by Eileen Putman

Paper clips and immortal Scottish warriors helped put this author on the bestsellers lists...

Eileen Putman: Your Highlander books feature Celtic heroes and modern-day heroines brought together by time travel. Hmmm...Scottish warriors, immortals with perhaps a certain resemblance to Adrian Paul. Did the '90s TV series figure into your inspiration?

Karen Marie Moning: Who doesn't love Connor and Duncan MacLeod? Writers tend to gather bits of inspiration from many places and Highlander , the movie, was undoubtedly one of them. I loved the sweeping shots of the majestic Scottish landscapes, the fierce clan loyalty and brutality, the idea of living and loving forever. "Highlander," the series, expounded on a great theme.

EP: Was that a yes or a no?

KMM: Sorry I wasn't clear. I love "Highlander," the series, and always find Duncan MacLeod inspirational! But I already had my fictional world set by the time I started watching it. Highlander , the movie, figured into my inspiration.

EP: Judging by the best-seller lists, you're positioned not in a niche genre, but also appeal to readers of fantasy, historicals, and contemporaries. What do you think accounts for the crossover success?

KMM: I hope at the basis of it all a good story. I think a truly entertaining tale told with integrity and passion appeals to readers across the board.

EP: Just to think more deeply about this- what is it about our world today that makes us want to believe in stories with ancient immortals, crusading knights and DaVinci Code -like secrets?

KMM: Technology has changed our world drastically in the past hundred years. I'm a big believer in biology. You can take the man out of the cave, but you can't take the caveman out of the man. It comes out somewhere.

In a world where the biggest battle a man might fight on a given day is over the closest parking space to the mall entrance, people are committing atrocious crimes, and we need our heroes. And we find them. In our military, in our firefighters, in our police officers-in every place men and women protect and defend, whether as a profession or as a calling.

In the face of our ever-expanding global problems, never have we needed more to believe in crusading knights, never have we searched for more purpose, truth, and emotional justice. It's a crazy world and sometimes it take a good fiction to make sense of it.

EP: You say you usually have a broad idea of your story, but that you don't do a lot of pre-planning and outlining before you write. Does that result in false starts or losing your way as you write?

KMM: No, because my "broad idea" contains all the primary elements of the story.   When I sit down to begin a Highlander novel, I know who the main players are, what their mission is, what raison d'etre drives them (quite opposite from their   mission), approximately where their journey will take them, where I want them to end up and why.   And that's all I need to know.

Joss Whedon (creator of "Buffy," "Angel") said something about emotion guiding the plot, not plot forcing emotion and I agree. I know the basic direction the plot will take, but if the emotional evolution of my characters demands a different turn, I take the unexpected turn without hesitation.

That being said, I have to retract the whole "broad idea" thing where my new Fever series is concerned. Unlike my Highlander novels, my Fever series is plotted all the way to the end. I know exactly where each book goes, exactly what happens, and exactly where the series ends. This story exists already in its entirety, emotionally true to itself, so I foresee only very minor changes as I write.

All of the preceding being said (LOL, as if my answer hasn't contradicted itself enough), twice now I've thrown away the first half of a book and started over because I wasn't happy with it and thought I could do better. I guess the simple answer to this question is that each story demands its own way of writing it,

EP: How did you first get published?

KMM: By dint of a shortage of paper clips. (I learned this story much later from my first editor.) After trying my hand at four romance novels (two completed, two a little more then halfway done), Deidre Knight of the Knight Agency offered to represent my fifth, Beyond the Highland Mist . She submitted to several publishers, including Bantam Dell.

Unfortunately, my submission to Bantam Dell was addressed to an editor who had left the company, and was ultimately destined for the dreaded slush pile. But one Friday night, as Lisa Stone, assistant to Maggie Crawford, was getting ready to leave for the weekend, she grabbed five submissions to take home with her to read. She needed paper clips and was out, so she went down the hall to raid the ex-employee's desk. She put her stack of submissions on top of the ex-editor's stack. Serendipitously, Beyond the Highland Mist happened to be on top of that stack and clung tenaciously to the bottom of Lisa's when she picked them back up again!

