The Romance Readers Connection is honored to welcome fast rising author Nalini Singh as one of our September Authors Of The Month. She is the author of six category romances and is now making her debut into the world of paranormal romance, and what a debut it is! She has been the finalist in many writing contest, and is a Walden Bookstore bestselling author. Her latest release SLAVE TO SENSATION is sure to win her more attention. Join me as I chat with this wonderful author.

 

Wendy: Welcome Ms. Singh to The Romance Readers Connection. We are glad to have you here. Please tell our readers new to you, a little about yourself.

 

 Nalini: Thanks for inviting me here, Wendy!

Okay, about me - I’m from New Zealand, but I was born on the tiny Pacific island of Fiji. Both countries are just so beautiful that I feel truly lucky to call them home. For the past three years however, I lived and worked in Japan. I lived in a small rural town, rode a bicycle everywhere and taught English to kids from littlies to teenagers. It was a fantastic experience, especially after I became a bit more fluent in the language. I have a lot of travel photos on my website so if anyone would like to see them, please drop by. I returned to NZ this month and am trying to settle back down into the Kiwi way of life.

What else? I sold my first book the day before my 25th birthday and that was just the most wonderful birthday present ever! I think I must’ve screamed the house down. I’ve been writing forever and to know that my books would be going out into the world was an amazing feeling. Four years on, I still feel that excitement with every release.

 

Wendy :  Ms. Singh let's get right to your latest release, SLAVE TO SENSATION, please tell our readers in your own words a little about this great book.

 

 Nalini: Slave to Sensation is set a little ways in the future, but it’s a future where telepaths exist uneasily alongside shapeshifters. The Psy are a powerful psychic race who condition their young to feel nothing, not rage, not anger and definitely not love. They’re very cold, icy in their perfection. In comparison, the Changelings are shapeshifters who are as animal as they are human, craving touch and addicted to sensation.

Usually the two races stay apart, but when a serial killer starts targeting Changeling women, the two worlds collide. Lucas is the alpha of a pack that’s lost a woman and Sascha is a powerful Psy who might know the killer’s identity. The book is about their unusual and dangerous courtship – because if Sascha feels and is found out, she’ll be sentenced to a psychic brainwipe, her mind destroyed.

 

Wendy: SLAVE TO SENSATION is the first of a series about these characters; can you give us any ideas on what the future books will entail and who will get their own stories?

 

 Nalini :The second book – Visions of Heat – is about Vaughn, one of the DarkRiver sentinels, and Faith NightStar, an F-Psy (foreseer) of considerable power. This book was just amazing to write because Faith has been raised in near isolation and she’s about as perfect a Psy as you can get. And Vaughn, wow, he burned up the page! He’s seriously uncontrollable, far closer to his animal than others of his kind, and the tension between him and Faith is explosive from their first meeting.

Book 3 – Caressed By Ice – will feature a Psy hero, which I think will likely surprise people. He’s giving me a lot of trouble though! He’s so alpha and so arrogantly Psy, but very interesting to write. There’s an intense darkness to him that I think will give this book a dangerous edge.

There will be a lot more stories because I adore these characters and this world. But unlike many authors I don’t plan out my books several books in advance. I like my books to “grow” from one to the other, so that it’s a natural progression. For example, now that I’m writing Caressed by Ice, I know who book 4 will be about. Another thing that’s really important to me is that I tell readers something new about the world with each book, making the journey an exciting discovery.

 

Wendy: SLAVE TO SENSATION is a paranormal futuristic romance that reads like a contemporary in that I forget it was set in the future. Did you plan this?

Nalini: Yes, not in detail, but I didn’t want it to be so obviously futuristic that people felt pulled out of the story by having to think about how things looked and worked. I thought the book would have more power that way – we can all imagine the future in Slave to Sensation and I think that hint of realism makes it more emotionally involving.

 

Wendy: The main characters in SLAVE TO SENSATION are not human. Did you find it at all hard to keep which characters where, what and how they related to the story correct while writing, or do you have a detailed description of each character you can look over?

 

Nalini: The funny thing with STS was that I just knew the people and the world from the word go. I knew who they were, what they looked like, their personalities, everything. They popped into my head like friends I’d known a lifetime. So I had no problem keeping them all straight. But after I wrote STS, I made a very careful set of notes, because I had to ensure that things stayed consistent in Visions of Heat. As a reader myself, I know how frustrating it is to find continuity errors in a series book. So now I have this growing folder organized by characters, location and timeline, to name a few categories. And I have a lot of information in there about the PsyNet in particular because the rules of that also have to follow a logical pattern.

