Interview with Cait London
Cait, Welcome to Deb’s. We are so happy you could take time from your busy schedule to chat with us.
I had the pleasure to meet Cait at the Lori Foster Reader/Writer event in 2008 and enjoyed every minute of our conversation. I was so happy to discover that she is as wonderful in person as her books are.
1. Please tell us a bit about yourself, your family, etc.
Thank you, Debbie.
I’m a do-er as you can see by my three blogs, http://caitlondon.blogspot.com which focuses on my work, writers’ issues and tips. If you write, do check out that blog and my writing tips, at my website, http://caitlondon.com. http://thesecondcup.blogspot.com features the stuff I’m interested in, daily stuff for women, including favorite makeup, movies, etc. http://myjamjar.blogspot.com is about the homemaker stuff, i.e. making jam and applebutter, sewing, whatever. Plus I’m a grandmother, so I make lots of cookies. My three daughters are currently providing more tots.
I’m also an artist, as you can see at my website studio, large canvases. I’m also interested in computers, graphics (I run my own website and blogs, plus newsletters), and photography, herbs, etc. So I’m one of those artistic personalities, but I never started out wanting to be a writer. Now I am and didn’t happen easily. 7 years, count ‘em, before my first sale. My agent at the time, now deceased, said that 10 years was the average. That was prior to Internet, which makes things easier now, but also makes for more competition.
2. For our readers unfamiliar with your work, please tell us what kind of books you write.
I’ve written a variety of romance, ranging from Desires (Any Tallchief readers out there?), western historicals, romantic thrillers, romantic suspense, and I enjoy adding psychic elements. My psychic triplet trilogy is on the stands now. BTW, I do not consider true psychic work as paranormal, i.e. vampires, shape shifters.
3. I’ve been a long time fan but didn’t realize until I started doing a little research that you wrote under two names, Cait Logan and Cait London. I have read several of the Cait Logan books but didn’t realize it was also one of my favorite suspense authors!
Cait Logan books started in Berkley’s Second Chance at Love category/series and I was invited by Joan Golan, now editor at Steeple Hill, to write historicals. She’s quite the mentor and purchased my first SCAL (category), prior to the historicals, which I also wrote for Dell. I loved writing NW western historicals as I grew up in central WA State, about an hour south of Canada, where there were lots of westerners and rodeos were common. In my reading of others’ books, there is no worse turn-off than not to know the actual landscape and feel of the land. And that is why I drove the Oregon Trail, and the Indian trails in the NW, and up into Canada, for Delilah, my mountie book. I’ve yet to see another book like that, as I am a true researcher. Wedding Gamble was set in MT, and it was also unusual as I researched billiards and it is the only book of its kind in American Billiards Congress museum as I worked with them on research.
4. Do you still write under the Cait Logan name or do you write exclusively under the Cait London name? Do you have any other pen names you would like to share with us? What type of books do you write under these names?
I’ve been tempted to write more Cait Logan westerns, but I don’t know. Most of my books are contemporaries under Cait London. That’s it so far.
5. How long have you been writing and how did you get your start? How long did it take you to be published and what was your first release? When did it come out?
My first, Lady on the Line, a SCAL contemporary about a lady lineman, was published in 1986. It took SEVEN years to publish and that was because I’d met an agent at a conference, who sold that first SCAL to Joan Marlow Golan. Back then, we did not have all the writers’ organizations and Internet information we have now (most long-term writers developed their skills prior to Internet). So it was basically throw what you know out there and waste a lot of manuscript mailing money, learn what you could and try again. Reflecting on how it was to struggle without groups, magazines, Internet, etc., I think I learned more about writing skills from basically just working like a dog with a portable non-electric typewriter. BTW, plotting wasn’t in my skill-bag then, and now I enjoy it. But the editors said I came in with Characterization, already built in, so that was a help.
6. How many books do you have out now and have they all been in the romance genre? I know you have written in many different sub-genres including historical, paranormal and your most recent releases have been a romance suspense trilogy with a psychic twist.
I’ve written about 70 novels and novellas to date, all in the romance genre and all mass-market traditional.
7. Please tell us about this trilogy and when they were released. Are they still available for purchase? I know our readers won’t want to miss these awesome books!
There’s quite a bit about them at my website, and they are available. Most of my Avons are. As the mother of 3 daughters, I already understood the birth-order personalities of the triplets and relationships with their mother. Much of me is in all of my books, including Claire’s (1. youngest/rural MT/At the Edge) handcrafting/sewing, Tempest’s love of color and artistic bend (2. Lake MI/A Stranger’s Touch, NYTs bestseller) and Leona (3. eldest/Lexington, KY/For Her Eyes Only). I feel my family may have an intuitive streak, and linked with Leona’s experiences.
