Marketing for Romance Writers Magazine January 2019 Volume # 2, Issue # 1 | Page 5

M. S. SPENCER (Cont.)
INTERVIEW
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How much of your personality and life experi-
ences are in your writing?
A lot. I have a wry sense of humor (I also love
puns) and my characters have come to exhibit
that more and more—to get on my good side,
perhaps? Who knows? As to experiences, I’ve
been lucky enough to have had many adven-
tures in my life. It would be a waste not to
share them.
Tell us about the scariest thing that ever hap-
pened to you.
I have suffered from claustrophobia ever since
my brother locked me in a foot locker when I
was small. But the worst panic attack came as I
rode in a tiny, crowded elevator down through
the 760 tons of concrete that make up Hoover
Dam and someone joked, ―Wow, I hope we
don’t get stuck.‖ I didn’t say anything, but the
dam manager pressed the emergency stop and
led me outside into a floor of huge turbines. I
asked him how he knew what I was feeling, and
he said he recognized the ―look.‖ I’ll be forever
grateful. And so will the joker.
Generally, how long does it take you to write a
book?
Well, I can tell you, it’s not getting any shorter.
The more complex my plots, the longer it takes
to make sure they work. Lately I’ve tried to
record the dates of each draft. The last WIP
(now contracted for and in edits) had eleven
drafts and took about a year before I submitted
it—and I expect 2-3 more go-
rounds of edits with my fabulous
editor. Still, it’s never really finished.
Some great writer was once asked
when he thought his book was
done, and he replied (I’m para-
phrasing), ―When my editor pries it
from my cold, dead fingers.‖
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What can we expect
from you in the fu-
ture?
Glad you asked!
Orion’s Foot: Myth,
Romance & Murder in
the Amazon, should
be released some-
time next year. It’s a murder mystery romance,
but one with elements of myth and scientific
discovery. A group of scientists have come to a
research station—an ornithologist, an herpe-
tologist, a paleontologist, and a doctor of exotic
diseases. A photographer is hired to help docu-
ment their discoveries and he brings along his
sister, a reference librarian and part-time an-
thropologist. They are searching for a monster
believed until now to be mythical, but along the
way are distracted by murders and fossils and
strange new creatures…not to mention an un-
expected love affair.
Which comes first, the story, the characters, or
the setting?
Ah, almost always the setting. All of my books
are set in places I’ve been to or have lived in. In
the Pit & the Passion: Murder at the Ghost
Hotel, the setting is my own island—upon
which John Ringling of circus fame tried to
build a luxury hotel in the 1920s. It languished,
a shell of a building, into the 1960s and was
inevitably called the Ghost Hotel by the locals.
Where else would you find an ancient skeleton?
Once I’ve chosen the
setting, the story be-
gins to form. Charac-
ters come last. I really
have to let them de-
velop on their own or
they’re insufferable to
work with. I can’t
even assign them
names—they usually
choose their own.