Madeline: I live in Pennsylvania, with my husband and two sons. I grew up in northern Virginia, and that is where most of my family still lives. I am a college professor, and I teach Art History, so when I am not writing romance I am doing that and taking care of my family. Those three things pretty much occupy all of my time.

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

Madeline: I decided to become an author when I was about twelve. I had been writing stories since I had learned to read, and I had a teacher who pulled me aside and confided that there were people who do this for a living. When I got older I realized that actually very few really make a living at it, so I went in other directions, although I never stopped writing. I had already written two novels before I got hooked on romance, and I wrote my first romance novel the same way I had written those - curious to see how the story would unfold, and not much thinking about publication. Then I wrote another one, and began thinking that just maybe I could get them published.

Donna: Do you ever use personal experiences when writing your stories?

Madeline: Not specifically. On the other hand, everything in all of my books derives from my experiences, of course. An aspect of my personality can be found in every main character, even the villains. The themes, and how I handle them, definitely come from my experiences. For all writers, the way they see the world and human nature is a part of their voice, and it is there even if they don't plan it.

Now, I will confess that sometimes I have given a hero the physical description of some man I have seen or met ...

Donna: How did you go about selling your first book? How long did it take?

Madeline: I had some experience with the publishing world because I used to sell nonfiction articles to magazines. So I knew that I wanted an agent. I figured that an agent would keep me going when the rejections came in, while on my own I might just stop submitting. So I queried some agents, and found one I liked and trusted who was willing to take a chance on me. She was really excited about my work, and thought I would be a slam-dunk. I wasn't. I kept producing new manuscripts and she kept submitting, but it was almost three years before I sold. Then, in one of those quirks of fate, two editors wanted my work at the same time, and a third was expressing serious interest. So I am a poster child for the idea of keeping at it, plugging along, and not giving up.

Donna: Are your family and friends supportive of your writing?

Madeline: My family and friends are very supportive. My husband and children have never expressed any resentment of the time I give to this, but then I try very hard not to let it interfere with family stuff, too. That is hard to do, because writing quickly goes from being a pastime to a habit and on to an obsession. But balance is vital, I think.

Donna: How long does it take you to write a story?

Madeline: Anywhere from 6 to 9 months. About a year into this, I realized that without much pushing I was finishing a novel in 10 months. I decided to put myself on what I perceived to be a published writer's schedule, and aim for 8 months. (I later learned that writers can choose their own schedules, and that my perception wasn't exactly correct.) I wanted to see if I would still enjoy it if I were on deadline, for one thing. I'm glad that I did that, since it prepared me for what was to come, and it also meant that I kept producing new work to send out to editors.

Donna: Do you write from an outline?

Madeline: No. I started out as a "seat of her pants" writer. My first few novels were stories where I just plunged in, with only a scenario, a beginning, and an end. The rest worked itself out as I wrote. However, I knew that if I sold I would have to come up with plot lines ahead of time, so I forced myself to learn to write synopses after I had completed about four chapters. By then the characters have emerged for me, and I have a pretty good handle on the book. My synopses are not outlines, though. They are much vaguer than that, more a description of the basic spine of the plot and the development of the love story.

Donna: Do you ever find yourself with a case of "writer's block" while in the middle of a story? If so, how do you handle this - what helps you get beyond this problem?

Madeline: I have only had something that might be called writer's block once, and I finally forced myself to sit down and write through it. Oddly enough, that story needed major revision, but not for the section written while I pushed out of the block. However, in every book I have what I call "lulls." They used to scare me, but now I accept that they are part of the process for me. They come at specific points in the story - for example, after the big consummation scene. I go into think mode, and am sorting out the next stage of the story. A lot of that takes place subconsciously, so I just have to trust it is happening.

Donna: Do you let anyone read what you have written before you send it to your editor?

