Reviewer Frost Interviews
Dark Castle Goddess
Author Kate Hofman
..........Frost's
Freeze.........
Kate Hofman is a very special author with a very engaging personality and a quality of humility I’ve not often seen anywhere-in publishing
or elsewhere. Kate has a wonderful success story to share, and we hope her successes in writing and publishing will continue on into the
distant future.
1} Kate, you shared with me that while still unpublished you wrote an amazing 25 novels in about 5 years, and then had three
simultaneous acceptances at one publisher. That’s incredible! Please tell us more about your amazing success story.
Well, you realize I’m a widow, and have lots of time to write. So I wrote and wrote, with no thought of ever being
published. I wrote because there were all these stories in my head, and I needed to tell them. Jennifer Mueller, a fabulous
writer and a friend of mine, said that it was high time I submitted something. I did it to please her, expecting a hopefully polite
refusal, but standing by for a derisory rejection. And then Romance At Heart accepted the three I sent… No one more
surprised than I. I had also sent one to Awe-Struck, and that was accepted too. It will be published in Feb 2008. Then, Jennifer
said she thought The Dark Castle Lords and I would be a good fit. She knew I had written a Castle story and suggested I send
it in. That was Castle In Spain, March 2007. They asked for more, and accepted Enchanted Castle, Gabriel’s Quest For Love,
and A Marriage of Convenience. EC came out Sept 11, GQFL will be published Sept 20, and AMOC early Oct. I’m just putting
the finishing touches for them to a trio of books, not sequels, but they are loosely tied. TRIANGLE OF LOVE is the umbrella
title.
2} From your books, it seems that your focus is on romance, true love, affairs of the heart rather than of the flesh. Is this your outlook in
“real life,” as well? Do you also believe in happily ever after endings, or at least happy endings, for real-life folks?
I think that may be because in my own life I was lucky enough to find true love, and the affairs of the heart I had before I
met and married my husband, were indeed more of the heart, than of the flesh. I can’t imagine myself shacking up for lots of
sex.. I’ve always preferred quality over quantity.
But I like describing the sensuality between H/h.
Yes, I believe in happy endings – and afters – in real life. It depends on the attitude of the protagonists. If they take the
trouble to get to know each other a bit more than knowing which brand of booze the other prefers, if they’re willing to invest
some time… Trouble is, a lot of people don’t seem to want to bother. Well, if they’re happy with one night stands, or very
brief flings, then that’s all they’ll get, because that is the impression they convey to others. If they secretly long for
something more meaningful, then they have to consider their attitude and wonder whether perhaps a change might be
indicated. Hey, listen, even the best-matched couple can break up after some time, love is not an exact science, it is a very
risky subject.
3} Of the books you’ve had published, or have contracted to be published {if you can include these}, do you have one or more favourites?
If so, which, and why?
Yes, of course I have. I’m sure we writers all do. I loved writing Tony (the Conde Antonio de Ortega de Andrade y de
Valdés) of CASTLE IN SPAIN, a complex man, reserved, reticent, intensely private, but with a wicked sense of humour, and a
fabulous lover….
An unusual hero was Jim Blackhawk, Navajo, a painter (not sand-paintings, but landscape painting), of NAVAJO DREAMS. I
loved writing him because I got to revisit, in my head, Arizona, particularly Sedona, the Navajo Nation, where I loved it. In
preparation for my trip, I learned some of the Navajo language, wondering if I’d be understood if I didn’t know some of their
language. In the event, they spoke excellent English, but were tickled that I’d taken the trouble to try to learn their beautiful
and quite difficult language. Some of the people I met there are my friends still.
On reflection, I seem to have a penchant for painters. But then, I owned and operated an art gallery for twelve years, and
loved it. And they say: Write what you know, right? Gabriel is a painter, he is the most beautiful man the heroine has ever
seen (hey, I’m writing him, I can make him as gorgeous as I want). But he has a spectacular temper, which causes a number
of problems as we follow Gabriel and Tasha’s progress.
Most of all, I loved writing my first hero, Adam Stewart, a writer of serious fiction, who wins the Nobel Lit. in the Epilogue. I
fell in love with him and couldn’t stop writing… I called the book simply Adam & Mimi. When I had 841 pp. in 1.5 spacing, I
forced myself to write an Epilogue. I missed Adam so much, I immediately started another book, where he was he best friend
of the hero… Later, I reduced the 841 pp to something over 600, still more of a doorstop than a book. I’ll never publish it, that’
s obvious. But I’m still a little in love with Adam…
4} Your novels take readers “all over the world”: Greece, Spain, Arizona, and other wonderful locales. Do you research live? Books?
