Terri: As I say in my bio - I'm wife to one(Chris), mom to three (Matt,18, Dru,13, and Mike, 8), and dental hygienist to hundreds! I was born, raised and still live in southern New Jersey. I work part-time in two dental offices. I've been an active member of my Dental Hygiene Association, as well as the NJ Romance Writers, for several years now. When I'm not writing, I'm usually a)working, b)reading or playing with my email on my computer, or c)driving my kids all over NJ!

Donna: When do you find time to write?

Terri: I tend to write late at night - my most productive time is from about 10 pm until about 3 am - then I read what I've written, correct it, and go to bed! I rarely write new material during the day.

Donna: What do you read for pleasure? Who are your favorite authors?

Terri: My favorite pleasure reading is still romance! I usually look for anything by Julie Garwood, Jill Barnett, Johanna Lindsey, Karen Ranney, Hannah Howell and many others - almost exclusively historicals or paranormals. I do enjoy Suzanne Brockmann and Cathie Linz in contemporaries.

Donna: When did you decide to become an author and why did you chose to write romance?

Terri: I didn't really decide to become an author - I've always been a writer of one sort or another. During most of my professional life as a dental hygienist, I've done technical writing and editing in my field. About five years ago, I started to realize that I had some ideas that seemed to be stories. Since I'd been an avid romance reader for years, it didn't surprise me that they were romance story ideas. Dear Hubby said to write them down, so I did.

Donna: How long did it take to write your first book? How long did it take to sell your first book?

Terri: I wrote my first book in about 9 months, while writing the first part of my second book at the same time! Confused? Both stories were very strong - one was a short contemporary and one was a time travel! So after finishing the first, I attended my first romance writers conference and pitched it to two editors. It was rejected - they were great rejections though, and one came with an offer to look at anything else pertinent to that editor's lines.

I went the next year and pitched the time travel to another editor, and then, while trying to finish it, I was selected to go on Lifetime Cable TV and be featured as an unpublished romance author! The producers of the "Our Home Show" arranged to have a Harlequin editor read my manuscript, but time travels don't fit into their lines. I sent it in to the original editor I'd met at the conference, and four months later she called with an offer to buy my book!

Donna: Where do you get the ideas for your books?

Terri: I get my ideas from everywhere and nowhere! Sometimes they come from other things I'm writing, or sometimes from TV shows or articles in magazines, or one I'm working on came from listening to a song! And the best ideas come when I'm not trying to come up with one! The book I'm writing now, which will be published by Jove Time Passages next fall, came about from a seemingly not important comment in a biography of Henry VIII on A&E. I started playing the "what if" game and came up with a premise - what if one of Henry and Anne Boleyn's stillborn baby boys had lived? He would have a better claim to the throne than Elizabeth ... etc. It's fun!

Donna: Do you work from an outline? Do your characters ever take over and do something you weren't expecting?

Terri: An outline? What is an outline? LOL - I did write an outline for my first book. It was a beautifully written, well planned outline in chapter by chapter form. Then I let my characters loose and they refused to follow it! So the story turned out very differently than I'd planned.

Now, I do a brief, rather sketchy synopsis for the purposes of selling the story - then I write the book. My characters tend to come fully drawn into my mind, their appearance and personality traits are there for me. Don't tell anyone, but they also talk to me and to each other. It becomes difficult when the characters from the next story decide not to wait their turn, or when they argue and I'm trying to sleep. I usually give up fighting them, write down the ideas/conversations/plotlines, and then go back to my current work in progress.

Donna: Is it difficult writing love scenes that you know your friends and family will read?

Terri: This is a good question! I was a bit nervous about my mother and mother-in-law reading those particular scenes. But once my mother started telling her friends about them, I figured she wasn't bothered by them! My mother-in-law just wanted to know if she would recognize or see anything about her son in my writing. LOL - I told her not to worry!

Donna: In A LOVE THROUGH TIME, you wrote a very unique time travel in which both the hero and heroine are sent back in time. Where did you get the idea for this?

