Christina Dodd: No, I think you just have so many things that you can do with in a book, and we've both written a lot of books. So we've hit all the themes. My idea came about because my daughter's boyfriend's aunt had adopted six children, from ages 18 to one. The birth mother had gone off; she was a drug addict.

I was fascinated by the fact that each of the children had a different reaction to losing their mother and being adopted by a different family. That's what set me off. Connie and I didn't talk about that part of it in any way, shape or form.

Connie Brockway: Mine came about because there was an old, old western called Paladin with Richard Boone. He used to hand you a card with a chessman on it -- a little knight. He would ride in when anyone sent this card.

He was a loner and estranged from society. He was this classic dark hero, who still is honor-bound to do what he set out to do.

Christina Dodd: Now Connie and I will sometimes call each other, and one of us will say: "I've got the best idea for a book!" And we'll hear this silence on the other side, because I wouldn't write her idea, and she wouldn't write my idea in a million years. Not that it's not a good idea. But authors have books that they will write -- we don't always agree.

Crescent Blues: I'd like to talk a little bit about web sites. You both have amazing web sites, but you made the point on yours, Connie, that yours is your hobby. Do you work on it yourself?

Connie Brockway: Yeah, I do. Before I became a writer, I was a graphic illustrator. Of course, when I was a graphic illustrator, there was not a lot of computer aids -- at least not in the little places I was working. To me, this is just fun. I don't care if everything's aligned perfectly. I just have a blast with Photoshop(™).

I wish I had more time for it. At the same time . . .

Crescent Blues: Did you do the dissolve for the Rose Hunters page?

Connie Brockway: Yes.

Crescent Blues: Why isn't there a bio on your page?

Connie Brockway: Because I'm so incredibly white bread, I don't think there's any reason to do a bio. I can't compare with, say, Merline Lovelace, who was a colonel in the Air Force. I'm a well-educated, middle class, white woman. [Laughs.] [Christina's] looking at me like: "You are such as smuck."

Christina Dodd: I can write you one.

Connie Brockway: You write it, and I'll put it up.

Christina Dodd: Connie Brockway doesn't know a thing about toilets . . . [Laughter.]

Crescent Blues: That's why you don't want to have your friends write your bio. They know too much about you. Christina, do you do your own web page also?

Christina Dodd: My husband does it. I don't know anything about it. I do content, and he puts it up.

Crescent Blues: You know, to a certain extent you both share graphics. When you were working as a draftsman, Christina, you must have done very detailed drawings.

Christina Dodd: Absolutely, but there's no artistic instinct when it comes to drafting. You're drafting very solid things: electrical connections, plumbing, houses, sawmills. I have no artistic instinct. She'll tell you that. All my taste is in my mouth.

Connie Brockway: Not really. I think she's just lazy. If she can get someone else to make a decision on certain things, she'll go: "You do that. Whatever."

Crescent Blues: Would you like to talk a little about Canine Companions for Independence (CCI)? On your site, you mention you're raising a Lab-mix for the organization.

Christina Dodd: He's a half yellow Lab/half Golden Retriever. We've had him since last March, and he will go back [to CCI] in August. We're raising him to be a companion to the deaf or the handicapped, possibly a therapy dog if the other two don't work out.

It has been an amazing amount of work. That's the thing that people need to realize. You have to train him to respond to over thirty commands.

These dogs are so smart. It is amazing to watch this little puppy go from an absolute idiot into somebody. My husband has him up in Washington right now and is taking him with him everywhere he goes. [My husband] goes to all the restaurants, he goes to the engineering firms, he goes to the builders, and the dog behaves beautifully. It's an amazing thing to realize what we've done.

The training costs $50,000 from start to finish. We pay for everything for the dog until we step back and [CCI] takes over the advanced training, if they decide he's suitable. We hope he succeeds. We worked so hard to train this dog, we really want him to help somebody. We don't want all the training to be for nothing. We really hope he can make it through the advanced training.

There are a lot of reasons why they can't. If they have kind of hip dysplasia, for example, they're out of the program.

But of course, we hope he succeeds. If he does there's a graduation. We have to go and give the dog over to the person who is taking him. That'll be a killer.