Lisa told me a year or so later that when she finished the five she's chosen and saw the sixth that wasn't hers, she didn't plan to read it. But since nothing good was on TV that night, she gave it a try. And so Beyond the Highland Mist was published-all by dint of a shortage of paper clips and lousy Friday night TV.

EP: What's the state of the fantasy market these days? Any advice to pre-published authors looking to break in there?

KMM: Hot, hot, hot! I think the more nitty-gritty the news gets, the more wide open the fantasy market is, and I don't see the news getting any gentler or more wholesome anytime soon.

I don't get the concept of trying to break into a trend or broadening midlist appeal; I'm a big believer in doing what your heart needs to do, My advice to pre-published authors is the same as it is to midlist: Write what you love. Write what fascinates you. Write what you feel passionate about. Write for the joy, but know that it's a grueling job much of the time. Know there will be   moments you'll hate writing every bit as much as you love it. And I'm sure this has been said a thousand times by wiser folks than I: Keep your butt in the chair. Finish the book.

EP: What's your writing routine? Do you work out of a home office, have any daily or weekly page goals, etc? How many books can you write in a year?

KMM: When I'm in a book, I force myself to get up at 4:30 in the morning, go down to my study, drink just enough coffee to make me capable of typing but not enough to wake me up too much, because in the soft blur of half dreaming sub-conscious is where I find the best ideas and hear the clearest voices.

I'll usually write until about 11 or so, but that's not all writing time. Some of it is staring into space. Then editing when the rush of words is over. Evaluating. Seeing if it's worth keeping. Then I break for awhile and go back at it around 1 or 2 until whenever. Rarely do I place word goals upon myself because it's not about the number of words to me, it's the quality. I've written 5,000 words in a day before and ended up throwing it all away,

EP: How do you deal with the discouragement that comes from throwing away a day's (week's, month's, etc.) work?

KMM: The first few times threw me into a serious funk. But then I began to see a pattern: Every time I discarded a scene or a few chapters and tried again-it turned out better. I believe when I toss a scene or section of a book it's because something in my gut is saying, "this isn't right, this isn't what you really mean" or "you're writing with half a brain because you're tired" or "you're too worried about your deadline to completely lose yourself in the story." Never make that mistake. I'm in Douglas Adam's camp: he said the thing he loved most about deadlines was the whooshing sound they made when they passed him by. When something tells me what I've written isn't the way it's supposed to be, I've learned from experience to trust myself. Before I turn in a book, I have to be happy with it, and I have to do whatever it takes to get there. How many books a year? I seem to average one a year but that's probably going to change and readers will see more from me. I've finally stopped moving (five times in the last five years) and settled into a beautiful home at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and I don't plan any more moves for awhile.

EP: You've acknowledged being somewhat moody: "If I write my scorpio personality into a heroine, the story would be too moody to market as romance." Moods, it seems to me, can be the bane of a writer's existence, especially as we typically work in solitude. How does this affect your writing?

KMM: It affects my writing in every possible way. It's what drives me. It's what hampers me. It's what makes writing so exhilarating and so awful. I have my husband to thank for helping with the "moody factor" because he's made my writing so much less solitary. He loves to read and talk books, and gets very involved in mine; it's a joy to have someone to share the crafting of my tale with.

EP: What's next for you?

KMM: Darkfever, the first in my new Fever series, is slated for a Halloween release, and is something a little different for me, while remaining purely KMM. I haven't changed my voice, just my method of delivery. It's first person and the heroine, MacKayla Lane, has five books coming up (Bloodfever is next, currently scheduled for Aug '07 release). Although the Fever series is a romance and has plenty of steamy stuff to offer, Darkfever , as a stand-alone, is not your standard romance novel fare. I'm not stepping away from the romance genre. It's very much the heart of the Fever series-which, by the way, introduces a new MacKeltar as well as offering a new perspective of several MacKeltars you've met before. The Fever series give an alternate view of the world I built in the Highlander series, and eventually the two collide.