Rebecca has been writing stories since she was ten years old.
Through high school and college she often wrote stories in a spiral bound
notebook, and from the beginning she found she loved combining romance and
intrigue or mystery. The first story she completed was about a rock star who
was kidnapped, along with a teenage fan. Her love of writing took her in the direction
of a journalism degree. While she first envisioned herself as a newspaper
reporter or sports writer, she ended up as a broadcast journalist. Eventually she
ended up working in a number of TV newsrooms around the west. Most of her time
was spent in Los Angeles, where she worked for all three major network
affiliates.
Her
writing still involves romance and mystery, hence her slogan, “Where romance
lives, while danger lurks.” Her latest
book is BLUES AT 11, a romantic
mystery set in the world she knows so well – TV news. It revolves around a television anchor woman,
Kimberly delaGarza, who finds herself suspected of killing her ex-boyfriend.
Suddenly her fame is working against her. Jealous former competitors are happy
to see her in trouble, her best friend is out of the country and the one man
who might be able to help her is a man she dumped for her dead ex.
About BLUES AT 11
Kimberly delagarza is a
familiar face in Los Angeles. She can be seen nightly on the evening news. She
drives a fancy car, lives in a house on the beach, and wears designer clothes.
But now she is no longer delivering the news—she has become the biggest story
of the day. The TV anchorwoman is suspected of murder.
No one believes she didn't kill her louse of an ex-boyfriend after he dumped her. Her next picture may be on a wanted poster, and her next home may be the Big House, with a wardrobe consisting of orange jumpsuits. The only man who can help her is a man she once wronged...
No one believes she didn't kill her louse of an ex-boyfriend after he dumped her. Her next picture may be on a wanted poster, and her next home may be the Big House, with a wardrobe consisting of orange jumpsuits. The only man who can help her is a man she once wronged...
Purchase BLUES AT 11
A Chat With Rebecca
If
you have 2 hours free time tonight, what would you rather do? Why?
If
I have free time, I would probably write. I love to be able to lose myself in a
story I am inventing. It’s kind of like daydreaming, but doing it on the
written page.
What
kind of books do you love to read? Why?
I
read a lot of mystery books, romance and romantic suspense. I am a big fan of
Janet Evanovich and her Stephanie Plum series because of the mixture of romance
and the mystery. But I also enjoy Brenda
Novak, Cindy Gerard and Sandra Brown. On
the straight mystery side, I enjoy Harlan Coben and his domestic thrillers,
I’ve long been a fan of John Sandford and his Lucas Davenport and Virgil
Flowers books and Robert Crais and his Elvis Cole.
What
type of music do you enjoy relaxing to?
I’m
afraid I never moved past the 70s and early 80s in my musical tastes. I still love the oldies, whether it groups
like Foreigner or the Eagles, and not to age myself or anything, but I was one
of those crazy girls who was screaming at the movie theater when the first
Beatles movie, “A Hard Day’s Night” came out.
What
is your stress buster?
My
stress buster is to play video games. Games like, Zuma, Tetris, Candy Crush,
Spider, all calm me down.
What
is your favorite food? What food do you seek when you’re sad, sort of a comfort
food?
Chinese
food is a good comfort food for me for several reasons. Going out for Chinese
food alone usually means writing time. One of my favorite things to do when
stuck on a scene is to head over to P F Chang’s with my notebook and write. It
doesn’t hurt that one of the closest restaurants also has an absolutely
majestic view of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. But it’s not just when I’m stuck
on a scene. If I want to celebrate, I order a split of champagne. And then
there is cheesecake -- strawberry cheesecake or blueberry cheesecake.
Sometimes pumpkin cheesecake does the trick.
It’s probably good that the nearest Cheesecake Factory is more than ten
miles away.
Describe yourself in one
word.
I
would say I am optimistic. I like to look for the good side of situations and
in people.
If a fairy grants you one
wish and one wish only, what would it be? Why?
Wow,
so many things come to mind. But probably what I would want is a cruise around
the world to see all the special things we have in our world.
What’s your biggest regret
in life?
Probably
not following through on my writing possibilities many years ago and then
waiting so long to really work at getting published. Back in the early 80s when
I finished one of my first fully edited books I submitted to Harlequin and got
rejected. I think I might have submitted elsewhere too, but the Harlequin
rejection letter is the only one I still have. When I read it over now and look
at the editor’s notes on the manuscript (and yes, back then they actually would
make notes) I realize I should have taken that book and re-written it and
re-edited and maybe I would have gotten published sooner. I let the
rejections get me down and stopped pursuing getting published. I never
stopped writing, though and eventually I did go back and submit and eventually
got published.
What is the most
adventurous thing you’ve ever done?
I’m
not certain if it was adventurous or stupid, but twice when I decided I needed
a change in my life, I simply packed up my belongings and moved more than a
thousand miles away to cities where I’d never been and knew no one without a
job and without a safety net to get me back home if I didn’t like it. Fortunately, I fell in love with both San
Diego and Seattle, and within weeks of arriving in both places I was able to
find a job working at TV stations.