Madeline: I have a friend who is my first reader, as I call her. She lets me know if the story is working for her. Then there is my agent. No one else has ever read any of my stories before they were submitted. Neither my friend nor my agent is a writer - they both read the way readers do, which is what I want.

Donna: Do you belong to a local writer's or a critique group?

Madeline: I have in the past, and found them very useful, but I haven't since I began writing romance. A good critique partner would probably make my books better, I think. Sometimes, after the book is through production, I will open it to a page and find something that I missed but a partner would have caught. By then it is too late to change it. But when I started writing romances, I was sort of wedging it into my schedule, and I just didn't have the time to go looking for a critique group.

Donna: What is the hardest part of writing a story?

Madeline: I'm not sure I have an answer for this. It is hard work, that's for sure. The fact that writers love doing it doesn't mean it is easy for us. I suppose the hardest part is when I am close to finishing, and I know how it is going to end, and the surprises are over for me.

Donna: What is your greatest fear when writing a story?

Madeline: That it won't come together, or that the way it comes together will be flat. I have learned to trust in the muse, but I always carry the fear that she will disappear.

Donna: What is the funniest thing that has happened related to your writing?

Madeline: The funniest things have always had to do with me being an idiot, with doing something that later I saw as just plain dumb. An example would be my first query letter to agents. Now, I knew something about this, and had actually had an agent for a nonfiction proposal. But for some reason that made sense at the time (although I can't imagine how), I decided that I would include a sample of my writing. Instead of something sensible like the first chapter, I cobbled together several pages of brief excerpts. A paragraph here, some dialogue there. Bizarre. I laugh whenever I think of it, but I guess you had to be there.

Donna: Was it difficult to write the sex scenes for your books? Does it get easier with each book?

Madeline: They do not get easier, they get harder. The first time I was blushing through the whole thing. Then I sort of got into it. Now I will skip them and go back when I can devote some unbroken time to the scene, because it is really important to me that they not sound stuck in or forced, as if I were plowing my way through my daily quota of pages. I go through a lot of mental preparation first, and then I need silence so that I can project myself into the characters so it will be compelling. And sometimes I still blush. I try very hard not to think of my mother and my 83 year old aunt reading those parts as I write them.

Donna: What kind of books do you read for pleasure? Who are some of your favorite authors?

Madeline: I will read romance, mysteries, and straight historical fiction for pleasure, as well as straight history. My favorite romance writer is Mary Jo Putney. I follow a lot of others, but I don't want to start listing them because I will forget some and then feel bad. But I read a lot of writers because they are recommended to me. I also like to buy writers I haven't heard about on impulse, the way that I did before I got to know the industry so well. I enjoy the surprise of just browsing and responding to the cover and blurb, and making new discoveries.

Donna: What has been your favorite question or comment by your fans?

Madeline: I've received a lot of wonderful notes and letters, and really appreciate them all. It is very flattering when a reader takes the time to do that. I guess my favorite question has been "When is Morvan's story coming?" since I think he is pretty cool. Then I have received some long, thoughtful comments complimenting me about my handling of language that have flabbergasted me, because I don't think of myself as a notable stylist.

Donna: How is it that, as a debuting author, you were able to get a stepback cover for your first book?

Madeline: Beats me. Seriously, I didn't know about it until my editor called to discuss the cover. I was stunned, since I had received a standard newbie contract. The various, wonderful ways that my publisher has supported me have been a series of surprises. I knew that my editor was excited by my books, but I never expected things like those stepbacks.

Donna: Alone, the covers of your books are beautiful. But with the stepback they are awesome! They are very much like the older Amanda Quick covers that we loved so much. Were you able to influence your covers?

Madeline: I am consulted, and my ideas sought, but in the end it is the editor's call. I can usually see where our brainstorming influenced things, but the cover where my suggestion was most clearly used is the front of BY POSSESSION. I know what you mean about the Amanda Quick covers, and I was really pleased that Bantam, who publishes her, went back to the montage for my stepbacks. (I still remember one of her covers, for SCANDALOUS, I think. It is the one where Sebastian is the hero. He is on the cover, looking dark and dangerous, holding a black cat. Yum.)

