Me at my very first book signing... (sigh...) I know, it's an awful picture. Goofy smile, scrunched nose, squinty eyes, buckteeth, double chin...I also know you all are wondering why I'm wearing a tiara on my head.
Seriously, that tiara helped me out a lot. Others wondered the same thing and kept coming to my table. I managed to sell out of my books that day, and I truly think the tiara is the reason why.
;)
Poetry was my outlet. Not only did I want to tell a story, but I wanted it to be beautiful, lyrical, flow the way a whisper is carried on a moonlit breeze. I wanted my words to wrap around the reader and subtly caress their senses. I wanted to pull at that secret place deep inside a person where fond memories and distant dreams resided, and take them far away from the harsh realities of the world. (Fluffy, I know…)
While I wrote poetry, I continued to feed my other passion—reading. Everyone once in a while, I would stumble across an author that wrote stories the same way that I strove to write my poetry. Not only were these stories beautiful, romantic, stirring, but they were written in a way that made me feel what I always endeavored to make others feel with my own work.
Because of this influence, my poetry slowly evolved into short stories. But as time went on, I grew older, wiser, and eventually moved into adulthood. Sadly, I abandoned my childhood aspirations so that I might concentrate on other “grown-up” things. However, the more I lived life and learned what a cruel place the world could be, the more I grew bitter and jaded. (sigh…)
Thankfully, while I gave up writing and my desire to be a writer, I never gave up reading romance.
So years passed and I matured physically, mentally, emotionally, and finally sexually, (or in some order close to that) and I discovered that my reading tastes also matured. I found that I still wanted the romance, but I also wanted the passion to be a little hotter. Reading myths and fairy tales gave way to sweet fantasy romances, which gave way to historical romances, and—now confident and secure in myself and my sexuality—mainstream romances gave way erotic romances.
One day I met a wonderful man, and like a storyline from one of the many books I read, we fell in love and got married. A little less bitter and jaded with life, I started writing again. (LOL!)
So, here I am.
However, I also find that most of my characters (especially my heroines) tend to exhibit a very... um... realistic attitude that many associate with the modern world. I think it makes the story interesting when the heroine comes across with that honest “this is freaking unbelievable, but since my luck is so bad, I shouldn’t be surprised that it happened to me” attitude. I like to think it allows readers the ability to relate to a character, and this makes the overall “fairytale” feel of the story believable—like it could happen to any of us at any moment.
Cheers!
~Tia
Official Website: www.tiafanning.com
MySpace Page: www.myspace.com/tiafanning
Official Blog: www.tiafanning.blogspot.com
YouTube: www.youtube.com/tiafanning
NowLive: www.nowlive.com/tiafanning
You can also find me hanging out at Amazon (www.amazon.com), Fictionwise (www.fictionwise.com), Coffee Time Romance (www.coffeetimeromance.com), and of course… Resplendence Publishing (www.resplendencepublishing.com).