Internet? Other travelers?
Writing about Europe comes naturally to me, I was born in The Netherlands, we moved to England when I was eighteen.
Bear in mind how small Europe is, compared to North America! It’s hardly worth flying to most places, the trains are
excellent, and as young tourists, we made sure to travel overnight, it saved the cost of a hotel room… When you’re twenty,
you can sleep anyplace, a soft floorboard is luxury.
In my twenties, I moved to Montreal, I figured I might as well be paid for being fluent in French… I have researched live, in
the past, and now I Google whenever my recollection is not quite so sure, although in my family I’m known for my
photographic and audio memory. If I need to research a particular place, I rely on the AAA tour books, they are excellent for
refreshing the memory.
Sometimes an unknown locale is necessary – e.g. Hungary in CASTLE IN SPAIN, where the heroine visits a college friend.
Jennifer Mueller found some Hungarian Internet sites for me, which were helpful, and had quite a few Hungarian words,
which went straight into my book. I don’t much like reading other people’s take on this or that country, it’s too subjective to
be useful to me. I need a cooler view, on which I can build.
I am fortunate in having a Greek friend, a young Greek-American lawyer, who is so generous with her knowledge of
Greek, explaining the whys and wherefores of the language, so that I do not make the mistakes that are sometimes made. I
am a language nut, and getting the words right is very important to me. I prefer writers who say, “He bit out a truly awful
Greek curse,” instead of cobbling together something that sounds ‘Greek’, but isn’t.
I have some DVDs of Greece, and they help me get into the right mood for describing landscape, a trip, the colour of the
Ægean…
5} Are any of your Heroes your favourite? Would you like to find someone like him {or them} in person? Tell us why, please?
Yes, I love all my heroes – I don’t think you can write about a man you sort-of like. Well, you can, but he won’t come to life.
A friend of mine once decided to write a Romance about an ‘ordinary’ guy and a very ‘ordinary’ girl.
It was a tour de force, her fellow writers greatly admired it, but she couldn’t find a publisher. They said categorically that no
one wanted to read about a pudgy fellow, 5’8” with thinning sandy hair and bad skin, a man who had just lost his job and
whose car had broken down in front of a seedy garage. The girl behind the counter is equally unprepossessing, yet these
two fall in love. The writing was stunning, but one felt oddly depressed at the end of the story. That is why Romance is
successful when it is pure escapism. That is why all my heroes are total hunks, and when I’m writing them I’m a little bit in
love with them. At the moment, I am writing THE GREEK PRINCE’S LOVE AFFAIR. It’s set in 1949, a challenge from Jennifer
Mueller, who said, ‘You’ve got to do something different, just to show you can’. The period is interesting because the Greek
Civil War was 1946-48/9, so I had ‘the other side’ issue a death threat against the prince. When the story begins, he is in exile
in France (he is French on his mother’s side) and longing to get back to Greece. I love him!
And yes, I once found someone exactly like my heroes, and we were married very happily for 31 years, then he died, too
young. I think there might be a slight touch of him in all my heroes; some have character traits that I admired in him, some
his looks, but that is not done consciously. He was a very handsome man, slim, jet black hair, hazel eyes, 6’2”. Everybody
always asked me how I ‘got’ him – so humiliating, no one ever asked him how he got me…
6} And heroines: favourites among these ladies? If so, why?
Well, let’s see. Of course ‘Mimi’ of the never to be published ADAM & MIMI. She was widowed after a couple of years in a
truly horrendous marriage, but then she met Adam, gorgeous Adam. As I was writing him, I became more and more
interested in his mind, his character, and his stunning exterior became less important. So it is also in real life. Have you ever
been friends with someone truly gorgeous? After a while, you don’t ‘see’ the stunning person any more. It is the personality
that matters. Conversely, you can meet someone who is no great shakes in the looks department, but after a brief while you
totally forget his looks, because he is witty, charming, amusing, loyal, honest, etc. And that is what you see.
I write heroines with whom I’d like to be friends. Cara, from A Marriage of Convenience, is a particular favourite of mine,
but I don’t spend as much time on the women as I do on the men. Again, many of my novels are written from the male POV,
rather than the female’s. I’m more interested in the man’s reaction, and it seems this interests my readers too. Of course,
they are women, they already know the woman’s POV. I don’t spend a lot of time on their clothes. For men, dark Armani at
night, white shirts, subtle ties; casual during the day – chinos and a cashmere V-neck sweater; minuscule swimwear.
Oh, and they sleep nude. For women, I chicken out with ‘classic’ suits, or an elegant ankle-length stem of a dress for formal.
If you get too specific, you tend to date the H/h too much. “Burgundy chiffon? Gimmeabreak. That’s so ‘90s.” See what I
mean?
