Author of an astounding forty-two romance novels, Emily Mims is with me today to talk about her new book, Cameron Unscripted, part of her Durango Street Theater series. Emily has combined her writing career with a career in public education until leaving the classroom to write full time. The mother of two sons and grandmother of three, she and her husband Charles live in central Texas but frequently visit grandchildren in eastern Tennessee and Georgia. She plays the piano, organ, dulcimer, and ukulele and belongs to two performing bands. She says, “I love to write romances because I believe in them. Romance happened to me and it can happen to any woman—if she’ll just let it.”
SS: How has Covid-19 affected your writing? Your future writing? Your life? Your family?
EM: The sheltering in place gave me a lot more time to work. My publisher quickly planned a short story anthology honoring health care workers, which gave me an immediate goal, and by the time I finished the story I had adjusted to an accelerated pace I’ve maintained for the last year. I have to remind myself it’s okay to take my time, I’m not rushing to a fire! My family has been blessed. Nobody lost their jobs, the health care workers in the family are worked to death but otherwise doing fine, and the one family member who caught Covid (a grandson) recovered.
SS: Are you looking to entertain or illuminate?
EM: My number one goal is entertainment. But I don’t shy away from difficult topics or unappealing reality. I’ve dealt with abuse, racism, date rape, drug dealing, religious bigotry and hypocrisy, PTSD and the physical aftermath of war, and alcoholism, to name a few. If a reader finds one of my books illuminating, so much the better.
SS: Do you write with an imaginary reader in mind? If so, tell as a little about that person.
EM: I hope my books appeal to a wide audience, but my imaginary reader’s in her thirties or forties, juggling a job and a family and a lot of stress, and would love nothing more than to prop up her feet and chill for a couple of hours with a good escapist story. To that effect, my publisher has asked for a shorter book than my earliest Texas Hill Country offerings, something in the 65,000-70,000 word range that can be read in a single evening.
SS: Who is the hero of your story? Describe him/her in ten words or less.
EM: Cameron Unscripted has two heroes. Cameron’s the forty-year-old Chairman of the Board of the Durango Street Theatre, and Josh is his young Executive Director. They can both be described as compelling, talented and hot!
SS: What’s the central conflict? ‘Without chaos, there’s very little story to tell.’ What is the source of chaos in your story?
EM: Josh’s sister dies and he finds himself the parent of his niece and nephew. Cameron’s firmly convinced gay men have no business raising children, and he sure doesn’t want to raise a family himself-he’s bad with kids and for kids. The source of chaos is these two men trying to build a relationship when Cameron refuses to have anything to do with Josh’s children.
SS: Do you know the ending to your story when you put pen to paper? If so, have you ever changed the ending after you started to write?
EM: I do know the ending. I am a ‘plotter’ and write a detailed synopsis before I ever write a word of story. The only time I ever changed the ending of a story was when Boroughs wanted to re-release one of my old Candlelights. In the original story, my FBI Special Agent moves into a less dangerous department at the end of the story because of her love for the hero. That would NOT fly today, so I rewrote the ending so that the hero realizes that he can’t ask her to give up the work she loves so much. I then wrote an epilogue showing the two of them thirty years later with the hero realizing how much he loved working with his wife over the years.
SS: Which famous person, living or dead would you like to meet and why?
EM: He’s only famous to historians, but my 9th great grandfather, John Robinson, was the Pastor of the Pilgrims and famously sent a portion of his flock on the Mayflower. He managed to get crossways with King James and kicked out of the Church of England, and then with his congregation made a daring escape to Holland. I am under no illusions that he would approve of my writing in any way, shape or form, but I would be more interested in talking about him than in talking about me anyway.
SS: If you could write about anyone fictional or nonfictional who would you write about?
EM: If I knew enough about the era, I would love to write about the forebear mentioned above.
SS: Which of your characters surprised you the most for the decisions they made?
