Ideas and Family Feuds (no, not mine – my characters’!)

By Anna Sugden

I'm delighted to welcome back a Lair favourite, my dear friend, the fabulous Kate Walker. As always, Kate will give us a peek at her latest wonderful release and share some great news too.

So, without further ado, I'll hand you over to Kate.

It’s great to be back here with the lovely Romance Bandits. I’ve had such a wonderful time on my previous visits so I’m always happy to be back here. It’s funny, Anna S and I tried so hard to make this happen for over a year – but emails kept going missing and then Anna was moving from one country to another. But when we finally got it together it’s been so easy ever since. And here I am back again just looking forward to that wonderful Bandita welcome.

And I’m pretty excited about the reason for my being here. I don’t know any author who isn’t thrilled to know that she has a new book out. Even if this is my – hang –count them . . .56th title, it’s still a wonderful moment to know that the latest story is published and on the bookshop shelves and that people are actually buying it. (Well - fingers crossed that they are!)

But this book – The Konstantos Marriage Demand (Presents Extra out March 16th) - is extra special for me. That’s because I just discovered that Romantic Times has given this particular book 4.5 stars and has chosen it as one of their Top Picks for March. Can I say – I’m celebrating! Double celebrating. As I mentioned when I was first guest-blogging here with you all, this year I’m celebrating 25 years of being published. And when I started out – and all through most of those 25 years, it was my ambition, my dream, to win the accolade of my book being a Romantic Times Top Pick. I finally achieved it with my 2008 book Bedded By the Greek Billionaire and that made my day (my year!) Now I’ve managed it a second time with The Konstantos Marriage Demand and I’ve every bit as excited as the first time. It’s funny though – these Top Picks seem to be like buses. You know what they say – you wait for ever and then two come along at once! Anyway, as most people know, when I’m celebrating I like to have others celebrate with me. And this time is no different. So at the end of this post, there’s a chance for you to join me in my celebrations.

But first –the real blog I was going to write was going to be something of a response to the question that I get asked all the time. You know the one. The ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ question.

This is what everyone seems to want to know and it’s really such a very hard question to answer. I usually fudge my answer by saying ‘well I have a very vivid imagination.’ Or ‘ Where do I get my ideas from? From life.’ And it’s true, ideas are all around you if you just know where to look. They’re in the newspapers, the magazines, on TV. In conversations overheard in coffee shops . . . I once told my accountant that really life was a ‘viable expense’ that I could claim for because everything was ‘research’ for an author but he wasn’t having that.

The truth is that you only really need a tiny ‘seed’ that sparks off all sorts of questions and ideas and then I start asking the question ‘Why. . .?’ and I end up with a story.

And that’s how it was with The Konstantos Marriage Demand. A long time ago, in my ideas notebook, I wrote down ‘family feud – Eastenders’. I was watching the UK ‘soap’ Eastenders at the time and there was a storyline running through the episode about a family feud. I just noted the idea and never used it. Then last year on one of my courses I was teaching about conflict – internal and external conflict and illustrating external conflict with the story of Romeo and Juliet. And there was that word again ‘feud’. The feud between the Montagues and the Capulets.

And that started me thinking . . . How could a feud come about in the 21st century? What effect would it have on my hero and heroine . . .

So that’s how the book that turned into The Konstantos Marriage Demand got started. I loved working in the ‘feud’ part of the story – it gave an added edge to the whole plot. And when I thought out a reason why the feud had really become so bad as to tear Nikos and Sadie apart, I felt I had a something that gave it al the emotional punch I had been looking for. And it seems that the Romantic Times reviewer agreed when she wrote : Misunderstandings and family betrayals propel this terrifically well-paced and fiery romance to its very rewarding conclusion.

So now as I said, I’m going to share the celebrations. Seeing as two of my books have won that coveted RT Top Pick accolade, I’m going to give away a set of the two winning books – Bedded By The Greek Billionaire and The Konstantos Marriage Demand – to someone who leaves a comment. (Well – you know me – I’ll get Sid the Cat on the job and have him pick out the winner for me.)

