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Fear Ruins Everything

Fear ruins everything. I mean, there’s the fear of cobras which is completely logical and, you know, lifesaving. There’s the fear of spiders which, you would be CRAZY not to have. Crazy. did I mention crazy? Well, okay, my fear of spiders is a little over the top, but I consider this a lifesaving type of fear. But then, when it keeps me out of my office because there’s a spider in the corner…nope. Still logical. I digress.

General, daily, insecurity type fear, ruins EVERYTHING.

It makes it take too long to get dressed cuz you worry about how you look in whatever jeans and DO THEY MAKE YOUR BUTT LOOK BIG?? It makes you not query that agent because…they might reject you. It makes it hard to find the right words to type in your MS, because you’re afraid of ruining it, or you’re afraid it won’t be good. Or that no one will want to read it. Or buy it.

Fear protects us sometimes. From cobra bites and wiggy icky spider legs. And sometimes from rejection. But unlike cobra bites and being touched by a spider, rejection and failure aren’t fatal. (Shut up. Being touched by a spider is fatal.)

It’s like gymnastics. No really, go with me. Sometimes you stick your landing just fine, sometimes you land on your butt. Sometimes you straddles the balance beam and it hurts like HECKA BAD and sometimes, your hand slips off the parallel bars, you hit your chin on the low bar, land funny and break your ankle. That last one can really mess you up, man. None of it’s fatal. Sometimes you mess up because you only sort of half committed to that big flip, rather than giving it your all. Because fear can do that to you. It can cause the failure. It can keep you from getting back up.

But what if you got back up and you did it next time? and you WON?? You won’t know if you don’t try. You won’t try if you let fear stop you. There will be challenges. No matter what stage of the game you’re in, no matter what stage of LIFE you’re in. Sometimes you won’t stick your landing. I don’t every time. But I DO know this: When I let fear control me, I’m not as good of a writer as I can be. I don’t jump as high. I don’t go as far. That means it doesn’t get to play in this part of my life. When you give it your all, the fall still hurts. But at least you know you tried EVERYTHING.

If you try again, you’ll still be hurt, but you have a chance to make that pain mean something. To come out on the other side with your goals achieved. With that painful MS written, with your dream contract, or with lots and lots of sale.

If you give up halfway through, all you have is a broken ankle. You get the hurt, without the reward. If you get up again, you’ll still have a broken ankle. But you might get a gold medal too. And that makes it worth it.

Hammering the point home with this video of Kerri Strug in the 1996 Olympics. Because this is what it looks like to try again, with no fear, to push past the pain, and win.

Characters and Their Inconvenient Truths or Why Do you TORMENT ME SO?

Can you see I had a mild disagreement with a character again? This seems to happen to me a lot. It happened with Maddy from The Petrov Proposal. It happened with Blaise from Highest Price to Pay. It happened with Carlotta from Princess From the Shadows and now…it’s happening with another heroine.

I love hero (and heroine!) torture. Gimme drama. Scars. Whatever. I love it when life has thrown a ton of CRAP their way and they withstand it, even if they are a bit (or a lot cough cough) emotionally screwed up as a result. I love the healing that comes with that. I love the reward. Sad backstories R us.

What I don’t like quite as much is when they make a mess of it themselves. When everything is screwed up (and maybe some other people are too) and it was MY character’s fault. Well, that’s not entirely true, I always end up liking it, but as I’m sort of starting a book and trying to really FIND it, I don’t. Take Blaise from Highest Price. I started him out with a really sad backstory. He’d made a mistake (one that wasn’t REALLY his fault) and he was carrying the guilt of it. And it never settled well with me. I had a great character with all kinds of guilt, but he really didn’t deserve to be carrying it. Unless…oh no. Nononononono…please, Blaise, tell me you didn’t do THAT. PLEASE. You did? Well…frick.

Turned out he was very much the author of his own issues. They were his creation, the consequence of his mistakes. And in the end, I liked it, but I always struggle with that at the outset. I want my characters to be GOOD and for everyone to LIKE THEM. So the idea of giving them these sort of sticky issues in their past is always a bit frightening.

