Joyce DiPastena, author of Loyalty's Web and Illuminations of the Heart

1) Tell us about yourself and what you do.

I presume you mean in addition to writing. I live in a small copper mining town in Arizona where I’ve taught piano lessons to children and adults for over twenty years. I’m not a professional pianist, but I have always loved to play the piano, both for my own enjoyment and serving in my church. I know the comfort and joy that can be found in music, as well as the blessings that can come from sharing that talent with one’s church or community. I’ve assisted with a school music program for nearly as many years as I’ve been teaching piano, and they are memories I would not trade for the world. If I have been able to teach some of my students these two things…to find joy in their music and to give service with it…then I will consider my years of teaching a success.

2) How long have you been writing?

I’ve been writing silly little stories I never finished since junior high school. When I started a new story my freshman year in college I thought it’d end up the same as all the others…begun but never finished. But this one, my first attempt at a medieval romance, somehow captivated my attention and carried me through all the way to the words “the end”. It took me six years to get there, four years undergraduate and two years of graduate school. Although that book was never published, I’m still in love with its hero to this day!

3) Where do you get your inspiration to write?

My inspiration comes from many different sources. Sometimes it comes from a book I’ve written before. For example, my first published book, Loyalty’s Web, was based on characters from that first unpublished novel I wrote in college. The hero and heroine of Loyalty’s Web were an elderly married couple in that early romance, and I became curious to find out how they had met and fallen in love, so I wrote Loyalty’s Web to find out the answer.

Sometimes bits and pieces of research will fascinate me and influence how I draw a character’s background. For my newly published romance, Illuminations of the Heart, I became interested in the subject of medieval illumination and decided to combine that interest with my new heroine, the daughter of a medieval illuminator from Italy. (Although the novel itself is set in France, like Loyalty’s Web.) During the writing of Illuminations of the Heart, I became interested in the subject of medieval troubadours. So that’s a subject I’m incorporating into the novel I’m writing right now.


4) Where do you like to write? What type of writing schedule do you follow?

The answer to both questions seems to have varied with every book I’ve written. Loyalty’s Web was actually written in longhand, mostly sitting on my bed in the evenings after I’d taught piano lessons all day. Illuminations of the Heart was the first book I wrote on a computer. For that one I got up at 5 AM and tried to write 3-4 hours before the day began, although to be honest, my mind often didn’t actually kick in until around 7 AM, so there was a lot of sitting and staring at the computer screen during those first two hours of the morning. My new work-in-progress hasn’t exactly figured out what time of day it wants to be written yet. So far, it seems to prefer the portability of my new laptop and late afternoons. I often sit on the couch in my living room and type away on that one, but sometimes I work on it in the evenings instead.

5 ) What genre do you write and why?

I write medieval romances, although I tend to include so much additional plot alongside the romance that I had an agent tell me I don’t really write romances at all. But they’re all romances to me. There may be a lot of other stuff going on…mysteries, assassination attempts, medieval politics…but at the heart of each story is a man and a woman falling in love against all the odds around them.

I became fascinated with the Middle Ages back in high school, when I read The Conquering Family by Thomas B. Costain. I fell in love with King Henry II of England. Not “romantic” love. There was just something about the way his contemporaries described him that stirred a great affection in me for him. He seemed to be one of those rare kings who was actually more interested in trying to improve his country than in simply enjoying the “glory” or “privileges” of his rank. He is described as a man who hated war, even though circumstances forced him to spend most of his adult life at war. He was a man of tremendous energy and intellect. And he laid important foundations to the legal system that we have inherited from England and enjoy ourselves today.

His legacy was marred by his quarrel with Archbishop Thomas á Becket, and the son who succeeded him, Richard the Lionheart, is a more flashy character of legend. But everything I’ve read about Henry II since those high school days has only increased my love and admiration for this man. Loyalty’s Web and Illuminations of the Heart are both set during his lifetime, and although he has not yet actually appeared on the scene in any of my books, the references I make to him, small though they might be, are my own way of paying tribute to this great, underappreciated king.

6) Tell us more about your books and where they are available for purchase.

Here is the back cover copy for Loyalty’s Web:

In twelfth century France, King Henry II of England has just finished quashing a rebellion by his power-hungry sons and now seeks to tame the lawless barons who supported them in this corner of his "Angevin empire." To this end, the king has sent the Earl of Gunthar as his royal representative to ensure that Prince Richard and his former cohorts faithfully adhere to the terms of the peace treaty.

