1.How
did you start writing erotic romance?
I don't write erotic romance but spicy. I didn't get into
novel or romance writing until I was in my forties. At that time, everyone was raving
about a current romance novel and how great it was (sort of like the recent Shades of Grey phenomenon). I don't even
remember the title or author.
I read the book, was unimpressed, and thought, Even I could write a better romance than
this. So I decided to try it. At the time, I was working 60 hours a week
and raising three children, but I did write the novel in about eight months.
It's still unpublished, stored in box in the garage.
2.Plotter
or pantster?
I’m about fifty-fifty. I wrote my mafia thriller with
only a loose outline and ended up with 300,000 words. Cutting over 600 pages
was like killing my children. Some of my favorite scenes and best writing had
to go. I cried for 6 months, and then it took another year and a half to
revise.
After that, I wrote from a very tight outline until my
experiment with writing humor in first person (All For A Dead Man’s Leg). That started out with a general idea and
not a clue what was going to happen. It worked, but I was so lucky.
Since then, I've settled into using a one-page plotting
outline (one sentence per scene about what has to happen) so I know where I’m
going, what scenes I need to get there, and the plot points, but not
specifically how I’ll accomplish it. And, of course, things change along the
way (no matter whether you’re a plotter or pantser). I update the plot outline
if modifications are important enough to impact other scenes, plot points, and
overall direction.
3.What
are three things you have on your writing desk?
In addition to the ever present computer and the related
accouterments, I have: 1) a one-hour timer, 2) a thesaurus and Flip Dictionary,
and 3) the one page outline of the story I'm working on.
(Can I mention the empty wine bottles and boxes of
chocolates?)
4.
Favorite food?
Ice Cream, of course. For me, it's a food group all
by itself. Too bad it has the least amount of food value of anything a person
can eat. Except that cardboard has the advantage of having no calories or
cholesterol. Since my husband is Italian and does all the cooking, I have to
say my second favorite food is pasta, but only with his tomato sauce.
5.
Tell us a little about your new release. What character in the book really
spoke to you?
All For A
Dead Man's Leg is the first book
in a humorous romantic suspense series featuring a young tour director, Harriet
Ruby, and a mysterious spy.
The heroine, Harriet Ruby, has lived a good but
predictable life. Her biggest problem is that she has no real problems. When she graduates from MIT she decides she wants
some excitement and takes a position as a tour director in Europe. When she
meets Will Talbot, mysterious handsome spy whose life has been unpredictable
and dangerous, her world turns upside down and will never be the same. Each
novel in the series features a spy adventure in a different country, and the
romance between Harriet and Will moves up a notch.
To understand what character
spoke to me, you have to understand the inspiration for this novel. On a tour of
Spain, Morocco, and Portugal in 1994, I asked our tour director what his worst
tour guide experience had been. He told me on one of his first tours, one of
his tourists died in Morocco. He and his driver had to smuggle the body back to
Spain to keep from delaying the tour with Moroccan red-tape.
At the time I found that
intriguing. The idea rolled around in my head for nearly ten years before I
found the right characters. I tried a German WWII story and other basic plot
ideas, but none of them took. It was when I decided to experiment writing humor
in the first person that I found the right character for the lead...Harriet
Ruby. She went about her business and quickly Will Talbot, the spy, showed up.
From there, the characters wrote the story for me.
So, I have to say that Harriet spoke to me. If I could be anyone other
than who I am, I would want to be Harriet.
6. I
write because ____
Because I can't help it. As are all writers, I'm
compelled to write. I haven't always written fiction, but I have always
expressed myself in writing.
I write novels which are fun to read and which take the
reader to exotic places they may never get a chance to experience in reality.
7.
What is your favorite type of character to write about?
The next one. (It's true.)
Villains are fun to write because they are complex and
can outwit everyone. Heroes and heroines have to be able to foil the villain.
But most of all, I like writing about strong women who want to make a
difference in the world.
After spending a 37-year career in what was a man's profession when I started, I've
gone up against prejudicial ideas about women in the workplace. I appreciate
the kind of woman it takes to break through the
glass ceiling, whether it be in a job, in a marriage, community, or
whatever. They don't have to be physically kick-ass to be strong.
8.
What is the sexiest scene you ever wrote?
It's hard to say what makes one scene more sexy than
another, other than it isn't about the physical moves (although they help). Sexy is about emotion, tension, and playing
the game. My sexiest scene is in a Mafia novel which takes place in Sicily just
after WWII and which is not a romance.
