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All the Things I’ve Been Pondering

I like to live in my writing cave. My writing cave is awesome. And it is insulated from the world, so that’s nice. But occasionally I do have to let my mind wander outside of it and…*gasp* even wander into the future, which is something I REALLY don’t like to do. I’m an In the Moment sort of girl. I like to live in the now, and let tomorrow take care of itself.

But…that’s not always feasible. In fact, it’s pretty ill-advised in some respects. I’ve realized some really important things recently and they pertain to the side of this business that is BUSINESS (never forget that’s what writing is when you’re aiming for publication, or when you are published. It is a business and you are a business person.)

In fact, I’ll lead with that:

1. This is a business, and you are a business person. Respect yourself as such. There’s no need to put yourself down, neither is there any reason to let your ego inflate. Think of how you felt at the other jobs you had, or were working to get. I think we’ve all felt a certain measure of confidence in our skills at various jobs (I am a kick butt barista and a fairly competent bridal consultant) so why can’t that translate to the writing world? I would never have said ‘oh, my lattes are only okay. You don’t have to drink it if you don’t want.’ 😉 I’m simplifying, I grant you, but remembering that this is business, a job, can be, I think, really helpful.

2. Goals are your friend. Have goals. Have a plan. Have it in advance. You need to know what you want out of this business. If it’s just to sell books to whoever you can, that’s fine. If you have a strategic plan of where you want to be in five years, and who you want to sell to, and what your image should be, and how you should brand, that’s all fine too. But it’s important to know what’s important to you. Because sometime…you will be faced with a decision that might seem great, but it won’t advance your plan, and in that moment, it’s good to know: what’s important to me? (And really, that’s something no one else can answer for you…which leads to…)

3. Everyone has their own plan. Someone else’s plan might be different from yours, but that’s okay. Your plan has to be right for YOU. There’s a lot garbage that flies around about how your plan should be JUST LIKE WHOEVER WHATEVER PERSON THAT BLOGS A LOT OR SPEAKS AT A LOT OF CONFERENCES OR SITS NEXT TO YOU AT A BUS STOP. And you know…that’s silly. You’re you, and what works for you, and what you want, will be different to what other people want, and what works for them. It’s okay for people to have a different strategy/plan/goal than you. It’s okay for yours to be different from theirs. It’s about what you want, and what makes you comfortable. You should never assume that just because someone else doesn’t have the same viewpoint/set of plans/concerns etc, that they haven’t thought things through. It may just apply to them differently.

4. Don’t compare yourself to other people. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. It either breeds a false sense of superiority, or a bad case of inferiority, and neither one are helpful. You have to compare yourself to YOU. How far you’ve come. You have to keep your eyes on your own writing. Let yourself be proud of how you’ve improved, let yourself enjoy what you’ve written. And kick your butt if you’re not living up to YOUR OWN potential. Which leads to…

5. If you can’t control it, don’t worry about it. There are a lot of things in this business that are out of your control. From how long an editor or agent takes to get back to you, to how an editor will feel about a MS, to whether or not people actually buy the book once it’s out. But not amount of angst will change that, and it may very well affect that which you can control: your writing. Save your energy and your focus for that. Write the best book you can, and then when that’s finished, write the next book, and make it the best book you’ve written. Submit. Write more. That’s portion of your success is all in your hands. YOU HAVE THE POWER there. Take it, own it. Do it like Nike.

And that’s my brain vomit about the business of writing.

Mr. Personality and an Epic Post

I’m so pleased to say that this morning my editor gave final approval on Mr. Personality, my 15th Presents! Details to come.

I’m starting on my next Presents already and it’s inspired somewhat by the show White Collar…at least…my heroine is. My hero is Russian and like something out of an old Gothic novel which…across from my extremely sarcastic, American heroine is…interesting. Chatting with my editor on Monday about all kinds of things and I’ll be running this by her so we shall see!!

I did a post today on Sassy Sisters about Sex and Character, so if you’re interested…pop over there and read! And ask me questions! http://sevensassysisters.com/?p=4075

What Just Happened?

