Caroline Cross is my brainstorming partner. I love her stuff. She writes category. Who else do I like in category? I don't read as much of that as I used to. I really started out reading category and I started out trying to write it. I think that has to be the hardest genre within the genre to write, because it's so concise. You only have like 55,000 to 60,000 words to write your story, and you've got to make every word count. I tend to kind of ramble a bit. I could never quite contain myself, so I've really got to hand it to those who can - and I just don't quite understand people who say, "Oh, I don't read those little books," as if they're somehow lesser, because I think they're really tough to do well.

Maggie: You know what it is? It's the covers. That's what I don't like about them. The covers are so cheesy.

Susan: The covers are so similar because they're a line but the writing for the most part is excellent. Well, like in any genre or line, there's good writing and bad writing. Or not even necessarily good and bad, just writing that grabs you, or writing that doesn't. It's so subjective.

Maggie: How and when did you start writing?

Susan: I've always written a little bit - dibs and dabs. It wasn't until I was 31 or so that I really got serious about it. My husband's always traveled a lot and I have a tendency to get sucked into a book. When you've got a little kid at home, and you're the sole parent, you can't do that. So that's when I really got turned onto the category romances because I could read them more quickly. And I thought, "Well, I'm going to try to write one of these." I thought I could do a better job than some that I'd read, which is really arrogant. When I sat down and actually tried it, I found it wasn't as easy as I thought it might be. So that's kind of how I got started. As I said, I'd tried to write before, but I don't think I had the life experiences to have something TO write about until I was over 30.

Maggie: I know what you mean. Has it always been romance that you've written?

Susan: Yes. I started out trying to write category and I couldn't quite distill it down. There is a lot of distillation. Have you ever read Crusie? Jennifer Crusie?

Maggie: No, I just started reading romance last fall so I've got 30 years to catch up on.

Susan: Cool!

Maggie: I've got about 200 books in my TBR pile and I can't get to them because I keep adding new ones!

Susan: I've always gone by authors. Always. If I liked an author, I would try to get all of their backlist and for the most part I wasn't disappointed. Every now and then you get one that's kind of uneven, but mostly if you like one thing by them then you're bound to like the rest.

Maggie: The thing that I have really enjoyed is reading earlier books by authors and watching them grow as writers.

Susan: Watching the progression?

Maggie: You know, the first book might be kind of so-so but then by the fifth book it's really special. It's been fun watching that. So when did you first get published then? How did it feel when you got that call?

Susan: I didn't get the call, I got a telegram. They tried calling and I was working at the time and I didn't have a machine, so she tried a few days in a row and didn't get any answer so she sent me a telegram saying, "Please call!" And it felt wonderful because it took me eight years. The telegram came in December of '88 and SHADOW DANCE was published in September of '89.

Maggie: When you say eight years, do you mean eight years from the time you wrote your first word?

Susan: From when I got serious about it.

Maggie: Eight years! Wow. That takes a lot of persistence.

Susan: It does. I've had people ask, "What would be your one piece of advice for someone who wants to be published?" and my advice is: "Persevere." Because I truly believe that this business is 2% glory and 98% of getting your teeth kicked down your throat, and either you stick with it or you don't. Maybe there are books that you don't think are as good as others, but those writers stuck to it and that's a good part of why they got published.

Maggie: That's what I think to myself when I read a book that I don't like very much. I think, "At least they WROTE it and it got published, which is more than YOU can say."

Susan: I see reader reviews online, and sometimes they just really trash books. And I'm not talking about mine, necessarily. I'm talking about any book, and whether I personally like the book or not, I know the work that went into it. It gives me tight teeth to see it just blown off.

Maggie: I think all of your books are contemporaries?

Susan: Yes. I wrote one historical that hasn't been published and I don't know if it ever will be, but I loved that book. It needs some work. My villain was very one-dimensional. The thing with that book was, I was writing it when I got the first call for SHADOW DANCE, and of course they wanted another contemporary romantic suspense after the first one was published. At that time, I didn't know how to set what I was writing aside and go on to something else. I used to be very linear when it came to that sort of thing, and I insisted it had to be finished, which turned out to be a very poor career move on my part. By the time I finished writing it, the Lovestruck line, which was part of the Popular Library imprint of Warner, was folding. I got cut free from Warner and it took me three years to get published again. So I would never recommend sticking with something to the bitter end if an editor tells you, "We want to see you do this." Do it!

