Hi Billie and Herb!  I have been looking forward to this interview with you since I worked with you on East of the Sun for Whiskey Creek Press Torrid books. That was a fun experience for me both from the aspect of working with you and for such an enchanting story.

Billie: Hi Gina. It was an enjoyable experience for us too. You did a great job of editing the story.

   Herb: Fairy tales are not my specialty, but I did enjoy working with you and Billie on EAST OF THE SUN.

On your website it says you have been writing as a team since 1990.  Were one or the other of you writing fiction before that?

Herb: No, although I had written many technical and how-to articles and a lot of proposals for projects, this was my first attempt at writing fiction.

Billie: Same for me. I have been writing poetry since I was ten years old and I’d written essays and articles, and designed and developed school curriculum, but this was my first try at fiction.

What led you to try writing as a team?

Billie: I started writing a novel in the summer of 1989. About halfway through the book, I was struggling to write a fist-fight scene between my hero and my villain and getting nowhere. I asked Herb to read it. He did and then he rewrote it and what he wrote was light years ahead of anything I’d done, so I incorporated his scene into my book. I thought, he’s pretty good at this, so I began to ask his advice about a man’s point of view and to get him to write descriptions of things he’s seen and I hadn’t, or subjects he knew about and I didn’t.  Finally, one morning he said, “You know what? If I’m going to do half the work, I deserve half the credit.” I think he might have been joking but the more we talked about writing as a team, the more it appealed to both of us. Our collaborating evolved from there.

Herb: <Big grin> I had no idea then what I was letting myself in for.  

What was your first book?

Billie: The first book we had published was titled A LOVE LIKE MINE. 

Herb: The title was later changed to A TENDER LIE. It’s still available      at New Concepts Publishing.   

How has your collaborative style changed, if at all, since you started writing together sixteen years ago?

Herb: When we first began writing as a team, it was difficult. Over the years we have learned, through trial and error, to move from sharing in a common effort, to bringing together two efforts into a united whole.

Billie: The word collaboration has two meanings. One definition is sharing the same goal; the other is cooperating with the enemy. Sometimes our collaborative writing involves both. <Sly smile>            

Interesting transition Billie made from history to educational psychology. How do you see that playing into your stories?

Billie: Being a student of history makes me very careful about research and helps give me a ‘feel’ for other times and places. Some knowledge of human behavior lends insight into why people act and react as they do. It also makes me know that there are no explanations for some of the things human beings do.      

Herb, after that technical, policy oriented world of computers and the Air Force, what was it like for you to move into fiction?

Herb: I had some adjusting to do in terms of style and technique. I still have problems with what I tend to consider superfluous words. I have come to accept that in fiction, imagination takes precedence over instruction and emotions are more important than explanations.   

Your website also says “The plots revolve around ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances and faced with difficult decisions.” Was this a natural out flow from how you saw yourselves writing or was it your mission statement (so to speak) when you started to write?

Billie: It’s how I see myself writing. I have always been intrigued by how different people react when confronted with difficulty or disaster and how adversity can sometimes have a positive effect and cause human beings to grow and learn and change.    

Herb: It’s how I see myself writing. I try to create characters that are consistent enough to be believable, complex enough to be interesting and unique enough to be human and then challenge them by putting them at odds with people and/or elements in the world around them.       

In June you had two books released with Whiskey Creek Press, a Torrid and a General line romance. How did that feel?

         Billie: I was, and still, am, very excited. I love both of these books.

Herb: It’s exciting for me when we have one book published. It’s doubly so when we have two coming out in the same month.

Did you feel pulled in one direction or the other when you were working through the editing process?

          Herb: Sometimes I argued with myself over minor differences or changes.

Billie: So did I and when that happened, I always went with the choice that I thought best told the story.   

I’d like to talk about Hostage for a minute, one of the stories from New Concept’s Captured Anthology. Did you have much communication with the other authors or was each story a creative endeavor on its own without a working group?

         Herb: We had no communication with the other authors.

Billie: New Concepts announced about the anthology and called for submissions. We sent HOSTAGE to them, and fortunately for us, they accepted it. 

Where did the idea for Hostage come from?

Herb: We wanted to write a story to submit to the anthology CAPTURED. Billie came up with the idea of an outlaw taking a young woman hostage. That was our starting point. 

Billie: At first we made the young woman a missionary. After outlining about three chapters Herb said, “This is not working.” So we did a complete about-face and made her a prostitute. Then the story began to take shape.  

Raul from Hostage is such a compelling man. It was fascinating to see how his own ethics conflicted in their own way and heart warming when his father spoke with him to help him see which way he should go. Is Raul based on anyone you know in particular?

Billie: Raul wasn’t based on any particular person. He’s a composite of my idea of a Latin hero and Herb’s concept of a how a good man, bent on revenge, would think and behave.

Herb: I am fascinated by fictional characters that are at odds with themselves and beset by ambivalent emotions.

