A Day in the LIfe of Stephanie Draven

Thanks for having me here. Like most paranormal romance writers, I tend to stay up past midnight and wake up late. I’m usually awakened by the sinuous slither of my pet snake, Scylla. Some people collect stamps, other people collect coins, but I collect gravestones and while getting Scylla her breakfast, I’ve stubbed my toe a time or two on the marble granite markers that line my room under pots of asphodel.

I live on the beautiful Lake Avernus, near the Bay of Naples, where the sky is purple the morning and the air is tinged with the scent of sulfur. I cannot write without caffeine, so I usually pull on my high-heeled knee-high black boots and stroll the shops by the waterline on the way to my favorite pasticceria where I settle in and sip at my morning cappuccino.

Once fortified, I take out my laptop and start writing as I people watch. As a romance writer, I’m always looking for inspiration, and it’s easy to find in watching the sexy Italian men on the street. Dark Mediterranean men make my knees weak every time, and I never mind their catcalls and overly-flirtatious manner when they notice me looking.

Okay, so none of this is actually true, but I’m a fiction writer, so what do you expect? In truth, the lives of most writers are very dull except for all the exciting stuff going on in my mind. Hence, I whipped up this little fantasy life as a combination of my heroines in the Mythica series. I first sold a novella to Harlequin, and followed it up with an outline for a second short about a modern day hydra that my editor asked me to turn into a full length novel. I can’t tell you how astonished I was that my first full-length novel sold on a proposal!

Since then I’ve written a second full-length Harlequin Nocturne which is out this month! Now I feel like I’m living large, even if I can’t remember the last time I had a tasty cappuccino or wore high-heeled boots!

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Stephanie Draven and her work can be found at http://www.stephaniedraven.com/! where she is promoting her newest work, Dark Sins & Desert Sands.