Interview with Connie Cox

From time to time, I like to interview authors of talent and promise. My guest today is Connie Cox, a fellow member of NOLA, North Louisiana chapter of RWA, who is currently writing for Harlequin. Please help me welcome Connie.

JB: As a start, Connie, tell us when you decided to become a writer.

CC: I’ve always loved to read, but never considered writing (Writers were those special, elite folks who lived in mansions in New York, right?) until I dropped into Betty’s Books one day and she told me about this new group of romance writers in town and said I should join.

The timing wasn’t right, but the idea wouldn’t go away, even after 8 years, a move away from the area and a move back again.  So, I joined an online group, gained some confidence, then put on my brave girl panties and went to a monthly writers’ meeting.  I’ve been hooked ever since.

JB: Did you read as a child? If so, what were your favorite books?

CC: I was an obsessed reader. I hid my novels inside my textbooks at school, walked down the hallways reading, read in bed using the crack of light that streamed under my bedroom door…. I was indeed a childhood reader. My fav books were the Trixie Belden series.  I also read all the Louisa May Alcott books.

JB: Do you read much now? What is in your To Be Read pile?

CC: I read daily, but not continuously as I did when I was a child.  Grown-up stuff interferes, you know?  I’m very eclectic in my reading.  I LOVE magazines of all kinds—Southern Living to Wired to Redbook. Right now, at the top of my stack are books by new medical romance authors Wendy S Marcus, Tina Becket, Louisa George and Susan Carlisle. One of my favorite authors of all time is Barbara Samuels O’Neal. She’s such a smart writer.  I also re-read Dwight Swain’s Techniques of the Selling Writer at least once a year.

JB: You write in the romance genre. Do you consider yourself a romantic at heart?

CC: I think I’m more of a pragmatist. There’s a whole lot of life to be lived by a couple beyond that first moment of attraction. The men and women in my novels have more than an initial  attraction to bind them together.  To paraphrase Jack Nicholson in one of his movies, ‘He/she makes me want to become a better person.’  I think true love brings out the best in all of us, and that’s what I expect from my story people.

JB: Your book, THE BABY WHO SAVED DR. CYNICAL, is labeled a Medical Romance. Tell us what that term means to you.

CC: Being a medical professional comes with a brand of stress and expectation like no other.  Preserving life, accepting death, are every day requirements, day in and day out. In a world like that, a person needs someone to understand, someone to find comfort and joy in more than in any other profession.  So writing about medical personnel, people who must maintain their logic at the epicenter of emotional chaos, means creating strong people who need strong relationships. Strength-found-in-love are the stories I like to tell, and medical romance is the perfect background for them.

JB: Do you have a background for writing about the medical field?

CC: I’m an electrical engineer by training and worked in the field for over 25 years until I started to write full time.  My first job was with GE Medical Systems were I repaired major diagnostic equipment like MRI scanners and nuclear scanners.  As a ‘fly on the wall’, I was privileged to observe how medical professionals balance the stresses of their work and still remain compassionate and sane.  With their stoic calmness, they are people like us, who ache like we do and seek joy as we do.  I think we forget that, seeing only what they are trained to show us. I write to expose that vulnerable part that makes us all human, crafting stories that are a tribute to their heroics.

JB: What made you decide to write for Harlequin?

CC: I’ve loved Harlequin ever since I discovered them on my mom’s TBR pile somewhere in my pre-teens.  I love that the stories which show, time and time again, that a loving relationship is the core of our humanity.  I especially like that neither the man nor the woman ever settles for second best, but loves themselves enough to enter into a relationship with someone they love even more.

JB: What is your favorite thing about being a Harlequin author? And your least favorite?

CC: I LOVE that Harlequin is sold internationally!  I had a Facebook message from an internet friend that she had just purchased my book from a shop in Belfast. Awesome, isn’t it?  And I love my editors. I’ve had two so far, and each one knows just how to encourage me to stretch farther and dig deeper, to unearth character emotions and the motivations behind them. What I like least? I can’t write fast enough to send them all the stories I want to write!

JB: What is your ultimate goal in writing?

CC: I want to give readers the same thing all the authors have given me.  I want to type “The End’ on a book knowing that I have expanded my own life’s view by living vicariously through my characters.  I hope my readers come away with the same life-expanding experience when they read my stories.

JB: Tell us what a typical writing day is like for you. What is your day like when not writing?

CC: Typical writing day: I eat breakfast with my husband, play on Facebook.com, Twitter.com and Goodreads.com longer than I should, then I get down to work. I’m a morning writer and focus best before noon.  After lunchtime, I still write, just in shorter spurts.  Sometimes I have to bribe myself to pay attention i.e. thirty minutes typing and then I can do another row on the crochet project I’m working on.  Then another thirty minutes, etc.  When I’m on deadline, I usually work 5-6 hours a day at the computer.  But the story is always working itself out in my head, 24/7.  I like to think those hours count, too.

When not writing, I like to crochet. I’m getting into cooking (which means I buy cooking gadgets off the dollar rack, though I haven’t used them yet.) I used to like to garden and plan on getting back into that this spring.  And, of course, I read.

JB: Do you have a book in progress at present? Tell us a little about it?

CC: My writing life is a busy one right now. I’ve just had two more story ideas accepted at Harlequin Medical Romance and I’m going over final edits on a single title my agent will be selling for me as soon as I send it to her.  So many stories to tell, so few hours I can spend at the keyboard….