So you know what I’m celebrating – what are you celebrating this year? Big or small – a new home, a new job, getting over the flu, the fact that the sun’s come out again? Let’s cheer up the cold days of March and look at the good things in life. Tell me something you’ll celebrate and I’ll put your name out with a cat treat on it for Sid to pick a winner.

Into the Melting Pot

by Christine Wells

Kill me now.

Someone just stole the most fantastic story idea I had for my next book--a series, actually. Well, OK, she didn't steal it. It was just one of those serendipitous things where two people in different parts of the world who don't know each other came up with the same idea at roughly the same time. Unfortunately, this New York Times bestselling author has already converted the idea (did I mention it was fantastic?) to print and now I have to come up with something equally brilliant. Or at least something that will convince my editor to give me another contract.*g*

Story ideas aren't often a problem for writers. We usually have too many ideas rather than too few. However, the process by which the germ of a notion gradually evolves into a concrete springboard for a one hundred thousand word novel differs from writer to writer, so I can only tell you about mine. The closest I can come to describing my so-called process is similar to the way Lady Malmerstoke described (perhaps not entirely accurately) to our hero the way women think in Georgette Heyer's POWDER AND PATCH.

"They jump, you see...From one thing to another. You'll arrive at a new thought by degrees and you'll know how you got there. Women don't think like that."

So here, as near as I can remember, is the leap-frog thought process by which I reached the premise for THE DANGEROUS DUKE.

*I read about the courtesan Harriette Wilson's threat to expose prominent clients if they didn't pay her to keep their name out of her memoirs.

*I thought about power and how a woman in the nineteenth century could seize her own power and wield it to get what she wanted. She might not be able to vote, but she might still play a part in world affairs.

*I watched 5 straight seasons of UK spy series "Spooks" and absorbed the continuing question in that wonderful drama--does the end always justify the means? I asked myself, how does a spy live with what he does? How does he leave it all behind and live happily ever after?

*At the same time, I took an interest in a debate about whether heroines were simply place-holders in romance. The theory goes that the reader doesn't care too much about the heroine's qualities, she wants to step into the heroine's shoes and fall in love with the hero.

*And finally, I thought about the difference between fantasy and reality and whether we really want our fantasies to come true. Could you really live with a hero like Dain in Lord of Scoundrels?

*Oh, and somewhere along the way, I found pictures of my hero and heroine. These were the people I wanted to write about.

After a lot of leaping about, all those snippets went into the melting pot. Then came dithering, writing, rewriting, sweat and tears but no blood, thank goodness, after which there emerged a story that went something like this (with thanks to Publishers Weekly for putting it more concisely than I could):

Maxwell Brooke, a dangerous operative for the Home Office, has unexpectedly become a duke, thanks to an arson that killed the four heirs ahead of him. Determined to bring the suspected perpetrators to justice, he has jailed Reverend Stephen Holt, who may know their whereabouts. Outraged, Holt's sister, widowed Lady Kate Fairchild, threatens to publish a diary that could embarrass high figures in government unless her brother is freed. Although the scandals are real, she hasn't actually written the book yet, and the handwritten volume Max steals from her home contains only Kate's sexual fantasies. He kidnaps her (on the thinnest of pretexts) and begins to make her dreams come true...

Simple, huh?

Where and when do you get great ideas? Have you ever tracked your thought processes? Do you believe women think differently from men? Are writers simply crazy?

One lucky commentor will win the sum total of all my crazy thought processes in the last year, THE DANGEROUS DUKE!

Gerri Russell on Building a Career

interview by Nancy Northcott


Your first book, The Warrior Trainer, was a January release. Now you have your second, Warrior's Bride, on the shelves. Yet your success was a long time in coming, as you told our own Anna Campbell in the September issue of The Romance Writer's Report. How did you persevere to reach this point?

Partly it was having faith in what I wanted, partly it was being too stubborn to give up. I had to ask myself every day if I wanted to be published. If I wanted to publish, then I had to do what it took to get there—and that was to write every day regardless of the rejections, regardless of the self-doubt that crept in every so often!

