Spending Some Downtime With Tamara Allen

14 May 2011 Leave a Comment

by Lisa in authors, Tamara Allen Tags: Tamara Allen

Thanks so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to be with us today, Tamara. Why don’t we begin by having you tell us a little bit about your background?

I’m forty-eight and have spent the better portion of those years with my ever supportive husband and my sweet little boy (who’s grown up now, but will always be my sweet little boy.) I was raised in California but went to high school in Texas, where I still live, despite my dislike of the humidity and the politics.

Was there a defining point in your life when you realize that storytelling was what you were meant to do?

Not really. I dealt with a difficult childhood by shutting out the world and creating sweeter, happier worlds in my head. I still tell myself stories that way; the only difference is that now I write them down to share them with other people.

What was your first book and how long did it take for your first book to be published?

Downtime, which is going to be released by Dreamspinner on May 9th, was the first book I completed. (I had written drafts of other stories, but had never finished them.) I didn’t know where to market an m/m romance (this was about eight years ago) and the only place I sent Downtime was Torquere Press. They accepted it and published it as a serial, then in e-book.

I had a much more difficult time finding a home for my second book. Whistling in the Dark received numerous rejections, from Kensington to Samhain, before I self-published it. Reviewer Ann Somerville gave it a review that brought it to the attention of Lethe Press, which took it on.

The Only Gold, your most current release, is set in New York City in the time period just before and during the Great Blizzard of 1888. What prompted you to choose that particular event to base your novel around?

The city that never sleeps was shut down by this blizzard so thoroughly that people remembered the details of the experience for years afterward. The photographs (of which you can see many online) bring home the reality of the incredible snowfall and the trials of both enduring it and having to clean up after it. You get a powerful sense of the courage, fortitude, and strength of character possessed by those who weathered the storm. They also had a sense of humor about it all, judging by the number of “snow for sale” signs that cropped up after the blizzard had passed.

Although Jonah and Reid’s story felt very complete at the end, do you foresee an instance where you might bring them back for a sequel?

In my head, I always follow the characters through further adventures in their lives to see how they fare. I don’t know whether I’ll ever write any of that down. If I run out of ideas for first-time stories, it might be more tempting.

How much research went into the writing of the novel, and what were your primary resources?

I bought four used books on the blizzard from Alibris, which were full of beautiful photographs that helped me visualize some settings more easily, such as the ice floe jammed between Brooklyn and Manhattan. I also love the New York Public Library’s digital archive with its treasure chest of photos going back to the Civil War.

The New York Times article archive has been an invaluable resource for me in the past; but now they’ve begun charging rather a lot to read the articles, so I don’t know if I will be using it for future work. I even dug deep into governmental weather archives to learn what the weather was like on certain days in March of 1888—not so much for the sake of the story, but just because I was fascinated to know.

Chasing down details is often a challenge, even with the internet’s endless supply of information, but that’s a big part of the fun. I can waste an entire afternoon hunting down a single fact. That may account for the reason I’ve so far written only three books.

What interests you most about writing in a historical setting as opposed to a contemporary?

I already know what it’s like to live in the contemporary world. The only way I can get a sense of what it was like to live in the past is to read or write about it. Therein lies the fascination. In what ways were people different in this year or that? What did they hope for? What was life like for them day by day? There’s enormous appeal in vicariously experiencing an existence so foreign (and yet in many ways so similar) to your own.

How long does it generally take for you to finish a manuscript?

I am not organized and consistent enough to give you a reliable answer. Downtime was a longer book, but it took me less time to write than Whistling in the Dark. It seems the more I learn about how to write a story, the longer it takes me to write one. I think learning to edit is what has lengthened the time it takes to finish a story. But I generally take about a year.

How much creative input do you have in the cover design for your books?

This question makes me laugh and I suspect it makes my cover artist, Lorraine Brevig, weep into her tea. She has drawn three covers for me and if she agrees to any more, she deserves a special award for patience, because I pester her over every detail, even details that don’t really show up in the finished product. She very kindly takes in all my numerous suggestions and requests and incorporates them beautifully. I adore the period clothing and settings, and I’m grateful to both Dreamspinner Press and Lethe Press for permitting me to use Lorraine’s art.

When did you begin writing in the Male/Male genre? What about the genre interests you the most?

I hate to give you a predictable answer but, like a lot of my fellow m/m writers, I followed the fanfic route, starting about twelve years ago with gen fic, then slash. I know some people scoff at fanfic, but I got a good deal of practical writing experience out of it. I think the m/m genre interests me because it’s fascinating to explore a relationship that starts out on an equal footing (as opposed to the power imbalance between men and women.) Falling in love leaves you vulnerable, and a vulnerable man is always an interesting creature. Two such men navigating the ups and downs of learning to be a couple is even more intriguing.

