~ Author of the Month - Wilson-Harris ~

1.  Tell me a bit about Crystal Wilson-Harris the writer?  What got you started, etc?

Like most romance writers, I started as a reader.  When I was a kid, my mother, grandmother, and aunts used to read romances by the dozens.  They would pass them around to each other.  When I was 12, they finally let me into the loop, and I started reading them too.  "The Other Side of Midnight" by Sidney Sheldon was the first 'grown-up' book I'd ever read.  After that, I started reading them one right after the other, mostly Harlequins.  I really enjoyed the romances we read, but it struck me that despite the volume of books that passed through my hands, I had never read one with African-American characters.  That didn't seem right to me - so one day I set out to try to write the kind of books I loved to read, but this time starring African-Americans in the lead roles.

2.  Do you have a full-time career outside of your writing?

Yes - I'm an Associate Professor of Developmental English at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio.  My students are all adult learners, and Developmental English is a refresher course to make sure their writing and grammar skills are up to college English standards.  Teaching is both rewarding and challenging for me.  I have always said that even if (when!) my writing career can support me financially, I'll still teach because I enjoy it so much.

3.  When you're not writing, what do you like to do in your spare time?
Spare time?!

That's funny!  I am a single parent to a 15-year-old daughter, a 12-year-old son, a 3-year-old dog, and a 2-year-old cat.  I work full-time during the day and write full-time in the evenings.  I'm president of the usher board at my church, corresponding secretary for the local chapter of my sorority, and chair of the board of an AIDS awareness ministry.  Spare time?!  What's that?? :)

4.   What is something about you that your readers would be surprised you
do?

I have really become a Ms. Fix-It around my house.  Those home improvement/decorating shows that are on cable are becoming a real addiction for me!  Last month, I painted my kitchen and put a mosaic tile design on a wall.  For Christmas, I got a drill and an electric nail gun, so now I'm always looking for a project.  I also design and pour candles.  It started a couple of years ago as a way to give inexpensive Christmas presents, but now it has blossomed into a full-blown hobby.  I make custom candle shapes, colors, and scents for my family and friends.

5.  What inspired you to write GOOD INTENTIONS?

I had just finished MASQUERADE which was an adventurous, globe-trotting, danger & intrigue kind of book.  It was a lot of fun to write, but for the next project, I wanted to do a "quieter" book; one that took place in one location and over a longer period of time so that the characters could evolve with the story.

6.   Tell us a bit about the book?

GOOD INTENTIONS starts with a bride getting a major attack of cold feet, so much so that she bolts out of the church just moments before her wedding.  Then when the bride, Ivy, meets Ben, she is in major distress, and initially all Ben wants to do is help because he's a stand-up, reliable kind of guy.  The story evolves from there, with the fallout from Ivy's flight effecting everyone in different ways.

There's an old saying:  "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."  To me, that means that even though a person may intend to do the right thing, even though a person may think he or she IS doing the right thing, even though well-meaning family and friends may offer advice about what is the right thing to do, all those 'good intentions' can lead in the wrong direction.  In the book, I wanted to look at what happens when the heart and the mind send conflicting messages about what a person should do.

7.   Which of your books is your favorite?  Did you most enjoy writing?

Whew!  That's like asking me which one of my children is my favorite!  The books are all special to me, but for very different reasons.  Each book represents a different phase in my growth as a writer - from DARK EMBRACE, my first baby, to GOOD INTENTIONS, my first 4+ star review.  As far as the story goes, however, MASQUERADE was probably my favorite story - I really liked the element of danger and urgency that book contained.  From the standpoint of the characters, I love all them (of course!), but if they were real people, I would be most likely to hang out with Ivy Daniels & Ben Stephens (the characters in GOOD INTENTIONS).

The one I most enjoyed writing was probably CHERISH, because it took place in Charlotte, NC,and one of my friends and I had a blast on a research trip we took to Charlotte one weekend.  CHERISH was about auto racing, and in the course of researching that sport, I found myself hooked.  I still follow racing, and I hope to attend a NASCAR race one day.

8.   What process do you use in writing your novels?

My process is actually a little backward I think.  I don't write in sequential order, from chapter 1 to chapter 15.  I tend to jump around.  First, I'll write a pivotal scene that won't happen until the middle of the book; then I'll write the beginning, then maybe the end, then maybe the beginning of the middle, then maybe the end of the beginning...well, you're starting to get the picture.  When I'm working on a project, I'll write every night for a couple of hours, usually at 2 a.m. or so.  First, I'll read what I've written the night before, make any edits I need to, then I'll start on the new material.  Writing non-sequentially means that I have to spend a lot of time reading through the manuscript as I go, making sure that it all flows together naturally with no glaring errors when the pieces are assembled.

