Today I have the pleasure of hosting Renee Field, author of RAPTURE.  Please leave a comment and be entered to win a copy of RAPTURE!

 1. How did you get started writing?
Honestly I think I’ve always written. I grew up in a small fishing community with very little friends and writing from a young age became my passion. I first wrote poetry and had the pleasure when I attended Concordia University in Montreal of taking a great poetry class with the late Irving Layton, who encourage me to write what I was passionate about. His love for life truly never left me.

2. What genre(s) do you write in and why?
I write erotic romance and sensual romance under the name Renee Field because I have a very passionate nature (hence why I have four children probably) and I truly believe in soul mates. All my books for romance have happy endings. The same cannot be said for my young adult contemporary stories under the name Renee Pace. I love being free to work on projects which capture my heart be they romance stories or nitty gritty teen stories.

3. Tell us about your current series.
Rapture is the first book in my Titan/Siren series which is really a mermaid tale with a contemporary twist. Having grown up so close to the sea, I love to write about it. Rapture tells the story of a lost Siren who grew up on land as a woman. She gets discovered quite accidentally by an exiled merman, called a Titan who isn’t used to strong-willed women. His life gets thrown to the waves the minute he realizes the head-strong woman isn’t really a woman at all, but a being belonging to the sea like himself. They clash a lot but the Titan also releases my heroine’s Siren passionate nature. While she must learn to discover her true identity she also leans to embrace her female passionate nature while allowing her heart to come to love a myth.

4. What move best describes your life?  Why?
Getting fired. Seriously. It’s a long complicated story and my boss at that time was my good friend who was dying while I was pregnant expecting my third child. The day she fired me she said I’d thank her for this later on. I did, once I got over the shock of it. We reconciled shortly before she passed away from cancer and she was right. She liberated me to take the plunge to become a stay-at-home mother, to then three young children and later a fourth, but she also encouraged me to do what I love and that’s writing and bettering my community. I am a firm believer in community volunteerism and a strong supporter of youth initiatives and the arts community.

5. What inspired your latest book?
Rapture is the first paranormal romance book I wrote. I had such fun writing it that as soon as it was finished I started work on the second, which I hope to launch in 2012. I wanted to write about a strong educated young woman who must overcome obstacles in her life while on the journey of self-discovery. I probably put a lot of what I was going through at the time in that book. The sea has always fascinated me and I really wanted to capture my love of the oceans with this book.

6. What is your favorite part of writing?
Listening to the voices in my head and letting my imagination take hold. I crave silence so over the years I’ve learned to listen to my characters speak in my mind before giving them life on paper.

7. What is your least favorite part of writing?
I hate being told I can’t do something. When I wrote Rapture I added another layer to the story with the Sister of Fates and my agent at the time asked me to remove it. I’m glad I stuck to my guns and said no because layering this book made it special.

8    What is your next project and when will it be released?
Well, I just sent off a steamy fairy/druid story to my editor so I’m hoping she’ll like it but my plan is to finish the second story in my Titan series and have it released in 2012.

9. What is your typical day like?
I really don’t have a typical day, ever. We are all up by 6:30am and I work three days a week running a paddling club in the off-season which allows me to pick up my younger children by 2:15pm, cart children to after school lessons like piano, violin, gymnastics or hip hop dance and then deal with my teenagers in the evenings who have basketball or soccer. I carry a note book with me everywhere and when I know I’ll be at gymnastics for more than 2hrs I bring my laptop. I write five pages a day but because I run a paddling club I only edit in the summer months, as I usually am at the club from 8:30-6pm or more, which also gives me a chance to encourage and watch my own high performance paddling son who puts about six hours a day on the water training. My summer weekends are spent at paddling regattas. We all love the water.

10. How much time do you spend promoting your books?  What works best for you?
The first month is crucial to promotion I’ve learned. Since I’ve been going more the Indie route and don’t have a lot of money to spend on promotion I’m a firm believer in guest blogging, author cross-promotion, twitter and Facebook. With my teen series I’ve done very well with The Frugal e-reader, Pixel of Ink and in early December I’m trying the Kindle Daily Nation deals. I usually set a budget of about $150/per book to promote but if I win the lottery that could change.

11.     How has your experience with self-publishing been?
Self-publishing has truly been liberating. I love that authors are so willing to share what’s working in terms of promotions, marketing and how their sales are going. I also like having control over how my cover looks and the feel of my books. But, self-publishing is a lot of hard work and watching your sales daily can be discouraging. I think of writing as a long term career so I’m working on building a fan base and know that won’t happen immediately.

12. Where do you get the ideas for your stories?
I never lack ideas; I lack the time to write the stories. Saying that my girlfriend one year gave me a book on myths and legends and that’s what began my fairy/druid book.

13. What advice do you have for other authors wanting to self-publish?
Be prepared to work. Self-publishing is not for the faint of heart. I pay for a cover artist and will be paying for an editor for my next romance novel. If you truly feel like your story needs to be heard and you are having no luck the traditional route than take ownership of your work and publish it. I would also do my homework and connect with Indie publishing groups, find a local writing group and most importantly get critique partners. My critique partners I treasure.