Why romance?

In 1997, Forced Mate was awarded “Most Poignant Last Line” in the Chesapeake Bay Romance Writers of America Last Line contest. Having an “award-winning last line” was decisive.

Forced Mate is the book of my heart. When I started it,in 1993 or 1994, I didn’t worry about where a bookseller would shelve it, or that at the time cross-genre novels were tough to sell.

Forced Mate (it is a chess title, by the way) always had a strong romantic element, but it could have been a Sci-fi. The last line was critical.

Why? Because, in a sci-fi, the hero and heroine sort out their romantic feelings for each other and then they “save the world/save the day” together. In a romance, they “save the world/save the day” first and then they resolve their relationship.

Why an author?

Some time in the 1980's when I was living the corporate wife life in Germany, a publisher —an automotive magazine publisher— and great friend of my husband’s told me that I ought to Write.

I’ve been fortunate to have visited a lot of very interesting places, had wonderful adventures and met some fascinating people, so I do believe that I have something to “share”.

And I write, as opposed to running a Rush Limbaugh type talk show, because my “best” thoughts bubble below the surface when I talk. Now that I think about it, I’m slow witted on the internet, too.

Here’s an example. Recently a friend wanted me to e-mail the Love Spell cover of Forced Mate. (I make the distinction because there is also a NBI cover). I did so, but it was a big file.

Then, because I am thorough and occasionally thoughtful, I sent her a slightly less massive file labeled “Smaller.jpg”.

“But it’s still HUGE,” she wrote back.

The appropriate quip did not occur to me until quarter of an hour later as I was driving my child to school. Of course, that’s the joy of e-mail. Your correspondent doesn’t know how long it took you to think of a snappy reply.

What else do you expect from an author who writes about thirty linear foot long penises?

WU: Do you write full time or do you have another career?
RC: Before I married, I was an English and History teacher in England. I had to give up that career because my husband is American and his career took us to Germany and ultimately to America. If I’d wanted to continue teaching, I’d have had to study and be re-certified and it would have meant that I could not have accompanied him on his business trips to car shows and motor races all over the world, or been his domestic secretary.

Now, I am a full-time mother as well as his unofficial secretary. I write when I can.

WU: Can you give us an example of a typical day in the life of Rowena Cherry?
RC: No day is typical. If one were, I’m not sure that I would publish it... no offense intended.

I’ve mentioned that I lived in Germany for a while (actually for eight years). When I first moved into a corporate compound in the foothills of the Taunus mountains in the early 1980s, the Baader Meinhof terrorist group was still a recent threat.

We were taught never to publish or keep a set schedule, never to drive the same route anywhere. Sometimes on corporate business trips, we got driven around by some of those frightfully glamorous-dangerous, heavily-armed mercenary types.

It’s no wonder one of my best secondary characters—Grievous—is a mercenary-driver, is it?

Most characters are made up of at least three people I’ve met or literary characters I’ve studied. The English mercenary, Grievous, for instance is part proud ex-military Dorset janitor, part Enobarbus (Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra), part six-foot-nine inch SAS ex-boyfriend whom I used to think of as OO6.9.

WU: Readers today demand accuracy in the books they read. How much research about life styles, setting, dialect, etc. goes into one of your stories?
RC: I did extensive research for Forced Mate. For instance, into where the constellation Orion was on the night of March 30, 1994 (horizon) and who danced with the Beauty Queen at the Indianapolis 500 Ball in May of 1993 (Fabio).

Much of my research involved talking to really, really interesting people, such as the two lady black belts who choreographed all my fight scenes or the amateur pilot who worked out how my heroic villain might fly undetected from Cambridge to Las Vegas in a plane big enough to carry a limousine. (Not used. Yet.) Or the clairvoyant I hired for an afternoon to tell me how a charlatan might fake it. Or the genuine psychic who confided what sex is like for a mind-reader.

I dare say some of the uncommon knowledge with which I spice my novels is apocryphal: urban legend.

For instance, if a mysterious stranger tells me that English mercenaries drive London taxi cabs when there is nothing more exciting to do, and which situations vacant columns they study, I've no idea how I'd safely verify whether my source was accurate or pulling my leg.

