Maryse's Book Blog

So two weeks ago today (yah…I know…what took me so long?) I met Gena Showalter. In case you haven’t heard of her (ummm…and this, I highly doubt), she is a popular author in the Paranormal Romance genre, and extremely popular with most of you!. In fact, she has come highly recommended via my own readers, and I have purchased her notoriously sexy Lords of the Underworld Bundle series (which I have already started). Good stuff!

I attended her book signing here in Florida on the release date of her latest book, Into the Dark: The Darkest Fire\The Amazon’s Curse\The Darkest Prison (Hqn) (a compilation of some of her shorter stories – all within the Lords of the Underworld realm). Some lucky audience members won an advanced copy of “The Darkest Passion (Hqn)” and some cool signed posters too (alas, I was not that lucky, but just being there, considering I almost didn’t make it was good enough for me)!

She answered a ton of audience questions, and I found her to be delightfully good-humored, and sweet as can be!

I do have video, but I am currently trying to pick out the best parts, while I try to omit the wonderfully adorable (but slightly distracting) singing baby in the background (haha!). Considering my camera wasn’t all “high-tech” in this instance, I unfortunately have a lot of “extra noise” interspersed with the laid back question & answer session. While I get that ready, here are some interesting tid-bits (and event pics) to hold you over.

About her writing process:

• She is hoping to slow down to working six days a week instead of seven (and yes – she normally works seven days a week!).
• Her seven day a week work schedule differs depending on the stage of the manuscript;
• If she’s writing rough draft, she writes a chapter a day. At this stage, if everything is flowing well, the chapter can can take 2 hours or it can take 15 hours, but no matter what – she writes a chapter a day in that rough draft, seven days a week until it’s done.
• When she is doing edits, she pushes herself harder and likes to do a hundred pages a day (she doesn’t get much sleep in that stage)
• Her favorite books are romance. It’s what she likes to write and she is fascinated by relationships.
• She doesn’t plot. She sits down and lets the characters take her where they want to go.
• Some of the harder things she has had to deal with; hardest part were rejections (it took her four years, give our take, before she got published), and she found learning about “plot holes” to be difficult. She would think of a scene that was touching (and that she really loved) but might not exactly fit the story, and learning to finally let go of what she wanted and let the characters lead her is when it started to get a lot easier.
• She researches as she is writing by using Google and talking with other authors and knowledgeable people about whatever she might be researching at the time.

How she got into Paranormal Romance:

• She enjoyed Star Trek, and was always fascinated with the paranormal, and the fact that you can take it anywhere…
• What cinched it for her, however was the first Paranormal Romance book she read called “Warrior’s Woman” by Johanna Lindsey. She found it brilliant, and she loved it and was hooked! She loved the alpha hero, the neat weapons, the aliens/warriors and the book almost had a historical feel to it. She knew she wanted to do something like that.

Extra tid-bits:

• I could swear she mentioned that there are two deleted scenes from her book Intertwined on her website (but I haven’t found the link yet). I’ll keep you posted when I do.
• There will be another “Immortal After Dark” character cameo in The Darkest Lie (Hqn) (but it’s a secret – shhhh she won’t say who)…
• she is not planning on continuing the “Atlantis” series right now (perhaps eventually a short story to tie up loose ends), but nothing planned right now.
• She is currently working on the rough draft of “The Darkest Surrender” (Strider’s story), line edits for “Unraveled“, all while on her book tour!