AccessRomance interviews author HelenKay Dimon.

AR: Your first book, the novella "Hard Hats and Silk Stockings" in the Brava anthology "When Good Things Happen To Bad Boys", was released in April of this year. Tell us about "the call."

HelenKay: I could be cool and collected and pretend I don’t know the exact date and time of "the call" or where I was at the time or any other of the 100 details imprinted on my brain, but none of that would be true. I remember it all. The phone rang in my office on May 6, 2005 at 3:03 p.m. I'll spare you the exact seconds, but know that the remainder of the day job afternoon is a blur...as is the week.

AR: Is this the same novella you entered in the Brava novella contest? Had you been working with Kate Duffy before then, or was the contest what brought you to her attention?

HelenKay: No. In fact, neither of my Brava finalist books sold.

For about 18 months before getting "the call" Brava editor Kate Duffy and I had been going back and forth talking about several submissions. She knew my name from being a finalist in the Lori Foster Brava Novella Contest during Lori's final two contests. Kate turned down the first contest finalist. With the next Brava contest finalist submission, an idea for a single title submission and a third novella submission requested during a query workshop held by the Maryland Romance Writers all sitting on her desk at the same time, I waited. And waited. And waited. She called at one point prior to leaving for the 2005 Romantic Times Convention to tell me that as soon as she returned she wanted to talk about what she liked and didn’t like about one of those submissions taking up space in her office. When she called on May 6th, I thought she was calling with a "here's what I want you to work on before you submit to me again" list and a personally delivered oral rejection. Instead, she said she wanted to buy the query workshop submission (thank you, MRW) and put it in an anthology with Lori Foster and Erin McCarthy (thank you, Kate). Hardhats and Silk Stockings, my contribution to the When Good Things Happen To Bad Boys anthology is my "the call" book. It was an April 2006 Brava release.

AR: The month, Viva Las Bad Boys, your single author Brava anthology, is on the shelves. Tell us about these stories and your research.

HelenKay: The basic premise for Viva Las Bad Boys! - a blackout at a high-end casino and hotel - arose out of a vacation I took with my husband in April 2004. We were staying at Bellagio. During construction on the second hotel tower, Bellagio lost electricity. Everything went dark. The outage continued for four days. The entire time I kept wondering what everyone was doing in the dark. I won’t say anything else on that except to point out writers' minds wander in those directions all the time. It's normal – I swear.

So, I wrote down some thoughts and the "what if's" in a small notebook and put the notebook aside. Approximately fourteen months later, my editor asked me for a single author anthology idea. The Bellagio blackout popped into my mind. From there I imagined guests who start out as strangers and become so much more – and Jackpot was born. Then, playing off my crush on Dave Lieberman from the Food Channel, I took the boyishly cute chef, made him a player and gave him a woman from corporate to spar with, and Player's Club came into being. For the final novella, I wanted the guy in charge of the place to find something more important than work to occupy his time. That idea led to the final novella in the anthology, Two of A Kind.

AR: Next year, your first single title will be released. How is writing full length novels different from the novellas? Do you want to continue to write both?

HelenKay: I enjoy writing both and hope to continue to be able to do so. The concerns are different. In single title, a sagging middle and flat plot were the enemies. In a novella, fitting it all in and making it full, rich and complete is the goal. My sense in writing a novella - one that stands alone and qualifies as more than a few minutes in the life of the characters – is that an author can really shine.

Then I wrote a single title...Let's just say the amount of work involved in both is extraordinary but rewarding.

AR: You work as a divorce attorney. Does that career have any impact on your writing?

HelenKay: People ask me all the time if I get ideas for my books from my work. As you might imagine, being a divorce attorney is one of the least romantic careers on the planet. You have to look a little harder to find a happy ending when you spend all day listening to people who once loved each other fight over the living room curtains. Very frustrating. Of course, seeing people at their worst, hearing about their difficult backgrounds and circumstances, does provide some insight into what makes people who they are. The information and knowledge builds backstories and explains motivations of my characters. Most of that never hits the page, but the connections are there in my mind.

AR: You are a reviewer on the website Paperback Reader. Does writing cut into your reading time? Do you find that you read more critically since you also write?

HelenKay: Reading does take time away from writing but, for me, reading is a way of staying up on trends, assessing style, seeing what works and doesn't and relaxing. At book deadline time, my reviews are few and partners Wendy Duren and Kassia Krozser pick up all of the slack. Thank goodness.

Writing does make me more critical of what I read. No question. I tend to do the "what would I have done here" game. Some writing makes me frustrated because it doesn’t seem to convey anything. Other writing leaves me in awe of the author's talent. Some books have a bit of both. Being able to pick those points out in other people's writing helps me to focus in when working on my own as I refine and increase my skills.

AR: Have you written all of your life? What inspired you to pick up the pen?

HelenKay: It's unfair to call what I did writing. I doodled. A wild imagination eventually makes you a liar if you don’t learn to focus it somewhere. Since I wanted friends, I put that focus into my doodles. Put my doodles into a series of small notebooks. Eventually, the doodles became actual writing – not good writing, but writing. In 1998, after "finding" the romance genre, I decided I could try to write a romance novel. The decision came not from an ego-driven belief that I could do better, but from a desire to give the joy I found in reading to others.

AR: What authors do you love to read? What authors inspire you? Who else gives you inspiration?

HelenKay: I read across genres. I've always been a mystery/suspense fan and have followed many authors from romance as they moved on, such as Sandra Brown and Tami Hoag. My old favorites there are early Michael Connelly works (think back to Concrete Blonde and before), Jonathan Kellerman (because he's the only one I could read while studying for the Bar Exam for some reason) and James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential still leave me somewhat breathless). The writer I most admire continues to be Kazuo Ishiguro. Brilliant isn't a word I throw around but it fits Ishiguro.

My favorite romance authors – well, there are so many. Jayne Ann Krentz, Linda Howard and Julie Garwood are all-time favorites. I love Amy Fetzer, Alison Kent, Lani Diane Rich, Meg Cabot, Jennifer Crusie, Pamela Clare, JR Ward, and a host of others too numerous to name.

Everyday things inspire me. It doesn’t take much. Having a wonderful husband to come home to (did I mention he cooks and cleans) helps as well.

AR: How has it felt to have readers reading your work, and knowing you've made reader fans?

HelenKay: Amazing. Really, I had no idea how wonderful it would feel to have people say they read something I wrote and liked it. Part of me was convinced my book would come out and no one but family would buy it. To know that is not the case is both exhilarating and humbling. I could not be more grateful and thank all of the readers who buy my books and those who have written to say such lovely things about my writing.

AR: Finally, what would you want to tell us about HelenKay Dimon?

HelenKay: That I love hearing from readers and other authors. I enjoy writing discussions and knowing what's happening in the industry. If people have questions or want to chat, I'd love for them to stop by my website www.helenkaydimon.com. And, of course, if they want to buy 40 or 5o copies of Viva Las Bad Boys! now that it's out, I wouldn't exactly complain...

Thanks for letting me stop in and talk.

HelenKay

Interviews Index > HelenKay Dimon (August 06)