- What can we expect from you in the future?

Time Travel romances are a definite. I also write in many other romance genres and I have a marvelous Fantasy romance, and a couple Historical romances, oh and there are the contemporaries that I'm going to be releasing.

I've just begun to explore the writing world of Erotica/Romantica. My love scenes have always been hot; in fact in one of my historical romances has a wedding night takes a whole chapter to consummate! Erotica allows my characters to be free in expressing their love for each other, I find that refreshing, exciting and very realistic. I suspect that if the characters and the story call for Erotica I will be incorporating this into my stories.

Writing is like a door into the past and other worlds, I will never stop exploring. I believe that a writer is always learning, always improving, behind each new door I can perfect my skills and I hope the stories never end.

- How do we find out about you and your books?

Check my website: www.jewelsway.com
I have a newsletter "Lovers In Time" that you can sign up for, just email me to receive the monthly newsletter and important updates: jewelsnovels@msn.com
I love to hear from my readers, feel free to write to me at that email address.
You can also drop into my publisher's site: www.whiskeycreekpresstorrid.com

- When did you first think about writing and what prompted you to submit your first ms?

I use to read all the time, I love books and I've read everything from The Black Stallion, Travels with Charlie, poetry by all the greats like Longfellow and Poe, to Shakespeare and Chaucer. Writing came as a natural extension of all those books. I made up stories all the time and then started to write Romance every stolen minute I could get between my career, marriage and raising my children. One day, after a serious accident that changed my life, I began writing to save my sanity.

Writing became my escape from pain. Oh and did I write. I don't sleep much so I sit at the kitchen table with notebook paper and a dozen pencils sharpened and write…. The most wonderful thing happens, the stories start and the characters, well they become so real and so very demanding; every one of them want their stories told!

Here I sat with all these novels, wondering what to do next and I discovered the internet. It's a great place and at that time a rather small place LOL, that certainly changed. I found a great romance writer's chat room my first week on the internet. I remember the first thing I had to do to get into the room was to make up a nickname, Jewel was the first name that came to me and it's stuck since 1995. In that chat room I found a group of friends, all writers, and we all started to critique our work and help each other. We are all still on the net and involved in all aspects of Electronic writing, publishing and/or printing.

Of course once you edit your book the next step is submitting and one of the hardest steps to take. I did submit to Romance publishers in New York and received very favorable responses, but one thing they all wanted were smaller books. The big historical romances were no longer sought after, economics ruled; word count on books drop from the 140,000 words for a novel, down to 50 to 70,000 words.

What a shock that news delivered. I faced a huge dilemma, in order to get published I needed to chop my books in two!

I decided I would rather give my books away to readers on the internet than to destroy the story. I did just that, I began serializing my novels to readers on the net in exchange for their input and reaction to my books. It must have been a good choice seeing as some big name authors started doing it with their books; of course they charged for the books, I didn't<g>.

That was years ago and now we have Electronic Publishing and word count isn't the issue, a good story is a good story. My focus will probably always be Electronic Publishing and PODs, I do believe that Ebooks are the way of the things in the publishing world and I hope to be a part of this extraordinary future.

- What are your thoughts on love scenes in romance =novels, do you find them difficult to write?

I smiled over this question remembering how I feared my first love scene, the one that took a whole chapter to complete! I've reread that love scene many times and it still makes me feel the love between these two characters and that is so important.

Whether you write regular romance love scenes or the erotica/romantica love scenes there has to be love. I honestly don't think I could write a love scene just for the sexual aspects of it. No, my characters dictate the love scenes and the depth they go to. The story will also lead to certain problems for the hero and heroine and there may be that evil protagonist and who knows what he or she might do to our couple. I've said this many times, ‘the characters write the story' and it is true. If something bad is to happen, sexual or otherwise, to the main characters, than it will be written that way.

I can understand why some readers might find this realistic part of my stories offensive, but if it is important to the story than it must remain. If I were writing a War story I wouldn't leave out the blood and guts and flying body parts of a battle; believe me words can be much more graphic than the movies. If a murder mystery has a death I would surely describe the body's torment, hence – my love scenes good and bad are included and they are probably more graphic than most.

- What are the elements of a great romance for you?

First you have to have a good story, full of adventure and excitement or the characters won't become real. Character development is probably the most important aspect in creating the romance. When a story begins for me it come with just a word or a title, maybe the name of the hero or heroine, from there I write what ever comes. I don't leave anything out, this is part of developing my characters, getting to know them, and it is also, for the most part, a whole bunch of pages that the reader will never see.

Once I get to know the characters than the setting develops. They tell me their history and current setting; from there is the research. I do lots of research; not only on the era that the story takes place but the setting, customs, clothing, world happenings and beliefs. A writer can't be stingy on the setting nor the history of the story, but we also have to know how to trim all this information into an acceptable story. Blending in the historic facts is very difficult. Readers don't want to read pages full of historic facts in a romance; they want a story with great characters. History can be used to develop the characters, a dash here a scoop there, it can lend the characters depth and makes them real.

I also feel that a reader should be involved in the story. To accomplish this I write in multiple Point Of View or POV. It used to be a big no-no to write in more than one character's POV, I find stories without this very flat. If you can't hear what is going through the Hero's thoughts than you would only have the Heroine's POV, which can become very bias. I prefer to give my readers both POVs, I believe it develops the characters giving them three dimensions and more emotion.

- What is the most rewarding thing about being a writer?

My heart swells when a reader writes to me and tells me how much they enjoyed the book. To know that I reached someone with my writing, just like the authors of books I've read did to me, is such a special feeling. I doubt if I will ever stop writing, but I have and will always want to hear from my readers.

- Any words of encouragement for unpublished writers?

Don't stop writing! Let your thoughts flow and don't get bogged down by worrying if this word or that word is right. The most important part of writing is to keep the story going all the way to the final page. Editing is important, but you can do that once you get the story down.

Find your way to write. You will hear so many different ways that writers author a book. Some use outlines, others do the BIAW (Book In A Week). You will find your own way by sticking to it and just because you don't outline or you don't start at the beginning doesn't mean you are wrong. Listen to your heart, if it takes you a month to write one page, find a different hobby or stop second guessing yourself and just write.

And if you thought writing the book was difficult, editing is pure torture! It takes nearly as long to learn how to edit as it did for your perfect your writing. Every page that you cut out of the story probably means you need to cut another. It is all a learning process, just keep telling yourself – "I am a writer, I can write just as well as ______!"

- Thank you, Jewel for a wonderful and enlightening interview. We will be looking forward to seeing Riverboats and Rainbows, and wish you the best of luck with your career. We appreciate you time, your energy, and you good books. Thanks again, Jewel.

Yours in good reading,
Rose!

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