If you want to be entered in the drawings for Lenora’s book, Heart of the Night, or Amanda Cabot’s Paper Roses, please leave a comment this week with your email address (if you don’t leave an email address you are not entered in the drawings–I have to be able to get in touch with you if you win), or you can email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com if you don’t want to leave your email address in order to enter the drawings. They end this Sunday evening.
Lenora Worth’s interview:
1. What made you start writing?
I knew I wanted to write when I was in the fourth grade and we were assigned a writing project. I loved every minute of it and I got a good grade on the project. I was hooked from then on.
2. How long have you been writing?
I’ve written all my life, throughout school and well into adulthood but I got serious after I got married and started reading romance and women’s fiction at night when my husband worked. When did you sell your first book? I sold my first book in 1993 (after many years of trying and after many rejections.
3. How do you handle rejections?
Not very well (grin.) I get a little upset and disappointed but through the years I’ve learned to accept rejections as part of this business. I eat chocolate and start a new project.
4. Why do you write?
Because it’s just in me to write. I can’t imagine NOT writing. It’s part of my life.
5. What would you be doing with your free time if you weren’t writing?
I’d read and take long walk and cook a complete meal from scratch, right down to the dessert!
6. What are you working on right now?
A continuity that is fascinating. I love the challenge of working with five other writers and the end results of our brainstorming. (Sometimes, however, I don’t have much hair left from pulling it out as I try to figure things out.)
7. Do you put yourself into your books/characters?
I think I do put a little of myself into every book. Not all at once, but from experience or little things that have happened to me might happen to one of my characters. I try to tap into my own emotions and reactions to show how a character might react or change—and grow (as I had to do.)
8. Tell us about the book you have out right now.
Right now, I’m excited about “Heart of the Night”. This is the second book in my CHAIM secret agent series. It’s about a man who has lost everything, including his faith and how he finds a reason to live and turn back to God. This character—Eli Trudeau came into the first book (Secret Agent Minister) and practically took over. So I knew I had to write his story. I have a third one out in March (Code of Honor) and I hope to write two more.
9. Do you have any advice for other writers?
Just this—if you want to write, you will find a way to do it. This is a brutal, competitive business but you have to keep your eye on the prize. And you have to decide what that prize is—fame and fortune, or just writing because you love to do it.
10. How important is faith in your books?
Faith is very important in my books. I try to show God’s love through my characters and my stories. This is my way of witnessing my own faith and using a story to make a point.
11. What themes do you like to write about?
Forgiveness, redemption, hope and that love never fails.
12. What is your favorite book you’ve written and why?
Next to “Heart of the Night” I think it’s probably my very first Love Inspired “The Wedding Quilt.” It has special meaning because the emotions and events in that book were based on the death of my sister in a car wreck with a drunk driver. While the book is fiction, the emotions are very real.
13. What is your writing schedule like?
Crazy! My husband retired a few years ago, so my schedule has changed somewhat. I usually get started around ten or eleven in the morning and write straight through until around four PM. I try to write at least a scene or a chapter a day.
14. For Love Inspired you write for both the regular line and the suspense line. Which one do you like to do the most and why?
Oh, that’s tough. I love both. My heart will always belong to Love Inspired because that’s where I found my voice. But suspense is so much fun (a good way to let off some steam without getting arrested!)I’m blessed to be able to write both and I’m blessed to be able to write books with a faith element in them. And I try to never take that for granted!