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Emotion is the Same

Okay, I confess and I share credit, because I’m janking this from a conversation I had with Jackie Ashenden recently about emotion and conflict in stories.

Jackie and I both write a couple very different books. She writes light, witty contemporaries for Entangled and dark, sensual romance for Samhain, while I write dark, broody books for Presents and funny, bantery contemporaries for Berkley.

I was complimenting her on how, whether I read her light OR dark stuff, I come away emotionally effected.

This led to us talking about the differences between our two books. In a Presents, I’m going to go all the way with the conflict. To the conflict wall. Spare few gothic novels have anything on the kind of thing you’ll find in my Harlequin books. A sheikh with scars and PTSD? Check. A virgin widower hero in love with a woman forbidden to him? Oh yeah. An infertile woman in love with a prince who needs an heir? Yep. I got that.

These conflicts, on the surface can seem larger than life. Or even, unrelatable, but really, they aren’t. Because at the heart of them is the same emotion we all feel in life.

My sheikh might be a sheikh, and yes, he’s been through more horror than I have. But the fear of inadequacy? Of failing? Of people judging him by his looks and rejecting him? Yeah, well, I know those fears. Or a Greek billionaire hero raised in a drug trafficking house, desperately afraid that if he ever loses his control and embraces his desire for power he’ll become as morally bankrupt as his father? Well, the circumstances might not be relatable, but certainly the need for control is.

And then there’s the lighter books. They’re lighter in tone, but in my opinion they still need to bring emotional heat. In my novella Unbuttoned, the heroine is a city councilwoman and the hero is an ex-rodeo rider-turned-rancher. Not sheikhs and princesses. The heroine doesn’t have scars. She didn’t lose her family in a terrorist attack or get sold into marriage by her father. She didn’t even get raised by a drug trafficker. But she is afraid of losing her control, of what she might become (weak, ineffective) if she lets down her guard and lets herself go.

She has a lot in common with the Greek billionaire above. And yet the stories have different content and tone. COMPLETELY different content and tone, in fact.

But I hope they’re both emotional. That there’s something relatable to them.

The fact is, whether it’s a historical, or a paranormal, a light contemporary or a dark one, the common thread, and the thing that will hook readers is emotion.

The conflict might be over the top, or it might be something totally real, but either one has to be grounded in emotion.

And because emotion is the common thread, I think that’s why, sometimes you can be just as impacted reading about a heroine in unrequited love with her older brother’s best friend as you can be by a sheikh with PTSD who lost his entire family in a terrorist attack.

At least you can be if emotion is at the heart of it.

One of the best tips I can give for conveying emotion is to describe the feeling in a pivotal moment, rather than just telling us ‘she was so sad’ tell me her throat aches, her eyes sting, her limbs feel like lead and she just wants to sleep. Show me so I feel it too. So that I remember how being sad FEELS and my heart aches along with hers.

Then there’s character. Characters who are well-rounded and believable, and who act on what they feel, or don’t act in spite of what they feel, characters we care about, are one of the other big secrets to making a reader feel emotion. That’s a whole big long blog post, but I’ll abbreviate.

Make sure their conflict informs their actions. That their emotions inform their actions. That all of it is present, woven throughout the manuscript. (there is nothing more frustrating than a character who acts contrary to who we’ve been told they are, or who does things just cos it advances the plot but makes no sense for them. But again, that’s a whole other post)

Romance is so much about the characters. And our characters are people. Even if they…shift into things. Because of that, they have those same human emotions the rest of us do, whether they’re a sheikh and the feelings are hard to get to, or a city councilwoman who needs to let her hair down.

No matter what sub genre you’re writing, give us that emotion. 🙂

Work, Life, Write, Balance

One of the things I get asked to blog about most is the work/family balance, and time management.

I don’t know that I’m an expert on the subject, but I DO have a family, and I do write a lot of books. 🙂 My kids are 6, 4, and 2 (currently potty training the youngest two…WHY!?) and my middle son has autism.

I’ll say upfront, my husband is a very involved dad with a work schedule that fluctuates. Sometimes he’s really busy (like now) but sometimes it works out where I get quite a few days of him home and me working. So…that doesn’t hurt.

When I first started writing, I did it at night. I did it when the kids went to bed, and sometimes, after my husband went to bed. I didn’t have a day job. I was a stay at home mom with two little ones. Sometimes I brought the little baby to Starbucks with me, and set his carseat by the table while I wrote. Sometimes I wore him in a wrap while I wrote.

Fast forward to now, and I can’t just write on nights and weekends. I write as a job, as my career. And it’s essential income to my family. That’s another reason it’s something I find easy to prioritize. I have to have this job for us to have things like a house and…food. We like those things. So choosing to spend time writing is an easy choice to make, because in many ways IT HAS TO BE DONE.

