Welcome, Romance Lovers! Romance author Nina Pierce is with me this morning!

   Available now at Liquid Silver Books

Welcome, Romance Lovers!

Nina Pierce is with me this morning to tell us a little about herself and her books.  Welcome, Nina!  Tell us a little about yourself.

Well, Fran, I started writing full time about four years ago when my multiple sclerosis forced my retirement from teaching. I’ve always been a writer. When I was in elementary school I wrote plays. In middle and high school I jumped into poetry. Throughout college I immersed myself in writing research papers. I was the student in class everyone loved to hate. I passed my papers in early and they were always twice as long as they needed to be. I couldn’t help myself. I just loved writing.

So when my body gave out, I made lemonade and turned to writing. Thankfully my hands haven’t been effected and I can still type out my stories.

How do you find ideas for your books? Real happenings? Dreams? A great imagination?
Oh, this is the question everyone asks. When I was teaching science I looked at the world and catalogued it, putting facts in order to use in future lesson plans. But over the last few years my perspective has changed. When I overhear a conversation in the grocery store or read a particularly interesting news article or see a couple together in the park, my mind starts thinking “what if?” From that “what if” I start building the story. Sometimes it’s the characters and their relationship that intrigues me, but more often, since I write erotic suspense it’s the crime that gets the idea going. *rubs hands together* I just love murder and mayhem!

You have a new book out. We’d love to hear about it.

Two actually. And I love them both.

My debut novella, Divine Deception with Ellora’s Cave is a contemporary romance (without suspense) that takes place on a vineyard in Western NY. It’s part of EC’s “succulent” fruit series. It’s a case of mistaken identity when Nick and Frankie get together and the sparks fly. But what happens next is pure chemistry!

I also just released a novella in the Heart’s Afire-May anthology with Liquid Silver Books titled Shadows of Fire. This story started with a murder and of course a fire. When I sent it to a friend they replied they loved it and would never have thought to make a vampire a fireman. I hadn’t either until just that moment. *g* Anyway, Reese Colton was created and this sexy vamp is trying to solve who’s killing other vamps in the Northern California mountains. When he finds out over pillow talk that bar owner Alexandra Flanagan has secrets … well, he can’t figure out whether to follow the clues or his heart. This has become on one of my favorite stories.

Do you identify with the characters you write about?

I’m not sure I would say identify—I don’t model them after people I know, but I certainly do fall in love with them. When I write a book I just hurt for the hero and heroine as they try to work themselves to that “happy-ever-after” and I certainly celebrate when they make through everything to find that true love. But when asked who my favorite hero is, I have to say Brenimyn, my first hero in The Healer’s Garden. (Just don’t tell my other guys *wink*) I think I had been thinking about that book for so long that I already loved him before he made his way to the page. I think I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for him because he was my first hero that made it to publication.

What does your writing schedule look like? What's your best time of day to write? Are you a morning writer or a night owl?

When I first started writing I had just stopped working. I kept that work schedule and got up very early in the morning and wrote before anyone else roused from bed. Then I’d take a break get everyone off to school and work and sit down and write for the rest of the morning. In the afternoons I did family stuff and evenings I would print out and edit that day’s writing.

But everything’s morphed in the last couple of years. I now spend the morning catching up on email, blogging and my new obsession—twitter. After lunch I sit down and open my current book and write. But I’m finding I’m most productive after hours, after everyone’s gone to bed and no one’s emailing. I can get a lot done without the distractions. LOL!

What advice do you have for aspiring writers? OR What advice would you like to give aspiring writers to help make life easier for them?

Write. Write. Write and write some more. If you believe in your dream don’t let anyone tell you you can’t do it. Push away all the negative thoughts. Someone said that writing takes PLOT… perseverance, luck, obstinance, and talent and not necessarily in that order. Breaking into publishing can be very difficult, but if you want it bad enough it will happen.

Also, take time to understand the market. Someone asked me the other day about writing romance and I asked how many romance books they had read and when they told me none I was surprised. I read lots of genres, but romance is my favorite. Like so many writers, I am a voracious reader. I’ve read hundreds of romance novels over the years. So when I decided I wanted to write them I knew the basics of the structure. I’ve learned an amazing amount since then, but having done my market research I was definitely well prepared when I jumped into writing my first novel.

What is your next project?

I’m currently working on a series with some wolf and cougar shifters. I hope to have some news about that soon. And since I loved writing the vampires so much I’m thinking they may make an appearance in this series as well. I’m really falling in love with writing paranormals. Plus, these are all m/f/m ménages and if I may say … they are quite hot!

Today, writers need not only write great books, but be great promoters of their books, too. What kinds of things do you do?

I’m a social butterfly. I love to chat. I can chat on the phone. I can chat at the grocery store with a friend. I can chat with a stranger on the plane. So naturally my marketing leans toward places where I can meet other writers and readers. I blog. I have a MySpace. I belong to several email communities and forums and now twitter. And if anyone asks me about writing, why I can just talk to them for hours. Of course some of that is my teaching background. Nothing like having twenty students as a captive audience. LOL!

Now, here is a totally off-the-writing-subject question. What’s the coolest, wackiest, most risk-taking thing you’ve ever done?

Oh, I’ve done a couple of things. I went inner tubing with my boyfriend (who’s now my hubby of twenty-five years) when we were in college. We went down some white water that was a challenge for kayaks. During that same trip we went over a broken dam. Yeah, I was wild and crazy.  I’ve also been skydiving. That was a kick in the pants, I gotta tell you!

You have a large number of books out from differnt publishers, Nina.  Do you mind if I show some of them here?

Not at all!  Thanks for thinking of it, Fran!

Thanks for coming this morning, Nina!  I loved talking to you!

Internet places:
website: http://www.ninapierce.com
blog: http://www.ninapierce.com/romanceblog
MySpace:http://www.myspace.com/ninapierceauthor
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ninapierce
Book Trailers: http://www.youtube.com/romanceauthor62

Oops!  I forgot to ask you for a blurb!

Oh, yeah!  You asked me for one before!

Blurb:

Hearts Afire-May

ALEXANDRA FLANAGAN didn’t ask to be forced from her human existence as a chemistry student at the South Kenton University in the northern mountains of California into the ungodly world of vampires. But thirty years ago, after nearly dying from a vicious vampire attack, that’s exactly what happened. Saved by the blood of an ancient vampire, she unhappily walks among immortals--facing a hollow existence she never chose.

REESE COLTON has been a vampire for centuries. A man of honor, he is part of an elite military operation known as RISEN that seeks out and eliminates rogue vampires who choose to break the unwritten codes of the immortals and not live complacently among the human population. Under cover as a firefighter at the South Kenton fire department, he and his team have been called in to investigate the unusual number of fires that have ended the lives of several humans--and vampires.

When chemistry ignites passion, Reese and Alex find themselves embroiled in an affair that catches them both unaware. With the number of fires escalating and Alex’s behavior increasingly suspect, Reese isn’t sure whether to follow his heart or the clues. Will Reese find the answers to Alex’s secrets in the Shadows of Fire?