For example, in DARK EMBRACE, there is a scene where the heroine has a terrible ski accident.  In that scene, the hero snatches his jacket off to wrap her in until help arrives.  A couple of scenes later, the hero is in the hospital waiting room when he is confronted by the heroine's angry father.  Even though the scenes are only pages apart from each other in the book, because of the way I write, they were months apart in their creation - and I wrote the confrontation scene first.  So initially in the confrontation scene, I had written the father grabbed the hero by the lapel of his jacket.  Later, when I pieced the manuscript together, I realized the hero wasn't wearing a jacket - he'd torn it off on the side of the mountain.  So I had to go back and fix the confrontation scene so the father grabbed him by the collar of his sweater.  Things like that make my writing go slower than I'd like, but I really can't write any other way.

9.   How long does it take you to complete a manuscript?

Typically, about nine months.  I have done it in six, and my first book took me two years to complete, but my average is about nine months.  My goal is to get it down to six months routinely.

10.  What was your becoming a published writer journey like?

When I started writing my first book, I really had no expectations that it would be published.  I just wanted to see if I could write a whole book from beginning to end.  At the time, I had a job where I didn't have nearly enough work to keep me busy, but I had a brand-new computer on my desk.  I discovered that if I was typing, people was assume I was working and they would leave me alone.  So I used to write in long hand on legal pads at home (I didn't have a computer at home at the time) and then type it in at work.  One of my friends at work knew what I was doing and urged me to take an adult night school class on freelance writing.  I did, and as a part of that class we had to submit a portion of our work for critique by the class.  My classmates were very encouraging and the teacher thought the work had real potential.  After the class had ended, the teacher selected some of his students that he thought could become published and put us together as a writing group.  At his prompting, I started sending out the manuscript.  I didn't know anything about how to submit, or even where to submit to back then (this was in 1990), so I looked in every romance novel I owned, wrote down the address of the publishing company and just started blanketing New York publishing houses with the first three chapters of my manuscript.  And the rejection letters started rolling in!  At one point, my teacher asked me if I would be willing to rewrite the manuscript to make the characters White if a publisher asked.  I knew immediately that I wouldn't be willing to do that, because I figured if the characters' race was the only thing that stopped an editor from buying my book, then that just wasn't the editor for me.  Then one day, one of the ladies in my writing group brought me a copy of Romantic Time Magazine that had an article about a new publishing company, Odyssey Books, that had just started up with the sole purpose of publishing romances with African-American characters.  She encouraged me to submit to them.  I was very hesitant at first - the manuscript had been soundly rejected many times by then - but my writer friend persisted, so I finally submitted the manuscript just to get her off my back.  I had only sent the first half, and about six weeks later they called and asked if I had any more to send.  I did, and about four weeks after that, Odyssey bought my book.  In September 1991, DARK EMBRACE became the fourth novel published by Odyssey Books.

11.  Is being a published writer what you thought it would be like?

Not really.  I thought once I had become published, the rest would be easy.  I thought all the subsequent books would be easy to write, I thought fame and fortune would be just around the bend.  Boy, was I wrong on both counts!  It has been an amazingly wonderful experience, but in ways I never envisioned.  Because of my writing, I have gotten to meet some great people, both writers and readers, and gotten to have some memorable experiences.  But that feather boa, that constant supply of bon-bons, and that assistant eager to capture my every dictated word (you know, like the soap opera novelists have) have not yet materialized. :)

12.   What do you feel has been your greatest accomplishment as a writer and why?

Selling my second book - THE ART OF LOVE.  Seven years had passed between DARK EMBRACE (my first) and THE ART OF LOVE, and in that time, my life underwent some dramatic changes.  Right about the time the first book came out, my marriage broke up and I got laid off from my job.  I suddenly found myself unmarried, unemployed, and raising two little children alone.  It was a very scary time, and writing romance was the farthest thing from my mind.  But slowly, as my life began to come back together, I started writing again.  By the time I had finished my second manuscript, so much time had passed I figured my romance career was over.  But to my eternal amazement and gratitude, Monica Harris at Kensington bought the manuscript that became THE ART OF LOVE.  In so many ways, that book was a vindication for me, proof that I still "had it" and I could still "sell it."

13.  If you had known then what you know now, what would you have done
differently in terms of your romance writing career?

I would write faster.  Because of the sheer number of romance novels released every month, in order for an author to make a name and a career, she has to produce more than a book a year.  If I had it to do over again, I would not let so much time pass between books.  As it is now, I intend to pick up the pace a bit and try to get at least two books done each year.

14.  Do you like communicating with your readers?  In what forms.  And how
can a reader contact you?

I LOVE communicating with readers!  I think it keeps me honest, because romance fans are very forthright about what they like and what they don't.  I respect that a lot.  Readers can contact me via email at CrystalWH@netzero.net or snail mail at P.O. Box 3643 / Dayton, Ohio 45401-3643.

15.   What's next for Crystal Wilson-Harris?

I'm working on a series revolving around the lives and loves four sisters.  It is my plan to give each sister a book, but craft them in such a way that one does not have to read book one to appreciate book four.  But of course, I also plan to make them so compelling, that readers will want to read each one!