Welcome to the authors of Operation Pleiades! This is the first of Love Romances and More’s interviews with series authors, giving us a chance to talk about what it is like to be part of a series collaboration. I’ve been looking forward to this since our Interview Coordinator, Dee, suggested this project.  

So, who are these talented and totally fun folks?  Toby Heathcote, Esther Mitchell, Stephanie Burke, Collette Deneen and Vijay Schartz. Each is a talented author in her own right and they have come together to gift their readers with one of the best series available. If you have not yet picked up this series it is a must for your to be read list. 

Because the idea of having several authors come together in one well-done series was so unique the first thing we wanted to know were how was each one approached to join. 

Toby  After my two historicals were accepted for publication, the publisher, Kristi Studts, offered to let me write one of the series. At the time she had three already spoken for and four yet to be assigned. 

Vijaya I was lucky enough to meet the owner and editor in chief of Triskelion Publishing when the company hadn’t published anything yet. It was in 2003 at a chapter meeting for Romance writers in the Phoenix area, and they were the guest speakers. At the time, I had three titles published by a small press that didn’t publish anymore (after September 11), and I gave the owner copies of my books, indicating that I would be interested in writing for the Sci-Fi romance series they talked about at the meeting. Within two weeks, I received an email with the bible outlining each book, and I was asked to pick one and send a proposal. I picked RELICS, sent a detailed synopsis and three chapters, and it all started from there. 

Stephanie Oh, I was approached by the owner of Trisk. It was a real honor at the time. I was so excited. She told me she had an interracial that only I could write. I was really flattered. 

Esther   Um… I don’t remember, with the first one I did.  I think it was something like Kristi (the publisher) coming to me and saying “Hey, you write futuristic.  How would you like…?” **laugh** 

Collette  Kristi contacted me and asked if I would be interested in the series.  I thought it would be fun! 

Who came up with the title for the series? 

Collette I believe Kristi.  All I know is the "Bible" told me so!  LOL. 

Toby The series, titles, and one-page plot summaries were written by Kristi. She decided the order of the books and the characters’ names. 

Vijaya The name of the series, the titles of each individual book, the names of the main characters and the order of the books was already decided by the publisher in the bible, as well as the main turning points in the continuity.

Stephanie   My book was named when I got the bible for it! LOL Thought I kept reversing the name by accident. I kept thinking about huge water guns or men with magical….Oppps! That would be another book! LOL 

How did you decide the order they came in?  

Vijaya  The publisher decided all that. Some writers didn’t like the names and asked to have them changed, but that wasn’t an option. I am writing the last book now, SIEGE, because another author, after accepting the task, rejected it on the basis of the characters names. To me it doesn’t matter what their names are. A good author can make any name work for a hero or a heroine. In this case, the name of the heroine is Maeve. 

Stephanie  The names came with the bible for the book. But after that, it was up to us to create their individual personalities and their pasts. Building a world for Electra was easy. I just recalled what I knew of Greek Mythology and applied that to her situation. I was fun to mix two pantheons and two separate mythological theories. But in Electra’s case, her name played right into my plans for her. 

In Toby’s Full Contact she names the seven sisters, so they were named before you all started working. We know of the 7 sisters in the constellation, who developed the names of the modern “sisters”? How did you choose who got which sister? 

Toby  I read the plot summaries for the four unclaimed books, and chose FULL CONTACT because I liked the heroine best. She was smart. 

Vijaya  Each sister has a book, so when I chose the book I wanted to write, it came with a sister, a hero, and the skeleton of a plot line to follow the previous book and lead to the next phase of the whole story. 

What did you think when you heard who else you would be working with?  

Toby  At the time, I did not know any of the other authors except Vijaya Schartz. I’ve known her for about ten years. We live in the same town and are both active in AZ Authors. I knew I’d be fine working with her because I had already been in critique with her and had read her other books. 

Vijaya  For me it was easy.  Book One, FULL CONTACT at the time (now it’s ANAZ-VOOHRI), was picked by Toby Heathcote, who was one of my critique partners. So we practically wrote our books at the same time, critiquing each other’s chapters, helping each other with the common characters who appeared in our books. We also created that world of 2023 with flying bike (dial-a-bike) prototypes (Toby’s idea) and epads (my idea), and other cool devices. Then we discovered another flying bike when the movie “Minority Report” came out, and we were very upset that someone else had used Toby’s idea. Of course, there was no connection, just a coincidence. Since then, many electronic devices have appeared on the market, and the revolutionary epad I invented doesn’t seem like such a far out gadget anymore. In this, I projected the future with accuracy.  

