An Interview With
Joey W. Hill

How did you get started?

I started writing in sixth grade, when my friends and I were reading 2-3 Harlequin romances per week. We began developing our own romantic storylines and acting them out, calling them "scenes". These became very detailed efforts, in which we'd spend hours in class, developing characters, plot ideas and action sequences, and passing them back and forth under our desks to critique them. Eventually, I started using them as outlines and character sketches to write into full length novels. That's when the writing bug bit me in earnest. At fourteen, I took a course on "Marketing your Writing". That prepared me early on for what obstacles were ahead in getting successfully published.

I wrote through high school and the beginning of college, entering and placing in several contests. Then, as often happens at that age, I developed an equal passion, working for the rights and welfare of animals. Writing was set aside for ten years as I worked at the local and regional level for the legal rights and welfare of animals. At a certain point, I felt I had done what I wanted to accomplish as an activist and picked up the pen again. The desire returned full force, and I've been writing ever since.

What type of writer are you? Do you plan ahead/plot or do you simply fly by the seat of your pants?

I usually start with a basic concept, and then a series of images. This "image blitz" is how I know I've got something, and it comes at me so quickly, I can't keep up with it. I jot down keywords for all the images on bits of paper that, if ever found by an unsuspecting person, will probably get me locked up. Once I have enough of these notes, I start the story. The image blitz continues throughout most of the draft, so my first draft usually has a Pulp Fiction orientation to it. That means the first edit is a major effort to unscramble everything and pull out all the extraneous material, like trying to dig a survivor out of a mudslide. That first edit is the one where I desperately need solitude to make it work, and how I lose friends and the affection of my family (fortunately only temporarily, because they're a forgiving bunch). I will do three edits on each story, and four if I have time.

Do you write best at a certain time of the day?

I am always trying to find time to write, so any time I get a small window of opportunity, I take it. Right now, the only "solitude time" I have is between 6-7am and during my ferry commute to work (20 minutes each way). I try to write on the weekends and evenings as well, but distractions make it difficult (otherwise known as my wonderful husband, eight pets and five auxiliary pets - the "neighborhood strays").

What type of writing schedule do you have?

Question 3 somewhat covers that, but that early morning and ferry commute is when I most consistently get writing done. Sometimes, when I'm near deadline, I have to take a personal day from my day job and go hide somewhere to make sure that final edit is as perfect as I can make it.

How do you handle life interruptions?

I will never tell where I have hidden the bodies. LOL!. Seriously, I've trained myself not to be the type of writer who requires certain things to accomplish writing - the right desk, right level of quiet, right type of paper, et cetera. If I did, those would become excuses not to write. If I get five minutes here, twenty minutes there, I take it. I grab the pen and whatever scraps of paper I've got (watch out for me driving on the highway to visit my mother!) or slide in front of the monitor and tap away. Interruptions are constant in this chaotic life. You've just got to work around them.

Do you get blocked? Any hints how to stave it off?

Because I'm always struggling to find time to write, very rarely to never. However, I will stifle myself if I get too focused on a deadline, or on whether or not what I'm writing will sell. In other words, the business end of writing. It is a lot like exercising peripheral vision. Making deadlines and making sure my work is marketable are important, but they have to be muted, background influences, or I freeze up. The muse always has to be out front, leading the charge.

What authors do you look to as a role model and inspiration?

Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series blew me away. The first three are probably the most perfect pieces of writing I have ever read. Plot, characters, storyline, emotion. Nora Roberts' consistent success in producing stories that entertain the mind and heart is mind boggling.
     And I can't say enough about what my fellow Ellora's Cave authors have taught me about writing excellent erotic romance. Ann Jacobs, Cheyenne McCray, Kate Douglas, Samantha Winston...the list goes on and on. The professionalism and supportive camaraderie of the EC authors and editing staff is unmatched in my experience to date.
     On that same note, while they may not all fall into the author category, I also bow to the founders of Ellora's Cave Publishing, who recognized that the hunger of readers for more erotic romance was not being met, and pursued that dream. It allowed those of us who write in that genre, and the many who want to read it, the opportunity to find one another.
     All of the above have inspired me to pursue the stories I feel I have been chosen to tell, and to put all my creative energy into them.

What's the best advice you ever received?

Two things - THERE'S NO EXCUSE FOR NOT WRITING, and NEVER GIVE UP. In other words, if you don't find ways to make the time to write, you don't want to do it badly enough. And once you start, if you truly want to be a successful author, you have to keep going, no matter how many rejections you're handed. Keep working on being a better and better writer, keep networking, and if it's meant to be, it will happen.

What sparks a story?

