Author's Bio
Daisy Harris lives in Seattle with her husband, daughters, and way too many pets. When she isn't writing, she's tweeting. And when she isn't doing that, she's camping, biking, reading, spending time with kids, or gardening.
Daisy loves to hear from readers, and looks forward to receiving your emails and feedback!
The Interview:
GRACIE: I’m excited to have you here at The G-Spot, Daisy! Please tell us a little about yourself (or a lot J) and how and when you got into writing?
DAISY: Thanks for having me, Gracie! A little about myself? Hmmm, I'm a mom. I live in Seattle with my kids, husband, and way too many pets. I'm a recovering technical/medical writer, so it's safe to say that I'm not actually capable of doing anything other than writing for a living. It took me a long time to get into writing fiction, though. I've always loved reading and wanted to write fiction when I was a kid, but it took me almost 30 years to get up the courage to try my hand.
GRACIE: Is there any one thing or person in your life that inspired your writing? Any one thing or person that influenced the genre you write in?
DAISY: Sydney Croft's ACRO series set something off in me. After reading those, I was like, "I GOTTA try this!" I LOVE that series. It combined my greatest joys: scifi/fantasy, comic book premises, and sex. I'd read very little romance when I began writing. Instead, I'd come to paranormal romance by way of urban fantasy. Larissa Ione's Demonica series inspired me as well, as did her story as a writer. I bet Kresley Cole's Demons After Dark would have inspired me if I'd read it at the time. I didn't hear of Kresley Cole until I found my first critique partners and started reading their recommendations. :)
GRACIE: Ah yes, I love the ACRO series myself! Kind of like The X-Men with hot sex ;) So, when did you get The Call and what was your first published work?
DAISY: Ha! The Call is such a misnomer. Does anyone call anybody anymore? I got The Email from Siren about Mere Passion when I was a few thousand words into Shark Bait. In fact, I was such a newbie that I subbed Mere Passion without first subbing Mere Temptation (the first book in the series.) I won't even go into why I didn't sub them in order...I was so incredibly green and uninformed. It's a wonder I've made it as far as I have!
GRACIE: What do you know now about writing and the publishing industry that you wish you’d known before you started?
DAISY: Egads! Everything! But honestly, I've always been a learn-as-you-go type. Sure, I started out clueless, but I didn't stay that way. But if there was one thing I wish I'd known? ...Ach, if I'd known any more, I would have been too scared to try. I'm glad I was too clueless to know any better. :)
GRACIE: Please, give us a little story behind the story and what inspired the fascinating world behind your Siren Publishing Ocean Shifters series.
DAISY: The first thing you need to know is that I was born in Miami. My mom loved to sail, and the house I lived in till age three was across the street from a marina. Then we moved to New York City and into an apartment, but I went to Miami several times a year to visit my grandmother. My husband is from Michigan and grew up spending summers on sailboats, and we live together in Seattle, with Lake Washington on one side and the Puget Sound on the other. The ocean is in my blood, and seaside communities are some of the most interesting places in the world!
GRACIE: The heroines in Ocean Shifters are all fiercely independent and strong. What do you think is Ismaelda, Alara and Sophie’s Achille’s heel, and how do you go about stomping it?
DAISY: Wow, good question! OK, let me see. My first heroine, Isa, was a commitment-phobe. Of all my heroines, I think she was the most like me, which made her the hardest to write. I stomped out her issues by putting her in a situation where she had no choice but to finally make a decision. What I liked about her story was that even after she decided to stay with Sidon, her life still had challenges. Her mom was still a hassle, the Key still had dragon problems. Without something to keep her occupied, Isa would certainly have started to second guess herself, so I'm glad I gave her new problems to solve.
Alara projected a tough, belligerent outer shell to hide her central core of fear. She conquered and fought so that she would never again have to feel helpless, and I really loved her for that. But in order to truly love, she needed to let down her defenses. Kai was the perfect guy to help her do that. He's the only true alpha male I've written to date, and though he was totally misguided at first, he had the strength to help Alara fight her demons. (Figuratively and literally.)
I loved Sophia so hard! On the outset, she seemed like a total pushover, a waif, a damsel in distress, but she had an inner core of self-preservation that bordered on conniving. It was that selfish underhandedness that really drew me to her. Her downfall, however, was that she didn't see herself as worthy. Granted, she had good reason. She'd been raised to believe she was unattractive, small, undesirable. So her challenge was to realize she was worth loving and that a male could love her without being tricked, and without her changing. Raider was precisely that male.