My brand new shiny heroine is insisting she’s just not all that shiny. I tried to ignore the niggling idea I had about her past because I found it a bit…well, tricky. I want her to be GOOD. But really, she’s better than good. She’s interesting. And she was an active participant in where she is in her life because of both good and bad decisions.

And I think that’s really the issue. It’s easier, on some levels, to write a character who is tossed around by the storms of life, and is in hard times because LIFE IS HARD. First of all, that’s a relatable feeling. Second, it makes the character easier to write and…easier to like in some ways. And I’ve written those characters, several of them. Because they’re interesting too. What someone does with the bad things in their life is telling of the kind of person they are, and there is nothing wrong with writing that sort of H or h.

What’s harder though, is the character who made their own bed. But that’s true in life too. We make mistakes, and we have fallout for those mistakes. But just because someone makes a mistake, doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to move on from it and find a happily ever after. I’ve said it before, I tend to look at love as a cure, a balm for the soul. Who needs that more than someone that’s dying? (metaphorically 🙂 )

All that whole blog post to encourage you not to be afraid to explore characters who have made some mistakes. Who have a past. Who very much had a hand in their own undoing. It’s interesting, and, as much as I fight in the beginning, I find it rewarding in the end. (This post is partly a reminder to me as I try to deal with this shady new heroine of mine!)

Also, to let you all know, The Highest Price to Pay is currently 99p in the Amazon UK Kindle store…you can check that out here!

And for my North American friends The Petrov Proposal is now available at eharlequin! (wide release coming in Feb!)

More Cover! Hajar’s Hidden Legacy Down Under!

Hajar’s Hidden Legacy is hitting UK shelves in a couple of days (that’s my Beast Sheikh!) and will be on Mills and Boon Australia soon too!

Here’s the cover they gave it for it’s trip to Aus and NZ!

I like this one a lot. I like BOTH of them, actually, but here you have Katharine as a redhead, as I wrote her, which is nice. And Zahir looks a bit more ‘weathered’ in this version too, which I also like as he’s supposed to be badly scarred.

The other thing I like is the scene it’s depicting. *rubs hands together* The scene with Katharine in her blue PJs is dear to me. 🙂 And I’ll share a little teaser with you now! (This is a bit of an 18+ teaser, so if you’re under age or offended by a bit a sexiness, don’t read it!)

Katharine flung the bedcovers back and stalked to the window. She was hot. And the desert wasn’t the blame. The night air was cool and dry, and it was usually her favorite time in Hajar. But nothing could extinguish the flame that Zahir had lit inside her.

Nothing had been able to dampen it. The chilly shower she’d taken had only made her blood run nearer to the surface, had only made her more aware of all of the parts of her body. Tender, needy parts that wanted Zahir’s rough, insistent hands on them. Without that sweet little yellow dress in the way.

She felt like her skin was too tight. Like she needed to shed it. At least shed her clothing. She arched against the silky camisole top she was wearing and the filmy fabric brushed over her nipples. She sucked in a sharp breath. The slight abrasion of the fabric sent sensation arrowing down to the apex of her thighs, made inner muscles she had never been overly aware of tighten in response.

She took a handful of hair and twisted it around her hand, holding it up off her neck. It was damp with sweat and some of the coolness in the air finally made its way into her. Like the shower, it didn’t help.

“Katharine.”

She dropped her hair and let it fall down past her shoulders. Zahir was standing in the doorway, wearing nothing more than those pale linen pants, low on his narrow hips. Showing perfectly defined muscles, gorgeous bronzed skin.

He hid his imperfections in the shadows, and for a moment, it was easy to forget he had any. That made her feel strange. Like she was adrift in the sea without an anchor. Because without the scars—those marks that made him who he was—she didn’t recognize him. It was only for a moment, but it was so strange and strong.

She moved nearer to him, breathed in a sharp breath when she saw the roughened side of his face.

“What are you doing here?”

“I am here to finish what should have been finished in the entryway today. What should have been finished last week in the study.”