That gives some insight into how I prioritize my work and the function it serves in our lives as a whole. That being said, I have some general things/tips/stuff I’ve learned.

1. It doesn’t matter what it looks like from the outside in – Haters gonna hate. The sooner you learn that, the better. People will look at you and try to formulate a picture of your life based on how they see you in the parent line, on the internet or in the grocery story. They will judge you. They will decide you’re a mess. You don’t spent enough time with your kids. Sometimes they’ll even ask if you think you’re missing out by having a career/a pursuit/taking a breath without your kids attached to your ankles.

Those people don’t matter. Your family matters. But for the purposes of this blog post: YOU KNOW THAT. And no one loves your kids, your husband, your mom, more than you do. So the outsiders don’t get a say in how your balancing act works. And they don’t get to make you feel bad for how it’s going. If your home is happy, who cares what anyone else thinks?

2. Communication is key – Tell your husband. Tell your older kids. Tell your babysitter/nanny/whatever what you need time-wise and actively work to get it. Because it doesn’t work to sit there and stew while he plays Minecraft (trust me, I’ve tried). It just makes you mad, and in the end you’ll bite his head off. TELL him what you need. Likewise, hopefully your spouse, your children, etc will tell you what THEY need, and just like they should honor you, you should honor them. If they want you to put the computer away for the day (I have trouble with that sometimes…) you need to do it. (note: what I’m talking about here is different than dealing with a spouse or kids who don’t want you to do anything that’s not wiping their noses or making them steak. That’s a whole other topic. I’m talking about creating a reasonable and healthy family dynamic)

3. You have to readjust it – Monthly, weekly, daily, the balance needs to be readjusted. This has been the biggest realization for me. My kids don’t stay the same, their activities don’t stay the same. Sometimes my husband (who is wonderful, really) forgets that when I’m on a tight deadline we are a no Minecraft zone during my work hours. Sometimes *I* have to realize that the amount of writing time I want on a given week is unreasonable given the schedule we have going. And so we go back to the drawing board and figure out how we’re going to get it all done.

4. A Word From La Nora – I had the privilege of hearing Nora Roberts speak in a Q&A in Florida. The thing that stuck with me most is this (I’m repeating me. But it’s okay.) In life, we juggle glass balls and rubber balls. If we drop a rubber ball, it’ll bounce. If we drop a glass ball, it’s going to shatter. Some things in life are a rubber ball. We can let them bounce. Look at my house, I consider dusting a rubber ball. Yesterday was my husband’s birthday and I want to finish the book I’m working on…and badly. But my husband is glass. I’m not dropping that relationship. Decide what can slide for you, and hold tight to what can’t.

I truly believe that balance shifts. That what works one week won’t always work, but we redistribute the weight and go on. Before we do it again. Ultimately, if you’re happy, if your family is happy, I think you’re on balance.

Release Day Shenanigans

Princess From the Shadows, the 6th book in the Santina Crown continuity and my first continuity book EVAH is out today!

So I’m generally flailing around and getting nothing done.

But I did draw some pictures. One for Princess From the Shadows (AKA Hot Rod)

And one for my FAR OFF Silver Creek book, Unexpected, which hits in August 2013.

So…now I bet you have Call Me Maybe stuck in your head! 😉

*goes off to eat release day cake*

The Sex Between the Lines

(this is probably a slightly inappropriate post at best, 18+ at worst)

This post was inspired, almost entirely, by the first episode of series two of Sherlock, the BBC series. (which is streaming in Netflix. Go. Watch it. NAO. Report back.)

In this episode Sherlock is somewhat captivated by a dominatrix who is pretty much also a criminal. Sherlock isn’t ever captivated by anyone, which makes it all the more interesting to watch his reactions to The Woman (as she was called.)

There’s a moment where she has her hand in his, and he’s looking at her. It’s a non-sexual touch, really. And yet, it’s smoking hot. Why? The tension. And why else? The character.

Sherlock, if you don’t know him, allow me to make an introduction, is a fascinating character. Brilliant, emotionally disconnected, prone to addictive behaviors, out of touch with social norms and completely immune, so it seems, to sexual attraction.

This makes his fascination with The Woman all the more intriguing, and the moment of attraction, all the more intense, even though it’s just the touch of hands. They never kiss. But because he felt anything at all, it seemed…torrid to me as a viewer.

This to me underscores the power of character, the building of tension and the importance of the moment where a kiss does NOT happen in romances.

A hot scene doesn’t have to have sex in it. It doesn’t have to have a kiss. It doesn’t even have to have a physical touch.

I have an upcoming book where the hero is a virgin. This means that for him, simple touch is so much more than most of the heroes I’ve written. He lives a very isolated existence and touch, the kind we take for granted just having people in our lives who care – a hug, a touch on the shoulder, whatever- is something he just doesn’t get. Ever.

