Growth

With each new year, one of the ideas that gets tossed around is, instead of making resolutions, to pick a word the embodies what you want to accomplish in the coming twelve months and figure out how to accomplish it. So, in the spirit of things, I've selected my word–GROWTH–and have begun to set things in motion.

The first item to take care of was to take inventory of what I want to apply the word to. Certainly not to my body. We don't need any more growth there. I'm continuing my three-times-a-week workouts at the health club to keep growth from happening. No, what I want to apply the word to is my writing career. I took a workshop last week that helps in that regard and am wrapping up the filling in the blanks and gaining perspective on where the career has been. Now, I need to implement a plan for where the career is headed.

To help with my forward progress, I hired an author coach to help me strategize. Already, I can see a way forward. When I regain the rights to Winning Violet, the first book in my Regency Flower Girl series, I will have books two and three finished and be able to present them as a package to a publisher. And, as a kind of offshoot on these stories, I am working on another story that takes place in the same time period, but in America. I'd like to work in some of the culture of my new home state, North Carolina. If for no other reason than an excuse to take some road trips.

And speaking of road trips–providing things move forward during the year, I am poised to take my first-ever European vacation late in the year. Can't believe it's taken me this long to cross the pond, but fingers crossed, this will be just the beginning of my growth there. You can do all the research you want, but nothing will add spice to your story line more than actually walking the streets you are describing, visiting the battlefields, or, for that matter, being on a ship in the middle of a vast ocean.

Stay tuned!

What To Do?

Most of us who write walk around holding imaginary conversations in our heads with our characters. Sometimes these one-sided talks are lively and productive, but sometimes, our characters have minds of their own.

Such is the case with my latest couple–Lily and Angus. I've tried to write their story three different ways now, and just when I think I've got the right formula, one of them does something to totally overturn my plans. Their mutual attraction, upon which neither can act, is about to kill me.

I do some of my best plotting while floating in the pool at my nearby health club.

I haven't been able to get there for the past week, due to family being in town and other obligations. But I plan to go this afternoon, to ponder which road to take Lily down while I float in an Olympic-sized salt-water pool. If I don't drown, I just might have another chapter to write upon my return. Or maybe Angus (or Lily) will hold my head under the water.

Stay tuned.

Character Development

There's a theory in the writing community that in order to make your characters believable, you need to know them inside and out. Some people do character sketches and go way beyond hair and eye color, getting fixated on what caused their internal conflict as well as their external ones.

Each author has a different approach to crafting a new story, so here's mine: I write a beat sheet, a couple sentences for each of the 15 points that will carry the story from start to finish. Then, I write a synopsis, expanding on the beat sheet to make it into two or three pages. I put together a bible if I'm writing a series, but I merely list age, hair and eye color and any distinguishing marks or traits of my characters. Nothing about their conflicts. I want to know the route the story is going to take and I figure out how many miles I can go in a day, but if I have a few detours along the way, or an interesting sight alongside the road attracts my attention and makes me slow the story until I check it out, I'm okay with it.

Every good story needs a cast of characters other then hero/heroine. After all, we all have family, friends, neighbors, business acquaintances, etc. Most of the time, they play bit parts and their time on the pages is minimal. However, there are times when these characters demand to stand up and be counted.

Such is the case with my latest WIP. My hero owned a detective agency and I needed to give him a case other than the big one, to make his agency legit. I chose a philandering husband and a wife with means. Little did I know the mistress would become a character who demanded to be treated not merely for her charms as a courtesan, but as an intelligent, beautiful woman. She quickly morphed from being called Miss Sumptuous Breasts, a casualty of their detective work, to the classic beauty, Anjanette Shelby.

I've had other books where the secondary characters won't leave me alone and I usually write their stories later. Such was the case with my Legend Award winning hero Jake, who first surfaced in Banking On Temperance when he was every bit the gentleman when Temperance spurned him for Basil. Now, before I even go through the editing process and put a spit polish on Remembering Iris, the next Flower Girl novel, my courtesan, Anjanette, is tapping me on the shoulder demanding for her entire story to be written.

Patience, patience Miss Sumptuous Breasts. I'll get to you.

Stormy Weather

June 1st is the official start of hurricane season, a fact I didn't really care about while in Ohio. It's a different story now that I'm in North Carolina.

The past few nights have been filled with the weather folks urging all in the viewing area to get their hurricane preparedness kits in order. I had to do a Google search to find out what is considered essential in such a kit. The list is this: Food bars, water, AM/FM radio with batteries, candle, emergency bright stick, whistle and waterproof matches, in addition to emergency medical supplies. Whew! I'm going to have to stock up slowly. It may take all summer to compile my kit.

Which makes me realize this latest necessity in my life isn't that much different from my writing kit. I started out slowly, becoming a PRO member of RWA, joining the local chapter, taking classes, attending workshops, all in an effort to compile my writing toolbox, a term used by Stephen King. Along the way I added to the toolbox, turning PRO status into PAN when my first book got published, continuing to enter contests and attend workshops, working with an agent. I added in an editing software program to the mix. I slowly compiled things into my writing toolbox, and six years after my first book was published, I have come to the realization the toolbox will never be completely filled. There's always something new going on in the publishing industry, which is changing at such a rapid pace, it's hard to keep up.

What's next on the horizon? As I gear up for hurricane season, I'm also gearing up for big things to come in the second half of the year, writing-wise. I'll be re-releasing the first four books in the Cotillion Ball series, and am hard at work on the Regency series and my brides book. Lily, Iris and Poppy are eager to show off their men to you, and Jake is ready to tell us who has won his heart. Stay tuned!

Finishing Touches

If you follow me on Facebook, you know already that my trusty hammer is still on a pegboard in Ohio.

I'll be picking up a spare one from my brother-in-law today and will finally be able to start hanging pictures. I consider picture location one of the final acts of getting settled into a new home. I've already begun to position some of them where I think they'll end up, but one never knows until something's on the wall whether it's in the right location.

While all this has been going on, I've also been given the boot by Simon & Schuster, along with all my fellow Crimson authors.

While I work to get my rights reverted to me on the eleven books I have with them, I was putting the finishing touches on the second book in my new Flower Girl series. Book One, Winning Violet,  has been out since December, but S&S isn't willing to continue the series. As I see it, I have two choices here: 1) I can finish book 2, write books 3 & 4 while I wait to get my rights back for book 1 and position myself to self-publish the entire series next year, or 2) I can find a publisher who doesn't care if they have all the books in the series under their flagship and only care if the writing is good.

Since the first option means going an entire year with no income from this series and then having a considerable outlay of cash to get the four books ready next year, Option One is not feasible. That leaves me with Option Two. Readers don't look twice at who the publisher is, unless they are also an author, so I decided to pursue my second choice. Instead of abandoning Losing Lily, the second book in the series, I put the finishing touches on the manuscript and got it ready to head out into the world. Simon & Schuster had given me a due date of April 15, so I kept myself on track, even during my convoluted move to North Carolina. I finished the final edits on it this past week, so all I need do is read through it once more before sending it off to the interested publisher, who has vision enough to not care if they don't have the rights to Book One. A good series is a good series, regardless of who produces it. So Losing Lily and her beloved maze, not to mention her beloved Scotsman, may see the light of day yet. And I feel like I've been through the publishing gauntlet, trying to find a new home for the series.