So, I was in Chicago (Well, Rosemont, by the airport, which, FYI is NOT the same) at the Romantic Times Convention and I am exhausted, and happy, and filled with Chicago style pizza.

It was a very interesting conference in that I got to do TWO things I find awesome: I got to interact, not just with my fabulous author friends, but with readers.

I like that we could be sitting in the bar and be approached by a group of Presents fans, and hand books to them and just talk about…well, books and alpha heroes.

(In the picture is Me, Mira Lyn Kelly, Megan Mulry and Aimee Carson)

For me, the highlight was the reader mixer on the last night. It was a very informal little party where we really got the chance to talk to our readers. I mean…Ann Rice was there and people still wanted to talk to me! That was awesome. My favorite moment was when I was pointing out to a woman that I had a couple of sheikh books and someone else turned around and said “YOU WRITE SHEIKHS!?” with a look of complete excitement on her face. And I thought…ah…my people. 😉 Sheikh lovers unite!!

I roomed with the amazing Megan Crane/Caitlin Crews, and we had so much fun together. The was much talking, little sleeping, and, one morning we had room service. We were FANCY. (I don’t want to brag, but I had Challah bread french toast filled with nutella. O_O)

I also spent a lot of time with Lynn Raye Harris, Janette Kenny, Kimberly Lang and debut Desire author Andrea Laurence. I think it’s so cool to sit and talk to people who understand what you’re talking about when you say your hero did something without your permission, or that his conflict ended up being completely different than what you thought it was in the beginning.

Those moments of connecting with people who GET you are SO valuable.

And, as always, on the plane ride home I was bombarded with new ideas for my next few Presents. (lucky, lucky editor I have. bwaha)

There’s just something about a conference, even if I don’t go to a bunch of writing workshops, that brings me back home ready to ATTACK a new project. I think it’s that amazing thing of being around so much positive creative energy. Oh, yeah, and that I didn’t have time to so much as touch my keyboard for a week, which, makes workaholic me twitch. O>O

*goes in search of more pizza*

Romantic Times….Here I Come!

Tomorrow morning bright and early (less than 24 hours from now!) I’ll be in the air, on my way to Chicago for my very first taste of the Romantic Times Book Lovers Convention! I’m really excited because…because how can you NOT be excited!?

It’s going to be a convention filled with readers AND writers and…books!

This convention has a stronger focus on fans, while RWA is more industry. And cocktails and gabbing. This conference will be about books! And loving them! And…industry and cocktails and gabbing.

I’m a social creature, so these kinds of things are SO exciting for me! I CANNOT WAIT to meet my friends, my favorite authors, my friends who are also my favorite authors and…of course…my READERS!! Because I love my readers. Like Savage Garden, I knew I loved you before I met you. (Ouch. 90s flashback. Hurt myself)

IF you are in the Chicago area, or are insane and up for a road trip, you need to know: Saturday, April 14th, there is a GIANT book fair!! And so many amazing authors will be there signing. (Nalini Singh, anyone?) And quite a few Presents authors: Jennie Lucas, Caitlin Crews, Lynn Raye Harris, Janette Kenny. Presents Extra authors Kimberly Lang and Mira Lyn Kelly! It’s open to the public and is from 11am to 2pm. So come and see us!!

Also, if you’re going to be at conference: Do not be shy! Come and say hi to me. I will have Romance Trading Cards and…while supplies last…I will have books. Some of them will be UK releases that you DO NOT HAVE. So really, come and find me.

I will be tweeting (Sporadically) during RT using the #RT12 hashtag, so you can follow the debauchery there. (it will only be mild debauchery! Swears!)

And I have packed way too many shoes. WAAAAY too many. And dresses. I COULD NOT HELP MYSELF.

I will have pictures when I get back, and tales. Such tales.

In the meantime, I’m running around like the proverbial beheaded chicken getting everything ready. Oh, and I’m sending off the revised MS of Mr. Personality today. V pleased I made my self-imposed deadline and that I will NOT be under the gun while gone!