7} Now the question almost every author receives: where do you get your ideas?
They just come to me. It’s what I hear in my head. I started writing, at the insistence of Nina Bruhns, that wonderful writer,
with whom I had become friendly. After we had been emailing for some time, she said, You should write.
I thought she was just being polite, but she kept on at me, and finally on April 22, 2002, I sat down at my computer, it was 5 o’
clock. I have never experienced anything more daunting than that totally blank space – which was exactly what my mind
was, too. Totally blank. And then, some memories began to drift in, from when I was in my twenties and deeply in love with a
gorgeous man. And I slowly typed the title: Will and Kiki – our names. By one o’clock in the morning, I had 13 pages, single
space. It was largely autobiographical, at least the first half was. This was a love affair that didn’t end so well, for either of us.
But of course, when I was writing the story I could see how, with a little tweak here and there, it could be made to end
happily. If only life itself were that easily tweaked, right?
Mostly, new ideas hit me as I’m about ¾ through the book I’m writing.
Suddenly other, different people start elbowing my present H/h out of the way trying to get my attention. At times there are
several such couples at once, clamouring away. Usually, at that point, I take a moment to see which of these ideas I am
interested in. Then, I think I’d better jot down a quick synopsis. That’s the thin end of the wedge – next, I find myself trying a
chapter or two, just to see if it will work. Of course, I know already that it will, but the temptation is too strong. Then, I have to
drag myself by the hair back to the novel I need to finish. The hardest part… Usually I stop when I don’t hear anything in my
head any more.
I think I’m lucky – I’ve lived in various countries, travelled abroad, am fluent in four languages, get by in a couple of others.
So there’s always a lot to choose from, and when I suddenly decide the ideal setting for these two people would be Spain, or
Greece, at least I can place them there easily, without having to research even the most basic things.
8} Do you base your characters on real-life people you know, or are they primarily the product of an active imagination?
Mostly, my characters started up in my head, and became more and more real. When they are really-real, I start thinking
consciously about them, what they are likely to want to do, whom they’d like to meet, and so on. There are some character
traits from people close to me, which are fun to attribute to the imaginary person. Sometimes a physical attribute. I have a
friend with a spectacular bustline, and I enjoyed writing a friend of the heroine with this characteristic. The fun comes when
the hero can’t prevent himself from staring down this impressive cleavage, and the heroine catches him at it. Let him do a
little explaining…
When I lived in London, England, I had a cockney cleaning woman (they call themselves cleaning ladies) who had some of
the characteristics I gave the cockney housekeeper in Enchanted Castle. Mind you, you can’t simply put the living person
into the story ‘as is,’ you have to refine and change and tweak and play with the raw material until you have what you need.
An actress, who is really deeply upset at her lover’s leaving her, can’t go onstage and emote for all she is worth. Although it
is real, it doesn’t seem to be, it seems grossly overdone. Things need to be filtered before they can be used in writing, acting.
9} Of the novels you haven’t yet written, do you have plans for some special locale, plot, characters?
No, I never plan ahead. When someone starts pushing my present hero out of the way, he usually tells me where he is
from, what he does, what he looks like. Would I like to write a special locale – yes, Argentina has an attraction for me, so has
Brazil, and Australia. But I’m no longer well enough to spend 24 hours in an airplane to fly to Australia, alas. Brazil and
Argentina would be easier, but my Portuguese is minimal, and I doubt my carefully enunciated language school Spanish
would get me very far in Argentina. So they will just remain dreams.
Plots? I used to start a carefully worked out synopsis, only to find that, by p. 2, the characters told me they wanted to do
something quite different, and the entire synopsis went phfffft. Now, I start writing with the initial idea, and as I write, more
ideas come. For instance, with my Greek Prince, I had planned a wedding celebration, and was busy writing it, only to find
the heroine objecting to the Prince agreeing that his best friend could bring a young woman who had grievously offended the
heroine, something the Prince was aware of. Ah, he had to learn something. He is a Prince, of course, but when he is alone
with her, he is a man. And he has to learn that, in the privacy of their life together, they are equals. This is quite a novelty for
him, of course. Suddenly, the wedding looks like being put off, indefinitely even, until the Prince learns this important lesson.
Now, at no time did I plan this twist of the plot. It evolved naturally out of what I was writing. That’s how plots shape
themselves for me.
1o} From chatting with you via email and from reading your web sites, I know you have a few special authors you extol. Please tell our
readers who these writers are, and why they’re so important to you.
Nina Bruhns is a truly exceptional writer. When I read one of her books, there isn’t a superfluous word anywhere; she
writes so densely, no loose ends, idle chatter, no. Everything has its precise place in the story, the plot. I love that.