Janalee had a few questions for you on East of the Sun, a marvelous fantasy that transports the reader to another time and place.

How many different fairy tales did you draw from in crafting East of the Sun?

Herb: Hi Janalee. For me, it was only one. Billie has quite a collection of fairy tale books. My taste runs to Zane Gray, Louis L’Amour and Elmer Kelton, anyway, before we began to outline the story, she insisted that I read EAST OF THE SUN AND WEST OF THE MOON from Andrew Lang’s Blue Fairy Book.

Billie: Hi Janalee. The premise for the story is based on the story in Andrew Lang’s book. I have been reading fairy tales since I was six years old, and love them. Where else can one find a universe where all dreams come true and there is always a happy ending?  I drew from that background to capture the mood and spirit of the story. 

Will you be doing any other story like East of the Sun?

Herb: We’ve already done another take-off on a fairy tale and submitted it to New Concepts for an anthology. It’s a westernized comedy version of Blue Beard.

Billie: And we plan to do several more. I am fascinated by the myth and magic of fairy tales.

Pearl's character is very endearing. Was she an easy character for you to identify with?

Billie: I love Pearl for her innate goodness and her determination. I respect her strength and can only wish I had her patience and forbearance in the face of adversity. I identify with her to the point of wishing I could be as dedicated and strong-minded as she. 

Herb: I wanted Pearl to be strong and at the same time soft and feminine. I’m more than pleased if she comes across to the reader as embodying those qualities. I identify with her love for her family and her search for true love.

Leah also had some questions for you on several of your books she asks:

Honky Tonk Cowboy and A Tender Lie both feature heroines with conflicted pasts that cause the townspeople to gossip about them.  They are also set in the same town.  Are these two books related? Was it a conscious decision to feature women scarred by gossip and past mistakes?

Herb: Hi Leah. They are not related in any way except the setting is the same.  We both grew up in a little city in far West Texas and we seem to gravitate toward writing about life in small towns.

Billie: Hello Leah. These are two of our earlier books when we were very much into writing about ‘scarlet women’. It wasn’t a conscious decision so much as it was our early, rather narrow vision of what constituted a romance. We have grown since then and our view has broadened considerably. So has our willingness to experiment and to take chances.

Love Will Find a Way was an excellent story about acceptance, growth and reconciliation.  What was the inspiration for this story and will there be any follow up stories featuring the secondary characters?
         

Billie: The inspiration for this story came from something that actually happened to a friend of mine. Her husband took her away on what she thought would be a romantic weekend trip. When they got there, he asked her for a divorce.

Herb: We hadn’t thought of a follow up story but it sounds like a good idea.

Another Time was a very intriguing story based on past lives.  Do you believe in reincarnation?

Billie: I certainly haven’t ruled it out.                                                       

Herb: It would, for me, explain many of this life’s inequities.

What made you base a story on that theme?

Herb: we wanted to write a paranormal romance and hit upon the idea of writing about star-crossed reincarnated lovers searching for each other through the ages.

            Billie: All that remained then was to work out the details. 

I’d like to talk for a bit about You Belong to Me. What I personally liked about this book was, well, there were a couple if things that has put it on my “keeper you need to read again” list. In You Belong to Me you tell the story of two couples, Julie and Max and Shannon and Brett. Was it hard to write the two love stories in one?

Billie: In some ways it was. We didn’t want Shannon and Brett’s romance to overshadow the story of Julie and Max.

Herb: Shannon’s character was a challenge. She had to be young and impetuous and at the same time wise beyond her years.   

And one thing I really liked was that with Julie and Max you give readers a glimpse of something I think so many of us wish—to go back and have the same thing happen again, only this time, with the wisdom of growing up and it’s attendant adversity, get to do it right. Was that an intended gift for your readers or did it turn out that way?

Billie: It was intentional, and I am so pleased you recognized that theme that runs through the story from beginning to end. We wanted to explore the possibilities and problems of what would happen if one couple was given the opportunity to ‘do it all over again.’

Herb: How many times in my own life have I said, if I could just go back and do it again, this time I’d get it right? I’m not sure I would, but given that opportunity, there are some things I’d do differently.  

In A World Apart you tell a really good story about being on opposite sides of the fence in terms of money and privilege and how a couple that is meant to be together find each other and their own common ground. I love the premise of Gayle’s meeting Alex for the first time. Where did you get the idea from.

Herb: I can’t claim any credit for this bit of genius. It was all Billie’s idea.

Billie: I got the idea when I heard my hair dresser tell about how she once had an emergency call to come to a young woman’s home and redo her hair after she’d stepped into the upstairs bathtub and accidentally turned on the shower an hour before her wedding ceremony was scheduled to take place downstairs.   

For Billie—of all your female characters, which is most like you and which would you most like to be like?