It’s the build to that first love scene that makes the scene hot. The knowledge of the characters that makes it matter. The goal is to make the characters burn, and to make the reader burn too. To have everyone at the breaking point by the time your hero and heroine make it into the bedroom.

If you write closed door romance, that doesn’t mean you can’t show the building of tension, of attraction.

Attraction and love scenes aren’t just about telling us about her heavy aching breasts and the pooling desire in his groin and fireworks and cresting waves. Though those things are nice. 😉 Who are your characters? How do THEY feel about this attraction? What does making love mean for them? What are the implications unique to them?

Is your hero inexperienced, so each touch is fascinating and special, so he trembles when she puts her hands on him, even in a non-sexual way? Is your heroine experienced, but used to men cutting to the chase, so your hero going slow, touching her with reverence, rocks her world before their lips ever touch?

Make the reader care. Show them what’s building between these two people so that they can’t wait for it to pay off. In fireworks and cresting waves.

Remember, love scenes aren’t just there to be there. They aren’t meant to be Tab A into Slot B, each one should be unique for the characters, and the attraction building between your characters should be unique as well. We need moments to draw us in, to make us stop breathing. Even when it’s just hands touching.

It’s the sex you’re reading between the lines that can really captivate your audience. Make the most of it!

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them for me!

And for those of you entering SYTYCW…good luck!

Starting Something New

Well, in reality, I’m revising something old. 🙂 My first single title romance, Unexpected (formerly known on the internets as my Sooper Sekrit Projekt).

Last week, I sent the Geek Billionaire off to my fabulous editor at Harlequin, and then on Monday I got to start this two week odyssey of revising my first book with Berkley. I’m just so excited I can’t even tell you! It’s so much fun to work on comedy, but I have to say, I find editing sections of comedy much trickier than editing drama.

With a dramatic moment, I often need to dig deep and make sure I’m showing showing showing the emotion and bringing the reader in, vs just saying ‘the heroine wanted to cry’. That’s not easy, but it’s something I’ve gotten used to doing as a part of revisions.

Dismantling banter and trying to reassemble it, to get a message across and be entertaining is something a bit fiddlier, I’m finding! Comedy is interesting, in that timing and rhythm are very important. (failing that, make a joke about male anatomy) And because a reader is READING the dialogue and banter, timing must be conveyed to a certain degree through the way dialogue and action are mixed. So once you start yanking things around it gets a little jumbled and not as funny, so then you have to go back and reboot the banter.

I’ve had a little experience with this in Presents, because I have segments of banter, and performing surgery on them has always been the bane of my existence.

So, I’m performing surgery on my first single title. And I have to say, as much as I was dreading re-structuring the banter, it hasn’t been that bad so far. I’ve made it through my first pass, and I’m pausing now to do AAs for my Superbad Sheikh. (see, you turn a book in, and then you still have work to do on it months later!) But it’s good because it’s giving me time to let Unexpected sit.

Now that I’ve overhauled my hero’s conflict in Unexpected, when I read through it again I’ll be looking to make sure the new conflict thread is tied in nicely, and that every scene carries the emotional impact it ought to. Since I already did my best to leave the funny intact. 😉

I thought I would share a little Unexpected with you! It’s an unedited excerpt, but I hope you enjoy it. A little taste of what life will be like in Silver Creek:

Chapter One

So, when are you getting married?

“So, Kelsey, when are you getting married?”

Kelsey fought the urge to stab her own thigh with one of the fancy forks that her sister had selected so carefully for her special day. She could see the question forming in all of her well-meaning relatives’ eyes before the words made it from their mind to their lips.

Well, Aunt Addy, I’ve set the date for date for five years from now. With any luck, I’ll have sunk my claws into some unwitting victim in just enough time to pick out china patterns.

“Someday,” she said, pasting a smile on her face. One she hoped looked happy and not like she was contemplating homicide.

It was such an idyllic setting. Her family’s Eastern Oregon ranch, the field bright with new grass and yellow flowers. And she was as miserable as she could ever remember being.

She looked back up at her aunt, who was contemplating her a bit too carefully.

Don’t say on the shelf. Don’t say on the shelf.

“You’re nearly on the shelf, dear,” her aunt said with a chuckle.

Kelsey eyed the fork. “I like the view from up here,” she said.

She was thirty. Thirty wasn’t old. Thirty was just starting to come down from the post-college, young professional club scene. Thirty wasn’t even remotely ready to shackle yourself to someone until divorce did you part. Or so she’d heard. She hadn’t made it to the divorce. She hadn’t made it down the aisle. She’d made it into the bedroom she’d shared with her then-fiancé to find him doing some very inappropriate things with another woman, but no one was giving her any credit for that.

