Meet Samantha Chase
New York Times and
USA Today Bestseller/contemporary romance writer Samantha Chase
released her debut novel, Jordan's Return, in November 2011. Although
she waited until she was in her 40's to publish for the first time,
writing has been a lifelong passion. Her motivation to take that step
was her students: teaching creative writing to elementary age
students all the way up through high school and encouraging those
students to follow their writing dreams gave Samantha the confidence
to take that step as well.
With twenty-three
titles currently to her name, she has no plans to slow down. The
success of the Montgomery Brothers series has her working on six new
titles in that collection as well as two new exciting series set to
start popping up on bookshelves in 2015. You won't find her books
with the erotica or paranormal titles, all of her works are pure
contemporary romances.
When she's not
working on a new story, she spends her time reading contemporary
romances, blogging, playing way too many games of Scrabble on
Facebook and spending time with her husband of 25 years and their two
sons in North Carolina.
What inspired you to become a teacher?
I
was homeschooling my son and was part of a small group of families
who did a co-op together. One mom taught science, the other did math
and so I said I would do creative writing – since that was
something I felt that I was pretty good at. As the years went by, my
classes grew and I sort of kept moving up with my students so I’ve
taught from 4th grade through 12th
and loved it!
What are some books or authors that you recommend your creative
writing students read?
That’s
a tough one because I am a firm believer in reading what interests
you. That can also cause a problem because kids will always try and
say that nothing interests them but primarily, find a genre that you
like. It’s been so long since I’ve taught that I’m completely
out of the YA loop, but I would still say the Harry Potter series and
the Hunger Games – books that show an entirely different kind of
world. Books that would stretch your imagination.
What writing advice do you give your students the most?
To
not be so hard on themselves and not expect their work to be perfect.
So many times a student would not want to hand in their work or
share their work because they thought it wasn’t perfect. It really
never is – especially to the writer! So I encourage them to share
their work and be open to brainstorming with others.
What's your writing process like?
I
am all over the place! Sometimes I plan/plot, sometimes I don’t.
Sometimes I have a book in my head for a long time before I write it,
others it just comes to me and I start writing and don’t stop until
I’m done. I can write two to three books at a time – although I
try to avoid doing that. I have an office in my house that is my
domain and it’s filled with things I enjoy and love to look at and
when the mood strikes, I sit down and write.
What made decide to work in the contemporary romance genre?
I
fell in love with reading it. It’s my favorite genre to read and
that makes it fun to write.
Have your books required any research? If so, how did you go about
it?
Not
a whole lot. My stories tend to take place in places that I’ve
been to. I did set one in Maine and it had been YEARS since I had
been there so I sort of did an online refresher and my latest book,
“I’ll Be There” had its origin in Alaska. I had never been
there before so I had to really do my research on that one.
What do you feel makes a good story?
Characters
that are well-defined – they literally jump off the page. If you
don’t flesh out your characters, they’re always going to feel
flat – to you and the reader. So you need to work on creating good
characters first. And for me personally, I enjoy a fast-paced story.
I don’t like to get bogged down in a lot of descriptive writing
where it takes the readers pages upon pages upon pages to get from
one scene to another with no dialogue. You want to keep your reader
interested.
What's your writing space like?
I
LOVE my office. I have a wall of bookcases that have all of my
paperbacks on them and then gifts from readers and examples of swag
I’ve made over the years. On the walls are posters of some of my
newest book covers, pictures from events I’ve gone to and I framed
the cover of RT Book Reviews Magazine that I was on the cover of. My
husband bought me a fabulous chandelier for my birthday that he just
hung so it’s a little like a princess room for me!
What are you working on now?
I
currently have a lot that I’m working on. I’m doing edits on a
couple of books, I’m writing a novella for an upcoming secret
project and just starting my next book for my publisher which will be
part of a brand new series!
What projects are you working on next?
There
are two more books in the Shaughnessy series that I’ll be writing
this year along with three indie books that will be coming out
throughout the year. All in all, you’ll be seeing releases from me
almost every month in 2016!
thank you so much for having me on the blog today!!
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