As y’all know, my first book will be released in the UK in January 2009. Turns out, I’ll be sharing shelf space with best-selling and award-winning author Trish Wylie! If her fabulous books weren’t intimidating enough, her awards from Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice and CataRomance would tip the scale.  Add in the amazing info on her website for aspiring authors, her personal blog that’s full of great info and fun stories, plus the Pink Heart Society Blogazine, and the woman is a force to be reckoned with. But she’s super nice as well—she’s made this newbie feel very welcome and a little less lost in the big world of publishing. I’m so tickled she’s making the trip to the Playground this month!

So scooch over and give Trish a seat in the shade—I’d hate for that lovely Irish skin to fry in the Alabama sun. (Trish would like to point out this is a very real risk. One summer it hit 23 degrees at home and she walked into a chemist and asked them for an asbestos suit in a can. They didn’t have one funnily enough. Factor 50 Sun Cream anyone?!)

Problem Child: Hi, Trish, and welcome!  And can I just say again how super-fabulous you are?

Trish Wylie: Only if you come with me when I’m shopping for clothes and say it regardless of how the sizes have changed since my last book… The sign of a friendship made in heaven I feel. Plus it’s important to take a friend to help you back OUT of the clothes you tried on in the size you USED TO wear. But thank you sweetie! In that intro you made me sound like I know what I’m doing (anyone who knows me has now choked on whatever they’re eating/drinking as they read…)

PC: You are a very busy woman—I get exhausted just looking though your website and blogs.  So I’ll ask the burning question: how do you make time for everything?  Please share the secret!

TW: Ahh now. Being as and how I write fiction for a living I could probably come up with something REALLY good here. But the truth is much more boring. Being single and sans children helps (an extra ten to twelve hours a day right there if what my friends tell me is true). Plus I live in the left kidney of the ***hole of nowhere and as its Ireland it rains 90% of the time so I’m a part time recluse. Oh and an insomniac apparently. This does however mean at conferences and the like I’m a tad hyperactive – so be warned! Bottom line; I tend to keep going till I drop and then I sleep to Olympic standards.

PC: You write for both Modern Heat (released as Presents in the US) and Harlequin Romance.  Is it hard to switch gears? I won’t ask you which one you like best (J), but what draws you to each of the lines?

TW: Do you have any idea how much trouble you could get me to get into if I had to answer which one I like best? Just as well you didn’t ask really…

I started out with Romance so I owe that line a lot. Without that first sale to them I wouldn’t be here so it’ll always have a special, irreplaceable spot in my heart. Modern Heat I pitched for when I was making the decision to give up work and write full time. So it was a financial decision as well as an excited interest in where the new line might go; I’ll be honest about that. Plus with my ‘day job’ I was working between a forty-five and sixty hour week and writing in the evenings and weekends so I was very, very worried about filling my days ;) But it did mean I was pitching *blind*. The books weren’t even on the shelf yet so I couldn’t read any to see what they were like and the editorial notes at the time were so open it was almost scary! In the end I just wrote something I’d enjoy reading myself and thankfully it sold. I LOVE Modern Heat and really do feel I’ve *found* myself there writing wise. (I even think my Romances have improved thanks to it) Right now I’m contracted for four books at a time (per contract that is, not four all at the same time *shudder*) so I alternate between the two; a Romance then a Modern Heat then a Romance then yada yada yada…

As to switching between the two. Ah now. Used to be at the start I took a week and ‘switched voices’, cos I thought they had to be different but when I foolishly said that to the lovely head of the Romance line in idle chat at the Dallas Conference last year I was almost slapped for it (in the nicest possible way). Turns out the uber contemporary voice they like so much from me in Modern Heat is what she wanted from me in Romance too. So now the only real difference is the sex. And having said that, my Romance characters have decided in the last few books that they’d like to partake of a little themselves, thanks anyway. We just don’t go into the actual logistics of the docking procedure - if you get my drift…

PC: Tell us about the Pink Society Blogazine.  How did it get started? What are your goals for it?