She’d been too young then anyway. According to the national average she was too young now.  But something in the water in her rural Oregon town had compelled most of her friends to get married right out of high school. The other stragglers had been caught up sometime before their mid-twenties had hit and she felt like the odd one out in a big way.

Even more now that the last of her younger sisters had just done the deed. At twenty. Bitch.

Okay, she didn’t really think her sister was a bitch. But she was feeling a little bit bitter the longer the reception wore on. Plus, the bridesmaid dresses were yellow and she looked horrible in yellow. Kailey knew that and she’d picked it anyway.

“You look…I was going to say great but you actually look really grumpy.”

Kelsey looked over her shoulder and up at the broad frame of her very best, and last single, friend, Alexa Lambert. “Thanks, Alex,” she snarked. “Shouldn’t you be over trying to catch a bouquet?”

“Hell no!” Alexa, dressed in black pants and a black top, looking so out of place, sat in the chair beside her.

“Avoidance, huh?”

“Why do you think I moved across the country? To get away from this kind of thing. Honestly, none of my friends in New York are married yet. Shacking up, maybe. But married, no.”

“I moved.”

“To Portland. Glamor central,” Alexa said wryly.

“I want to be close enough to visit still. All my sisters started having babies and…”

“Yeah, the baby thing doesn’t get me gooey like it seems to do for most women. I’m avoiding babies.”

Kelsey wasn’t in baby avoidance mode. Babies did make her gooey. She wished they didn’t. She wished that holding her niece and smelling her baby-soft head didn’t make her stomach cramp with the worst kind of futile longing imaginable.

“I’m not anti-marriage I’m…without and fine with it. That’s all. Somehow that makes me ‘on the shelf’.”

She didn’t need to get married. She had bad taste in men anyway. But what she did want, and what made all of this an awful tease, was a family. Children. She wanted crayon pictures all over her fridge and juice stains on her carpet. Okay, she didn’t want juice stains on her carpet, but she was ready to deal with it.

She thought about the brochures buried in her desk back at her house. Brochures she’d stuffed in a drawer six months ago and tried to forget about. Artificial insemination. The chance to have what she wanted, without the part she didn’t want.

To have her own child. To feel her baby move inside of her.

Her OB GYN had reminded her just recently that her fertility wasn’t getting better with age. Yet another person out to make her feel like the world was passing her by while she worked and aged. Except her doctor had a valid medical point. A scary one.

She looked at all her nieces and nephews, running around in the grass, barefoot, filthy, and adorable. Her sister Jacie was hugely pregnant and trying to chase her three-year-old son, who was holding a dirt clod and most likely had evil intentions.

Kelsey envied her in that moment. So much she nearly choked on it.

Alexa leaned forward and hooted, effectively breaking her out of her moment of self-pity. “On the shelf? Sounds like something a maiden aunt would say.”

“It was my maiden aunt.”

“Figures.”

“Doesn’t it?” She looked down at her hands. Even her French manicure was yellow-tipped. She looked like a freaking daisy. “It’s worse because of the whole Michael thing.” If she’d never been engaged maybe they would all just assume she didn’t want to get married.

No, that wouldn’t really help. But it would have helped her. It would have made her feel less…like a failure.

“That was, like…five years ago.”

“Six,” Kelsey said. “Six years ago.”

“I’m sort of glad it didn’t work out,” Alexa said.

“Why is that exactly? Don’t make me take back that other half of our best friends heart necklace.”

“Because he was a jackass, who was screwing another girl behind your back.”

“Kinda in front of me at the end.”

Alexa nodded. “But also, I think if you would have gotten married that long ago you would have put me in a bridesmaid dress that was even worse than the one you’re wearing now. That’s one point for marrying older. Better fashion sense, minus the Cinderella Princess complex.”

Of Characters and Defining Incidents

I’m a little more than halfway through the Presents I’m working on right now, and I’m loving the characters. They’re so fun and they’re giving me a lot to work with. The hero is coming from a very strong place. His past, it was woe and horrible and it has left him with SHAME and ISSUES. And that shame and those issues can be traced easily back to a defining incident in his life.

This makes things nice and clear for me. I know what changed for him, I know why, I know what it is that haunts his success and makes it all feel like…well, like woe and shame still.

My heroine, on the other hand, was murky. I thought…well, she’s a geek so she feels a bit out of step. Because she wasn’t popular etc. So I was talking with a critique partner about her and said ‘yeah, but how did her parents make her feel?”

Me: I don’t know. I think they were nice.

J: But why does she feel SO inadequate then? Even now? Doesn’t she need something that confirmed it for her?

Me: Nah. She’s a geek.

Well, at that point my editor read my outline and said: So when did your heroine decide binary was safer than people?

