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Julie: How long have you been writing? What inspired you to pick the pen up one day and create characters that capture the imagination?

Marie: I've been writing creatively since I could first hold a pencil. But professionally, I've been writing for going on four years now. I used to write when the mood hit, and wanted so very badly to be a writer. But I didn't write. I just talked about it. Not sure what finally motivated me, but one day the light came on and I stopped yakking and started typing. And here I am.

Julie: What do you feel is the most important thing that a first-time author should know?

Marie: To never give up. Most first manuscripts should be trashed, bottom line. Very few authors sell their first work unedited, unchanged. The key is to keep writing, take rejection in stride and learn from it, but not dwell on the negative. Easier said than done. But when I look back on my first manuscript and compare it to what I've written today, there's no comparison as to which work is better…the one written today, of course.

Julie: What is your writing process? Do you outline, fly by the seat of your pants or a combination of both?

Marie: A little of both, I think. I have a general idea of where I want the story to go. But after that first sentence, all bets are off on how they get there. Occasionally, if I'm having problems getting through a scene I'll sketch it out, but I normally just write.

Marie: I love erotic romance, but I've had a couple ideas for some straight up fiction I plan to get to…someday. It's all a matter of time. Once my kids are all in school, I hope that'll free me to take on more projects.

Julie: What do you hope for your writing career in the next few years? Any goals that you have yet to obtain that you have set for yourself?

Marie: I just signed with an agent, who'll be shopping a new book (and hopefully a series) in New York for me. I'd like to break into mass market if for no other reason than to broaden my audience. Don't get me wrong. I love smaller presses and the freedoms that go with them. And if/when I do become published by a larger publishing house, I intend to continue to write for the publishers I have now. But I won't stop writing until I get my first NYTimes bestseller, and then I'll write some more.

Marie: I just finished Gena Showalter's Savor Me Slowly, an Alien Huntress novel, and Lynn Viehl's Evermore, a novel of the Darkyn. Both are continuations in a series, but I think you could read Savor Me Slowly and love it as much as I did. Viehl's book, while terrific, might be confusing to a first time reader. But I wholeheartedly recommend to start with her first book in the series. Awesome reads!!!

Marie: I write at my desk in my study, or what the kids call their playroom. And since it does house all their toys, they may be right. My desk is large enough to house my computer, printer, shredder and a myriad of supplies. A picture of Clint Eastwood in his spaghetti western finest is on my bulletin board, and my bendable, six-inch, 20+ year old Godzilla stands below my monitor demanding perfection.

I also have my reference material and a TV on top of the nearby filing cabinet. But when I'm writing, everything must stay off and quiet. Thus I write at night when everyone's asleep.

Julie: Do you prefer writing series books over non series or does it matter?

Marie: It doesn't matter to me. But sometimes a stand-alone book will turn into a series because those pesky secondary characters become too intriguing. I conceived the Storm Lords as a series from the beginning. But my Firebreather books for Amber Quill were only supposed to be one book, now turning into three.

Marie: I'm currently working on a futuristic romance, a return to the futuristic world I created a few years ago. Then I have a second book to follow the first I gave my agent, and a new book idea that won't let me go. I'm not sure if it's a romance or not, but I really love the concept. And sorry, I can't tell 'til it's done.

Marie: Sure do. I was twelve, precocious and bored, needing something new to read. So I "borrowed" my mom's copy of Johanna Lindsey's A Gentle Feuding and was hooked on romance from that moment on.