Welcome to Writer Wednesday, a new weekly feature in which I’ll be introducing you to one new author (mostly romance, occasionally other genres).
First up in the line-up is the fabulous Katy Regnery, who knocks me off my feet not only with her amazing prolificacy (12 books in 12 months?), but with the superb quality of her work.
You want emotionally mesmerizing reads? Try her books! I highly recommend the English Brothers series.
Here she shares with us her answers to three questions:
1. Name one interesting thing you learned in researching/writing your last book.
The book I’m writing now – Never Let You Go (a modern fairytale #2) – has a character, Holden Croft, who fist fights other men for money. He’s in a pretty bad fight fairly early in the book, and to be realistic, I needed to choose injuries that were likely to happen between the combatants, then track the healing process over the ensuring weeks. If you go to the Wikipedia page that covers black eyes, they have a series of 10 pictures that shows the way a black eye heals over the course of 10 days. Using those pictures, I was able to describe Holden’s eyes in my book as a way of showing both healing and time lapse.
2. What fellow romance author do you recommend reading, and why?
Right now I am devoted to anything written by Mia Sheridan. Her book, Archer’s Voice, is a must-read, but I have to say that every book she writes – Stinger, Becoming Calder, Finding Eden, Kyland – are all phenomenal. She’s really committed to character development, her structure is solid and she always scares the crap out of me with a red herring. (ie: She leads you to think one thing, but clarifies it later in a way that isn’t a sell out.)
3. What one piece of advice do you wish you’d had when first starting out?
I was very swept away by my first offers (my first book, By Proxy, was offered publishing contracts by Harlequin, Astrea Press, Turquoise Morning Press and Boroughs Publishing) and I was so flattered, I didn’t take enough time to really think about what I wanted and what would be best for me as an author. I signed a contract, which quickly turned into eight contracts, and I was in way over my head before realizing that I wanted to be an indie author. It was a lot of work (655K words!) to complete those contracts, but I did it in 13 months and now I only publish indie.
Katy Regnery
Amazon Bestselling Author
Member, RWA PAN
www.katyregnery.com
www.facebook.com/KatyRegnery
www.twitter.com/KatyRegnery
Thanks so much for sharing, Katy! Check out Katy’s Amazon Page.
