Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Tuesday Guest Post: Cindy Spencer Pape

First of all, I’d like to thank Pam for having me here today. One of my favorite things so far about being an author is all the fantastic people I get to meet and hang out with.

The Idea Fairy:


I always love the question we writers get asked by almost everyone. “Where do you get your ideas?” Honestly I’ve never been able to come up with a single rational answer to that. Life. Imagination. Bits of overheard conversation from a restaurant crossed with a commercial for cat food. Add in a couple really weird elements from a dream and a little bit of revenge for a movie that ended just the wrong way. What I want to say sometimes is, “The Idea Fairy leaves them under my pillow every night,” because there’s really just no good answer. Ideas just…happen. Maybe the best response I’ve ever read was from the late, great Douglas Adams who said something along the lines of, “All I can suggest to would-be writers is to drink lots of coffee and to buy a desk that can withstand having your head banged on it.”  I don’t drink coffee, but substitute Diet Coke, and there you have me.

Some writers get ideas from dreams. Been there done that. They’re usually just too surreal to write down, but bits and pieces of my dreams go into bits and pieces of my books.  Ideas from real life. Yeah, those happen too. I know a lot of geeks. I’ve written geek books. Although if there’s really a dragon in the steam tunnels below the campus where I went to school, I’m not admitting it. But wouldn’t it be cool if there was?

That would be where most of my ideas come from. Random snatches of reality and fantasy blended together into “Wouldn’t it be cool…” moments. If any of you remember the old “Gargoyles” cartoon, you might have thought, “He’s kinda hot. Wouldn’t it be cool if he was the hero of a romance?” I sure did. And lo and behold, I have a series about gargoyles—really hot gargoyles.

I was honestly told as a child that I had too vivid an imagination. Now I’m pretty sure that’s an asset, but as a kid it wasn’t always. It took me a long time to discover that what I had wasn’t a curse, but a gift, and that I was bloody well supposed to DO something with it. So here I am. Can there be any greater job than just getting to make stuff up? Not to me. And so whether the ideas come from dreams or snatches of overheard conversations in the shopping mall, or from banging my head on my kitchen table (I don’t really have a desk) all I know is I hope they keep coming. And the weirder the better.

And just for fun, here’s a few blurbs, including my latest release from Ellora’s Cave, and my latest from Carina Press. So click on the covers, or my links below and come play inside my imagination for a while.


About the Author:

Cindy Spencer Pape is an avid reader of romance, fantasy, mystery, and even more romance who firmly believes in happily-ever-after. Married for more than twenty years to her own, sometimes-kilted hero, she lives in southern Michigan with him and two teenage sons, along with an ever-changing menagerie of pets.  Cindy has been, among other things, a banker, a teacher, and an elected politician, but mostly an environmental educator, though now she is lucky enough to write full-time. Her degrees in zoology and animal behavior almost help her comprehend the three male humans who share her household.


About the Books:

Just for Jess (Immortal Cravings #3)
Release Date: Oct. 5, 2010
Publisher: Ellora’s Cave
            Blurb: Vampire Jessamy Maitland is a classic workaholic, until her friends team up to buy her a weekend with the incredibly sexy vampire Dermott McMahon on his luxurious private island. Dermott is determined to get Jess to kick back and relax, so he’s enlisted the help of three lion shifter friends.

Jess finds herself faced with three days of no phone, no computer and four sexy, horny males, all determined to wait on her hand and foot and show her a scorching good time. Naked. Together. In ways she’s never imagined. With those odds, what’s a vampire to do? There’s nothing for it but take them up on their offer and discover that sometimes it’s okay to play.

* * * * *

Motor City Witch (Urban Arcana Book #2)
Release Date: October 4, 2010
Publisher: Carina Press
           Blurb:             She’d left magic behind.

Once upon a time, Elise Sutton had been a powerful witch and paranormal enforcer. Once she’d been madly in love with Fae lord Aidan Greene. But when Aidan had considered his duties more important than their relationship, the love affair ended badly. Shortly after, while on the hunt for a rogue demon, Elise was brutalized and almost killed. Months later she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. To protect her child—and her heart—Elise decided to live a nonmagical life.

            Until she meets Aidan again, and he assumes Dina is his daughter. When Dina is kidnapped by a racial purity movement, Elise turns to Aidan for help. The icy facade she has built around herself shatters at Aidan’s touch. Together they have to hunt through the human and faery worlds to find Dina...and to discover whether or not they have any kind of chance at a happily ever after.

2 comments:

Cindy Spencer Pape said...

Pamela, thanks SO much for having me here today! And everyone, don't forget to catch Pam's interview over at my blog, www.cindyspencerpape.blogspot.com

PamelaTurner said...

Cindy, thank you for guest blogging for me today and for inviting me to post on your site. :-)