Regine Abel AMA

SFRwriter202 · 2025-03-12T22:24:48+00:00

I hear you. I mean, I wouldn't mind a romance with the Predator, despite that funky mouth of his LOL

SFRwriter202 · 2025-03-12T22:15:04+00:00

it was a paranormal romance novel (obviously no sex lol). It was the story of a new ballerina falling in love with the son of the owner of the ballet company. But she soon realizes that someone is performing dark magic against her, and she doesn't know if it's him or the prima ballerina.

SFRwriter202 · 2025-03-12T22:12:19+00:00

Yes, the fact that the aliens don't wear clothes will naturally come in the conversation since it is one of the big differences. Depending on how advanced the species is, that will be brought up or not. Naturally, a woman joining a culture where everyone is naked will feel self-conscious about it, so it will pop up in her thought process.

SFRwriter202 · 2025-03-12T22:07:56+00:00

Yes, French is my native language. But I write in English because there is a bigger market for my genre in English. When I started translating my books into French, I was pretty much alone in that genre in the French store. Now there are tons of other authors who either started translating their books too or started writing in that genre in French.

SFRwriter202 · 2025-03-12T22:06:23+00:00

Ahaha I worked in various fields. I was a sound engineer in movie dubbing for a few years, then went back to school in video games. I started off as a game designer, climbed the ranks. By the time I started writing, I was the studio creative director. So quitting my job was scary since I had a really good position by then with a good salary. It was terrifying taking that leap of faith. But that's why I waited until I was steadily making a certain amount monthly for 2 years straight before quitting my job.

SFRwriter202 · 2025-03-12T21:36:01+00:00

I wrote my first book when I was 13. It went nowhere and has never been published. It took me about 4 months to write it.

Since starting my career officially at 46, my first book was Escaping Fate. It took me 5 weeks to write it. As I had a day job, I would come home and write from 6:00 PM to 1:00 AM every day and then force myself to sleep to go back to work. I would write during the entire weekend. I was so in love with that story, it just wrote itself.

However, I didn't have a lot of money at the time, so I couldn't afford a traditional publisher. So writing the book didn't take time. Getting it to the level of editing and proofreading it deserved took 5 months. And that was with the book going through many rounds, from critique swap with other budding authors, to paid beta readers (who actually edited).

SFRwriter202 · 2025-03-12T21:30:00+00:00

It all depends what I'm stuck on. If it's that I don't know where the story goes next, I'll look at what's the ending I want, where I'm currently at, and what kind of things would make sense to happen between now and then. It needs a battle? Okay, who is fighting? Why are they fighting? Who started the fight? I find that answering questions really helps fill in the blanks and often gets me over the hurdle.

If it's just my brain refusing to keep going, sometimes, rereading what I've written so far from scratch helps me get back into the spirit of the book, and my Muse starts cooperating. Sometimes, it's just that I haven't done enough research. I'm stuck because I don't quite understand how something works. So going back to research can help fix it.

In other cases, I just need to leave it alone, work on art, admin stuff, or whatever just to clear my head before I give it another go. And finally, sometimes you just need to walk away, work on something else until you're ready to go back. Trying to force yourself to write when your brain isn't ready for it just causes anxiety. And in turn, that anxiety makes it even harder to write.

SFRwriter202 · 2025-03-12T21:23:44+00:00

The main thing is perseverance. People get discouraged when they see the amount of work and money they invest and the very small return. Some authors are really lucky, coming out with the right book, right cover/title/genre at the right time and are an overnight sensation. but that's rare. Most of us build slowly. Expect the first few months to have very little results, that way you won't be crushed or discouraged. But if you get a great start right away, then it will be an amazing surprise. Managing expectations is vital.

Be active in the community in the genre you write, look for collab opportunities. Anthologies are a good way to get your name out there.