She drew in a shaky breath, just before his lips crashed down on hers. And then there was nothing beyond desperation. It clawed at her, tore at her stomach, creating a frenzied desire in her that seemed to possess her, drive her actions. He slid his hand down to her backside, his palm resting on the tiny silk sleep shorts she was wearing, his heat burning through the thin fabric. Even that was too much. The barrier was too inhibiting.

“I’m here to show you that there are still ways I can put any man to shame.”

HAJAR’S HIDDEN LEGACY is on the shelves in the UK in January, and online in AUS January 1st!

Girl On A Diamond Pedestal

I have been biting my lip and hopping up and down and DYING to share this cover with you guys forever!! And I finally can!

You guys remember me talking about my Aussie hero? Well, this is the cover for his book. Although, as you can see by the cover, and the title, there’s a heroine in this book too. 😉 I jokingly said she’s the heroine who sold herself for a latte. Which is only sort of true.

The thing I love about this cover is that I know exactly which scene it portrays…and I’m going to share a little of that scene with you!

He watched as she wove through the crowd, a bright spot amid the sea of customary New York black. Golden hair, pale skin, silken red dress, making her a force of color and light that was impossible to ignore as she made her way to the stage.

And once she was there, sitting behind the piano, she commanded every eye in the room to watch her.

She put her hands on the keys and he swore he felt her fingertips on his body. Long, elegant fingers caressing the keys, easy to imagine them on his skin. She started playing a piece he recognized, one he’d heard in department stores many times. Something from one of her old albums, he assumed. But actually hearing it in person, watching her perform it, made it a totally new experience.

It was so fluid. Smooth. Pure perfection.

And it felt like it was only for him. Not for anyone else in the room. His chest tightened, breathing a little harder as arousal assaulted him. Flooded him.

Each note was a caress, the flow and rhythm of the song like making love, hard and fast then slow and sweet. Everything he wanted to do with her, everything he dreamed of, put out in the open, forcing him to confront it.

She lifted her head and looked into the crowd, looked at him, her eyes locked with his as she continued to play, her entire body moving with the effort she put into playing, every part of her involved in her performance.

She would move like that in bed. Perfect. With passion, with all of herself.

GIRL ON A DIAMOND PEDESTAL will release in the UK in March!

Trusting Your Voice

I am SO LAME and I posted this in my pages instead of posts…like two days ago. And now I lost some really nice comments fixing it and putting it in the right spot. And THIS is why you shouldn’t do things while you’re half asleep…but here it is…in the right spot now:

I got the idea for this post when I started thinking about a D I got in college. Yes, a D. On a paper. A written one. For writing.

It got me thinking about every writing experience I had in college. And how excruciatingly painful I found them. But not just non-fiction essay writing…writing fiction as well. I had the bug to do it. I was always creating stories in my head, always thinking about characters I’d made up and what they might be doing. Sometimes I would sit and try to write it all down. It would last about…ten pages. One start I *think* went up to about thirty pages and that was my absolute all time record.

Why was it so hard for me? I think it comes down to the fact that I didn’t know my voice. Or I at least didn’t trust it! If I was going to write an essay, I was going to sit down and regurgitate facts in my very best Smart Writing Tone and try to give the teacher exactly what I thought they wanted. It was dry. It had no authenticity. It sucked.

I did the same with my fiction. My first attempts were either YA ‘Stranded on an island or in the woods’ type stuff. The kind of thing that showed I’d read Hatchet one too many times. And I tried to write it the way I thought it should soon. Same when I went to YA mysteries. Same when I tried fantasy. I didn’t want it to sound like me. I wanted it to sound ‘real’ or ‘professional’ or something…

I really discovered the JOY of writing when I started putting together little email stories for my friends. They were done in a very outlandish, humorous style and I didn’t think about the words. I just let it go. I played. I had fun. I read it out loud to at my creative writing class and my prof said ‘That’s what you need to write’.

First person detective noir featuring the worst similes I could think of? (Incidentally, it was a line from one of those stories that got Dishonorable Mention in the Bulwer-Lytton contest. But that’s a different story altogether.)