In the mean time…be good. 😉

Lucky 7 Meme

Okay, I’m playing because my dear friend Rachael Johns asked me too…

The Lucky 7 Meme Rules

■Go to page 77 of your current MS/WIP
■Go to line 7
■Copy down the next 7 lines–sentences or paragraphs–and post them as they’re written. No cheating.
■Tag 7 authors
■Let them know

This is from Page 77 of Mr. Personality, the MS I’m currently revising. I did seven paragraphs so you could get a sense for what’s going on. 😉 

Well, she supposed their arrangement fell under spontaneous, but then, even when he’d had that headline sprung on him he hadn’t acted with any sense of wild abandon. It had been with frightening calm, and complete confidence in the fact that he’d made the right decision.

Whereas, she, after blurting out the idiot untruth to Rebecca, had eaten a pint of ice cream and spent the night beating her head against the arm of her couch.

Decisive wasn’t really her thing. She needed to start getting there, though. She had a baby. A baby that would grow, and who would need a mother who could stand strong in decisions and discipline and…stuff.

The idea of it made her a little anxious. But for now, it was all about loving her. And that she had down just fine.

At least her room was nice. And yeah, all her clothes and her toiletries were in Dante’s room, but she’d managed to get her dress for dinner and her makeup essentials over to her room without running into him. Which suited her fine. She’d been feeling a little rumpled and frumpy after what had been a very long day. But a shower and a sparkly mini-dress had done a lot to fix the way she felt about herself.

She leaned into the mirror and swiped her lipstick over her bottom lip, painting it with a streak of fuchsia, then spreading it evenly. She smiled. She felt better when she was bright. Like showing the world her mood, so that she had to bring herself up to match it.

She let out a long breath and opened her bedroom door, padding quietly down the hall to Ana’s room first, to make sure she was sleeping soundly, then continued to the stairs. She took the stairs two at a time, anxious now to hear what Dante would say.

Now I get to tag my victims. Er…friends. o_O

Jackie Ashen den

Julia Broadbooks

Lynn Raye Harris

Kate Hewitt

Megan Crane/Caitlin Crews

Ruthie Knox 

Cara McKenna/Meg Maguire

(I feel the need to say none of you have to do this etc. 🙂 )

*scampers*

That’s what I’m doing. I took a brief pause to stop and write this blog post because I love you all too much to abandon you. But I’m scampering because this is a busy week! Next Tuesday I’m flying to Chicago for the Romantic Times Book Lover’s Convention (And I am a nominee for a Reviewer’s Choice Award for Best Presents Extra). I’m rooming with the FAHBULOUS Jennie Lucas, and I’m looking forward to seeing many of my other Presents sisters…and just other romance writers and READERS! It’s VERY exciting.

Of course, in between then and now, I’m doing revisions for Mr. Personality who, I am pleased to say, my editor loved. And I’m really, really happy because I’m going to focus on bringing some of the darker elements of his character our even more. Which, you all know I love. Because how do I feel about character torture!? WARM AND FUZZY, that’s how I feel!

Although, writing Dante’s story, I have to say, I cried harder than I even have when writing. And that includes when I wrote Petrov Proposal and had to deal with Aleksei’s much loved dead wife *sob*. This was serious, sobbing, snot crying. I was afraid to open my MS for a while after I wrote one particular scene. He’s so tragic!

Anyway, I have to revise uber tragic hero (after my midnight phone call tonight with my editor, which feels so sekrit and fun!) and then I have to dye eggs, get my romance trading card pages all prepared, volunteer at church on Easter, hide eggs, eat my weight in candy, pack and…did I forget anything? If I did, it probably won’t get done! Not between now and Tuesday!

I am going to try and really focus on these revisions though, and dig in deep. I feel like I have a pretty excellent opportunity with these two characters to do something I’ve never done before, and I’m just really excited about it. And even more excited to have my editor on board!

My heroine is my little glitter fairy. She’s artistic and flamboyant, but she’s also a bit awkward. She’s the girl who didn’t fit, the one who didn’t get the boys, or even manage to walk down the hall without tripping into a locker. She didn’t get amazing grades. She just didn’t stand out, and when she did, it was for the wrong reasons. Since she couldn’t fit it, she decided to go with being unique. So we meet her as an adult with a surplus of sequins and a pink stripe in her hair.

