An Interview with
Lora Leigh
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It has been a hectic month, but we've
still managed to get lots of reading done, of course! I am pleased to
say that includes one of my favorite authors, Lora Leigh, who I had the
honor of interviewing this month for CK2S Kwips & Kritiques. Lora has
had an exciting year, with tons of new releases through both Berkley and St.
Martin's Press, two of which have made the New York Times Bestseller List,
and many more exciting releases coming out soon! Now, with no further adieu, I give you Ms. Lora Leigh! 1: Since you were first published through New York a little more than a year ago, you’ve already had 7 books released through St. Martin’s and Berkley, and have still more scheduled to come out in 2007. Have you always written so quickly? I haven’t always written this quickly. Until Broken Wings, I had never completely finished a book. But with the completion of that book, it was as if something clicked in my brain, something that had eluded me until that point. After that, my natural impatience and need to get to the story drove me, and finishing them up quickly became habit rather than struggle. Thank goodness. Because there are a lot of voices still in my head. J 2: You’ve had quite a busy year with all of the books you’ve released in a very short time span. Do you plan to take vacation time soon? Vacation time? Umm, that’s not a trip to the store to buy milk right? My breaks consist mainly of going out to buy groceries or take care of bills. Or book signings. But I enjoy the writing, it’s an adventure for me, so it’s not a hardship. 3: You have several very popular series: Breeds, Tempting SEALs, Bound Hearts and more. Although you’ve published many books in these series, each new story seems fresh, with no end in sight. Is it difficult to come up with new ideas for them? So far, it hasn’t been. The characters start the process by screaming in my head and I just sit down and start writing what I see in my imagination. So coming up with ideas has always been the characters' responsibility. I just write them. 4: Do you find that you enjoy writing one series more than the others? If so, why? I enjoy writing more than one, going between them, because I might get bored otherwise. And not all my ideas are in the same genre or in the same world. The diversity is exciting too, and adventurous. It makes each one a challenge rather than something I’ve already done or someplace I’ve already been. 5: Your novels encompass a wide range of genres – Fantasy, Sci-fi, and Contemporary. Do you have a particularly favorite genre to write in? What makes that genre your favorite? Are there any genres you haven’t yet tackled but would like to? I don’t think any one genre is my favorite, unless you just count romantic suspense. I love learning to write suspense, and it is still a learning process. But other than that, whatever world I’m writing in at the time is my favorite. 6: Alright, I’m just going to come out and ask it. Many of your stories have ménage scenes, and you have several very popular series that are based on this theme. What do you think draws readers to ménage stories? That’s a harder question. I think its individual for every reader. The fantasy of being loved so totally, so protected by not just one, but two men. The erotic freedoms, the sense of the forbidden, there are so many reasons why I personally enjoy reading them, that I believe the reasons would be just as varied for other readers. As for writing, there were varied reasons why I started writing them, but I continue writing them I think for the same reasons that I read them. The challenge to understand a relationship that would be so extreme, the fantasy of it, the freedom of it all within the safety of the written word and the fantasy that revolves in your head. 7: So far, all of your ménage books have been M/F/M. Will you ever publish a ménage book with M/M/F, F/F/M, or F/M/F? I try to never say never, because if I did, sure enough a character would jump in and demand it. But at this time, it hasn’t been an issue with any of my characters. 8: Where do you find inspiration for your stories? Newspaper, people watching at the park, or at Wal-Mart. Dreams. The dreams most of all perhaps. Characters will pop in my head while I’m sleeping and I wake up overwhelmed with their emotions and their lives. I have to write them. But ideas for scenes for plots and even for conflicts will often come from just about anywhere and everywhere. 9: No matter the genre, your stories seem to share some much-appreciated commonalities: strong, alpha-male type leading men paired with women who have tremendous strength of character and a purity of the soul. Are these archetypes modeled after yourself or people in your own life or are they simply composites of the traits you admire? Oh, that’s a hard one to answer. Sometimes, all of the above perhaps. A melding of each. There’s no one defined avenue for creating the vision of a character for me. Once they show up in my imagination, they show up with their own individual traits, past experiences, nightmares, fears, hopes and dreams. I’d say yes, I draw from every facet of what I’ve heard, what I’ve seen and what I’ve wondered about, as well as the life experiences of those I know, or have known or have any read about to draw into my characters. There’s no definitive answer to that one, and I hope my characters show that as you read them. Each are individual, but perhaps drawn from a variety of sources I’d say. 10: Who are your favorite authors? Is there one or two in particular who have motivated your aspirations as a writer? One or two in particular. I’d have to say Linda Howard and Elizabeth Lowell. Their books defined what I wanted to write when I first began truly, seriously writing. They defined the emotion, the suspense and the love that drew me. They made the voices in my imagination stronger, more enduring, and made me crave the written word. That list has definitely been added to over the years, with too many authors to name at one time, because I’d definitely end up forgetting someone. But these two influenced me from the beginning. 