Do you write full time? If not, how many hours per day do you try to dedicate to your writing?

My hours are inconsistent but I do try to write every day. I do some administrative tasks to help my husband in his law practice and those are a priority, but I have more time to write now than I’ve ever had, and I try to make the most of it.

Do you typically outline your plots before you begin the writing process, or do you write in a more freestyle fashion?

I want to outline my plots. I really do. It would be so much easier, I think. But most of the outlining that gets done remains in my head and, while I do jot down notes as I go along, my stories generally freefall toward some sort of cuddly HEA, to the detriment of the plot but the benefit of the romance. I do have readers take me to task for questionable plot turns, so I’m trying to improve in that regard.

What has been the most difficult topic you’ve ever tackled in your writing?

Jack’s shellshock in Whistling in the Dark. I read a lot about the horrors of shellshock in WWI and I didn’t want to misrepresent the trauma of what so many soldiers endured, not just for months or years but the rest of their lives. I couldn’t cure the character, but I tried to ease his suffering a little by giving him someone who understood and would be there for him through any dark days ahead.

Of all the characters you’ve created, do you have one or two in particular who stand out among the others as a favorite? If so, who and why?

I’m especially fond of Jack and Jonah, and I suppose this will sound weird, but it’s because they both so thoroughly break my heart. Jack, because he’s such an exasperating boy—but underneath that, a good-hearted man who’s been hurt in such a cruel way. In my mind, he represented all the innocent, carefree young men—all just babies, really—shipped off overseas to endure a nightmare, and then expected to come back and resume their lives as if nothing so bad had happened. His resilience and the resilience of all those men, it’s just staggering. It’s an act of courage nothing in this world can equal or recompense.

Jonah breaks my heart for the same and different reasons. He doesn’t bury a nightmare under a carefree demeanor like Jack. He buries himself under a demeanor so proper, so carefully controlled, you hope for his sake that someone will wake him from that lonely existence and open up the world to him. He’s a sweetheart with a lot of love and devotion to give, but so afraid of giving it, he keeps himself as strictly locked up and secure as his bank. I have a terrible weakness for characters like that. You may see more of them in future stories.

Do you ever suffer from writer’s block? If so, do you have any routines or exercises you use to get beyond it?

I haven’t suffered from a lack of ideas, but there are plenty of instances in which I lack the confidence to implement them. I have no tricks to get past that. It’s very debilitating and results in short periods where I don’t write for a day or two (sometimes longer.) But then I miss the pleasure of being immersed in the story, so I come back to it, despite my doubts that I can turn it into anything good or readable. If that’s a form of writer’s block, it’s sort of self-healing. I always come back to writing when my longing to write outweighs my doubts about my ability.

When someone reads one of your books for the first time, what do you hope they take away from it?

A theme I often fall back on is that having someone to hold on to makes even the darkest hours endurable. My characters tend to discover and appreciate during the course of the story that love is refuge and comfort as well as attraction and passion. I hope readers come away from the story with a sense of warmth and comfort, themselves. A sense that the world is not always such a bad place, with that kind of steadfast love in it.

Will you share three things you’ve learned about the business of writing since your first publication?

Don’t let everything that goes on after publication of your book distract you from working on a new story. I have done this and regretted the time wasted.

Don’t self-publish unless the jack-of-all-trades aspect (writing, editing, cover art, formatting, promotion, and so on) appeals to you greatly (or you have the money to pay someone else to do all that.) A book has to look shiny clean, sharply edited, utterly professional, and worth the reader’s money, in order to compete against all the other shiny books out there. You’re already at a distinct disadvantage, not being stamped “worthy” by having a publisher’s acceptance. Self-publishing is hard, time-consuming work that, again, takes you away from working on new stories.

Editors are wonderful safety nets who can catch mistakes you missed. However, there are some mistakes only you can catch, because you know the story. So read it and re-read it until the prospect of a root canal is more appealing than reading the story again. Then, when your editor sends you a final proof that can’t be changed (no matter what’s wrong with it), don’t read it. Because, if you’re like me, any error you find will haunt you into eternity.

If you were to offer a word of advice to a new author just starting out, what would it be?

Whenever you read a story that draws a strong emotional response from you, give a lot of thought to the mechanics of how that response was created. Consider the ways in which the best writers, those whose work affects you most profoundly, put their sentences together. I think I only began to improve when I began to read novels with a more critical eye and an interest in learning from them.