Maggie: Do you have any plans to rewrite that?

Susan: I wrote it on an old, old software program. I'll have to take it to the University (of Washington) or something and find somebody who can translate it into WordPerfect or a text file because I'd hate to lose it entirely. I liked that book a lot. I'd have to look at it, of course, and I'm sure it would need work, since it would have been my second published book. But even so I thought it had some very, very good possibilities. I hope someday to be able to find somebody who can put it in a format that I can access so I can at least read it again.

Maggie: Do you have any plans to write more historicals in the future?

Susan: Not at this time. I really prefer writing contemporaries.

Maggie: You have written all romantic suspense. It seems like every book has a cop or detective or a bounty hunter in it - all law enforcement. Why is that?

Susan: They're macho! That's basically it. I guess I'm drawn to that sort of a dark, authoritarian, dominant kind of guy.

Maggie: The alpha hero.

Susan: Mmm hm! The next one has an unknown title at the moment. I named it BLONDIE AND ME, but they want another "Baby" title. I said, "OK, if I have to have a Baby title, then call it DON'T CALL ME BABY," but that's not going to fly, either. (NOTE: it's since been decided to call it BABY, DON'T GO.) Anyhow, Nick Coltraine, the hero of that one, is a photographer. James Ryder (PRESENT DANGER) was a cartoonist. But most of them tend to be some kind of law officer. I just like that.

Maggie: Do you have any real life association?

Susan: No. A lot of it comes from the situation. I usually come up with my characters first but when you're trying to figure a situation to put the characters into, a background in law enforcement lends itself very well to a lot of different aspects, especially when you're writing romantic suspense. And of course my older stuff was more suspenseful than what I do now, which tends to be more comedic. Even so, it just happens to be a profession that lends itself well to that medium.

Maggie: How do you do your research? You mentioned before we got started that you had taped a cop at one point.

Susan: I interviewed a detective on the Special Assaults Unit, which used to be the Sex Crimes division. They renamed it because rape has a whole lot less to do with sex than it does with power and coercion and violence. So I interviewed her and got just wonderful information. That was for OBSESSED, so all the stuff that made that authentic I owe to Chris Lyons from the Seattle Police Department. I also interviewed a New Orleans policeman by telephone for BE MY BABY. On SHADOW DANCE, it was kind of funny because I put so much research into the cop aspect of it, but I never heard anything about that. Everybody liked my dancer! They wanted to know how I did my research for that part, and that was just something I knew about.

Maggie: How did the humor creep into the romantic suspense? What prompted that change?

Susan: I don't know how many of my books you've, read but there's always been an element of humor in the dialogue. That's just an aspect I find very appealing in real life. I think humor is right up there with sex - someone who can make you laugh is someone you oughtta hang onto. When I got kicked free from Zebra - I've closed down more lines! - the market was changing and at that time romantic suspense was just plain disappearing. The thing is, there's a market for it but it's very hard TO market. You'll notice my Avon covers don't have that suspense look at all, and they don't mention anything about that aspect of it on the blurb. I talked to Ellen Edwards at a cocktail party at the Novelists, Inc. conference in Denver in '95, and I asked her what Avon's take on Romantic Suspense was, and she said, "You know, readers love it, we love it, but we have a hard time placing it." She said, "If I owned a bookstore, I would put it both in mystery and in romance. But I don't own a bookstore and shelf space is very limited." If you put it in the mystery section, romance readers very well might find it, for we're real genre-crossers. We're pretty widely read. The same can't be said for suspense readers. Some of them do cross genres, of course, but for the most part they just look down on romance. I did a signing once where two women came up and told me how much they loved my book and one thought it was romance and one thought it was suspense and boy, the one that thought it was suspense was adamant that this was not a romance. I thought, "Well yes, actually it is!"

Maggie: She didn't want to be caught reading a romance?

Susan: No. More than anything else, I think it's a matter of perception. Because of my earlier covers and the fact that it had suspense on the spine, I picked up a lot of men readers who loved my stuff. I think they'd die, though, if they thought it was a romance. I think they probably LOVED the relationship aspect of it, but they're adamant that it's a mystery or a suspense. And anybody who's ever read my books can tell you that the suspense kind of takes a back seat to everything else. It moves the relationship along and helps drive the conflict, but the relationship's the thing.