As for the other writers writing the next books, we kept in touch and each time we invented or established something that affected the speculative world of the Pleiades series, we logged it in files they could access to include these details in their own stories. 

Stephanie   I was pleased! This was a chance to link a lot of talent into one series. I just hoped my story wouldn’t scare anybody. LOL Scared my critique partner with some details on mercenary life. But then again, the research I did into nanocyte technology and terrorist activities had me praying that I would not be the first author in this series to be tagged by the FBI! LOL I did a lot of research and used as much info as I could on our Homeland security, Weapons of Mass destruction Task Force, and anatomy. Good thing I have a somewhat medical background. 

Esther   **Laugh** I really didn’t know anyone involved, at first… I didn’t know what to expect! 

Collette:  I was very excited to hear such great ladies were involved!  Esther and I did a LOT of IM while I worked on FIRESTORM.   

Had you ever done a project like this before? 

Toby  I have not written a segment of a series before although I have written a series of my own – five novels in a reincarnation series. I had also collaborated with other writers. I’ve written screenplays and plays with other writers and two textbooks with a teaching colleague. 

Vijaya  No I hadn’t. It was a little daunting to be given a book to write with such strict parameters and five months to write it. I had never written on deadline, submitting only finished books. So far, it had taken me well over a year to write the first draft of a book. Now I had five months to write a polished manuscript. To my surprise it went very well, and RELICS is a better book for it. When you have so little time, you can’t afford excuses not to write.  No procrastination allowed. So I sat my butt in the chair and wrote with a fever and a focus that brought many wonderful ideas to life. In the end, it made for a better story. Now I love deadlines. They don’t scare me anymore. I know I can do it. 

Stephanie   Actually, I had, but not on this grand of a scale. There were at least two smaller projects from Ellora’s Cave with my friends Kate Douglass, Shelby Morgan, and Trevah Heart. We put together a series called Thresholds with the same principles. It was a fun project and I am glad to see that Changeling Press is releasing it in print. It was a great learning experience and it was wonderful to see these stories develop thought each other’s characters. And even more recently, I had the pleasure of working with an even larger stable of writers on Changeling press’s AOEM, Agency of Extraordinary Mates series. I applied the same principles I used here on my approach, and it all worked out wonderfully. 

Esther  Yes.  At the time I started work on Operation: Pleiades, I had already written INTRIGUE, in Triskelion’s Curse of the Midnight Star series, so I had an idea how it all worked. 

Collette    No, this was my first attempt at a group serial.  But I would definitely do it again! 

The Anasazi are such an interesting culture. But more so is what may have happened to them. Who thought of them as a starting point for the Anaz-voohri and incorporating their story with the Pleiades?  

Toby  The basic idea for the world was Kristi’s. She came up with the names of the heroes, heroines, and the villains. 

Vijaya  The Anasazi connection was the original premise of the series, created by the publisher. Remember they are located in Arizona. It’s part of the local folklore. They had thought the series very well and made it grabbing and interesting from the start. I loved the idea right away, embraced it, and developed it to the next level. 

Stephanie   That would be the Boss Lady! LOL But is was a glorious idea. 

Who developed Mythos and ORION? 

Vijaya  These organizations were named and mentioned but their function and evolution remained very vague in the guidelines. I suspect this was intentional on the publisher’s part, trusting the writers to make it their own and find creative ways to develop them. It took a lot of brainstorming to define these organizations and make them real and believable to the reader. Toby and I worked on that a great deal as we were writing the first two books, asking and answering many questions and also brainstorming with the other authors. 

Stephanie  Again, The Boss Lady. But I think we all took liberties in tweaking both organizations to fit our needs. 

What went into choosing the women’s and men’s names?  

Vijaya  The publisher chose the names, but it was based upon the fact that the girls represented the seven stars of the Pleiades, so their names had to correspond to the names of their corresponding stars. There is also a link to the myths of ancient Greece, where the Pleiades sisters, persecuted by the hunter Orion, found their place in the sky where Orion follows them but can never catch them. Also, Archer, the founder of Mythos in the series, is a Greek Mythology nut, and all the Mythos men have code names related to Greek heroes. In the publisher’s bible it also stipulated that each Mythos character should reflect the personality of the Greek hero of his code name. This implied much research from the authors. But that research also revealed traits that gave us great ideas on how to develop our characters and their stories. 

