Welcome to our spotlight of Janet Privett
Anita: Welcome Janet. We're
here to spotlight you and you book, POWER OF LOVE, from
Lighthouse Press(July 2001) For our readers,what genre do you
write?
Janet: Hello Anita. POWER OF LOVE is a
paranormal romantic adventure. It has elements of time
travel,telepathy,channeling,to name a few. Lots of action and
adventure. It didn't neatly fit into any particular genre.
This is your first book?
I'd had several articles published,but
this was my first novel
Wow-published with your first novel! Don't
you have a couple of manuscripts stuck away in a drawer
somewhere?
No,I'm working on the sequel now, "Always
on my Mind." It took me several years to research and write POWER
OF LOVE.
How old you were when you started
writing?
My mother says I was born telling stories.
She swears I was telling complicated stories to anyone who'd
listen before I was two years old. I remember teachers
encouraging my writing all through school. But I never slowed
down after high school to write until I was in a car accident.
During recovery my creativity came back in a flood.
Did you take any writing
classes?
No, but I read every book I could find on
how to write. I searched every library and collected quite a
library of my own before I ever started writing.
Did you have a mentor that helped you get
started?
Teri Valentine, a multi-published author
who wrote for Zebra, was a big help. She read it as I wrote it
and made suggestions. That's why it took a long time to write, I
had to have it perfect.
So you just studied, wrote your book, and
then sold it? Marketing is supposed to be a nightmare, especially
for new writers. How did you do it?
I published POL as an ebook first. Once it
started getting all 5 star reviews, being picked up by a
traditional small press was not too hard. I had a well known
agent for a year. At the end of the year I was shocked to find
that she had lost the manuscript and had made no effort to sell
it. I was not too happy with the traditional industry because of
that and decided to do it my way.
Do you read a lot? What genres?
While I'm deep into writing, as I am now,
I don't read much fiction. Most of my time either goes to
research, writing, or promoting Power of Love. I love all kinds
of romances, but I enjoy all genres. I learn from reading any
good fiction, and sometimes I learn the most from the poorly
written fiction.
Now lets talk about how you write-your
method. Do you have a favorite time and place that you like to
write?
I love to write outdoors. Quite a bit of
Power of Love was written while we were actually on location, the
lake and the river. I don't get to do that as often as I'd like,
so most of my writing is here at the computer. Some of my best
scenes have come to me when I wasn't writing. Sounds kind of
funny, but I can be driving, shopping, taking a shower, or
cooking dinner and a scene will capture me or a character will
start talking. I try to get it down as quickly as possible so I
won't lose it, but it's amazing how it comes back to me so
clearly, even if I don't get it down.
In what order do you write? For example,
do you start at the beginning and work towards the end, combine
parts written at different times, in random order, or do you have
some kind of development cycle?
I get to know the characters and the
setting. I have an overall idea of what I want to write. For
example, Power of Love loosely parallels the Wizard of Oz. It's a
quest plot. I compare it to walking in a fog. The more I write,
the more I can see ahead. Sometimes I get a hint of what's
coming, snatches of scenes, but I write strictly from beginning
to end--with wonderful surprises along the way. It's like
watching a movie. Planning too much would spoil the fun of
writing for me.
So you're a "by the seat of the pants"
writer rather than a plotter?
Definitely seat of the pants! The best
parts of the book were places where I was sure I had written
myself into a corner. A situation that strikes fear in the heart
of "plotters!" I love the thrill of not knowing, and my
characters never let me down. If it isn't fun for the writer, I'm
sure it wouldn't be fun for the reader. Power of Love was a
fast-paced, thrill-a-minute to write!
Do you revise as you write, or just try to
get out a rough draft?
I am totally emersed in a scene as I write
it. It would be crazy to stop until I had recorded all I needed
to write the scene. I try to write it as three dimensional as I
experienced it. I don't think of it as revising, but I guess
that's what it is. I see it as clay that needs to be molded until
it's realistic.
How many revisions do you usually find
necessary?
It was such a constant process of molding
that it's hard to say how many revisions. After the first draft
was complete, I probably did at least five revisions. The plot
and characters stayed exactly the same, the revisions were to
perfect, tighten, and smooth out the writing itself. I savor
beautiful words well strung with good rythym.
So which comes first for you, character or
plot?
Characters came to me first. In Power of
Love you cannot sepparate character from plot. One flows out of
the other and I don't think anyone could say which kind of book
it is. Even the time travel comes from the characters ancestry.
The action happens because of their personalities. I used a real
Mayan time travel ritual. That was a thrill to find!
Power of Love. Where did you get the idea
for the story?
The power of love is part of a time travel
device, a deep spiritual connection the characters must make
before time runs out, in order to return home. My life-long
fascination with New Age philosophy was useful. It's almost the
"Celestine Prophecy" of romance. Instead of connecting with a
tree like in CP, the characters must connect with each
other.
How do you develop your characters? Any
tools that you use-such as bio sheets? Do you pattern them after
any real people you know?