Maggie: I wonder if you've lost male readers with the "Baby" books.

Susan: I'm sure I have. But I've picked up a lot of female readers. I'm so thrilled with the new look of my books, I can't tell you, because my older covers - well, EXPOSURE is one of the better ones, which kind of gives you an idea. OBSESSED is the worst. It has that big ole knife pinning the note to the tree. Nothing says romance quite like a knife stuck in a tree! But, hey, I guess I can't kick; there was a heart on it - which the knife was going through. My next book is going to be a Super Leader, and it will have a die-cut front cover (cover with a shaped hole cut out of it) peeking into a cut-paper scene on the inside cover. Should be really great!

Maggie: What's that like, being named Avon Super Leader?

Susan: It's really exciting. I seem to be considered this overnight sensation and I've been in the business for ten years. I've really struggled with my career. I've been bounced from two different publishers; I've been with lines that have folded. I've had print runs that were no larger than 20,000. It's really hard to build a readership with those kinds of numbers, and I've been very lucky to have had readers who've followed me from the beginning. So this is a thrill, it truly is.

Maggie: So what does it mean to be an Avon Super Leader?

Susan: It's placement. It means that you have much, much larger print runs, more advertisement, more promotional stuff and, frankly, I'm not sure exactly what all it means. I just know that it's good!

Maggie: And then Doubleday Book Club said you were a rising star.

Susan: They did. They said "Romance's hottest rising star," and I read that and said "That's MEEE!" That was the biggest thrill. I know that this isn't the pinnacle of anybody's career, but I have belonged to Doubleday Book Club since I was 19 years old. To see my own book in the catalog was really a thrill. And they gave me 3/4 of a page, which was really cool! I should have brought it to show to you. I have it laid out on my coffee table. I'm not proud! So I now have BE MY BABY in hardback. I can hardly wait to see it. My editor said that as soon as it came into the office, she'd overnight me a copy. And it's funny, but now that I've left Zebra, they are treating me much better than they ever did when I wrote for them. They're reprinting EXPOSURE with a new cover. That comes out in December. It's a great cover, very big book looking. My name takes up like the entire top third.

Maggie: Hardback or paperback?

Susan: Paperback. Now that they're reprinting it, maybe I'll actually make more than what I could flipping burgers, which would be real exciting.

Maggie: I just recently did a search on the web for your backlist and I found a copy of EXPOSURE selling for, and I'm not kidding, $100.

Susan: WHAT!? That's crazy! You can still get that book new - there's one copy out at Barnes and Noble.

Maggie: Really? I can't find them anywhere!

Susan: I went out and signed the stock last week, when they got some more in, and there was one copy of EXPOSURE. God knows how long it's been there. That came out in '96, I think. (NB: Your reporter called B&N immediately after this interview and scored that copy of EXPOSURE, signed and everything, for cover price!)

Maggie: Most of them were selling for $12 or $15, but I saw one for $50. What do you think about that?

Susan: I think it's nuts. I wouldn't pay $50 for a used paperback.

Maggie: It's the collectors.

Susan: Yeah. I guess if it's a first edition, which is what the one out at B&N will be, because of course there was no such thing as a second printing with my Zebra books. There might be now, but there certainly wasn't when I was actually employed by them.

Maggie: Are there plans for reprinting any of the other books?

Susan: I hope so. I think that would probably depend upon how well EXPOSURE does. Anne Marie Talbert is very much responsible for this, I think. She's the national buyer for Waldenbooks and she really liked EXPOSURE, and she talked to them at Zebra and said she would love to see it reprinted.

Maggie: Is EXPOSURE one of the most popular?

Susan: It seems to be very popular. Depending on who you talk to. You can't win in this business. Or you can. When a new book comes out, it's always compared to the ones before, and sometimes favorably and sometimes not. Everyone's got their favorite. I'm the same way with writers whose work I like. Some books I really like. I usually like an author's entire body of work, but perhaps one of them has just totally blown me away. And occasionally there might be one that I didn't care for, but that's pretty rare.

Maggie: Which one is your favorite of the books you've written?

