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Our Interview with Liz Maverick (June 2004):

Q. What do you write? What publisher(s) do you write or have you written for?

Liz Maverick: I write women’s fiction comedy AKA “chick lit” for Penguin Putnam’s NAL imprint, futuristic action romance for Dorchester Love Spell, and futuristic erotic romance for Red Sage.

Q: Tell us a bit about your upcoming/current release(s).

LM:  2004 is a huge year for me, with three releases.

What A Girl Wants, my first chick lit book, was a Cosmopolitan Magazine Book Club Pick for March 2004. It’s a send-up of the dot-com scene with lots of funny, only-in-California moments.

My second chick lit book, Adventures of an Ice Princess, is based on my wacky experiences in Antarctica. Not kidding! I spent two seasons working on “The Ice.” It will be released in October 2004.

And the book I’m excited about this month is my first romance novel, The Shadow Runners. It’s the third book in the 2176 action romance series with Susan Grant (Book 1: The Legend of Banzai Maguire, Book 5: The Scarlet Empress), Kathleen Nance (Book 2: Day of Fire), and Patti O’Shea (Book 4: The Power of Two).

Here’s the teaser for it:

SERIES 2176: THE SHADOW RUNNERS
By Liz Maverick

***Five Women. One Goal: Freedom***

Newgate, Australia: Down Under, anything goes. In the 22nd century, history repeats itself. Part penal colony, part dumping ground for toxic waste, the land is controlled by "the Parliament," a gang of dissipated self-styled aristocrats who rule in a mockery of the English Regency.

To survive here, you have to know the tricks. Like Jenny Red. She knows the score. She's been Down and made it out to tell the tale.

But D'ekkar Han Valoren--the bastard son of the Emperor whom Jenny's family was accused of destroying--knows Jenny escaped, and he wants her to take him back in. Okay, maybe she'll help Deck's team of rebels, his Shadow Runners, like he asks. But not because he's holding anything over her--if he tried that, she'd give him a taste of steel. No, she'll do it because of what was once between them. Because of the revolution of her heart.

Q: What year did you get "The Call"?

LM: I feel like I’ve had 3 “Calls” because I’ve had three firsts. 1) 2001: the milestone of selling my very first piece of writing, a novella for Red Sage, 2) 2002: the milestone of selling my first book (chick lit), and 3) 2003: the milestone of selling my first romance novel, which was the original goal when I started writing.

Q: How many years had you written before you got "The Call"?

LM: I started writing about a few months before I joined RWA in December 1999, so I guess that puts it at about 1-2 years.

Q: Describe your first sale experience.

LM: Of the three milestones I described above, the second one would have to be the most anecdote-worthy. I’d entered What a Girl Wants in Harlequin’s Red Dress Ink contest and received a full manuscript request. After turning it in, I waited and waited...and about nine months later, I just sort of knew that it wasn’t going to happen. You know how you sometimes just have feelings about these things? Well, I despaired, I really did, also because every agent I’d queried while waiting either said no or “close but no cigar.” So, I really doubted it would sell. In fact, I was about to declare the manuscript officially dead. In a last ditch effort, I queried every editor who I’d heard was remotely interested in chick lit (not a long list at that time) with the idea that if I got rejections across the board from them, *then* I’d call in the coroner to pronounce the book dead.

So, I sent the queries out to about 6 editors (all from the RWA list, BTW), and maybe a week or so after that I got an enormous package—my rejected manuscript from Red Dress Ink. It was a very nice, personalized, encouraging rejection, but a rejection nonetheless.  Despair. Deep, dark despair. And then the next day, I believe it was, I received a phone call from NAL asking for the full manuscript and also if I was going to the National Conference in Denver. Well, get this. I’d been to every National since joining RWA, but I hadn’t signed up for this one. But I said I was absolutely going and when I hung up the phone, I bought a plane ticket...and two weeks later, Audrey LaFehr sat me down in the conference hotel and made an offer for a two-book deal. I guess the moral of the story is that it’s not dead until you kill it yourself.

Q: Is there anything you wish you had known/done before you made that first sale or subsequent sales?

LM: That being a published author can be stressful and it’s important to try and control the initial terror (heh.) you may feel in those first years, especially if you’re dealing with multiple publishers and/or multiple contracts. I’ve got a lot going on, and I’ve really had to develop a kind of super-focused mindset at times that will allow me to address one project at a time until everything’s eventually done. Anyway, no matter how crazy it gets, writing novels is still the best job in the world.

Just know that you will not be able to do everything.  It will seem like all the other authors are getting out their newsletters and updating their Web sites and creating unique and delightful promotional items and fielding blurbs, photos, and bios to every opportunity both on the Net and off and posting meaningful comments on every loop and speaking at every conference and...and...and...

LOL! You do what you can do. I have to remind myself of this all the time. You just do as much as you can do and try to remember to enjoy yourself as much as possible.

Q: What is the best piece of craft advice you can give an aspiring author?

LM: Study three-act structure, especially screenplay books. It will come in handy for plotting your book and for writing your synopsis. Syd Field’s The Screenwriter’s Workbook is my favorite at the moment.

Q: What is the best piece of industry advice can you give an aspiring author?

LM: Well, I happen to believe that as wonderful as RWA is, the organization teaches us to be more cautious than I think we need to be (and should be?) in order to get ahead. I have a whole workshop on this topic called “The Book of Your Smarts: Using Business Savvy to Break in Faster.” I discuss all kinds of strategies we’re not supposed to talk about, LOL! And in that workshop I read what I call The Maverick Bill of Rights. I’ve taken it right out of my speech notes (here’s hoping no agent or editor is reading this interview, heh.)...

THE MAVERICK BILL OF RIGHTS FOR WRITERS
(From The Book of Your Smarts: Using Business Savvy to Break in Faster”)
Copyright 2003-2004 Liz Maverick

• You have the right to call or email any agent or editor who has personally commented on something you have written.

• You have the right to make an appointment with any agent or editor you want, outside of the official RWA editor/agent appointments.

• You have the right to tell any agent or editor that you’d love to meet with them for coffee or a drink if their schedule permits.

• You have the right to bring anything you want to the meeting (i.e a book) and try to get them to take it home with them. It’s all in the execution.

• You have the right to wear anything you damn well please to that meeting. Suits, tennis shoes, t-shirts, an Indian headdress...as long as there’s a very specific reason why you chose do so.

In a nutshell, my industry advice is to break “the rules” and go for what you want!

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