If the Tor series is called "The Chronicles of Sirkara," then why isn't that on any of the books so far? And what is the first book in this series?

The order of these books (so far) goes:

(1)   In Legend Born
(2)  The White Dragon
(3)  The Destroyer Goddess
(4)  The Palace of Heaven (upcoming)
(5)  Arena (upcoming)

(Yes,I have changed the originally-planned order of books (4) and (5). Arena will now be the fifth book in the series, rather than the fourth.)

When I sold In Legend Born to Tor, I didn't really know I was starting a series. That sort of evolved. So there was no series name back then.

I switched editors around the time The White Dragon was released. My new editor noticed I didn't have a series name and said I should get one. By then, I had thought of the series name... but I said we shouldn't put it on The Destroyer Goddess, because DG was Volume Two of In Fire Forged, and since Volume One (The White Dragon) didn't have the series name on its cover, it would confuse readers to slap it on DG all of a sudden. However, since the series' second book, White Dragon, had the words "Part One" on it, it now turns out that readers were plenty confused anyhow, and it's not clear to everyone that these books are all part of the same series, or that the series begins with In Legend Born. I've since learned that many people think White Dragon is the start of a series called In Fire Forged. Oops.

Anyhow, "The Chronicles of Sirkara" may or may not be on the cover of the next book in this series. By now, even I am confused.

In fact (brace yourself), In Fire Forged was the second book of the series. But it turned out to be so long a novel that, after much back-and-forthing on the subject, Tor decided at the last minute that it couldn't publish IFF as one book. So I had about four days to split the 1,743-page manuscript into two books. I said we had to label them "Part One" and "Part Two" of the same story, because The White Dragon doesn't have an ending and The Destroyer Goddess doesn't have a beginning. If you picked up DG first, you would feel—with good reason!—that you had walked in on the second reel of a film and couldn't figure out what was going on.

If this series is ever repackaged, obviously I'll ask the publisher to make some changes to the way all the books are titled, to make things clearer than they are now...

So when will the next "Chronicles of Sirkara" book be published?

The Palace of Heaven is scheduled for 2011.

When will the next Esther Diamond novel be published?

There are two Esther Diamond novels scheduled for 2010: Doppelgangster in January and Unsympathetic Magic in August.

This series has been repackaged with a new look by its new publisher, DAW Books, and we're planning a steady release schedule hereafter.

The order of the Esther Diamond novels (so far) is:

Are you going to write any more Laura Leone romances?

I have no current plans to do so. For the foreseeable future, I have too many other writing commitments.

Well, I don't have two names anymore, really, since I haven't written as "Laura Leone" in years, and I currently have no plans to use the name again. However, I used to have two names because:

Back when I was starting my career, my first book deal was with Harlequin (a.k.a. The Evil Empire), to be published under their Silhouette imprint. At that time, they had just instituted a new policy (in fact, I was one of the first writers to whom it applied) whereby any newcomer who sold them a book was required to take a pseudonym—or else there would be no book deal with Harlequin, kiss it goodbye, kid. So I came up with the name "Leone" because I thought it would be lucky for me, Leone being my star sign (Leo) in Italian; I had been living in Sicily when I wrote my first couple of Silhouette novels.

This was not, as has often been rumored with great authority by people who have no idea what they're talking about, a "house name." (A house name is one that belongs to the publisher, and numerous different writers write under that name.) I am the only person who ever wrote for Harlequin (or for any other house) as Laura Leone. The pseudonym policy was Harlequin's attempt to protect its profits by restricting freelance writers; the contracts incuded clauses that prohibited most of us from using our pseudonyms at any other house. Consequently, if a writer like me built a readership while at Harlequin, I could not attract those readers to any books I wrote for any other publisher since, in those pre-Internet days, Laura Leone readers would never know I was Laura Resnick when I published elsewhere.

I was still a Silhouette writer, and still bound by that policy, when I sold my first science fiction/fantasy short story. Since I was contractually prohibited from using my professional name on anything not published by Silhouette, I published that story under my real name. The story was intended to be a fun, one-off project between books, not a new career path. However, I wound up writing another sf/f short story, then another, then a bunch more, and suddenly one day I had a second professional name and was marketing books under it. In fact, Resnick is now my professional name, and Leone is the name most people don't know.

