Keri Stevens - Twittermance

1.) We "met" via Twitter. How do you see this form of communication changing the landscape for writers?

I go to Twitter for business information: Agents and publishing insiders are Tweeting freely about what happens behind the closed doors of their offices, giving writers unprecedented access to the hot mess that is publishing. Instead of sitting at the bar passing rumors from one writer to the next, we can now feed our anxieties and paranoia with first-hand Tweets.

On a smaller scale, Twitter "hand-sells" me books. As a result of their Tweets, I've "met" some authors, fallen in love with their online personalities and moved on to fall for their novels.

2.) How did the romance genre enter your life and how did you decide this is what you wanted to write?

I went to grad school for an MFA in creative writing, where we were slapped down (back then, anyway) for even whispering the "g" word*. I didn't begin reading romance novels until 2005, when, as a joke, my husband gave me one of Jade Lee's TIGRESS novels. After reading it, I bought her backlist. Then I went to my local library and checked out all of the romance paperbacks they had (I read two or three books a day for a couple years). I was hooked.

At a chance meeting, local author, LuAnn McLane convinced me to join my local Romance Writers of America chapter, where I've learned about the work of writing the novels I love.

This past week, I got to meet Jade Lee in person and have her autograph a book to my husband. He's still a bit stunned by it all.

3.) Penning a romance novel leads to somewhat of a "set story/ending." How do you come up with plot twists?

The only rule in romance is that the lead characters have a "Happy Ever After" (HEA) ending (and some readers will accept a "Happy For Now" ending as well). Beyond that... the possibilities are endless. You can set your story in ancient Egypt or on another planet. You can have your leads be human male and female, or three shapeshifting males. Throw in murder, an apocalypse or a cranky mother-in-law if you like. At a conference, you might have an author of inspirational Amish romance sitting right next to an author of same-sex erotica.

Romance readers invest in the journey, rather than the ending. There are infinite paths to abiding love, and we want to see how they wind, cross, switchback and twist.

4.) Most writers dread the blank page. How do you combat that?

I'm a binge drafter. I love National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), Novel in a Week, and Dr. Wicked's Write or Die because these structures and challenges force you to sit down and spew out words without giving yourself a chance to judge or edit them. You start writing, you keep writing. After you've done your first draft (which, for me, is a long outline, or "crapdraft") you fill in gaps, carve away the junk and you have the bones of an editable story. If you get too hung up on the words themselves in the first drafts, it's like playing to the queen in chess. The goal is not the prose. The goal is the story.

5.) What part does spirituality, as well as your other forms of creativity, play in your writing career?

Although I don't write [spiritually inspired novels] and don't think I ever will, the "deep story" underpinning everything I write (whether I intend it to or not) is "Leap . . . and love will catch you," which is also my faith in a nutshell.

That said, Protestant Christianity (especially the dour Scots Presbyterian tradition from which my church descends) has traditionally looked askance at creative artists. It's acceptable to write hymns. It's a problem to write about a couple negotiating the power structure of their relationship through sex. Entire denominations forget about the Song of Solomon or the tale of Jael (a woman who lured the enemy into her tent with sex, then drove a tent peg through his skull while he was sleeping). Artists express what leaders repress. But this tension (and the many "forgotten" stories of the Bible) simply act as fuel for the creative fires.

When I need to get away from the stories, away from the characters and away from the laundry, I dance. I've been performing and teaching Oriental ("belly") dancing for about fifteen years now, and it's the only way I can shut off my mind. Plus it's good for writer's butt.

6.) You're really going for it in the realm of publishing, which is awesome! How do you push yourself past the fear? Does the fear fade the more you reach out to publishers?

No, the fear doesn't fade. Every time I hit "send" my mouth goes dry and my fingers shake. I drop the laptop, pace the room, and ride out the voice that says, "You're a fool, you're a fraud, you're building your life on quicksand." After I've calmed down enough to type, I contact my trusted writer friends and get my commiseration. Then I seek out my mentors - published writers who've been at this game for years - and ask them to tell me their stories of their early fears, "failures," and how they broke through.

Every single non-delusional writer knows and shares the same fears. For this reason, if no other, building a supportive community of writers around yourself is invaluable.

I had to get much older, much wiser than the young MFA student I was 20 years ago. I had to go through some stuff in my non-writing life that made me swear to myself never to make a decision based on fear again.

7.) You're a part of a very supportive writer's community. Tell us  more about the Romance Writers of America.

Romance Writers of America (RWA) is a business-oriented advocacy group whose mission (as I interpret it - go to their website for the proper words) is to help me in my quest to make money writing and selling romance novels. From RWA National, especially, I look for resources to help me craft saleable novels and for market industry info to help me sell them once they're written. RWA is not a union, and you don't have to be a member to write and sell romance novels, but in this genre more than any other, I think it pays to join.

RWA has local chapters active nationwide, and the greatest benefits I've derived have been from joining the Ohio Valley group. Although RWA isn't a social club, I've made some of my best lifelong friends here. I've found intelligent, blunt critique partners who invest hours of their time in helping me write better. I've made contact with generous authors who tell the unvarnished truth in real life and write brilliant fiction.

My RWA membership has saved me years of floundering about, piddling away at half-done stories, staring wistfully at my bookshelves thinking, "Maybe some day." Instead, I put my butt in my chair and write.

Editor's Note: You can follow Keri on Twitter here (I highly recommend) and read more at her blog here. Thanks for sharing, Ms. Stevens -  I can't wait for the next steamy installment!

*The "g" word is "genre." Literary programs (at least in the early 90s) focused on teaching us to write short stories that could not be categorized in any genre (no romance, mystery, horror, sci-fi, fantasy, etc.).

[Photo Credit: Main article photo via Anya Davis's blog, which features an in-depth interview with Keri.]