Deadly Precious
by Larion Wills
Genre: Romantic Suspense
He
was told while hallucinating from the drug, he’d walked into a
stranger’s house, attacked the woman there, and raped her, and
unbelievably, the woman, Letitia Winters, wasn’t going to press
charges. To his mind, any woman who could dismiss such an attack,
regardless of the circumstances, had to be simple-minded. What did he
care? Pay her off and be rid of her, but the woman and circumstances
kept driving him back.
When
he discovered his actions resulted in her pregnancy, and her husband
divorcing her for refusing to abort his baby, Drew proposed and
bullied her into a marriage of convenience, to give the child his
name his only reason. After being branded a bastard by the man he
meant to destroy, he swore no child of his would suffer the label.
Even after her raving ex-husband warns that she isn’t normal, that
she’s a witch who makes bad things happen to get even with people,
he goes back. He didn’t believe it or credit it to the house
burning down or his plane crashing.
Was
she the naïve, submissive mouse she seemed? A witch casting spells
to keep him going back? Was her aim revenge or was she just a greedy,
dangerous woman who found out he had millions? Would he survive to
destroy his father or discover how deadly sweet, bland Letitia could
be?
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Larion Wills, a multi-genre author, also writes under the name of Larriane Wills. From the present, to the past in historical westerns, to far in the future with science fiction, she holds up to her tag given to her by one of her publishers of ‘two names, one author, thousands of stories’, although not all of them are in print, yet. Born in Oklahoma but raised in Arizona she feels a native to the state and has settled in the high desert country. In a quiet, rural area with a family who tolerates her writer’s single-mindedness, she presents us with a collection of unique contemporary romances, many laced with paranormal settings, all with strong characterizations and suspenseful plots, capable of dragging you into a story in a genre you thought you didn’t care for. Under her other pen of Larriane she writes science fiction and fantasy. At her website, http://www.larriane.com , you can keep abreast of releases under both pen names, keep up with new releases through various publishers.
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GUEST POST
How long have you been writing?
I started putting stories on paper at when I was about 21. They went into a drawer until the drawers wouldn’t hold more. Then into a closet. I into digging some of those out to freshen and publish and at the same time, write more. Deadly Precious in a new one. Before that, Die, Sweet Di was one I wrote several years ago. Bringing those up to date is what I mean by freshening. Some were written before cell phones. I can’t have my readers wondering why the hero wasn’t called for help when the car broke down in the forest, or at least mention they don’t have a signal. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you that. *lol
Do the characters all come to you at the same time or do some of them come to you as you write?
I usually start with one or two characters then add as I need for the growing story.
What kind of research do you do before you begin writing a book?
I research before, during, and after, especially for historicals. I make sure they aren’t shooting a gun that hasn’t been invented yet or wearing a style that is not right for the time I have them in. Like freshening some of those manuscripts in the closet, what I wrote even ten years ago has to be updated or a date stated so the reader knows clearly what time period it’s in.
What do you think about the current publishing market?
It’s tough to get any kind of special recognition with so many ebook publishers flooding the market and--not to make enemies--with many of them of such poor quality. No writer can depend on just good writing to get the attention. You have to promo, and I’ll be blunt and honest when I say it is not one of my favorite things to do. That’s my second get back on track objective, doing it anyway to let people know what I have to offer.
Do you read yourself and if so what is your favorite genre?
I used to be an avid reader. Friday was my shopping day and included the purchase or 4 or 5 books. I say used to be. Anymore, I shop when I can’t avoid the trip any longer. As to what I read, I read the same way I write, in a variety of genres. I spend the weekend reading and started my Monday off working again. The last few years my reading has been limited to what I’ve edited for others. However, this year I’ve cut back on editing for others devoted more time to myself and my own work. That’s why I’m here today. Reading for pleasure again is on my to do list.
Do you prefer to write in silence or with noise? Why?
Again, I have to chuckle. I have an extreme hearing loss, not deaf, but there’s not that much I hear anymore. either. My husband runs the tv and most of the time, I don’t hear it at all. When I watch, I read captions. I have a hearing assist device I have to plug into my ear to hear him clearly enough when he speaks to me to know what he’s saying which makes the tv too loud, and I take the plug out as soon as he’s finished. Noise, which I’m not used to hearing anymore, is annoying, because it’s only partial. I can hear the dog bark, though, and the smoke alarm go off. Without the hearing assist, speech is just noise. So is music. Even with the device it’s difficult to have a conversation and takes a lot of repeating for me to get it all. Since my loss isn’t symmetric, hearing aids don’t work well for me at all.