Thanks for the awesome, btw. The triplets are descendants of an ancient Celtic seer and the Viking chieftain who captured her. None of them want their ability, and all have been traumatized by 2 major events in their lives. Their connection is so strong that they cannot live together or near, for any amount of time. And that’s it folks. Each has their own love, their own story and plenty of danger, and Leona’s story, FOR HER EYES ONLY completes the trilogy, though there is interest in Greer, a world famous psychic who helps solve cases.
8. After writing in so many different sub-genres, do you have a favorite? Is there anything that you haven’t tried that you would like to do in the future?
I love all my stories. I worked really hard to craft them from the basement elements, so it would be hard to choose. I’ve written away from my usual, but we’ll have to see if that takes off. If not, I will have tried and have enjoyed the journey. I enjoy most journeys and adventures, and do not think that stories can be crafted by sitting behind a desk alone, rather by experiencing. (No jokes here, please.)
9. What do you have in the works now? Can you give us a sneak peek and give us a release date?
I write every day, but do not have future releases scheduled at this date. FOR HER EYES ONLY was a 10/08 release and since then, I’ve been working on different material and that’s about all I want to say now—suspense, you know .
If you are a writer, please do visit my Writers Survival posts at my blog, http://caitlondon.blogspot.com for info on software, newsletters, etc. I do seminars on The Business of Writing, and those posts are a taste of that.
10. Are you a big reader? What kind of books do you enjoy? Who are some of your favorite books or authors?
I am a big reader. I enjoy almost everything but science, unless it is archeology non-fiction. I read a lot of non-fiction prescriptive, biographies, magazines, too. I read almost anything in paper print, and have not tried the e-formats yet as I work hours on my computer and not willing for more screen-gadgets on my down-time. (Love computers, software, btw.) While I read almost everything, not much sci-fi (Love the sci-fi channel and movies) and vampires (love those movies). Not too much on endangering the child books, either, or forensics, or detective/sheriff/investigators, which I think may be overdone now. Not too much on regency/victorian/etc. However, I always buy Jayne Ann Krentz and love her Arcanne series. Like others, my reading trends are changing and diverse. I’ve just enjoyed Lori Foster’s 2 Servant books. But at the bottom of my reading list is hard-boiled detective/forensics, and that is just a personal taste matter. Not really fond of books in which the heroine is a writer, as that is too close to home. I want to read about different material; however, if the story and character are strong enough, I’ll enjoy it. I would like a really good Viking story, much like Woodiwiss’s. When starting to diversify my writing, I tried a Viking proposal, but the agent said they weren’t selling and wouldn’t market it, so I moved on. Just after that several Viking novels hit the stands.
11. Has anyone or anything influenced you in your writing career? Would you change anything if you were doing things over?
I’ve met and have been influenced by many people, not only in writing, but how they manage their business, lives and careers. In romance, I think we may have partly caused our own put-downs, by simply not acting with better judgment and dignity. In retrospect, I couldn’t have done more ad work/traveling/workshops, as I was a single with 3 daughters, so I stuck pretty much to what I felt I needed to do and that included a day job for insurance, etc. Only when my daughters were almost through college did I go full-time, so I had 13 years or so of writing fulltime and working at a day job. Imagine 3 in college at one time, and you get the picture. When you get that first big notice as I did, that is the time to step out and make a mark, but I chose to tend to my family obligations. It’s said that it is difficult to recover, once that time is gone, and it is. Yet, I did what I thought was right and do not regret that.
The recommendation as of now, 4/09, is to do as much online as you can for your books, and that would have been a real plus for me back then.
12. I know you are an inspiration and have been a huge help to other authors. You blog, you give talks and answer questions and always have an encouraging word to new authors. Is this something you think should be available for all authors, new and old alike?
All beginning authors, or those moving out into conferences or online, should have some sort of a master guidebook on manners, i.e. how important thank-yous are, even when they are for rejections. The way to start this is for seasoned authors to post their worst experiences from other authors.
On bad reviews: If there is anything no author should do, it is to rake someone else over in a review-like forum. Absolutely vitriolic stuff has no place in reviews. They should be clinical, done in proper format, and not I’m-so-cute show-off style. Just think of how you might feel, if someone took after you in the same manner.
For seasoned authors, some sort of a re-think business questionnaire, i.e. balancing PR time against copy-producing time.
