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Past Interviews |
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Kate Donovan
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What made you say, “Hey, I want to be a published author”? | |
Thanks for inviting me to be a guest on you site, Sherry! For years, I was happy making up stories for my own amusement and occasionally committing them to paper – for my eyes only. But as the demands on my time increased – being a new mom and a new lawyer (on a long maternity leave) – it wasn’t always easy to justify spending time on “daydreaming.” My hope was that if I could earn some money from the stories, I could write without guilt. And that’s exactly what happened. My overwhelming priority at that time was the kids, but once they were both is school full time, I gave my writing career and my law career equal footing. Sometimes, when the books were doing well, I’d scale back the hours in my part time attorney job, and vice versa when the markets for my subgenres ebbed. It turned out to be the perfect balance for me!
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Writing can be a very solitary endeavor, and a crazy business. What do you do to keep your spirits up and keep you motivated day after day? |
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I should mention that in addition to having a joint income, I have a super-supportive husband who encourages me and makes every day fun. Seriouslsy, did I mention I'm lucky? |
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You’ve written multiple books. Has your method for writing a book from start to finish changed over the years? If so, in what way?
Oddly enough, it has come full circle in a sense. In the old days, I would just write whatever I wanted – any genre, any length – and then try to shoe horn it into the market. Eventually I learned that it was a lot easier to follow market specifications from the start. For example, some stories naturally want to be 40,000 words long, some want to be 120,000. But back in the 1990s and early 2000s, publishers wanted particular lengths – 65,000 for my Silhouettes, I think; 120,000 for the time travels; 100,000 for historical romance, etc. So as I gained experienced, I learned to plot out the book early in the process, just to be sure I wouldn’t have to pad or cut too much later.
With the explosion of the e-book market, we can write our stories any length we want! (Within reason, but still – yay!) So I’d say I’ve kept what works in many respects – and of course, my writing has gotten stronger from working with great editors – but I’ve also gone back to the “let the story dictate the format, length and tone.” So I’d say it’s a great time to be an author.
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Out of all of the books you’ve written, do you have one or two that were your absolute favorite(s) to write? If so, which one(s), and please share with us why. -
I loved writing the Dream books (out of print, but hopefully back in e-book someday soon) because that story just flowed out of me like Athena bursting forth, full grown, from Zeus’s forehead. And it kept going and going, right through a second generation of characters and beyond. The original heroine – Molly Sheridan – was truly a best friend or sister. And I loved those two guys who were competing for her.
But the truth is, I'm one of those writers who falls madly in love with her current work in progress, whatever it is. I'm always convinced it's my all-time favorite (right up until I get involved with the next favorite). I'm sure that's why I love writing sequels and series. Just can't let go!
Which comes first for you? The characters? Or the story?
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This is such a great question and I’m not really sure of the answer. With the exception of one or two books, my stories always start with a line of dialogue. In other words, I hear some stranger talking, and it intrigues me. Maybe the character is arguing with someone, or teasing some one, but there’s also a provocative angle to what he or she is saying. That angle drives me to figure out what is going on, and the next thing I know, I have a scene. (Not necessarily the first scene in the book. Maybe a romantic suspense heroine is tied up and trying to avoid revealing important information; maybe it’s a man being frustrated at some nameless, faceless female for besting him at something; and maybe we’re about to be attacked!) So I consider my stories dialogue driven. Once the dialogue starts to flow, I learn who those folks are and I also learn what sort of predicament they have found themselves in. The characters made the story come alive, but the story is always there, right from the start. I just have to figure out what’s going on in that first, provocative scene. |
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Your recent books are Sci-Fi Romance. Why Sci-Fi? What makes this sub-genre so appealing to you? |
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When I want to relax or escape, I turn to science fiction, fantasy, and occasionally horror (not the blood and guts stuff, more like supernatural thrillers) and my media of choice are TV and movies. I inhale that stuff, but for a long time, my writing style – my voice – was too light for those genres. As the barriers broke down, and we could write what I call “romantic adventure” I was able to indulge my favorite genres in my writing too. I love hard core sci-fi but I can’t write it. I can do the research, and can form a basic understanding of all the crazy theories and laws that govern gravity, time travel, space travel, etc – but when it comes to gritty realism, well, that’s where you lose me. I want those two crazy kids to fall in love and I don’t want either of them getting killed!
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Tell us a bit about your world building process. Do you keep extensive notes, or create collages to keep it all straight? |
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I keep extensive notes, sometimes for years, since most of the science fiction and fantasy stories take a while to percolate. You should see my files! Articles torn out of Scientific American or other magazines, or printed off the internet, usually with only one tiny paragraph circled in red with a “use this in xxx” written beside it. In the meantime, the world in which the story takes place evolves a lot like the characters and plot – over time, developing around one nugget of information, then another, then another. So for example, when I was writing SPACE FEVER, I knew there was an alien civilization with silver-colored eyes. This was a very Spartan type culture and they were famed for their piloting and navigational skills. I realized as time went on that the protective metallic layer on their eyes had developed because of the harsh rays of their sun, and the rest of their early development in such hostile surroundings contributed to their stoic personalities and their impatience with the arts and creativity. Meanwhile, the heroine’s planet had been a Garden of Eden type environment where gentleness could flourish – right up until the time when a priceless element was discovered in abundance and space pirates started attacking them. That’s just one example of a nugget/nucleus that a piece of the world forms around. Depending on the complexity of the story and the universe, there could be dozens of such little gems that enrich the story as it unfolds. It’s so much fun. |
When you’re not writing, what do you do for fun? |
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I love to cook and I had the wonderful good fortune to learn authentic Mexican cooking from my very talented mother in law. I’m 100% Irish in ancestry, but you sure wouldn’t know it from our kitchen! I love watching TV (isn’t that sad?) and exploring used book stores for rare finds. And I have some amazing friends who are very bad influences, dragging me out to “lunch” which is really just an excuse to have scintillating conversations. ;-) Now that the kids are grown, Paul and I are traveling more too, although I have to admit, I love our house and our backyard, so luring me elsewhere is quite the task. Of course, once we go somewhere, I fall in love with it (with Rome as the top of a very short list of best places in the entire universe).
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| Please share some news about your latest release. |
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My latest original release, THE LAST NOEL, came out in November. It’s a sci-fi adventure about an anthropologist who is an expert on world religions, and who is contacted by an alien race with a bizarre request – to help them analyze and soften the psychological effects that will occur at midnight on December 24th when the aliens explode a star visible from Earth as part of an experiment. I also had a re-release just last month, a time travel book called TIMELESS. Published originally in 1994, it was my very first published novel, and tells the story of a beautiful but disillusioned environmentalist who is transported to the 17th century backwoods. Is she supposed to change history? Does she dare? All she knows is, she never wants to return to the modern world that treated her so roughly. Not when she can inhale pristine air and walk through unspoiled forests with her backwoods hero.
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What’s on tap for the near future? |
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Coming in June from Samhain!
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I’m working on three stories – a space opera, a romantic comedy, and a romantic suspense. I’m just finishing up the romantic suspense so with any luck will be published later this spring, or summer at the latest. I can’t talk about it yet because the FBI agent hero has sworn me to secrecy! But as predicted, it’s my favorite story I’ve written in – well, months! I hope you give it a try. |
Thanks so much for being my guest this month, Kate! |
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I’ve had so much fun with these questions, Sherry! Thanks again for having me as a guest. |
Find Kate on her Website and at Authors By Moonlight the first Tuesday of every month. |