Do you generally have the titles of your work planned before you begin writing, or does that occur later on in the writing process?

Titles have always come last for me. I think I need to get a feel for the whole story in its complete form before I can get a sense of what I want the title to express and reveal.

What is the question you’re most frequently asked by your fans?

I’d fully understand if it was, “What’s taking so damned long?” But it’s usually a very patient, “When is the next book coming out?” The readers who have written to me have, to a one, been just as sweet as can be. Every reader email is a wonderful surprise (even after three books.) It’s like getting a big bonus at work, when you’re really just happy to have a job you like.

Do you have any new projects coming up that you’d care to share with us?

I’m working on two books, switching back and forth between them as the plots evolve. This is a first for me. One is a romance set in 1893 between a Secret Service agent and the almost-ex-convict who’s helping him track a counterfeiter. The other book is less easily summarized because the plot is still confusing me; but I hope to have it worked out soon. As you can probably guess, I’m further along on the first book.

How much of yourself, your life experiences, and the people you know manifest themselves into your characters?

None of my characters is a strict match to anyone in my life, but there are bits and pieces of real life in my stories, which I think is true of most and maybe all writers. The things my characters learn tend to be the things I’ve learned myself, usually the hard way and in the most memorable fashion. I could tell you almost to the day when I learned the lesson about love Jonah learns at the end of The Only Gold. Sometimes enlightenment hits you so hard, you never forget the moment. It’s always a temptation to turn these experiences into stories. You feel like they ring the truest.

When it comes to promotion, what lengths have you gone to in order to increase awareness of your work?

When it comes to promotion, an extreme length for me is a blog interview. I’m too shy for most ordinary social interaction; pushing my work on others is beyond uncomfortable for me. I’ve done it online in a few places, especially for my first two books, because the proceeds from those books go to leukemia research. But I’m not a talker and the only promotion I can passably accomplish is in written form, online.

Digital media—the e-reader/tablet computer/Android apps—is changing the way people access and enjoy books. What pros and/or cons do you see surrounding the business of e-publishing? How do you see digital media evolving in the years to come?

I embrace the digital age as a new and interesting era (all eras are interesting, past, present, and future) but I embrace it with mixed emotions. I bought my first e-reader last September, with a lingering regret at the eventual demise of print books. My childhood memories are stamped with the smells, textures, and happy anticipation connected with trips to the library. I’m certainly glad for the trees being spared, but a little part of me will always yearn for a book in print. With e-readers, something tactile and immediate is missing—in the same way clothes don’t feel as comfortable and smell as fragrant out of a dryer as they do off the clothesline. We make things easier in this world, but that doesn’t always make them better.

When you have the chance to sit down and enjoy some quiet reading time, what sorts of books are you most likely to pick up? Who are your favorite authors?

I don’t read as much in my own genre as you’d think, as I like sweet romance, which is not easy to find in m/m (although easier now than it used to be.) I really love sweet historicals, like Charlie Cochrane’s work. Though I don’t ordinarily read fantasy, I’m currently reading Kei’s Gift by Ann Somerville and Mongrel by K.Z. Snow because both sounded too interesting to pass up. I read a lot of non-fiction, some of it for research purposes, some just for fun. I love to read diaries and especially enjoyed the journals of L.M. Montgomery and the diaries of George Templeton Strong. No other non-fiction gives you as vivid and authentic a window into the past.

If you weren’t a writer, what would you be?

A cranky old lady scrubbing pans in the kitchen of some noisy dive. And still telling myself stories in my head. Some things are too ingrained. I don’t think I could stop if I tried.

Now some questions just for fun

What’s your favorite dessert?

Chocolate cake, banana bread (no nuts), pumpkin pie, and maple-frosted donuts. (Sorry—I appear to be intrinsically incapable of narrowing that down to one.)

If time travel were possible, what time period(s) would you most like to visit? Why?

That is even more difficult to narrow down. The world was in such an interesting tumult at so many different times in history. Right now, I’m most enchanted with the period between 1880 and 1930, because pictures and words only take you so far, and I’d love to wander around a city like New York or San Francisco, and breathe in the people, their clothes, their way of doing and communicating, their possessions, and the splendid architecture they created, back in the days when craftsmanship was still a consideration.

I’ve often wished for a Google Earth that allows you to put in a date and wander the streets as they looked back then (without the intrusive contemporary buildings to ruin the landscape.) I’d like to browse it year by year, because it’s just as fascinating to see how cities grow and neighborhoods change. The changes in the world between 1880 and 1930 were so revolutionary and so one-after-another, so wide-ranging in their impact on society, that era alone could keep you entertained for a lifetime.

