Jenna Petersen writes Regency-set historicals for Avon, and erotic romance under the name Jess Michaels. In addition to writing, Jenna runs the Passionate Pen website, an amazing resource for romance authors. She’s recently joined the writers’ blog the Jaunty Quills. Desire Never Dies, the second book in her Lady Spies series, comes out December 26. Leave a pertinent comment on today’s post, and your name will be entered to win a copy of Jenna’s latest book (mailed out when Jenna gets her author copies).

Welcome to the Riskies, Jenna. Thanks for joining us.

1. You’ve been writing for a long time. What were your first books like? How did they differ from the ones you’ve published with Avon (as Jenna Petersen) and as an erotic author (as Jess Michaels)? What is the one piece of advice you would give an aspiring author?Do you plan on revisiting any of those earlier unpublished books and trying to get them published?

Hi Megan! Thanks for having me, Riskies! I’m excited to be here. I visit the blog every day. Yes, I started writing seriously in 1999, though I technically finished my first book in 1996. So coming up on 8 years seriously, I guess. I’ve always written historical romance. My first couple of books were quite dreadful, though (I sold my 10th historical manuscript). Clichéd and poorly plotted and no sense of place. Hopefully that has changed over the years. If no, just put me out of my misery now! There are a couple books in my ‘unsold backlist’, though, that I wouldn’t rule out revisiting. Though I’m having so much fun with new work now, that I’m not sure when or if that would happen. As for advice, most of my best advice is on my site for writers, The Passionate Pen, http://www.passionatepen.com

2. Which of your books is your favorite?

Of my own books? Mean question, Megan!! That’s like choosing which of your kids you like best. Um, I really love Desire Never Dies, and not just because it’s the book that’s out on December 26 and I want you all to buy it. I really loved watching my heroine’s (Anastasia) character grow and blossom. She starts out so unsure of herself and trapped in her own grief, and then she’s thrown into a strange situation with a tempting man and her life is irrevocably changed by love. Which is pretty cool.

3. Desire Never Dies is the second book in your Lady Spies series. What was the spark that inspired the series? Did it start with a character, a setting, or some other element? How many books do you have planned for the Lady Spies?

I actually started working on my Lady Spies series before I sold my first book, Scandalous, to Avon in 2004. A friend and I were batting around ‘what ifs’, looking for some high concept spins for me to give to my agent. She said, Charlie’s Angels. I said, “In Regency? Yeah, right.” But by the next day, that was all I could think about. So it was the concept that came first, then I built my ‘girls’ and the kinds of stories they would have (investigating the one you love, From London With Love; male and female spy working together, Desire Never Dies; Spy v. Spy, Seduction Is Forever). There are three books in the series, but I’ve left the door open for more books in their world, so you just never know…

4. How much research do you do?

It really depends on the book and the situation. Some stories are going to be more character driven, like Scandalous, where I just needed a basic grasp of the period and the setting. Others might be more in-depth and I might need more specific information. Like in From London With Love, I had some research on Regency art houses. I didn’t need it for more than a chapter, but I wanted to make sure what I was describing was possible, at least.

5. You write very quickly. Can you describe a typical writing day?

There is no real ‘typical’ here, but when I’m fully in writing mode, I put out no less than ten pages a day. Generally more like 12-15. I make a weekly/daily page goal and try to put butt in chair until I’ve hit it. So some days I’m up and out by noon. And some days it is 10:30pm and I’m still sitting.

That means I can write a book in about 6-8 weeks, plus two week to a month for revision before I turn it in. Outside career stuff also gets done every day. Website updates, blogging, and I’m very active on the AvonAuthors.com message board.

6. What are you working on now?

Actually, I just finished revisions on Seduction Is Forever, which is the last Lady Spy book (for now) and will be out October 2007. After the new year, I’ll be back working on my new historical called The Promise of Pleasure, which is an ‘estranged husband and wife reunion’ storyline. Very sexy.

7. In your writing, do you feel as if you are taking risks? How?

I think writing in general is a risk! Just doing it and pushing through the times when I’d rather just watch CourtTV or mop the floor. But I think I’m pushing the boundaries with my heroines. Charlie’s Angels female spies? How fun is that? And in my next book, the heroine is posing as a courtesan to save her friend’s life (and it doesn’t hurt that it pisses off her estranged husband). It’s always an interesting balance to write such strong heroines, but try to keep them befitting to their time, as well. They’re constantly walking a tight rope, and so am I.

8. Did you run across anything new and unusual while researching the Ladyu Spies series?
I was really surprised by how little information I could find about female spies during the period in general. Most of the information about women undercover comes from the Revolutionary and Civil Wars in America. That was frustrating in some ways since I would have loved to add a little more depth with some real facts, but it was also freeing since I could create my own world. In the end, I just tried to do what I felt like made sense. And hopefully it does.

