What’s Coming Up in the Future:
An Interview with Lori L. Lake, August 2002

By the middle of August, 2002, readers will be happy to learn that UNDER THE GUN, the sequel to GUN SHY, will finally be available.  Also, the second edition of GUN SHY is on sale, but it’s UNDER THE GUN that I have been waiting for.  I didn’t read it online, so it’s been a long time coming!

UNDER THE GUN is Lori’s third novel.  Her first book was RICOCHET IN TIME. As her sister, I know she’s been writing off and on since I was in high school, and she doesn’t have kids, like I do, so she has more time, but still, I am not sure how she has written five books in four years.

"I write when I can on the weekends, but I don’t get much time to write during the week.  I guess I am thinking about my writing in the back of my head pretty much all the time, though.  Any time I sit down and start typing, there’s always some new scene that comes to mind.  Robert J. Ray’s book, THE WEEKEND NOVELIST, taught me that if you just write 300-500 words per day (or a couple thousand on the weekend), before the end of a year you will have a novel.  I just keep at it, that’s all.  I also have lots of encouragement from some great Beta-Readers.”

I asked Lori what she is working on and what’s next to be published.  She has completed her fourth novel and it’s scheduled for publication in May 2003, but it’s a little different from her first three books.  It’s called DIFFERENT DRESS, and I had to laugh because she started talking about it last summer in Yellowstone when my husband, two boys, and I were on vacation with her and Diane.  She said that after all the ups and downs of UNDER THE GUN, she was going to write something sweet and easy—I think “short, light and fluffy” was what she said.  Now I find out that it turned out to be really long and a lot more involved than she expected.  AND she didn’t take my advice about a lot of things in it either!  The two main characters are still women.  I keep telling her if she would just make one a man, she could go mainstream! J

Anyway, Lori shared with me the synopsis for the new book:

Different Dress is the story of three women on a cross-country musical road tour. Jaime Esperanza is a gaffer/electrician and roadie for the show. The headliner, Lacey Leigh Jaxon, is a fast-living prima donna with intimacy problems. She's had a brief relationship with Jaime, then dumped her for the new guy (who lasted all of about two weeks). Lacey still comes back to Jaime in between conquests, and Jaime hasn't yet gotten her entirely out of her heart. After Lacey Leigh steamrolls yet another opening act, a folksinger from Minnesota named Kip Galvin, who wrote one of Lacey's biggest songs, is brought on board for the summer tour. Kip has true talent, she loves people and they respond, and she has a pleasant stage presence. A friendship springs up between Jaime and Kip-but what about Lacey Leigh? It's a honky-tonk, bluesy, pop, country EXPLOSION of emotion as these three women duke it out. Who will win Jaime's heart and soul?

If you get the chance, take a look at the cover for DIFFERENT DRESS at http://www.lorillake.com/books.html. An artist named Talaran did it.

The other thing scheduled for the future is a book of short stories due out next fall, 2003. These are stories Lori has been working on for several years. I haven't read them but feel like I know some of them because she has talked about them for so long. That book is tentatively called JUMPING OVER MY HEAD & OTHER STORIES. The last thing I talked with Lori about was what she is now writing. I keep asking her where the sci-fi book and her response is:

"I had to put ISOLATION 2020 on the back burner for a while. I hit a block--actually a character snag--so I will give it a rest until it works out in my mind. In the meantime, I am working on a story I've been calling MISSING LINK, which is about Abigail "Link" Lincoln, a high school basketball star who seems to have the world at her fingertips - until she gets injured. Then her whole world buckles, and she literally does not know what she has to live for. I'm about one-fourth of the way through the first draft. If I get stuck anywhere, then I can always go back to ISOLATION . . . or to my medieval story KNIGHT WIND . . . or the family drama THE FOURTH OPTION . . . or the adventure story REBECCA BLAZE . . . or start the third "Gun" book, HAVE GUN, WE'LL TRAVEL . . . or maybe work on something new. There's always some new plot or character popping into my head."

So that's the news for now. Until next time…

Filed: August 2002
By: A.E. Reese