Harvest Tidings Spotlight on Rowena Cherry

November 2004

Sharyn: Rowena, thanks for joining me. After reading Forced Mate, I knew I would enjoy this interview. Now I have to ask, did you always want to be a writer?

Rowena: Thank you so much for this wonderful opportunity, and for the compliment. Did I always want to be a writer? No.

When I was thirteen and madly keen on debating, I wanted to be a lawyer--a barrister--but a certain proficiency in Latin was required and my Latin was not very good. And, in those days, the lady lawyers one heard about seemed to get all the rape cases, and I blushed easily in those days.

Considering that I now write about 30 linear foot penises on hillsides, that is quite ironic, isn't it?

When I was at Cambridge University I would have liked to have stayed on, been an academic, and lived in a thatched cottage of yellow Cotswold stone overgrown with roses. I could have swanned around Cambridge in a Don's gown forever (looking like Professor McGonagall, no doubt), revelling in the University library, and trying to dream up original theories about Shakespeare...but I did not have the funds for a fifth year.

I only took myself seriously as a possible writer after an automotive magazine publisher, who is a friend of my husband's, told me that I ought to Write.

Sharyn: I know many people believe the life of a writer is an easy one. They think "how hard can it be to write a book?". Has your journey to completing a novel and then getting it published been easy?

Rowena: Easy, no! My first copyright for Forced Mate goes back to 1995, but that was pretty much a 600 page trilogy in the making. (Which, by the way, does not mean that writing the sequel is simply a matter of cobbling all my out-takes together!)

Looking back, I think my route could have been more direct.

I was right to take my attorney's advice not to sell my novel to the first editor who offered me a contract back in 1994, since that contract demanded too much, including some up front financial investment from me.

That experience jaded me--on the other hand, the fact that I would have been required to produce my own cover caused me to get in touch with Mitchel Gray whose fabulous photo of Matt Twiggs eventually ended up on the cover of my NBI edition of Forced Mate.

That cover can be seen on www.rowenacherry.com , by the way.

I missed a couple of opportunities to work with e-publishers, partly because I was concerned about the nascent e-publishing business, and partly because an acquiring editor at a very major house seemed to love my writing on the basis of a contest I won, and she requested the whole manuscript.

Unfortunately, that editor left the business without getting back to me on my manuscript, and I waited politely for a year before I realized that I needed to submit elsewhere. I would not have had that problem, if I'd worked with the agent who loved my work at the time, but I was also nervous of agents!

As you can see, I made quite a lot of mistakes. But, I also made a lot of wonderful contacts and very good friends, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Sharyn: Touring your website, which is beautiful, I noticed you've not only lived in amazing places, but you've traveled a lot as well. Have your life experiences influenced your writing?

Rowena: Thank you. Yes, I have both lived in amazing places, and visited wonderful locations. While I wouldn't say they necessarily influence my writing, because I see my focus as one on character rather than milieu or memoir, I would agree that my memories are a great resource.

For instance, I've never been abducted by an alien, but I was once shown a series of the most incredible bedroom suites aboard a huge luxury yacht and asked by the yacht-owner's man-of-affaires whether I'd like to share one of them. I declined.

However, I did perceive a certain sense of danger at the time, and I feel that the possibilities.... the What Ifs.... may help me to write convincingly.

I've been privileged to be in the right places at the right times to observe some of the world's most interesting types of people from rockstars to royalty. As one might say on one of the Historical Romance readers' loops, I've lurked behind some great potted plants.

So, yes, I've got lots of amazing locations in my memory. And scenes of luxury and danger. And artifacts, such as Henry VIII's penis armor, which I saw at an impressionable age in the Tower Of London.

And memories of visceral feelings.

My husband and I rode in one of the corporate pace cars at the 1993 Indy 500. Chuck Yeager was in the official pace car ahead of us. Ari Luyendyk was in the race car directly behind our Corvette (or whatever marque our pace car was).

Fabio was there that year. He said Hello to me, up by the Hullman hospitality suite. I made notes of exactly how the butterflies in my stomach felt, and used those notes when writing the scene where Princess Martia-Djulia meets the battle-scarred and sexy Commander Jason.

And, of course, my personal interests come into my novels. I play chess. Perhaps the first celebrity I ever met was the late Chess grandmaster and President of the World Chess Federation, Max Euwe, who came to Guernsey to play in an exhibition simultaneous chess match against twenty-seven representatives.

I was my school's champion, so I was one of the two children among the twenty-seven. I lasted for three hours and was one of the last people to be defeated. That was because I was not playing a logical, classical game.