9. Is there anything you wanted to include in the book that you (or your CPs or editor) felt was too controversial and left out?

Actually, I just took out a subplot from my last Lady Spy with a stolen artifact. It was really fun, but it detracted from the romance and the end of the book was SO BUSY. My editor and I agreed the story would be better if it went away, so it did. Honestly, I’ve never had my editor ask for anything yet that really made me flinch. She’s spot on with her comments, so I’m lucky in that way. We mesh well.

As for controversy, nothing. Yet…

10. You’ve just joined the Jaunty Quills as an official blogger, but have been online for years, long before you were published. How has the internet helped or hindered your career?

Oh, gosh, the internet is totally my friend. When I stared Passionate Pen almost 8 years ago, I never thought I’d reach so many people, or that they would begin to care about me. At some point, I looked at the stats for the site and thought, hey these people might actually buy a book of mine if it came out.

And then they did! I completely credit my Passionate Pen platform with why I hit Waldenbooks Mass Market with my debut. Hopefully, they liked the book enough to keep buying me. But it was definitely, and continues to be, my best promotional tool (even though it was accidental). I really enjoy the activities I do online. Like blogging or message boards or chats or my author sites. And I love how it connects our writer and reader communities. The moment I’m feeling completely depressed, I can hit Tess Gerritsen’s blog and read that she’s having some of the same experiences. And she survived, so there you go.

Of course, it can be a naughty way to procrastinate, but I’ll just pretend that isn’t true.

11. Is there anything else you’d like the Risky Regencies readers to know about you?

Well, Desire Never Dies hits shelves on December 26, of course. And even though it’s part of a series, it can be read on its own, so if you didn’t get From London With Love, you won’t be lost. And also just that I enjoy reading this blog and I’m so flattered you’d ask me. I’ll be around today if anyone has any questions!

Thank you!

Thank you, Jenna!

Today is my day to post. It’s always Friday, I know that, and yet–and yet, I HAVE NOTHING PLANNED.

Gah. It has turned ridiculously cold here in Brooklyn, NY, so all I want to do is curl up in bed with a big cup of tea and a book. What I will be doing is preparing for the arrival of the Christmas tree: clearing out the space, getting the stand down, moving the clutter from in front of the door where the tree will come in, getting enough cash to pay the exorbitant prices they charge for trees here (this is the first year we haven’t gotten a tree in South Jersey, where we go out in a field and pick which one to cut down. Cruel, but fresh and cheap).

Meanwhile, I am still revising my Regency-set historical, Lessons In Love, making it make more sense. I am itching to move on to something else because a) this one is driving me crazy, b) my agent gave me feedback on my mom-lit and I want to work on that now and c) I want to stop talking about the same darn book all the time.

Meanwhile, my seven year-old son yelled at me this morning because Christmas is 17 days away. As if it was my fault, and as if I could possibly do anything about it. I guess that speaks to how omnipotent he thinks I am? Just wait a few years, then he won’t think I can do anything at all, at least not anything right.

Okay. Your turn. What’s keeping you from your primary tasks, whether it’s enjoying the season, or focusing at your job, or making sure your kids aren’t eating hot dogs five nights straight in a row? And how do you refocus? What do you let go of? And what books do you turn to in times of holiday (and other) stress?

Megan
www.meganframpton.com
PS: And no, I don’t think I’m nearly as funny as Dorothy Parker, pictured above; I just like her general mien.

That guy? In the picture up there? That’s Sisyphus, who Zeus sentenced to roll a rock up a hill for eternity. That’s what writing feels like.

My process is still evolving; I know eventually I will get that damn rock up there without so much sweat and swearing, but right now, it’s a chore.

First, I get an idea of characters, usually in one of the scenes from the book. For the book I’m working on now, Lessons In Love, I thought of two people who would teach each other, but with a little twist: In my story, the heroine is teaching the hero to be more manly (by teaching him fencing), and the hero is teaching the heroine to be more womanly (by teaching her dancing). I thought it would be fun to figure out why my h/h wouldn’t have already had these skills. Next, I get an idea for what they look like. I can’t seem to write about them unless I have a famous person in mind for their general appearance. For this book, my hero looks like Brad Pitt from Fight Club and Jason Lewis of Sex And The City. My heroine, oddly enough, looks like Marina Sirtis who played Troi on Star Trek: The Next Generation. No, I don’t know why either.

Then I envision the plot unfolding like a laundry line with scenes hanging off them like your socks pinned up by clothespins. I move from clothespin to clothespin, hoping to connect the dots in a cohesive manner. More often than not, my clothespins don’t make much sense, so I have to trim them.