Me: >.> because she did. Because she’s good at it. *sighs* *goes off to figure it out*

Well then, ironically, the same CP, who is probably going to blog about this too, had a similar issue. (people who live in glass houses should not throw stones, Ms. Ashenden!) There was a point in her hero’s life where he’d changed, but she wasn’t sure why. Because, like me, she thought, isn’t it enough that he just had a rough life so one day he…walked away from it different?

And in real life, it probably is enough. In some books it probably is too. But particularly in a shorter format book, I think the defining incident is something you simply can’t leave out.

I had done this a few books ago too. Similar type of heroine. She was artsy and clumsy and had just decided she didn’t ‘fit’. But the why of it was vague. It wasn’t until I arrived at a specific moment in her past that had made her decide: Hey, I don’t fit, and I’m not trying anymore, that she really became solid in my mind and in the book.

And it’s the same with this book. I had a funny, backward way of figuring this one out, though. So after being told by two people, hey, your heroine’s conflict is not good enough, was thinking about it while doing something in the kitchen and a piece of dialogue popped into my head. It’s not from the beginning or the middle, it’s from the end. And it was the heroine telling the hero why she’s not going to live her life the way she’s been living it. How she’s not hiding who she is anymore.

And it was finding THAT, finding where my heroine needed to end up, that helped me find her beginning, and how she chose to cope with the way her friends and family made her feel about herself. Finding that moment she decided once and for all that she could be herself, she had to hide herself so she could fit in. And now she has a goal she’s headed for. She’s headed for freedom. And I know how to get her there now! (much easier when you know where your character is going!)

What about you? Do you find it easier to work with characters who are a certain way now because of a defining moment in their past? As a reader, do you find it easier to connect with a character who changed because of a specific incident?

Seasons Changing

It’s transitioning from Summer into Fall here, which is my very favorite time of year. I like pumpkin candles and pumpkin spice lattes and pumpkin pie. I like cold mornings and red leaves. I like anticipating Christmas. 🙂

It’s a changing season here at my house too. First, as you know, with the new house. Also, my son is in first grade and going to school full time, which is a very new and different experience! I still have the two little ones at home, but it’s a lot quieter without my Drama boy all day.

I’m also staring down my first year as a writer working with two different publishers, and on books of different lengths.

It’s funny, because just over a year ago I was sure I would never write short, and I was scared to death of writing long. Then Harlequin asked me to do a short for the Santina Crown series and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed working on it. And just before that I started work on my single title length book. Then I wrote a longer novella to partner with my single title series and now…Well, now I’m doing three lengths with total regularity.

I just have to look back and shake my head at past Maisey a little bit. Because I’ll be honest, I’m one of those people who really doesn’t like change.

At the end of the last school year, I had a meeting with the principal and my son’s teacher. Would we start him off going the full day in first grade? Or do a modified day. The principal said, give him a chance. I was nervous. But so far, he’s been able to do these big full days and he’s been able to fit in with the other kids. (ADHD, etc, make school a serious challenge for him, and it took him half the kindergarten year to work up to a full kindergarten day)

Back in November my husband said he wanted to start looking into buying a house. Now, we’ve done this several times over the course of our seven years as husband and wife, and it’s never worked out. I get attached to the idea of moving, and it all falls through. So I told him, I couldn’t handle the stress of the process and if he wanted to do it, he had to make the calls and get the ball rolling and I would show up and sign whatever needed to be signed.

Back before that, at the RWA conference in NY, I was having a panic attack about pitching to my agent and making the move toward single titles.

Because I was comfortable. Because I liked what I was doing. Because I was afraid writing anything else, living somewhere else, might compromise everything.

I’m on the other side of it and I marvel at how I nearly let fear hold me back from trying all these things.

I still don’t know what the end result will be. My son will probably have some hard days. Maybe keeping up with the new house WILL feel like a struggle sometimes. Maybe it won’t always feel easy to balance these different sorts of books, but the important thing is trying. Not letting the fear win.

We have seasons in the year, lots of changes. And we have seasons in our lives. But I think we’re made for that. For accepting and wrestling with new challenges. It’s in my nature to resist these sorts of changes, but I hope now I have an easier time. Sometimes it’s a blind walk with nothing but faith guiding you on, but if you don’t take any kind of risk, you might miss the great rewards.

As a professional update, my Bad Boy Russian has been revised and turned back in, and my editor feels confident enough in the work to have signed off on it more or less. I’m working on a Geek Billionaire Computer Genius for Presents. I’ll be doing revisions on my first cowboy novel sometime in September/early October AND I’ll be working on a Christmas novella for Silver Creek too.

In keeping with the theme of change, I’m contemplating my blog. I know a lot of you read and don’t comment. 😉 But I’m curious: What topics are the most interesting and useful for you? What would you like for me to discuss here?

What’s Your Story?