Meanwhile, Harlequin's pseudonym clause was starting to come under legal scrutiny. Though the clause took a few more years to die at Harlequin, they released my pseudonym to me when I stopped writing for them, so I was finally able to use it elsewhere. It was clearly useless to me by then for writing sf/f, where I was already known as Resnick; but Leone was the name I was known under as a romance writer, so I continued using it when writing romance.

There are many reasons that writers use pseudonyms. Some writers want to maintain their privacy. Others have real names that are hard to remember, pronounce, or spell. Some use different names to brand the different types of fiction they write (ex. one name for mysteries, another for fantasy). Some change names after weak sales figures have made the previous name difficult to keep marketing. And, like me, dozens of romance writers wound up with a pseudonym because they started their careers at Harlequin/Silhouette during the era of the notorious pseudonym clause.

Where do you get your ideas?

From everywhere. Ideas are the easy part of writing. Figuring out how to take an idea (or, rather, a million ideas—which is probably how many go into the a book) and develop it into a compelling story that many thousands of total strangers, whose personal schedules and budgets are limited, will spend their time and money to read, and that they'll stay absorbed in long after they should have turned out the light and gone to sleep... that's the hard part.

Since this is perhaps the single question writers are asked most often, it's evidently something that people are curious about. So I've added a page about it to this site, called Where Do You Get Those Crazy Ideas? To make it more interesting than just me talking about where I get my ideas, since every writer is different, some other writers visit to talk about where they got their ideas, too.

No, alas. The process by which a book gets a cover is complex and varied. To learn more about it, take a look at A Book By Its Cover, the page of this website that reproduces a 5-part series of articles I wrote a few years ago on covers and the cover process. Based on what I learned while researching and writing those articles, I take a proactive, hands-on approach to my covers... but sometimes my input is used, and sometimes it's not.

Writers tend to be verbal, rather than visual. Consequently, many writers avoid getting involved in the cover process at all, feeling it's just not their strong suit. Additionally, most publishers aren't that eager to have us involved in our covers, so a writer who isn't actively trying to get involved in the cover process is usually not part of it. Also, even among those of us who do actively try to be involved, publishers, art directors, and editors all vary tremendously in how receptive they are to this. Finally, even where there's genuine good will about involving the writer, her input may still wind up on the cutting room floor, for a wide variety of reasons.

Somewhere between 12 days and 8 years, depending.

For example, I once wrote a 50,000-word, pseudonymic erotica novel in 12 days. It was a short, simple book—and I did nothing else for those 12 days but write that book.

By contrast, In Fire Forged, which became The White Dragon and The Destroyer Goddess shortly before publication, was an extremely big (more than 400,000 words!), complex, difficult book, so it took a long time to write—more than 3 years. And I wrote lots of other stuff while writing it, since I was at it for (did I mention?) more than 3 years. I find, by the way, that a 100,000-word book isn't twice as difficult and time-consuming as a 50,000-word book, it's about five times as difficult and time-consuming. These things seem to multiply geometrically.

The "how long does it take?" question is additionally difficult to answer because of the way I work. I usually have to think about a book, do research, and makes notes for months before I can write the first chapter; meanwhile, of course, I'm busy writing books I've already thought about for months. Moreover, since I do this for a living and am (thank goodness!) almost always under contract, I always have deadlines, and so I can't afford to finish a book for which I do not yet have a contract or a deadline. Therefore, like many career novelists, I usually write a proposal (maybe 1 page, maybe 100 pages, depending on circumstances) for a book that I only sit down to finish writing if I sell it; and selling a proposal has, so far in my career, taken me anywhere from 2 weeks to 8 years.

So I seldom start a book from scratch and work all the way through. I'm usually starting a book I won't return to finish until/unless I sell it; or I'm finishing a book I started writing a few months or a few years ago. How long it takes to finish a book depends on how much work I did on the proposal (which depends on circumstances), on how long and how complex the book is, and on what else I'm working on while finishing the book.

No. Some writers do, some don't. Everyone is different.