Another uncommon interest which I may use again in one of my sequels is my interest in dowsing, which I developed after meeting a fascinating man while I was playing chess with the wife of the man who directed the Flash Gordon movie (the one with Timothy Dalton as Prince Barin).

I won't go on.... but my writing might be compared to a bouillabaisse (an exotic fish stew) containing all manner of ingredients.

Sharyn: Forced Mate, your first published title. Where did you get the idea?

Rowena: The idea for the title?

I was thirteen when my mother shared a Georgette Heyer romance with me. It was These Old Shades, and I think the book influenced me profoundly... especially in my idea of what a good hero should be like.

These Old Shades had a title for every chapter. I rather liked the idea. So when I started Forced Mate, I gave every chapter a title, too. Chapter One was "English Opening Gambit" and every chapter was named after either a classical chess position or move or chessman.

Eventually I decided that this used up too much precious word-count, and was a waste of great titles for future novels.

Forced Mate was--in my mind--the obvious title for a cosmic abduction/royal love triangle romance because it is Pandolfini's name for an end game position where two Kings race to make a pawn their Queen.

When I first started entering Romance Writers of America contests, "Mate" was not a popular part of a title. Dale Ketchum had "First Mate" but I can't think of others.

In fact, after I found myself suffering from "This must be a bodice ripper" type prejudice from a few contest judges on account of my clever title, I put a bit of a joke about the term into the Earthling mercenary Grievous's mouth:

The human cupped his hands, lit Tarrant-Arragon's cigarette, and took a long draw on his own before speaking again.

"This mating talk of yours, Sir. You might try varying your vocab a bit. For one thing, the little miss may not share your notion of what 'mating' means. It's a strong word. We Earthlings tend to associate 'mating' with, er, animal activity. Ladies like a fellow to use the socially correct terminology, even though they know it all amounts to the same thing. Sir, if you mean marriage, say 'marriage'."

Tarrant-Arragon raised an eyebrow.

"You say, you told her, Sir? This masterful stuff is all very well, but most ladies feel they've a right to be asked properly, begged even. Ladies are funny about the little niceties."

Tarrant-Arragon was not accustomed to such impertinence. He snarled, "Do you presume to advise me how to seduce my mate?"

As for where I got the idea for the plot of Forced Mate, as one of my dear and very influential lawyer acquaintances would snap: "Asked and answered."

Except, maybe I haven't mentioned that I've had quite a lot to do with lawyers over the last twelve years, mostly in my former capacity (I'm too busy for that much community service now) as a resident's association president.

My liking for lawyers--or at least for their wit and intelligence and deadly way with words--is why I made Prince Tarrant-Arragon a lawyer in addition to all his other responsibilities. So, there are quite a few legal puns and references in Forced Mate, too.

Sharyn: Forgive me, but I have to ask, do you play chess? Did the idea of using chess metaphors come before or after you titled the book? I have to admit the use of chess moves makes Forced Mate that much more interesting, not to mention makes chess seem a bit more intriguing.

Rowena: "Asked and answered!" Or almost. The chess titles and metaphors came first, really, and I played with many permutations of Forced Mate. It was perhaps too esoteric to use two exclamation points--which in chess indicates a particularly good move. At one point I tried "Forced Mate Or The Machiavellian Match" .

And yes, I do play chess. I'm not as good as I used to be, because I don't play as much. But, I do teach chess to six year olds one morning a week.

Sharyn: Six year olds? That can be fun or challenging depending on your point of view. In job as a reviewer, I've read plenty of futuristic/science fiction romances with alpha heroes and all too often their arrogant, I'm-always-right attitude irritates me to the point, I can't enjoy the story. Not so with Tarrant-Arragon. **smiles** You created a very delicious hero. How difficult was it to write such an alpha male who also had to be understanding and willing to work with his heroine? Considering the society he came from, it couldn't be very easy.

Rowena: Thank you for your kind words. I think the short answer is that he is a very intelligent male, a free-thinker, and he is incredibly curious. He is so arrogant that he forms his own opinions and theories about everything--even down to the effect of adrenaline on breast milk. He doesn't pay much attention to the experts in his society, because he knows that they tend to tell him what they think he wants to hear. And he *gets it* that if you repeat failed behavior, you cannot expect a successful outcome.

Sharyn: Another aspect of Forced Mate I highly enjoyed, (in addition to the very cute reference to A.A. Milne) was the world-building. Was it difficult to create? Did you ever hit a point in the storyline where you realized what you'd plotted went against the laws of your world?

