Saturday Writers

Maybe knowledge is power, but it’s damned hard to think a burgler to death. - Glen McMullen, in defence of the Beretta under his pillow

In case you haven’t noticed, I like quotes.  I decided recently to open each of my blog posts with one.  You’re also probably wondering who the heck is Glen McMullen?  Well, Glen McMullen is a character created by Lois Greiman and he lives in her (Unzipped, Unplugged, Unscrewed, and Unmanned) series.  Picture Chrissy McMullen, a thiry something, single psychologist, who is treating a famous football player for impotency and ends up having him chase her around her desk … unzipped… and discovers that he definitely was lying about that little problem.  She doesn’t have time to worry about it though because he has the bad manners to drop dead at her feet.  Next thing she knows, a sexy police detective with an attitude is determined to prove that Chrissy had a more intimate relationship with her dead client and is out to prove that she killed him. 

Unzipped

Lois writes more than just mysteries, If your into steamy romances, do check out her website for the full list of books she’s written.  In the meantime, she was kind enough to allow me to interview her for this blog site. 

First of all, I’d like to thank Lois again for taking the time for this interview.

Virginia: Where are you from?

Lois: A cattle ranch in North Dakota.

Virginia: How long have you been writing?

Lois: I started seriously writing in about ‘87.  Wow.  that’s a long time ago.

Virginia: What do you write? 

Lois: Mostly mystery and historical romance.  But I’ve written some contemporary romantic comedy and children’s fiction.

Virginia: Tell us a little about your publisher and agent.

Lois: I write historicals for Avon Books and have since about ‘91.  I’m writing my mystery series for Bantam/Dell/Random House.  I also have a new faerie anthology coming out from St. Martins Press. As for my agent, she’s my fifth…but my first true love.

Virginia: How many books have you published so far?

Lois: About 30. I used to think authors must have to be a little retarded in order to lose track, but well… maybe I’m a little retarded.

Virginia: What is your writing day like?

Lois: Right now it’s nuts cuz I have a book due in three weeks and the book hates me.  But usually I feed my horses, get some exercise, check my blog, then write from about 10-4.  Sometimes it’s more like 10-10:25. And sometimes it’s more like 10-10, depending how things are going.  For the first draft I write about ten pages a day.  For the other drafts I edit 20-50 pages a day.

Virginia: Can you tell us about your 5 draft system?

Lois: For the first draft it’s just kind of a mind dump.  I write as quickly as I can so my internal editor doesn’t have time to get too outraged by all the mistakes I make.  I just get down the story and don’t worry about names, typos, or even logic really.  I just write.  Second draft I begin to make it make sense.  I know the characters a little bit now, so I can figure out why they do what they do.  By the third draft it should start showing some promise.  Or at least some hope.  Then I start fleshing out the characters, making changes as needed to sentence structure, character, logic, etc. Fourth draft is mostly about fixing the flow.  I read that draft out loud to myself and let the characters tell me what I’m doing wrong. Fifth draft is all mechanics and last minute hysteria.

Virginia:  Do you have anything that just came out?

Lois:  Seduced By Your Spell, which has been getting really nice reviews (thanks everyone) was just released Feb. 24th and One Hot Mess will hit the shelves on March 24th.

Virginia: What are you working on now?

  

My progress on my own book is slow.  I have been working on a synopsis and have two chapters so far.  I decided my first chapter needed a scene that described my protagonist’s situation a little better so have been writing another opening scene for my first chapter.  Now that I’ve got my tax stuff done, I intend to spend my non-working hours focused on my book.

Until next time,

Virginia Gruver

Find future author interviews at www.virginiasviewonnovelwriting.wordpress.com

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 at 12:49 am and is filed under Author Interview. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.