give a taste of that in my novels. I hate when a best friend is just a quippy sounding board. When she leaves frame, I want to get the sense that she goes off to have her own adventures.

 

That’s a great way to think about characters—like they have whole lives we don’t know about just off the page. Another great thing about your writing is the richness of the setting. What’s Yours is Mine takes place in a condo complex in Southern California, and your writing made me feel like I could smell the sea. How did you decide on the setting for the book? Is it based on a real place?

 

Entirely fictional, sadly. I lived in SoCal for a number of years, though, so I know the landscape pretty well. It was fun to go back there in my imagination.

Since the story takes place mostly in and around a single condo, I was concerned it might feel claustrophobic, so I wanted to set it somewhere beautiful: an environmentally green, lovely complex with gorgeous, lush plantings, set on a cliff edge with a path leading down to a private cove.

Also, it had to truly feel magical so they’d both be desperate to stay. This is the most perfect spot on earth, why would anyone willingly give up a home here?

 

I would buy a condo there in a heartbeat.

You write in both contemporary romance and young adult. How do you think your voice differs in each genre?

 

I’d say my romance voice has a lighter tone. I love the snap of romantic comedy, so that flavor sneaks in. Add a big dollop of sexual tension and the fact that the main story goal is so firmly imbedded in the HEA, and you’ve got a very specific voice, one that’s a ton of fun to write.

My YA has darker subject matter, which changes the tone, though some playfulness inevitably creeps in. There’s also something about writing first person and present tense. Deep POV dives even deeper. Because of that, I can get away with more of an edge to my main character, because we identify with her more completely. Plus, she’s a teenager. Teenagers have a lot of spiky edges. I know; I live with one.

I love going back and forth between the two genres. It keeps me fresh.

 

Speaking of genre-hopping, your contemporary romance ranges from hot to almost erotic. Do you consider yourself an erotic romance author?

 

This is a tricky question, because you’re not the first person who has complimented my sex scenes, and I do like writing that mix of emotional tension and sensory detail. And with some stories, the sex is such an integral part of the journey of these two characters toward each other, it would be wrong to leave out all those beats, because they’re relationship beats too. So that all fits, right? But other times, it feels like I’d be ordering my characters to have sex RIGHT NOW, NO, I DON’T CARE IF YOU’RE NOT IN THE MOOD, DO IT BECAUSE MY CONTRACT SAYS SO, and, y’know, that would feel weird.

Since even at my hottest, I walk the line between spicy contemporary and erotic romance, I might as well self-identify as being on the side of that line that allows me the flexibility to tell all the stories I want to tell, not just some of them.

 

I have to say, every sex scene in What’s Yours is Mine feels totally natural.

You’ve also had a career in television editing. How has that influenced your writing?

 

The great thing about working in editing for a dramatic television series is that you see the script, then you see the raw footage shot from that script, then you put it together and see what the show actually feels like to watch. The process becomes transparent. In the cutting room, you spend a lot of time analyzing what does and doesn’t work. I learned to pay close attention to the emotional throughline. That’s what keeps the viewer (reader) hooked.

 

Fascinating! It must be interesting to watch that transition from the writers’ vision to the finished story.

I think we all remember your beautiful acceptance speech at last year’s ceremony, when you spoke about your son, who was seriously ill, but has since recovered. Do you find it hard to keep writing through difficult times like that?

 

I’d like to say, “Oh, no, I kept writing through the whole ordeal,” but that would be a sad lie.

When I flew to Anaheim, we thought he’d come down with some kind of persnickity, hard to pin down infectious disease. The truth unfolded while I was at the conference. The day after I got home, I checked into the hospital with him for a lymph node biopsy, which confirmed that he had Hodgkin lymphoma.

I’ve written through tough times in the past, but this was different. My baby was sick. His health crisis took over my brain completely. When he was undergoing chemo, I couldn’t even read fiction, let alone write it. I had this huge pile of books from RWA, but when I tried reading them, my brain was just white noise. Ironically, I could read dense, dry medical journal articles with no problem.

Once he was past the worst phase of treatment and was clearly responding brilliantly, my head cleared. Even though he still had a month of radiation to undergo, I started to write again. It was like a spigot turned on and creativity poured out of me. All that emotion needed somewhere to go, I guess. I wrote most of my new YA during NaNoWriMo last November. I’ve been on a creative roll ever since.

 

I know we’re all glad he made such a great recovery—and that you did, too. What’s next for you? Are you going to pursue traditional publication or self-publication for either of your Golden Heart books?

 

I love how the world has opened up for writers that we can now ask these questions and think in these terms. Truth is, I’d ideally like to do both. I love the idea of being a hybrid author.

I’m planning to self publish No Peeking as the third book in a series about a group of women artists sharing a studio space in Brooklyn, since it’s a setting that doesn’t fit the current contemporary market. Plus, I think I might have an entrepreneur’s soul, and that level of control over the process appeals to me immensely.

On the other hand, What’s Yours is Mine feels more suited to traditional publishing. I’d like to explore that route for it, as well as for the YA, for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which is that I’d simply like to have that experience.

But really, who knows? I’ve learned not to count on anything, because life will always surprise you.

 

So true. Thanks for sharing your creative process today. I know I’m going to be first in line to pick up your first book!

If you want to find out more about Talia’s books, or just be in-the-loop when she has her first release party, stop by her website, or follow her on twitter.