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Donna has had a passion for writing since the age of 8 when she wrote her first short story. In between caring for six children, (7 counting her husband) she manages to carve out time to indulge in her writing obsession, with varying degrees of success, although she writes most often late at night instead of sleeping. A native of Arizona, she now writes Regency Romance and Fantasy. And yes, all of her heroes are patterned after her husband of over 20 years.

Donna Hatch writes clean romances known as "Sweet Romances."  Writer's Mirror applauds Donna for her stance on keeping high standards in writing. 



CRW:  Thanks for being with us here on Writers Mirror today as our Wednesdy Writer Donna. What inspires you to write?

Donna:  Anything might. A story I read that I wish had gone a different direction. Wondering about a secondary character in a book or movie. A song. Sometimes I just get a scene in my head, like watching a scene in a movie, and I build the rest of the story around it.

CRW:  Do you try to write daily, and if so, do you set a goal of a certain number of words?

Donna:  Word count doesn't work for me because sometimes I need time to chose just the right word or phrase. Instead, I try to write for at least two hours daily. It used to be longer, but now that I'm juggling three part time jobs, plus being a mommy, it's cut into my writing time. I write more when I'm suffering from insomnia.

CRW:  In a nutshell, what gets in your way of writing?

Donna:  Life. Kids. Self doubt.

CRW:  How do you get past it?

Donna:  Usually because I can't NOT write. Or sometimes I just make myself sit down and write something. Anything. Even if I'm sure I'll cut it later. Some of the biggest bursts of brilliance have occurred when I was sure I was writing utter trash, which most of it was, but there was often a jewel in there that I salvaged which changed the course of the story or the basic element of a character.

CRW:  Intersting.  What makes you CRAZY about writing?

Donna:  Self doubt. My interal editor. Critique partners, sometimes, when they don't "get" what I'm writing.

CRW:  How long does it take you to complete a book?

Donna:  I can usually write the first draft anywhere from 3 weeks to 2 months. But I spend 4 months or more polishing it depending on how many interruptions I have. Novellas go much faster. I wrote both of my novellas in just a few days.

CRW:  Where do you get your character’s names?

Donna:  Nothing clever. Sometimes they come pre-named. Other times I rename them several times until I get just the right one. The character doesn't become 3 dimentional until I chose the right one. I stick to names that were used in Regency England or that were Norman Conquest names to help create that believable Regency feel.

CRW:  What is your favorite writing food?

Donna:  I don't eat while I write unless my stomach wakes me up out of my writing coma. And then I'm so starved that I want whatever I can get my hands on fastest.

CRW:  I love that you get into a "Writing Coma"  or zone. Okay Donna, here's the million dollar quesion.  Why are you a writer?

Donna:  I am. Therefore I write. It certainly isn't for the glory or the money, since obviously I have neither of those.

CRW:  Keep it up, you will!  W

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Anna del C. Dye is the author of The Silent Warrior Trilogy, a high fantasy saga loved by many. She enjoys helping other authors with reviews and with tips of how to promote their work. A native of Chile, she doesn’t let the fact that English is her second language slow down her vivid imagination. She loves everything medieval, ruins, romantic music, live plays, sewing, and camping. Most of all she loves her beloved husband who is responsible for her becoming an author. Now enter the fantasy world of Anna del C. Dye…

CRW:  Welcome to Writers Mirror Anna.  What inspires you to write?

Anna:  What doesn’t? as my husband put it. My own life lessons and some amazing people I know.

CRW:  Do you try to write daily, and if so, do you set a goal of a certain number of words?

Anna:  No, since my first book was published I spend a minimum of 8 hours a day promoting my work. I write when I can.

CRW:  Wow! Eight hours a day promoting. That is amazing.  So I am afraid to ask my next question, but here goes anyway.  What gets in your way of writing?

Anna:  Promoting, it takes a lot of my time. It is a horrible monster but a very necessary one.

CRW:  How do you get past it?

Anna:  No quite there yet… if that’s possible? We do go camping and that helps with the writing. No internet, no door bell, no church meetings, no phone, no kids, you get the point.

CRW: Sounds like you are very dedicated and realize many of the sacrifices a writer makes. What makes you CRAZY about writing?

Anna:  Being interrupted by the phone or dinner when I am most inspired.

CRW:  How long does it take you to complete a book?

Anna:  Set it to the computer from beginning to end… about three months. To have it ready for publication take about two years. Except my last one, I started nine months ago and it’s not finished yet.

CRW:  Where do you get your ideas for your books?

Anna:  Many places. Tolkien inspired my YA Elf Series. My Princess Series, a YA medieval romance series, is inspired by many things.
          After I watched the musical Aida I wrote “A Kingdom by the Sea.” After I met a young elder who looked like he was made out of gold I wrote, “The Golden Princess.” I visited Disney World in Florida a couple of times and wrote “Princess Magnolia.” They have beautiful Magnolia trees there and I chose flower names for her ladies-in-waiting.

CRW:  Where do you get your character’s names?

