Blooming Author Laura Harner!

“Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be.” ~ George Sheehan
 
Laura Harner's book Whiteout was was published by Cobblestone Press in August 2010.

Tell us about Whiteout. What is it about and where will it be available?
Whiteout is about three perfectly ordinary people trapped together in a cabin during a monster winter storm. By the time the storm is over their lives won’t be considered quite so ordinary anymore.

The two men, Cade and Carter, have been roommates for years and have shared everything from team sports to their law practice. They’ve both known Christina since second grade, but neither man has ever asked her out.

Christina has never been able to make her mind up about which of the two men she’s most interested in, and never found a man that interests more than either Cade or Carter. When Cade sees Christina making a purchase clearly designed to keep a lonely woman warm as the storm approaches, he takes matters into his own hands and the men show up on her doorstep to ride out the storm. It’s a contemporary erotic romance, a ménage story, and it will keep any one warm.

Whiteout is the first book of the Three’s Allowed series and it’s available right now from Cobblestone Press.

What were your inspirations for Whiteout? What sorts of thing inspire you as a writer in general?
One of the major digital first publishers had a call for submissions for an upcoming winter anthology and they were looking for something to heat up cold winter nights. The idea appealed to me but I didn’t have much time before the deadline. I spent the last seven winters in a very cold and sometimes very snowy northern Arizona, so it wasn’t hard to picture a winter storm that would keep everyone shut in for a few days. The idea grew from there.

In general, I get my inspiration from relationships and odd situations. I love to put good people into an awkward circumstance, throw in a little misunderstanding and watch them work their way through it. One of the common threads in all of my books is a strong female main character. No matter how sexy the man, or in this case, the men are, it takes a strong woman to bring about the right element of romance.

Let's talk about your process. How do you approach a story, do you start with outlines or something else? Where did you work when writing Whiteout? Do you think it was the optimal writing environment for you?
I rarely use an outline. Generally, when I start a book, I know who my main characters are and I know how I want the ending to turn out. Then I just start writing. If the characters are right, the story flows for me because I can live it through their experiences and ideas.

I follow a lot of other writers on Twitter and I see them post about their five page outlines and it makes my hands twitch and my brain itchy. I tried that once and spent a week creating a beautiful outline for a book. Less than two chapters into my writing, one of the characters took a definite left turn from where I thought he would go and it turned the whole outline on its ear. The characters really do come alive for me and as their personalities grow through the story, the way they interact or the choices they make also change.

I want to write, not plan to write. I know that doesn’t work for everybody, but it’s how it works for me.

As for where I write, I have a spare bedroom in our house I’ve taken over as an office. I have an old dining room table as a desk. I used to write on a laptop in the living room, but now I really enjoy the quiet space.

Tell us about your "story of getting published."
As I mentioned earlier, I wrote Whiteout for a special call for submissions, but after a month of waiting I received the dreaded “No thank you” letter. I had spent the month while I was waiting polishing the manuscript and immediately sent it out again. That was on a Monday. By Thursday of that same week, I had signed a contract with Cobblestone Press. I had also submitted it to two other publishers at the same time and both had expressed interest. It was a matter of getting the right story, to the right publisher, at the right time.

I just signed a contract for another book in the Three’s Allowed series called Rescued, which is due for release in November from Cobblestone Press.

What are the publicity plans you have coming up?
I am just starting get the hang of this publicity stuff. To tell the truth, I just want to keep writing. Thanks to you and other wonderful bloggers out there, plus social media like Twitter and Facebook, I expect to make more appearances to talk about Whiteout and the upcoming Rescued.