This post is actually inspired by a comment that Jamie Wesley left on my blog, with a quote from Jayne Anne Krentz about taking your core story and moving it across genres/sub-genres.

I thought that was a pretty profound statement. I know I’d heard it before, but because of where I’m at professionally right now, it hit me particularly hard this time.

I’m not sure I could succinctly define what my core story is. A core theme of mine is definitely discovering that you’re a person of great value, no matter where you come from, or what you’ve done. That you don’t need to hide who you are behind a mask. And that you’re deserving of love. I deal with a lot of characters who need redemption and who need to find peace with themselves.

And whether I’m writing a Presents or a single title romance, those themes are bound to pop up.

And no matter what you’re writing, in romance, emotion is at the center of it. It’s like a chocolate truffle. Maybe it’s in a pink wrapper, or a blue on, or it’s got coffee dusted over the shell, or it’s got dark chocolate coating. But at the center, you’ve got your gooey truffley goodness. No matter how you dress it up, it’s still chocolate. Darker or lighter maybe, but chocolate.

In Presents, I wrap it all up with a little gold leaf. And it’s concentrated, dark, stuff. In the Silver Creek books, the wrapping is a bit more dressed down. (Though, I won’t lie to you good people, these are very well-off cowboys. Maybe not a private jet, but expansive ranches and maybe a hint of country glamour, even.)

My Silver Creek novella is about a very self-contained city councilwoman learning to live a little with her older brother’s very bad boy best friend. The setting was wildly different to anything I’d written before (though true to my real life!) but the characters, the heroine especially, was carrying that core theme of mine.

(No this is not when we psychoanalyze me about why I write these themes. 😛 )

I think it’s because we have to write something that feels real to us. I’ve talked about this before, because people have a tendency to dismiss Presents or romance in general as being a total unrealistic fantasy. And while the story may be wrapped in glittering foil, the heart of it, the emotion, is very real and it is, in my opinion, what resonates with readers.

I think the concept of the core story, that is transferable, opens up a lot of freedom to you as a writer. Your core, your truth, can travel with you. To different locations, different characters, different sub genres, different word counts.

It was easy to think of myself as a category writer, and that anything else would be too hard because, I wrote category and learning to do something else would be like starting over. But the truth is, it’s not. Because the emotion travels. My story travels. And so does yours!

So what’s your story? 🙂

In Transition

I’m in transition. We’re getting packed up and hoping to move this weekend. (TODAY if we can swing it!) I just turned a book in. I’m thinking about my next one. (my next TWO to be honest…) I’m also expecting my first phone call with my Berkley editor at the beginning of September, and with that, my revisions for my single title length romance.

Summer is ending. School is starting. This is truly the Season of Change around here.

I’m looking forward to all of it, though. (Okay, not the packing and shclepping boxes! Ugh!) My oldest son is in first grade this year, and it will be his first day going to school all day. I’m feeling optimistic about his chances (he had a rough Kindergarten year, but the teacher he has this year for 1st Grade is exceptionally good with boys like him!) and excited to see what changes come his way as a result of being in school all day.

I’ll still have the younger two at home, so no, it’s not a big break for me. 😉

I’m also looking forward to this new world of balancing two publishers, and writing two very different kinds of books. Already, I’m finding the process with Berkley to be very different. There are cover meetings scheduled for my novella and my single title and by then I need to have provided them with character descriptions, a brief synopsis, and cover and title ideas. I do a similar thing for Harlequin. For every book I or my editor (usually me now!) fills out an art fact sheet with this info. (though I don’t give title suggestions) Still, this is different, and I’m really excited about it!

With Harlequin, I just turned in my second book in my Secret Heirs of Powerful Men series. It’s a series about men coming into fatherhood unexpectedly. Powerful men, as you might have guessed by the title. And yes, those babies be secret. (But being my books they’re a little wonky. Surrogacy, adoption, pregnant virgins, oh my!)

Next I’m starting a book for Presents that I’m lovingly calling The Geek Billionaire’s Rival. Both my hero and heroine are big in the computer industry…and they are both geeks. 😉 My editor hasn’t exactly signed off on this idea yet, so we’ll see. 😉

And I will be doing all this from my new office! In my new house! I’m hoping having an office in the house won’t be too…much…louder. :/ Right now, I’m in a little converted shed in the yard. But our current house is 900 sq ft and even though my office is outside…I still hear the noise from inside sometimes! The new house is much bigger, and the office is on the opposite end of the house to where most of the action will take place. It’s also MASSIVE. I’m going to have so much room for books! And a couch.

I also have a book on shelves in North American right now, which is always exciting! (Hajar’s Hidden Legacy)

So that’s what’s happening with me!