My hero is…serious. And a bit obsessive about keeping his surroundings neat. Initially, I like that dynamic because when my heroine moves into his house (long story) her general crazy-ditziness drives him nuts, and I enjoyed the odd couple element it gave the story.

As I got deeper into him though, I realized that his need for control went way further than a need to simply keep things neat. It’s a part of a much deeper, darker issue. In short, it’s what’s holding him together, and discovering all of the destruction and loss in his past is the thing that had me weeping at my keyboard like a baby.

in short: Excited. About everything. And now…*scampers off*

The Coffee Magnate!

I had so much fun with this book because it was filled with so many things I love! My hero, Zack Parsons owns a chain of coffee shops that’s made it huge on the level of Starbucks, with thousands of locations worldwide. The heroine, Clara Davis, has been with him since the early days of the company and she is in charge of conceptualizing desserts, with a heavy emphasis on the almighty cupcake. Zack and Clara are also best friends, which is another one of my favorite things…Friends to lovers! So there was caffeine, sugar, and friends becoming more. Yes, this book made me happy. 😉

I won’t lie, I went and ate cupcakes as research for this book. 😉 But not only did I eat cupcakes…I made them. And ate more.

There are several points in the book where Clara is experimenting with new flavors of cupcakes. So..well, I had to experiment too! We came up with a recipe for Clara’s Orange Cream Cupcakes (though, unlike in the book, I didn’t fill mine with cream…I’m not that fancy!)

Everyone got involved. (and by that I mean my youngest ate a bunch of food coloring.)

Partway through, I realized I didn’t have a way to do decorative frosting, and we ended up using the Harlequin water bottle I’d gotten at RWA. My husband even made a few.

Clara’s Orange Cream Cupcakes

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 tsp orange extract
2 tsp orange zest
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/4 cups milk

Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees. Mix flour, salt and baking powder in a bowl. In a separate, larger bowl, mix the butter and sugar until fluffy, add eggs, vanilla, orange and flour/baking powder/salt mixture in slowly. Pour into individual baking cups. Bake 10-15 minutes.

Frosting: 1lb confectioner’s sugar
2 tsp of vanilla extract
one stick of butter (1/2 a cup)
(You could add orange to the frosting too, flavoring or, like we did, food coloring.)

And you should have a batch of Clara’s Orange Cream Cupcakes to eat while you read the book! (I had to make two batches before I got it just right. The things I do for my art!)

Or, if you can’t wait, you can make cupcakes and read the excerpt.

Your Voice

This post is a couple of days late, but it was inspired by a twitter conversation. It was about rejection. I asked her a bit about her rejection letter and she told me that she got so tied up in getting it perfect that she lost herself in it.

This is SO easy to do. And it’s SO VERY COMMON. In the grand attempt to do everything perfect, your MS can become generic. It can lose your voice. Because the temptation is to make it like other things, to read those great authors the editors suggest you read, and then try and make yourself ‘sound’ like them. Or structure a book like they do. Or have your heroine make a choice their heroines would make.

Even if it’s not emulating someone else, it can be easy to just pull back on everything. No risky elements. No unexpected, quirky word choices. Those feel scary. They don’t feel safe.

I was one hundred percent guilty of this when I was trying to sell my first book. My list of sins was long. But one thing I was very, very guilty of was relying on cliche actions and reactions with my characters. When my hero kissed my heroine, she gave a cry. When the hero bought her clothes, she refused them. After they made love she covered her breasts with the sheets out of modesty. The list goes on.

These actions, in and of themselves, aren’t necessarily wrong, it’s just that they didn’t fit the character. I had moments of good in the MS (I must have because the editor worked with me on it, and eventually bought it!) but mixed in was uneven character actions and strange turns in the book that were brought on by me being afraid to break out and be really different. I was too busy trying to write a book that would sell. I was too caught up in being safely within the bonds of the line, rather than really letting my voice, and the story, soar.