TW: LOL. Ohhhh you’ll LOVE how it got started. It came from a rant. I’m prone to them; it’s the Irish gal in me. And yes, being female I do tend to rant more in one week out of every four… but between Christmas and New Years I was blogging and ranting on the subject of how category/series romance is sneered at by the literary reading fraternity - and the ex-promotions gal in me got a tad carried away. Next thing I knew I was chatting to three friends online (gotta love MSN messenger really) who had sold at the same time as me, one of them brought up the subject of a joint blog and two odd hours later The Pink Heart Society was born.

Basically we’re there as a community to stand together and say loudly we love series romance and that no-one should tell us what we can and can’t read. I’m a great believer in that. So we talk about all the things we love about the books; hot men, dream locations all over the world, how authors put books together, favorite books we’ve read, hot men, writing tips, romantic movies, hot men… well you get the idea. We have fifty-eight author members from all over the world and across the lines, almost three hundred members on the loop, a brand new Shelfari group and regular columnists and author guests who blog with us six days a week. It’s been fantastic to be a part of and it’s such a fun place to hang out since we launched in 2006. I can honestly say that the four of us who started it are all really proud of it.

PC: Are you a plotter or a pantser?  Want to tell us a little about your writing process?

TW: Panster. Hands down. But one with a *system*. Initially I’ll have a grain of an idea, one or two scenes I can see very clearly, but with no idea of how I’m linking them together. Then I have a method I call ‘Backwards Casting’. Even before I started writing I was fascinated by movies and how they were put together, so I guess I was always going to be a visual writer. So imagine a movie starts with a script, then looks for locations and props, and then casts the actors… I do that backwards. I start by casting pics of how I see my hero and heroine, then I find pics of all the locations and props and then I work on the ‘script’. Last year I worked with collages made from my pics but for the last two books I’ve taken that a step further and started storyboarding. So I’ll put a set of pics together for the scenes I had to begin with and then make new ones as I go along and new scenes form (hopefully). I find this really helps with descriptive elements and continuity et all. Plus, if I were to plot the whole book in one go before I start I know I’d never finish it cos I already know the ending. And I think I’d miss some of the fairy dust along the way – can’t tell you the number of times I’ve worked on something and outta nowhere I get info I hadn’t even considered before. So being a panster allows a fluidity I don’t think I’d get otherwise.

PC: You’re up for a Bookseller’s Best award this year (all the Playfriends will be keeping their fingers crossed for you!).  Does a final in a contest like that bring satisfaction, validation, or just excitement?

TW: I think any writer who is honest about it will say they’re needy. We live for validation. Editor likes what you’ve done; you feel better – even if the revisions make you crawl into a corner with cake. Book sells; you feel even better – and you know you can afford cake for next time. Book sells well on the shelf; you feel much, much better and you know cake will be there in a years time when the royalties start to appear. Reader takes the time to comment and say nice things about your book; you GLOW and the need for cake diminishes exponentially.

Then you balance all those great moments with things like bad reviews, the people who hated your book and want to use it as a doorstop, the number of times you enter a contest and never get into the final. And yes, it can get to you. You tell yourself it doesn’t but it does. I don’t think it’s that we need to be regularly patted on the head (though bringing us cake would help obviously) its just human nature that you want to do the best job you can and when you’ve put your heart and soul into something… you know? Over time I’ve learnt to deal with the bad times better (theoretically and with cake) and celebrate the good times as much as humanly possible without being arrested. And I KNOW I’ve been INCREDIBLY LUCKY with contests but I’ll never ever get blasé about them. At the end of the day, simple lass that I am; one person enjoys a book and tells me they did - I’m happy. I’ll pull that email out and read it when I’m in the corner with cake and it gives me the courage to crawl back out again…

(The book nominated for the Booksellers Best Award is a Modern Heat and was released as a Presents in May under the title Her Bedroom Surrender. Overweight heroine plus Middle East Bodyguard turned personal trainer for a hero (based on the visual image of Irish bad boy Colin Farrell) and yes, you can still get it from Amazon…)

PC: You’ve put out a lot of great info for aspiring authors.  If you could make one rule all hopefuls HAD to follow, what would it be?

TW: Write the book you’d READ. If you love something you’re far more likely to put your heart into it and if you do that your voice will SHINE. It’s the voice that sells, trust me on this. Everything else can be worked on. In the London offices the editorial team has a fantastic approach; they say they don’t buy books - they invest in authors. If you have a distinctive voice and a well told story then even if it falls between the lines they’ll work with you to get it to where it needs to be. Over-think every word your muse will pack a bag. And leave with the cake. Need I say more?

