Lizabeth Scott Interview Published on: 05, Feb 2019

Humm, that’s a good question. I supposed the freedom of space and the innocence of the times.We lived on a 200-acre farm so to me, that was my playground. There was a fish pond and a creek and forests to explore. Even at a young age it wasn’t unusual for me to go outside in the morning to play and not return till dark. I suppose my favorite activity was searching for arrowheads. My dad and I often found them in the fields. I think I have a few dozen in my collection.

I learned early that reading could take me anywhere I wanted. The school book fair was always a special time because I could get new books, and most often they were about horses. A school assignment in fourth grade was the first time I remember writing an actual story. And yes, it was about horses.

In my early teens I discovered contemporary romance books at our small-town public library. Emily Loring was the authors name. I read and re-read every book our library had of hers, which wasn’t very many. My need for more had me pulling out my notebook and trying to write my own. I found an endless supply in my mind. I loved writing, but in my world, being an author wasn’t even an option. I’d certainly never heard of anyone doing that. After college I married my high school sweetheart, and we had two incredible children. It wasn’t until our children were out on their own that I pulled my love for writing back out at the prompting of a friend I’d made on Facebook. She just happened to be one of my author crushes. Elizabeth Lennox. She encouraged me to try again. I independently published my first book in April 2014.

I have so many favorite authors, too many to name them all, but here are the ones I have waiting on my iPad to read: Elizabeth Lennox, Jeannette Winters, Sawyer Bennett, Meghan March, Virna DePaul, Vi Keeland, Cora Seton, Vivian Arend, J.S. Scott, Marquita Valentine, Melody Anne, Chelle Bliss, Melissa Foster, Nana Malone, J.A. Huss, Vanessa Vale, Christina Tetreault, Jasinda Wilder… As you can see my TBR is lengthy.

Realistic characters that I would be friends with who face the same struggles as everyone else. I want my readers to feel a connection with the characters and the settings I take them on during the journey of finding that HEA.

The most challenging thing about writing a series is keeping people, places, and timelines straight. I make notes as I write so I can cross reference as needed but I’ll be honest, I still get confused sometimes. I have remarkable editors and a BETA reader team that is phenomenal in keeping me straight.

I learned while writing this series that I don’t really enjoy writing in first person. As an author I wanted to test my writing fingers and try it. I also wanted this series to be a more “adult” series. I discovered that my lane isn’t on the wild side. I’m still trying to find out where I fit.

Oh gosh, thank you! I love that book. Did you know that whole story was a surprise to me? Ki and Mari are the couple in my very first book. Actually, the rest of that series was a surprise too! I had no idea after I wrote Sweet Surrender if I could write another one.

In Sweet Temptation, the fifth and at the time last book of that series, I wanted to give readers a treat by catching them up on each of the previous couples. When I started writing Mari’s and Ki’s brief summation, it kept getting longer and longer. Then it turned into two books, The King’s Sweet Revenge and The Queen’s Sweet Return. As a reader I just hate cliffhangers so after much debate and a bunch of people telling me I should release the two books separately, I listened to my heart and combined them into one book and I titled it Sweet Destiny.

And back to your original question, writing about a royal family I think lends itself to a certain historic flavor. Moving the historic aspect into the modern world made me think of how those might have evolved over the centuries. But basically, I just wrote what I saw in my mind. My characters always drive the story.

Ahhh, good one. Sweet Royal Beginnings was actually a back up book. LOL. What I mean is after publishing Sweet Surrender I was shocked readers weren’t rushing to download! I was so naive and clueless. I was finishing up Sweet Denial, the second book of the series and working on the third book, Sweet Seduction. Yes, I discovered I could multi-task. I decided I needed something I could offer for free to give readers a taste of my writing and hopefully an interest into reading the rest of the series. So I stopped the other books and wrote Sweet Royal Beginnings, the story about Ki’s parents.

When I begin a book, I have a general idea of what I would like the book to be like. But first I have to “meet” the characters. As I begin writing they take on their own personalities, quirks, and problems. From there I throw things at them and they just react. So as strange as it may sound, they tell me about themselves.

I write because I breathe. Whether I’m good at it or not is subjective. When my career changed to writing fulltime in 2016 I felt like I’d finally found what I was supposed to be doing. I can’t imagine a day without writing something.

If writing isn’t your passion then no, I don’t believe you’d be happy because then it would be a job. I’m going to tell you the truth. Being a writer is hard and stressful work. Deadlines, editing, word count, promotions, promotions, promotions can become difficult to navigate. Working alone is even a hard thing to do. I’m so thankful that I can wake up in the morning and walk into my home office and start my day. But that also has it down side. I miss talking to people and interacting on a daily basis. My FB friends have become my besties.

My favorite couple has to be my first, Mari and Ki. And I don’t think I could write about quirky heroines without a strong alpha thrown in the mix, one just goes with the other.

I get asked this all the time by friends who know about my writing. I don’t understand why they don’t understand I write “fiction.” My husband just smiles and ignores the teasing by our friends and family. But my husband has never read one of my books so he really has no idea what’s in them. Let’s not tell him…okay?

I love to make simple jewelry. I even create Tea Charms that were mentioned in Mastermind. In fact, the whole tea tag slippage is a personal problem I’m always had. You’d have to read the book to understand. I gifted some as giveaways during release week. But I also crochet and knit. Well, I love to pick out a pattern, buy the luscious yarn, start the project, and then stick everything in a bag and place it on the shelf with my other “projects.”

Elizabeth Lennox is the reason I started writing again. From a casual Facebook post to telling her how much I admired her writing grew a friendship. She suggested I try writing a paragraph.

The Billionaires of White Oaks Series is complete with the January 18 th release of Hothead: The Impatient Doctor. However, there is a slide over couple from this series into my next series, Love in Transit. The first book of this new series will be out April 5 th , Ticket to Forever. Which is available for preorder

I love to write children’s characters. But no, not my own.

Time management, make a schedule and stick to it. Write every day. It doesn’t have to be for long but I’ve found if I skip a day for administration or family things it takes a while to get my pace back. And when you get stuck…just write something until you get unstuck. Then go back and fix it.

When writing, do you tend to give more importance to dialogue or descriptions? I started this writing journey not knowing a single thing. I had no idea what I was doing or how to do it. All I knew was that these stories kept flowing from my fingers. All the other stuff, covers, editors, social media, advertising, promoting, etc. was foreign to me. I struggled and researched, and asked questions and found incredible giving experienced authors along the way that took the time to give me a of their knowledge. I make plenty of mistakes and miscalculations but always in the end it circles back to writing what I love. To me, dialogue and descriptions are both super important in telling a story that readers can connect to.

I regret that I didn’t have the confidence to try writing as a career years ago. But honestly, it probably wasn’t my time yet. I think the Universe put Elizabeth Lennox in my path to nudge me toward the next fork in my road.