BookWenches

Interviewed by Teagan

The BookWenches are beyond excited to have Cameron Dane with us today. We get the honor of interviewing her and delving into her world as an author.  

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Hi Cameron, you have a couple of huge fans here, if you can't tell already.  

Thank you so much. You both have been great, and I am thrilled that you’ve enjoyed my stories.
 

We know you have a big fan base. Surely at times it must get overwhelming to keep up with it all. Do you find it easy to deal with the success of your writing career? How has it changed your life the most? 

That’s nice of you to say. I don’t know how big my fan base is, relative to the market, I just know that the people who have contacted me have been so kind, friendly, supportive, encouraging…you name it. It means everything to me. I love checking my website every day. I think of it kind of like a kid going to the store with Mom or Dad and being unexpectedly told you can pick out a toy to take home. Do you remember how great that felt when you were little? I feel exactly like that when I go to my site and I see that someone has taken the time to contact me and share his or her thoughts about a book I’ve written. I get so excited and nervous and tingly, wondering what it will say before I open it. It’s a gift I don’t expect to happen, but that I treasure every time it does.

As for how it has changed my life, that’s tough to explain. I still find it all so surreal a lot of the time. I’m pretty much the same person living the same life, except now when people ask what I do for a living I get to say I’m a writer, and when they ask if I’ve had anything published I can say yes. Of course, more often than not, I then have to explain what an e-book is, but that’s cool.
 

From reading your website we know that you have always enjoyed writing. You say that in 2002 you decided to hold yourself accountable for writing every day. Do you already have that time set aside each day and you work your day around it or do you fit it in when you can? How much time do you spend per day? 

The actual hours on the clock, such as say 10pm to midnight, are not set in stone. I try to have a schedule but if I have to adjust it due to something else happening in my day, I’m flexible with the start and stop times. The thing that is most important, that isn’t negotiable anymore, is that I spend four hours a day, six days a week, with whatever story I happen to be writing at the time. (or editing, if I’m lucky enough to have something contracted) I break that four hours each day up into two two-hour sessions. My eyes get very tired staring at a computer screen and I’ve found that I need a break after two hours or so, else I tend to get a headache. Now that’s not to say I’m clicking away typing four hours a day; sometimes I stare at the computer screen, reading the previous paragraphs I’ve written, and the characters or scene just doesn’t talk to me. I try not to fight that lull or get frustrated but rather go with it and know that the story will come back to me eventually. The main thing is that I put the time in every day so that I least give myself the chance to produce something. I have a daily planner and I keep track of how much I’ve written in each session.

In between the writing sessions, I make time to check email, the website, do a little research when needed…all kinds of little things that pertain to being a writer.
 

As the lucky recipients of a few drool-worthy bookmarks featuring two of your series, we absolutely have to ask you about Hawkins Ranch and Quinn Security. Any chance at a sneak peek into what the future holds for these characters?  

I’m working on the next book in the Hawkins Ranch series right now. It is my first ménage and it features Jasper, Sarah, and Jace. I’m having a lot of fun putting them together. In between their growing relationship, Jace, who is a deputy, is trying to solve a brutal murder. Some characters from the previous books in the series pop up all over the story, most notably Ren and Cade from ReneCade.

The Quinn Security series has at least two, possibly three stories left in it, as I see it right now. That could easily change if a new character pops up in the next book and starts demanding a story of his or her own. Nate Jordan, Kasey’s brother from The Ultimate Kink, and Logan Jeffries, who made a brief appearance in the same book, will definitely hook up in the future. Adam and Rhone from Finding Home are talking to me a little bit again, and I may have to revisit them if they give me enough to turn into a story. I’m not sure about that one yet, but it is percolating in my head.
 

Regarding the brothers of Hawkins Ranch, was there anything in particular that inspired you to create demons to be your main characters? Did you model the demons after anything in particular, or are they the creation of a very fertile imagination? 

Well, the first story, Demon Moon, came about when I was searching and found that a particular publisher (not Loose Id) was looking for short stories for Halloween. The requirement for story submissions was that it feature Halloween, have some kind of paranormal element, and have something sexual be a strong part of the overall concept of the story. Connor immediately came into my head, and I knew he had two brothers who weren’t his by blood, but chosen through hardship. That was where the idea originated. Because it was a short story, then eventually a novella when Loose Id contracted it, there wasn’t a lot of extra room to expand on the idea of demons being corporeal beings and nothing to do with Hell or evil, or God and the devil, other than to just state it.

In the meantime, as I wrote Falling, I started to toy more with the idea that demons had been around forever, long before religion, and what if their likenesses had basically been hijacked and given bad press. What if they had no connection to religion at all, but were simply another set of species of beings on this earth, and their appearance in shifted form became something people in power in various religious organizations used to frighten their followers into adhering to their particular Gods’ scripture? I didn’t get to tweak the idea very much because the focus of all of my stories is the building romance, so instead I just dropped bits of information into the stories in Falling and Knowing Caleb.

Bottom line, I just liked the idea of them being sentient beings who could live and die and have corporeal bodies that could become human through various rituals. There are a lot of different takes on what demons really are, so I had fun playing with the idea a bit.

Which is not to say that down the road I won’t one day revisit the idea of demons in the more biblical interpretation. I like the idea of angels being thrown out of heaven too.
 

In terms of your series, does one story inspire the development another, or do you work a little farther ahead than that? Is there a point at which you decide you've had enough of a certain universe? Do you think you'd be mobbed by your fans if you ever decided to write "the end" to a series? :-) 

I always keep my fingers crossed the publisher will like the story I write and think enough people will want to read it to contract it! I hope they will want the ones I already have in my head that will allow me to finish out the series’ I have going right now.