Jennifer Mueller is, to my mind, the most astonishing talent I’ve ever come across. A lot of writers are happy to help each
other out, with thoughts about the plot development, with information about the period she’s writing about, just nitpicking
what she has written so far, all typos removed, that sort of thing. Jennifer’s given me invaluable insights in pursuing an angle
I hadn’t thought of on many an occasion. Plus she’s designed all my covers except those for The Dark Castle Lords, who
have their Castle Lords to grace the covers.
She doesn’t need my input with her plots… All I can do for her is nitpick. When Jennifer sends me something she is
working on for nitpicking, her characters make so strong an impression on me that I can’t write for hours. I am remembering
her story, her characters too vividly. That is an astonishing accomplishment – even though she doesn’t do it on purpose, of
course.
Which brings me to a point I never tire of making: John Irving is an author; Gore Vidal is an author; I’m a Romance writer.
When people call me an author, I squirm with embarrassment. I’m very far from being that.
Other authors I admire, apart from Nina and Jennifer: Kathleen Eagle, Thea Devine, P.D. James, Sheri WhiteFeather,
Sherman Alexie, Dorothy Parker, John LeCarré, to name but a few. I’m a voracious and eclectic reader.
11} For those of our readers who are also aspiring writers, do you have advice on writing? On marketing? On selling to publishers?
General advice and words of wisdom?
Write! Write every day of your life. Even if you only write a couple of paragraphs you are none too happy about, and you
uneasily suspect you’ll ditch them the next day. But do it: Write! I’m not much for reading books on how to learn to write,
although some find it useful. That’s a decision you have to make for yourself. I think that if you keep on writing, you’ll
discover your own style, your voice; what ‘fits’ you. Oh, you’ll make mistakes, we all do, and continue to. If you’ve written a
story, put it away for a month, say. Then pick it up again and read it, as if it were something you just picked up off the book
rack at the drug store. As if someone else had written it. You’ll see some of your mistakes right then and there. Then read the
story out loud to yourself. You’ll find some more mistakes that way. Remember those mistakes, and promise yourself never
to make them again. You will, but you’re aware of them now, and you’ll make far fewer mistakes from now on.
I am not much help to people where marketing is concerned, because I was so lucky, when I submitted to Romance At
Heart, Awe-Struck and The Dark Castle Lords, they accepted what I sent them. Of course, eBooks are comparatively easy to
market. If one of my novels is 50,000 words, and the next one is 75,000 words, no one even blinks.
Never, never do what I once heard one of these ‘guru’ types suggest: She told her audience to pick a publisher they liked,
then read a lot of the books he published, and then try to write like that. Excuse me?
I think what you might do is check out the publishers whose books you have an affinity for, read their guidelines for new
authors. Ask yourself if you could write the kind of story they are interested in. If you answer yourself ‘no’ or even ‘not really’
– try another publisher. You and your publisher need to be a good fit, otherwise the relationship is going to be very tenuous.
You can only write as you must; you can’t write differently to please a publisher. You can’t. Trust me.
If you think a certain publisher would suit you, find out when they have a period open for submissions. Then send a
synopsis and the first 3 chapters of your book. Some publishers require 4 chapters plus the last chapter. And then you wait.
Again, I was very lucky, I heard from Romance At Heart within a week, and from The Dark Castle Lords the same day, asking
to send the whole manuscript. That’s a dizzy moment, but bear in mind they could still tell you they don’t think it is their kind
of book. Don’t let that discourage you: it is based on the opinion of the slush-pile reader who got yours to read. That’s the
opinion of one person. Sometimes, the publisher is generous enough to point out why they won’t be able to accept it. A
friend of mine got her book refused with the explanation that it was too long, at 50,000; the publisher liked books of 40-45,000
words, hers had too much plot and not enough sex and frothy flirtation. Well, once you realize this publisher wants a short
book of mindless porn, then you’ll feel a lot better about the rejection; you might even be proud…
Believe in your work! If you don’t, how can you expect others to?
Kate, thank you so much for your time. You’re a wonderful person and I’m very thankful that I, and my readers, can “meet” you!
Kate’s work and thoughts can be viewed at
http://romancenroses.com/katesworld/
and
http://rahpubs.com/catalog/index.php?manufacturers_id=42&osCsid=304a1f38dd5b9bdc784b9d0329ccb5f2
Enchanted Castle, Gabriel’s Quest for Love, and A Marriage of Convenience have been
Reviewed by Frost
Stay tuned for reviews of
Castle in Spain
A Greek Love Story
Greek Fire
And
Navajo Dreams
Dark Castle Goddess
Author Kate Hofman
..........Frost's
Freeze.........