The most recent way I’ve tried to connect my plot (my biggest weakness, since I have a propensity to throw things in along the way, and forget to pick them up again, resulting in a hodge-podge of action) is to write the scenes out on index cards, then lay them out on a table and make sure each scene HAS to be there. The jury’s still out on that method, but it felt right, so I think that might work. We’ll see.

I write, editing as I go, making sure each scene feels right to me before I move on. I come up with new clothespins along the way, which usually gets me into trouble. I hit the important points of conflict, black moment, blacker moment, and final resolution. Then I shred the whole thing when various people point out it doesn’t make sense (see Lessons In Love, above. Sigh). I love editing; it’s so much easier to move words around and tweak things than it is to write a fresh page. Plus I have no sympathy to my prose if it doesn’t belong in the story. I like yanking it, it always makes the story flow more smoothly.

Like most of us here, I don’t think there’s one “right” way to write; I can’t do anything without knowing certain things about the story, but I can start writing without a clue of what’s going to happen. I write with a candle burning, usually, although sometimes I don’t have it. I always have loads of tea around, and when I am in the middle of writing, one part of my brain is always working on the story, even if I am nowhere near the computer.

Thanks for joining us on our “Writer’s Journey” this week. Amanda finishes up tomorrow, and we’re pleased you’re along for the ride.

Megan
www.meganframpton.com

New York Times bestselling author Eloisa James writes historical romances for HarperCollins Publishers. Her latest book, Pleasure For Pleasure, completes the Four Sisters series. It comes out next Tuesday, November 28! You can order it here. And get a chance to win a copy of Pleasure For Pleasure by leaving a pertinent comment or question on today’s post! The winner will be announced Tuesday.

After graduating from Harvard University, Eloisa got an M.Phil. from Oxford University, a Ph.D. from Yale and eventually became a Shakespeare professor, publishing an academic book with Oxford University Press. Currently she is an associate professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the English Department at Fordham University in New York City. Her “double life” is a source of fascination to the media and her readers. In her professorial guise, she’s written a New York Times op-ed defending romance, as well as articles published everywhere from women’s magazines such as More to writers’ journals such as the Romance Writers’ Report. She, along with five other bestselling authors, posts to the hugely successful SquawkRadio blog

Welcome to the Riskies, Eloisa. Thanks for joining us.

1. You started out writing as a diversion from your academic interests and writing; can you talk a little bit about your background, and what made you decide to write in the Regency period rather than your area of expertise?

It was a tough decision – I teach Renaissance drama, so that’s the field I know best. But I was reading (and loving) Regency romance, and I decided to place a story there. Plus, there was the fact that Regency romances are readers’ favorites, and while there are a few Renaissance romances, they’re far and few between. I wanted to write – but I also wanted to get published and read.

2.Which of your books is your favorite?

At any given time, my latest book is always my favorite because it’s still clear to me. I wake up wondering whether I did the right thing here or there. Plus, I love them most before they’re published because at that point they are all potential. I have a clear memory of thinking before Potent Pleasures (my very first book) was published that no one could possibly dislike it (ha). I loved my characters so much that I thought they were insulated from criticism (and yes, there’s a lot of parallels to motherhood here). In the years since, I’ve come to know that every book will be loved by some people and hated by others. Before a book is published, though, it’s like a baby whom everyone calls beautiful and whose mother can’t see a fault in it.

3. You’re completing the Four Sisters series with your book, Pleasure For Pleasure, that comes out November 28. What was the spark that inspired the Four Sisters series? Did it start with a character, a setting, or some other element?

It was a combination of things. I like writing about women’s friendship, but I wanted to write about a relationship between women that wasn’t quite as easy as friendship: sisterhood, in other words. My sister and I are very close – and in fact, live about a mile apart – but our relationship is complex and far more nuanced than that I share with my girlfriends. Another aspect was my abiding love for the work of Louisa May Alcott. I wanted to walk in her steps, at least a little bit.

4. Was Pleasure For Pleasure an easy or difficult book to write?

They’re all difficult. It’s one of the cruel facts of life – the first book is difficult, and you think: “the next will be easier!” and then the next is more difficult. And the book after that, more difficult still. They just get harder as I learn more about writing.

5. How do you do your research?

Well, a great deal of it comes to me through my scholarship in the early modern period. For example, Desperate Duchesses features a series of chess games – the idea for that came through scholarship that’s being done on the chess game in Shakespeare’s Tempest. Once I have a vague idea of the areas I’d like to know more about (say, chess in the Georgian period), I ask my research assistant to start scaring up some material for me. One of the consequences of being a full-time professor and director of the graduate program in English is that I don’t have time for much research myself; instead I hire brilliant people to find out interesting facts for me.