For myself, I find that if I set a fixed, inflexible schedule for my work, then I'm completely eliminating one of the few benefits of being self-employed, which is flexibility. By and large, being self-employed is professionally and fiscally risky, the IRS punishes you for it, health insurance costs the earth, there's no such thing as a sick-day or a paid vacation, and no bank will offer you a mortgage or a car loan. So you need to take advantage of what few benefits there are! Such as flexibility. I work very long hours, I just don't work the kind of set, fixed, inflexible hours that a salaried employee typically does.

I do tend to set a page-count goal most days, but it varies from day to day, depending on my schedule, my deadline, the book, and what I need to accomplish with the book that day. Setting a fixed, perennial goal of "X" number of pages per day would ignore the fact that I often suddenly realize I need to spend the day revising the first 150 pages or completely rewriting a chapter or a scene.

Well, I can't possibly introduce you to my agent, because I don't have one.

I had four agents, over a period of about fifteen years, but I don't have one now, and I'm not currently planning to hire another one. While it's certainly not the right career choice for everyone, it's working well for me, so it's how I'll proceed until it stops working well for me.

Meanwhile, I only see various editors once every couple of years, on average, when I have pre-arranged business meetings with them in New York or at major conferences. So the practical logistics of introducing you to them would be darned tricky. (Contrary to how the writing life is depicted by Hollywood movies, novelists don't typically socialize with agents and editors on a regular basis.)

Actually, there are very few people in my career whom I had met before we started working together. The writer's work (and, later on, her sales and her reputation) is what generates agency and editorial interest in her, not meeting her.

The way to get an agent interested in representing you or an editor interested in acquiring your book is to send them outstanding material presented very professionally. If they love your manuscript, they'll be interested in you. If they don't love your manuscript, they won't care that they've met you, that you're the friend or acquaintance of another writer they work with, or even that they found you personally charming and delightful. This is business, and the only reason an agent represents a writer's career or an editor acquires her book is that they're exicted about the material and believe it will earn money.

For more information about finding an agent, take a look at my 3-part series of articles on agents, via the links on the Non-Fiction page of this website.

No. I don't read or critique manuscripts. My skill is writing, not editing. I haven't the faintest idea how other writers can make their work "good." I'm fully occupied with learning how to make my work "good." So I just write. I don't critique or edit.

When you ask a professional writer to read your manuscript, you're underestimating just how big a favor you're requesting. Critiquing a manuscript is work and it's very time-consuming. More to the point, though, the belief that my reading your manuscript will have any effect whatsoever on your fate is a complete misconception of how the publishing industry works.

Unlike the portrayals you see in the movies or the tales you hear from people who have no idea what they're talking about, the reality of the professional publishing world is that even if I think you've written a life-altering novel of staggering genius, I cannot get it published for you. I don't mean I won't, I mean I can't—in much the way that I can't make you thin, rich, or Lithuanian, either.

An editor has to think you've written a life-altering novel of staggering genius (or at least a commercially viable book) for you to get it published. I have no influence over what editors think, and editors DO NOT CARE what I think.

Also, unlike the standard Hollywood portrayals, a writer's relationship with an editor or agent is a long-distance business association, not a close personal friendship of frequent lunches and shared confidences. I don't know any of my editors well enough to ask them to give priority to my manuscripts, never mind yours. The notion that my recommendation could get you a faster response is a shot in the dark; and the idea that my enthusiasm could get you a book sale is wholly false.

Additionally, reading your manuscript puts me in a potentially dangerous position. If I have very recently written, am currently writing, am planning to write, or ever happen to write anything that even faintly resembles some minor aspect of your manuscript, I'm opening myself to a nuisance lawsuit from you by reading your manuscript. And I just don't want that monkey on my back. (Yes, I read lots of books—published books. Professional writers very rarely fling around specious accusations of plagiarism. Whereas aspiring writers, unfortunately, do it rather often.)

Moreover, since I don't even like most published books, the chances that I'll like your book are slim. That's just the law of averages. This isn't because I'm brilliant and exacting. It's because I'm the literary equivalent of an annoyingly fussy eater. (Whereas when it comes to food, there's almost nothing I don't enjoy eating!) There are many award-winning, critically acclaimed, and/or bestselling books that I didn't like and/or couldn't finish reading. So clearly my reaction to your work will be no indication whatsoever of whether or not it's "good" or marketable.