11: What can you tell us about your upcoming Nauti Boy series release, Nauti Nights? Dawg. He was a much clearer character and much easier to define than even Rowdy was in Nauti Boy. The Nauti Trilogy, many readers thought was about sharing, about a ménage, and to be honest, it began that way. But, by the end of Nauti Boy, it became something else entirely. I began a journey that these three men, who had always made their journeys together, were learning they would have to take alone. And it was good to take them alone. They’ve redefined my way of thinking about some things I believe, and getting to know them, telling their stories, and feeling their struggles has been an amazing journey. 12: Can you give us some tidbits concerning what you are working on now? Right now, I’m working on the second St. Martins Bound Hearts title, Wicked Pleasure. You met Cameron Falladay in Shameless, the seventh Bound Hearts title from Ellora’s Cave, in the Shameless Embraces print. Here, Cameron is teamed with his twin, Chase, and the woman that got away, Jaci. It’s coming from a different perspective than many of the Bound Hearts have done, so I’m really having fun working on it. 13: Have you always known you wanted to be a writer? Since the 7th grade, I knew this was what I wanted to do. Before that, I daydreamed like crazy. But once I learned to put it to words, to draw out the daydreams, I was the greatest high. Figuring those lives out, describing them and building their lives as they built inside my head became a craving, an addiction that I knew I never wanted to lose. 14: What advice would you give an aspiring writer? Don’t give up. And don’t be afraid of critiques. Look for the hard critiques, the readers and writers that tear your books apart are the ones you can learn from. Search them out, and learn. I’m still doing it that way, and I thank God daily for the advanced readers who aren’t afraid to tell me when it’s not working. 15: Out of the books you’ve written, do you have a favorite book or a favorite character? Dash Sinclair from Elizabeth’s Wolf. He’s still my favorite, and in my heart, my most vibrant character. He, Elizabeth, and their daughter Cassie taught me so much, and made me feel so much that they still live in my heart as the best of the best. 16: Many of your stories have some very dark emotional aspects. Is it difficult to write these stories? How do you set your frame of mind to find these scenes? Very difficult. As I said, the characters give me the story to write, and sometimes, I’ll sit here in tears trying to put it on paper. One of the hardest to write was Elizabeth’s Wolf, and strangely, running close to that is the novella, In A Wolf’s Embrace. I bawled like a baby writing that novella, just as hard as I cried through Dash’s story. But all of them tear at my heart, because I see them so clearly, their hopes and their fears, and much they love and how much they hurt. I’ll wake up from dreams about them, crying. I sit here and write them and cry. And I love each one as though they were flesh and blood and standing before me to verbalize their lives. Setting my frame of mind? How can I do otherwise when I feel that character’s pain ripping at me, demanding that I fix it? That I make it better? That I give them a reason for having survived the pain? At this point, I probably sound crazy, but that’s the only way to describe how it works, and how it impacts me. 17: What fact about you would surprise your fans? Umm, well, my husband doesn’t have any brothers? LOL. I get that question a lot. He’s an only child. Seriously, I’m pretty uncomplicated, and fairly open about myself, so probably, not much would surprise them. LOL 18: What single word would you use to describe yourself? What single word would your friends & family use to describe you? Crazy? LOL I don’t know, I’ve never considered it. Can anyone be described with a single word? 19: If your life were made into a movie, what genre would it be? What channel would it be aired on? It would probably be a cartoon on the Cartoon Network. 20: Lora, thank you so much for your time. For our last question, please tell us anything more you’d like to share with your fans that we haven’t already asked. Jennifer, thank you for the opportunity. Your questions were very in-depth and thoughtful. I can’t think of anything you missed. J I look forward to talking to you again and thank you for this wonderful opportunity to meet the readers of your site. Thank you, Lora! I really enjoyed this interview, and am so honored that you agreed to it. I know that I learned a few things about you and your work that I hadn't known before, and I hope readers of this interview find the same. Visit Lora's website! Read Lora's blog! Read reviews of Lora's books: Jennifer's
reviews:
Interviewed by Jennifer |