Rowena: The world building was interesting, and fascinating but I am not a scientist. I had to draw diagrams and refer to them constantly to remind myself how the the Tigron solar system worked, how the daytime eclipses would affect the planet etc.

The one major change (and it was not so difficult to make, thanks to the wonders of the Find function) was that originally Tigron's sun was a Cepheid Variable, until further research told me that a Cepheid Variable could not be old enough for Tarrant-Arragon's ancient world, even though it's unreliability could have been a great underlying reason why his ancestors had been explorers and colonizers.

Where I wanted to take liberties, I provided explanations. Although he lives on a higher gravity world than Earth, Tarrant-Arragon is not built like Shrek because he and his kind spend a lot of time lying down... for instance. And, they make advanced use of magnets.

Sharyn: Perusing your website, I noticed your contest... very interesting and different. Would you mind telling the readers a bit about it?

Rowena: Thank you for asking. Yes, I'd love to tell your readers about it.

The hero of the sequel, Prince Djetthro-Jason has a tattoo on his penis. It is a bioluminescent tattoo, which means it might glow in the dark, or under certain conditions of stimulus. This tattoo was not mentioned in Forced Mate, and is not described in Forced Mate. However, if a guy has a tattoo done, it probably reflects something about his sense of humor, or his interests, or his heritage. We can assume that some of Prince Djetthro-Jason's lovers have been privileged to see it, and that could be a real problem.

I am asking readers to write in what they think the tattoo ought to be, and I will use the idea that interests me most in the sequel, and I will thank the creator of the winning idea in the acknowledgements page of the sequel.

There is a Bioluminescent Tattoo contest button on my home page at www.rowenacherry.com. Click on that, and it will take you to a preamble page. Click on the word (I think it is Click Here) and you will find the downloadable, printable rules, entry form, waiver etc.

I am sorry about all the clicking. I have to distance the word PENIS from the search engines, or I am going to attract visitors who have absolutely no interest in a Love Spell novel. I really do not want to disappoint anyone!

Sharyn: I gather from the contest you are planning at least one sequel to Forced Mate. Do you think there might be more than one? I know I would love to see Djarrhett in a story of his own.

Rowena: I'd love to write Djarrhett's story, and you are not the first to take a fancy to 'Rhett. I am fortunate to have developed a much more elaborate family tree than is published in the front matter of the novels. (By the way, I've noticed a few printer's errors in the NBI version of the family tree. Helispeta is the second--not first--wife of Djohn-Kronos.Also, Tarragonia-Marietta and Djavena are wives--not children--.)

Sharyn: Now that I've picked your brain, made you think, how about a bit of fun? Favorite time period?

Rowena: English Tudor from an academic perspective, but I wouldn't have wanted to live then. Dangerous times, especially if the King took a fancy to you. As for those Knights in shining armor at jousts, I can't help thinking about their woodlouse-like armored feet, which must have smelled dreadful.... not to mention King Henry VIII's penis armor which I saw in the Tower of London when I was at an impressionable age.

And, it is a plot point and inspiration to Tarrant-Arragon in Forced Mate.

Regency from a romance-reading perspective, but even if I could choose my social status and wealth, I don't think I'd want to live then either.

My problem is, I like toilets that work (of course, that wouldn't rule out ancient Crete) but I also love air conditioning and all the modern conveniences.

Sharyn: Same here, but of course, living in the deep South, air conditioning is a must. The one place (past, present, future, whatever) you would visit if given the opportunity?

Rowena: Even for a visit, I'd want to take my husband and my daughter, and that would cramp my style a lot, because I'd have to think about their health and well being.

Presumably the usual sci-fi rules would apply, and I would not be able to go back in time to change history, prevent a tragedy, nip an atrocity in the bud, or make myself a fortune?

Nevertheless, I'd take lots of money, and a tome of herbal remedies. If I were going anywhere in the past, I'd want to be sure I was in the orders-giving class. I do not like being asked to follow orders.

My husband thinks he'd like to see "The Future". I'm concerned that the future might be terribly polluted. Already there's hardly anything that is truly safe to eat.

So? All things considered, I think I'd like to visit the end of next Ice Age. The world would be clean and new, the climate would not be too hot... And if I didn't like it, I'd come back.

Sharyn: Rowena, thanks again for chatting with me. I really enjoyed myself and I hope you had a good time too.

Rowena: Thank you very much. It was great fun!

Sharyn: For more information on Rowena, Forced Mate and contest details, be sure to visit Rowena's website: www.rowenacherry.com. .

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