I'm am very excited to say Kathleen Dante has taken time out of her busy schedule to grant me an interview!!
I've been hooked on Ms. Dante's novels since reading Entangled.
Read on for her interesting interview:
Bookworm: What got you interested in writing? How long have you been writing?
Kathleen Dante: When I was growing up, I was a voracious reader. I would make up scenes
in my head, usually about characters from stories I'd read or TV shows I
watched, and I made sporadic attempts to get them down on paper --
without much success.
About five years ago, there was this scene that popped to mind and I
couldn't let it go. I found myself revisiting it and adding dialog and
getting the details and description down just so. I couldn't let it go.
So I decided to write it down, because I had to know what happened. To
my surprise, I liked what I'd written -- a lot. I challenged myself to
get serious: write a novel. Essentially, put up or shut up. That scene
was Lantis' clairfield conference with Dillon.
Bookworm: In your two books, Entangled and Enticed, there is a bit of the paranormal involved, what made you to add this aspect to these stories?
Kathleen Dante: Part of it probably stems from my love of science fiction and fantasy.
It seemed natural for me to combine magic. In fact, all my stories to
date have an element of the paranormal.
I never considered not having a paranormal element in Entangled. As I
said, that first scene that came to me was the clairfield conference.
That teleportation delivery of the files at the end of that scene hooked
my imagination. I wanted to explore that world. Another thing I was
exploring was the concept of entanglement, a quantum phenomenon that was
getting some write-ups in the science news at the time and intrigued my
imagination. In stories by other authors, when two characters are
linked, they usually experience the link in the same way; I didn't think
that should be the case, so in Lantis and Kiera's entanglement, Lantis
perceives Kiera's input as emotion, while Kiera perceives Lantis' input
as sensation.
Since Enticed is a sequel, set in the same universe, it also had to have
a paranormal element. In my opinion, the paranormal has to be central to
the plot if I'm to include it, so Jordan's abilities became a source of
tension.
Bookworm: Who chooses your book covers? They are great.
Kathleen Dante: I've been lucky with my book covers, since it's my publisher's art
department that handles that. I don't have much input into the covers, I
just squeal for joy when I finally see them.
Bookworm: How long does it take you to write a book? Do you ever get writers block?
Kathleen Dante:
These days, actual writing takes around seven months, but the start and
completion dates are farther apart than that because real life happens.
Entangled took a year and a half because I had a day job. Enticed took
nine months and Dreamwalker was seven months.
I've never suffered from a block, per se. My writing might slow to a
crawl (a hundred words a day), but generally, if a scene is giving me
problems, I just jump to another scene. If the writing is going really
slow, I break out the dark chocolate.
When I'm having difficulty, that usually means I have insufficient
information (usually on character motivation, setting or research) or my
hindbrain is trying to tell me there's something wrong with the set-up.
Otherwise, I'm just dreading a scene. When I realized Timothy would get
injured in the showdown in Enticed, my writing stopped cold. I had to
write that scene in nibbles -- a sentence here, a paragraph there, then
back to another scene.
Bookworm: Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work?
Kathleen Dante: Just one? That's a tough question. I can't limit it to just one.
Patricia Briggs, Lois McMaster Bujold, Jim Butcher, Sharon Lee & Steve
Miller, John Ringo, Wen Spencer. Some have more romance than others.
John Ringo's are usually bloody and violent. But for me, it boils down
to storytelling. When I open their books, I get caught up in the story.
That's what I look for and what I try to achieve with my writing.
Bookworm:When you aren't busy writing, what do you like to do?
Kathleen Dante: I try to write seven days a week, to keep the writing muscles in shape.
But when I'm not writing, I read and I travel. But mostly I read.
Bookworm: Are you working on any books now?
Kathleen Dante: I recently turned in Endangered, which is Rio and Cyn's story and will
be out in April 2009. Right now, I'm working on two proposals: one is
another erotic romance that's set in the same universe as the En series,
but isn't connected; the other is an erotic fantasy, still with a
romance, of course, but with swords.
Bookworm: Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?
Kathleen Dante: Thank you for your support. I'm honored that you enjoy my books. I hope
to continue to write stories you enjoy.
-----------------------------------------------------
Thank you again Ms. Dante for chatting with me. I hope fellow readers will pick up one of Kathleen Dante's sizzling books.
visit her website: http://www.kathleendante.com/