An image. It can be anything, can come from any direction. As an example, there was a woman wearing a very classy snug skirt on the boat one day. As I watched the way it moved over her body as she adjusted her position, I imagined a quiet, average looking man watching her, writing down his reaction to her body and her presence near him in a way that made him far more than ordinary. The image blitz began! Two people who meet on a ferry and end up spending an erotic, romantic day together. That novel's not finished yet because of competing deadlines, but is well on its way. Another short story I just finished came from a dream I had of a mind-blowing kiss with a high school friend, whom I never kissed that way in real life. Fortunately I have been kissed like that by my husband - never forget the importance of research, research, research! :).

What was it about your genre that interested you enough to choose to write in it and not in another genre?

I write in several genres - I do paranormal, fantasy and contemporary romance/erotica. I also write straight epic/contemporary fantasy. I've always been an avid reader of these genres, and believe most authors write what they prefer to read. CS Lewis and Lloyd Alexander had some of my favorite series when I was growing up, and I advanced to the Thomas Covenant Chronicles. I moved into the merging of all of these genres with my passion for Mercedes Lackey's Elves of LA, the Anita Blake series, Mists of Avalon and of course Jennifer Robeson's works in the Tiger/Del series, to name just a few.

Explaining why I like these genres is somewhat like explaining why I love chocolate. I enjoy it, it pleasures the taste, and it awakens a yearning in me to do something, create something, embrace something, and writing happens to be that something.

Have you seen an evolution in your writing? What steps did it take?

{qMost definitely. I've often wondered about that ten-year hiatus from writing. It happened so abruptly, as if a switch was cut off. Yet, when it came back on a decade later, I brought a lot more life experience to it, a richness that had been missing in my high school efforts. Once I started up again, however, I learned that sharpening the craft takes time and practice, practice, practice. Taking the writing courses, reading books on writing, doing the writing itself,
writing story after story and trying to make each one better crafted than the one before it, all were needed, and will continue to be needed, for my writing to continue to evolve. Networking, participating in writing groups, learning the business of writing, achieving the level of success where I now work under deadlines, all these things also hone your craft. They teach you to produce quality work. Even when you have to put your fingers in it and sculpt it a little bit more to someone else's requirements, you can still come up with something you're proud of.

What have you always dreamed of writing, but haven't yet?

My first published book, Guardian of the Continuum, available at Atlantic Bridge Publishing, www.atlanticbridge.net, is the first of a five-book epic/contemporary fantasy series. I want to see all five books done one day. I've almost finished the second book in the series, and the other three are files of notes, but the images for them are incredible. I know it is going to be an amazing series, because the characters for them all speak so strongly to me. The books have strong romance subplots, and good-versus-evil plot lines that tie our world and its problems to another world that has been chosen to try and save ours. However, I'm primarily a character-driven author, so what makes me love this series are the people in it.

What one thing do you like most about writing? Least?

What I like most is the part where you're writing and something takes over and you're just flying, you can't get the words out fast enough. You feel the characters' desires and emotions in the pit of your own stomach, in your chest, and you're sitting there writing, crying when they're crying, laughing when they are. It's as if that paper or screen is the thinnest of barriers between you and those people, just beyond your fingertips.

The thing I like least about writing is the usual - the "business" of writing, the marketing end, and never having enough time to write, to create.

What is your next project?

I've got several on the burners at the moment. Threads of Faith, part of an anthology with Joanna Wylde and Mary Janice Davidson, is to be released at Ellora's Cave in January. This story focuses on a modern day witch who lives isolated from the world, until a man comes and requests a potion from her. The only problem is the magic that creates the potion sets a very sensual price, one that will tangle their two hearts together as well as their bodies.

I'm very excited as well about Natural Law, a standalone due out in March 2004. Mackenzie "Mac" Nighthorse is a cop who goes undercover in a high class BDSM club as a male submissive to find a Dominatrix who is winning the trust and then murdering her chosen partners. His path crosses that of Violet Siemanski, a Mistress willing to be his ally in finding the murderess. But Violet is also going to shatter Mac's shields and make him question who he is and what he wants, a challenge more disturbing than any case he's ever worked.

Legacy of the Raven, part two of the Guardian of the Continuum series mentioned above, is in its final edit and I intend to market it prior to year end. It brings together elements of fantasy and history by taking place in the Golden Age of Piracy. You can find more detailed summaries of all of these books in the "Peek in the Cauldron" section of my website, www.storywitch.com.

What advice would you pass along at this point in your career?

Write because you love to write.

For most writers, becoming a "business" success as an author is excruciatingly slow, a small series of steps that can span years. Rejection slips become the occasional signed letter, which then becomes a personal letter, which then becomes a request to see more, which might then, after several more years, become an actual acceptance. During this time, you begin to know people in the industry, get opportunities to meet other people in the industry that they know, and you slowly develop a reputation as a professional author, one that can be counted on to meet deadlines and deliver quality, finished work. You've arrived at the mid-list level. That's a very nice place to be, but it's like climbing Mount Everest!

That's why you write only because you love it. Otherwise, we'd all quit. Hone your craft, know the business, but write because you love to write.

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