Billie: That a difficult question but given a choice I’d select Emily Franklin in LOVE WILL FIND A WAY. She’s a strong woman with a lot of moral character. She’s also loving and caring. Most of all she has a forgiving spirit.

For Herb—of all your male characters, which is most like you and which would you most like to be like?

         Herb: I like Max Anderson, the hero in YOU BELONG TO ME.

He’s made a lot of mistakes in his life but most of them were with the best of intentions. When he’s given the chance to reestablish a relationship with the only woman he has ever loved, he jumps at the opportunity and he’s willing to endure pain, heartache and rejection in order to win her love again.

This is one of my favorite questions to ask Lifetime has come to you to do a make one of your books into a movie. I know which one I would choose…which would you choose and why?

Herb: I’d choose HONKY TONK COWBOY. It has some action scenes that would be great in a movie.

Billie: I’d choose EAST OF THE SUN. I’d love to see the magic of the story come to life on the screen. 

Who would you cast in the starring roles?

Billie: I’d choose Reese Witherspoon to play Pearl. She’d have to change her hair color. And I think Ben Affleck would be perfect in the role of The Prince.

Herb: I would like to see Angelina Jolie play Sarah. She’d have to agree to a dye job too. And I’d cast Matt Damon in the role of Blake Hamilton.

Getting back to the nuts and bolts of your writing, what influenced you to get published? 

 Billie: We always wrote with the hope we’d be published. When we heard that New Concepts was looking for romance stories, we submitted to them and they accepted the story.

Herb: Before that opportunity came along, we had enough rejection slips from agents to paper a room.

Did you always intend to be a husband/wife writing team?

Herb: We’d been married for a lot of years before we began our joint writing career. I don’t think we can say it was something we intended in the beginning.

Billie: We didn’t set out to be writing partners, it just kind of happened and it’s been quite an adventure.  

How long did it take you to get your first book published?

Herb: We completed our first novel in the spring of 1991 and our first book was published in January of 1998.

Billie: During that time we’d completed two other novels and written several essays, articles and short stories that had been published, and I had published a book of poems.

Often a writer’s first book is the toughest to write.

Herb: That is certainly true in our case. We were not only learning how to write fiction we were also learning to write as a team.

Billie: And in some ways collaborative writing is even more complex and demanding than writing solo because it involves the sharing of thoughts and beliefs and the merging of intimate feelings and personal views. 

Do you ever get writer’s block?

Herb: I think all writers suffer at one time or another from writer’s block. I’m no exception. Thank goodness it’s seldom serious, and never of long duration.

My writer’s block is apt to show up in the middle of a story. I’m always enthusiastic at the beginning and ending of a project.

I’d be surprised to hear writers block would hit you at the same time, so what do you do to help each other move past it?

Herb: Billie is a perfectionist. When she I get bogged down in trivialities and details, I remind her that no work of fiction ever reaches absolute perfection.

Billie: Sometimes Herb tires of repeatedly re-writing a scene or a description. When that happens I tell him that everyone has to work hard to produce a good piece of writing.   

Do you usually outline your stories before you write them, or do you "go with the flow"?

         Billie: We always make an outline first.  We do it by chapters.

Herb: We seldom follow the outline completely, but it gives us a base to start from and that’s important when two people are working on one project. 

Are you working on anything right now and can you tell us a teaser about these projects?

Herb: Yes, we are. We have two stories that are out-of the-outline-and into-the-writing-stages. One is a contemporary romance about a vulnerable young woman and a tough Marine Sergeant who are instantly attracted to each other when her brother brings him home for the Christmas holidays. Physical attraction aside, can two people who are so far apart in every way, ever hope to establish any kind of lasting relationship? The tentative title is RULES OF ENGAGEMENT.  

The second is a historical set in 1872. The tentative title is LITTLE NELL. It’s an unusual love story set against the backdrop of range wars, vigilante bands and the arrival of the railroad in a small Texas town where change is more revolution than evolution.   

Billie: We have two projects that are still in the outline-planning-stages.  The first is a contemporary romantic comedy about a down-on-her-luck young woman who inherits a country home from an aunt she never knew existed. She arrives to discover that she has a tenant, a handsome, arrogant, obstinate man who insists that he has a ten year lease on his upstairs suite of rooms and along with that, kitchen privileges. And her aunt’s will states that to inherit her home, she must live in the house. We don’t have a title for this one yet. 

The second is an erotic take off on the fairy tale PUSS-IN-BOOTS. It’s about a clever furry female feline who wears, not boots, but spike heels when she sets out to capture a prince for her beautiful but naïve young mistress. The story will be told from the cat’s point of view. The tentative title is PUSS-IN-HIGH HEELS.  

Any final advice to aspiring authors? 

Herb: Be true to your own creative passion. Decide where your book is begging to go and then take it there.

Billie: What can I add to that, except to say, memorable moving books are not written from a sense of anything but the writer's deepest and most honest convictions?