Tuesdays Tidbits with Kari: Featuring Author Janis Susan May

Janis Susan May is a seventh-generation Texan and a third-generation wordsmith. She has sold eighteen or so novels and ghostwritten perhaps twice that many books. Formerly an actress and singer, a talent agent and Supervisor of Accessioning for a bio-genetic DNA testing lab, Janis Susan has also been editor-in-chief of two multi-magazine publishing group. She founded and was the original editor of The Newsletter of the North Texas Chapter of the American Research Center in Egypt, which for the nine years of her reign was the international organization’s only monthly publication. Long interested in Egyptology, she was one of the founders of the North Texas chapter and was the closing speaker for the ARCE International Conference in Boston in 2005. Janis Susan married for the first time when most of her contemporaries were becoming grandmothers. Her husband, a handsome Naval Reserve Officer several years younger than she, even proposed in a moonlit garden in Egypt. Janis Susan lives in Dallas with her husband and an assortment of very spoiled dogs and cats.

Kari: You've written a lot of books in both the romance and mystery genre. Can you tell us about your latest book?

Janis: Actually, my latest two books are neither mysteries nor romances! Since returning from Egypt in January (a magnificent trip!) I’ve sold three books in three successive months to three different publishers in three different genres under two different names. Surely that has to be some sort of record!

In February I sold a romantic adventure called SING A SONG OF SPYING to Red Rose Publishing. In it Robin Sabine is a choir director called in as a last minute substitute to take a teen-aged singing group to Jerusalem for an international competition. While there she is romanced by an urbane British diplomat and an ex-lover, both of whom think she’s a spy. It’s loosely based on some of the escapades I had when I was over there working on a film years ago.

Then in March I went to lunch with some writing friends and met a woman who turned out to be editor in chief of Atriad Press, which publishes Texana. This fascinated me as I am a seventh generation Texan who, except for a few years here and there in Mexico, has never lived anywhere else. We talked, had another lunch or two, and then I signed a contract to do a non-fiction book with the working title of A FIELD GUIDE TO TEXAS MUSEUMS. I had no idea exactly how many museums there were in Texas! Yikes!

Then this month (April) I submitted a children’s book to Vintage Romance Publishing. Even though they did my children’s book DANNY AND THE DUST BUNNIES, due for release this October, I don’t know the name of their children’s division. This new book is loosely based on my little rescue dog Mindy and is entitled THE TRUE ADVENTURES OF MINDY MOO THE MONKEY DOG. I think it broke the land speed record for acceptances. I emailed in the manuscript at 4:06 in the afternoon and got an acceptance at 6:03 pm – one hour and fifty-seven minutes later!

It’s been an interesting year so far…

Kari: You're one of the founding mothers of RWA. Can you tell us about the process and has the organization changed from what you first envisioned?

Janis: Oh my, so much has been written about the origins of RWA. I sold my first novel (to Dell, one of the old Candlelight series) in 1979. I had never met another romance writer. In fact, I had only met one novelist, a very nice male mainstream writer (you would know his name) for the simple reason we shared a typewriter repairman. Nice man, but we had no common ground. Writers today have no idea of how isolated we all were.

Then one day in 1980 I got a letter (we did things by letter then – there was no internet and long distance phone calls were outrageously expensive) from my editor Vivian Stephens. She wondered if I would be interested in helping form an organization for romance writers. We corresponded over ideas for several months and then she asked me to a meeting in Houston that December.

There were about 40 women at that first meeting and the air was electric. Most, like me, had never even been in the same room with another romance writer. We talked! We talked all afternoon and talked all through a hamburger cook-out at Rita Estrada’s house that evening and a bunch of us talked all through breakfast the next morning. It was incredible just knowing that someone else had the same problems/questions we did. Everyone at that first meeting was published except for (I think!) two, who were legitimately pre-published, i.e., in that limbo land between signing a contract and the book being released. (The modern use of ‘pre-published’ as a synonym for unpublished makes me livid; the only instance where ‘pre-’ can be honestly used as a prefix for a widely disparate group of people is that we are all pre-dead!)

And that was where we made our mistake. We envisioned a professional organization for working (i.e., selling) romance writers, roughly along the lines of the AMA, the ADA, the Bar Association. A professional organization for professionals. Our failure, our great mistake came when we did not institute a tiered membership like other professional writing organizations. We had no idea of the number of wanna-be romance writers lurking out there, or that they would swamp RWA and turn it from a organization for working professionals into a teaching organization.

Things are better now. At least there are no more horrors such as the yearly poll for “Most Romantic TV Show” and “Most Romantic Movie” and such that they used to run in the RWR. Can you imagine the AMA running a poll on “Most Medical-Looking Scrubs” or any such nonsense? Even though things are better now, I still weep to think of what RWA might have been and/or accomplished had it followed the our original dreams. However, as the Desiderata says, “Things are happening exactly as they should.”

