Rising Star JudeKnight

What were you like as a child?

I was one of those children who didn’t quite fit. Perhaps it was that my parents were both teachers and we lived in a low socio-economic area, or maybe because I was intense, academically gifted, and subject to passionate enthusiasms, and other children didn’t know quite what to make of me, nor I of them.

I spent a lot of my time alone, and I didn’t mind, because the company was better inside my head. My dolls were props in my endless stories, which were largely mishmashes of book, radio, or TV stories. No dolls’ tea parties for me, or at least not until they had escaped the kidnappers, conquered the pirates, got out of the jungle, and brought down the evil prince.

Even with family—I had a huge group of cousins—I was mostly the odd one out. A couple of cousins were on the same wavelength as me and if they were not around, all the relatives had books.

Were you a big reader? What do you think influenced your love of reading?

I read a lot, and from a very young age. My parents were both great readers, and I grew up surrounded by books. My mother was a teacher at a time when teachers were trained to believe it was harmful to children to learn to read before they were taught at school. Nobody told me. I had taught myself to read by four years old. From then on, I was never, by choice, without a book in my hands.

Books were my friends and books gave me my adventures. Christmas and birthdays always brought me new books—my favorite type of gift, even today. My library card was a magic passport to my version of heaven. Indeed, when I was old enough, I got a job at my local library, shelving books.

I must have been the slowest book shelver in the world, because I always found something to read.

What made you want to be a writer?

I was a storyteller before I knew I wanted to be a writer. According to my mother, before I could talk, I would sit in my playpen and yabber at my toys. Once a few words became intelligible, she realized I was telling them stories.

Before long, I discovered books, and by the time I was seven, I answered the adult question, “What do you want to be when you grow up,” with “a mother and a writer.” The answer never changed.

Does your family read your books?

My brothers and my sister read my books, as does one sister-in-law. My own children and grandchildren—not so much. Since romance requires physical attraction (or it would just be friendship), my books include references to physical arousal and often to sexual intimacy. Apparently, my children would prefer to think I am ignorant of such matters. They were clearly discovered in a cabbage patch. I love them all the way to the moon and back, but on this point, they are duffers.

What is it that drew you to writing Historical romance?

When it comes to historical romance, I’m a late starter. I was writing fantasy in my teens… Not very good fantasy. I had a lot to learn about human nature before I could write credible people. Then marriage, a severe illness, and babies (in that order) took most of my energy.

When child number two was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, writing didn’t so much take a back seat as fall off the truck. There followed years of treatment, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, and hippo therapy— and two more babies.

Once all the children were at school, I got back to writing, researching historical fiction set in New Zealand’s gold fields, and selling contemporary short stories for radio. Then it was time for the next curve ball, the world-wide financial crisis of the 1980s. Our mortgage interest rate shot up through the roof. I found a job two weeks ahead of our meagre savings running out, writing computer software manuals—which turned into a thirty-five year career as a commercial writer.

Years of ups and downs followed. Among many other adventures, we inherited two more children from a friend who died. I gave up on fiction. What if I wrote a novel and nobody liked it? My dreams would be dashed.

Then my mother died, and I realized I’d lost my chance for her to hold a book of fiction that I had written. About the same time, a daughter gave me one of Mary Balogh’s Simply books. At the time, I was reading fantasy, speculative fiction, mystery, and literary fiction. But my girl was right. I loved Mary Balogh. I devoured every one of her books and then went looking for other authors in a sixmonth reading jag.

I emerged with 43 plot ideas in a Word file and multi-tab spreadsheet, organized by series, character and year. I’d found my genre!

I began writing the one set in 1807, intending to publish in chronological order. I had no idea that it was a good idea to finish one series at a time. To overcome my fear, I told everyone I knew that I was writing a novel. Now I was afraid of not finishing!

Eight years and more than forty books later, my only regret is that I let my fears hold me back from starting earlier.

Did any of your life experiences influence any of your storylines or characters? Give us some examples!