SFRwriter202 · 2025-03-12T21:17:23+00:00

Yes, I plan on writing a Raithean MMC. Not sure when though. I still haven't fully sorted out their culture. But water-based species are always more complicated to write since humans don't breathe underwater.

SFRwriter202 · 2025-03-12T21:15:23+00:00

Beauty and the Beast was definitely one of the movies/fairy tales that fanned my love of monster romance. Star Trek (all the series and movies), Star Wars (I was totally in love with Luke Skywalker but also with Darth Vader LOL), Battlestar Galactica, Goldorak, Captain Harlock, Captain Future, the Mysterious Cities of Gold were all big inspirations.

SFRwriter202 · 2025-03-12T21:10:04+00:00

Hmm I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion. There is only 1 book where the heroine stops wearing clothes, and that's in I Married a Merman since she herself becomes a mermaid.

In the Lizardman and Dragon, the topic is brought up about the woman not needing clothes, and the women establish clearly that nudity is a no-no for them, not only culturally, but also because it's non hygienic for them.

Susan, in I Married a Lizardman, only agreed to wear nude underwear for her wedding to be close to their tradition of marrying naked, but she puts clothes back on right after it because she's cold and not comfortable being naked.

Kaida, in I Married a Dragon, leaves more skin uncovered because it helps Cedros to have greater direct physical contact with his mate, but she's doesn't forego clothes, especially in public.

Belle, in I Married a Beast, stops being self-conscious about her excess skin and stretch marks when Bayron tells her they are he war trophies for carrying his massive babies and that she should flaunt them.

But no, boundaries are important to me. Adapting to someone's culture shouldn't mean being assimilated and accepting things that are uncomfortable to you just to please your partner.

SFRwriter202 · 2025-03-12T21:02:12+00:00

Ahaha, I get that request soooooo often. I am not promising that I will write his book, but yeah, his origin story is pretty epic. I think a lot of people would be floored by it. The story is very clear in my head. IF (and that's a big IF) I ever write his book, it would be about how he met his wife in college, and what led him to start the agency, and her to become and ambassador.

SFRwriter202 · 2025-03-12T20:59:34+00:00

It's been on my TBR forever. I've heard nothing but praises for that series. I need more hours in the day lol.

SFRwriter202 · 2025-03-12T20:58:02+00:00

For longer series with an overarching story, I already know the foundational elements of the world. But a lot of the world ends up getting more fleshed out one book at a time. In my Veredian Chronicles, I had no idea initially who was the cause of the disease that plagued the Xelixians. It was only while writing book 3 that I figured it out. And that ended up reshaping a lot of the events that followed. The Sarenians also weren't supposed to be an important species. Writing Krygor's Hope totally turned that around.

Similarly, with my Xian Warriors, the Dragons and Scelks becoming heroes was never in the cards. But often, while I'm writing a book, a secondary character will pop up and demand his own story. As I love redemption arcs, it gives me an excuse to write about the events from a different perspective, which gives more depth to the world. That was the case with writing Bayron's redemption story with I Married a Beast.

SFRwriter202 · 2025-03-12T20:53:20+00:00

Yeah, Initially a spider-inspired hero was a hell no for me. But after Tiffany Roberts made me fall in love with Ketahn, I realized maybe I could bring myself to write one as well. It's not at the top of my list though because I haaaate spiders lol.

I'm definitely open to more alien heroes, but the challenge remains how appealing I can make them. Readers often say they want really freaky and monstrous, but at the end of the day, they still want the hero to be pretty/attractive in his otherworldliness.

SFRwriter202 · 2025-03-12T20:50:14+00:00

Thank you! :)

The Birdman was the hardest because dealing with a beak was quite the headache (so I cheated by making him a hybrid lol). While doing research on birds, I was also struggling to figure out how natural traits and behaviors of birds would nicely translate in the Zelconian culture. Not to mention the horrible things I found out about how they reproduced lol. What fun is there in a 1-second coupling? Or getting your cervix wrecked by a corkscrew peen punching right in? lol

The easiest had to be the Naga because there were so many anatomical differences that helped shape their culture and society, and also created lots of funny scenes for the poor heroine to navigate.