Kate Hofman is a very special author with a very engaging personality and a quality of humility I’ve not often seen anywhere-in publishing
or elsewhere. Kate has a wonderful success story to share, and we hope her successes in writing and publishing will continue on into the
distant future.
1} Kate, you shared with me that while still unpublished you wrote an amazing 25 novels in about 5 years, and then had three
simultaneous acceptances at one publisher. That’s incredible! Please tell us more about your amazing success story.
Well, you realize I’m a widow, and have lots of time to write. So I wrote and wrote, with no thought of ever being
published. I wrote because there were all these stories in my head, and I needed to tell them. Jennifer Mueller, a fabulous
writer and a friend of mine, said that it was high time I submitted something. I did it to please her, expecting a hopefully polite
refusal, but standing by for a derisory rejection. And then Romance At Heart accepted the three I sent… No one more
surprised than I. I had also sent one to Awe-Struck, and that was accepted too. It will be published in Feb 2008. Then, Jennifer
said she thought The Dark Castle Lords and I would be a good fit. She knew I had written a Castle story and suggested I send
it in. That was Castle In Spain, March 2007. They asked for more, and accepted Enchanted Castle, Gabriel’s Quest For Love,
and A Marriage of Convenience. EC came out Sept 11, GQFL will be published Sept 20, and AMOC early Oct. I’m just putting
the finishing touches for them to a trio of books, not sequels, but they are loosely tied. TRIANGLE OF LOVE is the umbrella
title.
2} From your books, it seems that your focus is on romance, true love, affairs of the heart rather than of the flesh. Is this your outlook in
“real life,” as well? Do you also believe in happily ever after endings, or at least happy endings, for real-life folks?
I think that may be because in my own life I was lucky enough to find true love, and the affairs of the heart I had before I
met and married my husband, were indeed more of the heart, than of the flesh. I can’t imagine myself shacking up for lots of
sex.. I’ve always preferred quality over quantity.
But I like describing the sensuality between H/h.
Yes, I believe in happy endings – and afters – in real life. It depends on the attitude of the protagonists. If they take the
trouble to get to know each other a bit more than knowing which brand of booze the other prefers, if they’re willing to invest
some time… Trouble is, a lot of people don’t seem to want to bother. Well, if they’re happy with one night stands, or very
brief flings, then that’s all they’ll get, because that is the impression they convey to others. If they secretly long for
something more meaningful, then they have to consider their attitude and wonder whether perhaps a change might be
indicated. Hey, listen, even the best-matched couple can break up after some time, love is not an exact science, it is a very
risky subject.
3} Of the books you’ve had published, or have contracted to be published {if you can include these}, do you have one or more favourites?
If so, which, and why?
Yes, of course I have. I’m sure we writers all do. I loved writing Tony (the Conde Antonio de Ortega de Andrade y de
Valdés) of CASTLE IN SPAIN, a complex man, reserved, reticent, intensely private, but with a wicked sense of humour, and a
fabulous lover….
An unusual hero was Jim Blackhawk, Navajo, a painter (not sand-paintings, but landscape painting), of NAVAJO DREAMS. I
loved writing him because I got to revisit, in my head, Arizona, particularly Sedona, the Navajo Nation, where I loved it. In
preparation for my trip, I learned some of the Navajo language, wondering if I’d be understood if I didn’t know some of their
language. In the event, they spoke excellent English, but were tickled that I’d taken the trouble to try to learn their beautiful
and quite difficult language. Some of the people I met there are my friends still.
On reflection, I seem to have a penchant for painters. But then, I owned and operated an art gallery for twelve years, and
loved it. And they say: Write what you know, right? Gabriel is a painter, he is the most beautiful man the heroine has ever
seen (hey, I’m writing him, I can make him as gorgeous as I want). But he has a spectacular temper, which causes a number
of problems as we follow Gabriel and Tasha’s progress.
Most of all, I loved writing my first hero, Adam Stewart, a writer of serious fiction, who wins the Nobel Lit. in the Epilogue. I
fell in love with him and couldn’t stop writing… I called the book simply Adam & Mimi. When I had 841 pp. in 1.5 spacing, I
forced myself to write an Epilogue. I missed Adam so much, I immediately started another book, where he was he best friend
of the hero… Later, I reduced the 841 pp to something over 600, still more of a doorstop than a book. I’ll never publish it, that’
s obvious. But I’m still a little in love with Adam…
4} Your novels take readers “all over the world”: Greece, Spain, Arizona, and other wonderful locales. Do you research live? Books?
Internet? Other travelers?
