In addition to being an award winning romance author of the Struck by Lightning and The Secrets of Rock Stars series, Tan is also a baseball maven and member of the Society of American Baseball Writers (SABR). She has also had time to write fan fiction and a serialized tale about a guitar player (Daron’s Guitar Chronicles) since 2009, which is now bordering on 1.3 million words (and still going).  She is also the founder and Publisher of Circlet Press, a 25 year-old science fiction and fantasy erotica publisher.  

She is currently working on a blood magic fantasy series for Tor Books. 

 

She has written a Harry Potter goes to College series under The Magic University umbrella and the RDN Free Book of the Day is the holiday short story from that series.

 

Do you remember the first story you ever wrote? 

I do remember the first story I wrote because my mother had it up on the fridge with a magnet for years and she still has a copy of it. Don't laugh! It was called "The Witch and the Bunny," but I hadn't learned to spell yet because I had basically taught myself to write by sounding out words. So it reads "The Wich and the Bune." It was illustrated and I folded the paper over and wrote "Th end" on the back. I was four. 

 

What is your writing process? 

When I write a short story I just sit down with the blank page and let inspiration flow: it just takes one little nugget of a feeling or an image to build an entire story. With a novel it's a bit more involved, but honestly every one has been different. Some series I do a lot of planning of plot points and arcs beforehand, others all the prep is in the world building and characters but I don't actually write out any of the plot. I've written over 20 novels now and each one has unique demands. As I often say, I know how to write a book, but each time I start anew, I have to learn how to write THAT book. 

 

Do you remember the first story you ever read, and the impact it had on you? 

You have to go all the way back to Dr. Seuss for that. I remember being so intrigued by The Cat in the Hat and also The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. I thought there was more going on there than I understood. The first things I bought with my own money to read for myself, though, were comic books. Wonder Woman, Superboy and the Legion of the Super Heroes, and Superman Family were my favorites. I read them over and over again. I loved stories that were different from the real world in some way or that showed a side of things I didn't know about. That continues on into "real" books like Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time and Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles. Bradbury's stories like "All Summer in a Day" and "The Veldt" cemented my early conviction that I was a writer and would someday be published, too.

 

What do you read for pleasure? 

For pleasure I try to read outside of the genres I write in. If I read an erotic romance or a paranormal, it's "work." So I read stuff like YA fantasy, which is so very different from what I write, and autobiographies of interesting people. Of course sometimes the autobiographies end up being research--like all the memoirs I've read by US Navy SEALs, as well as all the rock stars. Lots of rock stars in my books! 

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When you're not writing, how do you spend your time? 

When I'm not writing, you'll find me either eating in the best restaurant I can find or asleep. Eating and sleeping are underrated activities, and I am a champion of both. 

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What do your fans mean to you? 

My fans are everything. Without them I'm just shouting into the void. One of the best things about self-publishing is it has meant making connections with fans that I wouldn't have in the traditional publishing process. Like when I publish a serial online and the fans comment and build a community around it. That just wouldn't happen with a traditionally published novel.