Today I am speaking with Karen Erickson.

Hi Karen! And welcome to Fallen Angel Reviews! Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to answer some questions for us. The readers would love to hear something about Karen Erickson.

Karen, I like your webpage. It looks so refreshing. Release Me and Haunted Dreams sounds great. Why not begin by telling the readers about your outstanding books?

I'd love to! Here's the blurb for Release Me, which is a fun, sexy read:

Sommer vows to take control of her orgasms - and ends up having lots of them on her desk with the IT guy! Ted wants everything she's willing to give and more, but will the sparks they share be enough to overcome his secret?

And here's the blurb about Haunted Dreams, which is my first paranormal/ghost story:

A handsome stranger haunts Kara's dreams, and she's stunned when she meets him at the Halloween charity ball. Staying the night in a haunted house just might bring her closer to Hayden, but will it be close enough to satisfy the ghost lovers who need to unite - forever?

I also have two Christmas books coming out this season. Fairies & Wishes from Cobblestone Press - about a Christmas fairy who must teach a lonely man how to love again. And Her Christmas Prince from Silk's Vault Publishing, where a woman wakes up after a snow globe knocks her on the head to find a sexy stranger in her bed. Talk about a great Christmas present!

How long have you been writing and have you always wanted to be a writer?

I've been writing seriously for over a year, but I've always been a writer. When I was in high school I hand wrote terrible stories in notebooks about my favorite band and the women (me and my friends with our favorite names instead of our actual names) they married. Terrible stuff!

I'd made half hearted attempts to write, lots of incomplete stories on my hard drive and in old notebooks but it hit me over a year ago - what was I waiting for? Why wasn't I pursuing this? So with my husband's support I went to the RWA National convention in Reno and kicked my butt into gear.

Is there anyone that you would love to pen a book with either living or dead?

Hmmmm....good question. I would love to sit down with Stephen King and see how his mind works. His imagination is crazy!

I also think it would be fun if my fellow Cobblestone Press author and friend Shelli Stevens and I put our heads together and came up with a funny, sexy book. I bet we would crack ourselves up!

After you've written your book and it's been published, do you ever buy it and/or read it?

I have never bought my books after they came out. It feels like cheating to me. But I have gone back and reread them. Every time I read Release Me it makes me smile. That couple went at it like rabbits.

Among your own books, do you have one favorite? Perhaps a favorite hero or heroine?

Well, Release Me is dear to me because it was the first one I sold. Right now I'm editing my Christmas book Fairies & Wishes, and I really love that one. My heroine is just so funny and cute. My favorite hero is a book that I'm working on that hasn't been bought. Crossing my fingers that I'll sell it...

Within your writing career what book had been the easiest for you to compose? The hardest? The most fun?

Release Me for sure. That story just flowed from my fingertips. I had just finished writing a full length manuscript (which is still lounging on my hard drive, probably will stay there forever) and I needed to do something different creatively. So I decided to write an erotic romance, a short story, which became Release Me.

The hardest? Haunted Dreams, because I was so unsure of writing a paranormal. Was I doing it right? Is anyone even going to like this story? As of this interview I haven't had any reviews on it and I'm curious to see what they say. What if they hate it? Oh, well, at least I tried.

With your creating, which comes first, the story, the characters or the setting?

For me, I've noticed it's the characters that come first. Then everything else comes together.

What do you feel are the great elements of a wonderful romance for you?

I love good, strong characters with sizzling sexual tension. Sexual tension is a must! I don't always need hot sex in a romance (though I love it, don't get me wrong) but I must have sexual tension. A romance novel flops for me without it.

Do you find it hard or fairly easy to compose the synopsis of the story? Do you do this before or after the story is finished?

Synopsis? What synopsis? Ha ha. I'm more of a prankster, though I will outline my story before starting it, do a little research. I always write the synopsis after the story is finished. As I write more, they're never easy, but I've noticed that they're not as hard as they used to be for me. The worst part is the anticipation - the knowing that you have to write one. That's worse than the actual composing of one. Kind of like going to the dentist. You don't want to go, you dread going, but once you get there, it's okay.

Are you in control of your characters or do they control you?

For the most part I'm in control of my characters - after all, I created them, right? But every once in a while, they get the better of me and lead me in a direction that I didn't expect, and it usually works. I'm willing to compromise - hee hee.

Have you ever experienced any form of writer's block and if so were you quickly able to work through it?

After I finished Haunted Dreams and began the publicity blitz for Release Me, I didn't write for about a month. It scared me. I was so consumed with marketing Release Me I couldn't think of anything else! Once I came down from that, I started writing again, slowly. Eventually it all came together and the writing came easily to me.

I still have the occasional hang up/mental block, usually because I don't know how to work through a particular scene. I just try to push past it and move on. It's hard, but that's what you have to do, I think, to make it happen.

Do you have a website other than www.karenwritesromance.com that you would like to share with your readers?

Well, there's my blog, which I post on almost daily. The link for it is: http://kdid210.blogspot.com and you can check me out on Myspace - http://www.myspace.com/kdid210

Thank you so much for sharing time with us today, Karen. Anyone interested in reading more about Karen and her stunning books, please visit her website to read more about her wonderful works. It has been a pleasure Karen, and I wish you the best always.

Interviewed by: Linda L