2T Repeat Performance - Use Artist

 I've done a number of blog tours over the years, posting on different sites. Now I'm bringing them to you!

Originally published April 20, 2010 for Vivi Andrews

Question- How has your writing approach changed since you've been published?  Does the fact that you now know readers & reviewers will be reading your books affect your writing process at all? 

Use Artist

Thanks so much, Vivi, for having me here today!

I admit to being a total use artist, use rhyming with moose, as in usefulness. I wrote church plays when my church needed plays. I sang tenor in my husband's choirs even though it drove me nuts when the sopranos complained the notes were too high (I live for sailing above the staff). I'm a flutist but learned oboe when my college needed an oboist. When our wind band needed extra percussion for a tour I stepped in again—and soloed throughout Europe on bass drum, LOL.

As a writer I need to be useful too, so what the reader wants factors hugely. Oh, I have some general ideas where I want my stories to go. But if I sense readers want more or less of a certain thing (or sooner rather than later), I’ll do it if I can.

The big caveat being if I can. I spent enough time writing before getting published that I know my writer self pretty well. I know there are certain plots, certain character types I can't write, no matter how wonderful they are. My husband has suggested some stunning plot twists but if they involve the hero being less than alpha (for example) my heart won't be in the writing. And when my heart's really not in it, the writing really doesn't happen.

So my basic approach hasn't changed that much. Sure, writing to public expectation makes the process harder. Besides Little Miss Inner Critic I now have Imaginary Shoulder Readers (not to be confused with Liese’s shoulder buddies).  And I spend about a third of my writing time in the colorful world of PromoLand, which I didn’t have to worry about before.

But knowing reader expectation actually makes the writing process easier too. I write all kinds of stories, science fiction to erotic romance. Before publishing I had to guess which to work on. Now I can choose what to bring to the front burner based on what other people want to read.

So if it’s Biting Love people want, that's what I'll mostly write. To paraphrase Nixie, it's what I can do to make other people happy.