13. Come on and spill the beans….what kind of writer are you? A strict plotter and outliner who plans everything out before you start writing or are you more of a casual style writer? Have your characters ever taken off in a direction that you hadn’t planned and if so what did that do to your story? Did you let them get away with it?
I learned how to plot in several ways and they are listed at my website, http://caitlondon.com. One of the best ways is to number chapters into paragraphs, so you can see where the midpoints are and then see the shape of the novel. This eliminates having to rush through the ending. I typically write 2 proposals, one extensive for myself and a short one for the editor. When in trouble, in the actual writing, I go back to the long one and it always helps me out. But a story does twist and turn on you. All I can say about that is make certain that the lead characters stay that, else you’re in serious trouble. I edit as I go, but in the overall edit, straightening out the threads/layers, I really balance the h/h to see if they are strong enough to match. I also balance the antagonists against the protagonists, as they need to be worthy opponents. In final edit, I may redo the whole first chapters to balance the book. I have to get in and write the characters before feeling how they mesh and bring them to life. Characters have to mesh, the subcharacters’ POV bringing to life the main characters. Think of it like the gears inside a clock, everything revolves around something else, touching and changing it. We’re affected by the lives of others, as well.
Here’s a visual: I think of my story threads as multi-reins on a chariot that need to be controlled. A story has to be controlled, even if it takes off in a different direction.
14. The characters are strong, the twists keep us reading and even though I want that happy ending, I hate for the books to end. If you could choose what you wanted a reader to remember about your books, what would it be?
That it was a gift, something with texture and life, that provided a short escape. However, my writing isn’t for everyone. Some writers are middle-of-the mark, i.e. and no strong feelings are evoked about their work. I’m not one of those. Either readers love me, or they don’t. Apparently, my style and stories incite passion either way.
15. Do you have an all time favorite book or character from your writing? Do you ever base a character from real life people or events?
I do not have favorite books, unless it is the WIP at the time; it’s the same with characters. I do base my characters on real people, live or not, and some events. But that’s only the start of my story-building. I believe a book is built from some nugget and then grows. Or it does with me. BE MINE was built on the image of an Amish girl I saw riding her pony beside the road. So that was a person and an event. I’m pretty fast at generating story ideas, and can look at an old windmill and get a story. I guess that’s where the artist comes in, meshing with the writer. BTW, there is a high percentage of writers who are also artists of some sort.
16. What do you do for fun? I know that you are a painter as well as a fantastic author. How did you make this transition from painting to writing? Do you still paint in your spare time?
Boy, that is a hot topic among those who are both painters and writers. The consensus of the majority is that we can only devote ourselves full-time to one or the other. There are exceptions. I’ve been writing heavily for years, and have only done a few paintings. But I’ve taken lots of photos while traveling and intend on painting them, mostly seascapes. I miss it. The psychology of the writer is interesting. My stories, once started, will not let me rest.
17. Give us an example of an average day in your life. Do you try to keep to a specific writing schedule? A certain word count or number of pages per day?
I’ll start writing fresh copy at 4-5a. Take a break around 9 or so, then edit a bit, do what I have to, etc. and then start working around 4p. But some days, like when I’m trying to get my mind off a story that just ended and before starting a new one, I’ll take a trip. I love to drive, and stories just cling to me then. If in a plot problem, all I have to do is take a long, open-country drive, and it’s pretty well sorted out by the time I get back. But no specific pages per day. I am fast, though, and as the story picks up speed toward the end, I’m really going, careless of anything but my aching body. One time, I was so much in a scene that I felt my fingertips were on fire.
18. What is the best piece of advice you have been given as an author and what would you tell someone just getting started as a writer?
A book is like a song, it flows and has a tempo. When you feel the heartbeat, you’re in the stream and the book is beginning to breathe into life. One of the worst things a beginner can do is to forget that all the elements need to NOT be dissectible. Too much dissection can kill a story, too many cooks in the broth, too. If you’re in a critique group, make certain it’s the right one. I’ve never been in one as I do believe that giving out the story to others is like sharing a first kiss. You can never relive that first fresh blast and the editorial comments are all I want. However, writing is a very individual activity, with individual preferences, and other writers function perfectly well in their groups. I believe that in writing, you get out of it, what you invest in it. No one else can do that for you.
Cait, thank you so much for taking time to chat with us. I look forward to your upcoming books! Please come back and visit us again soon.
Thanks so much for asking me, and I will. And I’m also hoping that my responses to your very good and insightful questions helped someone.