Well, obviously no. That’s not what I ended up writing. And no, I don’t go anywhere half as absurd when I write an actual book. But those crazy stories just for friends unlocked what I’d been missing: MY VOICE.

It was painful to sit and write two sentences when I was struggling with every word. Because I was rejecting my instincts, rejecting my style, and trying to replace it with someone else’s. And it just didn’t work. It actually really sucked.

Even when I first started writing romance I fell back into the ‘how would Kim Lawrence say it’ sort of thing. Because I could think of these writers I admired, and I wanted to be a part of their line, so of course, I felt I had to write like them. It was my amazing editor, Jenny, who pulled me from slush, that said I needed to trust MY voice and what makes ME unique. She told me not to fall back on reactions, scenes, facial expressions just because I thought that was what was ‘supposed’ to happen.

And as I’ve gone on, I’ve learned more and more to trust my voice. And more and more, I love the act of sitting and writing. I find it freeing. I find it fun. I find it to be nothing like it was for me back when I first started.

Does everyone love my voice? Nope. Not even close. But it’s my voice. We all have one. It’s what makes our writing unique, it’s what will make it stand out. It’s what will make people love us, or hate us. It’s what sets our writing free.

For me, finding and trusting my voice has been a process. The trust especially is an ongoing one. But I’m getting there. I hope you’ll all do the same. Be you, be proud. And find the joy in your words.

Merry Christmas!

My husband Haven and I decided to make a video, musical Christmas card! So here it is. Merry Christmas!

The Petrov Proposal: They Like it, They Really Like it!

I am thrilled to share that RT gave The Petrov Proposal 4 1/2 stars!!

THE PETROV PROPOSAL (4.5) by Maisey Yates: Madeline Forrester has been planning elaborate events throughout Europe to showcase her enigmatic boss’s jewelry designs. She’s only ever spoken to Aleksei Petrov on the phone, and when he appears in person the sparks fly. Still, Maddy knows nothing good will come of a relationship with her boss; she only needs to look to her disastrous past to know that. Yates’ smooth dialogue and clever narrative will pull readers in. These delightfully spirited, vulnerable characters will feel like friends by the story’s end.

I’m so glad they liked my quirky, slightly damaged, Maddy and my stoic, slightly damaged, Aleksei!

In celebration this (well, and Christmas!) I’m giving away copies of The Petrov Proposal AND my entire North American list over on Seven Sassy Sisters! So come, comment and enter!

Novella, Novella

Writing short doesn’t mean writing easy. We’ll get that out of the way right now. You hear people dismissing category all the time. They could ‘churn out’ some of those ‘little books'(if they had time). *choke snort wheeze*

But the thing about writing category is that the reader expects and deserves the full experience they would get from a longer book. The emotion, the character arc, the believable ending. And doing it in roughly half the word count of a single title is…well, it’s hard. It’s its own skill.

And because I KNOW how hard it is, the word novella has long sent a shiver of fear down my spine.

So last month sometime my editor called and asked if I wanted to write a prequel novella to the upcoming Santina Crown continuity.

Me: YES! *shivers*

Then I hear 15K words.

Me: STILL YES. *shivers more*

I was so excited to be asked. But also scared because the idea of a novella had long been terrifying to me, and then one THAT short…well, I think I said eek a few times.

But a funny thing happened as I started to work on my Runaway Heiress/Jilted Sheikh novella: I had fun. Yeah, I didn’t expect that either!

So with the experience of writing the novella behind me (and revisions for said novella a likely possibility!) I wanted to talk a bit about what helped ME get through it.

1. They knew each other. With 15K words I did NOT feel up to the task of taking two characters who didn’t know each other and attempting to have them make it to a believable HEA. Nope. Not Gun Do it. I found starting with characters who had an existing connection a big help to making the story work.

