In our 20 Questions feature various Knight Agency authors answer the same set of questions you see below. Learn their go-to sources for information on writing and publishing, how they like their coffee, what they did when they got "The Call," and much more. Yeah, it's kind of like the email forwards you keep getting from your BFF, but better.
Today, Kate Pearce, contributing author to the LORDS OF PASSION anthology (Nov 2010) and author of SIMPLY FORBIDDEN (Jan 2010), the sixth House of Pleasure book, is center stage.
1. Where are you at this exact moment? Sitting at my desk drinking my tea.
2. Are you a “seat of your pants” writer or do map out the story like a meticulous cartographer? Pantster and proud of it.
3. What one item is a must have or what ritual do you absolutely have to perform in order to get your writing mojo going?
I get a handful of sour jellybellys and eat them in reverse favorite color order starting with yellow and ending with red.
4. If you were stranded on a deserted island with only one book to entertain you, what would you want it to be? One book? Could that book be my iPad or is that cheating? Okay, I’d take something by Dorothy Dunnett.
5. What is the first thing you did after receiving “The Call” from your agent?
Closed dropped jaw, did a little dance around my chair and squealed and then went to tell my husband.
6. Do you have an old manuscripts gathering dust that you think should still be published, or, in retrospect, did they turn out to just be a practice run?
I have a few-about 5 I think. A couple of them are terrible but a couple have interesting possibilities but would need a lot of work.
7. Are you a member of a critique group?
Yes, we call ourselves the Hot Writer Babes although we are neither hot nor babes.
8. If you were a literary character, who would you be? Elizabeth Bennett of course :-)
9. Do you prefer reading a physical book or downloading it on your Kindle/Nook/Sony Reader/insert name of any of the other myriad e-readers? I used to think that I would always want the physical book but since getting an iPad and downloading all the book apps onto it, kindle nook, etc, etc I have seen the light and I’ve started buying the digital versions of books instead.
10. What is your favorite go-to blog or website for writing advice? Romance Divas is awesome.
11. What is your favorite go-to blog or website for industry happenings? Probably Dear Author.
12. What’s the strangest place or incident that’s inspired one of your characters or storylines? Well I remember a discussion on a Regency loop about female fears of being abducted by Barbary pirates and put into harems and I wondered what it would be like if those abducted were men rather than women and what the repercussions of serving in a Turkish brothel might be for two rescued Regency gentlemen. And then I started writing the Simply series.
13. Rollercoaster rides: Let’s get in line or I’d rather keep my feet on the ground while eating a delicious corn dog? (I know, random right?) Totally adore them and scream like a banshee.
14. What was the hardest lesson that you had to learn about publishing as a newbie? That it’s like the above, a rollercoaster ride, and that all you can do is get a great team around you and write the best book you can and keep writing.
15. Coffee: keep it simple (black); liven it up a little (at least cream and/or sugar); everything but the kitchen sink (caramel, raspberry, mocha java latte with extra whip and a few of those dark chocolate curls on top...); I’ll pass (yuck, coffee tastes like cigarettes). You can take a girl out of the UK, but you can’t take away her love/need for 8 cups of tea a day.
16. Animal lover or is keeping a goldfish alive too much to ask? I have a cat called George and a daft Cavalier King Charles Spaniel called Hunter. I love them immensely.
17. Which one of your characters would you most like to meet in person?
That’s a hard question because I’d like to meet them all, but probably Valentin Sokorvsky from SIMPLY SEXUAL because he still fascinates me.
18. What is your current release about?
I’m in an anthology with two awesome authors. Virginia Henley and Maggie Robinson for Kensington Brava called LORDS OF PASSION. My novella is called “How to Seduce a Wife,” and it concerns a newly married couple who are at odds with each other in the bedroom. My hero, Nicholas, has to find a way to convince his shy wife that he can live up to the heroes in her gothic romance novels. It was fun to write. :-)
19. What projects do you have on the horizon? BLOOD OF THE ROSE, my second paranormal historical set in Tudor England comes out in February 2011 from Signet Eclipse and, also in Feb, the sixth installment of the House of Pleasure series SIMPLY FORBIDDEN from Kensington Aphrodisia.