9.
What advice would you give new authors in the erotica/romance field?
Gosh, there are so many things, but to me these are the
most important and they apply to any genre.
● Start today - Never think you’re too old, too old, too busy. The right time never comes.
● Finish the book - Don’t get stuck rewriting the first couple of
chapters over and over. Keep going and finish the book. Then go back and edit,
fine-tune, rewrite―whatever it takes to make the novel work. Finish first.
● Be persistent and never get discouraged - Keep at it, no matter
what, but along with that, be honest with your expectations. There’s a word for
writers with persistence: Published.
● Learn the craft of writing - There is no substitute for learning the craft of writing. In addition to
English grammar, spelling, and punctuation, you need to learn the components of
a novel, how to plot, how to develop characters, structure, pacing, view point,
establishing tension, creating an ambiance, and a lot more.
● Read, read, read!
● Write, write, write!
● Network - Take your advice from other writers and people who know
the craft and the business, not friends and family (unless they are in the
profession).
● Don’t expect writing to be easy - It’s hard work, whether you write
a good book or a bad one, but it’s worth it if you are truly a writer.
10.
What is next on your writerly horizon?
In addition to the release of the next several
books in the Tour Director Extraordinaire Series, I'm editing a completed
amateur-sleuth murder mystery set in Los Angeles. I've also begun a murder
mystery set at the research station at the South Pole. I'm also researching a
historical about the incarceration of the Japanese-American during WWII. None
of these fall into the romance genre—at least not yet.
Now that you bring it up, it looks like I'm trying my
hand at other genres. I'd love to write science fiction, because it's one of my
favorite genres to read.
***
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love to hear from and talk to my readers.
***
Book Blurb
A dead tourist, a prosthetic leg, and a gorgeous secret
agent...just another day in the life of a Tour Director.
Meet
Harriet Ruby, a well-balanced MIT graduate with a degree in languages, whose
life has been good but ordinary and predictable. Wanting new experiences before
she settles down to a career and family, she accepts a position as a tour
director in Europe.
Meet
Will Talbot, a handsome Europol spy and covert operative for the US government
with a dark troubled past, major trust issues, and dissociative amnesia. Driven
by guilt over something he believes he did, he has a penchant for rescuing
innocent victims caught up in dangerous circumstances.
Harriet’s
first solo stint as a tour director in Spain and Morocco is going well until
they get lost in the medina in Tangier. There, one of her tourists becomes ill.
Harriet needs to find a doctor, can’t speak Arabic, and doesn’t know how to get
out of the walled city. A handsome and mysterious stranger, Will Talbot,
examines the tourist, pronounces him dead, and offers to help her smuggle the
body out of Morocco. At this moment, Harriet’s once-predictable life turns
upside down. Little does she know that getting out of Morocco is only the
beginning of an incredible adventure in pursuit of murders, smugglers,
terrorists, and a meaningful relationship.
Buy link: http://www.breathlesspress.com/
Book Excerpt – Chapter 1
Looking back on it, I could see
everything would have worked out fine if Archie Philpot hadn't chosen that
particular time and place to die.
Not that he did it maliciously, mind
you, nor did he exactly choose.
But I'm sure if he'd thought about the welfare of the many—our tour group, to
be specific—as opposed to the convenience of the one, he might have staved off
the event for another ten or twelve hours. Then there would have been no
problem.
Well, not exactly no problem.
But perhaps I should start when
everything began to fall apart.
My name is Harriet Ruby, Tour Director
Extraordinaire. Or so I'd thought. I had just begun to believe my first solo
stint in Europe was a roaring success when we got lost in the medina—the
ancient walled city—in Tangier.
"Let's stop here for a
moment," I called to my tour group.
While they assembled, I glanced around
at the souk, the
market place within the city walls. It was a maze of tiny shops, tents, and
winding passageways crowded with Moroccans.
"I'm never going to find my way
out of here." I pulled out my cell phone and punched in my driver's
number. Mario knew the route and spoke Arabic, but he had gone to fix a flat
tire on our bus while I herded our fourteen tourists around the medina. That
was two hours ago.
No answer.
Harriet, this does not bode well for
your goal of a long and successful career in the tour business.
With the back of my hand, I swiped at
the perspiration popping out on my brow. "Please stay right here and don't
go anywhere. I'll be right back."
