Hey
Cruella! Haven't seen you here in a while, I'm so glad you're okay.
Thanks so much.
The title was created by the original author, and we ran with it 'cause it was much better than the other options we'd batted around! I actually like it, but that's probably because I've been living with it for two months now.
That's a great question about the personalized novel thing. As you guessed, it's pretty much the easiest opportunity for me. I was originally approached back in 2001 by the publisher, who at the time wanted a light romance novel based on reality tv (to piggyback on the success of
Survivor and so on). I'd been recommended by another websoap author, who'd originally been recruited for the job but couldn't fit it into his schedule.
Anyway, the proposed book was so totally not my area of expertise -- I've always wanted to write a romance novel, since I was a kid, but my interests were always historicals rather than contemporaries, and "lighthearted" isn't exactly my metier -- but the project seemed doable and just ambitious enough to tickle my fancy. So that's how I started with
Tropical Treasure, which was published in 2002.
Since then I've been strictly an editor and web designer for the company, because of my writing paralysis and fear of committing to a project without seeing it through. That kind of thing is shameful enough with ASF, my own webseries; I was petrified of flopping out on my publisher. So for eight years I turned him down, though I've done plenty extensive editing/rewrites on several books. And ironically,
Fierce Moon happened for me because I had to step in for someone else who was a bit overextended him/herself. I was originally the editor for the book, and helped develop the outline. Then came Christmas and suddenly we needed a thorough rewrite and there was no time for anyone else to do the job, which had to be completed by early January! So that's how I was kinda forced to get past my fears and take this on, and I'm very very glad I did.
All this is to say that in the past I've only been able to produce a book when there was basically no other option! I'm not sure what my experience would be if I had to seek publication from a "regular" publishing house. I don't really have any self-contained stories I want to tell, aside from one gothic romance/mystery that I've been mulling over since '94 or so. I prefer the continuing saga format.
I will say this book has been a particularly rewarding experience It's true that these personalized books are gimmicky and have lots of restrictions on what I can do
vis a vis plotting and characterization -- you can't have characters that are
too warped or twisted, except for the villains, and there's a limit to how much depth one can accomplish within a 40 - 45K word novella that's intended to be a fun fantasy for the reader. But they have been a great way to challenge myself and prove that I can finish a self-contained project, meet deadlines, and even within the confines of the genre, make the stories/characters as interesting and well-rounded as possible. And most important, they're
enjoyable. At least, I think so.
Fierce Moon is the best of both worlds for me: it's dark, mysterious, and relatively angsty (if you go to the demo page you can see some of the darker stuff in the final excerpt), but also has moments of humor and fantasy/escapism as well.
Thanks very much for stopping by,
Cruella! I hope everything's going okay with you.
In other news, the book was featured very very briefly along with three other
Book By You novels on
The View today! They were having a "what to get for Valentine's Day" segment, and Whoopi picked up
Fierce Moon and showed the version we'd sent with Barbara Walters as the heroine. Heh. (We used Gabriel Byrne as her hero. Not a bad choice, yum!) And Sherri Sheppherd read from another novel,
Racing Hearts, which had been personalized for her. That was fun. We'll probably put it on the website once we get a clip, so I'll link that up when it's available.
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