I am delighted to be speaking with author Cassandra Kane today. Thanks for chatting with us today Cassandra and welcome to FAR!

Thank you, it's great to be here.

To start, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

This is a toughie because I don't really like talking about myself very much. I let everyone know I grew up in Australia and have lived in the UK since 1995 - that's by way of explaining the odd mixture of accents! Aussies think I'm a Brit, but Brits can tell I'm from Down Under straight away. I'm kind of an odd fish because I don't really feel I'm from anywhere particularly, especially as we travelled around a lot when I was very young. Wherever I lay my laptop is my home, I guess! As to my day-to-day, I work as a technical writer by day and write my stories during the evenings - when I'm not distracted by the telly or surfing the 'net, that is.

Could you please tell us a little bit about your current release A Touch Of Magic?

A Touch of Magic is a futuristic romance that was chosen as one of the six stories in Samhain Publishing's first print anthology. We had to write a story based on 'Samhain' and of course the first thing I thought of was a planet called Samhain! Running with that theme, I wanted to explore how Wicca might have evolved in the future, and I especially wanted to have a scientific explanation for the magical aspect. So I created a symbiotic lifeform that attached itself to humans to give them their powers - a lifeform that looks like a little gargoyle, so it's more Gremlins than Aliens. Then I threw a sexy male 'witch' into the mix and my heroine didn't stand a chance!

Do you outline your stories or do you just write as you go?

Usually I make up the story as I go along. I wrote a synopsis for A Touch of Magic but that was the first time I've ever done that. It seemed to work - it kept my writing on track - so I might do it again. However, I'm usually a panster. I love being surprised by my characters and the situations they get themselves into and then thinking up plausible ways of getting them out of it. Making it all up as you go along is part of the thrill of writing. I need a strong concept first though, and a clear idea of who the hero and heroine are and what they want.

What would you like to accomplish with your writing career?

World domination! LOL Seriously, I would like to make a comfortable living out of my writing and be able to give up the day job. Then I'll re-consider world domination.

Any advice for aspiring authors?

Read, read, read. Write, write, write. Study story and language, which are the essential tools of the craft. I read trillions of books and everything on writing I could get my hands on. I think storytelling has to be an obsession. And then never give up until you accomplish your dream.

You have an upcoming book with New Concepts Publishing titled Sirens Call. Can you tell us more about the story and when we can expect to see it?

Siren's Call is another futuristic erotic romance with some minor m/m elements. I was really playing with the 'princess in the tower' idea and how my starship captain would save her - and she him, of course. I don't like wimpy heroines, so I had really trapped her in her predicament. Alarija, the heroine, is part priestess and part sacrifice, supposedly the savior of the planet Zalaban which is about to be destroyed by the Loreto Asteroid, also known as The Sacred Eye. The reason she's left behind when Zalaban is evacuated is to help The Masters survive the impact of the asteroid by telekinetically linking with them - The Masters being a native lifeform that I envisioned as telekinetic whales, Zalaban being nine tenths ocean. Gerry, the starship captain, has been ordered to evacuate everyone on the planet and when he finds out she's been left behind he has his own very strong personal reasons for wanting to 'save' her. I haven't got a release date for Siren's Call yet, so I can't let you know when it'll be available.

When did you decide to take "pen in hand" and write with the intent to publish?

I've always written with the intent to publish, I just never got around to sending anything out! LOL My biggest 'push' came when I went to the Romantic Times Convention in St Louis in 2005. I went as a romance fan and for the workshops, so it was more like a holiday. But I was totally blown away by the conference and was introduced to epublishing which I hadn't been aware of before then. When I got home I joined a whole bunch of romance loops and responded to a few submissions calls and contests, and was offered a contract.

How many hours a day do you spend writing?

Not enough! I'm a very undisciplined person and not very organized and I procrastinate endlessly. I work much better under the pressure of deadlines and then I write pretty fast and with a lot of concentration and things seem to flow. I'm always trying to artificially create deadlines for myself, but that doesn't work often because I know the deadlines aren't real! So disciplining myself to write every day is the first item on my New Year's Resolution list. Hopefully I won't lose the bit of paper I've written that on.

What is the biggest challenge for you in writing a futuristic or fantasy romance?

Keeping the world plausible and consistent and avoiding info dumps. Even though the reader might find the world strange and weird, it's an everyday reality for the characters living in that world so they're not going to be shocked by the tentacled alien sitting at the end of the bar because to them it's just Bill, the local booze hound. I'm sometimes itching to explore all the invented back-story but I have to remind myself that it isn't relevant to the story I'm telling. The relationship between the hero and heroine comes first.

Is there a genre you haven’t tried yet and would like to?

Historicals - but set in the far past like ancient Greece or Sumer or ancient Israel. I studied archaeology at university for a few years so I've always loved the idea of placing my characters in a more exotic and untamed world. Kind of like the flip side to futuristics - only one's made up and the other isn't. Sort of. LOL

Is there anything else you would like to share with us today?

For those of you who like FF&P romances, I'd like to invite you all to visit www.star-crossedromance.blogspot.com. This blog was started by a group of writers bitten by the futuristic bug and we blog about anything from the writing life, to Star Trek and SF conventions, and especially about what we love about this romance sub-genre.

I'd also like to thank you for having me. It's been a blast.

Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to answer some questions for us today Cassandra! Readers can learn more about Cassandra and her books on her website

Interviewed by: Tammy