Christine Feehan, Jayne Ann Krentz, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Lori Foster and the list goes on. I'm a hugely avid reader and devour between 10 and 20 books a month, despite my tight writing schedule.
2.Who has had a major influence on your writing?
Agatha Christie, Louisa May Alcott, Julie Garwood... again the list of literary icons that taught me good writing through reading is a long one. The person with the greatest influence though was probably my mother because she believed in me the long nine years it took to get published and wouldn't let me give up. She was my greatest cheerleader and fan until her death last year.
3.Can you name at least one book that you never finished?
Oooh... this is a difficult one because I have a horrible time not finishing anything, even really bad movies. I'll fast-forward to the end and I do that with books I find objectionable as well, skip to the final chapter. So, now you know my secret. I'm a closet skimmer.
4.What word or words do you always have trouble spelling?
Mediterranean and jeopardy. Don't ask me why...they just always come out wrong and the spell checker gets them.
5.What three adjectives best describe you?
Enthusiastic, loving and talkative.
6.Which of your characters would you most like to be and why?
I think I'd like to be someone like Elle from "The Spy Who Wants Me" or Rachel from "Heat Seeker" because I've always wanted to be a kick-ass secret agent. I love both women's strength – they are not only strong emotionally, but are physically in such good shape and trained to not only protect themselves but others as well. I think that would be so cool.
7.Which author would you invite to dinner?
Debbie Macomber. She's so warm and open with others, she'd make dinner a comfortable and lovely meal for everyone else there. And since we often have extra family at our dinner table, that's important.
8.Where do you write?
I have a wonderful office decorated to my taste and I do most of my edits, blogs and interviews in here. But for raw writing, I prefer to do that outside on the back deck or downstairs in the library my husband built me. Both are havens he has created for me and the peaceful atmosphere is conducive to my creativity.
9.When do you write?
I write full-time which means that I'm at my desk by 8 a.m. and try to be done writing before 5 p.m. so I can make dinner. Some evenings I don't get my pages in earlier and that means writing time instead of reading time after working out.
10.What makes you happy?
Writing! LOL Family...I love spending time with my grown children and their little ones. My daughters spoil me rotten, coming to visit often and letting me get in all the grandma time I want. I'm also really happy when I get some time alone with my husband and we can eat a meal together outside or at the window overlooking the garden. He's really amazingly good company.
11.What do you most fear?
Heights. Not being able to write the next book.
12.What is your favorite vice?
Hmmm...is reading a vice? If not, then it must be donuts, but since I've been working on getting healthy I haven't had one in six months. ;-)
13.What is the quality you most like in yourself?
How much I genuinely like and care about other people. It's a trait I look for in others too. ☺
14.What are the qualities you most like in your friends?
Warmth and a nonjudgmental attitude.
15.Would you be lying if you said your works were not autobiographical?
No...well sort of. This is how I see it: characters are like real people to me. In my life, I rub off on the people around me the most and they in turn leave their mark on me, so you might hear me say a phrase like my sister or joke like my husband or go for a certain dress style like my daughter and vice versa. My characters pick up bits of me and the people around me like that too. It's inevitable, because through me, they spend time with all those people too.
16.What part of your personality do you detest?
My tendency to overthink.
17.What is your favorite adjective?
Beautiful.
18.What is your favorite book?
Most readers know that is an impossible question. When you read as much as I do, how can you have a single favorite? I still re-read Little Women and Lynne Graham's earliest books. I fall in love with new books all the time and new authors. I enjoy gay romance and have tons on my keeper shelves as well as traditional romance, mystery, and shelves and shelves of nonfiction.
19.What book would you read three times?
Okay, again...too many to list. I'm quite serious. My shelf library and cyber library are both filled with more than 3,000 volumes each. The books on my "keeper" shelves have ALL been read a minimum of 3 times. The books that don't get reread, don't end up in either library.
20.To whom would you award the Nobel Prize for Literature and why?
Jayne Ann Krentz because she has changed the world with her stories, giving hope to literally millions of readers worldwide that love and happiness are a possibility. She's proven her inventiveness, dedication to fiction and flexibility as a writer over a long career spanning decades and genres. She's made the kind of difference to romantic fiction and her readers that I hope to emulate with my own endeavors.