JB: What would you like readers to remember about your books?

CC: After reading one of my books, I would wish for readers to recognize the inner strengths of the characters and to acknowledge and celebrate their own inner strengths in their own life stories.

JB: No writer could hope for more. Thanks a million, Connie, for stopping by, and the best of luck with your career!

For more about Connie, check out her website at: www.conniecox.com

The Jennifer Blake Newsletter-November

Greetings:

What a month October turned out to be! Wild winds, threats of tornados usually seen in spring, yet weeks so dry the oldest oak trees are dying and the lake here at the house is a good four feet below normal. Regardless, the poule d’eaux (“water hens” in French, a type of duck with feet like a chicken though webbed and which winters here in Louisiana) have returned in their season. We also have Halloween candy left, which is a Good Thing as I only buy the kind my husband and I like. And this will also be an October to remember because I completed the rough draft of the final book in my medieval trilogy, which is also the last in my current contract.

The End was typed on the last page of BY GRACE SEDUCED on October 21, a few days ahead of schedule. This isn’t the end product by any means. I’ll revise the manuscript not once but twice between now and March 31, adding a couple of scenes that came to mind as I neared the final chapter, also layering in description and emotional reaction that was skimmed over in the race toward the finish line. You may get tired of hearing about this book! Lest you think that I should be able to do this faster, I’ll tell you that I’ll be receiving my editor’s line edits for books #1 & #2 of this trilogy in this same period. They take precedence, big time. I’ll have to read the two manuscripts with extra care, approving changes and making others before sending them back ASAP. All the labor is advance preparation for the release of this Three Graces trilogy in August, September and October of next year.

Actually, I’ll have a total of five titles out in 2011, with the reprints of two more of my older novels by Sourcebooks, Inc. These will be FIERCE EDEN in February and MIDNIGHT WALTZ in August. It’s the first time I’ll have so many books out in the same year.

Published this past month in Australia and New Zealand was DAWN ENCOUNTER, book #2 in my Masters at Arms series. Oddly enough, the cover art used on this book was the same as that for the U. S. version of Masters at Arms book #6, TRIUMPH IN ARMS. Both covers are turquoise blue, so it’s possible some art department person became confused. Or maybe they just liked the TRIUMPH cover better; who knows? What they’ll do Down Under when they publish book #6 is anybody’s guess as well.

Another peculiar happening this month was notification that one of my older pseudonyms is being used to sell books that I never wrote. How the mistake came about, I don’t know, but both Amazon.com and AbeBooks.com are currently selling a contemporary romance titled THE HIRED WIFE as a Maxine Patrick title—though the cover plainly says it’s by Lynna Cooper. A bit of online research shows that Lynna Cooper was a pen-name used by a man named Gardner Francis Cooper Fox. Though better known as a creator of comic book heroes, he wrote novels and short stories under a variety of male and female pen-names until his death in 1986. One of his male pen-names was Michael Blake, so the plot thickens. In addition, a novel called BABY DREAMS by Maxine Paetro is being sold under my old Maxine Patrick pen-name on Amazon. Please be aware that I did not write either of these books. The Maxine Patrick pseudonym was created by my first agent in 1980 as a reversal, of sorts, of my real name of Patricia Maxwell. I wrote only six contemporary romances for Signet/NAL under it during that era: THE ABDUCTED HEART, BAYOU BRIDE, CAPTIVE KISSES, LOVE AT SEA, SNOWBOUND HEART and APRIL OF ENCHANTMENT. Any other titles being sold under Maxine Patrick are listed in error.

My Mira Author’s Blog post for October, “Synchronicity and the Writer”, is still up. It’s an exploration of events in the lives of authors which connect in mysterious ways to their writing. The main thrust of it is the amazing discoveryI made, just as I began to write medieval novels, that I’m related (many times removed, of course!) to several of the major historical figures in my medieval trilogy. Check this out by clicking on “Mira Author Blog” at: http://community.eharlequin.com My next post for this site will be uploaded on November 9.

At present, I’m at Writing Tip of the Day #200 on my Jennifer Blake web site blog. Current tips explore POV (point of view), while next up will be bits about the writer’s “Voice” in writing. I should have more tips posted by now, but am lagging behind due to close deadlines and summer travel. My goal is at least 365 tips. It’s beginning to look doable, though all in good time.

Houston will be my destination later this week. This is for the International Quilt Festival held at the Convention Center there. I’m really looking forward to the break, not to mention the beautiful quilts and the vendor’s booths. In pursuit of this hobby, I’ve been working on a “row quilt" (each row using a different quilt square) in conjunction with a series of quilting classes sponsored by my sewing buddies, the Magnolia Stitchers Needle Arts Group. The classes are being taught by Rhonda Ponder, though I spent one night demonstrating appliqué methods with a good friend, Melva Beard.

On December 11, 2010, I’ll be speaking at the annual Christmas gathering of NOLA, the North Louisiana branch of Romance Writers of America. This will start at 10:00 a.m. at the Bossier Library History Resource Center. Visiting with writer friends at this event will be great.

Can you tell my life is bountiful and never boring? That’s something to be grateful for during the up-coming season of Thanksgiving. With warmest wishes for the same to you and yours,

Jennifer