How would you describe your sense of humor? What makes you laugh?

Bing Crosby and Bob Hope poking fun at each other. I have their movies and I still adore them after multiple viewings. I wish there were more.

Do you have an all time favorite fictional character?

Probably Anne Shirley. She became a friend when I was about ten or eleven and she fostered my love of reading and my interest in the past. And because she was an “odd little thing,” she made me feel that being an odd little thing, myself, wasn’t so bad. L.M. Montgomery’s characters are wonderful creations. I’m fond of Mrs. Lynde, Miss Cornelia, Captain Jim, Davy, Little Elizabeth, all of them. And especially Rebecca Dew! Rebecca Dew is the coolest.

Who’s on your iPod/MP3 player?

I love music from every decade, from classical to ragtime to jazz, from the Brox Sisters to Deanna Durbin, Dean Martin, Brenda Lee, the Beatles, and most of the groups I grew up with, from ABBA to Alanis. I was a huge Go-Go’s fan in the ’80s and still love them today.

Without getting up to look, what’s under your bed?

My guess would be the fat, irritated tabby cat (Mabel) hiding from the psychotically energetic tabby cat (Bess).

Do you speak more than one language? If so, which one(s)?

I’ve had classes in Spanish and French, but am not fluent in either.

Of all the modern conveniences, which one would you most likely say you couldn’t live without?

Air conditioning! How people endured summer without it, especially in all those layers of clothes, is beyond me. I’ve lived through thirty-four Texas summers and am always ready to flee for the North Pole when May arrives.

Thanks again for spending some time with us, Tamara. Will you tell us where we can find you on the Internet?

Thank you for the interview. I do appreciate it. I have an author page at www.tamara-allen.net and you can also find me on twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/tamara_allen

And we’d love if you’d share a favorite excerpt from one of your books with us.

This is a turning-point scene from The Only Gold. Jonah lost his promotion to Reid at the start of the story and has been battling with Reid ever since. But Reid, charming one minute and challenging the next, upsets Jonah’s determination to keep him at a distance, and a friendship is born.

Reid did not stay long after supper, but lingered on the cold step when Jonah followed him out to bid him good night. “Loyal group of friends you have. And a comfortable home. I can see why you haven’t rushed into marriage.”

“It doesn’t occur to you that perhaps I haven’t met the girl I wish to marry?”

Reid laughed. “By the time he’s fifteen, every man’s met the girl he wishes to marry. And consequently every girl after that.”

“It may be some of us aren’t meant to marry.”

“I suppose not.” Reid put on his hat. “But you’d agree all of us are meant to love.”

“I’ll allow that. But I’m not so naive to imagine it will always prove out.”

“Not as neatly as a balanced book, anyway.”

That was directed at him, Jonah knew, and he took refuge in a deliberately dry tone. “Never as neatly as a balanced book. Excluding, perhaps, Mr. Russell’s pass book.”

Reid snorted. “I’m sure Mr. Russell keeps a better account now.” He took his gloves from his coat pocket but did not put them on. “Well…” He smiled. “Jonah,” he said and held out his hand.

“Mr. Hylliard—“ All too aware of the rueful light in the hazel eyes, Jonah yielded the formality with only a trace of regret. “Reid.”

Reid’s smile seemed to warm the very air around them. Jonah, realizing he was still holding Reid’s hand, withdrew. “That favor you asked for—“

“Done.”

“Really? Was it an invitation to supper?”

“No. A smaller victory, but just as sweet.”

It took Jonah a moment to understand. “But—that was all you wanted?”

“All—“ Reid broke into a grin. “It’s a hard-won battle, getting to know you, Mr. Woolner.” He plunged down the rainwashed steps to the curb, to disappear down the dark street. Jonah had no doubt the man would manage to find his way safely home. He was a tom landing always unerringly on his feet.

Played out by the day’s events, Jonah went to bed, but everything—from the soft tap of a bedpost against the wall to his own chasing thoughts—conspired to keep him awake. After useless minutes of trying to blot out both, he rolled onto his stomach, stretched his legs into the cold depths of the sheets, and drew the coverlet over his head. Unbidden came the memory of a hand in his, a knowing sympathy in the press of the palm. He hadn’t given Reid reason to like him; yet the man seemed to, or was very good at pretending he did. He’d hardly taken offense after finding Jonah trailing him around, not even after learning the reason why.

And Reid thought it was a battle hard won, getting to know him.