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Welcome to our New Faces column, where we introduce readers to the newest authors in the romance field. This time we're visiting with Marianna Jameson, whose debut book is the contemporary romance My Hero, a June 2005 release from Signet Eclipse. Marianna, welcome to TRR! Tell us about yourself. I've lived in the Northeast, the Midwest, the Deep South, and the Middle South...I think I'm from a little bit of everywhere! But I'm back in New England now, which is where I began. In the course of my travels, I drifted in and out of a few colleges and more than a few careers before eventually settling down to get some degrees in journalism. After about six or seven years, I abandoned academia and went back into real, hands-on writing, which is what I have simply always loved to do. I suppose writing is my real "home"; as long as I have something to write with - a laptop, an AlphaSmart, a pencil and a grocery-store receipt - I could be anywhere and be happy. Are you coming to romance writing from another job? I am still a technical writer in "real life". I usually get one of two responses when I tell people that: 1) "Sounds boring." or 2) "That sounds so cool!" I get the first response when I say that I write software and hardware documentation and the occasional corporate policy; I get the other when I say that I work on digital security and aerospace projects. I do all of the above and the reality is that, on a daily basis, my job is somewhere between boring and cool, but I love it. Technical writing has helped me with my fiction, I think, in ways I hadn't imagined it would or could. For one thing, writing to a deadline is what I've been doing for years, so the idea of having a year or nine months to write a book makes me want to giggle. I've had to learn to write fast and clean the first time around because my work deadlines are usually measured in weeks or days, and occasionally hours. Technical writing has also taught me a tremendous amount about understanding the audience to which I'm writing. And, finally, it has taught me to not get too personally caught up in the artistic aspect of writing. Editors and agents view what writers produce as a product to be marketed and sold. I think writers who also view their work as a product, as opposed to a work of their heart or an extension of themselves, have an easier time with the editing and revising process. I'm fully invested in my stories and characters - I laugh and cry as needed when I'm writing- but I try not to take it personally when my editor or agent says, "This has to go..." What led you to write romance? I started writing romance only about five years ago - that's not counting the several years I tried to write category romances when I was a teenager, and my only clue as to what romance actually was came from the used romance novels I bought with my babysitting money. In those days, all the romance I read about happened in Europe or Australia, and I lived in America. So I grew up thinking those places were the places to be if you were looking for love... I started to write romance seriously after about a solid decade of avoiding romantic fiction like it was The Plague. I had been immersed in academia, intending to become a professor, and then about one year away from finishing my PhD, I changed courses and returned to technical writing and editing. Very serious stuff, you know. I had no time for anything frivolous, light-hearted, or (gasp) merely entertaining. So I finally got over myself, realized I was in serious danger of becoming terminally dull, and went out and bought some romance novels because I never really lost my love for them. The very first one I bought after the dark ages was SOMETHING ABOUT CECILY, by Karen Kendall -- and I was tickled (and a little awed, I have to admit) when I actually met Karen a few years later. We've become very close friends, and occasional critique partners, and I like to think there's some symbolism or symmetry there. I discovered Jennifer Crusie at about the same time. (WELCOME TO TEMPTATION was my first Crusie and remains one of my all-time favorite books although I've never met the woman herself). Then I joined Romance Writers of America, entered a few contests thinking I was the *next* Jennifer Crusie, and was promptly cut down to size. That's when I stopped writing for a few months and concentrated on reading. I read to discover my favorite time periods, my favorite authors, to get a feel for the market, and mostly to learn the right way to do things and how to avoid the wrong way. Of course, the latter two issues are purely subjective, but I figured out what and how I wanted to write. I'd say the writers who have influenced my style are Jennifer Crusie, Eloisa James, and Deirdre Martin. They write such fluid, elegant prose and such clean, tight stories. And their characters....I want to cry every time I finish one of their books just because it ended! Joanna Novins, another wonderful writer, good friend, and occasional critique partner, has helped immeasurably to shape my own style. Tell us about your road to publication. Well, I wrote MY HERO in about six months, at a leisurely pace, then took a few months to tweak it, ignore it, come back and tweak it again. Then I let my agent read it, and she sent it out. I accepted an offer from NAL about three weeks later, and that was for a two-book deal. My friends and fellow writers Joanna Novins, Karen Kendall, and Jerrilyn Hutson were invaluable as critique partners, and then my husband and one of the police officers I interviewed read the final version to make sure I had the "guy stuff" right. It's an exhilarating process and, as a matter of fact, I'm meeting with my editor this week to