I wrote short character sketches, but
mostly I get to know them as I write. I must admit that Travis
and Dawn are patterned after my husband and I. Of course I made
them bigger than life! My husband helped me act out some of the
action scenes.
I was going to ask "why paranormal" but I
can see that once you came across a real Mayan time travel
ritual-that would have decided that. So I'll ask-why romance? Did
you set out to write a romance, or was it also obvious once the
story came to you?
I set out to write romance before I knew
it would be paranormal. I wanted to write about what I considered
the highest form of romance--staying together, rediscovering what
made them fall in love, and having a much deeper love in the end.
As a "baby boomer" I was raised with Twilight Zone and Star Trek,
etc. I see this as a Twilight Zone romance.
So, years ago, before POWER OF LOVE, did
you say to yourself," I want to write" and then start looking for
an idea, or did the idea find you and make you say "I want to
write about that!"
I wanted to write. You know the movies
that you just have to see at the theater--on the big screen?
That's the kind of book I wanted to write. Reviewers have said I
accomplished that. POWER OF LOVE would be a BIG budget movie with
special effects, costumes, crowds and an ancient city grand
enough to make Pharaoh proud. POL can be enjoyed for the
adventure alone, but it's also an adult fairytale.
When you research your story, what tools
do you use? How do you keep it all organized?
Research took longer than the writing.
Most helpful was video taping Discovery Channel programs of Mayan
and Toltec ruins so that I could paint a realistic Toltec "City
of Light." Because there's a lot of action, I also drew maps of
the area and sketches of the palaces and temples. Some of my
research was from Graham Hancock's "Fingerprints of the Gods," a
fascinating nonfiction source of information about Toltec,
Mayans, and the Atlantis connection between ancient
civilizations. Organized? Computer files, lots of
them.
Ok-so now you have to tell us a little
about POWER OF LOVE. An adult fairytale and Wizard of Oz? Throw
in time travel, and its quite the adventure! Can you give our
readers an idea of what the story is about?
Travis and Dawn stumble into a dark and
very distant past. Forced to relive tragic past lives, they must
rediscover their love to perform a Mayan time-travel ritual that
could take them home. Time is running out. If they can't achieve
the Rapture of Oneness, they will die like the star-crossed
lovers in the legend Travis learned as a child. The story is
complex, stemming from many generations over a thousand years,
yet all 343 pages take place in six days. The "camera angle" is
very close, deep in character POV so that the reader feels like
the one experiencing everything.
What do you consider your strongest
writing skill? Your weakest?
Strongest would be painting word pictures,
descriptions that come from within character POV so that you
don't notice it is description. You feel like you're "seeing" it.
My weakest would be the fact that I don't write as fast as I'd
like. I would love to be more prolific!
Besides writing, what subjects are you
passionate about? Do you try to work your passion into your
stories?
I have the character Dawn's rescuer
syndrome, and it has gotten me into trouble. Like Dawn, I also
taught belly dancing, and I'm the spokesperson for an
environmental organization. Someone asked me who would do the
crazy things Dawn did, like saving her goats from 3 wild dogs,
and debating the president of a horrible company on live TV.
Well, I actually did those things! Given a choice, I'll take the
wild dogs any day!
Ah-so you are like your character! What TV
show?
Yes, she and I get ourselves in trouble
when we try too hard. We're very passionate. It was the president
of a food irradiation company on a cable station in Tampa. The
poor guy couldn't answer my accusations. He got red in the face
and so flustered that he stormed out in the middle of a live
program and knocked the camera over on the way out!
Your next book is the sequel to POWER OF
LOVE. What's it about? Does it concern the same
characters?
"Always On My Mind" will star two
secondary characters from POWER OF LOVE that come forward in
time. They have to find each other and adjust to our time. There
is reincarnation, telepathy, shamanism and a few subtle powers
that I can't go into!
Any books planned after Always On My
Mind?
I certainly hope so! Not being a plotter,
I'll have to wait until I get there. I'm learning to write
screenplays, too. I want to see POL on the big screen
someday.
You mentioned marketing POL. So you do
your own promotion for the book?
Yes, I love interviews! My publisher,
Lighthouse Press, has been great! We've only just started, since
it was released in July 2001. I've been doing library book talks,
booksignings, newspaper interviews, anything I can to get the
word out. I'll be at the Romantic Times convention in Orlando
August 10-11 and again at their big one in November.
Do you have any advice for the aspiring
writers in our audience? Would you do anything differently if you
were just starting out, or have you been pretty happy with how
things have gone?
Three suggestions: write, write, write.
One of the best pieces of advice I recieved from an author was:
for every day you are away from your writing, it takes two days
to get back into it. I've found that to be true. It's like a
muscle, you have to develop it. If I had to do it over, I'd take
that advice and write more.
Janet, thank you so much for the great
answers. Best of luck to you and POWER OF LOVE. I hope it does
great!
Thank you!
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