What
makes you happy/sad/disappointed/frustrated/hopeful/angry? (Pick one)
What
makes me happy and hopeful is the ability to write. As long as I can keep
telling my stories, I am happy.
What
are your wildest dreams/fantasies/kinks/quirks?
My
wildest dream is to go back in time. I’m
not sure where or when, but just to go back for one day and be able to live in
another time just to see what it was like.
Your
Writing
When did you write your
first book? How long did it take you to write it?
I
wrote my first novel back in 1978. It was a very bad romance novel about a
professional football player and the daughter of the man he replaced as
quarterback. I think I worked on that
off and on through college and finished it five years later. I kept restarting
it
Did you encounter any
obstacles in writing? What are they? How did you overcome
them?
I
had problems finishing my first books. I kept going back and starting them over
And
rewriting from scratch. My first few books were never published and I cringe when
I reread them today.
How did you feel when you
received your first contract? What did you do? Any celebratory dinner, dance,
event, etc to commemorate the occasion?
I
couldn’t believe it. After so many years
to finally have a publisher who wanted to distribute my writing – wow! I was out of town at the time, visiting my
brother so the whole family went out to celebrate. The only problem was that
when I came back from that trip, I lost my day job. In a way it was great
because it allowed me to focus full time on writing.
Any writing peeves, things
you wish you could improve on, things you do with exceptional talent?
I
have a problem with having too many ideas in my head at once and then I want to
get started on them. The end result is I always have a bunch of stories going
at once, and I think it keeps me from totally focusing on finishing just one
faster.
What kind of books do you
love/hate to write? Why?
I
love to write books with mystery and romance in them. I started out writing
books that were purely romances, but then I found I like that hint of danger
and ever since I have had trouble not killing at least one person in my books
or giving the protagonists a mystery to solve.
What do you think about
editing?
As
a journalist, I’ve spent so much of my time editing, I know it’s a necessity,
no matter how good a writer might be. Nothing is perfect the first time around
and good editing can make even the best writing better.
Where and when do you
write? Tell us about your favorite work place and time. Any special reason?
Most
of my writing is done in my home office at my computer. However I will write
anywhere and anytime. I have tons of little notebooks that I carry around in my
purse or keep in my car so that no matter where I am and what I’m doing I can
write if something strikes me. I keep the notebooks with me because I’ve been
known to write on the backs of receipts, grocery bags and any sort of paper I
can find if I don’t have one handy.
How do you write? Do your
characters come to you first or the plot or the world of the story? How do you
go on from there? Maybe you can give us an example with one of your books.
Usually
it is the story idea that comes to me first, but it can also be the character.
In my newest book, Blues at 11, I got
my inspiration for the story from an afternoon I spent drinking with gal pal as
we lamented my break up with a long time boyfriend. We started playfully
thinking of ways to do him in. I was working in Las Vegas at the time and we
wanted to bury him in the desert. About halfway through the afternoon the
bartender finally came over to us and playfully mentioned he wouldn’t tell the
police when they found the body that we were the culprits. And that was the
start! But this was also back during the
time of OJ Simpson when the LA media that I’d just left went into a total
frenzy over his fame. It took me a couple of years but I finally put it all
together
What books can you
recommend to aspiring writers to improve on style, character development, plot,
structure, dialogue, etc?
I
am one of those people who is aways looking for how-to books on writing. I have
so many, but I think one of the best is
Stephen King’s On Writing. It not only talks about things a writer needs
to know—the writer’s toolbox—but it’s a
good behind-the-scenes view of how a struggling beginner went from starving
writer to mega best selling author.
What
is your must-have book for writing?
There
are two books I have had on my desk for years. I had them when I worked as a
journalist, when I worked as a public information officer and now they are on
my desk where I write every day. They
are the Associated Press Style book and Strunk and White’s Elements
of Style. When I am editing I also have Browne and
King’s Self Editing for Fiction Writers and The Writer’s Digest Grammar
reference book. I find that with these
books readily available to me I can manage almost any problem I run into.
What is your advice to
aspiring writers?
Don’t
give up if you want to get published. These days there are more opportunities
than ever. See my above question about my big regret. It took a boyfriend who
was also trying to get published to push me back into the fray, but I’m glad I
made the renewed effort. It took 3 years from when I started re-submitting to
finally get a contract.
If
you don’t know where to start, look around for writing groups near you or
groups that offer online workshops. There are plenty of them out there, with
members who are willing to help beginning writers. Spend some time with those
writing groups. Often they offer sessions or online lessons on writing. And if
you are in a small town where you might not find groups, then get on the
internet and join an online group. Some
of my earliest help in learning how to write came from the online group, Kiss
of Death, a mystery-suspense chapter of Romance Writers of America. They offer online workshops on writing and
that idea has taken off. There are other online groups out there too, like
Savvy Authors. I have taught for Savvy for four years as well as giving online
workshops for other groups.
But
most of all, never stop writing!
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