I managed to fix that book after three round of revisions, and it went on to be my debut book. It was in that last round of revisions (a half rewrite!) that I threw my hands up and said, “This is it. Go big or go home.” Knowing that I was at Last Chance Point (at least in my mind!) gave me the push to forget about being perfect, and focus on getting intensity, emotion, and real, believable characters onto the page.

As I’ve gone on, the ability to let my voice show through, the ability to trust my instincts and let a MS come from me, rather than what I think expectations might be, has become easier.

So I have some tips on letting your voice shine through!

1. Just write – don’t be afraid to put words down on the page that aren’t polished or pretty.

2. Don’t polish yourself out – it’s a temptation to keep polishing, and keep polishing your words. And polished is important, don’t get me wrong. But there’s a point where it can hit Generic Prose Anyone With Talent Could Have Written. And you’ve buffed out anything unique that you might have had!

3. Don’t try to be perfect – Perfection is both subjective and, frankly, non-existent. Some people might disagree with me on this, but I found that when I was writing with the aim to NOT GET REVISIONS and to TURN IN SOMETHING PERFECT I was writing too cautiously. I wasn’t taking the book to the interesting places it could have gone because I was so caught up in being RIGHT when I had to take the risk of being wrong so that I could make the book the best it could be.

4. Your voice is a part of you – yes, it can change and refine, mature. But your voice is your voice is your voice. The very good thing about this is that you can’t truly lose it. It’s a part of you. Even if you miss the mark on a MS (and I think this often happens because of pressure!) that doesn’t mean it’s gone.

5. Trust your voice – because, as I said up there, it’s a part of you. It’s the natural part of writing for me. Craft, I had to learn. Story structure, pacing and character development, I had to learn. (I’m still learning!) But voice is a part of who you are. So don’t be afraid to LET it be natural. Don’t try to twist and tweak and contrive everything you write. Trust your voice.

Your voice is what separates you from everyone else, so don’t be afraid to let it be loud, and different. 😉

Questions are welcome as always!

Slack Blogging and Lessons From Mr. Personality

Apologies for my slack blogging! I’ve been up to my eyeballs in Mr. Personality (my hero of the moment) plus dealing with the fact that the RT Convention cometh. (V excited but woefully unprepared!)

I’m also counting calories in preparation for the RT Convention (must lose 5lbs so I can gain it back eating Chicago style pizza, amirite?) which has stolen my ability to binge eat cookies while I wait to hear about various things and work my through what has been the SINGLE MOST DEVASTATING HERO I’VE EVER WRITTEN EVER OMG.

This was one of those books where I more or less knew the hero’s background going in, but until I actually wrote it, I didn’t understand just what it had done to him. My friends, our boy is screwed up.

It’s strange writing a book like this, tackling a character like this. He emerged somewhat organically as the story went. As it grew, so did he. As I went, the depth of his issues became more apparent. They weren’t issues/reactions I could have possible dreamed from nothing before starting the book. (Reason #175 I’m a panster, more or less. I just DON’T come up with everything from the beginning)

It’s also exciting stumbling on a book like this. This book is my 15th Presents (or could possible be if I haven’t gone a bridge too far for my poor editor to handle!) and there was a certain level of total SQUEE I felt in stumbling on a story, and a hero, so different to what I normally do.

Because I feel like I opened a door on new ideas and possibilities.

This is one reason I feel like no MS, no matter its ultimate fate, is a waste. Because each and every book teaches you new things. Forces you to look at character, conflict, motivation, in a different light.

I’m hoping my editor will like Mr. Personality. 😉 If she doesn’t, I’ll try to remember just how impacting I felt he was on my writing. And I might break my diet and eat  %*(&%loads of cookies. 😉

For Those Who Are About To Rock…

Or Pitch. Or Submit. Or just sit down to write the first words on their MS.

This post is partly inspired by the Presents pitch contest that was just held through Harlequin’s online community, and also the answer to a question from the Desire editor’s chat held on the same website this afternoon.

In the chat, someone asked what sorts of stories were being rejected.

This is the answer: Subs that lack strong character development & conflict. Stories that don’t add anything new to standard hooks/plots.

I think that right up there is a HUGE HUGE thing. Commit it to memory. Write it down. Put in on a stick note on your desk, your computer screen, write it backward and put it on your forehead…whatever works.

