First and foremost, I am a wife and a mother of two teenage boys. I am an avid bookworm, almost to the point of addiction. LOL I am a dreamer, a romantic, and one who over-analyzes life. Mostly a cerebral person, when I find the time, I also like to express my creativity baking and knitting. I am a home-body, happier home than out. Yet, having two boys into sports keeps me from being a true recluse. Also, I am a Certified Feng Shui Practitioner. I love it. And, I credit it with helping me to achieve my success.
How long have you been writing and how did you get to this point in your career?
After being a stay-at-home mother for years, I tried to get back into writing – a passion I had let go for over a decade – while my kids were at school. It happened quickly for me. In the summer of 2007 I wrote two stories based on a call for submissions I saw. A few months after submitting the manuscripts, I got my first publishing contract with Whiskey Creek Press. Life has been a fabulous whirlwind since. I now have well over a dozen stories published. Most are paranormal romances which are classified as erotic, but lately I have been writing a few sweet romances as well.
Tell me what inspired you to write this particular novella? It sounds like your husband's music was very inspirational for this.
It was! This story started with one specific song called, "The Road." Click here to listen to the song. The song just screamed storyline to me…the regrets, the forlorn tone, the passions untouched… However, once I started letting my imagination go, it seemed that others of my husband's songs echoed in my head as the plot progressed. So, I went and grabbed his newest CD, Weathervanes. The idea struck me to try to see how many of them I could use. It was sooo much fun listening and playing with the songs to create a storyline. Only, once that step was done, and they were all arranged, the story would not be stopped! I was writing over five thousands words a day on it for the first few days, not able to walk away from it without having to grab a pencil and paper to scribble down notes on. I think that is a testament to the caliber of songwriter Steven is.
I was really nervous for him to read it. Yet, once he did, he said that often it was just uncanny how the songs fit the story so well, as if the hero, Adam, would have wrote them just for the situation her was in. That was the greatest compliment, as I hope the book, the use of his creative genius in such a way, was to him.
I am just so excited, and so grateful to my husband, Steven Howell, for letting me use his music!
I love stories with fantasy and magical elements. How would you classify this book and what's magical about it?
It is a paranormal romance. The hero is a sorcerer, and he uses his music to weave his spells for him. Once I had the idea to write the story from my husband's song, I immediately began searching for a paranormal element to add. Since music can so easily influence people, I made the hero use his songs as spells.
None are as deeply personal as this collaboration with my husband in The Sorcerer's Songs. Yet…
My novella, Rituals, was written when I heard the tragic story of a friend. I had trouble dealing with the despair and the insanity if the whole situation. In order to reconcile it in my mind, I guess, I wrote this story giving a heroine in a similar situation a happy ever after ending, and thus myself hope that they exist.
Also, my short novel, A Modern Day Witch Hunt, came from an absurd personal experience that I just decided was to have some fun with. Silly me thought that people around me may have a problem with the fact that I write erotica. Now, while some have, I was shocked to find a few had more of a problem with the paranormal elements. The writing of this story was very cathartic in being able to file away appropriately the silliness of the situation.
You have to love fiction, not only for the escape it provides, but for the hope, the subtle messages, and sometimes the play with fantasy. I am grateful to read and to write it.
Sometimes we have to be ruthless in writing/editing. We cut scenes, eliminate characters or even kill them off. Tell me what was the hardest of these in this book.
Actually, I guess I had not done this well on my own. During work with my editor, she pointed out that one chapter/song seemed forced while all of the others just flowed together. Reading it again, I found that she was absolutely right. Yet, it was still hard to cut one if the songs.
This blog is called Random Musings, so give me a random quote from the book – something you’re particularly fond of.
I am giving you a mix of my words and my husband's song lyrics…
As she looked down to stop her tears, each note of each chord he hit on that old piano rang through her heart as if they were living, viable things.What can we expect from you next?I'm not a poet, I've got no money,
My words are riches to make you swoon
I've got this heartbeat, and my piano
They're my offering to you
I have a few short stories coming out in Anthologies this year, but I am most excited about my first full length novel coming out in January 2011, titled Torn Asunder. It has a great mix of genres: Historical (Regency), Paranormal (Witches & Shifters), Erotic Romance.
Blurb: Aubrey Griffen is a witch whose true reasons for coming to London soon fall to the wayside when she catches the eye of Edmund Bryant, the Marquess of Dalysbury. He seduces her into a whirlwind romance until the lies and threats of his mother force her to flee to Triaill Brimuir, a secret island of her ancestors off the coast of Ireland. Edmund goes after her only to be hit by Aubrey's confusion and anger when she magically transforms him into an elemental beast of her own creation.
However, it is when Edmund's lust mysteriously turns him back into a man that the couple are forced to deal with a family secret and untold of powers. Now, Edmund must learn to shift himself into the beast in order to save her in a battle of black verses white magic.
Fraught with scenes of explicit intimacy, romantic spells and mystical shapeshifting, Torn Asunder is a unique blending of the age of manners with sexual magic.
Where can we find you on the internet?
My website is here.
My blog, Authors by Authors, is where authors review books and interview each other.
You can friend me on Facebook here and my Fan Page is here.
Follow me on Twitter.
Watch my book trailer videos here.
Any final comments or thoughts?
A trade paperback version of the novella, The Sorcerer's Songs, and the CD, Weathervanes, can be purchased through the author only at my website. There is a discount for ordering both. **If you would like the book or CD autographed, please specify in space provided during checkout.
Ebooks can be purchased at FIDO Publishing, Amazon, All Romance Ebooks, etc.
Kiki, it’s so exciting that you got to work with your husband’s music like this. What brilliant inspiration!
Thank you very much for dropping by and answering these questions! Good luck with the The Sorcerer’s Songs and your upcoming release of Torn Asunder. Hope you’ll come back again when it’s released!
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