*This interview originally posted
here.
Author: Marie Lavender
Book
Title: Upon Your Return
Country
of origin: USA
Genre: Romance
Marie Lavender lives in the Midwest with her family and three cats. She has
been writing for over twenty years. She has more works in progress than she can
count on two hands.
At the tender age of
nine, she began writing stories. Her imagination fueled a lot of her early
child's play. Even growing up, she entered writing contests and received a
certificate for achieving the second round in one. She majored in Creative
Writing in college because that was all she ever wanted - to be a writer. While
there, she published two works in a university publication, and was a copy
editor on the staff of an online student journal. After graduating from
college, she sought out her dream to publish a book. Since then, Marie has published
seventeen books. Marie Lavender's real love is writing romances, but she has
also written mysteries, literary fiction and dabbled a little in paranormal
stories. Most of her works have a romantic element involved in them.
Hi, Marie! Thank you for joining us! Tell
us a little about yourself.
I
studied Creative Writing in college.
Since then, I have published seventeen books in the genres of literary
fiction and romance. My main focus is
romance. I have written historical
romance, contemporary romance, paranormal romance and romantic suspense.
How
long have you been writing? Are
any of your characters based on people in your life or possibly even yourself?
I
have been writing since I was nine years old. I
don’t intentionally write about the people in my life, but it’s possible they
have been loosely based on them. I know
that my friends and family have noticed a lot of me in my characters, though.
What
are the titles of your previous works ?
Here is a list of my books and pen names:
As Marie Lavender: Upon Your Return
As Erica Sutherhome: Hard to Get; Memories; A Hint of Scandal; Without
You; Strange Heat; Terror in the Night; Haunted; Pursuit; Perfect Game; A Touch of Dawn; Ransom; Leather and Lace
As Kathryn Layne: A Misplaced Life
As Heather Crouse: Express Café and Other
Ramblings; Ramblings, Musings and
Other Things; Soulful Ramblings and
Other Worldly Things
What
is the highest praise you have received for a book?
I
always feel really good when the reader seems to understand the character
really well. I know I have done my
job. I had one reviewer who claimed to
be cynical about certain types of historical romance and yet she likened me to greats
like Sabrina Jeffries when she read Upon
Your Return. That is high
praise. To even be considered of that caliber
of author is certainly a boost to my self-esteem.
What
you are working on now?
I
am polishing the manuscript for Upon Your
Honor, the sequel to Upon Your Return. I also plan to release an anthology very
soon. I just received a contract for a
paranormal romance so that should be out sometime in 2014. I have a lot of projects on the backburner as
well so I am not exactly pining for new material.
Who
is your favorite character and why?
Fara
Bellamont, the main character of Upon
Your Return, will always hold a special place in my heart. Not only is she the first historical character
I wrote, she makes a point to go against the dictates of society in most
things. I can respect that. There’s a bit of a rebel in me too.
How
do you want the reader to feel when they have finished reading your book?
All
romance novels are supposed to have an HEA, or happy ending. I think I strive to not only create that in
my romances, but to try to answer all of the questions the reader might still
have. I don’t intend to give a
cliffhanger at all. The idea for the
sequels came later on. Mostly, what I
want is for the reader to feel a sense of satisfaction when they close the
book. I always like that feeling when I
finish reading one.
How
does your family feel about your work?
They
seem pretty supportive. My mother is
trying to purchase all of my published books, and my sister has read some of
them. My father and brother don’t read
fiction at all so I can’t expect that of them.
LOL. But, I think they are glad
that I was able to see my dreams come to fruition.
Are
there other members of your family involved in your writing process, such as
proofread for you or other things?
In
the past, when I was taking writing classes, my sister volunteered to help
proofread my work so she was kind of a beta reader. When I started self-publishing, that became a
solitary venture. But recently, when I
was working on the sequel to Upon Your Return,
she offered to help me again. I think
she just wanted to help, and she has helped me catch some things here and
there. I also sent it to quite a few beta readers and critique partners.
What
is your definition of SUCCESS in writing?
Well,
being published definitely helps. I
think writing is about goals that you set for yourself. Maybe the goal is to get a few pages written
per day or so many chapters per month.
Maybe the goal is to just finish the book. I think you try to do anything you can to
meet those goals because nowadays, the only person that suffers is you. No one is tying your hands or forcing you to
do it so you have to find the strength in yourself to keep doing it. But, there’s no point in doing something
you’re not passionate about either. If
it was about money or fame, I would have walked away a long time ago. I write because I can’t imagine doing anything
else. I write because the characters
talk to me and the scenes come into my head, and I have no choice but to get
them down before I forget. To me,
success is being satisfied with where you are.
Do I have more goals for myself?
Of course. I’m nowhere near
done. I think success means something
different to everyone. For myself, it
means getting to a place where I can do the thing I love comfortably, to
immerse myself in that fictional world and come up occasionally to talk to a
reader or a fellow writer.
How
did you approach finally getting published?
I’m
a stubborn person sometimes. You could
say I took things into my own hands.
Starting in 2010, I began self-publishing books. It became very enjoyable for me. It was fun to build a book, to make the
manuscript everything it could be, then focus on proofreading and cover
art. I started out publishing my
literary fiction and poetry. In 2012, I
realized I had all of these unfinished stories sitting around, stories that
were always meant to be longer. So, I
focused on one and published that as well.
From then on, it became an obsession.
Before I knew it, I had a ton of books published. In the midst of all that, I had been working
on Upon Your Return since 2002 and by
2011, it was ready for submission. I
knew more than anything that I had to try to publish it traditionally
first. So, I started sending it to
literary agents. I had many
rejections. Eventually, I had so many
that I decided to explore my options. I
tried sending directly to publishers. In
August of 2012, I received a contract for Upon
Your Return with Solstice Publishing.
It was published in February. I
now have two book contracts with Solstice, and I hope to have another next year
with the sequel. It has been an
interesting ride. I haven’t given up on self-publishing
either. In November, I published Leather and Lace, a romantic
suspense. It just earned its first
review this week.
What
avenues do you take to promote your book?
Mostly,
I use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ to promote my books. I also have a few book cover ads here and
there. All my book covers are displayed on Eat Sleep Write!
Answer
this… “I’ve always wanted to
_________.”
Live
in a castle.
Describe
what the perfect day would be like for you.
The
perfect day would be a day I spend with my fiancé. I can imagine a private beach, lots of sun
and just relaxation. Maybe we would take
a walk down the beach or look for seashells, maybe do some sightseeing locally. When I am not immersed in my writing or
working at my side job, I just want to be with the man I love.
Do
you have any plans for the future that you would care to share with us?
Among
everything else, I am doing a romantic suspense collaboration with another
writer called Certain Death. It is about a high
level scientist who stumbles across a terrorist plot at the company she works
for. Fleeing from danger, she must rely
on an enemy for protection. As this
project is still in the works, I’m not quite sure when we’ll be done, but we’ve
made quite a bit of progress.
Links
http://marielavender.webs.com/
http://marielavenderbooks.blogspot.com/
http://marielavender.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/MarieAnnLavender
https://twitter.com/marielavender1
https://plus.google.com/104926404745289477307/posts