Kari: You're also one of the founders of the North Texas Chapter of the American Research Center in Egypt. Can you tell us about that process as well and do you incorporate your love of Egypt into any of your books, or do you plan to some day?

Janis: I’ve been an Egyptomane all my life. By the time I was 8 or 9 I had read every book on Egyptology in the Public Library and even for a while dreamed of being an archaeologist, but the theatre and later publishing lured me away. As for ARCE, there were a bunch of us like-minded Egyptophiles in Dallas. We took classes together – when there were classes; Dallas has no Egyptology program, unfortunately – and a number of us volunteered for the Ramses the Great exhibition when it came through in ’88-’89.

After a trip (my first!) to Egypt in ’92 we finally agreed that we had to have some regular Egyptology! An organizing committee of 8 of us started meeting and investigating options. We decided to affiliate with the American Research Center in Egypt, an international scholarly organization headquartered in Cairo and arguably the largest organization of working Egyptologists in the world. With my background I chose to do the Newsletter. We invited other like-minded private scholars to come to our planning meetings and sometimes there were as many as 15 people there. My late mother, who had no real interest in Egypt beyond the occasional National Geographic TV special (though at the age of 82 she did end up stealing a camel while we were on our ’92 tour!) hosted our meetings – she was the only one who had a room large enough to hold us all!

The first Newsletter went out in January ’93, the first public meeting was held at SMU in February of ’93 and we have never looked back. I did the Newsletter for 9 years, during which time it was recognized as a scholarly journal and archived in museums and universities all over the world, published articles by the Egyptologists you see on the National Geographic specials and was (and may still be, for all I know) the only monthly publication for the American Research Center in Egypt in the world.

My affiliation with ARCE has brought me untold benefits and honors. In 2005 I was the closing speaker at the ARCE International Conference in Boston; my topic was Pyramidiots and Alternative Realities: The Lure and Exploitation of Ancient Egyptian Symbology in Western Culture. But that’s not all. I met the man who would become my husband in our local chapter, and he proposed to me in Egypt, in a moonlit garden across the street from the pyramids, no less! We spent most of last January in Egypt; Zahi Hawass (a friend for 20 years or more) gave us passes that allowed us to see things most tourists don’t even know exist. It was a magical – though exhausting – trip.

As for writing about Egypt, I did a time-travel romance (PASSION’S CHOICE, now available from Red Rose Publishing) about a modern young woman who falls over the railing at the Hathor Chapel at Deir el-Bahri (the woman pharaoh Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple), but when she lands it is in the time when it is being built. She is mistaken for a pleasure woman by the handsome general in charge of construction. Because of her resemblance in all ways except coloration to Neferure, the pharaoh’s daughter, she is forced into a dangerous impersonation that could not only cost her her life, but change the fate of Egypt and ultimately the world forever. Then, when the opportunity comes for her to return to her own time, she must make Passion’s Choice – return to her time, or stay with the man she has come to love.

Then, this January in Egypt we were in a little-known tomb where some very strange graffiti has defied translation for almost 2 thousand years. That started my little grey cells quivering and now I’m thinking about a plot concerning an art historian and a handsome Egyptologist who is obviously something more (hero? villain?) and a fabulous undiscovered treasure… The story’s still percolating, but I hope to have it finished this year.

Kari: What's it like being a voice actress and narrating the audio version of novels? What are some of the most exciting novels you've narrated?

Janis: I don’t do much voice work any more – life is just too busy! It was fun, though, just like stage acting. It’s harder, though, because you don’t have your facial expressions or body language to work with – just your voice. The most memorable narration had to be that of EXTREME FANTASIES, an erotic romance by my dear friend Erika Ross. I was doing all the female parts, a local voice talent/actor was doing all the male parts and I was doing the narration. We were recording in real time, which means everything was done at once instead of laying down one track for one voice, then another track for a second, etc. I still remember the worst scene (for me) in the book where the three major female characters get into a cat fight, so I had to switch from voice to voice (each character had their own intonality and inflections) in half-second breaks and still keep up the emotion of the scene. That was the only scene we did that day, because when we finally got it down after three takes I was exhausted!

Another memory of that project is indelible to me. We were taping in a small studio on the edge of downtown. It was July in Dallas, which equates hothothot. There was something wrong with the studio air conditioning, which was so noisy that when we were taping we had to turn the a.c. off. I was in a small, corked lined room about the size of a closet (maybe 4’x4’) sitting on a stool, script ahead of me on a music stand, huge old headphones on my ears. The author and the engineer were in the next room, and the male talent in the next beyond them, but because of the way the rooms were laid out, none of us could see the others. After about two hours the heat was unbearable; I was streaming with sweat. Finally I simply stripped off my trousers and shirt and recorded in my bra and panties. What made it all the funnier was the book was about an extremely wealthy woman at a fabulous house up in the mountains, with snow all around, fabulous furs, etc. I still laugh when I think of the contrast between the fictional scene and the actuality.