Other *research* was a question of recycling personal knowledge. My mother has always kept cats, so a cat-owing/training scene was inevitable. (The cats happen to be an alien form of tiger.) The difficulty was in translating what I knew into visually-oriented Guy thoughts.

An instructional cartoon strip in a male fitness magazine was very helpful. In fact, I subscribe to at least one masculine magazine to help me get the male *voice* as authentic as possible.

And then, there was the police sharp-shooter. This was a telephone interview and I’d like to point out that it took place a good nine years ago. If I were to call the local police station today, even with my BBC accent, I do not imagine that I would be put through to a sharp-shooter and receive advice on a good (and *sexy*) choice of weapon for an assassin to use, and where I could go to get one.

WU: Tell us about any upcoming releases and works in progress.
RC: I’m working on the sequel to Forced Mate. Provisionally, it is titled Insufficient Mating Material? (with the question mark). Insufficient Mating Material? is another chess title.

It would be a spoiler to say too much, it being a sequel. In a nutshell, the hero has a bioluminescent tattoo on his penis (which, being bioluminescent, lights up in the dark or when stimulated just right) and it gets him into a lot of trouble.

And, by the way, between November 1st and December 31st there is a world-wide, write-in contest of skill and creativity involving this tattoo. Details will be posted on my website at www.RowenaCherry.com.

WU: How do you come up with the ideas for your books? Do you have a brainstorming session with someone or do they just kind of "pop" into your head?
RC: I don’t know, but I can tell you that I do not have a brainstorming partner. There is a lot of information in my head and it bubbles up. There was no one idea for Forced Mate. It's a stew of ideas.

Ingredients include, in no particular order:

• Henry VIII's penis armour
• Meeting Chuck Jaeger and Fabio at the 1993 Indy 500... that year I got to ride in one of the corporate pace cars
• My interest in dowsing, which I developed after meeting a fascinating man while I was playing chess with the wife of the man who directed the Flash Gordon movie (the one with Timothy Dalton as Prince Barin)
• Reading excellent publications such as Discovery, Men’s Health, Scientific American, Popular Science
• Reading theories such as those of Erich von Daeniken that all our ancient gods and mythological heroes were aliens
• Watching Animal Planet and Discovery channel—and picking up gems such as that lions mate every fifteen minutes non-stop for two or three days Various events in my corporate ex-patriate life
• Having a friend who was in the bar scene of the first Star Wars
• Seeing Siegfried and Roy's Vegas show in the late 1990s... an elephant urinated on stage. They made that disappear the old fashioned way.

All sorts... There is a lot of content in Forced Mate in addition to what my editor calls my “outrageous take on the traditional abduction romance.”

WU: A lot of aspiring writers suffer the agony of rejection after rejection. How hard or easy was it for you to "break in" to the published ranks?
RC: It took me eleven years to find a publisher for Forced Mate, then suddenly I have two. Yes, it was a long struggle.

WU: Any words of wisdom for those that would like to follow in your footsteps?
RC: Persist.

Network.

Enter contests for the advice you will receive. Write gracious and positive thank-you notes to your anonymous judges, even if you don’t particularly agree with what well-intentioned critics are telling you.

Start your future mailing list early (always with the consent of your correspondents) so that you will have friends when you need them…when you are getting the word out about your forthcoming release.

Lock in your own name for your website before you become famous. You do not want to have to be www.TheOfficialYourFirstnameLastname.com.

Say “thank you” often and as graciously as possible.

WU: Where can readers contact you?
RC: I’m thinking of starting a blog, but I have not done so yet. I am also planning to start a mailing list from visitors to my website at www.RowenaCherry.com.

There is also my snail mail address, set up for the entries to my contest, but I’d be thrilled to receive other mail there, too. Also, SASE's if anyone who buys Forced Mate in the first week of November would like an autographed bookplate.

Rowena Cherry
PO Box 554
Bloomfield Hills MI 48303-0554

And with that, I would like to say a big Thank You for your time and interest today to everyone reading this, and to Writers Unlimited for giving me this delightful opportunity to talk about myself and Forced Mate.

Visit http://www.RowenaCherry.com for information on Rowena's's upcoming releases, contests, and more.