Author Mary Margret Daughtridge joins us today to talk about covers and her new book SEALed with a Kiss, available now from Sourcebooks, Inc. The Romantic Times gave the book 4.5 stars and called it “a heart-touching story that will keep you smiling and cheering for the characters clear through to the happy ending.”

Readers: Leave your questions for Mary Margret and one lucky commenter with win an autographed copy of the book! (contest open for one week)

Covers, and the paranormal, and me

Covers—the good, the bad and the ugly have been a recent topic here at Ciaralira.

Having seen a bunch of covers over the years that I found appalling, the delight I felt when my editor sent the cover of SEALed With A Kiss was liberally mixed with relief. And then I noticed an odd sort of déjà vu.

Turn back the hands of time to the RWA national convention in Atlanta. There I met my agent, Stephany Evans, with whom I had just signed, face to face for the first time. We sat at a tiny table in a deserted coffee shop area of the hotel one afternoon, and chatted about a mutual acquaintance who writes books on metaphysics.

Stephany asked me if I thought I was psychic.

Since I think everyone is, I answered, “Yes, although I don’t think I have more than average talent.”

“Can you see what the cover of your book will be?” Stephany asked. I should insert here that SEALed was not sold at the time. In fact, the title back then was Designated Hero.

I shook my head. “I wish I could. I’ve tried and tried. But when I try to picture it all I can get is an impression of ‘blue.’” I shrugged. “Just lots and lots of blue in all different shades.”

The story proves I’m not much of a clairvoyant. I mean, you’d think if anything was going to make a psychic impression it would be the hot bod on the cover—not the blue (yes, lots and lots of blue in all different shades) background.

I think the story is a metaphor for how I write romance. I have scenes like that in SEALed With A Kiss. I even have a character who is influencing my SEAL hero, Jax, from the Other Side, and a dog who is…well, it’s hard to know exactly what Hobo Joe is, but he’s not just a dog.

I didn’t plan either one. Truthfully, I don’t plan my books at all. When I begin, I know who the hero is, and what qualities the heroine must have to balance him. I know that the book is going to have to end well, although it doesn’t look good for them right now. Then scenes just come to me in pieces, out of order. Sometimes I know where the scene should fit; a lot of the time, I don’t.

After a while I see what my hero and heroine are going to have to learn in order to deserve a happy ending. And when the story comes together, and the I realize I have been seeing the background all the time. Once the background is understood, the pattern is visible, and the figures emerge in the foreground.

Mary Margret was kind enough to satisfy my burning questions about her writing process:

Do you have a set schedule for writing? Do you write at a certain time of day?

Lately, going through the first move in twenty years, my schedule is shot, however what works best for me is to get up around 4.30 and write until noon. My brain seems to be most creative then.

Do you have any superstitios rituals that you do before you start writing? (my mom had a magic eraser she always took to tests in med school.)

[grin] I have a friend who made it through law school, she swears, because of a lucky green sweater she wore to exams. I’ve tried on everything in my closet. Nothing works. Sometimes when I get stuck, it helps to switch to longhand. It won’t work though, unless I use a yellow legal pad, and a yellow number 2 pencil.

What are your favorite books of all time? What books have influenced you most in your writing career?

I’m a voracious reader, often with five or more books open at a time. There are so many books I’ve loved, I couldn’t possibly choose a favorite. I’d have to say the most influential writer would be Robert A Heinlein. That man could write a story that could entertain anyone of any age, and I often think to myself, “What would Heinlien do?”

How did you decide on names for your characters?

I’ve already admitted a lot my writing process is a mystery to me. Take Pickett. She’s the heroine in SEALed With a Kiss. She’s a character who had lived in my head for years, waiting for me to find a hero for her, and her name had always been Pickett. Some people even advised me that it wasn’t a “good” name for a romantic heroine, but I couldn’t help it. Pickett was her name, and if I tried to change it, the character went flat. Fortunately, a lot of readers love the name, and think it makes her stand out.

I fumbled around for a good while though to name the SEAL hero. Then one day in an airport I saw a luggage check with JAX on it. Suddenly I knew he was Jackson Graham the third, and when he was a kid, his best friend thought that name didn’t fit him, so he nicknamed him Jax, because “that sounds like the name of a Jedi.” And what was the name of the best friend? Corey. I knew it instantly.

What do you like most about military heroes?

Writing military heroes chose me, more than the reverse. I read a newspaper article about a soldier in Iraq who had been ordered by a judge to leave the army, or she would lose a child custody battle. I was incredibly touched by the soldier’s internal and external conflict. When I started constructing a story about that, I asked myself who among the military would experience the most conflict between his job and his duty as a parent? The answer was easy. Someone in Special Operations. Those men make huge sacrifices around their personal life and relationships. I chose a SEAL.

When I began to research them, I learned what extraordinary men they are. They are already larger than life. Something one might not guess about them, is that they are funny. All the SEALs I have met have this insouciant, irreverent wit that cracks me up. I tried very hard to capture that in Jax, and I think it’s a large part of his charm.

How do you think curent military conflicts will impact the military hero sub-genre?

Good question. Actually SEALed With a Kiss is a blend of sub-genres. The hero is military, but the plot is a home and hearth, feel-good romance, that totally focuses on relationships, rather than the action adventure or romantic suspense usually associated with SEALs.

Since 9/11, romantic suspense and paranormals have gotten darker and darker, and more and more cynical, reflecting the spirit of the times. We see the heroes and heroines fighting inhuman evil that has persisted for eons. I think part of their appeal is that the reader gets to experience, vicariously, at least a momentary triumph over vast and incomprehensible forces–while being thoroughly entertained!

I have a theory that, now that people have absorbed 9/11 and recognize there aren’t any easy answers, there will be an upsurge of demand for romances that offer not only entertainment and escape, but light, and the hope that very, very human people of goodwill can face the challenges that confront our world today and prevail.

What projects are you working on next?

Jax’s friend the wily MENSA-material, Caleb “Do Lord” Dulaude, demanded his own book, before I was half through with SEALed With a Kiss. For this ex-bad-boy who grew up at the dirty fringes of society, becoming a SEAL saved his life, and possibly his soul. Now, to finally fulfill a promise he made to his mother, Do Lord must depend on an absent-minded professor, rather than another SEAL, to have his back; and he must lose his heart if he’s going to mend it.

Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?

Learn to control your imagination. It’s your greatest asset, but it can also be your inner saboteur. When you imagine what might happen to yourself, make up happy stories. You will live out whatever stories you make up about yourself.

Thank you Mary Margret!