 

Wendy: As a lover of the hero Lucas Hunter of  SLAVE TO SENSATION, I certainly see him as an alpha, do you find it easier to write about this type of hero over any other type?

 

Nalini: Yes! I adore writing alpha heroes – there’s a huge room for conflict with these dominant men and the strong heroines I pair them with. Alphas like to do things their way and fireworks erupt when they meet a woman who doesn’t agree with them. My alphas also tend to be very protective and possessive, which are great traits when coupled with the ability to love deeply. They’re hard on the outside, but for the women they love, these men will do anything—give up their hearts, their lives, and their very souls.

 

Wendy: When you are writing do you have an image of your hero in mind, either a movie star or model or someone you know, or is it purely a fictional image you create within yourself?

 

Nalini: A fictional image. I tend to find that there’s too much baggage attached to most movie stars or models for me to use them for inspiration. Each character is completely a new being and they usually come alive in my mind in a sudden burst.

 

Wendy: Your previous releases are category romances; did you find it a challenge to write this single title paranormal romance?

 

Nalini: Slave to Sensation flowed out of me like someone had turned on a giant tap. I wrote the first draft in three weeks (around my job). I simply couldn’t stop writing, nor did I want to, I was so overwhelmed with the possibilities of the story, so passionate about the hero and heroine. It was just the most amazing ride and I would do it over again in a heartbeat.

 

Wendy: Where did the idea for this story and series come from?

 

Nalini: I’ve always been interested in extrasensory powers so I think that fed into it—I was constantly picking up information on the topic and musing it over—but I don’t have one definitive moment I can point to that began Slave to Sensation. One day, I just knew where to start. And that was it. I put pen to paper and wrote.

 

Wendy: Ms. Singh can you tell us about your writing routine? Do you have a set place and time to write? Do you write to music or must it be all silent?

 

Nalini: I tend to write in blocks of time, ie. a few hours at a stretch, but I don’t have a set time of day and I can write just about anywhere – I’ve written at bus stops, doctor’s offices, in trains and on airplanes. I write long-hand in a notebook, and then transfer those pages onto the computer. It sounds like it would double my work but I actually write faster that way. I like music when I’m doing the first draft, but I prefer silence when editing as that seems to use a more analytical part of my brain.

 

Wendy: As an author who lives outside the United States, do you feel that hinders your ability to connect with your readers? What are the challenges you face as an author who does not live in the US with publication and promotion of your work?

 

Nalini: With the internet, a lot of the barriers faced by non-US authors have been removed. I’m active online and connect with a lot of my readers via email and my blog. But I have a harder time connecting with readers who might not use the internet so much, as I can’t do book signings etc. on a regular basis. But having said that, I think the best thing to do for promotion is to write a good book – readers talk to each other if they like a book. I really believe good word-of-mouth is the best promotion.

 

Wendy: Ms. Singh you have worked in a lot of different fields and jobs, what one job was the most fun? What one was the worst? And what would you be doing now if you could no longer write?

 

Nalini: Writing is definitely the most fun! It allows me to stretch my mental muscles and let my imagine run wild. It’s almost like getting paid for daydreaming! As for the worst, I don’t think any of my jobs deserve that classification. Some fit me better than others, but on the whole, they were all pretty good (especially the job in the candy factory :-) ).If I could no longer write? The idea gives me the shivers. I can’t imagine my life without writing. What I’d probably do is retreat into books and feed my imagination until the cylinders started firing again. There’s no better cure!

 

Wendy: Do you find your previous jobs working their way into your writing?

 

Nalini: Yes, they do, sometimes without my noticing. For example tiny Japanese references crept into Slave to Sensation, and that was all from living and working in Japan . Another example is my hero in Secrets In the Marriage Bed – he was a corporate lawyer, which was an environment I worked in for two years. Sometimes it’s not the job itself that works itself in, but other experiences that accompanied it. For example, my heroine, Taylor, in Awaken to Pleasure was an executive secretary. I didn’t do that work myself but I was surrounded by these smart, savvy women at the law firm. I saw the kind of work they did, noted the different kinds of relationships they had with the partners they worked for. So in writing Taylor, I didn’t have to do any extra research on her area of expertise.