GRACIE: Which circumstance do you find most appealing and/or challenging to write about—the “cute meet” situation of characters encountering each other for the first time as with Kai and Alara in Mere Passion and Raider and Sophie in Shark Bait, or the situation of previous flames reuniting to rekindle their relationship as with Isa and Sidon in Mere Temptation?
DAISY: Oh, I love a good cute-meet. Every story I've ever written besides Mere Temptation involved a silly throwing together of characters. Part of that is because the longer I write, the more I realize I like writing comedy. Cute-meets are funny! For example, in my latest release Mercury Rising, the god Mercury hooks up with an event staff member in the loading dock of the conference he's organizing. Then the next day, he learns that his hook-up was assigned to be his personal assistant, and his arranged fiancee is showing up any minute.
I like to toss my characters into ridiculous and impossible situations right off, then watch them sink or swim.
GRACIE: What sort of research and motivation went into creating such compelling and distinctive yet vulnerable alpha heroes like Sidon, Kai and Raider?
DAISY: Research?? No...no research!
Honestly, I started most of my heroes by taking a standard romance-novel type, or a "guy type" I know and hate and turning it on its ear. Normally I can't stand alpha heroes, so I wrote Kai in an attempt to see how a prejudiced, sexist, misguided alpha might be reformed. Raider, on the other hand, was very beauty and the beast. He was my beast!!
Sidon- he was my charmer, the guy every girl wanted, which is why I rejoiced in getting him on his knees. :)
GRACIE: Of all the stories you’ve written so far, which is your favorite and why?
DAISY: Hm. It's a tie between Mere Passion and Lust After Death which was just accepted by Ellora's Cave. Mere Passion was the story of my heart, but I was green when writing it. Kai and Alara were both so larger than life and I really hoped I did them justice.
Lust After Death...teeheehee. It's good. Really, really, horribly good. It's got all the mind-bendy weirdness y'all have come to expect from me, with a wicked-fun premise. My hero, Bane Connor, was my first attempt to write a "lost soul." I don't do that much because I do enjoy writing funny, and I hate heroes who are mopey. But I gave him a horrid past and a dismal future, then I gave him a way out when he meets the heroine, Josie.
GRACIE: I know this is like asking a mother which is her favorite child, but which of your characters is your favorite and why?
DAISY: Oh lord! I love them all! I love Karon, my latent vampire from Mere Temptation and Mere Passion. I love Loki from Mercury Rising. Alara, my kick ass bitch, will always be one of my favs. Sophia, the littlest dragon. Josie, the newborn zombie. I can't choose!
GRACIE: What about your characters makes them unique?
DAISY: My characters always do something unexpected. My overachiever, immigrant hero Dillon had a wild and rebellious streak a mile wide. My gods are insecure. My zombies are the good guys. Yeah, I never, ever do what's expected. It's not in my genetic makeup!
GRACIE: What is your favorite aspect of the writing process? Your least favorite?
DAISY: My favorite part is a tie between the very beginning, when all possibilities are open, and that point in revisions, where the story finally "clicks." I approach revisions like a type of therapy. I think, "What was I really trying to say? What was I going through when I wrote this? What truth does the book convey?" The answers I find always blow me away. It's the greatest feeling in the world!
GRACIE: Are you a pantser or do you outline?
DAISY: I'm a little in-between, but probably more of a panster. I tend to map out what is going to happen in each scene, generally. But it often changes, new scenes get added. I never plan whose point of view I'll be in till I get there. But I can't seem to write without a degree of planning. I think, then write, then think again, playing it by ear and feel.
GRACIE: If you weren’t a writer, what other profession would you have chosen to pursue?
DAISY: I'm not really capable of doing anything else. I would, however, like to do some science journalism at some point. That and be a sex-advice columnist. :)
GRACIE: Who are some of your favorite authors and why? Name some of your favorite books and why they’re your favorites.
DAISY: Larrissa Ione and Sydney Croft- because there's something truly irreverent in how they write, and their stuff has superheroes! Sexual superheroes!
Shelly Laurenston writing as G.A.Aiken- yes, I know I should probably just say Shelly Laurenston, but I really like her Dragon Kin stories better than her other shifters. Not sure why, but I like my shifters cold-blooded. I love Shelly for her humor. She was a big inspiration to me in developing a more comedic voice.
