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Gaelen Foley

Noted for her "complex, subtly shaded characters, richly sensual love scenes, and elegantly fluid prose" (Booklist), Gaelen Foley is the bestselling author of eleven historical romances from Ballantine Books. Her passionate, sophisticated love stories have been published in eleven languages and have won numerous awards, including the National Readers' Choice Award, the Booksellers' Best, the Golden Leaf, the Award of Excellence, the Laurie, the Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Award for Best First Historical Romance, and the Holt Medallion.

A Pennsylvania native, Gaelen holds a B.A. in English literature with a minor in philosophy from the State University of New York, College at Fredonia, a quaint lakeside village where Mark Twain once owned a home. It was here, while studying the Romantic poets, such as Wordsworth, Byron, and Keats that she first fell in love with the Regency period in which her novels are set.

After college, she dedicated herself completely to her artistic pursuits, spending five and a half years moonlighting as a waitress to keep her days free for writing and honing her craft. Finally, after four unsuccessful manuscripts, her fifth attempt sold to the largest publisher in the world (Bertelsmann).

The Pirate Prince hit bookshelves in 1998 and created an instant buzz among romance fans. Romantic Times magazine announced: "There is star quality in this writer!" Word-of-mouth made The Pirate Prince a hit and has continued to propel each of her novels on to greater success, establishing Foley as a leading voice in historical romance.

Gaelen Foley lives near Pittsburgh, PA with her college-sweetheart husband, Eric, and a spoiled bichon frise called Bubble. She is hard at work on her next book.

Visit her at www.GaelenFoley.com

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 Articles by this Author

Designing Your Novel's Premise

Where do you get your ideas? If I had a nickel for every time I’ve been asked this wrong-headed question. . . .

Ah, well.

When a non-writer asks me this question, basically, I just smile and lie, because the truth is more complicated, less magical, indeed, a good deal grubbier than most people who are just making conversation really care to hear. If you tell them that it’s work -- hard work -- they look at you like they suspect that you must be doing it wrong.

There seems to be a myth floating around out there that story ideas pop full-blown into our imaginations like Athena out of the head of Zeus. Sheee-yah.

Prep That Book

Before you start writing your novel, it is my firm opinion that you need to have at least a general idea of what the story is (plot), who’s in it (characters), and the world in which it takes place (world-building).

Writing The First Draft or "The Ugly Duckling"

Writing the first draft has always been the most grueling part of writing a novel for me. Always one to attack my challenges head on, however, I used to set an ambitious daily minimal quota for myself, counting out how many clean, carefully thought-out pages I would need to write each day in order to finish a 400-page manuscript and still give myself enough time to revise it before my deadline.

The first draft typically took me a arduous five months; I would then spend the final three or four months of my allotted time revising and polishing the manuscript.

But things never seemed to go according to plan.

Creating An Environment Conducive To Writing

We are often told that ‘real writers’ don’t wait for inspiration to strike, but produce a set number of words/pages on a regular schedule. While this kind of productivity may sound like it calls for heroic self- discipline, there are ways to make it a little easier on yourself.

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