How to Write a Book in a Mini-Van (just add chicken nuggets)

This past couple months has been more than a little insane. We’ve been knee deep in the process of house buying, including doing appraiser call outs (more on that in a moment), I sold two books and a novella to Berkley while keeping up on my writing for Harlequin and taking on a special short project for Harlequin. Then there was a visit from my out of town in-laws, the RWA conference and our family vacation to Disneyland.

Now, these are all really, really good things, but they are a lot of things. And some of it adds up to quite a lot of changes!

I think the nature of having young kids means you need to be able to adapt, because they’re always changing and growing. So because of that I think my writing has had to have a flexible nature from the beginnings. (As many of you know, I sold my first book while I was pregnant with my third child, and was working on revisions for my second book while I was in the hospital, after giving birth.) And as my children have grown, their needs have changed. Their routines have changed.

My oldest started school last year, and this year he’ll be in first grade going the whole day. So things evolve again.

I’m actually really thankful for this continual evolution because it’s taught me that, whatever my preference, I am able to change what I do, when I do it, and how I do it, to help suit the situation.

It’s hard to be disciplined when you work at home. First of all, it’s hard for your family to understand that you have to work and that just because you CAN skive off doesn’t mean you should. Second, it’s hard for YOU to remember that. No one is going to force me to sit in a cubicle and do my work. It’s up to me!

It’s even harder when time is conspiring against you!

Because the book I just finished (Bad Boy Russian) was the second in a duet, and because there was a book between him and the first book in the duet, even though the book wasn’t technically due for a while, my editor preferred I had it in early for scheduling reasons. Now, this came about right before we got our list of call outs from the appraiser.

The call outs were all the things we had to do to get the new house in shape so the bank could loan on it. The responsibility was on us entirely because it’s a short sale and the buyer is liable for all the issues the house has. So we’ve had two weekends in a row of intense work, and this, after I told my editor I would have the book done early!

Now, my editor, who is long suffering and fantastic, would have understood if I couldn’t do it. But I wanted to see if I could do it.

People, I wrote in some weird places this week. I wrote in the living room of the empty house. I wrote in my parents’ back yard while the kids played in the sprinklers. I wrote in my mini-van. One day I buckled the kids in and drove them to McDonald’s. We sat in the parking lot and they ate chicken McNuggets and watched Lion King while I wrote some words. Then another day, I parked us in the shady lot of a closed office building and we drank our Starbucks drinks while I edited a scene.

Some people will think I’m crazy. I own that, that’s fine. I’m a little crazy. 😉 But I also felt empowered. This week was crazier than I am, and I wasn’t able to work under my ideal conditions, but I was able to do it. There’s something wonderful about realizing that you DO have control over when and how you write. There’s something amazing about realizing that there is always a little time to steal here and there.

Now, I don’t want this to become my new process or anything. First of all, because I think McD’s is nasty. Bleah. Second, because…well, it’s lame to write your hero and heroine having semi-public sex at an opera house while your six year old is behind you saying: MOMMY DO SOME PLANES SPIN UPSIDE DOWN? CAN SOME PLANES DO THAT MOMMY???

But it was nice to know that I could. To know that, even when my circumstances were a little crazy, I still had some control. 😉

So that’s Bad Boy Russian out the door to my editor, revisions pending, am sure!! (I don’t even want to know what weird things sneaked their way into that MS, all things considered!) I also had word that my previous Presents, the hero of which I called The Ice Man, was approved by my editor, and my online short was approved as well.

Next on the agenda will be a Presents with a billionaire, CEO, geek heroine and the hero, her business rival. And also revisions for my first Silver Creek book.

Oh yes, and moving in to our new house! Which I hope happens very soon! (I will keep you posted!)

The Call of Duty

I got the covers for the North American editions of The Call of Duty series and OH MAH GAH. I think I cried. I love them SO much. And I’m thrilled to share them with you! Coming December 2012 and January 2013…

(Untouched hero!! And his BACK and he’s in jeans and I can’t even…*faints*)

When duty wars with desire, which one wins?

With her life mapped out since birth, Princess Evangelina Drakos—known for her dramatic flair—hopes the minor scandal she plans to create will deter potential suitors.

Hired for Eva’s security, unemotional bodyguard Makhail Nabatov never makes a mistake—but the impulsive princess pushes his resolve to the limits. It’s not long, however, before the beautiful and imprisoned Eva entices him to leave his bonds of duty and honor behind.

While their chemistry reaches fever pitch, Makhail knows he knows he must deny his desire—for Eva is promised to another man…

(And this is Prince Sexy!! And Jessica’s dress is PERFECT and AH!!)

Marry the jaded prince, receive a title, a small island, a castle and a tiara…

Matchmaker extraordinaire Jessica Carter arranges marriages that work. And that is exactly what Prince Drakos is looking for. The last thing he needs is someone as unsuitable as her…but none of the beautiful socialites paraded before him excite Stavros as Jessica does.