Anyhow, I give some writing workshops where I discuss various writing principles and possible ways to approach doing the work (see the Going Public page); but I don't comment on manuscripts.

The Writer's Resource page of this website provides reams of information and resources for aspiring writers, including a list of reputable freelance editors who will read and comment on your work (for a fee). The page also contains additional information (as if more were needed) about why I don't read manuscripts.

I read a book many years ago called How To Write A Romance and Get It Published by Kathryn Falk, founder and publisher of Romantic Times Magazine. I thought that writing a short novel about two likeable people who fall in love was something I might be able to do.

I did not have any professional writing experience, nor had I ever taken any writing classes, and I had not been on staff at my college or high school newspaper. (In fact, as a foreign languages major, I hadn't even written many of my college papers in my own language.) There were two elements in my background, however, that helped me a lot when I started writing.

First, when I was a teenager, my dad, a science fiction writer, paid me $0.50 per page to type his manuscripts. (Years earlier, I used to carry manuscripts-in-progress back and forth between him and a collaborator, on my bicycle. But at the age of six, I was too naive to demand payment.) That not only taught me to be an efficient typist, it also taught me, by osmosis, how a good writer revises and hones his work. As I typed up successive drafts of various books and stories for the old man, I learned a lot about how and why a writer improves the material through revisions and line-editing.

Second, as an aspiring actress, I sought excellent training in the US and England. It didn't give me the talent or temperament to become a working actress (I'm much better suited to writing), but the years of dissecting dialogue, characterization, and scene structure from an acting perspective taught me, again by osmosis, a lot of valuable craft lessons that I've employed as a writer ever since I started work on my first book.

Anyhow, having grown up in a writer's house, I understood what a tough, competitive profession this is, so my commitment to myself, when I decided to start writing, was that I'd complete six romance novels before I reevaluated my plan or considered giving up. I hoped that rejections for the first three books would give me clear and consistent enough feedback that I'd have a better chance of writing something saleable on my fourth, fifth, and sixth attempts.

Using the essays and information in Falk's book as my guide, I outlined my first book and wrote it by hand, then typed up the final version on a manual typewriter, which was all I owned. By then, I had the idea for my second book, so I started working on that while sending queries to agents and submissions to editors.

A dozen agents rejected my first two books; but the first publisher I queried, Silhouette Books, a division of Harlequin, bought them both. (I was working on my fourth book by the time I sold the first one.) It wasn't smooth sailing after that, though. Silhouette rejected four of my next six proposals (and that also wasn't the last time they would reject four of my books in a row, either). But it nonetheless began an association that lasted for five years and a dozen books, and enabled me to become a full-time, self-supporting writer by the age of twenty-six.

I read professional reviews of my work in search of good reviews that I and my publishers can use to promote my books. I don't enjoy it (and sometimes I loathe it), but it's a business necessity.

However, publishers don't quote readers when packaging, promoting, or advertising a book. So there is no need for me to endure the painful process of wading through reader reviews. Therefore, I avoid reader-review websites and blogs.

Because it is indeed a painful process. Picture this: You've spent a year-or-more of your life working on a book. Plotting, researching, writing, rewriting, revising, polishing. You take risks, you stretch yourself, you give the material everything you've got. You sweat blood, you kill a billion brain cells, you do some of your best work ever.

And then, after the book is published, some anonymous stranger, in a public forum, for all the world to see, says something like: "What a piece of worthless shit. Don't waste your time reading this juvenile crap."

Or: "Totally derivative. Stole from a dozen other writers. It's obvious this author is just phoning it in."

Or: "I just couldn't get into this book. It was so boring."

And so on.

If I read ten glowing comments about my work on an Amazon.com book page or a reader blog, that still doesn't take the insomnia-inducing sting out of the one nasty or brutally dismissive comment about my work on the same page. So it's much better for me just not to read such pages and websites at all.

People are perfectly entitled to hate my work and to say so in public. And I'm entitled not to suffer through their comments if I don't absolutely have to.

Well, I read a lot of research for my own books. But check out the Books & Films page of this website, where I recommend what I've recently read for fun that I liked!

Whichever book I finished writing last.

Whichever *@!$*%#*!  book I'm working on now.