Welcome to Kate Douglas' author day

Welcome Ms. Douglas to Love Romances and More, thank you for joining us.

Did you always want to become a writer?

I think in the back of my mind I always knew that was what I’d do—my first poem was published when I was in fourth grade, which was terrific incentive! Almost every job I’ve had revolved around writing—from radio commercials for a country western station to working as a newspaper reporter, to writing public service announcements for a large health organization. Eventually, I discovered romances and that’s when I began to focus on what, exactly, I wanted to write.

What is the most, and the least interesting fact about writing?

There isn’t anything about writing that isn’t interesting, from coming up with the ideas to actually writing the stories, to doing revisions, copy edits and page proofs—I love the entire process. It gives me a great deal of pleasure to write my stories, and I hope that joy shows in my books.

How did you celebrate your first release? What was it like to see your book in a bookstore? Do you have a special ritual for celebrating a book release?

This might sound silly, but I don’t remember actually celebrating. I think we went out to dinner around the time I signed my first NY contract, but it was all so hectic then—I signed my contract for Wolf Tales in August and the book was in stores in November—that’s unbelievably fast for New York—and then, because they’d bought three novels and three novellas and the first novella was due to release in March and the next novel in July, I had to write like a madwoman to meet my deadlines. I wrote five titles the first year and six the second to catch up to the point where I am now working a year in advance of publication.

I will admit that the first time I walked into a bookstore and saw Wolf Tales on the “New Releases” table was pretty exciting. It was the fulfilment of a dream I’d had since writing my first completed manuscript (which never sold) twenty years before, but I didn’t really have time to appreciate it. I still don’t actually celebrate a release, but I do take a great deal of satisfaction out of seeing each new book in the series as it hits the shelves.

How did your family react to the fact that you also write romance novels? Have your family read your books?

My mother has read my regular romances, but I don’t think anyone in my family has read my erotic romances—they’d just as soon not know exactly what it is I write. J I know they’re very proud of my success and my husband loves to tell people he’s my research assistant, something I tease him about because he doesn’t actually know what he’s supposed to be researching…


Most authors are also avid readers. Is this the case with you? If so, who are some of your favorites? Have any influenced your writing?

I read constantly, but very few of the books I choose are erotic romance. I’m a huge fan of Jayne Ann Krentz, Robyn Carr, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Anne Stuart, Virginia Kantra, Lori Foster, Alyssa Day, Angela Knight, Christine Feehan, Dakota Cassidy and Lori Handeland, to name a few. A few authors of erotic romance I read are Sunny, Devyn Quinn and Elizabeth Amber. I think all of them influence my writing—I choose authors for their style of writing as much as for content—all of the ones I’ve named have an almost rhythmic flow to their writing, but they’re also very comfortable with language, with combining strong emotional elements and exciting action. Those are things I look for in a book.


Your characters come to life in your books. Do you feel each of your characters live with you as you write? Do their lives sometimes take over a part of your life? Can you name an example? Do you have living role models for your characters?

My characters become very real to me when I’m writing them, and in my Wolf Tales series, since they return in book after book, some of them are never far from my real world. Anton Cheval, for instance, is in most of my books. He’s a powerful wizard as well as a Chanku shapeshifter, and yet he is deeply flawed and often makes mistakes that haunt him. He’s almost always with me and I find myself thinking about him during the day, wondering how he would react to a particular situation.

I write from a very deep point of view—when I’m writing a particular character, I become that character, and I’ve discovered that their moods and emotions can bleed over into my daily life if I don’t consciously leave them in the book. It’s something I’ve had to learn to do.

All of my characters (and there are about thirty in my series to date) embody characteristics I find admirable in living people, though none of them is based entirely on a single person. I get a visual in my mind and sometimes I’ll later see a photo of a celebrity and realize they resemble the one I’ve imagined, but each character is a combination of traits that work for that individual.

Where do you get the inspirations for your books?

I have no idea. I don’t plot in advance, but I do think about the characters and I love to play “what if?” For instance, the anthology I read today when I was checking page proofs, Chanku Honor (Sexy Beast VI 4/09) is a perfect example. I wanted to write about a group of young people for a change, since most of my Chanku are in their late thirties through fifties. So I asked myself, where would I find young, aimless kids who might, for whatever reason, come together? I decided Golden Gate Park in San Francisco would be a good place. What if they were drawn there by Keisha Rialto’s memorial garden, the one she designed before she was Chanku? What if they were attracted to the grasses she had planted, the same ones Chanku needed to shift? What if something happened to force one to shift when he had no idea he could? I just ran with it, and I’m really pleased with the story—the characters just seemed to develop all on their own. Sometimes my muse is very generous!


Do you find it difficult at times to write love scenes?

Never! They’re my reward for figuring out the plot. I enjoy creating the emotions in a good love scene, and I really love it when I write one and know I got it right.


What is your favorite book from the books that you have written so far? Who are your favorite hero and heroine, and why?

