Grab your beverage of choice (Mimosas for me, of course!), roll up to or flip open a screen and let some talented writers talk to you about their writing process.

This week: Tracie Banister is in the spotlight!

An avid reader and writer, Tracie Banister has been scribbling stories since she was a child, most of them featuring feisty heroines with complicated love lives like her favorite fictional  protagonist Scarlett O’Hara.  Her Hollywood-themed Chick Lit novel, “Blame It on the Fame,” was released in January, 2012.  She blogs about books and other fun stuff at http://traciebanister.blogspot.com/ and her Twitter handle is @traciebanister.  So let me get out of the way and cede the stage, stool and microphone to Tracie:

1. Have you always written stories?

Always.  I spent most of my childhood and teen years sitting in front of a typewriter.  I wrote two plays in elementary school that were performed on stage (one was a holiday play that was set in pioneer times – think Little House on the Prairie, and the other was a riff on a Charlie’s Angels episode.)  In junior high, I cranked out multi-part stories that I would share with my friends each morning before class.  I got into writing essays and literary analyses in high school (I received an award nomination for one of the latter) and I started my first novel in my early twenties. 

I spent years trying to go the traditional route.  I was repped by a top NYC literary agent on my first novel, but publishers weren’t willing to take a chance on a new writer of humorous women’s fiction (this was about the time that Chick Lit was declared “dead.”)  I didn’t give up.  I submitted queries on books two and three to agents and editors and got nothing but the highest praise from them, but they all said they couldn’t sell my work because there was no market for Chick Lit anymore.  I was actually told on several occasions to switch genres because I was wasting my talent on Chick Lit.  Fortunately, by this time, the digital revolution had hit the publishing world and I was able to skip the middle men, publish BLAME IT ON THE FAME myself, and get the book into readers’ hands.  I can now state with confidence that there is indeed an audience for Chick Lit and these readers are more than happy to embrace new writers.

I’m a morning person.  That is when I am at my best creatively, so I work for a few hours after breakfast, take a break for lunch and some exercise, then work several more hours in the afternoon.  I wrap up my work day by 4:30.  I never write in the evening because my brain just isn’t functional after dinner.  Also, I’m a Monday-Friday writer.  If I work at all on the weekends, it’s to do promo stuff (interviews, blog posts, etc.)

I’m incredibly dull because I’m a teetotaler.  I do have a serious addiction to Diet Caffeine Free Coke, though!

Just one?  I have a whole harem of celebrity crushes!  Okay, I’m going to narrow it down to two who I think are sexy because they’re so incredibly talented – Robert Downey, Jr. and Johnny Depp.