6. What are you working on now? Tell us a little bit about the Desperate Duchesses series.

Desperate Duchesses is set in the Georgian period, so that’s a change for me. I wanted a wilder, more sensual period than the Regency for the story I had in mind. It’s a series of four books, focusing around a group of duchesses whose marriages are in trouble, for various reasons. Jemma, the Duchess of Beaumont, is the best female chess player in England or Paris – and now she’s embarked on two matches. One is with the Duke of Villiers, a chess master. And the second is with her own husband, a master of strategy in Pitt’s government. The games are conducted one move a day….and if either survives to the third game, that game will be conducted blind-folded, and in bed.

This is a really sexy, fun series…I’m hugely enjoying writing it!

7. In your writing, do you feel as if you are taking risks? How?

I do it all the time – in fact, I don’t think there’s any point in writing unless you take risks. To write a story without risks would be to write a story about a perfect hero and perfect heroine, sweetly matched and perfect in bed. Where’s the story? The story only comes in the risks you take in deviating from that “perfect” formula – in creating a hero who is crap in bed, or a heroine who lies, or a marriage that’s a disaster. Pleasure for Pleasure is the story of a very curvy woman – and she doesn’t lose weight either. I take risks, but for me, that’s where all the pleasure of the story lies.

8. You are very good at writing female characters, and women’s relationships with each other. What or who inspires your fabulous heroines?

OK, don’t laugh – usually myself. What I mean is that while I’m not wildly witty and incredibly beautiful, like some of my heroines, I have to give each of them a bit of myself or they are lifeless. So when I think about my heroines, that’s what I see in them. Gabby fibs because I fibbed relentlessly when I was a child. Sophie gives birth to a child at 24 weeks and so did I. Josie (the heroine of Pleasure for Pleasure) goes through some harrowing experiences due to being plump on the marriage market – I was plump in high school and I channeled my experience straight onto the page.

9. Did you run across anything new and unusual while researching this book?

I found out some fascinating information about the early publishing world…I read a bunch of 19th century memoirs (each chapter opens with a parody of a memoir)…I learned a great deal about corsets. More than I needed to know!

10. Is there anything you wanted to include in the book that you (or your CPs or editor) felt was too controversial and left out?

Nope! My editor has pretty much given up trying to cut bits of my books: I’m horribly pig-headed.

11. SquawkRadio is a hugely successful authors’ blog; what is your favorite part of participating there?

Blogging asks for a different kind of creativity than writing books, and I find I like it immensely! To sit down and just make something up and then slap it up on the web, and then get cheerful responses from all over the world – what a high! And what a tonic to the usual writer’s day, sitting in your pajamas at home.

Is there anything else you’d like the Risky Regencies readers to know about you?

I love Regencies and I’m so happy that you’re holding up the torch for all of us!

Thank you!

Thank you, Eloisa!

All this week, the Riskies have been talking about the upcoming holiday season: How to deal with it, what they like about it, what they don’t like about it (Janet is our resident Scrooge, it seems, but she does enjoy a good concert).

On Monday, Diane brought up traditions, and I’d like to do the same. I grew up in an unconventional household (albeit with the requisite mother and father, no siblings), and our Christmases were . . . odd. Instead of traditional Christmas ornaments, my mother decorated our tree with seashells and porcupine fish she’d spraypainted gold and silver and decorated with rhinestones. We wrapped our gifts in newspaper and magazines, not wrapping paper, and our notes always had a stealthily-embedded clue as to what the gift was inside (my mother, however, was frequently Master of the Obvious, addressing presents of socks to me as “To Megan, From her feet.”)

I didn’t know any different, so when my boyfriend (now husband) started dating, I did what I’d always done at Christmas: Decorate my tree with random fun items, wrap in paper, write silly notes. I thought everybody did that.

Apparently not. My husband’s family is EXTRA-traditional when it comes to Christmas, which means the ornaments are perfect, the wrapping paper is Hallmark and there are no funny edges where the paper didn’t quite meet, and the notes are addressed “To Megan, Love Scott.”

In case you couldn’t tell, I do miss the funkier Christmas of my youth, but I’ve grown to love my in-laws’ traditional celebration (especially the HANDMADE DONUTS ON CHRISTMAS EVE!). When my son gets a little older, though, I’m going to get some seashells and start writing some sly notes on his gifts.

Do you have any idiosyncratic holiday celebrations? How do you feel about trying to introduce new traditions to your family? And can you believe THANKSGIVING IS NEXT WEEK?!?

Megan
www.meganframpton.com