Susan: I don't know. That's kind of like asking which is your favorite kid. I don't really have a favorite. The two that were easiest to write were PRESENT DANGER and EXPOSURE, and those seem to be the two that are most popular. Whether that has anything to do with anything or not, who knows? Actually, BABY I'M YOURS was easier to write, too. None of them were really easy for me, though. The writing process is a real stinker as far as I'm concerned. It's always painful, but some are more painful than others.

Maggie: When Judy was telling me about EXPOSURE, she said that it has the best child character in it that she had ever read. So I started reading about Gracie and her little "Itsy bitsy spidoo" and "yiddle bit" and I just fell in love with her. She is so cute! Where did Gracie come from?

Susan: A compilation of kids. My son used to say "lello" when he was little. He always said l's for y's, and so I stole that from him. It's funny - with Gracie I think you either love her or you hate her. I've had some people say, "I was so sick of that baby talk."

Maggie: But she's so cute! The way you describe the way she curls up into her Mama. I thought she was a very vivid character.

Susan: She was fun. I enjoyed writing her. She helped propel the story because, in a lot of ways, she was her mother's reason for being. So in that respect she made the writing a lot easier.

Maggie: Protecting her became both of Elvis' and Emma's reasons.

Susan: Yeah, and it was so fun with him because he really fell in love with the daughter before he fell in love with the mother.

Maggie: I think he liked Emma from the first time he saw her.

Susan: Oh he did, he did, but the baby stole his heart right away. He got immediate acceptance from her, something he hadn't had before.

Maggie: So Gracie was a compilation of kids. Judy wanted to know if any of the characters or the funny events in your books have come from real people or real events.

Susan: Some of the emotions have. And a few situations. In EXPOSURE, the part where Elvis knocked on the woman's door about the trash that had been thrown over the bank by her sons who were supposed to have taken it to the dump - my brothers did that. We had the cops come knocking on our door one day for that very reason. My mom's name was on a magazine label, which is how they tracked them back to us, and my mother was NOT happy about it. So little things like that, and sometimes emotions that maybe I've experienced or somebody's talked to me about, but not the real situations behind them. I spend a lot of time in my head. It's kind of a scary place to be.

Maggie: So where do you get your inspiration? Where do your people come from?

Susan: They just grow in my head. I'm not a visual person, so it's a very nebulous thing. It's kind of hard to explain because I don't quite understand it myself. I always start with a character, which is usually the hero. But in my next book, Daisy Parker (the heroine) came to me first. I get this person that just kind of gnaws at the back of my brain. Then I go looking for their worst nightmare. I'm not very good at up-front plotting. I used to write strictly by the seat of my pants, but that had to change to sell a proposal. So that's when Caroline Cross and I started brainstorming. It just kind of evolved. We started talking about problems we were having with our respective books and kicking ideas back and forth. It's so easy to get locked into your own stuff to the point where you can't see the forest for the trees. But it's much easier to see where someone else has gone south. I can pinpoint where she's gotten off track but I can't always locate where I have, and she's the same way. So it's been an invaluable association. (Not to mention dynamite friendship!) She's a much better plotter than I am so we'll toss things around. I'll say, "This is the guy I want to write, and this is the situation, and I have maybe three ideas." She helps me expand those ideas into a workable synopsis - which is not necessarily the way the story will turn out. The synopsis is just a selling tool and it's a broad outline of where I'd like to see it go, but invariably the characters take over.

Maggie: So they surprise you?

Susan: Oh, constantly. They take the story in directions you didn't expect, and that of course changes what comes after.

Maggie: Or before.

Susan: I don't run into that as much, although I have gone back occasionally and added in things. My process is that I have a good idea who my characters are, yet I don't really KNOW who they are, if that makes any sense at all, until about the fifth chapter. I learn more about them bit by bit until their reactions start coming more naturally. So sometimes I'll leave out something that they probably should have done, but I didn't realize until later they should have done - then I'll go back and add in what's missing to tie things together. But mostly I'm linear. And I write by correction. I write and I rewrite, I write and I rewrite. I'm not a first draft writer, and I'm not a fast thinker. So I might have a good day in which I accomplish a lot of pages, and then the next I won't have two thoughts to rub together. I have to kind of let things percolate in the back of my mind, until it pops out where I've gone wrong or what my characters need to do to get themselves moving in the right direction.