Usually unchallenged Stavros welcomes Jessica’s defiance – his fingers itch to lower her prickly facade and discover what lies beneath. Will Jessica agree to his final request? One month to exorcise their scorching passion, before he marries someone fit to be his queen…

The Call of Duty – when legacy commands, they must obey!

More About the Cowboys

I know I promised some more details about the Silver Creek series I sold to Berkley. And…here they are.

Why cowboys? Yeah, I know, that seems weird and different. There are a couple of answers to that. One, it was, for some reason what I thought of when I was plotting the book. The hero just WAS a cowboy, as much as Blaise from Highest Price to Pay just WAS a financier.

The second answer is that I am a country girl. Sheikhs and Greeks capture my imagination, and no matter how fantastic the setting in a Presents, the core of the book is about fighting for love. That part of it is relatable, the opulent hotels and private jets, not so much. (hate to spoil my mystique!)

But I love mountains, and my best friend got married in a barn. I love getting my Christmas tree from the woods, and getting our pumpkin from the patch. I love county fairs, rodeos and watching other people line dance (I don’t dance. No. No I don’t.)

Having the chance to write about things like that, things that make me feel warm and just HOME is such a cool thing. However, they are not sweet warm home time books. I think of it like my mom’s pumpkin pie. Her secret ingredient is extra cinnamon for more spice. Yeah, there is extra cinnamon. Ahem.

I also really like comedy. My Presents so have comedy in them, but I find I have to tone it down in order to keep a story that length moving. Plus, Presents are very high drama, and while I’m a big believer in using comedy to highlight drama, in a 50K word book that can only be taken so far.

But this is the book I almost didn’t write. I was actually really afraid of the thought of writing a longer book, and of trying to balance work for another publisher, initially.

I met my agent in 2010 at RWA in Florida, (introduced by my friend Lisa Hendrix) but she didn’t become my agent then. We talked and she told me if I ever wrote a single title length book, that I could send it to her. But I never felt ready. I was too focused, too afraid of rocking my boat.

Fast forward to just before RWA 2011 in NY. I started thinking, if I was GOING to write a longer book, what would it be? How would I do it?

Then I was having coffee with Lisa and I told her, I think I had an idea for a single title. And she quickly emailed Helen saying, Maisey has an idea, do you want to meet with her in New York? Helen said yes. And that meant I needed an idea that was more than just a vague idea.

This part of the story is important because I still felt like I somehow couldn’t do it, or like I might not be ready. But I felt like I had a great opportunity that I couldn’t pass up. Even right before I was supposed to meet with my not-yet agent I was feeling like I wasn’t ready to take the step, to take on an agent and commit to the move, and one of my roommates, Maggie Marr, told me I was crazy and to buck up and go pitch the darn book.

So I did. And over breakfast, I got my agent.

I still had to write the rest of the book, which I did in stages. Which is how it was submitted. I received my first rejections EVAH with this book. Lots of them. Nice rejections. Rejections that made me frown a little bit. But I did some revising, and it went out to more people. To the same people. I got an offer I had to grit my teeth and decline because it wasn’t in line with my vision for my career, and that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Especially because, at that point the book had been on submission with various editors for more than eight months.

I wrote a connected novella, just to see if introducing myself as a romantic comedy cowboy writer would help with how people saw me, and we sent that out too. Then I got the offer from Berkley,for two single titles AND the novella, and I was SO glad I held out. So glad I waited for the offer that felt right to me.

The news that the deal was finalized came at RWA 2012, while I was standing near registration. I don’t think it could be any more poetic than that, really, all things considered.

And now…what about the books?

They’ll come out digitally first as part of Berkley’s InterMix program, which means that the ebooks will have a lower price point. (YAY!) And then later in paper as Sensations.

The novella (untitled right now!) will be out in June 2013, and is about an uptight city councilwoman, Carly, who is afraid of scandal. But her attraction for her older brother’s best friend, ex-rodeo rider Lucas Miller, is a lot scandalous. But she can only resist him for so long…

Then the first Silver Creek novel (also untitled!) has an element of errant sperm to it, cuz that’s how I roll.

Kelsey is a born again city girl, who decides to go the artificial insemination route to make her dreams of motherhood a reality, only to discover that the father of her baby never intended to make an anonymous donation. Cole can’t imagine just turning his back on his child, even if it’s a child he never meant to have. This puts an unenthusiastic Kelsey back in the country, and trying to figure out how to do the best thing for her and her baby, while fighting a very inconvenient attraction to her unborn child’s accidental father.

There will be a second book in the series (hopefully more eventually!) too, about Cole’s younger sister.

*takes a deep breath*

And that is my very long post about my cowboys. If you have any more questions…feel free to ask below!