Writing about Europe comes naturally to me, I was born in The Netherlands, we moved to England when I was eighteen.
Bear in mind how small Europe is, compared to North America! It’s hardly worth flying to most places, the trains are
excellent, and as young tourists, we made sure to travel overnight, it saved the cost of a hotel room… When you’re twenty,
you can sleep anyplace, a soft floorboard is luxury.
In my twenties, I moved to Montreal, I figured I might as well be paid for being fluent in French… I have researched live, in
the past, and now I Google whenever my recollection is not quite so sure, although in my family I’m known for my
photographic and audio memory. If I need to research a particular place, I rely on the AAA tour books, they are excellent for
refreshing the memory.
Sometimes an unknown locale is necessary – e.g. Hungary in CASTLE IN SPAIN, where the heroine visits a college friend.
Jennifer Mueller found some Hungarian Internet sites for me, which were helpful, and had quite a few Hungarian words,
which went straight into my book. I don’t much like reading other people’s take on this or that country, it’s too subjective to
be useful to me. I need a cooler view, on which I can build.
I am fortunate in having a Greek friend, a young Greek-American lawyer, who is so generous with her knowledge of
Greek, explaining the whys and wherefores of the language, so that I do not make the mistakes that are sometimes made. I
am a language nut, and getting the words right is very important to me. I prefer writers who say, “He bit out a truly awful
Greek curse,” instead of cobbling together something that sounds ‘Greek’, but isn’t.
I have some DVDs of Greece, and they help me get into the right mood for describing landscape, a trip, the colour of the
Ægean…
5} Are any of your Heroes your favourite? Would you like to find someone like him {or them} in person? Tell us why, please?
Yes, I love all my heroes – I don’t think you can write about a man you sort-of like. Well, you can, but he won’t come to life.
A friend of mine once decided to write a Romance about an ‘ordinary’ guy and a very ‘ordinary’ girl.
It was a tour de force, her fellow writers greatly admired it, but she couldn’t find a publisher. They said categorically that no
one wanted to read about a pudgy fellow, 5’8” with thinning sandy hair and bad skin, a man who had just lost his job and
whose car had broken down in front of a seedy garage. The girl behind the counter is equally unprepossessing, yet these
two fall in love. The writing was stunning, but one felt oddly depressed at the end of the story. That is why Romance is
successful when it is pure escapism. That is why all my heroes are total hunks, and when I’m writing them I’m a little bit in
love with them. At the moment, I am writing THE GREEK PRINCE’S LOVE AFFAIR. It’s set in 1949, a challenge from Jennifer
Mueller, who said, ‘You’ve got to do something different, just to show you can’. The period is interesting because the Greek
Civil War was 1946-48/9, so I had ‘the other side’ issue a death threat against the prince. When the story begins, he is in exile
in France (he is French on his mother’s side) and longing to get back to Greece. I love him!
And yes, I once found someone exactly like my heroes, and we were married very happily for 31 years, then he died, too
young. I think there might be a slight touch of him in all my heroes; some have character traits that I admired in him, some
his looks, but that is not done consciously. He was a very handsome man, slim, jet black hair, hazel eyes, 6’2”. Everybody
always asked me how I ‘got’ him – so humiliating, no one ever asked him how he got me…
6} And heroines: favourites among these ladies? If so, why?
Well, let’s see. Of course ‘Mimi’ of the never to be published ADAM & MIMI. She was widowed after a couple of years in a
truly horrendous marriage, but then she met Adam, gorgeous Adam. As I was writing him, I became more and more
interested in his mind, his character, and his stunning exterior became less important. So it is also in real life. Have you ever
been friends with someone truly gorgeous? After a while, you don’t ‘see’ the stunning person any more. It is the personality
that matters. Conversely, you can meet someone who is no great shakes in the looks department, but after a brief while you
totally forget his looks, because he is witty, charming, amusing, loyal, honest, etc. And that is what you see.
I write heroines with whom I’d like to be friends. Cara, from A Marriage of Convenience, is a particular favourite of mine,
but I don’t spend as much time on the women as I do on the men. Again, many of my novels are written from the male POV,
rather than the female’s. I’m more interested in the man’s reaction, and it seems this interests my readers too. Of course,
they are women, they already know the woman’s POV. I don’t spend a lot of time on their clothes. For men, dark Armani at
night, white shirts, subtle ties; casual during the day – chinos and a cashmere V-neck sweater; minuscule swimwear.
Oh, and they sleep nude. For women, I chicken out with ‘classic’ suits, or an elegant ankle-length stem of a dress for formal.
If you get too specific, you tend to date the H/h too much. “Burgundy chiffon? Gimmeabreak. That’s so ‘90s.” See what I
mean?
