RRT: Hi Linda. Can you tell us a bit about the woman behind the author?

Linda: Hello, Terrie. It’s a pleasure to have the opportunity to be on Romance Reviews Today.

As the author of a book about volcanoes in Yellowstone (Rain of Fire,) firefighters in Yellowstone (Summer of Fire,) and a contemporary Romeo and Juliet in San Francisco (Children of Dynasty, writing as Christine Carroll,) one might well ask who is this woman.

As one of Exxon’s first female field geologists in the seventies (no I didn’t get paid like the CEO), I spent nearly thirty years recommending the sites for wildcat wells while working for various oil companies. My husband and I met at work and later had our own consulting company. Yet, all the time I was working in Houston, one of my favorite vacation escapes was to Yellowstone.

My love affair with the Yellowstone Country began when I attended geology field camp just south of Jackson Hole and I have since visited in every season. Thus was born my Yellowstone Series of novels, and my irresistible desire to write about the supervolcano in my current June 2006 release RAIN OF FIRE.

RRT: How long have you known you wanted to be a writer?

Linda: Since I was a kid about seven, hitting a ball against the wall and telling myself stories. By the time I was in junior high I gave up the children’s section and started in on Gone with the Wind and “dicey” works like Valley of the Dolls, along with Steinbeck, et al.

Somewhere around age twelve, I decided that someday I would write “a novel.” I had no idea that I could ever write more than one, although I read multi-published authors.

RRT: What prompted you to submit your first manuscript, and was it accepted, or did you have to go back to the drawing board?

Linda: As I always wanted to publish whatever novel I would write, I, like most authors, started submitting before my work was ready.

But sell my first effort? Are you kidding? I spent a couple years writing a manuscript that had everything in it I could think of. I’m told that agents and editors actually term such works “kitchen sink manuscripts.”

The fun part is that I’ve been mining bits and pieces of that story and all of my three published novels, two my agent is promoting, and three more proposals have their roots in that early work.

RRT: How much of your personality and life experiences are in your writing?

Linda: I’m sure that one’s personality comprises a large part of what is known as “voice.” As to life experiences, I’ve never fought a fire, or walked on a volcano that wasn’t dormant. Having said that, I go to places and envision my characters doing dramatic things as if I’m watching a movie. The people I write about aren’t based on folks I know, but I might steal a characteristic from somebody or another. I’ve also borrowed stories. I heard a true experience about a guy falling out of a raft into a cold river, going through a logjam, thought he was dead. I turned that into a woman in 1900, falling off the back of a horse swimming the Snake River in Wyoming – she goes through a logjam, thinks she’s dead . . .

RRT: What books do you read for pleasure and who are some of your favorite authors?

Linda: I’m an omnivore. Well, actually, I do tend to stick to certain categories. I don’t read a lot of nonfiction, or many literary novels. I enjoy commercial fiction, mostly mainstream, romance, historical, sci fi, and some of the classics. Some of my favorite “read-over-again” books are things like Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, Stephen King’s The Stand, and John Fowles's The Magus. In other words, I like big bold books with a lot going on. As to present day works, I admire Nora Roberts and I’m proud of some of my writer friends from RWA, notably Patricia Kay, Colleen Thompson, Shane Bolks/Shana Galen, and Jessica Trapp.

RRT: Tell us a little about what you are working on now.

Linda: My agent is working to sell what we call the Yellowstone Country Novels. These differ from Summer of Fire and Rain of Fire in that they are historicals. Though they are still action packed, they have that softer focus that comes with writing about the past. It’s a three book family saga that begins in 1870 with the first exploration of Yellowstone and its designation as the world’s first National Park. In 1900, rival groups fight over the purchase of grand railroad hotels, and in 1925-27 there was a great landslide and subsequent flood in the valley of Jackson Hole. One family, three strong women who come to the Yellowstone Country and find their lives forever changed. (Oh, did I mention they find romance?)

I’m also almost finished with another Bay Area single title contemporary that I plan to start submitting in June. It’s called The Senator’s Daughter. When Sylvia Chatsworth gets fed up with being hounded by the paparazzi, she decides to disappear – only to have her senator father hire assistant D.A. Lyle Thomas to drop his prosecution work and try to find her. People who’ve read Children of Dynasty will recognize their names.

RRT: What type of writing routine, if any, do you work with?

Linda: That depends. When I was working full time, it was evenings after dinner and before bed. As a bonafide multi-tasker, I was able to set up a little table and my laptop in the living room about eight feet from hubby. While he, also multitasking, would read magazines or novels and watch TV, I’d do the TV thing with one eye and work on my writing with the other.

Now that my husband has retired and we divide our time between New Mexico and the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, I’m more flexible. Some weekdays, I devote the whole day to writing, others a few hours, and the evening thing still works since I don’t ever devote my attention completely to TV.

Working in industry and as a manager, I came to the conclusion that there are bursters and plodders. Bursters sometimes seem to be wasting time, but then they hunker down and get out the work. Plodders are always at their desk. It’s not right or wrong to be either, just a personality thing. I’m a burster, therefore I have never sat down to a blank page -- I always know what I want to do when I sit down, or else I edit or research.

RRT: What sort of things do you do in your spare time? Do you have any hobbies?

Linda: Who has spare time?

There’s a pack of wild dogs in my head that chase me, plotting my next story or my next real life adventure. My husband and I are fortunate in that we have the flexibility to travel, and we do. In addition, our retirement home in New Mexico is two thousand miles from my family homestead in Virginia that I recently inherited. There’s always a new project at one place or the other.

Hobbies. When I’m not writing, I love to read, exercise -- swimming, mountain hiking, geology jaunts, yoga, tai chi -- collect both “yard rocks” and collectibles, help my husband try to train our incorrigible nine month old Vizsla (Hungarian bird dog.) See my website under the newsletter section for more on what I’ve been up to and pics of hubby and our little gal.

RRT: What is the best single piece of advice you have been given as a writer?

Linda: Don’t give up your day job?

Seriously, I think the best advice is to write what you love. The best part is that I wrote for years and would keep writing without being pubbed or paid because I’m one of those fortunate souls who are driven to put fingers to keyboard.

A final story on advice -- heard Bryce Courtenay say he was running a marathon, and when he and the fellow he was running with were passing the time about mile eighteen, he was asked, “What does it take to be a published author?” Bryce answered, “Bumglue.” The other man missed a step. “Bumglue?” Said the bestselling author of The Power of One, “You glue your bum to the chair and write.”

RRT: What one thing would you advise an aspiring writer?

Linda: Never be discouraged by rejection and never give up.

I’m on my second agent, wonderful and supportive New Yorker Susan Schulman, and I’ve got at least fifty rejection letters from some of the powerhouses in the business. What I did with them was sit down and pull out the best things editors said about my writing and called that file “The Good.” Then I pulled the stingers, put them in a list, and called it “The Bad.” I used that as criticism to help me improve my work.

Oh, and “The Ugly?” My first agent sent my adventure thriller, Summer of Fire, with strong romantic elements, to a literary editor who said, “There is clearly no great literary sensibility at work here.” Ouch. But I did say I don’t even read literary, so I tried to laugh.

RRT: How may readers contact you?

Linda: Through my website www.readlindajacobs.com, there’s a “Contact Linda” button on the homepage.

RRT: Thank you Linda, for taking time out of you schedule to interview with Romance Reviews Today.