UPDATE: The winner of Chimera by Rob Thurman is Erika Lynn! Congrats!! Please email your physical addy to contests(AT)knightagency.net.
20 Questions is a feature on The Knight Agency blog where you can get to know more about our clients -- from soup to nuts. Various authors will answer the same set of questions you see below for the rest of the year. Learn their go-to sources for information on writing and publishing, how they like their coffee, what they did when they got "The Call," and much more. Yeah, it's kind of like the email forwards you keep getting from your BFF, but better. ;-)
Today, Rob Thurman, New York Times bestselling author of the Cal Leandros series, is stepping into the spotlight. As a special treat the Knight Agency is giving away a copy of her latest release, CHIMERA, to one lucky commenter. Check the bottom of the post for instructions on how to enter.
1. Where are you at this exact moment?
--On the couch with a laptop and a horrifically obese cat named Dexter after the serial killer from Showtime.
2. Are you a “seat of your pants” writer or do map out the story like a meticulous cartographer?
--I’m so seat of the pants that I don’t even wear the pants. I’m a “cheek of my ass” writer. Although, to be fair, I do always know one thing going into a book…how it’s going to end. Nothing can begin without the knowledge of an end—and I like my endings of the over Niagara Falls in a barrel kind, the last giant hill on a rollercoaster and riding it all the way to the bottom.
3. What one item is a must have or what ritual do you absolutely have to perform in order to get your writing mojo going?
--Avoid all writing-related business mail. Nothing will deflate your mojo faster!
4. If you were stranded on a deserted island with only one book to entertain you, what would you want it to be?
--Most likely a book on how to build a boat.
5. What is the first thing you did after receiving “The Call” from your agent?
--I think I threw up. Or maybe I hid in the closet. Or maybe I ran down the street buck naked screaming at the top of my lungs. Actually, none of those. I’d been rejected for so long, so many years, that I was more numb than anything else. It was a call telling me…yeah, we decided that you don’t suck that much after all. Welcome aboard! But don’t eat the shrimp in case we change our mind. I wish I’d been one of the miracle ones who sell instantly. I would’ve loved to have known what that felt like. I’d bet it’s amazing.
6. Do you have an old manuscripts gathering dust that you think should still be published, or, in retrospect, did they turn out to just be a practice run?
--CHIMERA (released June 1st) is six years old and it received the best reviews of anything I’ve done.
7. Are you a member of a critique group?
--Nope. I’m too thin-skinned. Not drinking that Kool-Aid.
8. If you were a literary character, who would you be?
--Villains are usually my favorite…hmmmm. Perhaps Hannibal Lecter without the cannibalism. The layers and layers of psychology behind that character blew me the hell away. What twisted insane logic went on inside his head would be fascinating…again, without the cannibalism, I swear.
9. Do you prefer reading a physical book or downloading it on your Kindle/Nook/Sony Reader/insert name of any of the other myriad e-readers? --Paperback all the way. I spent most of my childhood in libraries after school and if I can’t smell the paper, feel the weight, it loses its magic. And books have always been magical. Plus I can take them in the tub with me and not worry about frying them and myself. And, yes, I’m sure a battery could fry you if it tried hard enough.
10. What is your favorite go-to blog or website for writing advice?
--Lynn Viehl’s paperback writer blog…she tells it like it is.
11. What is your favorite go-to blog or website for industry happenings?
12. What’s the strangest place or incident that’s inspired one of your characters or storylines?
--Haven’t written it yet, but last week a man in a rusty beat-up pick up truck without A/C came to the door selling meat from a freezer in the back of the truck. If that doesn’t scream serial killer, nothing does. I think he sold steak, chicken, and Grandma.
13. Rollercoaster rides: Let’s get in line or I’d rather keep my feet on the ground while eating a delicious corn dog? (I know, random right?)
--One incident of someone else’s puke in your face ruins rollercoasters for you forever. But for life in general…trying to live as a writer is one of the bigger risks you can take. But I’d like the corndog too.