Stephanie   I have no idea. We were given the male and female names and then set free on them. LOL I tried my best to make the characters fit up to the spirit of their given names…Thought I did change my hero’s abilities and race. I wanted an interracial. It seemed to work. 

What was the easiest part of working on the series? 

Toby  We did some invention on the Internet. One of the editors and I came up with the Dial-a-Bike. That was fun. I also invented one of the villains in the series, Captain Kavak, the Anaz-voohri female.  I’m proud of her and how well she fit the other stories. 

Vijaya Easy? Nothing is ever easy when you strive for perfection. Writing a book is hard work. Personally, I liked the peace of mind of knowing in advance exactly where the story was going (unlike my previous books written mostly by the seat of the pants). I had to provide three chapters and a complete outline before I received my contract, and that forced me to write the entire story before I wrote the book. It made the writing easier. 

Stephanie   Ohhh! Bring given free reign to change and alter the original bible. I created my hero’s Offensive Empath power as well as Electra’s nanocyte abilities. I am a huge fan of Sci-fi and wanted to push the envelope as much as I could while maintaining a sense of reality. Electra can change her appearance and even her sex, as long as she maintains the same body mass. She can also interface with any computer due to her nanocytes...though she doesn’t understand computers all that much. LOL I thought it made her more human. My hero can absorb any emotion and turn it around as a weapon. I felt that if the heroine could have spiffy powers, so should the hero, just to keep things even. It also made for interesting character interactions and wonderful action sequences. 

Esther  **Chuckle** Most of the series was easy enough.  This was a great bunch of writers, and most of us worked well together.  The writing went smooth and easily. 

Collette  The easiest part was, in a word, freedom.  I mean, we all had the brief summary from the bible, but it was completely up to us to develop the story, define our characters, and have some fun. 

What was the hardest? 

Toby  The hardest element for me was my concern that my own style would not surface in FULL CONTACT, but I should not have worried. My style came through, and I’m proud of this book. 

Vijaya Definitely the deadline. I worried about it every day, wondering whether I could deliver on time, but mainly I was concerned about the quality of the finished product. How could a book written in five months be as good as one written in eighteen months? In the end, however, it was perfect. 

Stephanie  The hardest thing would be incorporating research into this sci-fi setting and making it seem real. I don’t believe in perfection and perfect heroes. Perfect is boring. I wanted faced mixed in with my fantasy. It was difficult to mix the two in a believable format. And with the country’s high alert against terrorism, it was hard to find people to discuss issues such as chemical and biological warfare as well as how to build a fertilizer bomb. Then destroying the world and leaving an out for the next writer, that was hard. Oh, that and scaring my editor with scenes of torture and the new vocabulary she had to learn to edit. LOL Mercenaries speak their own language. 

Esther   Getting all the minute details worked out.  As each person added to the series, that became more and more difficult.  I know I had a lot more problems with that kind of thing when I wrote CONTAGION than I did when I wrote DESPERATE MEASURES! 

Collette      For me, the hardest part was trying to make sure I kept the already established characters from the previous books IN their character, and not try to change them to how *I* saw them. 

Would you do it again? 

Toby  No, I’m not going to write a segment in another series because the rights never come back to me. 

Vijaya  In a heartbeat. Actually I have done it twice since, with ANAZ-VOOHRI (the prequel to the Pleiades) and LOCKDOWN (first book of The Garrison series), and I am now writing my fourth series book for Triskelion, SIEGE, the last in the Operation: Pleiades series. 

Stephanie   Absolutely without a doubt. 

Esther   If you mean would I ever work on another publisher-run series, sure… If you mean right now, no… I’ve got lots of my own stuff to finish! 

Collette    Absolutely! 

What other star legend would you like to do a series on? 

Vijaya  The legends are many and I love legends and I love the stars.  I know some nomadic tribes in the Southern Sahara desert claiming they come from the star Sirius.  The gods of East India also claim to come from other planets according to the myths. And the Greek legends are full of allusions to the stars. Unknowingly, we might even be tapping into the truth of how life came to Earth, when God, or the gods, or angels, made contact with humans. There is an ample supply of ideas there. 

Stephanie   Easy! Greek Constellations. The original myths were so fantastic, that they are begging for a modern twist or two. Like Orion’s belt for example! LOL 

Esther    ;)  Don’t go giving me ideas… I usually incorporate myths and legends into enough of my work, anyway! 

If so, what about another time period?  Would you consider say doing a Regency series?  

