Category Archives: Author

September 23, 2014 · 8:22 pm

The invasion of the edits….

I have been up to my eyebrows in my first professional edits for the past few days, so I have not been able to blog much. Oh, who am I kidding: I haven’t had a moment to pee, much less blog!

I want to get these done correctly, quickly and accurately, so to the exclusion of housework, laundry and grocery shopping – the milk for breakfast didn’t taste so great – I have been diligently editing. Page after page. Paragraph after paragraph.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to change any of the plot or story line. Just tweak some tenses, kill some commas, and omit some superfluous phrasing.

Ah, the pleasures of having a novel in pre-production.

Release date will be forthcoming, so stay tuned.

Leave a comment

Filed under Author, Contemporary Romance, Editors, MacQuire Women, Romance, Romance Books, Skater's Waltz, Strong Women

Tagged as ,

September 1, 2014 · 9:34 am

Character? Plot? Setting? What drives your writing?

I mentioned in an earlier blog that I’ve been re-reading some of the books I consider ‘Bibles’ for writing and writers. One of them is Karen S. Wiesner’s book Writing The Fiction Series . In it, she sets forth the mechanisms you can use for writing a series of books. The series can be based on the characters that reappear in each book, they can revolve around a quest that threads through each book, whatever connects them all can be considered a continual series.

One of the questions she asks the author to think about when envisioning a series of books is whether they are character, plot or setting driven, and which format the author himself/herself uses. This got me thinking about they way I write my books. In the past I did mostly stand alones, or one and dones. The story ended on the last page. Once I started writing romance novels, I realized there were so many fun and wonderful characters  drifting on the page that had their own stories, that I knew I needed to start writing them down. I currently have two separate series in production, both involving multi-member families and story lines. So, to answer the question are they character, plot or setting driven, I’d need to say character for the most part. Although all three facets must come into play for a cohesive and interesting book, most of the time when I write a romance I find my characters first and move through their development above all else.

The basic – and I mean BASIC – plot line of every romance novel is that the hero and heroine get together in the end, find that they love one another, and live happily ever after ( HEA ). Like I said: basic. Most romance plots are really much more than that, but if you start with that core nugget, you are golden. In both of the series I am currently working on, love and dependence on family is the central theme. Mixed into that theme are various subplots and  topics dealing with stalking, cooking, television  production, ice skating and veterinary medicine.

I know. But, it’s me, so remember that.

Family stories are great to write about because there are so many varied dynamics in each one. Birth order always plays a big role for me with my characters. Since I am an only and married a man with a clan, I love the idea of who is what in the family food chain. Which sib is the closer? Who is the baby – and it doesn’t necessarily mean the last to be born. Which kid is the pleaser? The go-between? The fighter? The people pleaser? And where do they fall in the order of their  birth? With a large family, you can find so many different ways to tell each individual’s love story and how it effects the family as a whole unit.

For the next several blogs I’ll be breaking down each facet : character, plot and setting –  for how to develop a book series, with some advice from Ms. Wiesner thrown in along the way.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Author, Characters, Contemporary Romance

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

August 29, 2014 · 10:55 pm

Ideas…I’ve got a million of ’em…

While I was working on my current WIP today, I got sidelined by an idea that wouldn’t go away. I kept shushing it, telling it I would get to it eventually, but I wanted to get my word count in for the day first. Damn idea wouldn’t shut up. It forced me to stop working on what I should have been working on and forced me to pay attention to it.

For two entire hours.

I hate getting sidetracked by pushy ideas.

This usually happens to me when I am deeply asleep, huddled under the comforter, blanketed by warmth and dreams. All of a sudden I will be shot bolt upright, a pushy idea running through the front of my brain, waking me up in a heartbeat and demanding attention. It’s like that sick little kid who comes into your room in the dead of night, wakes you up because he needs to throw up, does, and then goes back to sweet slumber while you are now forced wide awake for the rest of the night.

I used to not get up and write the ideas down. I figured I’d remember them in the morning. Not so much, really. What I did remember when I woke was that I’d had a great idea in the middle of the night but now I couldn’t remember it for the life of me.

That got old really fast so I started getting up and writing the damn things down. Then, and only then, would I be able to get back to sleep. When I woke up in the morning, I could remember not a thing, but I had the brilliant idea written down, so, yea!

But now my waking hours are being intruded upon, and I only have so many of them to devote to writing that I am starting to really get annoyed with these pushy, must be dealt with right now  ideas.

Think Ritalin would help?

You’re right: probably not. Oh well. At least I can sleep again.

