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I'm a geek. I don't consider that a negative statement. Bill Gates is a geek. Oprah Winfrey has moments of geekiness. I suppose a more positive adjective would be "original" but until you do something special with your originality the world usually views you as... odd. I grew up in Northeast Ohio in the middle of a pack of seven children. I did more reading in my formative years than anything else (including socializing and homework). I graduated high school. I got a job in a B. Dalton. I went to college at BGSU (where I caught up on that lack of socializing) and graduated with a degree in communications. I got a job working in a comic book store where I met all sorts of interesting people and fed my addiction to storytelling with every facet of mass media. An eighth grade assignment asked us to write a story projecting what our classmates would be doing in twenty years. I made myself a writer in it and a seed was planted. At first I wrote what would now be considered fan fiction (stories based on existing comics and television shows). In my twenties, I wrote my first novel. I wish I could tell you I was still in my twenties and A Game of Pleasure was that book, but this is one of those " she has a novel buried in the closet where it should RIP" stories. In college, I wrote a teleplay for a Little House on the Prairie episode that an instructor told me I should submit to a scholarship program, though, and won a thousand dollars. I didn't use my college degree to get a "real" job but I was able to use the scholarship in queries. I got teleplays read by the production people of the TV shows Beauty and the Beast, Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman and had a telephone pitch session with the producers of Star Trek: The Next Generation because of a spec script I wrote for them. Not bad for someone living in Ohio although I never sold a script to any of them. I decided to try original material and turned my attention to screenplays-- but only submitted those to contests. I was a Top 250 Finalist in the first Project Greenlight. (Thrilling for about two weeks when they narrowed the field down to 30 and I didn't make the cut. I was in the web site's chat room with Ben Affleck for about ten minutes . I'm sure he wonders what's become of me. :) ). All through the years I would toy with novel ideas (I have a tub of unfinished manuscripts) but never finish them. Then I joined Romance Writers of America. First I must confess something -- I have never been much of a romance reader. I read other genres (mystery, fantasy, science fiction) but every book I pick up has to have a couple in it with at least the potential for a "happily ever after." So I've only read the Lord Peter Whimsey mysteries that have Harriet Vane in them. I gave up on PD James when she gave up on Cordelia Gray. I would never recommend Anne Perry for the mystery content of her books but, boy, can she write interesting people within the context of a restrictive Victorian society. I did read the gothic authors of the seventies and eighties (Phyllis Whitney, Mary Stewart, Madeleine Brent, Victoria Holt) and my favorite author of my youth was Georgette Heyer (mostly her Regency/Georgian period material and her mysteries). I have read many authors who write "in the tradition of Georgette Heyer," also. Some I like much better than others -- Mary Jo Putney and Mary Balogh especially. My favorite book of all time is Jane Eyre. Since joining RWA, I've not only finished novels but have learned that the modern authors have a lot to offer me as a reader. Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Janet Evanovich and Jennifer Crusie are among my favorites. Modern romances are more in tune with my personal rules of what makes a good relationship -- that a couple should like and respect each other apart from the fact that they are in love, that a good love doesn't change you so much as help you become the best You you can be, that the potential to be a hero/heroine is in everyone, and that love is not the only aspect in a complete life... but it's at the top of the list. I suspect the way I approach a story makes me a bit odd as romance writers go. The latest trend in marketing (both for novels and in the real world) is something called "branding." Find the hook which describes you, your books, your world view and use that to present your work to the world. Thus far, I haven't been able to come up with anything. My secret dream is to just be Barbara Satow. And though I'm not that original (I would say my book is another in a long line "in the tradition of Georgette Heyer.") I would like who I am and what I hope to be to define the books I write. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy my book. |
A Few Personal Tidbits...
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