PC: What was the best piece of advice you ever received as a writer?  Is there a piece of advice you wish you’d ignored?

TW: First one was from an author who is now a great friend; she told me you can’t edit a blank page. So I allow myself to write crap. Crap can be edited. Surfing blogs, jumping from one Youtube clip to another and Googling hot men won’t help me meet my deadline - even if I try telling myself its “research”. Second one I stand by to this day is for anyone subbing and that’s to finish the book before sending the partial. If you can’t finish it then how can you send it when you get the request for a full?! And I’m living proof of this cos when I subbed my first ms I sent the partial end of November and had the request for the full by Christmas Eve. If I hadn’t had it finished I’d have been screwed, especially over Christmas. And yes, it sold. I KNOW. I’M SORRY. Ok. No I’m not. But if it helps any then the fact I’ve never been rejected means I’m constantly waiting to be told I suck and it was all a huge mistake. Am I forgiven now???

As to ignored? Erm. Lemme see. I don’t think I was ever actually ‘told it’ but I’ve learnt that you really don’t need to spend as much time and money on promotion as you think you do at the start… at least not in series romance. I’m not saying don’t do ANY but I am saying it doesn’t need to break the bank. All the main promotion and marketing and branding is done by the company already. We’re very lucky that way with Harlequin. We can certainly do stuff that backs that up but the best thing we can do to get our name bandied about the place is to keep writing the best books we can. Readers are amazing people. They’ll talk books all day long and share the joy of a book they love and thanks to them word of mouth does a lot of the work for us. I don’t think they realize what a difference that passion makes to our careers. Mind you, let them down a few times and there’s a chance… I’m not even gonna complete that sentence in case it brings bad karma my way. But then that’s where a lovely editor comes in. The lovely editor keeps us on track. The lovely editor makes sure we keep doing the best job possible. Lovely editors are like really fine gold-dust. I know. I’m on my fifth one since I sold…

PC: Complete this sentence:  My readers…

TW: Are the kind of people I know I could be friends with in real life.

And I’m not being corny about that. I’ve met some truly amazing people thanks to this job and every single one I’ve met face-to-face has been lovely! (and made me blush) But then I think we put a lot of our personality into our books so if anyone likes what they read there’s a pretty good chance you’re gonna get on. I for one LOVE that!!!

PC:  What part of Ireland are you from?  Tell us something neat about your corner of the world.

TW: I was born and reared in County Antrim in the North of Ireland and now live near Donegal and Fermanagh. Close to the lakes. And a half hour from the sea. Oh and a stones throw from Yeats County. A friend asked me last year if I had to use one word to describe Ireland what would it be and I answered WISTFUL. It’s a very wistful country; as green as you would imagine and in every shade possible (thanks to the rain) and it’s steeped in a history you can feel when you breathe in. I’ve visited every single one of the 32 counties and can honestly say that I LOVE where I live. From castles to fairy rings to bays that can look positively Mediterranean when the sun actually decides to make an appearance it’s simply stunning. I’m lucky enough to live in the heart of the country; inside a hundred and fifty acres of forestry commission land with one lane roads that don’t have names on them (our postman carries a duplicate book for accidents!), a river complete with miniature waterfall and fields full of horses and ponies. Life doesn’t get much better than that! And yes; everyone does wave when you drive through small towns and yes – if you’re lost and stop for directions they will still suck in a breath and say ‘Well I wouldn’t start from here if I were you…’

PC: Do you have a favorite theme or place you revisit in your books? Is there a story you’ve always wanted to tell but haven’t yet? Is there anything you don’t ever see yourself writing?

TW: Until the last six months all my books were set in Ireland. I’m the only Romance and Modern Heat author who was doing that. Then last summer I started travelling more and my books reflect that. I hope it’s a trend that’ll continue ;) Italy, Greece, France; another of the joys of being single is I can go pretty much anywhere anytime and take my work with me. Have laptop, can travel. And honestly? It’s exactly what I dreamed of when I wanted to be a writer. Having said that; Irish heroes tend to be popular ;) If I could find a way to get the accent in there I’d be elected! Theme wise I like to play around – take traditional themes and bring them into modern day life… and I do like a strong male turned inside out by the right woman. Who doesn’t?!