Anna:  Invent them, mostly on the spur of the moment. Many come to me with the story. I have been complimented by my fans for the names of my characters many times.

CRW:  What is your favorite writing food?

Anna:  Grapes, they are easy to grab and pop into your mouth before is time for the next idea and have low calories.

CRW:  Why are you a writer?

Anna:  I have tooooo much imagination and my husband said I better use it in books before I drive him insane. Love the stories… and love him, too.

CRW:  Glad you added the last few words. Wise woman. Who do you hope reads your work?

Anna:  Teens in trouble, anyone who need a boost of self-esteem or a reason to believe in themselves.

CRW:  What would be the best complement you could receive from a fan?

Anna:  That my books have inspired them to change their lives for the better.

CRW:  What is the topic of the project you are currently working on?

Anna:  “Curse of the Elfs.” The first elf book after the trilogy is undergoing the last revisions right now. Its underlying theme is trust. It will be published next year.

CRW:  Please tell us more about it.

Anna:  The book starts with war threatening in the southlands and the elfs go to help mankind rid themselves of this menace. By the time they are done with the threat the elfs have lost many of their kind, including their beloved commander and his mankind wife. (It is a rare case in which an elf has chosen a mankind woman for his eternal companion.) It continues nineteen years later when the elfs discover a new threat to their race, this time more powerful than a war. They are under the spell of a dead wizard and have been dying slowly for the past twenty years. The elfs are baffled for they are great healers; notwithstanding this fact, they can’t figure out what is killing them. Once they identify the cause of the problem, they know what to do. Their only hope of a cure is in the form of a man whom they not only have to find but also know nothing about, except that he is a servant to royalties. To find him before their gentle and beautiful race disappears is their desperate quest.

CRW:  Sounds fabulous. Where can our readers go to buy your books?

Anna:  My website http://www.annadelc.com
           Amazon.com
           Barnes&noble.com

CRW:  Here are three of Anna's books now available.




CRW:  Thank you Anna for sharing this with us.

Anna:  It was my pleasure.

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Heather Justesen is an LDS author, business owner, volunteer-EMT, puppy mama, (not to mention the cats, fish, chickens and other assorted poultry), whose much-neglected hobbies number almost as many as her pets. Her love of books started long before she could read, so she was the only one surprised when she started to write stories of her own. Once she started writing, she found she could no longer let the stories stay in her head--she had to get them on paper. Her second book is slated for publication summer of 2010.

CRW:  Welcome to Writers Wednesday on Writers Mirror. What inspires you to write Heather?

Heather:  Different things. Sometimes I hear something in the news, sometimes I have an odd idea in a dream--though that's never led to a salable idea yet, the idea was fun to play with anyway. Sometime I overhear things down town or at the mall. Someone says something and my brain begins to whirl. A few times I've heard a sentence and then run home to write a scene around it for one of my many, many partially finished books.

CRW:  What gets in your way of writing?

Heather:  The Internet, and my voracious need to read everything in sight. Oh, and real-life things like dishes and laundry, and keeping the house sort-of presentable so when unexpected computer clients stop to drop off their machines, I don't have to keep the door opened only to a crack. Thank goodness you can't see much of the kitchen from the front room.

CRW:  How do you get past it?

Heather:  I've actually had my husband disable the wireless signal to my laptop a couple of times so I don't get tempted to check out someone's blog or see who has updated their Facebook status. Otherwise deadlines seem to help--my critique group is excellent for that (and so many other things) because I *have* to have a new chapter to bring each week, so I can't get too distracted. As for the housework--I just try and avoid it as much as possible. It may not go away, but hey, if I sweep the kitchen floor today, it's going to need it again soon anyway, and waiting is more efficient--right?

CRW:  I like your ideas on house cleaning. I have my morning routine of everyday chores, then I do three to seven loads of wash and one extra chore or project each day. I am able to pretty much stay on top of the house, but I like your way better.  Now, back to writing.  Do you try to write daily, and if so, do you set a goal of a certain number of words?

Heather:  My schedule is really irregular so I just try and work around the edges. Some days I don't have time to do more than glance at my email and others I have six hours straight to work on whatever's eating at me the most. I'm an EMT so I've learned when I take a long patient transfer I bring my laptop so I can work on the way home. The back of an empty ambulance is actually a pretty good place for me to work since there aren't any distractions.

CRW:  Wow!  I have to say, you take the award for the most unusual place to write.  What makes you CRAZY about writing?

Heather:  Editing. Getting almost to the end of the book and realizing that I dropped a storyline or that I've put too much emphasis on one angle and not enough on another and so the emphasis is off. I also HATE getting critiques back from my trusted writing friends because they always find the holes in what I thought was a well-crafted story.And, they're almost always right.
     I also hate when I'm working on book A and storyline E starts picking at me--I know I can't do more than make a few notes on storyline E, I have deadlines now, and I actually do have to finish mostly-written books A, B, C, and D before I can focus on E. I mean, honestly, can't they wait? The answer to that is, of course, no, so I find myself writing a scene here and there on C, D, or E when I really need to get back and finish up A.