Because to me, that is the KEY to making a MS stand out. Character, their conflict, and then, a hook that’s irresistible. One that’s unique and comes from you, one that HAS to be done by you!

Editors see thousands of manuscripts a year. Yeah. Really. Thousands. Egad.

I think of it like this.

Editor: So, all right then, you’re the heroine, right?

Heroine: *nods*

Editor: What do you do?

Heroine: Erm. I’m a waitress.

Editor: why?

Heroine: Cos I seem to have fallen on hard times.

Editor: What hard times?

Heroine: Hard ones.

*hero enters*

Editor: Oh hi, who are you then?

Hero: I’m the hero, you can tell because I have a broad chest and a chiseled jaw. I also look forbidding.

Editor: I see. What do you do?

Hero: something in Real Estate or something. I’m a billionaire.

Editor: You and every other guy in my stack. What’s your deal?

Hero: I’m very angry and alpha.

Editor: Why?

Hero: *shrugs very broad shoulders* I dunno. I run a company and have lots of money. People constantly refer to me by my first AND last name. And I’ve been too long without a woman.

Editor: GREAT! Why?

Hero: *shrugs broad shoulders again*

I’m not in any way demonizing those elements, because hey, there’s nothing wrong with them really. But they don’t tell us much. There’s no hook. More importantly…who are these characters? Clearly, I did that in a stupid and simplistic way, but very often with category books I see in contests, the characters are archetypes rather than real people. The heroine is down on her luck, because…because she’s trying to pay for all the orphan children’s medical bills. Yes. That’s right. And the hero is an a-hole because…well, he’s Greek and handsome so, there you are.

Or, sometimes there is no because. They just are because they are. They’re a collection of traits mean to represent the sort of characters that are in ‘these sorts of books’.

But that’s not enough. And it doesn’t work. Characters need motivation. They need to be who they are for a reason. Their actions need purpose. And more than that, they need to GROW. And we need to see that growth. Because at the beginning of the book, at the start of the journey, I might have a heroine who sees herself as broken, and who doesn’t think she has a chance of having a relationship after her failed marriage. And in the end, I need to have a heroine who has taken a journey, and come out the other side changed. At the end, the loves herself enough to believe she can have a future with the hero, that’s she’s not broken, that she, as she is, is everything he needs.

Don’t be afraid to start off with them being broken. So we can rejoice in the change. So can get a payoff at the end.

CONFLICT. That is a big one. the external conflict for our heroine might be that she’s a PR specialist, in charge of making sure her clients look good. And now her major client has an issue with his image that can be solved by her pretending to be engaged to him. If she doesn’t, and scandal gets out to the press, no one will want to hire her to do damage control again. To protect her job and her professional reputation, she agrees.

Resolving the internal conflict is going to be heavily tethered to the character development we just talked about.

Now, her internal conflict is that she’s afraid of depending on people because she watched her mother have a series of unhealthy, co-dependent relationships. And it’s the internal conflict that’s going to keep her away from the hero, while the external conflict shoves them together.

Internal conflict is really important because without it: what’s keeping them apart? Too many scheming maiden aunts, or a misheard conversation and it just gets annoying that they’re still faffing around NOT being together.

Basically, if you could put them in a room together and everything could be solved with an honest, five minute conversation…that’s weak conflict.

Now onto stories that don’t add anything new. (in terms of hook/plot)

You can do so much more in category than people think. The important thing is holding to the basic promises of the line. Beyond that…we get to play a lot. I’ve been able to tackle some really great things that, honestly, many, many, many non-category publishers would NOT have liked so much.

I think the lack of originality in hook and theme can largely come back to thin, wimpy, unmotivated characters and a lack of conflict. Because you can take a very well-worn theme, like Beauty and the Beast (which I’ve done!) and make it new because of the characters that inhabit it.