Donna: BY ARRANGEMENT is a very original story with the hero as a commoner and the heroine as nobility. What inspired this story?

Madeline: I had written a draft of Morvan's story first, and as backstory I gave him a sister who had married a merchant. Then later we met the sister and her husband. David walked on stage and POW! I knew that I had to write the story of this other romance and this incredible character.

Donna: What kind of research did you do for this book?

Madeline: Besides the political research, most of the research involved the merchant culture in London during the period, and the economics of the time and the story of the city itself. I also dug up stuff on big houses built in London in the 14th century.

Donna: Is it harder to write a story that has real historical characters interacting with the fictional ones that you have created?

Madeline: Not really. I allow myself some freedom in interpreting their characters since we know little about their personalities.

Donna: It was interesting to watch how much both David and Christiana grow and develop through the book. When you first conceived of them, were they "undeveloped," or were they "fully developed" and telling their story?

Madeline: Their personalities were in my head, but not as some four sentence description. I knew them like you know anyone at the beginning of a friendship. As the story unfolded, they revealed their complexities, and grew from their experiences.

Donna: Will there be a sequel to BY ARRANGEMENT? Will we get to see Morvan win back Harclow?

Madeline: My fourth book will be Morvan's story. I have revised it since I first wrote it, but the basic story never changed. However, he does not win back Harclow in that book, although he gains the means to do so, and I leave the readers with the reassurance it will happen. A subsequent novel has the regaining of Harclow as the backdrop, and Morvan, his love Alana, David, and Christiana are all secondary characters.

Donna: And what about Sieg? I couldn't help thinking that he has a story to be told.

Madeline: I hadn't thought about that, but now you have me intrigued. Actually, the person in BY ARRANGEMENT whom I think keeps demanding her own story is Elizabeth, Morvan's one-time lover. She shows up briefly in Morvan's story and is an off-stage presence in the next one, too. I'm playing with the idea of a novella for her.

Donna: In BY POSSESSION, you use a similar theme, only this time the heroine is the commoner (a serf) and the hero is nobility. At times the odds against them seem insurmountable. Did you ever write them into situations that you weren't sure how to get them out of?

Madeline: No, I pretty much knew where the story was going all along. And I knew that their HEA would have to be at Addis's insistence, that Moira, who theoretically stood to gain, would be the one unable to see its possibility.

Donna: In the character of Rhys you created a dilemma. It isn't often that I find myself unsure who I want the heroine to end up with. He sure gives Addis a run for his money! Who or what was the inspiration for his character?

Madeline: Ah, Rhys. The inspiration was almost meandering. When researching houses for BY ARRANGEMENT, I came across a footnote in a book that mentioned a master builder who had bought tiles from a woman, and that later documents indicated he married the woman. Great story, I thought, filing it away. So, I'm writing BY POSSESSION much later, and am going to insert "the other man". Now the temptation is to make the other man somehow unappealing to readers, so there is no dilemma, but I find that too easy (like making a villain gross and ugly). And in the back of my mind was the notion that this other man could maybe have a story of his own, so I needed to protect his character a bit. So that was the inspiration for Rhys, who, considering he isn't around all that much, developed quite nicely. BY DESIGN, my next bookdue out in January, is his story and, yep, the heroine is a tiler.

Regarding protecting characters - I do that all the time. If one shows up and I immediately see possibilities for another story, I try not to do anything that will make that next story difficult. I remember reading a book by a well known author where she had a hero who had been a secondary character in an earlier story. Only in that first book he was short. Well, she didn't want a short hero, so she sent him out west for a year where he "put on a few inches". Except he was 28 at that time.

Donna: In both your books you save an element of surprise for the ending. Will this be a trademark of sorts?