hand off the manuscript for the second book, which is currently untitled. What kind of research was involved for your first book? The biggest portion of my research had to do with the fact that MY HERO's hero, Chas Casey, is a police officer. But you don't see him functioning as a cop too much in the book. That was deliberate; I wanted to write a book that showed the cop as a man, instead of the man as a cop. So a lot of the story has to do with how being a police officer changes the way a person sees things, thinks about things, observes things. I interviewed four police officers for this book, and some of their stories and close calls haunt me. Despite having a grandfather and uncle who were officers with the NYPD, I'll never understand the kind of courage and commitment it takes to make the choice to put one's self in harm's way for the sake of others. I'm just very glad that some people make that choice, and am glad to bring their stories to my work. I tried to put their courage and attitudes into Chas - and their senses of humor. I've never met a police officer who didn't have a really great sense of humor. Tell us about your debut book. (plot description) MY HERO is a witty, warm glimpse into the life of Southern romance writer Miranda Lane, a woman who thinks she's got it all together until she meets Chas Casey, a Connecticut detective who enjoys taking his time unraveling her mysteries. And that's not all he unravels. He does a pretty good job on her cool exterior and determined resistance to his flirting. And she, of course, completely undermines his notions of commitment and derails his career. Oops. They both know, though, that inside the fast, light-hearted backchat they enjoy, there are hidden depths drawing them together. They learn that they both lost their fathers young, actually in Chas's case and symbolically in Miranda's. Chas carefully buried that pain beneath his considerable natural charm and Miranda buried hers inside her talent, but that common bond of loss brings them together. From the moment they meet, they spark, and as their lives and their futures become interwoven, they help each other move through the hurt and past it, instead of keeping it hidden, where it has kept them from fully experiencing life and love. When I started this book, it was meant to be a light-hearted romantic comedy about a romance writer who hates cops but is forced by her new editor to write about one. That's still the basic premise of the story, but as I started to "interview" my characters and get to know them, I learned a lot about people and their motivations - the deep ones and the superficial ones. So, it's not a true romantic comedy in that it's not all light. There are a few dark moments, but sometimes life's funniest or most memorable moments happen when pleasure and pain intertwine, and I tried to put that into my book. . Who are your influences as a writer? Contemporary is what I focus on, primarily. I devour everything by Jennifer Crusie, Karen Kendall, Julie Kenner, Rachel Gibson, Deirdre Martin, Kathleen Tessaro, and Meg Cabot. Outside of romance, I really enjoy Carl Hiaasen and Janet Evanovich, and my all-time favorite contemporary fiction author is Christopher Buckley. I did my degrees in journalism, have always been a political junkie, and spent several years living right outside Washington DC, so his books feel familiar. He is one of the most clever writers I've ever had the pleasure of reading. In the course of researching my books, I have recently been introduced to the works of (and the men themselves!) Edward Conlon and Patrick Radden Keefe. They are wonderful, wonderful writers of contemporary, literary non-fiction. My escape from fiction and what I read to recharge my creative batteries, though, are gardening essays (Henry Mitchell, Elsa Perenyi, Gladys Tabor) and books about the intersection of food and Life and Love, written by authors ranging from M.F.K Fisher to Frances Mays to Peter Mayle. What does your family think of having a published romance author in their midst? They think it's great! My family and friends are SO supportive. Everyone had big silly grins on their faces when I handed them a real, live copy of MY HERO. Tell us about plans for future books. My next book will be released in May 2006 and it's currently untitled, but my working title for it is BYTE ME. It follows the story of MY HERO's hero Chas's wise-cracking, tough-as-nails younger brother, Joe Casey, who gets his ego handed to him by a former computer hacker turned digital security expert named Naomi Connor. Joe hired Naomi to test the security of his company's networks, but he doesn't know that she is the same person who hacked into the family company 20 years ago, as a teenager, and nearly destroyed it. When she discovers that that event made him decide to pursue law rather than music as his life's work, Naomi realizes she has a lot to answer for, assuming she can find the right moment to break the news to him. I also have two other books planned for this series, and am hoping to do a novella about Chas and Joe's mother, Mary. She's one of my favorite characters, and I really want to do the right thing for her. While I plan to continue writing romance for a long time, I think it would be fun to write in other genres. I've been working on a non-romance techno-thriller with a partner for a while. That's one that I would love to see come to fruition. It's dark and will be a real stretch for this writer's wings. How can readers get in touch with you? I love to hear from readers! There's a link to my email address on my website at www.MariannaJameson.com or they can email me directly at Marianna@MariannaJameson.com Marianna, than you for visiting with us and best of luck with your books! |