Pushing the Boundaries of Imagination

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It's a great time to be a writer and an even greater time to be a reader!

As an author, I have more freedom now than ever before in my career. I can choose to publish my books however I want, push creative boundaries, go where no wo/man has gone before (yes, I'm a Star Trek fan <g>).

This freedom doesn't only give writers choices; more importantly, it gives readers choices. One glance at Amazon.com (and other ebook stores) and you can see how much variety is out there; far more than any brick-and-mortar store had space to shelve or any publisher had the resources to publish before.

Pushed Too Far

I don't know about you, but I grew up reading a vast range of stories, many of which didn't neatly fit one genre or another. My mom would take my brothers and me to the library, and I'd load up on books of all kinds. All the different stories made me feel as if there might be room in this magical world of books to write what fired –my- imagination, and at the ripe old age of seven, that's what I started to do.

FLEE

When it came time to choose a major at the University of Wisconsin, the only subject I could choose was creative writing. And in 2000, I published my first novel with Harlequin Intrigue. For eleven years, I had a blast writing a pulse-pounding blend of romance and suspense.

Finally after twenty-five books with Intrigue, I decided it was time to push myself a little further. Or maybe a lot.  Ebooks were coming into their own, and the possibilities were endless.

SPREE

I teamed up with my friend J.A. Konrath, a man known for both pushing boundaries and bringing his wacky imagination to a variety of different genres, and together we started the Codename: Chandler series, an action-packed, over-the-top series of spy thrillers staring a super assassin known only by her code name (FLEE, SPREE, and novella EXPOSED are out now, with THREE and more novellas on the way). And earlier this year, I released my solo police procedure thriller, PUSHED TOO FAR. I've been having a blast, to say the least.

EXPOSED

Ebooks have been great for me as a writer, but that's only a small part of why I love them. My favorite thing about my Kindle is that it makes me feel like I did as a kid, browsing through shelves of books that seemed as vast as my imagination and picking out whatever suits my fancy; traditionally published books, indie published books, backlist books, and hidden gems.

What's your favorite thing about ebooks? And what boundaries have ebooks inspired you to push, either in reading choices or in the stories you write? And lastly, are you a trekker?

Check back on Wednesday, when we'll be offering some of our books for 99 cents and FREE, to pick out whatever –you- feel like reading and comment to win a gift card! Spread the word!

Paula Graves, Living Vicariously

I've always wanted to be interesting, but apparently I lack the drive or the internal resources for it.  I'm ruthlessly average, a bit on the nerdy side, and my life is so ordinary it even puts me to sleep.

So how on earth did I come to write romantic thrillers for a living?

I figure, the next best thing to doing something exciting is writing about it. I'm too afraid of heights to stand on a chair, but that doesn't keep my heroines from dangling thirty feet from a truss bridge in a hallucinatory state.  Fire scares the heck out of me, but I've been known to stick a hero in a burning house trying to open a nailed-shut trap door to save the heroine.

When I was a kid, my play time was all about pretending to be something I wasn't.  I guess writing books is the grown-up equivalent to playing pretend for me.

I've always thought of writing as a fun sort of therapy, in which I deal with my neuroses by living them out on page and winning. I get thrills through my characters, who get to do the interesting, exciting, and important things that I'll probably never get the chance to do.  Like take on a Mexican drug lord and fall in love with a smokin' hot cowboy.

My December story, "Wyatt" is part of a Harlequin Intrigue Christmas anthology called THREE COWBOYS.  My co-conspirators, Julie Miller and Dana Marton, wrote the first two stories, and mine wraps up the overarching mystery.  It's a tale about three brothers, estranged by time and circumstance, who join forces when the little sister they never knew existed is kidnapped by a ruthless drug cartel just a few days before Christmas.  There's plenty of danger and thrills, but there's also a heart-warming story about a family finding its way back together at a time of year when family and forgiveness take center stage.

 

I also have three indie e-books available now, books I chose to publish myself in order to help them find an audience.  Talk about living vicariously—one of them actually features a former President's daughter seeking help and protection from the former Secret Service agent who once protected her.  Check them out on my website:

 

CODE NAME: WILLOW

 

PLAYING DEAD IN DIXIE

 

MURDER ON LOVERS' LANE

 

 

So here's my question for you.  Do you read books to meet interesting people?

 

Don't forget to watch for our upcoming Book Derby!  Lots of free and 99¢ books up for grabs! Don't miss it!