Geri Buckley Borcz

Award-winning author Amelia Grey shares her thoughts on the art and craft of writing and talks about her newest series The Rogues' Dynasty

First off, Amelia, tell us about the series.

I started the trilogy with this premise: Everyone in the ton knew that Lady Elder had tried many times by fair and foul means to force her grandsons to marry. After all, she had been happily married . . . four times. Decades earlier she had successfully married off each of her three daughters to titled gentlemen. And in turn, each daughter had given her a grandson all in the same year.
The Grandsons turned out to be Rogues of the highest order, notorious for many reasons including their titles, handsome faces and rumored debauchery. But nothing made them more popular than the fact that all three still remained bachelors in their thirtieth year. Not even vast fortunes had tempted any of them to propose to any of the young ladies who fancied them.

Now tell us about your current book in the series.

In A Marquis To Marry, the second book of the series, Alexander Raceworth, the fourth Marquis of Raceworth was not looking for love when Susannah Brookfield, the Dowager Duchess of Blooming arrived unannounced at his door. Race meets the duchess and finds that she’s not old and she’s not unattractive. She’s a young, stunning beauty. And what’s more, she claims his grandmother’s pearls belong to her family. She intends to get them back, but Race doesn’t plan to be bluffed out of them.
Before the true ownerships of the pearls can be determined, they are stolen from Race’s home. Race puts Susannah at the top of the thief list, but she wasn’t the only one after the pearls. A sweet-talking buccaneer who was buying up pearls from all over the world, a master-jeweler popinjay who secured jewels for the Crown, and a seedy, one-armed antiquities dealer, all wanting possession of the famous pearls, are also under suspicion.

The first book of The Rogues’ Dynasty series is A Duke To Die For. It came out in April 2009, but it is still available at your favorite local or online bookstore. In A Duke To Die For, the hero’s life is chaotic and undisciplined, so I gave him a young and innocent heroine who was timely and organized to get under his skin and stay there. For fun I had her believe she was cursed, and for intrigue I had him be in danger because of it.

An Earl to Enchant is the third book of the series and will be published in April 2010. In An Earl To Enchant, the hero is a planner who plays by the rules and has no idea what to do with an enchanting heroine who ignores convention and steals his heart with her impulsive ways. For merriment, I have the heroine pursuing the hero, and for intrigue I have a killer pursuing her.

What's your writing process and where do you write?

My first desk was the breakfast table with an electric typewriter sitting on it. I wrote only during the hours my children were in school and had any signs of writing cleared away by the time they got home in the afternoons. But thankfully things have changed. For the past few years my office has been at my husband’s office building. He is a Corporate Tax Consultant so his work never interferes with mine, and I certainly don’t ever try to advise anyone on their taxes. But I do love having my office in his building. I’ve always treated my writing like a business, not a hobby, so I find that having an office outside the home makes me feel professional.

I think the best thing about being in his building is that his assistant’s office is between mine and his, and he never seems to mind if I sometimes ask her to help me with things like making a hard copy of my book, addressing envelopes, or answering my phone. The building has piped-in music in every room, but I have to keep mine off. I need silence when I write. I can’t have the TV, radio, or even spa music playing when I’m writing. It’s too easy for me to find myself humming along with a favorite song or suddenly find that I’m watching something on the TV rather than concentrating on my story.

When writing, I have books on furniture, clothing, carriages or horses all over my desk, and I always have Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary handy so I can look up the dates to words. Another thing about working in an office building is that I get up every morning and put on make-up, and either straighten or curl my hair, and put on nice clothes. When I worked at home, I didn’t worry so much about those kinds of things. I’m quite happy in a comfy pair of sweats at home. And, also working at an office means that I work office hours. My husband’s business is open from eight until five, Monday through Friday. I have to admit that most days I don’t actually get to the office until nine o’clock and I’m often seen leaving before five. But this allows me to never work on the weekends or at night.

My office furniture is blond wood. No dark furniture for me. I’m a sunshine kind of girl and I need lots of light. I have a comfortable chair at my desk and a cozy chair where I will sit and read over what I have written after I print it out. On one wall in my office I have a framed copy of every one of my book covers. With the publication of A Marquis To Marry, which is currently on sale at your favorite local or online bookseller, that makes twenty covers on that wall, and it makes A Marquis To Marry a very special book to me. And I happily admit that wall makes me smile. Over the years, I’ve been fortunate enough to have some fabulous covers. Another wall has framed certificates of a few awards that I’ve won.

When I get to my office, the first thing I do is check e-mails and answer those that need a response, and I’m usually into the book by ten or ten-thirty. I take a very short lunch break. I seldom go out for lunch, preferring to make myself a salad, fruit and yogurt, or open a can of soup. I’ve discovered that going out to lunch eats up way too much of my work time. And I’m very choosy about what I will allow to take me away from my writing time.

How do you fight writer's block?

Any author will tell you that writer's block is real and it's scary. Most of us have contracts with deadlines in them and getting writer's block can be a big hindrance to meeting that deadline. And there have been days and weeks when I've had to force myself to go to the computer and stare at the page until I wrote something. Thankfully it doesn't happen often but when it does. I simply make myself sit in front of the computer until I write something--even if I delete it all later.

Any advice for aspiring writers?

First I'd tell them to NEVER give up their dream of becoming a published author. Many years ago a friend told me "God doesn't give you the desire without the talent to back it up." That has always been my motto. I had the desire, a little natural storytelling talent, and then I took workshops and classes on writing to learn the skill of putting a book together. If you have the dream and the desire, you must have some talent. Don't give up.

So what's next for you?

I’m happy to say that I have just contracted with Sourcebooks to write three more books in The Rogues’ Dynasty. I can’t tell you where the new rogues are coming from because it would spoil one of the plots in An Earl To Enchant. But I’m now very happy to be busy on the fourth book of the series.

My thanks to Amelia Grey for taking time from her busy schedule to share her thoughts on writing, and be sure to look for A Marquis To Marry at your favorite book store.