Kari: You've been through a lot in your writing career with traveling and family and a husband away on a tour of duty in Iraq. How did you manage to stay strong and persevere and make a success of your writing once more? Would you do anything different if you had the chance?

Janis: When people ask me how I bear it when my husband is in Iraq, I ask them “What choice do I have?” I can’t make him give up his military service; I don’t want to divorce him; what other choice is there? Plus, he supports my dreams by letting me write and not wanting me to work outside the home, so it’s only fair that I support his love of military service. Last December he celebrated his 30th anniversary of military service (active and reserve combined) and I am so very proud of him.

And, to tell the truth, it’s because of his Navy duties (he’s a Captain!) that I have come back to writing. I sold my first book in 1979 and about 7 more after, until 1995 when my mother became suddenly, dangerously, incredibly ill. There had been just the two of us for over 15 years since my father’s death, and at the time I wasn’t even dating the man who would become my husband. Mother had to have a lot of experimental drugs and a lot of care; Medicare didn’t cover drugs in those days. I had been supporting myself by writing, but very modestly, if not downright meagerly. Now I suddenly had to make Money, and lots of it. The writing went by the boards. For a while I was working two full time jobs to cover medications and expenses.

Then, about four years later Mother stabilized and pressures eased and I became involved with ARCE and met the man who was to become my husband writing seemed very far away. I had a good job (just one of them by then) and finally The Husband and I married. It was very sweet and fanciful and fairy-taleish. I am so glad Mother got to attend all the wedding festivities, because three weeks later she died suddenly in her sleep and I went more than a little crazy. There was dealing with her estate to take care of my time and, after we decided to move into her house (larger and closer to The Husband’s job) the remodeling to see to and the moving and the sorting… Between Mother’s house and The Husband’s house and my condo and what Mother had of her mother’s things, we had more stuff than you could possibly imagine. In Mother’s house alone there were over 12,000 books. (That is not a typo – twelve thousand!) We had 26 sets of china between us, four of which were for 12, and one was for 24. We’re still dealing with stuff.

Then The Husband was called up for his first tour of duty in Iraq, and I wondered what I was going to do to stay sane while he was gone. When I mentioned getting a job, he didn’t like that idea and suggested that I go back to writing, as it was the only thing I had ever loved to do. Well, this was 2005; I didn’t know if I could still write, so while he was gone I wrote a novel and sent it in. Since then I’ve sold 10 – I think. The Husband has done 2 one-year-tours in Iraq, half a year in a State-side base and in June leaves for a year in Germany – all in 8 years. I’m looking forward to when (if!) he retires from the Navy Reserves, but I must admit I’m not all that unhappy about Germany. Number 1, and most important, they won’t be shooting at him. And, I can go visit. A lot.

As for being strong… I don’t see myself as strong. I just am… perhaps tenacious is a good word. Or, as The Husband would say, stubborn.

Hmmm. Would I do anything different? I don’t know, because if I had, everything would have changed and I might not be as happy as I am now. All that has gone before has made me as I am now, so any change would necessarily change the present, and I don’t want to do that. Right now life is too wonderful. If I were forced to say something, I’d say I wish The Husband and I had met and married earlier. Then we could be celebrating our 29th or 39th wedding anniversary this month instead of our 9th. But… I prefer to enjoy the now instead of speculate on what could have been.

Kari: Any last pieces of advice you can offer to aspiring writers?

Janis: Years ago for a writing class I was teaching I made up an acronym for the magic secret of writing a book – B.I.T.C.H. It means, Buns In The Chair, Honey. In other words, sit down and write the book. As Nora Roberts says, you can fix garbage, but you can’t fix a blank page.
Learn, read, research – but WRITE THE BOOK. And never forget your passion for the process.
Plus, pay attention to spelling, grammar, correct word choice, style – nitpicky things, but they mark you as a professional. And – my particular hot button – avoid homophonic mayhem. For example, don’t write broach when you’re talking about a piece of jewelry, or brooch when you’re talking about opening a barrel of spirits. The examples are endless, and misusing them pulls the reader right out of the story.

Perhaps the most important thing of all – write a good book!

Kari: Who are your favorite authors?

Janis: Barbara Mertz, in any of her incarnations, including Elizabeth Peters and Barbara Michaels.
Mary Roberts Rinehart.
Dame Agatha Christie, of course.
Arlene James.
Sandy Blair.
Candace Havens.
Vickie Lewis Thompson.

Thank you so much for being with us Janis! Your story and your life are inspiring :-)