Crescent Blues: You're going to cry, I guarantee it. Would you do it again?

Christina Dodd: No. No, we didn't realize how incredibly much time it would take, and I simply don't have that kind of time. Even though my husband did most of the work, I still had to put hours and hours and hours into it.

Well, maybe in a few years . . .

Crescent Blues: Just a couple more questions. Ladies, what was your greatest thrill as writers?

Connie Brockway: Selling my first book.

Christina Dodd: Absolutely.

Connie Brockway: When I got the call that the first book had sold, I think I burst into tears, and I'm not a crier. I really am not a crier. It was such a release of tension, I think, more than anything else. It wasn't even elation. It was like: "Ah, I can do this. I can do this! This is something that's going to happen."

Christina Dodd: For me, it was like being pregnant for ten years and not having a due date. When I finally sold that book [Candle in the Window], it was like: "Hey, it's here!" Yeah, absolutely, selling the first book. It never gets better than that moment when they say, yes, they want that first book.

Crescent Blues: It wasn't the book you expected to sell.

Christina Dodd: No, absolutely not.

Crescent Blues: Do you think you'll ever do anything with Guatemala [Dodd's first, never published opus]?

Christina Dodd: No. Do you know what Kate Duffy did last night when I [talked about the book in her speech to the Washington Romance Writers]? Did you see her? [Laughs.] Somebody at the table said that when I said Guatemala, she went [draws her finger sharply across her throat].

Crescent Blues: What was your scariest moment as a writer?

Connie Brockway: It's not so much scary as depressing. The most depressing moment was probably when my editor at Dell left. It was Maggie [Crawford], and we had formed a really good working relationship. All of a sudden I didn't know who I was going to work with.

It wasn't a huge depression, like you plummet or anything like that. It was the unknown -- who am I going to work with? Am I going to work as well with this person? Are they going to support me as well? It wasn't fear. It was . . . anxiety -- that's a better word for it.

Christina Dodd: Publishing is pretty much one terror after another. You never know how a book's going to do, and you're always afraid this is going to be it, and next year you're going to be living in a cardboard box under an overpass.

So nothing stands out for me as being scary, but this is not a job for the weak at heart.

Crescent Blues: Christina, you've published about 25 books in 14 years. Connie, you've published about 14 books in 10 years. How important is it to be prolific in this business?

Christina Dodd: I believe the more books you can produce, the more your name's out there. When you put out good books -- which we do -- I think you should work as hard as you can and as fast as you can.

And if you're not published, for Pete's sake, write a lot of books. When you do get published, there tends to be a level of enthusiasm for you. (They wouldn't pick up people if they weren't pretty enthusiastic about them.) So if you can produce additional books rapidly, they'll accept them. It's a great way to build a name.

Connie Brockway: I'm not as fast as Christina.

Christina Dodd: But you are putting out a book every six months.

Connie Brockway: But that's because they stockpiled. They held back [the Rose Hunter books] and they slowed release dates, because they know it will take me eight or nine months to write a book. I try to write faster, but I'm not very disciplined. Christina's a lot more disciplined than I am.

[To Dodd] You really are. You do write through everything. If I decide my toe looks a little funny today, that's cause to go walking.

Christina Dodd: We have a different philosophy. She doesn't write when she's miserable. I write to escape into writing when I'm miserable. I've said, being in publishing is great for writing, because being in publishing tends to make me miserable, so I'm always writing. [Laughter.]

Crescent Blues: Is there anything that we didn't cover here today that you'd like to add?

Christina Dodd: My first a hardcover is coming out in July.

Crescent Blues: I definitely think we should mention that.

Christina Dodd: It's called Some Enchanted Evening, and it's the start of the Lost Princess series. It's about three princesses who live in a mythical country (I made up the country), who are sent to England by their grandmother to escape a revolution. When the revolution goes badly, the money stops coming. So they are separated and lost to each other. It's Regency England, and it's a lot of fun.

Connie Brockway: I would like to give some advice to upcoming authors. The most important piece of advice, of course, is to sit down and write the book. The second is to make sure you have very good friends and keep them close.

Click here to learn more about Connie Brockway.

Click here to learn more about Christina Dodd.

Jean Marie Ward