2. Make sure the conflict is the right size. His abusive father’s horrible behavior has made it impossible for him to trust and he has major flashbacks and serious agorophobia. No, that conflict is too big. She misheard him saying something one of his friends and ran away. No, that conflict is too small. The conflict has to be the right size to serve the length of the book, so that it can be resolved in the time you have allotted without skipping A WHOLE CRAP TON OF STUFF.

3. If it’s not important, it doesn’t belong. Scene setting description and to the point action and dialogue is the order of the day. No need to spend lots of time telling us about every detail of a room in the palace, or what everyone’s wearing (unless it’s important!) but you have to know what’s important and why, so you don’t wrack up word count with things that don’t advance the story.

So those are some things I learned writing my novella. If you have more questions, as me in the comments! I might have forgotten something. If you have some tips for me, and my readers, on how YOU write novellas…please share them in comments! I’m new to the format, and I’d love to learn all that I can!

Oh yes, and Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy Holidays!! 😀

Threads in a Tapestry

I know, I’ve been slack on blogging. My excuse is that I was working on revising the book I lovingly call ‘Prince Sexy’.

It was an interesting set of revisions. Really interesting. Because when I got the letter it seemed like a major set of revisions. Conflict was off, character wasn’t deep enough.

When I spoke to my editor over the phone though, she said that the structure was fine. (Except the end, which did need to change, and change it I did!)

Now, I’ve done a lot of rewrites. I’m more or less comfortable (that could be the wrong word…) with THAT style of revision. Burn it down, start over. Only the names remain the same.

What I’m some what new to is this revisions that takes what you have and deepens existing material.

I would compare it to pulling out all the blue and purple thread in a tapestry and replacing it with gold and green, without compromising the structure, or essential look or the piece. Will a color change that drastic alter it? YES. Hugely.

It was a matter of going into scenes and leaving dialogue the same, but changing action and reaction. And yet again, I was reminded of how important those little bits of information you’re giving the reader in those moments are.

Instead of resenting the allure of the heroine’s dress, I have the hero being grateful for it. Because physical attraction destracts him from the emotional connection he feels for her.

Instead of being sad when she talks about her failed marriage, my heroine is angry. I did change dialogue in that scene, while keeping setting the same, and basic information the same. What was different was how she relayed it.

These changes which, within a scene, seemed subtle and small, changed the MS as a whole in a major way.

I’m not certain if I was successful in the revision yet, but once more, I find out how much I’m still learning. And that’s invaluable.

I’m reminded of the power of subtle moments. Of the way changing a few words can add depth. Of how important small actions, reactions, facial expressions, are.

Side note, all of you who are entering Harlequin’s So You Think You Can Write…Best of luck to you!! I’m so proud of all the work you’ve done!

Pulling Punches

I got revisions on Prince Sexy’s book this morning. They were great revisions. The best kind. The kind where your editor asks you to please give MORE of something you love. This was all kind of happy making and I was doing a jig in my Christmas socks this morning during our phone conversation. But during the general off topic chattering (my fault) my editor said something that really stuck out to me.

She said, just give more of what you have. (My element I considered ‘risky’) Really? Yes, she confirmed. More. She said, I seem to have this conversation with you a lot. I have to ask you for more, but I’ve never had to tell you to hold back.

Huh. Well. There you are.

The past few books particularly have had elements that SCARED THE EVER LOVING CHEETOS out of me. And so when I wrote those scenes, those bits that seemed possibly unsavory, and particularly crazy making, those scenes voted Most Likely To Make My Editor Retract My Contract and most definitely NOT VOTED HOMECOMING QUEEN, I held back.

That, my friends, is what you call a pulled punch. Oh, there was wind up. Good heavens was there wind up. Transmitting signals of the epic hit to come. And then it sort of digressed into an open handed slap accompanied by a wimpy “unh” sound, rather than a Chuck Norris worthy jaw slug played to the sound effect of a guttural kiyah.

It’s like this:

So…your hero has this really Big Problem, huh?

*cough cough* Yeah…*scuffs toe*

What’s up?

Hehasflashbacksnstuff

What?

Um…nothing.