CRW:  I do the same thing. A character in one book nags at me until I write just enough to get he/she/it off my back, then get back to my  main project.  Heather, how long does it take you to complete a book?

Heather:  That varies significantly. The very first book I ever finished only took five weeks for the first draft. Of course, it has since undergone about four major rewrites and may still never see the light of day again, but it felt good to know I could do that. I was living in a hotel while we waited for our house to finish getting built, though, so there were very few distractions. I've had some take me literally years of rewrites, but mostly now I look about five months for the first draft and two to three months of edits, interspersed with long periods between versions while others critique and I put off editing. =) Of course, if I could get the other stories to leave me alone, I could probably do that a lot faster!

CRW:  Where do you get your ideas for your books?

Heather:  Some from life experiences, the news, talking to friends. A lot of times I start with a general plot idea, and then after I write a bit I start to try and figure out more about the main players and their lives. I call my friend Danyelle and we brain storm for hours. She comes up with primo complications later in the books when mine all start to run out.

CRW:  Where do you get your character’s names?

Heather:  Most of the time I go to babynames.com and scan names until I find a few I like, but I have some characters I've named after friends and family. I find I tend to use the same names over and over. A couple of years ago I was going through several nearly-finished manuscripts and realized I'd used one particular name like six times--and never was that character a particularly well-loved one. I'm really not sure how that happened since I know several people by that name, and they're all pretty nice.

CRW:  What is your favorite writing food?

Heather:  I actually don't eat much when I write. I like popcorn (totally plain right from the air popper), jordan almonds, crackers, well, almost any kind of finger food. It's hard, though, to have two hands on the keyboard if you're trying to eat. Of course, if I ate a whole lot more plain popcorn, and a whole lot less of that cake I baked just so I'd have an excuse to decorate it, I'd probably be a lot better off--and so would my hips.

CRW:  Why are you a writer?

Heather:  How can I not write? Since I was a little girl my imagination has been one of my best friends. I read like a demon, which of course, made me a backward, socially inept youth, which led to more reading and more living in my head. About ten years ago I finally decided to put one of those stories from my brain onto paper. From there on out there was no quitting. I've taken breaks to read voraciously for months, or in some cases even watch movies like crazy while I worked on my much-neglected hobbies, but I've never been able to excise storytelling from my blood.

CRW:  Who do you hope reads your work?

Heather:  This first book"The Ball's in Her Court," is about a woman's journey to find her birth family, and to find herself and her own self worth in some ways. I hope that anyone who struggles with those kinds of issues will read it, or friends and family of adoptees who want to search will consider that there are many sides to every story. I seem to have a lot of themes of family and family relationships because there's nothing more important out there. And of course I love a sweet, clean romance, so I really try to deliver that as well.

CRW:  What would be the best complement you could receive from a fan?

Heather:  "I stayed up until 2 AM to finish it because I couldn't put it down!" That would be high praise indeed. Though, actually, I hope someday to get a compliment that will blow even that one out of contention.

CRW:  Heather please tell us about your book that is coming out soon.

Heather:  My first book is about a woman who was abused and neglected as a child, then put into the foster care system. Several years, and various placements later she was adopted by a family when she was twelve. The book is about her as an adult and the journey toward reunion with the birth family she never knew in order to put to rest the memories that still haunt her. And, of course, she falls in love, because it wouldn't be much of a romance without that very important angle.

CRW:  Do you have another project you are currently working on?

Heather:  Which one? =) Aside from "Rebound" which is being released next summer, I have third one I'm working on final edits, and a fourth one that I'm just writing the ending for--and they're all different.
     I'm just finishing up a story of a woman who marries her best friend so he will be able to gain custody of his recently-orphaned niece and nephew. When his unit gets called up by the marines, she's left trying to juggle single parenthood, her career--in which strange things start to happen--and her growing love for her friend.

CRW:  Sounds interesting. Please tell us more about it.

Heather:  Rena is a thirty-one-year-old single woman who is past ready to settle down, but her only real option is the very pleasant man she's been dating all summer. Her non-option is her close friend Tucker--who is completely delicious (the female members of my critique group agree with me on that, so it must be true). Though Tucker is, in many ways, her ideal, their assorted romances with other people have always managed to keep them apart. Until now--when two children obliterate the careful protection they've formed around their friendship.

CRW:  Great story. I look forward to it and your other books.  May I list your website or blog site?

Heather:  Of course! My website: http://www.heatherjustesen.com/. My catch-all blog http://www.heatherjustesen.blogspot.com/ then I recently started a new blog that I post to daily called Clean Books for LDS Families http://www.cleanbooksforldsfamilies.blogspot.com/ It has a Facebook fan page I post the blog up to also. In a world where even childrens' books are getting questionable, I thought it would be great to have a list people could trust. I've had lots of support from other writers already and look forward to seeing what it can become.

CRW:  Great goals Heather.  My motto is the world needs more wholesome voices.  I appreciate you taking your time to visit with us here on Writers Mirror.  Good luck, and keep at it!

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