Interview with Author Larriane AKA Larion Wills:
Hi Larriane. Thank you for doing this interview. I would like to welcome you to the Romance at Heart Interview and Author Grilling session. *bg* We are interested to find out as much about you as we possibly can, so lets get started...
- Please tell us about your latest book.
It’s Still Tomorrow, published through Swimming Kangaroo Books, has turned out to be one of my favorites. I’m often asked what inspires me to write a particular story and come up blank. This one, however, I can blame on Nora Roberts’ Three Sisters series and the movie Practical Magic. Their witches were so much fun they set my mind off to create witches of my own and had a lot of fun with them along with suspense and romance, unlike the witch in my Evil Reflection, also through Swimming Kangaroo Books.
Sarah turned out to be so much fun while she fought to overcome the evil directed at her, I found myself laughing as much as I cringed. Dem, the hero, is sexy, smart, loyal, and on and on. The sparks fly when both are determined not to get involved. Sarah helps, at least temporarily, by putting a block on Dem to prevent him from seeing her sexually. Problem with that was it had a limited distance to be effective. Imagine his confusion when away from her that was how he thought of her, and when he was with her, nothing. He begins by admiring her courage when she knows she’s being stalked and ends falling head over heels in love with her. When the stalking turns deadly and he’s injured, Sarah renounces her vow not to practice the craft and goes after the one trying so hard to kill her. The tag line is, They should have let the sleeping witch lie.
- What can we expect from you in the future?
I’m going to assume you mean as a writer, versus, say will I be moving—no way—go to school—done with that—go shopping next week—always on a Friday. As a writer I’ve moved on to two new publishers. Actually I got shoved out of my comfortable nest when Swimming Kangaroo closed its doors to new submissions a result of poor economy combined with family illness. I miss them terribly, but as a writer who just can’t quit, I’ve found two companies I’m settling in with, XOXO Publishing and Museitup Publishing. XOXO will soon be releasing The Eternal Search, a science fiction romance, under my pen of Larriane Wills. With Museitup I switch off to my second pen, Larion Wills for three releases in 2010, two western romances, White Savage and Tarbet, and one contemporary, Chase. I use Larriane for science fiction and fantasy, and use Larion with the others to give my readers a clue as to what they will find in the books. Only somewhat, for as you can see Larion covers from historical to contemporary. Larion also covers several different heat degrees, some with paranormal aspects mixed in and some not. Chase has no witches or ESP. Neither do the any of the westerns, yet.
- How do we find out about you and your books?
You’ll find excerpts and blurbs for all those published and the coming soon on my website, www.larriane.com I have a blog page there and I also have a blog, http://larionmusing.blogspot.com/ I’m not the world’s greatest at posting new blogs with any kind of regularity, but I do offer a wide variety of subjects—that’s why I used musing in the title though mind-wandering may have been more appropriate. I also have guest bloggers drop in from time to time.
- Do you allow readers to contact you? If so, how do they reach you?
I love for my readers to contact me. I enjoy interacting with them and hearing what they think of my stories. They can comment on the blogs, comment in the guest book on my site, or email me at larriane@larriane.com. Don’t you think it a bit disgusting that we have to put in a space or two to keep spammers from using our sites? For a while I had to continually go into my site and remove people posting ads for everything from real estate to Viagra on my guestbook page. I really got angry when someone started posting sale sites for teen porn. Fortunately my webhost put a stop to it. I know my request that they didn’t do it had little effect. Those people have no conscience. Sorry, didn’t mean to get off on a pet peeve.
- What are some of the most memorable questions/comments?
I think the most memorable comment was that I was an inspiration. I had to really do a double take on that, a ‘who, me?’ I’m what could be called a late bloomer. I didn’t start pursuing actually publishing my work until I’d crossed that sixties line, even though I had started putting things down on paper back in my twenties. Why did I wait so long? I was a big coward. I just didn’t think I could deal with the rejections I’d read that all authors suffer though, enough rejections to paper a wall, without getting my feeling hurt. That, of course, boiled down to a lack of self confidence. Oh, I had my excuses. My favorite was quoting something I’d read, that publishers didn’t want to read you if you didn’t have an agent and agents didn’t want to represent you if you weren’t published.
I had others too, didn’t have the time, raising my family, working outside the home, didn’t have enough education. That last one really sucked, didn’t it? I don’t have college degrees to hang on my wall, none of those like I read in the bios of so many authors I read, none in literature, none in history, none in anything. That didn’t mean I hadn’t gone to college. I had taken courses, when I had the time, in things that interested me, creative writing for one. I finally decided: one, I could take the rejections, and two, just because I didn’t have the degrees didn’t mean I couldn’t write. I had a closet full of manuscripts that said differently. The question was, how well did I write? The only way I was going to find out was to brave the process. Since then I’ve had two people tell me I inspired them to write, both at least 10 years younger than me. They both said they’d thought themselves too old, but if I could do it, so could they. So there I am, an inspiration. Who would have thought it?