Vijaya I love history, but Regency is not my period of choice. I have a French background. Actually, I’m working on a series (all mine) base upon very little known European legends. The series involves a family of Fays akin to Morgane the Fay. The saga spans history from Scotland during the Viking invasions, to the foundation of Luxembourg, and France, Spain, and the Middle East, all the way to the first Crusades. 

 Stephanie  Regency, no. That time period does not suite my style of writing. And I have to be careful about historical. I do a lot of research, and I tend to incorporate that in my writing. Oh the smells and lack of bathing! LOL But give me a futuristic or if me must to historical, cave man! Woo Hoo! LOL 

Esther  **Frowns** No, probably not a Regency, or anything historical… I love writing historicals, but I’m a bit of a stickler for detail, and I don’t know that it would work with more than one author involved. 

Collette  **grins** I'd do a paranormal fantasy series. 

If you hit a writer’s block, did you brain storm with the rest of the authors? 

Toby  Absolutely, that was the most fun. Vijaya and I wrote FULL CONTACT and RELICS at the same time and critiqued each other’s chapters. We could depend on each other for brainstorming too. I also did some brainstorming with Esther Mitchell. 

Vijaya  It’s almost impossible to hit writer’s block when you write from a detailed storyline and you know what has to happen scene by scene. Often, though we had questions about a certain common character, the state of a certain organization at a specific time. Sometime, one author would come up with an idea and share it with the group, and we would all embrace it, or someone would protest and say, “No, you can’t do that, it contradicts what we established in such and such book about such and such thing…” What was already published was law. 

Stephanie   Not really. I hit the other writers to see what part of the threat I should knot off for my tale and for some of the interaction between out characters, but most of my story took place in the field without meeting a lot of other characters. I was lucky not to have to fight with so many opposing personalities or try to maintain someone else’s character’s integrity. 

Esther    Sometimes.  Depended on what the block was. 

Collette   I IM-ed Esther and whined.  Hehehe. 

Toby, Full Contact, was first up. How does it feel to see the series going on into 2007? Did you expect it would continue? 

I had anticipated that the series would be done a lot sooner. I think it’s harder to write the books down the line when other authors have already set so many standards. It’s like walking a tightrope to keep from making a continuity error. Esther and I did a lot of continuity work. I used her DESPERATE MEASURES hero in the first book too. She vetted everything I wrote. Vijaya did also for Kin. 

Vijay, I shouldn’t say this out loud, but I fell in love with Kin. Did you and Toby collaborate on any part of his character since he is introduced in FULL CONTACT but we really get to meet him in RELICS? 

Kin is all mine and I’ll claim him till the day I die. I chose to write RELICS partly because I had a good idea of what I could do with these characters to make them sparkle. I am familiar with many oriental cultures and Kin’s Chinese background appealed to me. I am a black belt in Martial Arts (Aikido) and so am familiar with Ninja culture as well. Since Toby and I were writing our books at the same time and critiquing each other chapters on a weekly basis, it was easy for Toby to get Kin just right, as she was very familiar with his story and his development as a character in my book. Now Kin is introduced even earlier, in ANAZ-VOOHRI, when he first joins Mythos. So he appears in the first three books, as well as in the last book I am writing now, SIEGE. 

Stephanie – Midas and Electra…two very interesting Gods of old did you do any research on them and their lore before writing BLAST WAVE? (Very cool title by the way). 

LOL Thank you! I had to live up to that title. As for research, sigh! I still have books of research! Midas and Electra in mythology are two people that carry their own system of honor and each had immense power. I tried to take some of the character traits given to the mythological characters and incorporate them into developing my Midas and Electra.

Midas was a stubborn man, and did a lot of good for his people, before his greed hampered him. I had to be cautious, but I used his ear obsessive need to protect his treasures, in this case Electra, as an important part of his personality. 

Electra is a warrior woman bent on revenge for the murder of her father in mythology. She reared her brother and used him as a tool to this eventuality and was a wonderful if ruthless ruler. I applied that same dogmatic nature and a need to protect her people into my Electra. Being the head of a Merc group is not easy, epically when you are a woman. I also played on the betrayal of the mythological Electra, and used it as an important plot device for my modern Electra.

So yes, a lot of research went into this story, and I tried to maintain the ideals and integrity of their mythological namesakes. 

Esther, your cover for CONTAGION is so dramatic. What inspired you to have your artist go with that?  

    J Not my choice.  The publisher chooses the covers.   The cover models actually have very little resemblance to the characters in my book, truth be told.   

Another one for Esther, what was different for you between DESPERATE MEASURES and CONTAGION, especially keeping the sisters so different? 