Leave a comment

Filed under Author, Characters, Contemporary Romance, Life challenges, love, Romance, Romance Books, Strong Women

Tagged as ,

August 26, 2014 · 4:33 pm

The 10 Book Challenge

Recently on Facebook, I’ve seen several posts about people who have been challenged by friends and family to list 10 books that changed their lives. No one has challenged me, but I think this is a great blog topic, so here goes.

The 10 books that have had a profound impact on me during my life are – in no particular order:

1. The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper. Best book about self actualization ever written.

2. The Wizard of Oz ( Dorothy’ Adventures in Oz)  by Frank L Baum. Because there really is no place like home.

3. Irish Thoroughbred by Nora Roberts. First Nora I ever read. This story and this writer gave me my love of romantic fiction.

4. Shanna by Kathleen Woodiwiss.  First romance with actual sex in it I ever read. Quite an education, in addition to being a great story.

5. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey. Helped me focus on the goals I wanted to attain during my lifetime.

6. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. In my opinion, the most perfect book ever written.

7. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. As a child raised in the 1960’s and 70’s, this book brought home the meaning of racial inequality like no other to me.

8.  The Oxford American Dictionary. Hello! It’s filled with WORDS!! Fabulous words!!

9. The Bible. This one needs no explanation.

10. Become a Better You by Joel Osteen. This book really did help make me a better person.

So, what are the books that have influenced you?

4 Comments

Filed under Author, Characters, Contemporary Romance, Family Saga, Literary characters, Romance

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

August 23, 2014 · 4:43 pm

I need more time and less interruptions…

I never seem to have enough time in a day to write the way I want to write.  Make that, write the volume I want to write.

When I’m in the zone, I can sit at my laptop in my writing loft for the entire day and not do anything else but compose. If I am uninterrupted by phone calls, tweets and email announcements, I can pretty much chug along for the whole day. The longest I’ve ever gone is a solid 12 hours with a bathroom break every 2 hours to rid myself of the Diet Mountain Dew I imbibed like it was water.

Kinesiologists will tell you I am probably doing severe  damage to my legs, spinal cord, and butt from sitting in a dependent position all day, and there’s probably some truth to that. When I do get up I tend to be uberstiff and need to stretch all my long muscles to keep them from cramping.

But after I see the volume I’ve typed – the page count that’s been birthed – I know I can live with some muscle cramps if it means I am producing good work.

I hate to be interrupted.

I. Hate. It.

Especially when I am going along a great clip and the dialogue is flowing like pearls from my lips – yes, I speak aloud my dialogue when I write to make sure it sounds correct and like english – the descriptions are all dead on and the exposition isn’t filled with purple prose and platitudes. The plot is moving forward, the characters are growing appropriately and learning from scene to scene.  It feels good, this sense of accomplishment I get when the pages are racking up. I feel like I am putting together a coherent story  that can be followed by the reader, and – hopefully – liked.

But then reality sets in.

The door bell rings and it’s the hot UPS guy with a delivery. The phone pings and it’s a caller I have to talk to, not a telemarketer I can ignore. Dinner time rolls around and I have to cook for the family, not make reservations again for takeout or going out.

Twenty-four hours seems like a lot of time to a writer, but consider the time used in sleeping, eating, working ( if writing is not your means of support) family obligations, and anything else that can literally remove you from your word program. After all that, 24 hours isn’t so much.

If I get a solid hour or two on a working day, at least it’s something. On my days off, I strive for much more.

Sometimes I hit that goal, most times, not.

So, since I can’t wring out more than 24 hours in any given day, let’s try this instead: I won’t answer the phone – in fact I’ll put my cell to silent and then just check on it periodically. I’ll get all the chores of daily life done first and then devote the rest of my freedom to writing. I won’t answer emails, troll Facebook, or update my Twitter feed while I am writing. I will let it all go sideways, and straighten it out when I am done creating.

Sound like a plan?
Yeah, a really hard one to carryout…..sigh….

Leave a comment

Filed under Author, Contemporary Romance, Life challenges

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

August 21, 2014 · 9:05 am

How, exactly, do you do research for a Romance Novel?

Think about that question. Go ahead. I’ll give you a few minutes….

There are a thousand ways I can can answer it. Sarcastically, humbly, physiologically, literally…but you get it.

Author Jill Shalvis was recently asked this question in an interview and she did a pretty good job answering it. Because what, exactly, are people wanting to know when they ask that research question? We all have a pretty good idea. They don’t want to know how you got your info about being a master chef, the FBI, corporate raiding, or anything else that’s in your story. They want to know  how you did your research on…how you came to know about the…wait for it… SEX.

