Please help me welcome Edie Ramer to my blog today. Edie has given me a great interview that I think you’ll find interesting. She is also giving a $10 gift card to Amazon, BN or Kobo to one lucky commentor so be sure and leave her a comment to be entered.

Do you have other talents? Or is there a talent you don’t have that you wish you did?

The wonderful thing about being a writer is that, through my characters, I can be an artist, a chef, home remodeler, saxophone player, ghost whisperer, cat furniture designer, and a martial arts expert without actually being talented in any of that. (Though I can cook, and I have painted in oils and acrylics.) I live vicariously through my characters.

Tell us about your current work in progress.

It’s a Christmas book, the second in my Rescued Hearts series, titled CHRISTMAS AT ANGEL LAKE. It has a small boy, a single mom, a rich man who’s been under the spell of a woman he calls “the Dark Queen,” and an awesome dog. (It has a great cat, too, but the dog has a point of view in this book, not the cat.)

When will it be released?

October or November. I’m hoping for October.

What inspired your latest book?

HEARTS IN MOTION, my first Rescued Hearts book, is inspired by my own interests (this goes back to the first question, lol). I’ve been looking at furniture and cat furniture, and my hero ended up as the President and CEO of a furniture company, and my heroine is co-owner of a struggling cat furniture company. I love animals, so this has animals. My husband and I are thinking of fostering dogs in the future. I’m also giving 25 cents from every book sold to the Washington County Humane Society in Wisconsin.

What’s your favorite part of writing?

Finishing! And then revising. I love making the words shine. I love cutting parts that don’t matter and make it flabby. Then I love reading what I’ve written and thinking, I wrote that? A little stunned and happy.

What is your least favorite part of writing?

Plotting. I’m a pantser, and I often go places where I shouldn’t go then end up cutting scenes and backtracking. But when I plot, I end up cutting even more.

What advice do you have for other authors wanting to self-publish?

I’m a proponent of self-publishing. I’ve advised other new indie authors to join the IRI and Selfpublish loops. Also to read blogs by Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch and J.A. Konrath.

What was the deciding factor in self-publishing your books?

Before I self-published, I’d already sold short stories to print magazines and anthologies. I’d won and finaled in quite a few RWA contests. I’d had 4 agents. So I was feeling jaded about the business. A friend, Zoe Winters, had been publishing for a couple of years and was getting well-known. About the same time, I was in the RWA Women’s Fiction chapter, and I was writing articles for their newsletter on the business. I started reading all the blogs I mentioned…and I realized that I should self-publish. So I did.

Give us an elevator pitch for your book.

Take two cats, a dog, a sad, six-year-old girl, a vibrant woman who needs help, a stubborn man who needs a favor, and you have a recipe for romance.

Where can readers find you?
www.edieramer.com, Facebook, Twitter

HEARTS IN MOTION excerpt:

“So, you have a thing for me,” he said.

“And you have a thing for me,” she said.

He stared at her. “I’m engaged.”

“I hope you keep remembering that.”

“I don’t forget.”

“You should call Portia and see her tonight. Cara could sleep over with us.” With each word, she was punishing herself, but she needed this punishment. Needed it to stop these emotions that she had no business feeling. “You’re not my type, anyway. I usually go for guys who are more fun.”

“And you’re not mine. I usually date women who are more… Just more.”

“Is that a cut on my height?” Now her voice rose with indignation, when she wanted to be aloof and uncaring.

He was holding back laughter; she could see it in the clenched muscles around his mouth and his eyes. Usually she loved laughter, even when the joke was on her. Maybe even more in that case. But now… Well, sometimes a girl just didn’t feel like laughing. Once again, she had to fight to keep from kicking him in the shins.

Or higher.

“No insult intended,” he said.

“Because I am more.” She held her arms out at her sides. “I am so filled with life, when I was young, I would climb up on the roof and yell that I could fly.”

He laughed, a rumble that came from his belly, joy in his face. “I can picture you doing that. What happened to that little girl?”

She tilted her head. “Are you kidding? I still think I could fly.”

“Aren’t you missing something?”

“A pair of wings. That’s all I need.”

“I was going to say airplane ticket.”

“That’s the difference between us.”

“The difference between us…”—he leaned toward her and lowered his face, until their lips were a hand-width away—“…is that I already picture you with wings.”

As she gasped, a voice called out. “Daddy!”

He jerked back, looking guilty.

So he should feel guilty, Abby thought fiercely. He was flirting with her. Trying to seduce her.

And she was flirting back. Trying to seduce him.

That’s the last time she started a conversation with a man by telling him to stay away. Obviously it was a case of wanting what they shouldn’t take and what she couldn’t give.

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Edie Ramer is funnier on the page than in real life. A multiple award-winning writer, she writes stories with heart. She lives in southeastern Wisconsin with her husband, dog and one important cat.

In addition to her Rescued Hearts and Miracle Interrupted series, she’s published in paranormal and sci fi romance, plus a humorous mystery. She’s happy to be able to do what she loves nearly every day.