Another one of my favorite authors, Elizabeth Hoyt writes historic romances with humor.
Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing?
A. I have an office—it’s a sun room at the back of the house. I also do a lot of writing at coffee shops.
Q. Do you have any special rituals when you sit down to write? (a neat work space, sharpened #2 pencils, legal pad, cup of tea, glass of brandy, favorite pajamas, etc.)
A. I like to have something to drink—both coffee and water, preferably.
Q. What is your mode of writing?
A. If I wrote in longhand I wouldn’t be able to read the result. 😉 I use Scrivener on an eleven inch MacBook Air.
Q. Do you have a set time each day to write or do you write only when you are feeling creative?
A. I write to deadlines. When I’m on deadline I write. 😉
Q. What’s your best advice to other writers for overcoming procrastination?
A. I find that the bowel-loosening fear of defaulting on a contracted deadline and possibly messing up my entire career is a pretty good incentive to sit down at the computer. If you don’t have a contracted deadline, you need to make your own deadline or goal because the muse may never arrive if you’re waiting on her to write.
Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing and for how long?
A. Sometimes. Maybe for twenty minutes or so. I’m pretty easily distracted.
Q. Who or what is your “Muse” at the moment?
A. I like watching TV. Some TV shows are incredibly well written right now and because it’s fast and a different medium than the written word, it’s fun to analyze what works and what doesn’t work.
Q. When did you begin to write seriously?
A. I was thirty-five. I did very little writing before then, not even journaling.
Q. How long after that were you published?
A. Five years.
Q. What makes a writer great?
A. Anytime a writer has written something so compelling that a reader gets totally lost in the story, I think that writer is great.
Q. and the all important: What does the process of going from “no book” to “finished book” look like?
A. Work. Work and work and work. You can think about it all you like, but nothing gets done until you sit down at that computer. Books are written in small sections, so until you write a small section today and then again tomorrow and again the next day and keep at it, you don’t end up with a book.
Q. Where/when do you first discover your characters ?
A. My characters are the first thing I come up with when beginning a book. They come from my head. 😉
Q. What inspired your story/stories ?
A. Lots of things. It can be movies, TV, other books I’ve read, something I notice on the internet. It’s really hard to define the source of inspiration because a lot of it is subconscious. 😉
Q. Have you? Or do you want to write in another genre`?
A. I write contemporary romance as well under the name Julia Harper. I’m not really interested in any other genre besides romance.
Thank you for interviewing me!
Read my review of Elizabeth’s latest historic romance, Darling Beast available on line and at your favorite bookstore October
14th.
WIN A FREE COPY OF DARLING BEAST or ELIZABETH HOYT’S (aka Julie Harper)
HOT by liking me on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/writeratplay?ref=bookmarks
and by following me on Twitter https://twitter.com/writeratplay4 Let me know by writing a comment about this interview here. (scroll down)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS!
In addition to my twice weekly blog I also feature an interview with another author once a month. So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create! Ann Gracie will be my November author.
To receive my posts sign up for my 
On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!
Nice interview. Elizabeth comes through as very real and personable.
Kinda cool to hear that she didn’t get her start until she was 35. Makes me think that anything is possible. And I had no idea she wrote contemps. They are not usually my thing but for her I will make an exception. Thanks for the interview!