This is what the average lay person ( no pun!! Well…maybe) thinks a romance book really is. A sex novel. A book strife with page after page of position changes, body noises, multiple loud orgasms, and descriptions of unmentionable private body parts. The kinds most people don’t discuss aloud. But they do read about them. Frequently, if the romance novel selling stats are to be believed.

I’ve tried to answer this question as off handedly as I can when asked it. I really don’t know what people expect as an answer. Maybe they think I’ve visited a brothel and watched (Eeew!) the going’s on. Maybe then think I’m a secret porn video watcher, hidden in my bedroom, the lights and blinds drawn, the tv sound muted, just watching and categorizing what’s happening on the screen. Again, eeew! Maybe they think my husband and I are wild and crazy “swingers,” (Eeew, squared!) Whatever people think or believe, here’s the truth according to me, so therefore, here’s MY truth.

I’ve been a romance reader since my 20’s. I  like every kind of romance from sweet ( no sex) to sensual ( a little) to NC17( one step down from Erotica.) My research, for lack of a better word, has been done by reading the genre and getting to know the books and authors who write them.  And P.S. I am married and have had a child so I think I know how  the act is accomplished.

Sex is sex. It’s not hard ( insert pun), nor is it brain surgery. It’s a natural, beautiful expression of love, commitment, and basic biology. We need sex for propagation of the species, folks. We haven’t evolved into a species that reproduces its young in test tubes yet – please, God, that never happens.

What the book buying public has to be made aware of with regards to romance novels is that they are not about the sex. That is just a small component of the story. Romance novels are about the emotions of two people falling in love, the challenges they face along the way to their happily ever after, surviving those challenges and spending their lives together.  They are stories of commitment, emotional growth, self discovery, and yes, they have some variant of sex in them because they are about people and people have sex!

So the next time you meet an author who happens to write in the romance genre, DO NOT ask them how they do their research unless you are referring to how they learned to handle guns, rappel down a mountainside, drive a speedboat while being chased or came to understand survival training. Or anything else related to the story other than the sex question.

You can, simply, ask this: “So, what’s your book about?”

Believe me, the author will tell.

Leave a comment

Filed under Author, Contemporary Romance, love, research, Romance, Romance Books, RWA

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

August 16, 2014 · 8:48 am

But what do you do?

Ever been asked this by someone you’ve just met at a party or an event? I have. Too many times to count. My usual response is,  “As little as possible.” Snarky, I know, but hey…it works for me.

When it comes to what your characters do in life – specifically your heroines – there’s a wide range of fun and exciting occupations you can give them these days. Gone is the literary era where a woman could only be four things in a romance novel: a nurse, a teacher, a nanny, or a secretary. Not that those aren’t noble and good occupations. I’m a nurse, so I know that. But nowadays, to grab a reader and keep them occupied throughout your 200 plus page story, you need to be creative.

The world is wide open for our female characters, and hopefully gets wider every day we are on the planet.  There are more jobs and careers open to women now than at any other time in our history. And girls are going for it. They are smashing through that glass ceiling and coming through stronger, more united, and better educated than their mothers and grandmothers.

The gals in my stories usually have some kind of artistic bent. I like the way the artistic brain looks at the world. They’ve been professional photographers, portraits artists, murder/mystery writers, sculptors, and chefs. But I’ve also written stories where my female lead was a precog psychic who helped the police find missing children. One novel involves an FBI profiler who has intelligence off the chart, but can’t cook worth  a damn or even program her computer. One’s even a veterinarian.

As women forge forward in the corporate world ( Lean In, girls!) you can devise any kind of career  from CEO of her own company, CFO of a huge foreign conglomerate,  head of the IT devision, or even make her in charge of a military operation. Doctors, lawyers, politicians. All are there for the taking for your female leads.

The basic premise behind the romance – boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl – stays the same. So why keep your heroines in the same occupations we’ve seen forever?

Here’s a brief ( 2000+) list of occupations to peruse. Find one that fits with your heroine.

And don’t forget: no matter what job/occupation/career you give your girl, the cake of the story is the romance. The career is the frosting.

What kind of careers/jobs/occupations do your female leads have? Let me know and we can discuss!

Leave a comment

Filed under Author, Contemporary Romance, Romance, Romance Books

Tagged as , , ,

August 12, 2014 · 9:59 am

When the HEA, isn’t….

With the sad news of Robin William’s passing, I’m reflecting today on what makes each person’s happily ever after ending, and why, when it seems like someone has everything, they still have despair in their hearts.