You can play with a secret baby story, like Lynn Raye Harris has done in her March release Strangers in the Desert...by having the baby be a secret from the heroine! You can play with the concept of what it means for a hero to be alpha, like Caitlin Crews did in The Disgraced Playboy with a hero who put on the facade of not being terribly driven to succeed. Or with the princess/bodyguard trope like I did in my upcoming release A Royal World Apart, where the hero is a virgin whose conflict adds a different layer to a story that’s been told many times.

But infuse life into it, infuse you, give the editors something irresistible. Characters who have a personality, who aren’t a collection of traits, but are real and complex. A story that has a surprising element or ten in it.

But know these things about your MS, about your characters. And best of luck pitching/submitting/writing.

Any questions for me? Feel free to ask and I will always answer as best as I can in the comments! And, fellow category writers if you have anything to add, you can do it in the comments as well!

Beginning

I just started a new Presents this past week. My editor gave the proposal the thumbs up about a week ago and since then I’ve been settling into…The Beginning.

Beginnings are hard for me. It take me a few chapters to get a handle on my characters and their voices. To start to understand how they dress and talk and move…and why.

I find beginnings a challenge because I always feel I’m walking a fine line between imparting all the information the reader needs in order to understand the set up of the plot…and letting the plot whip the characters around like their a steak in a dog’s jaws.

Beginnings are the slowest part of the book for me. At least, they are now. I find I make the most mistakes there, so now, I tend to ponder them longer. I’ve also made some of my mistakes so many times that I can FEEL them, waiting there, hidden in the words, ready to pounce on me.

I’m just into chapter four on my WIP and I know…I KNOW…that I’ve made some pacing errors. I’m working so hard to explain the plot. What the hero just found out, why the heroine lied, and what they’re going to do about it, that I find myself rushing. So I can get it ALL out and just get into the stuff I like. The angst and sexual tension and the emotion and the angsty childhood secrets.

But if I don’t build a solid foundation the whole book will collapse. This I know. This I have experienced. This I have seen in revision letters.

So, beginning can be hard. But it’s exciting too. New characters, new stories, are always exciting.

I just did a heroine who was quite in your face. Very corporate and sharp. So I’m having fun with a creative, sort of airy heroine who likes glitter and has a pink stripe in her hair. And a VERY buttoned up hero with some OCD tendencies that I have dubbed Mr. Personality.

So what do you find hardest…beginnings, middles or ends?

New Ideas, Releases and Links…Oh My!

This past week has been busy, in all the best ways. Last Wednesday I finished up my 14th Presents, A Game of Vows, which releases in the UK in October, and started brainstorming my next project, which I’m really excited about. It’s going to be a very different book for me, which is even more exciting, and yeah, a little scary making. 😉 But, I promise to keep my cookie eating to a minimum. Can you feel the zen coming through your computer screen? CAN YOU!?

Yeah, okay, no one will believe I’m zen. How ’bout bouncy? You’ll believe that, right? And I am!!!

Today, Girl on a Diamond Pedestal is out in the UK! You can buy it for your Kindle at Amazon UK. This is the book with my vengeance bent Aussie hero, Ethan Grey, and my ex-child-prodigy, latte-coveting heroine, Noelle Birch. This book has a joke about erections lasting longer than four hours, a sexy scene on a piano bench, a tacky Vegas wedding with matching honeymoon sweet, and two lost souls desperately in need of love. (Don’t worry…they get it!)

Also releasing today…the prequel novella to the Santina Crown Collection! In The Life She Left Behind, Taj and Angelina meet up at Crown Prince Alessandro’s engagement party (celebrating his engagement to the most unsuitable Allegra Jackson…but that’s another story) thee years after she ran away from their convenient engagement. This book contains combustible passion, a surprise pregnancy, a convenient marriage, and a spoiled sheikh who needs to learn that real love means loving someone more than he loves himself. 🙂

This book is currently FREE on Amazon, the Sony Store, and Barnes and Noble. It will be available from other sites/for other countries SOON and I will update this page with links, so check back!! (list of links available in a list below)

Also, it’s my birthday this week. But I have decided I don’t have time to get a year older this year, so it will have to come back later. 😉

You can get The Life She Left Behind for FREE at these ebook stores:

Amazon

Sony Store

Barnes and Noble

Amazon UK

Harlequin

Kobo