7} Now the question almost every author receives: where do you get your ideas?
They just come to me. It’s what I hear in my head. I started writing, at the insistence of Nina Bruhns, that wonderful writer,
with whom I had become friendly. After we had been emailing for some time, she said, You should write.
I thought she was just being polite, but she kept on at me, and finally on April 22, 2002, I sat down at my computer, it was 5 o’
clock. I have never experienced anything more daunting than that totally blank space – which was exactly what my mind
was, too. Totally blank. And then, some memories began to drift in, from when I was in my twenties and deeply in love with a
gorgeous man. And I slowly typed the title: Will and Kiki – our names. By one o’clock in the morning, I had 13 pages, single
space. It was largely autobiographical, at least the first half was. This was a love affair that didn’t end so well, for either of us.
But of course, when I was writing the story I could see how, with a little tweak here and there, it could be made to end
happily. If only life itself were that easily tweaked, right?
Mostly, new ideas hit me as I’m about ¾ through the book I’m writing.
Suddenly other, different people start elbowing my present H/h out of the way trying to get my attention. At times there are
several such couples at once, clamouring away. Usually, at that point, I take a moment to see which of these ideas I am
interested in. Then, I think I’d better jot down a quick synopsis. That’s the thin end of the wedge – next, I find myself trying a
chapter or two, just to see if it will work. Of course, I know already that it will, but the temptation is too strong. Then, I have to
drag myself by the hair back to the novel I need to finish. The hardest part… Usually I stop when I don’t hear anything in my
head any more.
I think I’m lucky – I’ve lived in various countries, travelled abroad, am fluent in four languages, get by in a couple of others.
So there’s always a lot to choose from, and when I suddenly decide the ideal setting for these two people would be Spain, or
Greece, at least I can place them there easily, without having to research even the most basic things.
8} Do you base your characters on real-life people you know, or are they primarily the product of an active imagination?
Mostly, my characters started up in my head, and became more and more real. When they are really-real, I start thinking
consciously about them, what they are likely to want to do, whom they’d like to meet, and so on. There are some character
traits from people close to me, which are fun to attribute to the imaginary person. Sometimes a physical attribute. I have a
friend with a spectacular bustline, and I enjoyed writing a friend of the heroine with this characteristic. The fun comes when
the hero can’t prevent himself from staring down this impressive cleavage, and the heroine catches him at it. Let him do a
little explaining…
When I lived in London, England, I had a cockney cleaning woman (they call themselves cleaning ladies) who had some of
the characteristics I gave the cockney housekeeper in Enchanted Castle. Mind you, you can’t simply put the living person
into the story ‘as is,’ you have to refine and change and tweak and play with the raw material until you have what you need.
An actress, who is really deeply upset at her lover’s leaving her, can’t go onstage and emote for all she is worth. Although it
is real, it doesn’t seem to be, it seems grossly overdone. Things need to be filtered before they can be used in writing, acting.
9} Of the novels you haven’t yet written, do you have plans for some special locale, plot, characters?
No, I never plan ahead. When someone starts pushing my present hero out of the way, he usually tells me where he is
from, what he does, what he looks like. Would I like to write a special locale – yes, Argentina has an attraction for me, so has
Brazil, and Australia. But I’m no longer well enough to spend 24 hours in an airplane to fly to Australia, alas. Brazil and
Argentina would be easier, but my Portuguese is minimal, and I doubt my carefully enunciated language school Spanish
would get me very far in Argentina. So they will just remain dreams.
Plots? I used to start a carefully worked out synopsis, only to find that, by p. 2, the characters told me they wanted to do
something quite different, and the entire synopsis went phfffft. Now, I start writing with the initial idea, and as I write, more
ideas come. For instance, with my Greek Prince, I had planned a wedding celebration, and was busy writing it, only to find
the heroine objecting to the Prince agreeing that his best friend could bring a young woman who had grievously offended the
heroine, something the Prince was aware of. Ah, he had to learn something. He is a Prince, of course, but when he is alone
with her, he is a man. And he has to learn that, in the privacy of their life together, they are equals. This is quite a novelty for
him, of course. Suddenly, the wedding looks like being put off, indefinitely even, until the Prince learns this important lesson.
Now, at no time did I plan this twist of the plot. It evolved naturally out of what I was writing. That’s how plots shape
themselves for me.
1o} From chatting with you via email and from reading your web sites, I know you have a few special authors you extol. Please tell our
readers who these writers are, and why they’re so important to you.
Nina Bruhns is a truly exceptional writer. When I read one of her books, there isn’t a superfluous word anywhere; she
writes so densely, no loose ends, idle chatter, no. Everything has its precise place in the story, the plot. I love that.
