Here’s a pic of Heidi and I the day we met. 
I swear I’ll wear more makeup next time I’m in public. lol Heidi graciously consented to an interview about her new book, Tangled Up In Love. I threw her a few tricky curves, but she stitched it all together skillfully.
Jamie: TANGLED UP IN LOVE is the first book of the “Chicks with Sticks” trilogy. What is the series about, and where can we get it?
Heidi: The “Chicks with Sticks” are three friends who belong to a weekly knitting group called the Knit Wits. They knit, they gab, and then afterwards, they head for a sports bar called The Penalty Box to meet up with their sort-of significant others. (It’s very complicated, and you’ll have to read the books to figure it all out. *g*) Knitting plays a significant role in each story, of course, and there’s also a matchmaking aunt/fairy godmother thrown into the mix to keep things interesting.
As for where you can find the books, I’m hoping everywhere! TANGLED UP IN LOVE will be released on Tuesday, February 3rd, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it starts to show up a bit before that. And then you should be able to find it at any bookstore (and if not, they will certainly be able to order if for you), as well as retails stores like Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target, etc. And it’s also available online at sites like Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, Borders.com, Books-a-Millions.com, etc.
Jamie: Who’s idea was the knitting? Yours or your editor’s?
Heidi: It was actually my editor’s, but it came about in kind of an unusual way. I’d worked up a single title proposal for a different idea, which my agent was shopping around. St. Martin’s loved it and actually wanted to buy the book, but because they had another author doing something slightly similar, they had to pass. But because the editor loved my writing, she asked if I could work up something else for them. While I was on the phone with her discussing exactly what that “something else” should be, she just happened to say, “I don’t suppose you know anything about knitting.” Turns out, she’d been looking for a sexy, funny knitting romance. Knitting had been growing in popularity by leaps and bounds, it seemed, and thanks to authors like Kate Jacobs and Debbie Macomber, women’s fiction-type knitting stories had done very well. But she was looking for an actual romance-romance, and something larger than life.
Since I actually do know something about knitting (when I first came home from college and announced that I wanted to be a writer, my mother taught me to knit so I could make at least a little money by selling dishcloths and bath mitts through local craft shops), I asked her to give me the weekend and I’d see what I could come up with. The result was a proposal for TANGLED UP IN LOVE, which she loved…so much that she asked if I could turn it into a trilogy. And so, the “Chicks with Sticks” were born.
Jamie: What do you think of knitting compared to crocheting? (I crochet. Personally, I think I’m risking my health with one long needle in my hand. The damage I could do with two is terrifying. LOL)
Heidi: Well, I have to agree with you on the danger factor that comes with knitting. I mean, those needles are sharp! LOL I actually do both and enjoy both equally, but I do think crochet is easier to learn. Personally, I picked up crochet very quickly, but had to take two or three stabs—no pun intended *g*—at knitting before I caught on. There’s just something much simpler about mastering one short hook as compared to two long needles. On the other hand, I do enjoy the clack of the needles, which you just can’t get from a single crochet hook. 
Jamie: What was the biggest help in deciding this book: choosing competing characters, choosing journalists, or choosing the competition? Which came first, the yarn or the needles? LOL
Heidi: It’s been a while, so I don’t remember exactly, but I think the characters popped into my head first. And the idea of making this series a “knitters versus jocks”-type thing had come up during conversation with my editor, too, so I think the “versus” part was playing pretty heavily through my head. From there, it was a short jump to the hero and heroine being in competition over something, then hey, what if they were both journalists… It was sort of a snowball thing; once I got started, it all just came together.
And it was definitely the needles that came first. Originally, I was going to use a set of enchanted needles to bring the couples together, but because you have to use different size needles for different projects, and I intended to have each heroine knitting something completely different in each story, that didn’t really work for me. Which is how I made the jump to yarn…and a possibly enchanted spinning wheel.
Jamie: How did Ronnie’s past come to you?