Terri: ALTT actually started out as a contemporary romance. In order to work, the main characters had to be "marooned" somewhere together, and it had to be a place where they could not contact their offices, families, or friends. About that time, a man died on an expedition to the top of Mt. Everest, and he had been on the cell phone to his wife when he died. This made me realize that there is no place on earth to really isolate someone, so I decided to move them through time.

I chose medieval Scotland because I am so powerfully drawn to that time and place. A Celtic friend explained that I must have lived there in a past life, and had some incredible experiences there to leave such a strong imprint on my soul. Hopefully those experiences involved Scottish men in kilts!

Donna: In your dedication, you wrote that you used "p" word just once for her. Can you share the story behind this dedication?

Terri: She will be so embarrassed! My life-long friend, Cindy, is not a romance reader - she is a scientist. After she read my first manuscript (and one other romance novel), she asked why, if I taught my boys the correct anatomical terms, I didn't just call "it" what it was! I explained that euphemisms were much more comfortable in romance, but, for her, I would use the correct term. Hence, the dedication and the "p" word! Cindy has to explain this to everyone who sees the dedication, and has had some good laughs over it.

By the way, I wasn't sure if the "p" word would make it into the book. Some publishers have taboo words, and since this was my first book, I wasn't sure. It did! ;)

Donna: When they go back in time, Alex makes the adjustment much easier than Maggie. Why did you give him the Gaelic?

Terri: I had Alex speak in Gaelic because he was a true Scotsman. He had inherited his father's blood and family history even if he denied it. The Gaelic was one way of showing that.

Donna: Was it hard to write a story where you have the characters speaking in an accented dialog?

Terri: It didn't seem difficult to me, since I hear the dialogue and type what I hear! I did have to come up with a basic format, and some basic word choices, which I then used for conformity and ease of reading. I decided to rely more on Scots English rather than Scots Gaelic, because I was trying to give the readers a sense of what they would sound like if they could hear the characters speak. Soon, it became natural to me as I wrote.

Donna: I always wondered if an author who wrote dialog like this would catch themselves thinking and speaking this way while writing their book. Did this happen to you?

Terri: Oh, gosh! Did the superintendent of my sons' school tell you about this? LOL!

I was president of my local school board, and deep into writing/editing ALTT, when Mr. R called one day with a question for me. I was working on the scene where Alex and the Laird were arguing about his involvement with Maggie, and I was having the argument out loud as I typed it. Back and forth, back and forth, louder and louder when the phone rang. I answered and when he said, "Hello this is Bill," I yelled into the phone, "I canna speak to ye now - I maun call ye back!" and hung up. A few minutes later, the fight was written and I called him back to try to explain that he had interrupted a writer, not a madwoman!

Donna: You had the sexual tension so thick between Alex and Maggie. How do you know when it is time for your characters to consummate their relationship?

Terri: I didn't know the right time - the tension builds and then they decide. I knew kind of how I wanted it to be and where, but they took over complete control of it.

Donna: Some of your scenes were pretty violent; was this hard for you to write?

Terri: Again, I don't know where this comes from! I guess this is from my dark side? I just felt very strongly that Anice would have a physical reaction to Maggie and her presence there, and that revenge/punishment would be in a physical form. Since this was so much opposite of how Maggie or Alex would have dealt with any problem, I knew it would create even more tension and emotional reactions in the characters and bring some of their own inner conflicts closer to the surface.

Donna: Maggie is a very strong heroine. Who was your inspiration for her character?

Terri: Maggie (and all my characters) is a composite of many many people and traits that I like and don't like. I see some of me in her and lots of other people, too.

Donna: The covers for both books are beautiful, but are you worried at all that the covers and titles are so similar?

Terri: Well, since I have little if any control over the covers, I decide not to worry about them at all! I was very pleased about the design of ALTT and thought it was a nice touch to use the same archway on the sequel. Some people have said it's too much alike, but it's already done and can't be changed!

My editor did use the predominant images for the stories - the archway, the castle, and a plaid. I am really pleased that they're different from most covers in the design and colors.

The titles are both my original titles, which I chose because of the line I write for - Jove Time Passages. I wanted some reference to time in both. My next Time Passages release will have a non-time title; as of right now, it's going to be called THE QUEEN'S MAN.