 

Wendy: Ms. Singh how do you go about researching for your work and selecting the location of your novels?

 

Nalini: I tend to write rough drafts with very basic research, then go back in and fill in the gaps. I think that lessens the possibility of overloading the reader with research that’s not necessary to move the plot forward. So I prefer to do very focused research, finding out exactly what I need for each particular part of the book. But having said that, I often end up with in-depth knowledge on the topic, because I like to know what I’m writing about. A lot of that won’t make it into the book but it’s important for me as a writer that I put down correct information.

For my third book, Awaken the Senses, I learned about winemaking, from the condition of the soil to the yeast used in fermentation. My hero was a winemaker so he’d know that stuff. From knowing the process from A to Z, I was able to texture the book with small touches of the winemaking world. However because the research went in after the book was written in rough draft, the story remained focused on the relationship, rather than being overshadowed by reams of data about the wood used in wine barrels and how bottling plants work!

In terms of locations, some of them just seem to ‘fit’ the book. I created a fictional desert country for my very first book, but that was necessary because what I was writing was a kind of adult fairytale, and for that, you need a prince and a fairytale kingdom. Sometimes the characters tell me where they’re from – Marc from Craving Beauty was always from Louisiana , not negotiable! When I wrote Slave to Sensation, I immediately knew that California as a state would be perfect because of the amount of open space it has. More specifically, San Francisco as a city is just so energetic and interesting; with so many different kinds of people as well as places that it was my first choice of setting.

 

Wendy:  What are your feelings on the self promotion side of the writer's life? Do you enjoy self promoting, have a website, etc or do you find that part of things harder than writing itself?

 

Nalini: I’m not a natural self-promoter, so yes, I do find it more difficult than writing. What I do enjoy is interacting with readers, so keeping up my blog or being on message boards isn’t hard. I do have a website (www.nalinisingh.com), which I keep up to date because I think it’s a good service to provide for readers who come looking for more information on my books. The hardest thing about promotion is the time it sucks up. If it comes down to the wire, I always choose to write than promote. Because you have to have a book in the first place in order to promote it.

 

Wendy:  When you are not writing or working on your books or promotion, what do you like to do?

 

Nalini: I love reading. I’m a total bookworm. Aside from that, I like meeting up with my friends, and spending quality time eating chocolate. It’s a hobby *g*. Having grown up in the Pacific, I also love anything to do with the sea, from swimming to kayaking to walks on the beach.

 

Wendy:   What advice would you have for an aspiring author?

 

Nalini: Read. All writers are readers. And then write. Don’t say you’ll write one day. Do it today. Do it everyday, even if it’s just a little bit. And never ever disparage your aspirations or your work – believe in yourself and your imagination. But mostly, have passion for whatever it is that you’ve chosen to write about.

 

Wendy: What does the future hold for you, your work, and the upcoming releases connected to SLAVE TO SENSATION?

 

Nalini: The future holds lots and lots of books and writing! I’ll be concentrating very much on the writing side of my life from now on, which will hopefully translate into more releases per year. More specifically, Visions of Heat has already been handed in, and I’m currently working on Caressed by Ice (and having a blast). Over the course of writing it, I’ve met both a new villain and a deliciously intriguing new male who could end up being a hero. But not just yet. Some of these men aren’t ready for their women yet.

 

Wendy: Ms. Singh I'd like to thank you for taking the time to talk with us at TRRC, if you have any thing you'd like our readers to know that I did not cover please talk with us now. It's been a pleasure reading your work and getting to chat with you.

 

Nalini: Thank you Wendy. I’ve enjoyed this interview. If your readers have any more questions for me, I’d be happy to answer them via email or on my blog.

 

Ms. Singh is the author of category romances as well as this latest paranormal release. Her books include :

 

BERKLEY RELEASES:

Visions of Heat (Coming May 07)

Slave To Sensation (Coming September 06) ISBN: 0425212866

SILHOUETTE DESIRE:

Bound By Marriage (Coming February 07)

Secrets In The Marriage Bed (March 06) 

Craving Beauty (July 05)
Awaken The Senses (May 05)
Awaken To Pleasure (August 2004)
Desert Warrior (August 2003)

 

For more information on Nalini Singh and her works be sure to check out her website at www.nalinisingh.com.