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Interview - July 2007 Lori: Welcome Jane. Thank you for stepping into my spotlight this month. To start off, please tell us about yourself. Jane: I was born in Oklahoma City, but I'm a 20-year Texan and proud of it. I have a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Oklahoma in their Professional Writing program, after which I lost my mind and returned to college to get my pre-med rerquirements. Me, a doctor? Academically I could have handled it, but in every other way...aaack! I'm too much of an airhead for other people to be trusting their body parts to me. I met my husband when I was in college that second time around. He was transferred, and my plans changed. We've been married for 25 years. He's an engineer who, thankfully, is not an airhead. We have a daughter who's wrapping up her Master's degree this summer, and a highly intrusive kitty who is imposing her massive poundage on my lap as I write this. Lori: What inspired you to become a writer? Jane: After college, I didn't write again for 15 years. Then we got a computer, and I started in again. I joined Romance Writers of America in 1995 with the goal of getting a romance novel published. In 1999, I was a finalist for RWA's Golden Heart award, which honors the best unpublished manuscripts in a given year. An editor read my submission in the final round and bought the book, which was published in September 2000. Lori: How many books did you complete before you sold your first? Have all/any of them sold since? Jane: I completed only one manuscript before I wrote the one that sold. That first one is still under the bed. Where it shall remain. Lori: What changed most about your life as a direct result of selling that first book? Jane: Not much that was earth-shattering, although after a few books, I did quit my day job. That was a blessing, to say the least. After I became a romance author, I did come to realize something that I've never understood and probably never will. Otherwise intelligent people sometimes malign romance novels. If I hear the words "bodice ripper" one more time, I'm going nuts and taking hostages. Lori: Do you maintain a set schedule? Is there such a thing as a typical day for you? Jane: No on both counts. I couldn't adhere to a schedule if my life depended on it. I mean, who am I accountable to? Me? Like I'm going to make me do anything? As far as a typical day is concerned, I really don't have those, either. I'm the kind of person who, if I have to drive the same place every day, changes my route as often as possible. Doing the same things the same way every day bores the hell out of me. Lori: Do you set writing goals? Jane: What's the point? I never adhere to them. Some days I write two pages, some days ten. Setting goals is a worthy thing to do. I've just never been able to make myself adhere to them. Lori: Do you have any writing rituals? Jane: Yeah. Removing my cat from my lap every five minutes. Actually, I have to have my cup of cinnamon hazelnut coffee and my glass of Crystal Clear sparkling water (mixed berry flavor) before I can get started. Past that, anything can happen. Lori: Do you do a lot of up front plotting before you start or do you just dive in? Jane: Dive in? I take the plunge from 30,000 feet. Yeah, I have a plot up front because I sold the book on a synopsis and a few chapters. But that synopsis is a joke--I've never adhered to one very closely. The final book always varies greatly from what I first envisioned. Lori: Do you normally start with storyline or with character or with some combination of the two? Jane: Whatever happens to occur to me first. That could be a character, an inciting incident, a love scene, a setting. And then I build around it. I never write sequentially. Today I might be playing around with stuff that'll eventually be in Chapter 23, and tomorrow I'll be working on Chapter 2. And that might be only a few days after I start the book. I'm a "puzzle piece" writer. I never know what part of the puzzle I'll be working on from day to day. Lori: Do you find certain themes or character archetypes making recurring appearances in your stories. Jane: Yes, absolutely. Most of my books feature variations on two kinds of heroes: The alpha hero who commands any situation he's in, and the sexy charmer who uses his good looks and his charisma to get what he wants. The alpha guy is a man of few words. The charmer never shuts up. The alpha guy stirs up a lot of explosive conflict. The charmer stirs up a lot of sexy banter. I love both of these guys, so I cast them frequently. My July release that's available now, Hot Wheels and High Heels, features the alpha hero. My June 2008 release, Tall Tales and Wedding Veils, features the sexy charmer. As far the heroine for each hero, I go looking for the one woman who can get under his skin like no other, and she gets the part. Lori: Is there anything else you'd like to tell us about your process? Jane: Wasn't that weird enough? Lori: Do you have a favorite sub-genre as a writer? as a reader? Jane: Writer, reader, it's all the same. Just make me laugh. Lori: Is there a genre you haven't been published in yet that you'd like to try your hand at someday? Jane: Southern women's fiction that focuses on humorously dysfunctional families. Is that a genre? Lori: Do you have any advice to offer writers still striving toward publication? Jane: Take a good, hard look at the work you're producing. Can you honestly say that it's as good or better than the work you see on the shelf right now? It has to be, or you'll never make it. You have to look at your work dispassionately, recognize what it is about it that's not yet up to par, and work like hell to improve it. But if you can't see your shortcomings, or you refuse to listen to other people who are trying to point them out to you, you're going to have a rocky road to publication. Lori: Is there some piece of advice you received or bit of ‘conventional wisdom’ that you wish you had ignored? Jane: You know, I've been asked this question a couple of times before, and the truth is that I've never taken any advice and then wished I hadn't. I've just always been very careful who I listen to. Lori: What do you find to be the most rewarding thing about being a writer? What do you struggle with the most? Jane: The most rewarding thing is the people I've met. As a result of being a romance novelist and networking with other romance novelists, I have friends literally all over the world. I struggle the most with just the day-to-day aspect of getting the words down on the page in new, fresh, exciting ways. I'm a perfectionist, and I pride myself on surprising my readers with plots and characters they haven't seen a thousand times before. It's hard work! Lori: What are your hobbies, interests? Jane: I write. I hang out with other writers. I write. I hang out with my husband. I write. Rinse and repeat. Lori: Please tell us about your current project. Jane: Hot Wheels and High Heels (available now) is the story of a spoiled trophy wife who gets her life jerked out from under her when her husband sends her on a vacation with a friend, cashes in their assets, sells their house, embezzles $300,000 from his employer, and skips the country. She's left with nothing but the clothes in her luggage, her neurotic Chihuahua, and her beloved Mercedes Roadster. She, of course, wants to marry rich all over again, but who does she find herself falling for? The sexy ex-cop turned repossession agent who comes after her Mercedes. She hates blue collar men, and he hates high maintenance women. Instant conflict, instant fun. Here's a sneak peek at an interactive Flash presentation that was created for this book. It's not officially up yet--it'll be on the new website I have coming soon. But you can play with it now if you go to my Hot Wheels Flash Page and start clicking. You'll find all kinds of fun things! Lori: Tell us about plans for future books. Jane: Tall Tales and Wedding Veils will be released in June 2008. The hero is a sexy charmer who wakes up in Vegas--oops--married to an ultra-serious plain-Jane. But instead of getting the annulment they intended to, an unexpected series of events forces them to spend the next month pretending to be happy newlyweds. They're two people who couldn't be any more wrong for each other, or so they think... Lori: And before we close, tell us how your fans can get in touch with you. Jane: My website is at www.janegraves.com, and my email address is jane@janegraves.com. I'm a little behind on launching my new website, but it'll be up sometime soon. Watch for it!
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