{"id":235,"date":"2009-06-29T06:00:53","date_gmt":"2009-06-29T10:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nitawick.com\/blog2\/?p=235"},"modified":"2009-12-01T18:33:13","modified_gmt":"2009-12-01T22:33:13","slug":"please-welcome-cate-masters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nitawick.com\/blog2\/?p=235","title":{"rendered":"Please welcome Cate Masters!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Hi, Cate! Thank you so much for letting me interview you for my blog. Tell us a little about yourself.<\/strong><\/p>\n<form style=\"display:none\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bats.org.au\/?cats_dogs\">Cats &#038; Dogs dvd<\/a><\/form>\n<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been married forever to my husband and lifelong friend. He&#8217;s my support system and cheerleader! Our three kids are grown, which is why I now have time to focus, finally, on my writing. Other hobbies take a backseat to writing: photography, gardening, beading, painting &#8211; you name it, I&#8217;ve tried it! Likewise with jobs &#8211; I&#8217;ve held positions from cashier to deputy press secretary. Every life experience seems to come into play in my writing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How long have you been writing, and have you always wanted to be a writer?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I can&#8217;t remember actually thinking: I want to be a writer. I just did it, from about age ten I began writing poetry. In school, I wrote for the newspaper. My initial aim was to be a journalist, but life, as they say, had other plans.<\/p>\n<ul style=\"display:none\">\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bats.org.au\/?riding_the_bullet\">Riding the Bullet release<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Why did you decide to write romance novels?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I love the positivity of romance. No matter how awful the situation, the heroine ends up with a happy ending. And I love that today&#8217;s romance includes so many sub-genres. Definitely not your mother&#8217;s bodice-ripper (*cringe* I hate that archaic term). I came late to the romance genre, but have had a blast since finding it. I&#8217;ve never known a more supportive group of writers, either.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What type of books do you write?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I love to experiment. Creating fictional worlds really lets my imagination cut loose, but I was surprised at how much I also enjoyed bringing history to life. I was never much of a history buff, but I found it very exciting to place a character in a historical setting, and challenging to include accurate details. So far, I&#8217;ve written contemporary, paranormal, historical, speculative and mainstream women&#8217;s fiction, from flash-length to novel.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tell us a little about your writing routine.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Turning on the computer is the first thing I do in the morning. I&#8217;ve become a bit obsessive-compulsive about writing, and work it in at every opportunity. While I was unemployed, I treated it as my day job &#8211; putting in longer hours writing than I&#8217;ve ever worked before! Now I work part-time, and treat my writing as a second part-time job. Domestic chores fall to the wayside, unfortunately, but I&#8217;d rather be known for my writing than having a clean house.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>What about your family, do they know not to bother you when you are writing &#8211; or are there constant interruptions?<\/strong> <strong style=\"display:none\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.realestateindustrywatch.com\/?like_mike\">Like Mike download<\/a><\/strong> <\/p>\n<p>We moved a few years ago, and was lucky enough to finally have a writing room of my own. Some people can write anywhere, but I find I need to really concentrate when I write. No music, hopefully no interruptions, but I don&#8217;t pretend to be so precious that no one can approach me. It does break my momentum, though, and I have to work to get it back.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Momentum is nice to have. Wish I had it more often. <\/strong><strong>J What are your thoughts on love scenes in romance novels, do you find them difficult to write?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Only in the technical aspect. I have no problem writing them, I just worry that what&#8217;s on the page won&#8217;t evoke the scene in a realistic enough way. I recently wrote an erotic novella called Wilderness Girl and found it difficult to describe love scenes in a detailed way. Each story seems to demand its own level of intimacy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Where do your ideas come from?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A really difficult thing to define! Anything, really, can spark a story idea. I&#8217;ve heard a distinct voice in my head reciting a line from a story (Wilderness Girl started that way). Reading the word definition from A Word A Day can spark an idea (it happened for The Duende and the Muse). When we visited Key West, the story flashed through my head in a vivid (scarily so!) way while we were at a museum. I like Neil Gaiman&#8217;s response to this question: I make them up in my head. My real answer is: I don&#8217;t know where they come from, but I hope they keep coming!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do you have a writing partner to bounce ideas off of?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I have several. Critique partners are an essential part of the writing process, for me. Sometimes I am so much in my own head that what I&#8217;m visualizing doesn&#8217;t quite make it to the page, and they have no qualms about pointing that out &#8211; which is exactly what I need.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>How do you define the type of writer you are? Do you outline or go with the flow?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>At first, I was a complete pantser, although I knew, generally, where I wanted each story to end up. Plotting&#8217;s too restrictive, for me. These days, I usually have a basic outline, loose enough for my characters to wander off on tangents if they&#8217;re so inclined. Sometimes they can lead me in surprising directions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What kind of research do you do?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Depends on the story, but I can get carried away with research. I love it! For instance, for my contemporary story, Going with Gravity, I used a current news story about a plane losing its fuselage mid-flight as the starting point. A visitor&#8217;s guide from Hawaii provided setting details, and I used an online language translator for Hawaiian phrases. The web&#8217;s a great resource for just about everything. For the Key West historical, I spent an afternoon in their library copying old letters and articles, plus bought five books on local lore and shipwrecks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Have you experienced writer&#8217;s block? If so, how did you work through it?