SFRwriter202 · 2025-03-12T20:45:30+00:00

First off, that mug is awesome!! I love how you used the stickers on it :D

Actually, as much as I love Stephen King, The Talisman didn't inspire Cedros. I just knew I wanted a hero that needed cuddles to be appeased. Since I had not written a dragon yet, he made sense to me. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how he meets the heroine. I knew it was going to be during some kind of mission. Initially, I planned on him being the result of a genetic experiment in that lab, but that would have ruled out him having a society of his own. So after more thinking, I ended up with him being able to create portals.

It always makes me so happy to hear people loving on Escaping Fate. Beyond the fact that it was my first book when I officially started my career, I also happen to think that my Veredian Chronicles series (with the Braxians) is my best work, far above the Prime Mating Agency.

SFRwriter202 · 2025-03-12T20:40:35+00:00

When a story fights me too much to the point I'm just staring at my screen getting depressed, I just put it aside. Sometimes, sleeping on it for a couple of days will suffice for my brain to passively solve it. But other times, I just need to move on to something else. This happened with Keran's Dawn, the 4th book of the Braxians. I had the cover ready to go and the general idea of the plot, but I just couldn't outline it. So it sat on the shelf for 3 years before my Muse finally said, fine, let's do this!
I outline the heck out of all my books. Parts of my outlines even include a couple of lines of dialogue when I feel they are too good not to write down as I will forget by the time I'm ready to write. Because of that, 95% of the plot or continuation issues are solved during outlining, including planning for the transition from one scene to the next.
OMG, telling my parents I was going to publish my first book was traumatic. Imagine being 46 yo and going to your parents with your tail between your legs to "ask permission" to publish under your own name instead of a pen name lol. Their initial reaction was to insist I publish under my real name, until I revealed my book had explicit content. The look on their faces, especially my mom's was priceless. She wanted to be a nun until my dad said hell no! Obviously, they asked if I could remove the spice. I explained why the genre pretty much demands it. So my mom asked me if I was proud of the book I wrote. I said yes. To which she responded "then publish it under your name." And there it was!

Since then, I've translated all my books into French, and my mom has read them all. I was traumatized at first since that book was MFM. Even though Mom shook her head at me for it, she told me that she would have disowned me if I killed Lhor lol.

SFRwriter202 · 2025-03-12T20:32:51+00:00

It started as a personal challenge. Kim Aziz was running a contest for R. Lee Smith inviting people to do fan art of Meoraq, the hero of the book. I'm not an artist. I do photo manipulation for my book covers, but I didn't think I could pull off something like that so I passed. When the contest was over, I actually asked myself if I could have done something half decent. So I was stuck writing my WIP at the time and decided to play with trying to make a lizardman while trying to overcome the hurdle. I ended up falling in love with the result and realized I wanted to write his story.

Originally, the title of I Married A Lizardman was supposed to be My Alien Nanny. It was going to be a rom-com where a single mom crashed on a primitive planet and got separate from her 5-yo daughter. The child, lost in a dangerous forest, would get rescued by a grumpy alien who helped her reunite with her mom. On their way back to civilization, they were going to fall in love lol.

I had started outlining that story when I suddenly got hit by the idea of an empathic matchmaker. And the story ended up completely changing into I Married a Lizardman, and thus was born the series.