And I love Nalini Singh's psy-changeling series. Nalini's voice is so, so, so different than mine, but I love the control she has over her stories. Her storytelling is so smooth and satisfying.
Of course, the great Kresley Cole.
Recent discoveries include Charlotte Stein, whose scifi work I love, love, love; Cat Grant, who writes great male-male; Tiffany Reisz, up and coming erotica author; and Kelly Jamieson, whose reasoning always makes complete sense to me no matter what genre she's writing.
Ack, there are so many more!
GRACIE: Those are some nice choices and some of my favorites also! What are you working on now and what should readers be looking forward to from you in the future?
DAISY: I'm writing a sequel to my most recent release, Mercury Rising. I'm also working on edits for Lust After Death. And yeah, I've got a zombie sequel in the works. So, gods and undead. What could be better, right?
GRACIE: Do you have a website and/or how can readers contact you?
DAISY: Of course! My website is www.thedaisyharris.com
I'm also on twitter 24/7 as @thedaisyharris. You can email, but it's usually faster to catch me on the twittosphere!
GRACIE: Where and how can readers purchase and/or read samples of your work?
DAISY: Sign up for my mailing list, FREE SEX! You'll get updates, links, and free reads. My books are available on Amazon, B and N, and through the publisher's websites.
GRACIE: What advice do you have for beginning writers?
DAISY: Learn, learn, learn! I had an easy time breaking into this business because I came to it from technical/science writing. I started out with a pretty solid grasp of grammar and composition, and I'd developed the ability to learn any topic fast. Resources are available all over the internet. The best thing to do is to join some writers organizations, like Romance Writers of America (RWA.) Through them, you can meet folks who will critique your work and point you in the right direction. I know I'd be lost without the help of friends I met through RWA.
GRACIE: Anything else about yourself or your writing you’d like to share with your readers?
DAISY: Gosh, if any of you follow me on twitter you probably know too much about me already!
GRACIE: Daisy, thanks so much for taking time from your busy schedule to share yourself and your work with us at The G-Spot and giving us a little insight into your writing and the writing process! We’ll let you get back to writing those wonderful books you write! All the best!
Daisy loves to hear from readers, and looks forward to receiving your emails and feedback!
The Interview:
GRACIE: I’m excited to have you here at The G-Spot, Daisy! Please tell us a little about yourself (or a lot J) and how and when you got into writing?
DAISY: Thanks for having me, Gracie! A little about myself? Hmmm, I'm a mom. I live in Seattle with my kids, husband, and way too many pets. I'm a recovering technical/medical writer, so it's safe to say that I'm not actually capable of doing anything other than writing for a living. It took me a long time to get into writing fiction, though. I've always loved reading and wanted to write fiction when I was a kid, but it took me almost 30 years to get up the courage to try my hand.
GRACIE: Is there any one thing or person in your life that inspired your writing? Any one thing or person that influenced the genre you write in?
DAISY: Sydney Croft's ACRO series set something off in me. After reading those, I was like, "I GOTTA try this!" I LOVE that series. It combined my greatest joys: scifi/fantasy, comic book premises, and sex. I'd read very little romance when I began writing. Instead, I'd come to paranormal romance by way of urban fantasy. Larissa Ione's Demonica series inspired me as well, as did her story as a writer. I bet Kresley Cole's Demons After Dark would have inspired me if I'd read it at the time. I didn't hear of Kresley Cole until I found my first critique partners and started reading their recommendations. :)
GRACIE: Ah yes, I love the ACRO series myself! Kind of like The X-Men with hot sex ;) So, when did you get The Call and what was your first published work?
DAISY: Ha! The Call is such a misnomer. Does anyone call anybody anymore? I got The Email from Siren about Mere Passion when I was a few thousand words into Shark Bait. In fact, I was such a newbie that I subbed Mere Passion without first subbing Mere Temptation (the first book in the series.) I won't even go into why I didn't sub them in order...I was so incredibly green and uninformed. It's a wonder I've made it as far as I have!
GRACIE: What do you know now about writing and the publishing industry that you wish you’d known before you started?