EM: Wade Baxter in Wade’s Dangerous Debut. Wade has been with me since my first Texas Hill Country series book, where he first appeared as a high school senior and star football player. He appeared on and off during that series and is an important supporting character in his mother’s story Never and Always. But I had no idea he was gay until he appeared in the last book of the Smoky Blue series. It was like a light went on for me about him, and of course he deserved his own HEA!
SS: What advice would you give aspiring writers?
EM: I would tell them to sit down and write. My favorite genre author Nora Roberts says she can fix a bad page but not a blank one, and I agree with her. Turn out something, even if you don’t think it’s wonderful. Because you’ll never learn to write if you don’t try. I also tell them that you never know. If a science teacher from San Antonio can write forty-six books and get them published, no telling what they can achieve.
SS: What do you think are the guidelines for a successful romance? Do you think these vary with M/F, F/F, M/M, or alien/shifter/other relationships?
EM: A good romance has two characters who need to be together but who have a central conflict holding them apart. This conflict needs to be evident from the beginning of the story and resolved in some manner by the last page. Some of the conflict needs to be external and some internal. Some conflicts, such as the inability to trust, are universal and apply equally well to any relationship. Others are specific to the kind of relationship. M/M is a good example, as many couples, both real and fictional struggle when one partner is ‘out’ and the other can’t or doesn’t want to be open about their sexuality.
SS: What role does consent and the #MeToo movement play in your writing?
EM: Nobody gets overpowered—not that I ever did those anyway. I’m always careful that neither partner has the least bit if hesitancy before making love, although they may not be happy with themselves afterwards.
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Cameron Unscripted is available through:
Amazon | B&N | Smashwords | BuroughsPublishing | Apple Books | Books2Read
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An excerpt from Cameron Unscripted:
Josh gestured to his jeans and tee. “I didn’t come over for that. I want to talk to you.”
“Okay.” Cam took his usual easy chair and left Josh the sofa. “What’s on your mind?”
Josh hesitated for a moment then plunged in. “Today was Jackson’s birthday party.”
“I know. You sent me the notice so I would know we couldn’t go out tonight. Although I guess we could’ve.”
“That’s not why I sent you the invitation. I sent it to invite you to the party.”
“Oh.” He laced his fingers in front of him. “Was it a nice party?”
“It was a great party,” Josh said tightly. “I thought you’d want to be there.” He paused, but Cameron said nothing. “It’s the kind of thing someone in a relationship would do.”
Cameron sat up straight and looked at him. “It is. If we were in a relationship, I would have gritted my teeth and gone. But we’re not in a relationship,” he said more gently.
“Then what in the hell would you call it?” Josh said tightly. “No. Wait. Just dating. Mostly casual. Nothing heavy. How’m I doing?”
Cameron’s eyes narrowed. “Actually, you couldn’t have described it any more perfectly. Because that’s all it is, Josh. A hot and heavy affair with an expiration date. You know that.”
“That’s not the impression you gave me.”
Cameron raised his eyebrow and looked at him coolly. “When did I give you the impression it was anything but casual?”
“That night at the Mexican food place. When we talked about going out. You said you wanted to go on a ‘real’ date.” Josh held up his fingers in quote signs. “You said a ‘real’ date and that means a real relationship.”
“In what world?” Cameron asked shortly. “It doesn’t mean a relationship. It means sex. Hot, sweaty sex like we’ve had on the rug here. That’s all.”
Josh took a jagged breath and willed the tears not to fall. “None of it meant anything to you. The lengths I went to so we could get together. The nights I gave to you instead of spending them with the kids. I turned myself inside out to have a relationship with you, and to you it’s casual?”
“Yes, that’s all it is to me. It’s all there’s ever gonna be for you and me. You’ve been deluding yourself if you think otherwise.”
Josh sucked in his breath and cursed the tears that threatened to overflow. “You deliberately left me with the wrong impression. You said a ‘real’ date. I thought you meant a real relationship, and you knew it.”
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You can follow Emily on social media here:
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
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