In the case of the Hawkins Ranch series, I always knew I’d tell stories for all three brothers, even though I didn’t have a contract for one story, let alone more. Caleb Hawkins was elusive. That was okay, though, because by the time I introduced Sheriff Boone in Falling I knew he had an adopted son who was almost grown, and that the son would be gay. I could also see this solitary, scarred man, and I knew that man and the sheriff’s son would fall in love. Risa was also introduced in Falling, and I knew she would eventually bring down the stubbornness of older, controlled Duke Boone and that they would fall in love. Those became ReneCade and Ride. At that point, I thought I’d end the Hawkins Ranch series with Caleb’s story, but more and more characters kept talking to me, and I knew I wasn’t finished. I know now where that series will eventually come to an end, but my thought and hope is that the final book will actually lead into a new series. I can already see a couple of characters in that world, but actually see them (two men) as the last book in that future series, not the first. We’ll see what happens with that.

But to answer your question about if I plan a series in advance, I guess the answer is: very loosely. When I create a story, more often than not, the supporting characters will start showing me their lives and who they are, and I will inevitably start to care about them and want them to fall in love. For Quinn Security, I wrote Adam and Rhone’s story, completely knew I’d write a story for Canin and Kasey, but figured that would be it. It would be two books. Then Kasey’s brother Nate showed up, and it doesn’t even happen on the page in The Ultimate Kink, is just mentioned in passing, but Detective Logan Jeffries meets Nate when he goes to Canin’s apartment, and I knew those two men would end up together. I saw that first meeting between Nate and Logan in my head, even though it didn’t have a place in The Ultimate Kink. I already know their first meeting; now it’s just a matter of figuring out how their love story develops. That’s how future stories happen for me. Through the characters.

I love the thought that people might care about the fictional towns, work places, and characters I create enough that they’d want more stories in that world. I also hope I will always have enough series going that when one closes there are still a handful more open or getting started, and there will be new people to get to know.
 

If we snuck into your house for a look, what would we find in your “to be read” pile? Do you get much time to read any of those? 

I have a huge TBR pile, but I also have a very full Keeper shelf, so I do make time to read. Let me see if I can break this down a bit.

In the small press/e-book world, a handful of titles I have on my Reader or in paperback that I look forward to reading sometime soon are, Lynn Lorenz’s Pacific Nights and David’s Dilemma. Qwillia Rain’s most recent Diablo Blanco Club book, Chris Owen’s Bareback, KA Mitchell’s Diving in Deep, ZA Maxfield’s Crossing Borders, MJ Pierson’s The Price of Discretion, Tere Michaels’ Faith & Fidelity, I have a TA Chase book, and a Pepper Espinoza book… There are more, but that’s what I can think of off the top of my head. I just finished reading Ava March’s Bound to Him and I think I loved it even more than the first story Bound by Deception.

In the traditional world of mainstream romance, I tend to lean toward the regency set historical settings. I have the latest of writers like Lisa Kleypas, Lorraine Heath, Anne Stuart (contemporary and historical for her) Suzanne Enoch, Loretta Chase, Julia Quinn, Christina Dodd, Jennifer Crusie and Lori Foster (contemporary, both) just to name a few.
 

We love tattoos. After reading The Sweetest Tattoo, we have to ask. Do you have any tattoos? Would you share with us what they are and where? If not, that's okay, we promise not to stalk you too bad!  

I loved Kelsie’s tattoos in The Sweetest Tattoo. John sure enjoyed exploring her body and discovering all of them too, didn’t he? Ahh, they had some fun together; I really enjoyed writing that piece.

But to answer your question: yes, I do have a tattoo. I love them too. I tend to think (based on my very unofficial research) that people get tattoos for a reason and they have meaning to that person. I love that. Everyone has a story about their tattoo or tattoos, whether they choose to share that story with others or not. As to what my tattoo is, it’s a flower (not a rose) somewhere on my back. It does have meaning for me, but I’ll keep that to myself. A girl has to have some secrets. I will say I am very seriously considering a second one, also to represent something important in my life.
 

We would love it if you could share any upcoming work with us. Can you give us a peek into anything you might be working on? 

Grey’s Awakening just came out with Liquid Silver Books a few weeks ago. There is a character in that story, Noah, who will definitely get a story of his own down the line. When writing Grey’s, I didn’t intend for Noah to be anything other than a passing character, but as soon as he came onto the page and had a conversation with Sirus I knew his life and that I would have to write a story for him. That’s a bit down the road though.

Next up is a male/male novel called Dreaming In Color and it will be released by Loose Id in mid July. It’s actually the only single title story I’ve written. There won’t be anything else written related to it. Dreaming In Color is a story about a man who starts dreaming of a very particular house and the man who lives in it. The dreams are powerful and sexual, and he feels a strong connection to both the man and the home. When he goes to Fiji for his best friend’s wedding, he discovers the house…and the man. Both are broken, and this man has to decide if they are his destiny.

Beyond that, I try to bounce back and forth between the various series’ I have going, and I think it will be time to get back to Seeking Redemption. Devlin Morgan needs to start talking to me soon! I try to stay flexible, though, and open to opportunities that arise unexpectedly, or to characters who are speaking the loudest for their story.
 

Please let your fans know how to find you, if you would give us any links you care to share, we would sure appreciate it. 

Absolutely! The best place to find me is through my website. www.camerondane.com  There is a ‘contact me’ page on the site that I would love for people to use. If you’d like those drool-worthy bookmarks mentioned above, submit your name and mailing address, and I’ll get them right out to you.

Thanks so much for this opportunity, Teagan and Bobby. I had fun. Bye!