Far from being welcomed with open arms, Gunthar no sooner steps foot in the county of Poitou than he is greeted by a series of assassination attempts. All appear to be linked to the former rebellious prince through the agents of the family and friends of young Heléne de Laurant. A clever, intrepid young woman, she realizes that the only way to prove her loved ones' innocence is by exposing the true assassin. Heléne races against time--and dark secrets of the past--to unmask the killer before the kingdom plunges back into war.

Fierce determination gives way to mutual attraction as Heléne and Gunthar spar over the identity of the traitor. But their blinding magnetism almost causes them to overlook an even deadlier threat from an entirely unexpected direction.

My new romance, Illuminations of the Heart, is based on a character from Loyalty’s Web. You can read the first chapter on my blog. Both books are currently most easily available on Amazon.com. I just looked and Illuminations of the Heart is also available for order (though it’s not yet in stock) on Amazon.ca. There’s also an old version of Loyalty’s Web on Amazon.ca, but the cover has been updated and the text slightly revised since that edition came out. (Leatherwood Press picked up and republished Loyalty’s Web in June 2008.)


7) What have you done to promote your book?

Pretty much, everything I’ve been able to think of! I give out bookmarks with a copy of the back cover blurb on the back. I hold contests on my website and blog to give away copies, and donate copies of my book to other blogs for “giveaways”, hoping that “word of mouth” will spread. I send copies out to review sites, and always post links to the reviews on my JDP NEWS blog (http://jdp-news.blogspot.com/), Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.

I’ve just started posting a series of author interviews with some other historical romance authors on my blog. I believe it’s important to help support other authors whose work you enjoy. It helps out other authors, while at the same time drawing readers to your blog where they might look around and learn more about your own books while they’re there. Occasionally I’ll review books on my blog, but I’m such a slow reader and my reading time is so limited that conducting author interviews is just much easier for me than reviewing. I also maintain a research blog called Medieval Research with Joyce (http://medievalresearch.blogspot.com/), that discusses some of the research books I use to write my novels and how I used them in my stories.

8) Do you ever get writer’s block? What helps you to overcome it?

Writer’s block is a toughie. There was a time I thought I had so many ideas that I’d never get writer’s block. Now I find myself struggling with it quite frequently. I’ve discovered it’s not a lack of ideas that I have. It’s a byproduct of stress. When my stress levels go up, I find it very difficult to “turn off” my worries and focus enough to work on my novels.

The thing that has worked best for me through the years is to set a timer for a specific length of time (an hour, two hours, whatever you can set it for) and tell myself that I don’t have to write anything, but I do have to sit at the computer until the timer goes off. I can’t go get a snack, I can’t play any games, I can’t turn on the TV, I can’t do anything except either stare at my blank computer screen or type something. And that “something” has to have something to do with my new story! Sometimes I only type a handful of words, sometimes I’ll end up typing a stream, but whether out of boredom or inspiration, I don’t think I’ve ever not written something before the timer goes off. And no matter how terrible what I wrote might seem at the time, it almost always ends up moving my story along no matter how microscopically. And I always feel better about myself just for trying.


9) If you are self-published, why did you choose this option instead of traditional publishing?

I did originally self-publish Loyalty’s Web in 2007. I had tried for years to market it traditionally, but kept getting the “it’s not really a romance” response. I finally decided I wanted to test it out for myself. I didn’t expect it to become a bestseller, but I thought there might be a niche market of readers who might enjoy it. So I self-published it using a print-on-demand publisher. And I did begin to find readers who seemed to appreciate it. A few months after it came out, I learned about a contest called The Whitney Awards and asked a few people who had read Loyalty’s Web and told me they loved it to nominate it for the award. It didn’t win, but it did rank as a finalist. That brought it some new attention. Someone gave a copy to an editor at a small regional publisher (Leatherwood Press), that editor read it and liked it so much she offered me a contract to reprint it. The reprint was published slightly reedited and with a new cover in June 2008.

10) What is your next project?

Right now, I’m just calling it “my troubadour book”. It’s based on a character from my second book, Illuminations of the Heart, and once again is set in medieval France.

11) What advice do you have for new writers?

Never give up. It took me over twenty years before I published my first book with a mainstream publisher. So be patient. Don’t say, “I’ll give it two years and then throw in the towel if I’m not published.” I’ve actually heard writers say that. If that had been my attitude towards writing, I wouldn’t be published today. And don’t try to be trendy. Write because you love to write, and write the story you love. If you truly love your story and characters, then you’ll give them your very best. You’ll polish them up until they shine, whether the publishing world is ready for them or not. Then, when you do find the right publisher, your story and characters will be ready to go. And readers will love them, because they’ll be able to feel your love for them shining through the pages.