- Do you have a favorite comment or question from a reader?
Does family count? Because some of mine have really surprised me from the grandson and son, who had never read a book before reading mine, just because I wrote it, to my avid reading brother who told me he didn’t read that genre, but he read mine and liked it. He even went on to tell me why, all making my head swell. Both of the boys discovered they actually liked reading and continue to with other authors now. That makes me proud.
- Does your family bother you when you are writing - are there constant interruptions?
My poor family has endured my writing habits for all those years. I can remember saying just a minute to my daughter until she sighed in exasperation, but she still waited until I had that train of thought finished. They were all very accustomed to me disappearing in my room, when I had the space for one and not coming out until I had to. After all, I couldn’t let them starve. I did need to fix dinner. Everything else was done on the fly. A load of wash into the machine, probably putting the load already in it into the dryer, after taking those out of the dryer to fold. And no matter what I was doing, my head was working on the story. My mother would tell people she’s either working on a story or she’s mad at me. Since she knew I seldom every got mad enough to pout, she’d follow with where are you? No telling what kind of answer she’d get. Things like Louisiana during the civil war to France with the resistance. Now with the kids grown and out on their own, there’s just hubby and the two dogs. I work on a laptop most of the time now, sitting on the couch so he doesn’t feel like he’s living alone. The dogs, though, do have to go out. They’ve learned if staring doesn’t work, jumping up beside me and pawing at my arm does. I’m not sure if they understand just a minute or not.
- What does your husband/wife/partner think of your writing?
My husband is extremely proud of me. He proves it by bragging about his author wife. He’s passed out chapbooks where he goes for breakfast, gone with me to book fairs and conventions, puts up with a messy house. If it hadn’t been for him, I probably never would have submitted—at least not as soon as I did. He kept pushing at me to ‘do something with your writing.’ I couldn’t ask for a more supportive spouse.
- Do you ever ask him/her for advice?
Advice, not so much. He’s a business man, but he doesn’t anything about publishing. He is, however, a well of information on several other subjects. More than once I’ve had him read a scene to tell me if it’s accurate. After all, how many people can tell you how much a dozer costs or weights? How a single action pistol works differently than a double? How a fuel injection works. Etc, etc.
- What do you think of critique groups in general?
If you find the right one, they’re great. I happen to belong to one that is, with three other authors. One has published two of the things we’ve worked on for her, and I’ve published four, I think it is. The other two are new writers, working on it, and I’m sure they’ll make it as long as they stick with it. I would say, if you get in a group where you don’t feel comfortable with comments that you’re getting, to seek out another.
- Do you think critique groups are a necessity to becoming a good writer?
I wouldn’t say such groups are a necessity. I would say they’re a great help in putting more polish into your work before submitting. To overlook your mistakes in something as simple as spelling is so easy to do, things misspelled or wrong words spelled right that spell check misses, like trial and trial. Both are spelled correctly so spell check didn’t pick it up. Continuity and context are other areas where other readers help immensely. The writer knows every detail concerning their characters and locations, but to put them all in would be boring. If you don’t put in enough, however, it can be too confusing for the reader to follow. A critique group or even one person can help peg those weaknesses and increase the chances of impressing a publisher enough to send you a contract. Why, because the least amount of work the editors have to do, the least amount of time, and expenses, the publisher has to put out.
- What is the most rewarding thing about being a writer?
Earlier I mentioned the son and grandson that started reading because of my books. I think that’s a great compliment to me and, I hate to say, a failing on the education system. I’m sure I’ll get some flack over that statement, because I said it once before on a loop and had a teacher tell me the kids now read more than they used to via texting and computers. I’ve seen examples of the language skills they use in both. The abbreviations because it takes too long to thumb out a complete word, the spelling—lack thereof—and what’s punctuation? That’s nothing in it to compare to reading a book. Chatting on the net? Same thing. The computers are great research tools, but I’ve seen too many examples of not reading more than necessary to know they have the right spot and printing it out with very few alterations to turn in as their assay. That isn’t learning to read or how to appreciate the written word, the places it can take you or the people you can meet.
Thank you very much for taking the time with us and answering our questions. I really appreciate this interruption to your busy schedule. Good Luck, and we will be looking forward to the next delightful creation from your talented imagination!
Yours in good reading,
Rose!
Author Links:
Website Email Blog Facebook
You can also find Larriane through the following Groups/Newsletters:
Museitup readers group
XOXO readers group
The romance room
Karen about books
Coffetime and more, erotic
Joyfully reviewed
RaH Links:
Review Coming
Purchase Links:
Buy Books at Swimming Kangaroo Books
Buy Books at XOXO Publishing
Buy Books at Museitup Publishing