What advice would you give the new writer just starting his or her first manuscript?

This will probably sound strange coming from someone who took twelve years to sell, but don’t be in a hurry. Learn your craft, write the best book you can, and take a deep breath. Nothing happens fast in this business, so it is important to send out the very best product you can to the right publisher or the right agent. Don’t waste your opportunities by sending out a product that isn’t ready.

Both of your published novels are set in medieval Scotland. What draws you to that time and place?

The mystery, simplicity, and opulence of the Medieval and Renaissance times have always fascinated me, as have knights and heroes of old who fought for and defended what they believed in.

My family and I are all so captivated by the time period that we have worked as living history re-enactors at the Shrewsbury Renaissance Faire in King’s Valley, Oregon, for the past eight years. It’s a wonderful learning as well as bonding experience for us all.

Why Scotland? I love that the woman are not as restrained as their English counterparts. And who doesn’t love a man in a kilt, armed to defend, with a soft burr in his speech?

Both books also have mystical overtones related to stones. How did you settle upon that as a connecting thread?

That’s the funny thing about research. Once you start down a certain path, interesting things happen. I started The Warrior Trainer with no idea it would have any companion books. And as I started to research more about Scottish stones, the more stones I read about. That’s when I decided to do the Stones of Destiny Series. I chose three wonderful stones that each had remarkable histories associated with them. You’ll be reading about the Stone of Scone, the Seer’s Stone, and the Charm Stone in each of the three books.

Tell us a little about the hero of Warrior's Bride.

Douglas Stewart is the bastard son of Robert II, Scotland’s king. His father has forced him from childhood to do his bidding, and he’s earned the name the Black Wolf of Scotland as a result. His latest demand—marriage to a woman of little consequence. Wolf would refuse his father this last demand, except that he’s holding Wolf’s brother hostage, threatening to hang him for treason is Wolf doesn’t obey.

The heroine of Warrior's Bride is Isobel. How do she and the hero clash?

Warrior’s Bride is a traditional marriage of convenience story. Wolf and Isobel clash over their forced union. Isobel wants nothing to do with marriage, watched how marriage drove her own mother to insanity. Fearing the same end, she fights Wolf at every turn. But sometimes the heart leads even the resistant places they don’t want to go. . . .

Your route to publication was a little unusual, with your first book winning the American Title II contest. What advice would you give authors who're thinking of entering a national internet contest?

Advice . . . or more warning . . . Be ready for the contest to totally consume your life—writing and otherwise. In order to succeed in this online venue, you need to be a master at promotion. You’ll need to be creative, willing to work harder than you’ve ever worked before, push past your comfort zone in ways you never knew you could, all while being an ultimate professional.

You're also a two-time winner of the Romance Writers of America's Golden Heart competition for unpublished writers, a contest that's now open to entries. What do you think authors who are entering should know or consider?

The Golden Heart is a wonderful opportunity that gives you lots of exposure if you final. But it is critical to remember that the Golden Heart is just that, an opportunity, one that does not guarantee you will sell. Selling a manuscript is part talent, part perseverance, and part luck!

Your launch party for Warrior's Bride benefited the Early Childhood Programs for the Bellevue School District. How did you decide to do that?

I received so much support from my community while in the American Title contest and I wanted to give something back. Literacy, at all levels, has always been a cause near and dear to my heart, so together with Barnes and Noble we arranged it so that proceeds from sales would benefit Early Childhood Programs in the local school district—programs that supported literacy.

Not only did we raise over $500 in donations from sales, but attendees also purchased books donated straight to the district exceeding the donated amount. It was an incredible evening—a memory I will treasure forever.


Thanks for being here, Gerri! Gerri is giving away one copy of each of her books. To enter the drawing, simply leave a comment on the blog. To learn more about Gerri, visit her website, www.gerrirussell.net.

What times and places do you love, and why? Has your reading ever led you down an unexpected road?