Heidi: That was something that came a bit later. I just knew that she needed a really good reason for still being so upset over losing a job to Dylan, and that reason had to be something personal, something deep-seated within her. The more I thought about it, the more pieces of her past began to fall into place…and the more her animosity toward Dylan started to make sense.
Jamie: What was the hardest thing about this story to write? What was the easiest?
Heidi: For me, the hardest part of writing any book is keeping track of all the little details and making sure I write things in the proper order, plot-wise. And with TANGLED being the first book of a very tightly plotted trilogy, with a lot of recurring characters and overlapping information, I had to remember to set things up for books two and three at the same time I was simply trying to tell the first story.
Aside from that, though, writing TANGLED was a breeze. I think it flowed so well because I absolutely loved what I was writing, and I’d been told by my editor to let it all hang out…be as funny and sexy and wild as I wanted. She reined me in a little during edits, but it sure made for fun writing!
Jamie: What is one thing about this story that you couldn’t add but wish readers could know?
Heidi: I can’t think of anything story-wise that I was forced to leave out, but I would love to have found a way to include even more cutesy knitting terms and jokes into the story. They’re so much fun to come up with! I’m using them as often as I can in all three books—as long as they don’t feel forced or hokey—but I always seem to be coming up with more and more, and I want to find a way to put them to good use.
Jamie: Zack and Grace, Dylan and Ronnie, Gage and Jenna…? What is their book and when can we read it?
Heidi: Dylan and Ronnie are the hero and heroine of TANGLED UP IN LOVE, of course. Then Gage and Jenna will star in LOVES ME, LOVES ME KNOT coming in August 2009, followed by Zack and Grace’s story, KNOCK ME FOR A LOOP in February 2010. (If anybody would like a sneak peek of the artwork for LOVES ME, you can visit www.HeidiBetts.com/WIPSandChains. You may have to scroll down a bit, as I posted it last week—Tuesday, January 13th—but it’s well worth the effort. )
Jamie: Will Charlotte’s loom spin on or is this world through with the trilogy?
Heidi: Oh, yes, Charlotte and her spinning wheel definitely make an appearance in all three books. Even if I hadn’t planned it that way, my editor fell in love with Charlotte and probably would have insisted she pop up a couple more times. LOL I actually have something very special in mind for her for the end of KNOCK ME FOR A LOOP because she’s such a big part of the entire trilogy.
Jamie: What is your next project?
Heidi: Right now, I’m working on KNOCK ME FOR A LOOP, the last in the “Chicks with Sticks” trilogy, but after that I honestly don’t know what I’ll be doing. I expect the topic to come up soon with both my agent and editor, and I do have some ideas of what I might like to do, but it’s all up in the air at the moment. More knitting romance? Spinning off (again, no pun intended…although it works *g*) into another craft of some type like crochet or quilting? (Hey, it could happen!) Something else entirely? Your guess is as good as mine.
Jamie: Where can devoted fans find you?
Heidi: Where can’t they find me, is more like it. LOL There’s my website, of course—www.HeidiBetts.com … and my two blogs, WIPs and Chains (also known as The Dungeon to those who are brave enough to scale its walls *vbg*)—www.HeidiBetts.com/WIPSandChains … and Must Love Yarn—www.HeidiBetts.com/MustLoveYarn—for all things knitting and romance.
And then there’s always MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Shelfari, GoodReads, Red Room, Bebo… Every time a new “meeting place” pops up, I feel compelled to join in the fray.
Thank you for talking with me, Heidi! This has been so much fun. Everyone, have fun visiting with Heidi in the comments and please stay tuned for her visit and guest blogging next Tuesday! I’m borrowing Heidi’s pattern for visiting with authors and finding I really like the way she gets to know people. This way doesn’t provide such a hit and mis with visitors and really allows a chance to visit the whole week long. Have fun!
Hello, everyone! And thank you so much to Jamie for inviting me not just once, but three times to chat about my upcoming contemporary single title debut, TANGLED UP IN LOVE.
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