I know he suffered from deep depression. My background, as some of you may  know, is in psychiatric nursing. I’ve been around deeply depressed people for most of my life both professionally and personally, and I know the real horror when someone feels there is no hope left and suicide is the only option to end  the pain and suffering.

Mr. Williams was a man who, on the outside, appeared to everything his heart could desire. An icon status career, multiple professional accolades and awards, three beautiful, loving children and a spouse who adored him. His talent was beyond description. He was the end goal every comedian wanted for themselves: talented, rich, respected, successful.

Why then, wasn’t  this enough?

Or, was it too much?

Was it, in fact, too much to deal with? Having a stellar career,  constantly being  in the public eye, never knowing who really likes you for you and not because you’re famous? I tend to think when people have achieved such a pinnacle of success the only place they feel for them to go now is downward. That thought alone can spark a depression that is biting.

Actors aren’t the only people who are held to levels the average mortal isn’t.The list of iconic writers who have killed themselves because of depression is a long one. It includes, but isn’t limited to, John Kennedy Toole,  Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, Hunter S. Thompson, This is a short list of 20th century writers who found the path to death easier than dealing with life. Unfortunately, a Google search will give you many – too many – more.

We never really know what goes on in another person’s mind. We can try to walk in their shoes and attempt to understand what they are going through, but we will never know the true sense of what they feel, experience, and fear.

Happily ever afters occur in books, Romances,in particular. But in real life, the ever after is fraught with sometimes insurmountable  life situations and concerns.

If you know someone who is depressed or suffering from depression-like symptoms, extend a hand, mentally and physically. Sometimes, the time frame between a person acting on their thoughts and being helped is a millisecond.

Everyone deserves their HEA, in fiction and real life.

Leave a comment

Filed under Author, Contemporary Romance, Life challenges, research

Tagged as , , , , ,

August 10, 2014 · 5:11 pm

Settling in, kinda

I’m finally coming down off cloud 9, where I’ve been for the past week since I heard my book is going to be published by The Wild Rose Press. It’s been a loco week with family, friends and writing friends Facebooking and Tweeting me. Can you make Facebook a verb? I think I just did.

Anyway.

I’m not sitting back and enjoying this 24/7. I’ve been concentrating on pulling together several other stories I’ve written in the hopes of getting them into print as well. I’ve logged a lot of typing miles on my laptop this past week and I’ve got a lot of work to show for it.

This got me thinking: I have two real jobs now – the one I get paid for every two weeks and now this writing/publishing hat I’ve put on.  Where am I going to get the time to do both jobs well, plus maintain my life? How am I going to be able to  budget the time to do all of this: life’s dream and the reality of still pulling in a paycheck. Not to mention laundry, housework, cooking, seeing friends and family and being a great wife?

It’s a little mind boggling when you think about it.

I can usually multitask well – or at least it was well until I hit menopause. Now, I’m scattered at times and not easily able to get it all back on track. There are only so many workable hours in the day, and even though I don’t sleep well – or a lot – it’s still going to be a major adjustment to find the time that  I will need to devote to edits, when they arrive, and then do all the marketing and publicity necessary in order to actually sell a few books.

Or a million.

I need a plan. Any ideas? I appreciate any and all responses no matter how trite or intricate they seem to be. And thanks in advance.

Leave a comment

Filed under Author, Contemporary Romance, Life challenges, love, MacQuire Women, Romance, Romance Books, Skater's Waltz

Tagged as ,

August 7, 2014 · 2:59 pm

Goals, deadlines and summer…oh my!

My big news of the past 24 hours is out. If you haven’t heard it yet, my novel SKATER’S WALTZ has been contracted for publication by The Wild Rose Press. To say I am over the moon is such an inadequate descriptor for what I am feeling right now.

What I am  feeling is: overwhelmed, not worthy, scared, fretful, fearful, impatient, shocked,uncertain, uneasy and worried. That’s 10 kinda negative emotions.

So here are ten positive ones – and these are definitely positive emotions: amazed, elated, gleeful, giddy, relieved, reborn, speechless (really!!??), flabbergasted, dumfounded and blown away.

Note to self: never ask a writer to describe something.

That sound you just heard was me falling on the floor. When I pick myself back up I have to start putting together a marketing plan. Books don’t sell themselves. You have to have a fully realized marketing and publicity plan in place before the book is even out.

I think I’ll stay on the floor a few more minutes and just bask in my glee.

More to come on this great news when I have it to share.

2 Comments

Filed under Author, Contemporary Romance, Family Saga, love, MacQuire Women, Romance, Romance Books, Skater's Waltz, Strong Women

Tagged as ,