Maggie: Do you sit down every day?

Susan: Yes, except on weekends. I try to keep the weekends for my family. Sometimes it doesn't work out that way, but that's the general plan. And as I said, my husband travels a lot, so when he's gone my writing really keeps me company.

Maggie: And your son is grown now?

Susan: Yes, but he's living with us again. It's actually been quite nice. He's real mellow just like his dad, real easy going. He's been a lot of company when the soul mate's gone.

Maggie: Tell us some more about Daisy.

Susan: Daisy had a relationship with Nick. Nick Coltraine is my photographer. Daisy Parker is my bodyguard

Maggie: She's a COP!

Susan: Yeah, yeah. She had been a cop. It was interesting writing about a woman who's more - well, not more macho, that's not really the right word - but she's strong. I wanted to make her confident, but at the same time resist making Nick look too dorky or weak. There were a lot of rewrites on this book. It's the first book where I've had this many revisions. I think part of it was because of that flip-flopping of their occupations. Daisy and Nick also have a real convoluted history. They were step-brother and step-sister for about a year. And then there was the fact that he took her virginity and immediately boogied.

Maggie: The slime!

Susan: Ah, but not really. He was real conflicted about it. Anyhow, nine years later he finds himself in need of a bodyguard and he ends up with you-know-who. And neither of them are real happy about it.

Maggie: And this is BABY, DON'T GO, right? When does it come out?

Susan: In May of 2000.

Maggie: It seems Judith Ivory's Super Leader got delayed, too.

Susan: The thing is there are only so many slots for Super Leaders. There's only one a month. BABY, DON'T GO was originally slotted for March, but when it became a Super Leader, March was already scheduled for Elizabeth Lowell, I think. And I don't want to compete against her anyhow! She's like a Mega Leader as opposed to a Super Leader. Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Kathleen Woodwiss, and Elizabeth Lowell are considered Mega Leaders. So you might see one of those, a Super Leader and then your Treasure or Romance. Anyway, that month was taken up so they had to push it back - but only by two months, which isn't too bad. I think Judith Ivory was pushed back four or five months. I could be wrong about that.

Maggie: So that's a long stretch since your last book. More than a year.

Susan: Yeah, it'll be 14 months, which is too bad - but it's worth it for me because, of course, that's going to mean more exposure for the books and hopefully more money for the books.

Maggie: Do you get bigger royalties for being a Super Leader?

Susan: I would think so. My royalty remains the same, but there's an 8/10 split, which means they pay 8% of the cover price up to 150,000 copies, I think it is, and then they pay 10% after that. And I think with the Super Leaders you actually get beyond 150,000, but I'm not quite sure at this point what the print run will be. That's one of the things that my agent is looking into, what we can expect as a Super Leader. I imagine there is quite a disparity even within that. You get your new Super Leaders like me, you've got the ones who are established, and then you've got the ones that are just about to bust out into the Mega Leaders, so I'm not quite sure what it'll be. But it should be a little more money and it also means, I believe, that the cover price goes up which is bad for the readers but is good for me.

Maggie: We'll just have to go to Costco (warehouse store) or something. But I wonder if Costco counts towards the bestseller lists. Now that I'm aware of writers as people, since I've gotten to meet people like you, I have to buy them new and I have to buy them someplace where they're going to get counted. We readers have this responsibility to you. So I want to buy it someplace where it's going to count.

Susan: It's hard because they're getting more and more expensive, and I'm a reader myself so I know how that goes. Your budget only goes so far which is unfortunate.

Maggie: It actually lessens the number of books you can buy in a month. So in that sense it's good to be a Super Leader because you're more likely to be the one that's picked up.

Susan: Exactly. And of course there are more books out there, which means more exposure which means more people likely to pick them up.

Maggie: It's very complicated. I've learned a lot about publishing since I started cruising the web last fall.

Susan: I'm still learning and I've been in this business for ten years. It's not a business where they volunteer a lot of information. You have to learn by asking, and of course if you're just beginning, you don't even know what questions to ask. So that's one very valuable thing about the internet, I think. There's a lot more information out there and people sharing this stuff, so new authors are worlds beyond in knowledge where I was when I came out.

Maggie: Did you start off with an agent?

