QUESTION: I am often intrigued with your secondary characters - Ted and Katherine in Perfect are two favourites.
ANSWER: If you've ever liked the secondary characters in my novels, just WAIT until you meet Samantha Littleton and Mitchell McCord in STWOM!!
These two people are so marvellous together that their relationship became almost as compelling as that of the two main characters. Instead of restricting them to their "secondary place" I decided to let them shine. I couldn't help it. Even so, pulling something like that off is a very, very tricky feat for a writer. It was worth it, though, because Sam and McCord enrich the novel so much!
I'm just glad I didn't see the S & S manuscript submission guidelines I just came across on our site tonight, though. The guidelines say very clearly, "One man, one woman storylines are preferred."
It is a really good thing I never have any information about what's what's good and what's bad to do, because I am always doing it wrong--and getting away with it, fortunately.
To give you an idea of how serious I am about that, WHITNEY got rejected by every publisher in New York except Pocket. Editors all over New York turned it down because "Regency historicals were not supposed to be emotionally intense or intensely sensual. They were also not supposed to be long novels." They told me to cut all that out of it and shorten it by 1/2. I doubled it's length instead--and made it even more sensual and emotionally intense, but I did all that in a fit of frustrated amateur indignation.
I mean, When I wrote WHITNEY, I knew the other regencies were short and fluffy, but I didn't know it was a "Law." 
Anyway, when no one wanted to buy WML, I decided to try to write a contemporary romance for Harlequin Superromance line, so I sat down and did it--my way, without knowing guidelines. I didn't know there was such a thing as guidelines.
But I thought there was room for some great innovations in a Harlequin Superromance. I had no idea you weren't allowed to have a dual point of view in a Harlequin (only the heroine's point of view was allowed). I had no idea you couldn't open with the hero (you had to open with the heroine). I had no idea humor wasn't allowed, so I loaded TENDER TRIUMPH with humor, mutiple points of view, and I opened it with the hero.
Harlequin bought it anyway, but the vice president who made those rules said he would have to be the editor because I broke them all. Rules like that? Whod'a thunk it? Not me. The things I did best, always seemed to be an offense to publishing rules I didn't know existed.
By the time SOMETHING WONDERFUL was published--and made the NY Times list which was a rarity in those days for an historical romance--I was feeling pretty confident and clear about my writing. A week after SW made the NYT list, I was scheduled to give the keynote address to a southern Romance Writers Group.
Now, one of the scenes I was the proudest of in SW, was the very first "kissing scene" between the hero and heroine. I thought it was so endearing because it switched points of view between Jordan and Alex in every sentence. And they were thinking very, very different things.
I was a few minutes early getting down to the banquet room for the keynote address so I stopped in the nearest conference room where editors were giving a seminar. As I sat down in the back row, the first question I heard was "Why is it wrong to switch points of view in the same chapter?"
The editors explained why it was wrong. My God, I'd just switched points of view in every alternate sentence of a single scene.
And I'd never written in my life an entire chapter with only one point of view.
The greatest "break" in my publishing career was having an editor at Pocket who kept me in the dark about all rules. I phoned her from the Altlant conference and said "I didn't know you weren't supposed to change points of view in the same chapter! I do that all the time!"
She just laughed, and while she was still laughing, she said, "Yes you do, and you do it very well, too."
Now, it's okay to do that, I hear.
QUESTION: I wonder do you have plans to develop any of your other secondary characters further? I am especially interested in Jess from NW and I have always loved Roddy Carstairs.
ANSWER: Re Roddy Carstairs, I've been asked if I was going to make him the hero of his own book many times in the past. Here's my answer, excusively for our BB members. Lean close, while I whisper this to you. Years ago, I mentioned this phenemonon to my editor and she thought the same thing I did about Roddy, so I know I'm right. Ready? "Psst. Roddy is....gay."
I'd love to do a full-length Nicki book someday. I was heartsick when I realized I'd done a short story for Nicki instead of turning that into a novel.