14. What was the hardest lesson that you had to learn about publishing as a newbie?
-My therapist has labeled this question off limits.
15. Coffee: keep it simple (black); liven it up a little (at least cream and/or sugar); everything but the kitchen sink (caramel, raspberry, mocha java latte with extra whip and a few of those dark chocolate curls on top...); I’ll pass (yuck, coffee tastes like cigarettes).
--Everything but the kitchen sink.
16. Animal lover or is keeping a goldfish alive too much to ask?
--Animal lover, but I can kill a tree just by looking at it.
17. Which one of your characters would you most like to meet in person?
--The one least likely to hate me for putting through all the godawful things I have.
18. What is your current release about?
--CHIMERA is an action-thriller along the lines of classic Dean Koontz (such as THE WATCHERS or LIGHTNING). It involves a man, Stefan, trying to find his brother who was abducted ten years before. Yet when he finally does, it’s only to discover Lukas has been raised in a experimental facility that does work in genetic manipulation. The book has them on the run from Jericho, the scientist in charge of the facility, while trying to rediscover their family connection, discovering the lengths Stefan will go to to protect his brother…and finding out what Lukas, thanks to Jericho’s handiwork, now has become.
Paul Goat Allen of Barnes & Noble compared it to Dean Koontz, Jonathan Kellerman, Robin Cook, and Michael Crichton. I was quite chuffed.
19. What projects do you have on the horizon?
--Right now, the seventh book in the Cal Leandros Novels—Urban Fantasy. TV has Supernatural, Urban Fantasy has me.
20. Where is the best place for readers to find out more about you?
--www.RobThurman.net I have links to twitter and LJ there, although I now blog on my website and it’s mirrored to my LJ. And I tweet at least once a day for fear fans will think I’m dead and pound the door down trying to pry the next Cal Leandros book out of my corpse. I love my fans.
Leave a comment to win a copy of CHIMERA by Rob Thurman. The contest will be open until Monday, June 28th. The winner will be annouced in this post Monday afternoon. Good luck!
20 Questions is a new feature on The Knight Agency blog where you can get to know more about our clients -- from soup to nuts. Various authors will answer the same set of questions you see below for the rest of the year. Learn their go-to sources for information on writing and publishing, how they like their coffee, what they did when they got "The Call," and much more. Yeah, it's kind of like the email forwards you keep getting from your BFF, but better. ;-) Our inagural 20 Questions post spotlights Melissa Mayhue, author of the Daughters of the Glen series.
1. Where are you at this exact moment?
– Curled up on my living room sofa, hunched over my laptop!
2. Are you a “seat of your pants” writer or do map out the story like a meticulous cartographer?
– Definitely ‘seat of your pants.’ When I begin a book, I know who my hero and heroine are, what their major flaws or problems are, and that they’ll end up happily together. That’s it. All the middle is an adventure for me to discover!
3. What one item is a must have or what ritual do you absolutely have to perform in order to get your writing mojo going?
– My only true writing ritual is to read through what I wrote the day before to get myself back into the story. I put on some music [can’t have words or I get distracted!], grab a cup of coffee or tea and go to work.
4. If you were stranded on a deserted island with only one book to entertain you, what would you want it to be?
-- THE LONG DARK TEAM TIME OF THE SOUL by Douglas Adams. I absolutely love this story every single time I read it. Though the ending isn’t what I would have ended with, that’s the beauty of it. It sets my imagination free to finish the story in my own way. And if I were actually stranded on a deserted island, I’d want to spend as much time lost in my own imagination as I possibly could!
5. What is the first thing you did after receiving “The Call” from your agent?
– After I finished squeeing? I ran downstairs to share my news with my husband…who just happens to be my best friend!
6. Do you have an old manuscripts gathering dust that you think should still be published, or, in retrospect, did they turn out to just be a practice run?
– No old manuscripts since I was fortunate enough to sell my first book! But I do have a few old ideas that I still want to play with one day.
7. Are you a member of a critique group?
– Yes. I have two wonderful critique partners who have been there for me since before I sold. [Big wave to Kirsten Richard and Rena Marks!]