**laughs** It wasn’t hard… They both have very unique personalities!  The situation, too, was different.  Tori is very much the daredevil, leap-before-you-look-except-into-love type, and so her situation was very chaotic, and she excelled at getting herself (and Marcos) into trouble.  Tierney is more the hearts and flowers type (though still very strong).  She WANTS to be loved, and to be IN love.  Her story was more of a quest to discover herself, and her place in Archer’s world. 

Collette, Hot Cover Alert! It’s the only one without one of the sisters on the cover. How did you manage that? 

'Cause I'm special? Haha.  Seriously, they did a great job on my cover.  And Ajax is such a smart-mouthed, cocky, alpha-boy, I don't think he'd want to share his cover with his fuddy-duddy scientist ;) 

When one of the authors dropped out, how did you decide who would take up that last book?  

Toby  Kristi made those decisions. 

Vijaya Authors drop out more often than you think. Too many deadlines they can’t fulfill, health problems, family demands, shift in priorities. It happened several times in the course of writing the series in which I participated. When the author lined up for the last book SIEGE told me, after giving it a try, that she didn’t feel it and wasn’t going write it, I happened to be finished with Anaz-voohri as well as my holiday novella Coyote Gorgeous. I immediately contacted the publisher and asked if they had anyone in mind to write SIEGE, or could I have it.  As it happened, my timing was perfect and they said they’d love for me to write it, so I started immediately. I’m in the middle of it now and I think it will come out in late spring 2007. 

Esther  Actually, the last two books were covered by authors other than the original intended.  I was approached to take over CONTAGION when Lynn Warren had to back out, and the final book, SEIGE, has changed hands a few times.  I think the publisher probably decided those.  I know that’s who asked me. 

Or is it the last book? Any chance the Anaz-voohri will be back with the children of the 7 sisters?  

Vijaya  There is always room for more books in a series. Actually, ANAZ-VOOHRI was an afterthought. Toby and I had written a TV pilot we submitted to Hollywood, titled First Strike, telling the story of what led to the events of 2023. Then we came up with the idea of a book based on the screenplay. The publisher agreed. Unfortunately, after giving us the green light, as we were well into writing the book, the publisher decided that the hero of First Strike, Lawson Archer, couldn’t be the main character of the book, because he was the hero of another book in the series, developed by another author, and the story for TV wasn’t enough of a romance. Toby desisted, and I took over the task of writing a totally original story with a new hero, Zack, and a new heroine, Tia. After running the new synopsis through the publisher, they enthusiastically agreed. I was careful to respect all the rules of the series, which I knew very well by now. I included many of the characters from other books as secondary characters, introducing them at a younger age. 

As for the last book, SIEGE, being an avid reader of series, I wouldn’t be surprised if it weren’t the last book. I already have the fantastic ending (I’m not telling) and it does allow for interesting further developments that would make good stories.  Who knows? If the series is very popular in print, it may have more books to come… 

Stephanie   We can only pray. I would love to see a final book telling about what happened to heir heroes and heroines. And I would love the chance to revisit Electra and Midas again. 

Esther  Ooh, I don’t know… Guess that would be interesting, but I kind of hope I don’t get drawn into anything like that… at least not for a while…lol 

What advice would you give to an author looking at being part of a series like this? 

Vijaya  Be professional. Respect the deadlines, and don’t take on more than you can write. Read the guidelines carefully and follow them to the letter while still bringing your creativity to the table. Be prepared to work with or around rules you didn’t set that may not appeal to you. This kind of writing isn’t for everyone as it includes working with ideas, concepts and visions not your own. Personally I love these restrictions. They constitute a healthy challenge and force me to use my imagination in different ways. If you are thinking of writing for this kind of series, make sure it fits your writing preferences before you accept a contract. 

Stephanie   I would advise anyone to try it! It is a great learning experience and will enhance you understanding of character development and world building. Plus it is great to see how others see your characters though characters of their own. It was a worthwhile experience. 

Esther  Make sure you stick to the plan, and keep contact with the other authors!  It might look easy from the outside, but if you veer too far off the path, people are bound to notice! 

Collette  I'd say make sure you keep in touch with at least one other author in the series, if not all.  Read the books that come before yours, and make sure you have IM. 

You guys are the best! I give you and Kristi HUGE kudos for this project. With such diverse personalities and interests you really came together to give readers a fantastic treat. I loved each book and they are all keepers on my e-shelf!

Thank you for your time today!