*end scene*

There’s really no point to having something there if you don’t lay it all out there. And I’ve been called on this by my editor a few different times. Because it’s one thing to think ‘Ah! I will write this great conflict!” It’s another to write it and not be scared of it.

I wrote a hero with PTSD, and no, I’m not the first person to do so by any stretch, but I was very scared about executing it. Especially when it came to scenes where he had flashbacks. I was so afraid he would seem crazy, that while I wrote the scene in, I skimmed it a bit, because I was really afraid of A) going into all that depth and looking stupid. B) going into all that depth and looking crazy C) going into all that depth and having it hurt me and make me sad.

But I think when you’re attempting something, and you don’t go all out you end up looking like this…

Rather than this.

And we all want to be more like Chuck.

As I dive into these revisions and try to really, really bring out the conflict and darkness that I’ve alluded to (And make Prince Sexy more of a bad boy, which is a different matter really!) I’m going to try to keep in mind that it’s a pulled punch is an ineffective one.

You can’t start to fight, then change your mind. You’ll just get beat up. ;P I think you either choose to address an issue that could potentially be sticky and scary, or it’s really better to have never started on it in the first place.

Remind me of this as I attempt to plumb the depths. *grabs plunger* *and helmet*

Winners!!

You know me, I picked four winners!!! My random number selector hath decreed that…

Grace, Melanie, Kara and Karina each win a copy of Hajar’s Hidden Legacy! Send me your details and I will mail out the copy ASAP!

I always feel terrible that not everyone can win! Thank you all for your lovely comments. It’s readers like you that have made this journey so incredible!

What Danger Has Taught Me About Taking it a Day At a Time

And by Danger, I don’t mean peril. I mean my four-year-old-tomorrow son that I call Danger online.

For those of you who don’t know anything about Danger, I’ll fill you in. He’s been in early intervention for Autism since he was two. He’s still mostly non-verbal. He likes to read and sing, and sometimes escape. He’s great on the drums.

He’s taught me a lot more than I will ever teach him. One of the biggest lessons so far has been the art of taking it one day at a time. Every day, he improves. Every day, there’s a new gem. It’s hard to explain to someone why it’s SO EXCITING that your almost-four-year-old tickled his little sister the other day. It’s hard to explain why every word is gold and every smile is worth more than everything you own.

If you step back and look at how far he has to go, sometimes it’s hard to take those victories. Because it’s easy to worry about where he’ll be…or won’t be…in ten years. Fifteen years. Twenty years.

And that worry can take away from the smiles. So that’s why, where he’s concerned, I resolved very early on to focus on every win, every day. One day at a time, one step at a time, no victory too small. No mountain is too big if you just put on foot in front of the other, if you just take it a little at a time.

I’ve also discovered this philosophy applies nicely in other areas of my life. When I think about writing as a career and what I want to achieve, I can feel overwhelmed. And while the big picture matters and planning is certainly important, it’s also important to live in the moment. To appreciate the work you did today. Don’t worry about what an editor might think tomorrow. Celebrate what you did now, the victory of getting ten words, fifteen hundred words, five thousand words. But celebrate it.

Projecting too far ahead, taking on worries that don’t apply to you now and really may never apply, are the enemy of your productivity, your creativity and your happiness.

Finances are like that too, and DUDE I HAVE BEEN THERE. Trust me. I won’t depress you with specifics, but I have been. One day at a time. One hurdle at a time.

Don’t become so focused on your distant goals, that you can’t take a moment to celebrate more immediate achievements. Do I want my son to converse? Yes. I want that. Some days more than anything. I want so badly to be able to free that part of his mind so I can hear his thoughts, so I can understand him. But if I only fixate on that, I’ll miss the accomplishment that it is when he says “I wubyou”.

That’s something you can’t miss. That’s a victory that you have to celebrate. And it’s not small.

Remember to celebrate your own victories, every day. Be proud that after a rejection you sat down and wrote. Be proud that you hit send. Be proud that you wrote two hundred words. Be proud of what you do.

Do you think we should make cake to celebrate our small victories? They could be mini-cupcakes…just a thought.