8. If you were a literary character, who would you be?
- I don’t think I can pick just one. To me, that’s the wonder of being a writer… I get to spend time in the head of LOTS of characters!!!
9. Do you prefer reading a physical book or downloading it on your Kindle/Nook/Sony Reader/insert name of any of the other myriad e-readers?
- I think I still prefer an actual, physical book. My husband bought a Kindle for me for Christmas and though I’ve downloaded several books, I’ve yet to read one all the way through – which might just be the electronic equivalent of my physical To Be Read stacks!
10. What is your favorite go-to blog or website for writing advice?
– To be honest, I don’t really have a go-to spot for writing advice. For better or for worse, I just write.
11. What is your favorite go-to blog or website for industry happenings?
- I like Publisher’s Marketplace best. If you don’t want to subscribe, their freebie version, Publisher’s Lunch, is a good snapshot - http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/lunch/free/. It’s also amazing how much you can learn by being on Twitter and following people within the industry.
12. What’s the strangest place or incident that’s inspired one of your characters or storylines?
– I don’t know that any inspiration I’ve had actually qualifies as ‘strange.’ The most memorable one was on a trip to Scotland and a hike back into a place called The Fairy Glen. That was the inspiration for my whole Daughters of the Glen series. Since then, almost every place I go and everything I do results in something that ultimately translates into one of my stories!
13. Rollercoaster rides: Let’s get in line or I’d rather keep my feet on the ground while eating a delicious corn dog? (I know, random right?)
– I’m SO not a rollercoaster girl! It’s that whole inner-ear, motion sickness thing. Even without the corn dog, I’m feet on the ground!
14. What was the hardest lesson that you had to learn about publishing as a newbie?
– That there’s SO much about this business to learn and that even the tiny details can impact you years down the road. Every time I think I have a handle on it, there’s another piece I’ve never heard of! Everything moves VERY slowly – except when the publisher needs you to hurry up -- and, unlike almost any job I ever had, it’s always difficult for you to know exactly how you’re doing. [Thank goodness for my fantastic agent, Elaine Spencer, who keeps me grounded and continues to fill in the blanks for me!]
15. Coffee: keep it simple (black); liven it up a little (at least cream and/or sugar); everything but the kitchen sink (caramel, raspberry, mocha java latte with extra whip and a few of those dark chocolate curls on top...); I’ll pass (yuck, coffee tastes like cigarettes). – I usually drink it black – to save the calories. But what I actually like best? Everything but the kitchen sink!! Nothing like a Starbucks White Chocolate Mocha to put a smile on my face!
16. Animal lover or is keeping a goldfish alive too much to ask?
– Animal lover, definitely. We have three dogs, one cat, a turtle and an aquarium full of fish at my house.
17. Which one of your characters would you most like to meet in person?
– The Faerie Prince, Pol. Of all my characters, I’m convinced he knows much more than he’s willing to share right now – even with me!
18. What is your current release about?
– My latest release, A HIGHLANDER’S HOMECOMING – is about a thirteenth century Scottish Highland warrior who was sent forward in time by Faerie Magic to save him from death. Now, after a decade in the modern world, he returns to his own century to fulfill a promise to protect a small child, only to find the child is a grown woman and the death he once escaped is waiting to reclaim him.
19. What projects do you have on the horizon?
- I’m currently working on the eighth book in my Daughters of the Glen Series.
20. Where is the best place for readers to find out more about you?
For information on all my books and characters, my website is www.MelissaMayhue.com. I’m on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MelissaMayhue and Facebook [where I’m horribly addicted to Farmville!] as Melissa.Mayhue. For up to the minute news, there’s my brand new blog: www.MelissaMayhue.blogspot.com. I’d love to hear from readers at any of those spots!!
In our 20 Questions feature various Knight Agency authors answer the same set of questions you see below. Learn their go-to sources for information on writing and publishing, how they like their coffee, what they did when they got "The Call," and much more. Yeah, it's kind of like the email forwards you keep getting from your BFF, but better. 
6. Do you have an old manuscripts gathering dust that you think should still be published, or, in retrospect, did they turn out to just be a practice run?
