sarahantz

Visions of Heat is my second paranormal, and is set in the same world as Slave to Sensation, a world of Psy who have amazing mental talents but no emotions, humans, and changelings (who can shapeshift into different animal forms). Visions of Heat focuses on an Faith, an F-Psy who can see the future, and Vaughn, a jaguar changeling brought up among leopards.

Faith has been trained to see business visions, but suddenly she's seeing blood and murder. The emotions these visions arouse—emotions which are forbidden to the Psy on threat of having their minds wiped and their personalities destroyed,—have her thinking she's going insane. In desperation, she reaches for help from the only people who haven't bowed down to the Psy Council: the changelings. But what she finds in Vaughn is a changeling whose animal is very close to the skin. He's less civilized than his brethren and less willing to pretend to be civlized.

How long have you been writing, and what made you start?

I've been writing forever, seriously writing toward publication for ten years I'd say. What made me start is probably what makes any writer start – the urge to tell my own stories, to write things I wanted to read about but couldn't find. Or maybe it was the magic of story itself. I love the act of writing, of losing myself in the worlds of my imagination.

Many people spend a long time searching for an agent. Can you tell us about your agent hunt?

I was a little unusual in that I'd already published several bestselling books with Sil Desire by the time I decided to search for an agent. I was also unusual because I had a complete single title manuscript ready to go (Slave to Sensation). I actually signed with the first agency I queried, which was the agency at the top of my list.

Before you all start sending me hate mail *grin* I want to say that before I sent out a single query, I spent a lot of time doing my homework. I knew exactly which agencies were representing which authors. That way, I knew what agent/agency might be a fit for me and vice versa – that homework stacked the odds in my favor and now I'm delighted to be with Nephele Tempest of the Knight Agency.

Oh mine's a goodie. To make up for my lack of agent-hunting pain, I'll tell you that I had a whole stack of rejections before I sold. I even had one of those infamous copied-too-many times form letters the size of a compliments slip. With Desert Warrior, my first sale, I'd already racked up more than one rejection. But each rejection was for a slightly different book because I was trying to figure out where it fit.

I loved the Sil Desire line but didn't initially submit to it because at that time, the guidelines said American heroines and my heroine was a New Zealander. But, I had had a couple of very nice rejections (with personal comments!) from an editor (Diane Dietz) at Sil Romance, so I took a chance and sent Desert Warrior to her. I got a two page revision letter back saying something along the lines of, this is definitely not a Romance…but you know, it might be a Desire. I hyperventilated, did the revisions and sent them off.

The call came the day before my 25^th birthday. I was sitting at the breakfast table, about to eat cereal when the phone rang. Because of the NY/New Zealand time difference, I knew it was an editor. The rest of that day is a blur of happiness and cake (birthday cake turned celebration cake!).

Write. Just write. Studying other writers, going to classes, all that is good – everyone should try to develop their skills – but in the end, to learn to write, you must write and write consistently.

Can you tell us what you're working on now and what books will be out in the future?

I'm currently working on book 4 of the Psy/Changeling series. In the near future, I have Caressed By Ice coming out in September, which has an icy and incredibly sexy Psy hero. Then in October, I have a novella in an anthology called An Enchanted Season (the fabulous Maggie Shayne is also one of the contributing authors!).

Thank you so much, Nalini. It's been a great pleasure. If anyone has any questions to for Nalini please put them in the comments section.

BIO

Born on the island of Fiji and raised in beautiful New Zealand, former lawyer Nalini Singh has traveled as far afield as the deserts of China and the plains of Inner Mongolia. Yet, much as she loves traveling to new and exciting places, it is the journey of the imagination that fascinates her the most. She's delighted to be able to share this journey with her readers. You can find out more about Nalini, her books and her travels by visiting her website (http://www.nalinisingh.com).

# posted by Sara Hantz : 8:10 am