About Lara Ward Cosio:
Lara Ward Cosio is the author of the Rogue Series Novels.
Playing At Love, the first installment in the series, has been a labor of love for the past couple years as I’ve worked on it after putting my girls to bed at night, and with them tugging on my sleeve on weekends. All this happened with the support of my wonderful husband who busied himself with a steady combination of playing xBox games and being the house DJ so that we were never without a soundtrack to our lives.
What inspires you to write?
It all starts with characters and wanting to know their motivations in love and life. And because I’m a music fan, I gravitated toward the inner lives of a band, including what inspires them to create their art and how their friend and love relationships affect that.
Tell us about your writing process.
I’m mostly a pants writer. I have a general sense of the ultimate outcome of the story but really enjoy letting the characters dictate how we get there and discover new things along the way.
For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
My characters definitely talk to me! And sometimes I’m stumped as to why they’re saying something in particular. Almost always, I understand later that they are telling me more about themselves than I thought I already knew! Recently, in working on a new Rogue Series Novel, the main character spouts off about the wealth and excess of his future in-laws. He’s troubled by it. And it was only later that I understood he was really projecting, showing his fear of his own status changing so rapidly.
What advice would you give other writers?
The best advice I have is to write, write, write and read, read, read. Keep working at your craft and find someone who will give you truly constructive criticism to not only correct your grammar errors and typos but question the flow of the story and character arcs. Some feedback may sting a bit, but it will ultimately make you a better writer.
How did you decide how to publish your books?
I pursued getting an agent and had a couple of decent rounds with one before deciding that I ultimately wanted the control of self-publishing. Sorting out getting the book into the world was the easiest part, however, as the marketing angle is the real challenge. There is no easy answer to getting your book noticed among the millions of others out there. But if you believe in your work, you will be its best champion.
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
I’m no expert, but it seems that both traditional and self-published will continue to exist side by side for the foreseeable future. Both models work in their own ways.
What do you use?: Professional Cover Designer
What genres do you write?: Women’s Fiction, Contemporary Romance
What formats are your books in?: Both eBook and Print
Website(s)
Lara Ward Cosio Home Page Link
Link To Lara Ward Cosio Page On Amazon
Your Social Media Links
Goodreads
Twitter
All information in this post is presented “as is” supplied by the author. We don’t edit to allow you the reader to hear the author in their own voice.
