Q: Lori...what made you become a writer?
A: I started writing almost as soon
as I started reading. I loved to read and devoured everything. I started
writing stories in the third grade. I was that kid the teachers hated. I wrote
stories page by page and passed them back until they'd gone around the whole
class. If I wasn't writing, was reading with a book hidden behind my textbook.
I loved reading other people's stories and aspired to having people want to
read mine.
Q: What is your typical writing day like?
A: I get up, read and answer my
e-mails, check my Facebook, and then begin writing. I try to write 2500
words a day or about one chapter. Some days I do more and some less depending
on my mood and if the characters are feeling chatty.
Q: Do you outline? If so, how extensive are your outlines?
A: I have tried it both ways. My
first book, The Legend of the Swamp Witch, was not outlined. It was a seat of the
pants project. I'd told the story as a campfire tale many times and knew it
pretty well. With The Ruby Queen, Book 1 of my Soiled Dove Sagas, I did a very
detailed "Snowflake" outline and it made the writing go very quickly. Book 2, The
Queen of the Cow Towns, went quickly too because I'd basically outlined the
complete series when I conceptualized the project. Sweet Rewards, the erotic-romance novel I wrote on a dare, I also outlined thoroughly. I'd never written
a romance novel and knew they had to be done to a very specific formula. I Googled it and come up with an outline to that formula.
Q: How many revisions will you typically do on a novel?
A: I generally write about a dozen chapters, rereading and revising after each
one. Then I begin presenting a chapter per week at my critique group, The
Central Phoenix Writers' Workshop. I listen to the critiques of my fellow
writers, take their marked up copies home, study them, and revise accordingly.
Now that I'm working with a couple of traditional publishers I have to revise
according to their desires as well. If a novel is 30 chapter there may be 30+
revisions.
Q: What is your best tip for editing a manuscript?
A: Read it out loud. It is the best
way I've found to catch a plethora of mistakes.
Q: Which writing habits and/or tricks of the trade have made you a
better writer?
A: Joining the critique group was
probably the best thing I've done for my writing. Hearing their opinions of my
work and being open to having them point out my shortcomings has improved my
writing 3000%.
Q: Do you ever suffer through writer’s block? If so, how do you
fight it?
A: All writers get it from time to time. I fight it by having two or
three projects going at any one time. I get hung up on one project, I go to one
of the others. After writing a horror story for a few chapters I can pick back
up where I left off with the other, refreshed.
Q: What drew you to write your preferred genre(s)?
A: I have always been a history
buff. I grew up with the TV westerns and loved them. I spent 25 years doing
costuming for Medieval and Renaissance reenactors. I studied the clothing, the
people and the food of the periods. It only made sense that I'd choose to write
in historic settings.
Q: Do you utilize beta readers?
A: Yes. I have my critique group
that acts in that regard and I have a close friend who reads my work for
continuity issues as well.
Q: In your most recently published novel, what’s one scene you
really enjoyed writing—and why?
A: In The Legend of the Swamp
Witch I wrote a chapter about a serial killer. It is bloody and scared me
after I reread it. I thought, "Lori you must be a psychopath. That came
out of you way too easily!" I watch a lot of true crime, but I've never
actually killed anyone.
Q: What makes the main character(s) of your most recent novel so
special?
A: In The Ruby Queen, Mattie Wallace
and Roxie North are women ahead of their time. It is 1870, only a few years
after the end of the Civil War when women have no rights and are the property
of their husbands and fathers. In order to become free women they go into
prostitution. Prostitutes have been disowned by male relatives, but
gain a freedom no women of the era possess. Most people don't know it, but
prostitutes of the era set up social programs for the disadvantaged
when there were none. They sponsored schools, libraries, and soup kitchens.
Prostitutes began the equal rights movement for women in this country, but
their efforts have been covered up or ignored completely. Roxie and Mattie,
while not social reformers in my books, stand up for themselves and other women
in a time when men ruled the day.
Q: What is your best advice for author self-promotion?
A: Never shut up about your work.
Explore every avenue. Pass out business cards to anybody who'll take one. Get
your books in every small shop who'll take them. Send them out to people who do
reviews. It takes money to make money. Don't be afraid to give away a few books
to get reviews. I have mine in one store and donate the funds from the book to
the owner whose son is fighting cancer. I don't care that I'm making no money
from the sale. The work is getting out there and if the buyer likes it maybe
they'll go to Amazon and buy the next one.
Q: How do you deal with negative reviews?
A: Reviews are a learning
experience. How does a writer improve if she doesn't know what she's doing
wrong? Joining the critique group helped me to weather bad reviews. When you
hear something bad about your work you have to use it to improve. I beg for
reviews good or bad. How do we fix what we're doing wrong if nobody tells
us?
Q: What is your favorite aspect of being an indie author?
A: I'd have to say that my favorite thing about being an
indie author is not having to deal with the time involved in traditional
publishing. As an indie I can have my book edited, upload it to Createspace and—voila!—I'm
published. The traditional route takes months and months.
Q: What is your least favorite aspect of being an
indie author?
A: As an indie I pay for everything. I have to find
and pay for an editor. If I choose not to use Createspace's cover design app I
have to pay a cover designer. Then there's the marketing. As an indie I have to
do all the marketing, though it is much the same when you're dealing with small
presses. The majority of the marketing falls to the author.
Q: What is your current writing project?
A: I'm working on Crown Queen, Book 3 of my
Soiled Dove Sagas. It is the third book in the trilogy and sees
the women ending their careers as prostitutes. I'm also playing around with
getting into the business of writing personal romance novels. I would meet with
clients have them answer a questionnaire about their relationship, pick a time
period to set the story in, a heat level, and then for a price, write them
a story wherein they are the main characters.
Q: If you could have lunch with any novelist, living or dead, who
would it be? What would talk to them about?
A: Marion Zimmer Bradley. She wrote
the Darkover fantasy series and was one of the players who started the Society
for Creative Anachronism, the Medieval reenactment group I belonged to for
many years. Her work was an inspiration when I first thought about writing
seriously back in the late 70's. We corresponded and she was very kind to a
young fan. I'd like to thank her.
Q: What is your best piece of advice for budding authors?
A: Never give up on your dream, buy
books about grammar, editing, and outlining, join a critique group, and write.
Never stop reading and listen to critics of your work with an open mind.
Q: What is your favorite inspirational quite?
A: “Live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse!” Don't ask me why, but that line has stuck with me ever since I heard it in a movie.
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A: “Live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse!” Don't ask me why, but that line has stuck with me ever since I heard it in a movie.
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