DAISY: Egads! Everything! But honestly, I've always been a learn-as-you-go type. Sure, I started out clueless, but I didn't stay that way. But if there was one thing I wish I'd known? ...Ach, if I'd known any more, I would have been too scared to try. I'm glad I was too clueless to know any better. :)
GRACIE: Please, give us a little story behind the story and what inspired the fascinating world behind your Siren Publishing Ocean Shifters series.
DAISY: The first thing you need to know is that I was born in Miami. My mom loved to sail, and the house I lived in till age three was across the street from a marina. Then we moved to New York City and into an apartment, but I went to Miami several times a year to visit my grandmother. My husband is from Michigan and grew up spending summers on sailboats, and we live together in Seattle, with Lake Washington on one side and the Puget Sound on the other. The ocean is in my blood, and seaside communities are some of the most interesting places in the world!
GRACIE: The heroines in Ocean Shifters are all fiercely independent and strong. What do you think is Ismaelda, Alara and Sophie’s Achille’s heel, and how do you go about stomping it?
DAISY: Wow, good question! OK, let me see. My first heroine, Isa, was a commitment-phobe. Of all my heroines, I think she was the most like me, which made her the hardest to write. I stomped out her issues by putting her in a situation where she had no choice but to finally make a decision. What I liked about her story was that even after she decided to stay with Sidon, her life still had challenges. Her mom was still a hassle, the Key still had dragon problems. Without something to keep her occupied, Isa would certainly have started to second guess herself, so I'm glad I gave her new problems to solve.
Alara projected a tough, belligerent outer shell to hide her central core of fear. She conquered and fought so that she would never again have to feel helpless, and I really loved her for that. But in order to truly love, she needed to let down her defenses. Kai was the perfect guy to help her do that. He's the only true alpha male I've written to date, and though he was totally misguided at first, he had the strength to help Alara fight her demons. (Figuratively and literally.)
I loved Sophia so hard! On the outset, she seemed like a total pushover, a waif, a damsel in distress, but she had an inner core of self-preservation that bordered on conniving. It was that selfish underhandedness that really drew me to her. Her downfall, however, was that she didn't see herself as worthy. Granted, she had good reason. She'd been raised to believe she was unattractive, small, undesirable. So her challenge was to realize she was worth loving and that a male could love her without being tricked, and without her changing. Raider was precisely that male.
GRACIE: Which circumstance do you find most appealing and/or challenging to write about—the “cute meet” situation of characters encountering each other for the first time as with Kai and Alara in Mere Passion and Raider and Sophie in Shark Bait, or the situation of previous flames reuniting to rekindle their relationship as with Isa and Sidon in Mere Temptation?
DAISY: Oh, I love a good cute-meet. Every story I've ever written besides Mere Temptation involved a silly throwing together of characters. Part of that is because the longer I write, the more I realize I like writing comedy. Cute-meets are funny! For example, in my latest release Mercury Rising, the god Mercury hooks up with an event staff member in the loading dock of the conference he's organizing. Then the next day, he learns that his hook-up was assigned to be his personal assistant, and his arranged fiancee is showing up any minute.
I like to toss my characters into ridiculous and impossible situations right off, then watch them sink or swim.
GRACIE: What sort of research and motivation went into creating such compelling and distinctive yet vulnerable alpha heroes like Sidon, Kai and Raider?
DAISY: Research?? No...no research!
Honestly, I started most of my heroes by taking a standard romance-novel type, or a "guy type" I know and hate and turning it on its ear. Normally I can't stand alpha heroes, so I wrote Kai in an attempt to see how a prejudiced, sexist, misguided alpha might be reformed. Raider, on the other hand, was very beauty and the beast. He was my beast!!
Sidon- he was my charmer, the guy every girl wanted, which is why I rejoiced in getting him on his knees. :)
GRACIE: Of all the stories you’ve written so far, which is your favorite and why?
DAISY: Hm. It's a tie between Mere Passion and Lust After Death which was just accepted by Ellora's Cave. Mere Passion was the story of my heart, but I was green when writing it. Kai and Alara were both so larger than life and I really hoped I did them justice.
Lust After Death...teeheehee. It's good. Really, really, horribly good. It's got all the mind-bendy weirdness y'all have come to expect from me, with a wicked-fun premise. My hero, Bane Connor, was my first attempt to write a "lost soul." I don't do that much because I do enjoy writing funny, and I hate heroes who are mopey. But I gave him a horrid past and a dismal future, then I gave him a way out when he meets the heroine, Josie.
