Author spotlight with Regan Taylor

Hello Regan,
Tell us, what has been your biggest influence on becoming a writer?
Having a vivid imagination. My own every day life is pretty staid. I like it that way. I'm not big on needless drama and constant adrenaline rushes. But I do like the idea of going to other times and places. Reading is one avenue for accomplishing that and writing takes me every further.

How did you feel when you got your first publishing contract?
Stunned. Utterly and completely stunned. It wasn't anything I ever saw myself doing.

How do you categorize yourself: pantser or plotter?
Dreamer—most of my books come from my dreams. I have vivid dreams, often lucid dreams and write them down as soon as I wake from them. I've studied dream work since high school and have trained myself to wake up immediately after a dream and to write it down. Since I started writing, I dream the next scene for most of my books. So does that make me a dreamster?

What makes a book great in your eyes?
Three dimensional characters, solid research, being able to transport me into the story so I feel like I'm part of it.

What is the biggest piece of your advice you can give a beginning writer?
You know, even after, ummm, let's see, five years since my first book was published, I still feel like a beginning.

Do you have any guilty pleasures?
I'm human, what do you think?

What influences your writing? And why?
My dreams, my day to day life.

Name one thing readers don’t know about you.
I take classes like normal people go to movies.

What are you working on now?
With All Dispatch.

Who is your favorite all-time author?
Alexander Dumas.

Are love scenes easy/difficult to write?
Painfully so.

Do you write in one genre or several different ones? And why?
Most of my books are time travels so that seems to put me in several genres within the same book. I do like books—and writing—with reincarnation and dream themes.

If you could be anywhere right now, where would you be?
Right where I am—in my living room with my cats.

How do you deal with the dreaded writer’s block?
Writer's block? Knock wood, never had it.

Do you have another career besides writing? What is it?
I'm a legal secretary.

What’s your biggest reward in being a writer?
I can decide what the ending should be.

To date, which is your favorite story? Which one did you have the most fun writing?
Traveling Bride—which hasn't been sold yet. The Thrill is Gone—it's my fantasy of what my life should have been.

How do you go about developing your characters and setting?
The characters tell me who they are and what they see.
Okay, at the risk of sounding crazy and going back to my other career—I was a therapist for awhile although I guess I still am because it's not really something you resign from. While completing my masters, Jung was my icon, my hoped for arrival point as a therapist. I believe when we say our characters speak to us that they are in fact parts of ourselves. They say most of us use 10% of our mental capacity. I believe authors have found a way to use at least part of that other 90% and that’s where those fascinating characters come from. They are parts of our psyche and if we listen to that inner voice, we know what makes a good story.

If you had the opportunity to say one thing to your readers, what would that be?
Happy reading.

http://regantaylorsworld.blogspot.com/