Raven Hart

Thanks, Michelle!

Thanks, Michelle, for your lovely review and everyone else for your support. I hope you all like the book(s).

Thanks, Nici!

You're most welcome, Nici! And, you're welcome Michelle. It was a lot of fun.

You're most welcome.

Icecream, I'm so glad you liked The Vampire's Seduction!!! Thanks for the kudos!

The conference was lots of fun! Thanks! Michelle, I've thought about this, and for right now, I'd like to write as many books in the series as the readers want. If I'm fortunate enough to be able to write several more, I might at some point get burned out, but for right now, I would love to continue. My only goal is to try and make each book at little better than the last. Only you guys can tell me if I'm succeeding. It's been fun to be your featured author for the month. Thanks for the questions/conversation! Be sure and visit my site, www.ravenhartbooks.com.

I've enjoyed talking to you folks this month. I'm off for a conference tomorrow morning, but I'll check the messages when I get back on Monday.

Icecream, I'm delighted you like the book!!! You can ask me questions anytime. Visit my website at www.ravenhartbooks.com and leave any questions/comments you want.

Believe me, I've been tempted to do just that!

Great questions, Michelle. It's kind of anticlimactic, to tell you the truth. You visualize your books in a very prominent spot and then you go into the bookstore on the "laydown" date and they haven't even taken them out of the box. Oy! I went out to my nearest Barnes and Noble and that's what happened (again). I much prefer the kind of book I'm writing now, in that there are fewer "rules" you have to follow. However, having said that, I must admit that more and more romance is creeping into the series. When you're writing a straight romance, the romantic story has to be the driving story and it's difficult to sustain the kind of believable conflict that will keep two people who are meant for each other apart for a whole book. Romance writing is pretty difficult, actually.

Michelle, I really haven't had a chance to work on the other project lately, but I plan to get back to it soon. I had some distrations over the winter what with building a new office in my basement and relocating a lot of my belongings, but I'm about finished with all that. The main project I want to work on is a southern mystery.

Michelle, you sent me such a lovely card! But thanks for the additional birthday wishes, and thanks Lady K. Yes, I had a splended day. Some friends treated me to a nice lunch and I bought some new beads!

Thanks, Lady Kell. I hope to do more of that as the series goes along.

Thanks for the plug, Michelle. I get EXTREMELY nervous about sales. I don't want to have to go back to a REAL job. As far as promotions, right now I need to get some new cards printed up to take to the events I have listed on the web site. Those appearances are the main thing I'm doing as far as promotions are concerned.

Hi, Lady Kell and thanks. I'm glad you're enjoying the book. I didn't find it particularly hard to write from different eras. I thought it was really interesting and fun. The info I included from Jack's point of view about the Civil war battle in which he "died" was all true. As far as William is concerned, I can't remember if it was book 1 or 2, but I enjoyed William's flashback to Elizabethan England. I actually gave Gin that idea and she did a great job. Writing from the POV of vampire has so much potential for going back into the past, I'd like to do more flashbacks if I can figure out how to make it move the present story forward. It kind of gives you the fun of writing a historical while writing contemporary. susan

Michelle, it didn't feel all that strange to take over William. I feel like I know him well. I know that his voice won't sound exactly like it did when Gin wrote him. But I think I approximated him pretty well. I tried anyway.

Hi! I'm glad you like the book. You pose an excellent question. It's something I'm always curious about when I read books by others. In a very high-level way, I know what's going to happen. For me the answer is a little of both. In other words, I know the "big" events in the book and I fill in the smaller events, feelings and reactions of the characters, as I go along. The more I get to know my characters and what makes them tick, the easier it gets in a way. I do with with an outline, but it evolves constantly. I tweak it so much I have it up on my screen the whole time I'm writing on a chapter. I just got a wide-screen monitor to make this easier. As far as the series as a whole is concerned, of course the success (or lack there of) of the books will determine how many there will be. I don't have the series planned too far in advance. I have only some ideas that I think would be shocking/entertaining/pleasing to the reader that I will narrow down and select from if I get the opportunity to write more books. In the meantime I will let the "big" ideas ferment (fester?) in my mind until I get a green light.

Micelle, I knew there would be sex in the books, but I didn't know HOW much until my writing partner started sending me her scenes to read and I knew I had to keep up. :-) It mostly just developed. Savannah is not all that near where I live. (4 hours or so) I wish I could go there more. If any of you in the UK get the chance to visit the southern U.S. I encourage you to come to Savannah. It's absolutely beautiful. The flowers alone are worth the trip in the spring. I have a trip scheduled for Savannah in June and I'm going to take a lanternlight tour of Bonaventure cemetery near where Jack lives. I've explored the beautiful forest cemetery on my own, but have never had a guided tour and never at night!

I like the Rin Tin Twins too!

Sorry for the tardiness of my reply, Michelle. I'm not getting all the emails that alert me to posts. I tought up the irrregulars because I love quirky secondary characters and because I thought Jack needed some good-old-boy buddies to interact with. They can also serve as informants and can participate in plot lines. Jerry, one of the nonhumans, as a bigger role in book 3 as a matter of fact. I think you'll enjoy that. I did anyway. :-) I really like Huey, and he was a total afterthought. If you've read the advance chapter for "The Vampire's Secret" that's printed in the back of "The Vampire's Seduction" you already know that he might not be really and truly dead. What happened to him in book 2 was a total surprise to me that happened as I was writing that very scene. I then used him in what I think is an entertaining way in book 3. If the series goes on long enough, I plan to use the other irregulars more, and add one or two along the way. For those who have read book 1 (and/or had an advance look at book 2) what do you think of the irregulars? susan

Michelle and Icecream, The orignial idea for the two male characters and the series came from my writing partner for the first two books, who died suddenly of an annyeurism about a year ago, a couple of months before the first book came out. We had belonged to the same writers' club for years and knew that I liked vampires--Buffy, Anne Rice, that sort of thing. She asked if I would be interested in writing a vampire series with her and of course I said yes. She said that she had this idea about two male vampires in Savannah who needed each other to survive but didn't necessarily get along all that well. One was a rich, society guy and the other a southern-fried good-old-boy. She asked me which one I wanted to write and I picked the working class boy. And from then we were off and running. Gin also wanted to have some kind of lore where sex between male and female vampires had some consequences when it came to vampiric power. So we worked it out to where females draw power from males during the act.

I can't wait to hear what you think!

Thanks for sending the link to LKH's post. I found it highly interesting. As far as whether she inspired me, I think that her earlier books did, yes. I just can't believe the action and the pacing of those books. You were always so breathless because jeopardy was coming at Anita from all sides. She'd be fighting off three or four enemies and you'd realize she'd been up for 72 hours straight or something and it actually make me exhausted because I identified with her so much. I liked the characters, dialog, the world she created, all of it. I haven't gotten yet to the later books that some people are objecting to. But I really like the ones I've read so far. Anne Rice has influenced me a lot too. Bram Stoker still holds up amazingly well also. I really like scary horror, but when I sit down to write, I seem to come up with more humor than horror.

Wraith, what did LKH say? I'm a big fan of hers too. I've liked all of her books. I've tried to read them in order and I'm now on Narcissus in Chains. I've read the first two or three fairy books and I like those too. I have heard readers of hers complain that her books now seem to be one big sex scene. But most of her readers must really like how the books are going because she sells tons of them. I don't know how she does it. I find writing about sex really difficult, but she seems to always figure out fresh ways to write about sex.