Susan: No. Actually, I sold my first book on my own. When I got cut loose I eventually reconnected with Beth Lieberman, who was my editor at Warner, after she'd moved to Zebra. I was about to sell the second book to her, so I got an agent on the strength of that sale. I actually could have sold BABY, I'M YOURS on my own also. I got a letter from Ellen Edwards saying she had read and liked OBSESSED and wanted to talk to my agent, whom I had since let go. So I wrote Ellen back and said I was in the process of looking for an agent, but I'd be interested in talking to her myself, and I talked to her at the Dallas conference in '96. I wanted to get my next agent on my own merits, as opposed to on the strength of a possible sale, so I didn't mention it when I sent it out and that's how I got Meg Ruley of the Jane Rotrosen Agency. She's just fabulous.

Maggie: The wisdom seems to be to find an agent.

Susan: In today's market, unless you write category where even if you have an agent you often can't get a lot of changes or perks, I think it's quite important to have one. There are so many ins and outs. As it was with Meg, I could have sold that first book to Avon by myself, but it would have taken me twice as long because when I first sent in the proposal, the editor said it wasn't quite as strong as the book that she had read. And Meg, bless her heart, said, "Well, you might want to get another reading on that because otherwise we're going to shop it elsewhere." They turned around and made an offer the next day, and but Meg didn't think the money was enough so she shopped it around anyhow, and Avon eventually came back with more money and a two book contract. So there alone she paid for herself.

Maggie: This is a complete switch in topic, but I'm curious. Do you have a connection to New Orleans or do you just like it? Emma from EXPOSURE was from New Orleans and BE MY BABY takes place there.

Susan: No, I think I just liked the idea of southern women. I've had two southern women and then the setting in New Orleans. It's more a contrast thing, you know: the hunky blue-collar Yankee worker and the Southern belle. My decisions tend to come more out of what it gets me in the situation or in the contrast of characters.

Maggie: So the frigid New England lady ...

Susan: ... and the southern cop, yeah.

Maggie: The Cajun cop whom we all adore.

Susan: Rachel Gibson calls him the "Beau-hunk."

Maggie: There are a lot of RBLs all over the country. Are you going to anyplace out-of-state? Are you going to the Toronto convention or any booksignings?

Susan: No. I'm going to Chicago (RWA Convention in July) and I'm going to be down in San Francisco in June, but that's for the RWA down there. So if anybody is in RWA in SF, I'm going to be doing a "Chat-with" with their chapter. But aside from that, no. I love the conferences and everything, but travel takes time, and right now I'm on a pretty tight schedule with this book because the last book had more revisions than I've ever had before and that kind of pushed this one out.

Maggie: So what are you working on now?

Susan: I just started one that I'm calling ALL SHOOK UP. Who knows what it'll be when it's published. And this one is a little bit different, in that I've done a lot of urban stuff and this one I'm setting in an Alpine lakes resort. And he, oh, he's going to be so much fun. He is the direct result from Nick, who was my photographer who had the bodyguard, so I wanted a real hunka-hunka burnin' love guy! Thus J.D. Carver, who grew up in the foster system, was born. He was taken in by this woman who showed him a whole new way of life and then let him down in a very bad way when she thought that he'd stolen something - which he of course hadn't. She leaves him her part of the resort as an atonement, and of course his new partner is our heroine, Drucilla Lawrence.

Maggie: So they come to loggerheads, I'm sure.

Susan: Yeah. It should be fun. I'm JUST starting this, so I'm in that tiptoeing process where I'm trying to figure out who the hell all these people are and what their reactions would be. I just finished the first chapter and I've been printing and polishing and printing and polishing, and PRRRINTING and polishing.

Maggie: You work that hard on the first chapter?

Susan: Oh yeah.

Maggie: You redo and redo and redo before you write more?

Susan: Yeah. I can't go on until I have a pretty solid foundation, because it affects what comes after. At least with my writing, a lot of it is a natural progression. So if the beginning is all screwed up, it can throw off everything that follows. I do that with each chapter. I write the chapter and then I print it out and polish it. Print and polish, print and polish, and even then it's still first draft. But I have a better framework. Then when I get to the end, I go through the whole thing start to finish. Actually, that's the part I like, the editing. It's polishing up when the hard work - getting the main idea down - is done.