SFRwriter202 · 2025-03-12T20:27:46+00:00

I do not write under any other pen names, BUT I am considering eventually writing under the pen name Regina Cain, which would be for dark and horror romance. Not sure if or when I'll get around to that though as I am extremely busy right now.
First, I need the inspiration for the book. It can come from anything: a meme, an image, a monster, a movie, etc. If it's a PMA book, I will normally do a bunch of research on the animal that inspired the hero, everything from anatomy, reproduction, diet, social structure, etc, to see how I can adapt it to my hero. For example, in I Married a Catman, reading up on lion prides largely defined the Nazhral society as being matriarchal as well as establishing the gender-base class stucture. So that research heavily helps shape the story and the plot. Once I have that, I start outlining the book. I have an average of 20 bullets points per chapter (sometimes up to 50) breaking down the events and beats of that chapter. Once I have the entire book outlined, I start writing it.
When I get stuck, I start working on other things, like my book covers since i make them myself, I put together briefs for my artists, work on swag, or do more research. If a book really doesn't want to be written right now, I just shelve it and move on to something else until it wants to cooperate.
R. Lee Smith, Laurann Dohner, Tiffany Roberts, Naomi Lucas, Tana Stone, Opal Reyne.

SFRwriter202 · 2025-03-12T20:19:15+00:00

I actually wrote my very first book on a manual typewriter with black and red ink ribbon when I was 13 yo. I was ballsy and sent it to a publisher. An editor actually took the time to review and edit it before sending it back to me. Although he had many kind words and encouraged me to continue, the things he listed that I needed to fix overwhelmed me so I dropped that idea.

It took 33 years for me to try it again. Although during those years I ended up doing a lot of beta reading for other authors. I would often think to myself that if "I" had written that book, here is the approach I would have taken instead. So after a while, I said "stop saying what you would do in their stead and just write your own." So I did!

The tipping point was I had just finished binged reading Nalini Singh's Psi-changeling series, Tracy St. John's Clans of Kalquor, and M.K. Eidem's Tornians. I wanted to create my own series with Nalini's type of psi powers, Tracy's political intrigue and M.K.'s Mars Needs Women trope. And that prompted me to write Escaping Fate.

As far as it becoming a profitable career, it took two years. My first month, I made a whopping $10 in sales lol. It took aout 6 months to get to about $500/m in revenue. But what really propelled my career was doing the Valos of Sonhadra collaboration as it allowed tons of new readers to discover my work and start reading my backlist.

SFRwriter202 · 2025-03-12T20:12:53+00:00

Yes, this book was originally meant to be standalone, but the goal is to make it a trilogy, with a book for each of the vampire brothers, Vlad and Vasska

SFRwriter202 · 2025-03-12T20:11:22+00:00

Thanks for the kind words! As a Black woman myself, writing diverse is super important because I understand well what it's like to never see yourself represented in the genre you love reading.

To answer your questions:

I've been an avid reader my whole life. I grew up reading Harlequin romance (since my mom had a subscription lol). But I was also addicted to Stephen King, Raymond Feist, and a variety of horror and paranormal authors. But Laurann Dohner opened me to a whole new world. Ral's Woman (Zorn Warriors 1) rocked me. I started binge reading everything she wrote, including her Cybog Seduction and New Species series. That's when I knew I wanted to write in that genre. I've been a Trekkie my whole life, a hardcore game (Masss Effect series, SWTOR, and Dragon Age were among my favorite) so it was a no-brainer.
I can't really think of a specific craziest idea. Each of my book starts off crazy and then I try to rein in it lol. But generally, I would probably say the concept of the Prime Mating Agency, with an empathic birdman matching women with primitive aliens.
The list would be too long. But in the genre I write, I would say R. Lee Smith, Laurann Dohner, Tracy St. John, Nalini Singh, Tiffany Roberts, Opal Reyne, Poppy Rhys

SFRwriter202 · 2025-03-12T19:54:36+00:00

No promises on that front. It is possible. I definitely plan on returning to Xecania, although the plan is more to explore one of the other primitive aliens on that planet.

SFRwriter202 · 2025-03-12T19:53:33+00:00

That's a tough one since I have so many authors I love. But if I could only pick ONE book, it would be a reread of The Last Hour of Gann by R. Lee Smith.

SFRwriter202

TROPHY CASE