Madeline: It looks like it will be for most of them, now that you bring it to my attention. In BY DESIGN the surprise comes a little earlier. In Morvan's story (the working title is BY COMMAND, by the way), there is surprise at the end, but it isn't so much a plot turn as it is a character turn.

Donna: Can you tell us about BY DESIGN?

Madeline: As I mentioned, it is Rhys's story. The heroine, Joan, is a woman indentured to a tiler whom Rhys "buys" in order to save her. She is in jeopardy in ways he doesn't know, however, and has the dream and quest of avenging the acts that destroyed her life and her family. In some ways, the story is a "flip" of BY POSSESSION. The heroine, Joan, is the wounded one. Rhys's character is quite wonderful, in my biased opinion. He is strong and sensitive, but has an edge to him so he isn't TOO decent. He is a freedom fighter with unorthodox ideas who is grappling with disillusionment that he can really affect his world. In Joan, he finds something worth fighting for again.

Donna: Will you continue stories with the "BY ..." titles?

Madeline: I think so, at least for the medievals, at least for now. But titles are ultimately a marketing decision. These were not my titles, although once the "BY ..." was hit upon, I did come up with BY POSSESSION. But David's story was originally titled TAPESTRY OF ILLUSIONS, and Addis's story was originally LOVE IN THE SHADOWS.

Donna: Can you give us any hints about future stories?

Madeline: Well, the story that follows Morvan has a hero, Ian, who is a mercenary who is sexy as hell, but a bad boy. The heroine, Reyna, is a scholar who is accused of murdering her husband. The backdrop, as I said, is the retaking of Harclow on the Scottish border, and there are this murder mystery, Scottish blood feuds, and lots of secrets and surprises.

Donna: Will you ever write other types of romance?

Madeline: I may try a contemporary, but I only have the barest notion of a plot for one at this point. I doubt that I will write category, because keeping my manuscripts down to single title length is a struggle. I will be expanding beyond medievals for my historicals but I will never give them up.

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

Madeline: It has been a great help for some research topics (and not at all for some others), and the communication with readers that is possible through it is wonderful. The various review sites have given writers a lot of exposure, even if we don't always like the reviews, and the other sites provide the opportunity for all of us to get together as a community. I think that I would feel very isolated without it.

Donna: What are some of your favorite web sites and discussion boards?

Madeline: I'm a lurker on discussion boards and most lists. The exception is the RW-L writers' list out of the St.John's server. It predates the RWA links, and I joined it soon after I began writing romance. I found it a tremendous help, and a place to find some solace, and I try to be active there for the unpublished writers in order to give back something for what other writers earlier gave to me. As for web sites, I surf around most of them and find useful stuff all over. I really don't have favorites with respect to sites and boards, although there are a couple of boards (not yours!) and lists that are too dominated by one or two people who use sarcasm to stifle discussion. I stay away from those.

Donna: What is the best way that readers can help to promote new authors such as yourself?

Madeline: Word of mouth, but if the word is on a readers' list or board, and if the reasons that you liked the book are stated, it probably has a bigger impact. Also, go ahead and loan your book to someone who might not buy it. I've had family and friends and readers convert people not just to my books, but to romance in general, by doing so.

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

Madeline: Keep producing new material. Writers learn by writing. It just happens,and all of the workshops in the world will never teach you as much as a couple of completed manuscripts will. Always go forward - even as you are revising, be writing the next one.

Other than that, I have lots of opinions and advice that may not be useful to anyone in particular. If any of the writers want to ask me a question privately, I'd be happy to try and answer it. I can be contacted through my web page.

Donna: Do you have anything you would like to say or questions you would like ask the readers here at RBL?

Madeline: Only that I was planning to be more bawdy and outrageous in this interview, but your questions were so good I found myself really thinking about my work. This is a neat group, and I'm flattered that you invited me for this interview.