Welcome, Rose Anderson

Thank you so much for being here, Rose Anderson.

1: What genre do you write?

I write everything from early readers to suspense. Currently, I have two books published under the Erotic Romance category.

2: How long have you been writing?

I’ve been actively writing since 1990. I began with an early reader series for my kids.

3: What do you like the most and least about writing?

I’m one of those linear, fly-by-the-seat-of-my pants, authors. What do I like the most? I’d have to say it’s creating other worlds. The least? If I get distracted, the thought train derails.

4: What do you for fun and relaxation when not writing?

Mainly, I just hang out with family and friends. On weekends from April to November, I go to flea markets with my husband. We like hunting treasures.

5: Which authors do you like to read?

Diana Gabaldon is my favorite. I’m a huge fan of her style and attention to detail. I’m known to do the complete JK Rowling Harry Potter series once a year too.

6: What’s the one thing you’d most like people to know about you?

I’m a very good friend.

7: Tell me about your current novel, where I can find it?

My current novel is Dreamscape. Outwardly, it’s a ghost story set between two time periods, but on the inside it’s actually an Easter egg hunt. Easter eggs, in this sense, are intentional hidden messages. I tried to make them as visible as I could and in such number that readers would say to themselves, Was that intentional? It must mean something! Growing up, I was a huge fan of author Agatha Christie’s work. I remember reading And Then There Were None as a child. I didn’t fully comprehend the nuance of the story at the time, but after seeing Ten Little Indians, the movie adaptation, several years later, I reread the book. To my surprise and delight, it was filled with pointing fingers and arrows and some were veiled and some were out in plain sight. I loved that.

Avid readers, or even avid movie goers, should be able to pick out the clues by the third Easter egg. By then, I imagine their minds are saying, huh? Did she mean to write it that way? At least I hope they do! Those intentional hidden messages point to the truth.

The story revolves around Dr. Elaine (Lanie) O’Keefe and her recent purchase of the derelict mid-Victorian Bowen mansion. She has plans to renovate the property into a free clinic. This is no ordinary mansion in two key ways – Since she was a small child, Lanie has been dreaming of the house, as if she lived in the Victorian era. And, as is often the case in the many small towns across America, old abandoned houses are jokingly labeled haunted houses. There’s just one thing, old Bowen Mansion is haunted.

Jason Bowen, a doctor in his own time and a ghost in this one, roams the house contemplating his own murder in the century before. He has no recollection of the deed, only that his new wife and her lover are responsible. He soon becomes fascinated by the woman who’s moved into his house. What begins as an innocent experiment to touch her warm skin while she sleeps, leads to Jason’s discovery that, as pure energy, he’s able to ply Lanie’s synapse and live again through her dreams. He’s surprised to discover those dreams return him to the days leading up to his murder. Only this time, Lanie is there by his side. The questions now are: Can a ghost find love among the living? And, if so, what of that little insurmountable matter of Jason being dead?

8: Do you have any tips for aspiring authors?

I do.

·        Write for yourself. If you like it, chances are readers will too.

·        Learn from reviews if you can. Remember, not all of your books will be a good fit with every reader out there. Reviews are simply opinions. How many people do you know with opinions different than your own? Revel in the good ones, consider the bad ones, then move on to the next.

·        Know up front that writing the book is less than half the work involved. Promoting that book takes far more time.

9: Do you base your characters on real-life people?

My characters are often fleshed out by small slices of my friends and family, my heroes and heroines are all composites of who I am. But then they’d have to be wouldn’t they? I do because it’s easy to draw from the familiar. If readers knew me, they’d recognize my furnishings, my pets, the many cars I’ve owned, and even things about themselves. My life makes cameo appearances in one form or another in all of my books. Anything funny my characters do, chances are I’ve either done it or someone close to me has!

10: How did you come up with the idea for this book? I like to take the path less traveled. I really like offbeat turn-things-on-their-ear scenarios. In my first erotic romance, Hermes Online, there is the unlikely. In Dreamscape, there is the impossible. Dreamscape came from a conversation with a pen pal. He’s a poet but also a romantic. We were discussing writing technique when I thought of an impossible scenario – Could a ghost find love among the living? I wrote a three paragraph pitch around that thought, and suddenly realized I could make it work. Voila Jason Bowen and Lanie O’Keefe were born and before I knew it Dreamscape was written.

11: What are you currently working on?

I tend to work on more than one project at a time. I have a story of the American Midwest, one set in the Isle of Skye, and my three years in the making five-book series. Going back and forth like that helps keep writers block at bay.

12. Is there anything else you’d like us to know about you?

I love having my imagination tickled and my mind stretched. I often ask friends and family for writing prompts. If readers ever have an idea, they could pitch it my way and I’d take a swing at it. The more outrageous the better! J

13. Where can we find you? Website? Blog?

My website isn’t finished yet, but my blog CalliopesWritingTablet is up and running. Calliope was the writer's muse. Muses in general were considered the source of knowledge and higher learning. That being the case, I dedicated my blog to her because, it too is dedicated to learning -- my learning the ropes as an author and sharing what I've learned. Everything about my journey so far is in my blog -- from laurels to skinned knees: http://calliopeswritingtablet.com/ . Interested parties can follow me on Twitter to find out what's new: http://twitter.com/#!/RoseAnderson_ as well as on my publisher's website http://www.bookstrand.com/rose-anderson . You can also find me on Youtube! http://www.youtube.com/user/MusesWritingTablet  . I'm just about everywhere!