Do you write one book at a time or do you have several going at a time?
Only one at a time, and it gets my full attention.
If you could have been the author of any book ever written, which book would you choose?
For the money, Lord of the Rings. Loved the movies.
Pen or type writer or computer?
I really prefer pen and paper but for convenience’s sake I am working on doing it on the computer. Once I have something in a hard copy, it takes me nearly as long to type into the computer as it did to write it. Doing it once would save a lot of time, but the words don’t flow from my brain to the keyboard as smoothly as they do through my arm for some reason.
Tell us about a favorite character from a book.
If you mean one of my books, I have so many. I think Sarah from It’s Still Tomorrow. She makes me laugh, but she’s tough when you cross her. I can remember what inspired that one, too. *hehe
What made you want to become an author and do you feel it was the right decision?
I really think becoming an author, meaning write down the stories running through your head, isn’t really a choice. You do it whether you intend to publish or not. If you’re giving author the definition of a published writer, then that is a choice. I pursued publishing both because my family and friends kept urging me to do so and because I wanted to share my stories. It’s right for me.
Do you have any advice to offer for new authors?
I’m going to steal a line. Just do it. I procrastinated for years over tackling publishing. Once I admitted to myself it was based on simple fear of rejection, rejections telling me I was no good at writing, and I decided I could take it, it didn’t take much to get my foot in the door. I owed a lot to one agent who took the time to edit three pages of the manuscript I sent to her in hopes of finding someone to do the work of submitting for me. Those corrections provided me with the information I needed, showed me what I was doing wrong, and the first submit afterward, to a publisher, was my first acceptance. Don’t give up because of setbacks. The only way you will ever succeed is to keep trying and accept that there will be disappointments along the way. When you hold that first book in your hands, you’ll feel like it was all worth it.
What is your writing process? For instance do you do an outline first? Do you do the chapters first?
No, chapters, no outline. Sometimes I start in the middle, sometimes the end, and sometimes even the beginning. It all depends on what that first instead of or what if hits me and takes me from there. I work either way, back to the front to get my characters where I started or foreward to get them where I want to go. Works for me even if it sounds scattered to others.
What are common traps for aspiring writers?
Talking too much. *lol. I say that as an editor. New authors have tendency to want to tell everything, making a sentence 4 or 5 lines long with tmi. I have a hard time convincing some that one or two descriptions of a room are more than enough for a reader to picture in their minds, and it’s never is going to be what the writer sees anyway. Learn the difference between telling and showing and understand pov. Study the suggestions and corrections so you don’t keep making the same mistakes. Most important, self-edit. It is not an editor’s job to rewrite or correct what you’re too lazy to do yourself.
What is your writing Kryptonite?
Someone disrupting my train of thought. My family all know what it means when I hold one finger up. Wait a minute until I finish this sentence. Okay, sometimes it’s a paragraph, but they wait. Bless them for their patience.
Do you try more to be original or to deliver to readers what they want?
I hope what they want is what I deliver. I’m not fond of formulas, and I don’t think any of mine fit nicely into any one category, but they’re interesting, not boring, and when I’m on, you don’t guess the ending.
If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?
Don’t wait so long to get brave.
What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from other genders?
It’s no secret men don’t think the way women do. I have to base my characters on what I see around me and watch in movies and tv, and read, analysis it, and go from there.
How long on average does it take you to write a book?
Generally speaking, a couple of weeks for the first draft. I edit and revise after that until I feel it’s clean enough to submit, a process that probably takes a couple of months because it does me good to take a few days away from it off and on before I go at it again. Longer than many other authors, I know, but part of my working process is seeking perfection even though I know it’s impossible. One other little tidbit here, ebooks have a bad rep for being poor quality. I’d like to build that up by starting with better work and not depending on hurry up editing. What’s saddens me is the growing poor quality that’s coming from the big publishers now. I’ve seen work that would never have made it through any of the independent companies I edit for and I’m not talking about the story. One time half a paragraph was missing and then repeated. No excuse for that. A simple proofread would have caught it.
Do you believe in writer’s block?
Not block, exactly. I’m more a mood person. If I’m not in the mood, nothing flows. If I am, nothing else interferes or if anything does, I get cranky. I read Stephen Kings’ how to write book. I couldn’t write the way he does, on a nine to five schedule. I go to bed with the story the last thing on my mind and wake up to the first thing on my mind. There’s no shutting my head off because of what time the clock says. If I’m in the mood, it flows, but on the other hand, if something else is nagging at me, there’s no sense wasting my time sitting at the computer.
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Interesting plot! The characters are complex and intriguing.
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