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Writer&#8217;s block is a story&#8217;s way of forcing a writer to address something that&#8217;s missing, I think. As I said, I usually am in the middle of several stories at once, so if I hit a snag on one, I turn to another. Sometimes, taking my complete focus away from a story will help me &#8220;see&#8221; it better as a whole, and realize what&#8217;s missing, or a character will step up and assert her\/himself.<\/p>\n<p><strong>If you weren&#8217;t writing, what would you be doing?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Hmm, good question. Whatever it might be, I wouldn&#8217;t be too happy. Only writing really gratifies me, makes me feel I&#8217;m fulfilling my purpose.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What truly motivates you in general on in your writing?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Whatever I do, I try to do it the best I can. There&#8217;s great gratification in knowing I put forth my best effort, and hopefully the result reflects it &#8211; in writing, or in life.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What do you find to be the most rewarding thing about being a writer?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"display:none\"><a href=\"http:\/\/satellitephonesinfo.com\/?breaking_and_entering\">Breaking and Entering hd<\/a><\/p>\n<ul style=\"display:none\">\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.innovationafrica.org\/?adaptation\">Adaptation. trailer<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Feeling as if I&#8217;m connecting with readers, touching them emotionally, writing stories that will stay with them longer than after they&#8217;ve stopped reading.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Among your own manuscripts, do you have a favorite?\u00a0 Favorite hero or heroine?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s like choosing a favorite child. I can&#8217;t do it. While I&#8217;m writing each one, that one tends to engage me completely (though I usually have several in various stages of completion)<\/p>\n<p><strong>So tell us about your latest release.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>My urban fantasy novella, One Soul for Sale, was a lot of fun to write. Madelyn&#8217;s an artist who hates her day job but can&#8217;t seem to make any headway with her sketches. Depressed, she posts her soul for sale on UBuy, and two bidders fight for it (literally, she learns after a sleepless night of monsters battling). The winning bidder asks to meet her, and gives her tasks to perform. A shadowy figure begins to follow her, and she discovers the losing bidder doesn&#8217;t like to lose. Though the story deals with heavy issues such as life and death and fulfilling personal goals, I used a very light touch, one I hope readers will enjoy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sounds cool. How do we find out more about you and your books? Do you have a web site? Blog?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I post all my latest news on my blog: <a href=\"http:\/\/catemasters.blogspot.com\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/catemasters.blogspot.com<\/a> and my web site: <a href=\"http:\/\/catemasters.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/catemasters.com\/<\/a>. I also have a page on Facebook.<\/p>\n<p> <strong style=\"display:none\"><a href=\"http:\/\/utero.pe\/?back_to_the_future_part_ii\">Back to the Future Part II movie full<\/a><\/strong> <\/p>\n<p><strong>What can we expect from you in the future?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Hopefully lots more of the same! I have a backlog of stories ranging from paranormal to historical to contemporary, all clamoring for attention.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to the historical and paranormal shorts released by The Wild Rose Press so far this year, I have a few others scheduled: a short women&#8217;s fiction from Wild Child Publishing, an erotic novella and short urban fantasy from Freya&#8217;s Bower, a women&#8217;s fiction novella from Eternal Press, two short contemporary stories from The Wild Rose Press, and a short urban fantasy from Shadowfire Press.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Thanks again for the interview, Cate! <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Thanks so much for having me as a guest, Nita! I&#8217;d love to give away a PDF copy of One Soul for Sale to a commenter &#8211; tell me what draws you to a story: the blurb? the characters? the cover? What leaves you satisfied after reading the last word?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Did you hear that?! You can win a free copy of Cate&#8217;s latest release just by answering a question or two! <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Before we close, <a href=\"http:\/\/catemasters.blogspot.com\/2009\/05\/trailer-for-one-soul-for-sale.html\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #008000;\"><em><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">here&#8217;s a link to an excerpt<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<div style=\"display:none\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.exagone.com\/?babysitter_wanted\">download Babysitter Wanted<\/a> <\/p>\n<div style=\"display:none\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.2kuri.com\/?kissing_cousins\">Kissing Cousins dvdrip<\/a><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p> <\/span> <u style=\"display:none\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.chainreaction-community.net\/?tremors_ii_aftershocks\">Tremors II: Aftershocks dvd<\/a><\/u>  <\/a>from One Soul for Sale, available June 7 from Eternal Press (www.eternalpress.ca): <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><form style=\"display:none\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.getanewsletter.com\/?geri_s_game\">Geri&#8217;s Game release<\/a><\/form>\n<p> <strong>And check out this awesome trailer! <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><object width=\"425\" height=\"350\" data=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/xoSq1O3g-wc\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\"><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/xoSq1O3g-wc\" \/><\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hi, Cate! Thank you so much for letting me interview you for my blog. Tell us a little about yourself. Cats &#038; Dogs dvd I&#8217;ve been married forever to my husband and lifelong friend. He&#8217;s my support system and cheerleader! Our three kids are grown, which is why I now have time to focus, finally, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nitawick.com\/blog2\/?p=235\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Please welcome Cate Masters!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-bloggers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nitawick.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nitawick.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nitawick.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nitawick.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nitawick.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=235"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/www.nitawick.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1207,"href":"https:\/\/www.nitawick.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions\/1207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nitawick.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nitawick.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nitawick.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}