Dreamscape by Rose Anderson
PG Excerpt

He'd watched the pair as they walked around the grounds with pens and paper in hand presumably making notes for repairs. While assessing the pavers that lined his walkway, she looked up at his window curiously as if seeking something. Jason frowned. Did she see him standing there? How odd. He could only be seen when he wanted to. And he did not yet wish to be seen.

After the man had driven away in his automobile, the woman retrieved her bags from another smaller vehicle. He watched her coming up the walkway only to take another glance his way. She was smiling.

Hmm.

Below, the front door opened and closed, so he headed there, curious about the woman who at this very moment was moving into his house. He was grateful for two things, the first being he'd no longer be alone with only an occasional mouse for company. The second, this young woman bore no resemblance to his beautiful, black-hearted wife.

He thought about her from time to time, his duplicitous wife Cathy, her lover Richard Mason, and his sister Bertha, his murderers. He spent many a night listening to their congratulatory recounting of how they'd set him up, duping him into marrying a woman who from the onset had a lover in the wings. Like the Masons, Cathy too was born and raised in the south at the time of reconstruction and was reared on tales of the glory days. Their sole purpose from the onset in taking his life was so she would inherit all.

When they met she had been such a sweet and shy little beauty, the shyness he later learned to be false. When she comforted him over the untimely death of his father, he'd been surprised by how quickly he fell head over heels for her. Though she'd never voiced it while he was alive, he was well aware of her desire to live in the affluent manner in which her parents and grandparents had lived before the war took it all away. To that end, seeking to win her timid heart and encourage the comfort that would eventually lead his wife into his bed, he gave into Cathy's every whim. No more than two months had passed before he was compelled to offer her marriage. No more than four before he found himself dead with his spirit walking the halls.

He played the details of their courtship over and over in his mind, for what else did he have to occupy his thoughts? Cathy Ames had accepted his proposal eagerly, despite her less-than-enthusiastic response to his advances. These always met with a cool reserve he erroneously mistook for maidenly shyness. But Cathy didn't possess a shy bone in her body. No, far from it. He'd seen them together, his wife and his murderer. Seen for himself the eager way she gave herself, the way she clutched his body to hers and treated him to a carnal knowledge that obviously developed from years of knowing. Not only did it shock his senses to see it, it sickened him. What a fool he'd been. Because of that he kept to the only room they never visited -- the cupola at the top of the house -- and decades passed there with little concern, because time ceased to have meaning for the dead. Yes, they continued on with their merry lives, raised their foul brood, and got away with murder.

But all that changed with the last of them. Margaret, the great-granddaughter of his wife, and her accomplice had never married, and like the living, aged over time. He never minded Margaret Mason. How could he when she was as lonely as he? He appeared to her from time to time when the loneliness got the best of both of them. When she grew old, and became the last of Richard Mason's miserable line, he eventually told her the truth of her great-grandparents' treachery. The night she died in her sleep she called him to her side and told him she arranged her estate to his benefit as best she could. It was the least she could do after the wrong her family had done him.

Standing invisible on the stairway, he looked over his new house guest. What a pretty creature with her tight curves, porcelain skin, and lustrous raven hair. More than one hundred years had passed since a beautiful woman walked these halls, for Richard Mason sired unfortunate-looking souls who passed on their regrettable looks to each generation, including poor Margaret. Blood will out. Evil definitely had a way of marking the man's legacy as surely as Cane himself had been marked.

Following her into the kitchen, he watched her rummage for pots. She filled them at the tap then heated the water on the stove. He leaned against the wall appraising her. In all the years of his life, and certainly all the years after, this had to be the most beautiful woman he'd laid eyes on. She wore tight clothing, far tighter than he recalled women's clothing to be when he saw them on Margaret's television device. In fact her blue trousers fit her like a glove. These declared her legs to be slender and shapely and her bottom delectably rounded. Her breasts sat high and firm, and he found himself imagining what she looked like unclothed. The thought surprised him. He certainly harbored no such notion when the Mason horde lived here.

Hmm. In this fair company, he found himself still very much a man, despite being a dead one.

What a comely thing. With her long dark lashes framing eyes the shade of blue that fell somewhere between cornflower petals and a robin's egg. Lightly arched brows, an adorable nose, and full lips a lovely shade of rose pink. When she opened a paper sack to retrieve a sandwich and apple, the sight made him hungry. No, not hungry exactly. Rather wistful. Food was such an enjoyable thing and one he sorely missed. Occasionally, in the process of eating, she licked her lips, and that simple act made his body stir. Hmm, he mused, how about that?