Donna: It was very interesting that 31 years had passed in the present while only 20 years in the past between these two books. Why did you write the story that way?

Terri: For a simple reason - I wanted an older, more established hero (Douglas) and a younger, more age-appropriate in medieval times heroine (Caitlin).

Donna: Did Maggie and Alex know that their son's destiny belonged to the past? Is that why Alex made sure that Douglas knew how to fight like a warrior and speak Gaelic?

Terri: Maggie always knew but hoped not. She encouraged Douglas to learn the ways of the clan. Mairi guided her in this training.

Donna: Working in the medical field myself, I loved the way you had Douglas re-discover the art of healing. (I wish some of the physicians that I have worked with would read this book!) Do you have a personal interest in holistic or alternative medicine?

Terri: I've been exposed to lots of non-traditional treatment modalities - I'm in health care myself, and know that sometimes the modern way is not the best or only way. After acupuncture helped my son with some debilitating migraines, I became more interested in herbal medicines. I decided, when planning this book, that the old versus the new - technology-based versus hands-on - were great conflicts for the characters to struggle with. And, pulling Douglas out of his world allowed me to challenge his beliefs and his practices.

Donna: Caitlin is a delightful heroine. Is she based on anyone in real life?

Terri: I used my 7 year old niece's name because she wanted to be in one of Aunt Terri's books, but other than that - Caitlin is a composite like Maggie.

Donna: Did you know how you were going to end A MATTER OF TIME before you started writing this book? Would you have changed the ending in any way?

Terri: I actually wrote the ending first - the epilogue came flowing out and I wrote it in tears. I could feel Maggie's grief as a mother and cried for a long time (and scared most of my family until they realized I was writing!).

Interestingly, I did not plan the Mairi/Moira connection at all, at least not on a conscious level. Readers asked me about them and then I realized how I had planted the seeds of it as I wrote. Until I wrote the scene with Douglas at the arch, I truly did not see it or plan it ahead! I think my editor was surprised by it, because it wasn't included in the original synopsis since I hadn't written the book yet.

Donna: Will anyone else go through the archway? Will there be any more sequels to this story?

Terri: Hhhmmmm, well, Moira said only one more would go through and she will be that one ... but Douglas' and Caitlin's daughter is asking for her story - you know she will have extraordinary powers when she's grown, so who knows what will happen?

Craig has his own story - I'm using A HERO IN THE MAKING as a working title because he's not quite there yet! I'm saddling him with another woman who doesn't want him, but this time he'll be married to her - Marian Robertson, the Harlot of Hart's Tower! Puir mon willna ken what hit him!

Neither of those stories has sold but they're in the works.

Donna: Will you ever write Anice and Robert's story?

Terri: I have Anice and Robert's story under consideration now - I wrote most of it as soon as I finished ALTT. Anice was really left in a precarious situation and it got worse. I felt she really needed a wonderful hero to save her and her child. Robert Mathieson is my most favorite hero, and I hope readers will get a chance to read their story of the redeeming power of love.

Donna: Can you give us a hint at what is next?

Terri: I'm currently finishing THE QUEEN'S MAN, which will be a Time Passages release in Fall 2000. It is about a man who is the rightful King of England, and about a woman who finds the proof that would put him on the throne. Unfortunately, it is Elizabeth's throne in 1570 and intrigue threatens their lives and love.

Then there's another Scottish historical that I'm researching right now, set at the time of the Glencoe Massacre. Another medieval will follow - the title came to me after listening to Creed's song "My Own Prison." I'm calling it DISHONORED, and it's about the price one will pay to regain their lost honor.

Donna: How does the Internet affect you as an author?

Terri: Well, I spend lots of time reading emails and chatting! LOL! It has really become a powerful social tool for me. And I use it to check out research or to start looking for information. I also find it invaluable at getting my name and my book info out there to so many readers.

Donna: Do you have any advice for the aspiring authors here at RBL?

Terri: Keep writing. Continue to learn and hone your craft. Network. And - KEEP WRITING!!

Donna: Anything else you would like to say?

Terri: Just a word of thanks for this opportunity to talk about myself and my writing, and for supporting romance authors and readers as you and RBL Romantica do!!

And - an invitation to stop over at my website