My favorite to date is the one coming out this month (12/08) Wolf Tales VII. I bring all the characters together when the women and babies have been threatened, so there’s a sense of danger throughout the entire story. Anton plays a strong role in this one, and some of the scenes are very emotional. One in particular made me cry when I was writing it, and I felt so stupid, typing like crazy and sobbing like a madwoman, but I wasn’t sure how it was going to end, and I was afraid if it ended badly, my readers would kill me! (It ended exactly right, thank goodness, and Romantic Times Magazine gave it a 4.5 star, Top Pick review, my first for this series) My favorite hero and heroine are actually two heroes and one heroine—Mik and AJ were a bonded same sex couple until they rescued Tala Quinn, a prostitute fleeing from a sadistic pimp. The three of them are a perfect combination and I love it when they show up in a book. Tala’s a tiny little thing, about “five foot nothin’” and Mik and AJ are big, drop-dead gorgeous guys who love her to pieces, much to their surprise. Both of them were perfectly happy with each other, but they’re complete with Tala—and their ménage sex scenes are very hot!


Which book was the hardest to write and which the easiest?

Wolf Tales VIII, which comes out next July, was more difficult than they usually are. I actually have two stories that connect at the end, and the logistics were a bit more convoluted than I usually run into with my books, but I’m really pleased with the way it turned out. One story follows a very young woman who discovers she is Chanku, but she’s been raised to think of them as killers and isn’t really happy with the fact she’s been given the nutrients and turned into a creature she’s been raised to fear. The second story is a May/December affair between an older woman and a much younger man—both of whom are sexually quite inexperienced, considering they’re Chanku. They sort of teach each other about sex, and it’s very sweet and very sexy, and since I’m an older woman I found it highly entertaining to write!


If you could change places with one character from your books, who would it be and why?

I’d have to say Tala Quinn…Mik and AJ are every woman’s fantasy—and there are two of them!


If you could travel through time to visit a special time period or famous person, what or who would it be and why?

I’d love to know what the future holds, so if I could travel through time, I’d want to go forward to a time when our grandchildren are old. I wrote a futuristic series called StarQuest (Ellora’s Cave) where I painted a grim picture of the not-so-distant future. I would love to know it’s not going to be as bad as I think it might be!

Do you listen to music while you are writing and if so what music is it?
Rarely. I get so involved in my writing that I don’t even hear it if it’s on, and generally I forget to put a CD in the player. If my characters are listening to music in a scene, I may put that particular style on so that I can write it into the scene more realistically. I recently wrote a very explicit episode with three men who were having sex while listening to Celtic music playing in the background. I wrote it while listening to the same music so that I could pace the various sex acts within the tempo of the flutes, drums and bagpipes. That was fun!


If you could choose one of your books for a movie, which one would it be and who would you want as the cast?

Well, it wouldn’t be Wolf Tales! I think a movie from one of them would even make me blush! One of my books is actually with a producer, and I think it would make a perfect movie—Cowboy in My Pocket is a romantic comedy I wrote in 2001. It’s really funny and I’m hoping that one day it actually makes it to the screen—I can picture Patrick Dempsey playing Tag, the clueless cowboy hero who eventually figures things out in time to get the girl. However, by the time it gets made, if ever, Patrick will probably be much too old!


Are you working on anything right now, and can you tell us a teaser about these projects?

I’m working on Wolf Tales IX, which is actually the seventeenth story in the series, if you count the novellas. This one is really going to be fun, and it’s all a result of input from my readers—Tia Mason Stone is in Montana to have her baby and all the Chanku gather to hang around while she’s in labor. During the long night, they each tell their stories of how they met, how they became Chanku, etc. I asked my readers what stories they wanted to hear, and had an amazing number of responses. It looks like I’ll be writing about AJ and Mik and how they met in prison—they were lovers before they knew they were Chanku. I’ll also write about Anton and Oliver, who knew each other for many years before the series began, about the night Luc Stone discovered Jacob Trent hiking in the mountains, drunk and considering suicide and how he brought him into the pack…and a few others as well. All the stories are from readers’ suggestions, and it’s making it a lot of fun to write.


Big congrats to your newest release “Wolf Tales VII”, the latest instalment of your very successful series. Did you imagine that it would be such a success when you wrote the first book?


LOL…not in my wildest dreams! Remember, I spent twenty years trying to get published. I had sold to epubs and was quite successful there, but New York eluded me until Kensington bought Wolf Tales, which was already an online serial at Changeling Press. I had sent it to my agent when she asked if I had anything erotic to show her, and she sent it to a number of editors who turned it down as too explicit and over the top. Only Audrey LaFehr at Kensington saw the potential in the series, except Kensington didn’t have an erotic romance line—so they created one. Wolf Tales launched the Aphrodisia imprint—in fact, we didn’t know it would be called Aphrodisia until right before the first book in the line—Wolf Tales—released. That same book is now in its eighth printing, so it’s far exceeded anything I ever imagined. From what I hear, Kensington wants more of the series, so there should be more books beyond the one I’m writing now which is scheduled to release in January 2010. I turn 60 that month—I figure that’s a pretty cool way to celebrate a birthday! Maybe that’s a release I’ll actually celebrate in style.

Thank you for the chance to blog here today. I really do appreciate your generosity, and I’ll be checking in to answer questions throughout the day.

Contest:

One very lucky winner will receive a copy of Wolf Tales VII, Sexy Beast IV and a stuffed wolf. So stop by and leave a comment for Kate. The winner will be announced here by tomorrow morning.

Change with the contest: My flu damaged brain put an error in the prize description. The correct one is Wolf Tales VI, Sexy Beast V and Wolf. Sorry about that. One should blog with fever.