All of them smiled and nodded.
Grimacing, I hurried to one of the tea shops we had passed to look for someone
who spoke English. No luck. I was only gone for two or three minutes, I
swear—well, maybe it was five or six—but when I returned to the place where I
had left my tourists, they were gone.
This was not starting out to be a good
day.
"Mez Harri Boobies!" The
shrill cry sliced through the confusion of sweating bodies crowding the market.
An arm shot out of nowhere, and a brown hand clamped my wrist. I swallowed my
shriek of surprise. Tangier was rife with hands that grabbed at foreigners.
"Mez Harri Boobies, you come
queek," the man whispered in my ear. "Mezter Pillpot no good, yes?
You come."
"It's R-u-b-y, not Boobie."
I repeated my name for Mr. Takamura, one of the three almost-English-speaking
Japanese tourists in the small group I was directing through Spain and Morocco.
While my name was not destined to be in lights on Hollywood marquees, for the
past twenty-four years, it had served me well enough. I had a sentimental
attachment to it.
Without a reply, he released my arm.
Insinuating his slight body into the crush of street peddlers, dirty children,
and veiled ladies, he moved quickly out of sight. With a deep sigh, I tucked my
Adventure Seekers sign under my arm and followed him, devastated by the
foreboding that I would be nicknamed "Hairy Boobies" for the rest of
my career as a tour director, which might not be very long after this little
incident.
He penetrated farther into the ancient
market through twisted, narrow passageways filled with malodorous bodies and a
myriad of colors rippling in the heat—red, blue, amber, purple of clothing,
goods for sale, food, tents. In pursuit, I skirted white-robed Moroccans
bartering for goods, men sipping mint tea, and women painting the hands of
girls with rich sienna-colored henna. The humid air, replete with an exotic
mixture of scents—ginger, curry, rare perfumes, cigarette smoke, donkey
dung—stirred my senses. The crowd babbled in many languages, counterpoint to
the lilting melody of the seruani
pipes.
"Wait!" How in the world had
they gone this far in such a short time?
He hesitated for an instant, turned,
and waved. Then he disappeared again. Finally, Mr. Takamura stopped in a small
plaza with a colorful tiled fountain in the center, a calm refuge in the midst
of chaos. In stray beams of sunlight, tiny motes of dust danced in the thick
atmosphere. The Japanese gentleman waited for me to catch up, then smiled and
bowed.
My gaze followed his nod. "Ohmigod!"
Archibald Philpot of London, the
eldest and most distinguished of my tourists, knelt doubled over the lip of the
fountain, hurling his guts. Oh, boy.
My tourists—three American and two
Swedish couples and the other two Japanese—watched with helpless concern on
their faces while a growing knot of Moroccans glared at us, mayhem glinting
in their dark eyes.
The disbelief and thin-lipped anger on
their faces indicated they were not pleased about the desecration of what was
probably their water supply. I couldn't blame them. This could get dicey. A
drop of sweat dribbled into my eye.
Edith Johnson, a ditzy fiftyish blonde
trying to look thirty, was the first to see me. She clapped her hand to her
bosom and cried, "Thank goodness you're here, Harriet. Do something."
Who, me?
I dropped down beside Archie. His
complexion was grayish-green, his rheumy eyes were glazed over, and by the
stench, I guessed the poor man might have a case of diarrhea. My stomach
heaved. Swallowing hard, I managed to maintain my tour director decorum. This
was definitely not in my job description.
***
Author bio
R.
Ann Siracusa is a California girl who earned her Bachelor of Architecture
degree from UC Berkeley, then went immediately to Rome, Italy. On her first day
there, she met an Italian policeman at the Fountain of Love, and the rest is
history. Instead of a degree from the University of Rome, she got a husband,
and they've been married going on fifty years. In Rome, she worked for as an
architect and planner for a land development company for several years until
she and her husband moved to the US.
Now
retired, she combines her passions—world
travel and writing—into
novels which transport readers to exotic settings, immerse them in romance,
intrigue, and foreign cultures, and make them laugh.
Her
first novel, a post WWII mafia thriller, was published in 2008. She now writes for Breathless Press which has published five books in
the romantic suspense series, Tour Director Extraordinaire, one sci-fi romance,
a time-travel romance, and three short stories.
She loves to
hear from her readers and can be contacted through her website, Facebook,
Twitter, or Google Plus.
