Last evening I met my editor at Whiskey Creek Press. It looks like my next few weeks will be spent in the editing process of Mountain High, and in a bit of promotion of Across Time, which I hope will be available from Loose-ID.Com by the time this interview is posted.

I just finished a work entitled, When the Night Comes. I'm still trying to figure out what sub-genre to call it other than romance with a paranormal twist. It's out with my beta readers right now.

I've also started on book one the three book series of theRea Cheveyo Chronicles. The working title of the first book is Kiana: Ghost Ship. The Chronicles are most definitely futuristic. Each of the three novels are plotted and will be able to stand alone outside of the series. And even though they'll be able to stand alone, readers of book two will get a short visit with the main characters of book one, and book three will revisit characters in book two and one.

I think the best authors are those who fall in love with their characters and their story. It comes through in the reading and you fall in love with the characters, too.

One that loves your work as is. One that doesn't just look at the percentage they're getting off your sales. One that will work for you and not just think they've done enough by providing you a space on their website.

Green. Very green. Green walls, green carpet. Green is supposed to be soothing, but I've yet to experience that.

I converted the smallest bedroom in the house for my workroom. I have the computer station, my great-grandfather Forrest's desk, a lateral file, and a small table I rescued from the used furniture store and my beloved refinished. It was black with grime when I dragged it home and it turned out to have the most amazing oak veneer top. Everything is neatly lined up around the room against the walls. I do like minimal clutter. My boys, Jett, Butch and Shooter, sleep in the middle of the floor while I work. I'm always tripping over animals.

Spare time? You jest. LOL!! I love to work in my flowers. I used to have more, but the local deer thought I was providing salad bowls, so I've had to scale back. I enjoy bowling - tenpins. My scratch high game is a 269 and my scratch high series is a 670. My average fluctuates between the high 170's and the low 180's because of my back.

Oh dear. I'm so ordinary. I'm really just the girl next door.

I love futuristics. I grew up on Star Trek and I think it fired my imagination that other worlds and new peoples really could be out there. But I think the future needs romance, too, something science fiction occasionally lacks. I turned to ebooks because they're less restrictive in regards to subject matter. Ebooks are about the adventure, not the bestseller list or the movie options. Not that those things wouldn't be nice, they're just not something important to me. Across Time, The Skies of Mahdis, The Rea Cheveyo Chronicles, and The Cliin Empire Trilogy - they're all futuristic.

I've also written a contemporary novel, Mountain High, which will be released January 2005 from Whiskey Creek Press. That book was a bit of a departure for me. It evolved out of a dream I have of doing what the heroine of that story does - buying an old warehouse and turning it into an antiques and collectibles shop. I think it works so well because I could really place myself in the community of Elizabethtowne.

Romance is my first pick, then science fiction.

Definitely my mother. My mother read to me when I was a child, before I could read for myself. I don't think I'd have appreciated books as much as I do without her. It's pretty selfless of a mother to read Black Beauty over and over and over and over to a child.

I also owe a lot to my beloved, Ron. He's been wonderful. He's picked up the slack on so many things so I can be at the computer. He'll do anything that needs done except laundry, and let's face it - I love him, but I don't want him tossing my good blouses in with his jeans.

There's also a group of women that I'm online with everyday. I don't know why, but they seem to value me and it just blows me away. We came together a few years ago and they're just the most incredible ladies from all over the world. They're not writers and they keep me grounded in my real life. They know things about me no one else does. If I start talking spaceship design and weaponry they let me go on for a while and then they reel me back in. Of course, if I start talking romance they want more. LOL!!

My mother read a lot of Harlequins after my father died and she'd pass them on to me. I'd joke with her and tell her I could write one of them. But I think I always thought it was too unattainable. And back before computers and the Internet, it was, at least for me. I've always had to work outside the home. With computers constantly evolving it becomes easier to accomplish other tasks and free up time to create. And then the Internet created a place for people who want to read good, original stories.

The first story I ever wrote is entitled, Reach Any Star. It's part of my Cliin Empire trilogy. My first review was from my beloved, Ron. It's not the standard review, of course, but he said, "I stayed up to three a.m. to finish it! I couldn't stop. What's that tell you?"

One of these days I'm going to be brave and actually submit it somewhere. I entered it in a few contests and it did receive an Honorable Mention in the 2003 Southern Heat Contest of the East Texas Chapter of the RWA, paranormal category, which included futuristic.

Across Time (available from Loose-ID.Com ) is the fifth manuscript I completed, the second contract I signed and the first novel to be released. Things don't always go in sequence in the publishing world.
Across Time is a futuristic romance, set about three hundred years or so in the future. Corri and Devin were lovers. She dumped him in favor of her career and he let her go. Now it's five years later and they both still carry a torch for the other. Circumstances send them to Adhara VII at the same time. They discover a political plot, foil it, and return the people indigenous to Adhara VII back to their home. Along the way they get reacquainted and reunited. I loved writing Across Time. I really hated to say goodbye to Devin and Corri, but Carrick and Rachel were waiting in the wings for their story to be told. And now that I've told their story, Kiana and Ian are waiting.

I'm up at five a.m. and walk three miles with my best friend, Celeste, every morning, weather permitting. I work full time. I leave the house at about seven-thirty a.m. and get home anytime from four-thirty to six p.m. The first thing I do when I get home is play Frisbee with Jett for a little while. He's such a good dog. Then it's dinner and some time with Ron. Then it's to the computer. Some evenings I write a lot, some evenings I deal with the business end of things. I'm usually in bed by ten-thirty or so. Thursday is CSI night. Everything goes on hold at nine. Monday night is bowling night so it's a quick check of the email and back out the door. Weekends are more flexible. It depends on Ron and how we want to play.

Keep writing. I know everyone says that. I'll tell you why. Keep writing because the more you write the better you get without even realizing it. And when you get that first break, it's nice to have something else to submit immediately. Most publishers have a release schedule that goes into next year or even the year beyond. You'll want to get on it. I signed my first contract with a Wings Press, Inc., an established publisher, for The Skies of Mahdis in January 2004 and the release date is August 2005.

Don't give up. Writing is easy. Being published is not. Do what feels right for you. If you think classes are what you need, take them. Search out the reader loops on the web. There are bunches of them. Find a smaller one and make friends and then gradually add other loops. A lot of the same folks are on a lot of the loops.

Keep your sense of humor.

Keep a sense of perspective. That's hard to do when everyone is telling you that you must do this, this and this to be successful. Define your idea of successful before you go any further. Don't live on someone else's definitions of successful.

Yes! Please visit my website for excerpts on Across Time, Mountain High, The Skies of Mahdis and a few more stories. There's a link to my mailing list. I'm running a contest for members of the mailing list in July and August for a "goodie" bag that has, among other things, a CD copy of the complete short story, Right From the Start. My mom is going to pick a letter, and then depending on how many people's id start with that letter, a number, to determine the winner.

I'm also putting together a newsletter that will go to members of the mailing list every other month - no clogging up your inbox, I swear. The newsletter will also have tidbits from some of my author friends from time to time. Sign up at my Yahoo Group.

Readers can email me here.

My thanks to everyone at Fallen Angel Reviews for giving me an author's page on the Fallen Angel Review website, and for interviewing me. The FAR site is wonderful and everyone has been so nice! It means a lot to those of us just starting out.