GRACIE: I know this is like asking a mother which is her favorite child, but which of your characters is your favorite and why?
DAISY: Oh lord! I love them all! I love Karon, my latent vampire from Mere Temptation and Mere Passion. I love Loki from Mercury Rising. Alara, my kick ass bitch, will always be one of my favs. Sophia, the littlest dragon. Josie, the newborn zombie. I can't choose!
GRACIE: What about your characters makes them unique?
DAISY: My characters always do something unexpected. My overachiever, immigrant hero Dillon had a wild and rebellious streak a mile wide. My gods are insecure. My zombies are the good guys. Yeah, I never, ever do what's expected. It's not in my genetic makeup!
GRACIE: What is your favorite aspect of the writing process? Your least favorite?
DAISY: My favorite part is a tie between the very beginning, when all possibilities are open, and that point in revisions, where the story finally "clicks." I approach revisions like a type of therapy. I think, "What was I really trying to say? What was I going through when I wrote this? What truth does the book convey?" The answers I find always blow me away. It's the greatest feeling in the world!
GRACIE: Are you a pantser or do you outline?
DAISY: I'm a little in-between, but probably more of a panster. I tend to map out what is going to happen in each scene, generally. But it often changes, new scenes get added. I never plan whose point of view I'll be in till I get there. But I can't seem to write without a degree of planning. I think, then write, then think again, playing it by ear and feel.
GRACIE: If you weren’t a writer, what other profession would you have chosen to pursue?
DAISY: I'm not really capable of doing anything else. I would, however, like to do some science journalism at some point. That and be a sex-advice columnist. :)
GRACIE: Who are some of your favorite authors and why? Name some of your favorite books and why they’re your favorites.
DAISY: Larrissa Ione and Sydney Croft- because there's something truly irreverent in how they write, and their stuff has superheroes! Sexual superheroes!
Shelly Laurenston writing as G.A.Aiken- yes, I know I should probably just say Shelly Laurenston, but I really like her Dragon Kin stories better than her other shifters. Not sure why, but I like my shifters cold-blooded. I love Shelly for her humor. She was a big inspiration to me in developing a more comedic voice.
And I love Nalini Singh's psy-changeling series. Nalini's voice is so, so, so different than mine, but I love the control she has over her stories. Her storytelling is so smooth and satisfying.
Of course, the great Kresley Cole.
Recent discoveries include Charlotte Stein, whose scifi work I love, love, love; Cat Grant, who writes great male-male; Tiffany Reisz, up and coming erotica author; and Kelly Jamieson, whose reasoning always makes complete sense to me no matter what genre she's writing.
Ack, there are so many more!
GRACIE: Those are some nice choices and some of my favorites also! What are you working on now and what should readers be looking forward to from you in the future?
DAISY: I'm writing a sequel to my most recent release, Mercury Rising. I'm also working on edits for Lust After Death. And yeah, I've got a zombie sequel in the works. So, gods and undead. What could be better, right?
GRACIE: Do you have a website and/or how can readers contact you?
DAISY: Of course! My website is www.thedaisyharris.com
I'm also on twitter 24/7 as @thedaisyharris. You can email, but it's usually faster to catch me on the twittosphere!
GRACIE: Where and how can readers purchase and/or read samples of your work?
DAISY: Sign up for my mailing list, FREE SEX! You'll get updates, links, and free reads. My books are available on Amazon, B and N, and through the publisher's websites.
GRACIE: What advice do you have for beginning writers?
DAISY: Learn, learn, learn! I had an easy time breaking into this business because I came to it from technical/science writing. I started out with a pretty solid grasp of grammar and composition, and I'd developed the ability to learn any topic fast. Resources are available all over the internet. The best thing to do is to join some writers organizations, like Romance Writers of America (RWA.) Through them, you can meet folks who will critique your work and point you in the right direction. I know I'd be lost without the help of friends I met through RWA.
GRACIE: Anything else about yourself or your writing you’d like to share with your readers?
DAISY: Gosh, if any of you follow me on twitter you probably know too much about me already!
GRACIE: Daisy, thanks so much for taking time from your busy schedule to share yourself and your work with us at The G-Spot and giving us a little insight into your writing and the writing process! We’ll let you get back to writing those wonderful books you write! All the best!
No comments:
Post a Comment