Introduction

I'm Susan Wilbanks, an aspiring author with two completed manuscripts and a third that's about 60% of the way to a rough draft. The first lives in a box under my bed and the second is making the rounds of the publishing industry under my agent's guidance. All three manuscripts are historical romance, but I think my next project will be either straight historical fiction or an alternate history.

Why "Conversations With Dead People"? Well, when in doubt about what direction to take my stories, I often ask "What would Joss Whedon do?" It keeps me from being too easy on my characters, which is always a temptation because I like my heroes and heroines and want them to be happy. So it seemed fitting to give my blog the title of a Buffy episode. But the main reason I chose the name is because it's something I often do. Talk to dead people. Mostly my characters, who if they'd really existed would be long dead, because most of the important ones I've written so far were born in the 1780's. But also actual historical figures. One thing I catch myself doing when I'm deeply into my imagination is not exactly talking to myself, but making the hand gestures and facial expressions appropriate to the conversation that's going on inside my head. Recently I realized I was doing this in broad daylight walking down the street on the way to lunch when a passerby gave me a funny look. I thought, "You know, she'd think I was even crazier if I explained that I was just arguing politics with the 1st Duke of Wellington."

Writers. We're a mad breed.

Anyway, this blog will be all about life as a writer and reader. I'll talk about what I'm working on, my research, the books I read for fun, the publishing industry, writers' organizations (I'm a member of Romance Writers of America, and I just joined the Historical Novel Society), etc.