Our Authors - In The Spotlight

Terry Blain
author of KENTUCKY DREAM

How did it feel to become published?

TB: Finally!!! Getting published is the 'offical seal of approval' that what you've spent your time and money to do is valid. I read somewhere that people usually stick with a new 'hobby' for about five years, so I went in to writing with the idea of getting published within five years. So after five years rolled around and I still wasn't published, but still wanted to write and enjoyed the writing process so I just keep at it.

If you could teach up aspiring writers one thing, what would that be? Best advice ever given or taken?

TB: Getting published doesn't mean you're a better writer than unpublished, it just means you got published. The manuscript of KENTUCKY DREAM was was finished, and essentially the same in the five years it took to sell it. So my writing didn't get better in that five years, it just took that long for KENTUCKY DREAM to find a home. Marian Jones always tells her class it takes three things to get published. TALENT, LUCK & PERSISTANCE. And, if you have persistance, you can get by with one of the other two.

Have you worked with a mentor, critique group or writing/plotting partner?

TB: I've always worked with a critique group. I don't think I'd get anything done without the critique group. The deadline of having to have something to turn in is an incentive to get to the keyboard. (Don't listen to my critique group laughing, I've been remiss lately. But it's all their fault for being too nice, and not yelling at me enough to make me guilty about not having something to turn in.)

Is your life anything like the romances you write?

TB: Can you hear me laughing? The romance novel is about those tremendous ups and downs, the angst of 'falling in love', of dealing with your sexuality, the leap of faith of commitment. If you're lucky, you only go through that once in your life (my husband and I went through this phase about 30 years ago). We read romance to recapture all these 'thrills' without any risk to our everyday, ordinary life which may not be exciting (and old Chinese curse: my you live in exciting/interesting times!). But now that you've got me thinking about this, I guess the similarites are there in that I write about 'ordinary people' in my historicals -- the average folk who made the everyday history that we seldom read about. I'm lucky enough to know a lot of my family history, and my character are the people who might have lived just down the road from my ancestors.

Read the review of KENTUCKY DREAM on The Romance Reader .

Kentucky Dream
Precious Gem Historical Romance
February 1999