Some of my scenes are edited versions of life. All of my characters take characteristics from people I’ve known. Several of my plot lines are cathartic workings-out of experiences. Even in the worst moments of my life, the part of my mind I call the ‘plot elves’ is standing back to watch. They observe. They note things down. They remember. Everything is grist for the plot elves.

Examples? I have a wicked vicar in one book who berates the heroine in a church yard because he doesn’t want her at a meeting. He uses the very words I heard from a man who once shouted at me in a car park when he wanted me to abandon a meeting.

I have a hero who tenderly washes the heroine’s feet after she ended up grazed, blistered, and bruised. The situation was different, but once my own personal hero, at that time my boyfriend, washed blood and glass from my hair after I’d gone through a car windscreen in an accident.

I have a heroine who descended into deep depression, seeing the world through a wall of fog that numbed her perceptions and every emotion except despair—and I learned how that felt from experience.

What are your absolute favorite and most dreaded parts of writing a new novel?

I’m a pantser, though that fact came as a surprise to me. After thirty-five years of commercial writing, outlining was an essential part of my process. Indeed, I taught my clients and protégées to divide the writing process into three: one third planning, one third writing, and one third editing. Why should fiction be different?

Except it is. For me, at least. When the villain of my first novel was confronted by the heroine in the prologue, the guilt he already felt overwhelmed him and he killed himself. Bam. There went my plot.

More than forty published books later, I don’t even try to outline. I start with a rough synopsis and the first section of a modified hero’s journey for each main character, which I complete as I am writing.

The most dreaded part of writing, for me, is when I have no idea what happens next. In the middle part of every novel, I hit a spot where the end of the novel has become clear to me, and I have no idea how to get there! My solution is to keep writing, grinding out words until all of a sudden, it gels. Sometimes, I’ve had to throw out scenes that didn’t fit. Once, recently, I chucked away 9,000 words. In one of my current works in progress, I have my hero and heroine in an incredibly sticky situation, and I know I can get them out of it in about 6000 words, but it leaves all sorts of unresolved problems, and only 10,000 words to get them to a credible happy ending!

My favorite part? I love the “ah-ha!” moments.

When I discover that the treatment for hemlock poisoning is artificial respiration until the paralysis wears off, and I realize that my villainous stepfather can give my Snowy White a hemlock laced apple pie, and my Princess Charming can save him with the kiss of life. When I’m trying to figure out a real life way for my Rapunzel to let down her hair, and it suddenly occurs to me that old furniture was stuffed with horse hair, which can be made into a rope.

“Ah-ha!” moments can come at any point – while getting to know a character, while recognizing a plot prompt that can be spun into a story, while in the depths of writing or editing. I live for the “Ahha!” moment.

What’s a writing bucket list item of yours?

I’m deep in writing Regencies at the moment, with a writing calendar full until 2025. But one day, I want to write an Edwardian murder mystery set in New Zealand. In New Zealand’s Rotorua is a Tudor style building called the Rotorua Bathhouse. It opened in 1908, and was the New Zealand government’s initiative. They wanted to build a health spa that would rival those of Europe. They harnessed Rotorua’s thermal activity to supply hot baths and mud baths, and the facility had a staff of doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, hydrotherapists and the like.

It was a very important rehabilitation center during and after the First World War. In more recent times, it was used as a nightclub and then as an art gallery and museum. Several years ago, it was shut for earthquake strengthening. Before that, I visited several times, and the basements where people were plunged into mud baths sparked all kinds of ideas. My plot elves occasionally remind me that they are slowly building a nurse, a dead patient, and a friendly, if somewhat damaged soldier, with a knack for solving puzzles.

One day, I just have to go there.

If you could give anyone wanting to write a story one piece of advice, what would it be?

Do it. Follow your dreams. If you write 100 words a day, at the end of the year, you will have more than 36,000 words, which is half of a long novel. Just write. Any writing can be edited, but you cannot edit what you haven’t written. If it brings you joy to write, then write.