Jennifer Mueller is, to my mind, the most astonishing talent I’ve ever come across. A lot of writers are happy to help each
other out, with thoughts about the plot development, with information about the period she’s writing about, just nitpicking
what she has written so far, all typos removed, that sort of thing. Jennifer’s given me invaluable insights in pursuing an angle
I hadn’t thought of on many an occasion. Plus she’s designed all my covers except those for The Dark Castle Lords, who
have their Castle Lords to grace the covers.
She doesn’t need my input with her plots… All I can do for her is nitpick. When Jennifer sends me something she is
working on for nitpicking, her characters make so strong an impression on me that I can’t write for hours. I am remembering
her story, her characters too vividly. That is an astonishing accomplishment – even though she doesn’t do it on purpose, of
course.
Which brings me to a point I never tire of making: John Irving is an author; Gore Vidal is an author; I’m a Romance writer.
When people call me an author, I squirm with embarrassment. I’m very far from being that.
Other authors I admire, apart from Nina and Jennifer: Kathleen Eagle, Thea Devine, P.D. James, Sheri WhiteFeather,
Sherman Alexie, Dorothy Parker, John LeCarré, to name but a few. I’m a voracious and eclectic reader.
11} For those of our readers who are also aspiring writers, do you have advice on writing? On marketing? On selling to publishers?
General advice and words of wisdom?
Write! Write every day of your life. Even if you only write a couple of paragraphs you are none too happy about, and you
uneasily suspect you’ll ditch them the next day. But do it: Write! I’m not much for reading books on how to learn to write,
although some find it useful. That’s a decision you have to make for yourself. I think that if you keep on writing, you’ll
discover your own style, your voice; what ‘fits’ you. Oh, you’ll make mistakes, we all do, and continue to. If you’ve written a
story, put it away for a month, say. Then pick it up again and read it, as if it were something you just picked up off the book
rack at the drug store. As if someone else had written it. You’ll see some of your mistakes right then and there. Then read the
story out loud to yourself. You’ll find some more mistakes that way. Remember those mistakes, and promise yourself never
to make them again. You will, but you’re aware of them now, and you’ll make far fewer mistakes from now on.
I am not much help to people where marketing is concerned, because I was so lucky, when I submitted to Romance At
Heart, Awe-Struck and The Dark Castle Lords, they accepted what I sent them. Of course, eBooks are comparatively easy to
market. If one of my novels is 50,000 words, and the next one is 75,000 words, no one even blinks.
Never, never do what I once heard one of these ‘guru’ types suggest: She told her audience to pick a publisher they liked,
then read a lot of the books he published, and then try to write like that. Excuse me?
I think what you might do is check out the publishers whose books you have an affinity for, read their guidelines for new
authors. Ask yourself if you could write the kind of story they are interested in. If you answer yourself ‘no’ or even ‘not really’
– try another publisher. You and your publisher need to be a good fit, otherwise the relationship is going to be very tenuous.
You can only write as you must; you can’t write differently to please a publisher. You can’t. Trust me.
If you think a certain publisher would suit you, find out when they have a period open for submissions. Then send a
synopsis and the first 3 chapters of your book. Some publishers require 4 chapters plus the last chapter. And then you wait.
Again, I was very lucky, I heard from Romance At Heart within a week, and from The Dark Castle Lords the same day, asking
to send the whole manuscript. That’s a dizzy moment, but bear in mind they could still tell you they don’t think it is their kind
of book. Don’t let that discourage you: it is based on the opinion of the slush-pile reader who got yours to read. That’s the
opinion of one person. Sometimes, the publisher is generous enough to point out why they won’t be able to accept it. A
friend of mine got her book refused with the explanation that it was too long, at 50,000; the publisher liked books of 40-45,000
words, hers had too much plot and not enough sex and frothy flirtation. Well, once you realize this publisher wants a short
book of mindless porn, then you’ll feel a lot better about the rejection; you might even be proud…
Believe in your work! If you don’t, how can you expect others to?
Kate, thank you so much for your time. You’re a wonderful person and I’m very thankful that I, and my readers, can “meet” you!
Kate’s work and thoughts can be viewed at
http://romancenroses.com/katesworld/
and
http://rahpubs.com/catalog/index.php?manufacturers_id=42&osCsid=304a1f38dd5b9bdc784b9d0329ccb5f2
Enchanted Castle, Gabriel’s Quest for Love, and A Marriage of Convenience have been
Reviewed by Frost
Stay tuned for reviews of
Castle in Spain
A Greek Love Story
Greek Fire
And
Navajo Dreams
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