AUTHOR INTERVIEW WITH L. J. DARE – Black Velvet Seductions

It is a great pleasure to have one of our authors in for a chat. Her latest book, A Bride for a King, is available to pre-order now! Release date July 19th. Click here to read Chapter One.

I’d like to start by asking about your home life, can you paint a picture of what it is like?

For most of my married life, my home has been where ever the military sent us. We have two children, five grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and a host of nieces and nephews. Now that my husband is retired, we live in the desert southwest of the U. S. Living in the desert is both a challenge and a pleasure. A challenge when our summertime temps reach 125-130 degrees and a pleasure when we are having sunshine and its 70-80 degrees outside and the rest of the nation are contending with blizzards, white-out conditions, icy roads, and with snowdrifts up to their rooftops.

I am a gardener/landscaper. We grow oranges, lemons, limes, grapefruit, and red grapes. In the fall through to mid-May, I grow tomatoes, red & green peppers, an assortment of various kinds of lettuce and squash. I find digging in the dirt relaxing and a great way to work out the kinks in planning the plot/character foibles for a new or current work in progress.

I’d love to hear about your writing and what inspired you to become a writer?

I’ve been writing since 1986. What inspired me, it was more of accepting a challenge. I happened to be sitting in the living room. I had just opened up what looked to be a great action-adventure romance, and on the very first page a helicopter was taking off in a blizzard. WHAT??? That stopped me cold. So, I looked over at my husband, a rotary-wing & fixed-wing military pilot who had numerous hours of flying combat in Vietnam, off-shore in Louisiana and as an aerial applicator and asked him, “Since when did they develop the technology for choppers to fly in blizzards?” He looked at me as if I was crazy and replied. “Since never. Anyone doing that is both stupid and has a death wish.” So, I responded, “Just as I thought. “ Irritated and totally disgusted, I took the novel and threw it. It zinged past where my husband was sitting and plopped against the wall. With his attention solely focused on me, I proclaimed. “I can do better than that.” And he responded. “Then do it.” And thus I began my writing adventure in writing contemporary romance. Which I would write, put in a box and keep hidden under the bed. I was wise enough to figure out that I needed to learn the craft of writing.

Where did the idea for A Bride for the King come from? I know your first book was historical, is history a big interest of yours? How much research goes into your stories?

I’ve always been fascinated by the dynamics involved in being a twin. When I was in college, I met a set of twins, and they had the most fascinating stories. And one of my favorite time periods is Victorian. So, A Bride for the King really began with ‘what if.’ History is a huge interest to both me and my husband. Therefore, we’ve traveled five continents; I still need to see Australia & Antarctica, although I have read extensively and watched a lot of documentaries. We’ve even sailed down the Nile, Yangtze, Amazon, and Mekong Rivers.

As for research, after that experience with the writer and the chopper taking off in the blizzard, I try to be extra careful and make sure the facts that I use are correct. One of the many things I appreciate about my editor Laurie is that when we are editing, she does question my facts. Over the years I developed an extensive reference library. That was of course before all one needs to do now is ask the cell phone.

Over the years, I’ve found that I go nowhere without a pad and a pen. I even keep them at my bedside. I never know where or when an idea will pop into my mind. It could be triggered by a smell, something I see, hear, taste or touch. It could also be something from the past, or present or even something I’m anticipating I’m going to be doing in the future.

It usually takes me about a year to write a book. However, A Bride for the King was started in Jan. 2007. My Dad died of Alzheimer’s that year. I simply couldn’t force myself to work on it. In the meantime, I worked on writing contemporary, taking RWA courses and learning how to write. Then in 2014, I began writing The King’s Blade.

I finished writing The King’s Blade in 2015 and Laurie and I began editing. In the meantime, I was urged to finish writing A Bride for the King. I finished writing it in June 2016. Laurie and I began editing in Oct. 2016 and the following month, Nov., my Mom died. At that point, I was beginning to think the thing was jinxed. However, much to my surprise, we finished the edit.

What is your writing process like? Do you have a routine for writing or is it something you pick up and put down during the day?

I am a plotter. When I begin developing a novel, I write down the general idea, setting out the time period. I also think about what I know and what I will need to research regarding what might’ve been happening in history and with music, new developments, and important characters in the era, etc. Then I begin thinking about my hero and heroine. Who they are, their family life, education, fears, strengths, weaknesses, etc., and what is it that they must learn along the way in order to change into the person they become at the end of the book. Then I plot the hero and heroine’s journey. And I begin writing.

My day usually begins at 6 a.m. with the usual household chores, watering outside and grabbing a cup of tea and having a quick breakfast. My routine for writing consists of me being in my office at 8 a.m. That is if I don’t have to go into our corporate office that morning. I have the luxury of staying home and work with my story with my editor Laurie. Then I do social media postings and take care of emails, etc. I prep ahead for the next two sessions with Laurie & input those changes on the novel we’re working on. I place on the computer what I’ve written on my work in progress the day before and print it out. By this time it’s between 2-3 p.m. I can now, sit down and using my plotting plans, devote the rest of my time to writing. Bedtime is no later than 10:45 p.m.

What about your reading habits, what kind of books do you enjoy reading?

Historical, Western, Contemporary, Action-adventure, Sweet Romance.

Have you got any writing tips you would like to share?

Do your research. & document where you found your facts, someday you may have to defend those facts.

What does literary success look like to you?

For me, it’s the satisfaction of knowing I’ve done my very best. When I hold that book in my hands, I know at that moment, it’s the best that it can be.

Have you ever experienced writer’s block?

From what I’ve experienced, for me was more of an emotional block. I needed time to process the grief and loss of my Dad, who I was very close too. Yet, when my Mom died, Laurie asked me if I needed some time and I told her ‘no’ because working with her was the only thing I had to ground me. The writing was the air I used to sustain me. I don’t know if the difference was that I was eight years older and had already gone through the trauma of losing a parent or if I had so much to do after her death with straightening things out and dealing with my brothers that I didn’t have time to fall apart.

Do you have any superstitions when it comes to writing?

It probably sounds as if I do after my comment on thinking A Bride for the King was jinxed, but I really don’t. For you see, four days after my Mom died, I was offered a book contract for The King’s Blade. My Mom was a huge supporter. She kept urging me to hang in there and keep writing. She used to say, ‘someday I know you will be a published author.’ And Moms are seldom wrong.

Would you like to talk about your next book?

Right now, Laurie and I are editing, The King’s Spy, a sequel to The King’s Blade. We began in mid-Jan. And now we are mid-way through Chapter Eleven. I needed to pause working with Laurie for the months of June and July because of corporate responsibilities. However, I’m using this time to write, book three, All the King’s Ladies, the last book in the series. I’m also reading/researching for a new series set in the 1860s.

Thank you so much for coming in to chat.

If you have anything you would like to add or share, I’d love to hear your comments here on the blog, the BVS Facebook page, or my Facebook page. We have a twitter page too, and we are always happy to follow people that follow us.