One I’ve always wanted to tell but haven’t? Hmmm… Well, okay then I’ll fess up. I do have a longer book that’s been languishing on my laptop for nigh on two years now. It’s pretty much finished but I’ve never done anything with it cos originally it was just for me. Problem is. I now don’t have a clue what to do with it cos theoretically we’re supposed to know where it belongs to pitch it, right? And it doesn’t really ‘fit’ neatly into a particular area. Then naturally a week ago it decided it wanted to be part of a series of stories. So I’ve taken notes. Second problem is I’m currently writing up to six books a year and they’re more likely to pay me if I finish the ones I’m contracted for I’ve found. So we’ll see. Plus I know this one would need an agent and frankly? They scare the bejesus out of me!

Don’t see myself writing?  One word: CLICHES. Particularly some of the press favorites like bodice ripper and man-sword and…uh-huh! But even when it comes to clichéd themes inside series romance I would seem to have taken it as a personal mission to push the envelope. Hence why I think I’m getting so many rebel billionaires and millionaire bad boys in my titles… If anyone reads my books and thinks they are clichéd, please feel free not to burst my bubble. Or the cake gets it!

PC: What’s next for you?

TW: Okay. Deep breath.

Right now I’m working on a new book for the Romance line; it’s a Hollywood/Scriptwriters story so I’m having a blast with that. Copy edits or what you know over there as galleys for the January Modern Heat that’s on the shelf with you in January 09 precious! (Am kinda hoping they come before I fly away.) Plus I’m looking forward to them cos the hero in that book? Hubba hubba. Then on a plane to the States where I’ll be visiting New York, San Diego, San Francisco and L.A. for a month long trip (no doubt with revisions along the way) Am doing ComicCon in San Diego before Nationals in SF cos yes, my inner geek requires it and yes, I do feel the need to see the actors from the likes of Heroes and Lost and Supernatural and… drooling over actors is research, right?! (And of course WE get to meet in SF darlin! Drinks all round! Prepare your liver now. Cos that rumor about Irish people and alcohol? Yuh-huh…You’ll be singing the Fields Of Athenry before you know what hit you. Especially with TWO Irish gals there.)

Then back to finish another book for the end of September, promote the book of my heart that’s coming out that month in the Romance line, go to London for posh lunch and publishers do, fly back to sit on a panel at a Literary festival in Trim Castle, sit on another one at a women’s Literary Festival in Dublin a week later, possibly do a library talk… Well, that takes me to October anyways ;) 

PC: Some just-for-fun questions:

PC: Rugby or soccer (sorry, football)?

TW: No Gaelic football in the options?! My ten year old nephew would be outraged! But for me it has to be American football! Have been a fan since the eighties. How amazing was the Superbowl this year?! I had to stay up till like four in the morning to shout and yell and sing along with Tom Petty. Just as well I’m a night owl really.

PC: Heels or flats?

TW: Flats for everyday. Heels for going out. Can never have enough of either.

PC: Stripes or polka-dots?

TW: Stripes. Vertical ones. (see earlier comment on shopping for clothes and weight gain since writing full time…)

PC: Dogs or cats?

TW: Both! Though currently I have to make do with the rest of the family’s dogs cos it wouldn’t be fair on them with my lifestyle… I have two of the obligatory writer’s cats. Both of which regularly stomp over my keyboard demanding to be fed. One of whom is either a huge fan or a critic of my work.

PC: Dream vacation spot?

TW: Bali. Though after last year I’m passionately in love with New York.

PC: Favorite ice cream flavor?

TW: Haagan-Daz Cookies and Cream. (Usually until I feel sick.)

PC: Thanks so much for coming and we hope you’ll visit again soon!

TW: Thank you for inviting me over to play!  Can’t WAIT to hook up in San Francisco so I can meet you in person SHELF BUDDY!!! And HUGE CONGRATS again for joining the family! We LOVE new authors. And it really is such a fun line to write for – you’ll have a blast, trust me!

Visit Trish (and learn lots) at her sites: www.trishwylie.com, www.trishwylie.blogspot.com, and www.pinkheartsociety.blogspot.com.