I’ve been meaning to follow up on a blog I wrote in May of 09 about Bad Boys. In researching for that blog, I found this article How To Be A Bad Boy By Matthew Fitzgerald- Relationship Correspondent.
When I first read it, I thought it must have been written as tongue in cheek. SURELY this guy wasn’t for real. I mean, come on. I couldn’t believe some of his advice to men. “Act as if you couldn’t possibly care less about getting women.” And “Be indifferent and don’t show you care.” And how about this bit of wisdom: “Get her off the pedestal. Run the relationship by your rules, not hers.” And here’s my personal favorite, “For women, guys who are too available are boring. Bad Boys are selfishly independent. Women always want what they can’t have, so make yourself busy and scarce. –Let her do some work to get you.”
Okay, this guy is just BEGGING to be made into a Blaze hero. I can just picture his backstory: BURNED by a woman in his past, he has become the consummate “player”. The serial dater who never lets his heart get involved and thinks relationships with women are all about playing a game. But in my Blaze story, this “player” would finally get what was coming to him. That is a woman who loves him with all her heart and won’t put up with his game-playing. My Blaze Bad Boy would finally come to realize not all women “want what they can’t have” and are ready for a real, grown-up relationship where there is mutual respect and a love so deep and true he would be a fool to let it slip through his callused, bad-boy hands.
Actually, I’m writing a book just like that right now. It’s the third in my Vegas fighter pilot series and features Captain Mitch McCabe, Bad Boy extraordinaire. McCabe is the ultimate player. But he wasn’t always. In his early twenties he wanted nothing more than to fall in love, settle down, and have the kind of happy home life he never had as a child growing up on the bad side of Memphis.
Hmm, makes me wonder about this “relationship correspondent”, Matthew. Did he have his heart broken by a woman in his past? Has he actually used his own advice? If he has, how often did it work for him? And if it worked, did it make him happy? Is he in a successful relationship now?
I guess a lot of writers wonder about other people’s lives; their past experiences and motives, their loves and losses. And then we start playing “what if…” I would love to talk to this Matthew Fitzgerald. To be fair, if you read the entire article, he does have a few bits of advice with which I agree. He just might be tamable. Hmm, a romance novelist who sets out to teach a Bad Boy “relationship correspondent” a lesson in what a woman really wants. Oh, the story I could write…

What about you? Are you curious about other people’s lives?

I hope you don’t mind if I put you to work today. But I have a question and I hope it’ll be a fun one. I’m teaching a class called Writing Popular Fiction this fall, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot today. I’m asking the students to write an opening chapter and a synopsis during the course. It’s a task that sounds fun to me, but I know there might be a few who weren’t expecting to wade so deeply into storytelling during an undergraduate course.

Still, I’m convinced that there’s a story inside us all just waiting to get out. Maybe most people don’t have twenty or thirty or a hundred the way some prolific authors do. But I think we all have at least ONE.

Some people don’t have the desire to tell the story, of course. I know some folks flat-out don’t enjoy writing. That doesn’t stop the story from lurking inside us! Haven’t we all thought at some point, “That would make a good story.” It seems like everyone I meet—who isn’t a writer—tells me at some point that they have a great idea for a book. The writers I know, of course, have ideas for books too but they keep them for their own Muse to work on.

One of my favorite authors, Clarissa Pinkola Estes wrote a book called Women Who Run With the Wolves. As a cantadora, or storyteller, Estes talks about the story as medicine and our need to carry on the storytelling legacy. She writes, “Although some use stories as entertainment alone, tales are, in their oldest sense, a healing art.” Look how much we learn about life and ourselves from stories. And frankly, I think some of the stories that are fore entertainment are healing in and of themselves since occasionally we crave the total escape that only fiction can offer. That ability to travel into a book is one of the most healing pastimes I know.

Assuming we all have a story to tell, what would yours be? That’s my question today and I hope you’ll take a moment to think about it. Maybe you’ll shout out the answer the moment I ask the question because you already have an idea for a self-help treatise for people married couples or a memoir about your childhood in a foreign country. But if you haven’t already got a book idea brewing, what kind of fiction story would you tell if you had the talents of a writer at your disposal to put the idea on paper? They say the best story to write is the one you want to read. So maybe you can ask yourself what kind of book you’d like to read in order to answer the question.

I know I’d like to read something historical and paranormal. Something involving magic and romance. I’d also like to read a great twin story in Blaze… maybe as an Encounters. So… what story ideas are brewing in you?

**I’m giving away a copy of any book from my backlist to one random poster today.

Take Me If You Dare was officially released yesterday. I’m so friggin’ excited I can barely stand it. In the publishing world the book came out pretty fast, but it still feels like I’ve been waiting forever. I can’t wait for you guys to read it.

Funny how these things come about. It began at a breakfast meeting in Summer 2008 with long-time friend Kathryn Lye, who also happens to be one of the editors of the Harlequin Blaze line. I met Kathryn years ago at local event where I was forced into teaching line dancing for an RWA outing. It’s a long funny story that maybe I’ll share some time. But the important thing for you to know about that night was that I became friends with Kathryn.

We bonded over television and movies. She was curious about what was coming up for the fall season, and of course I had all the scoop. Each year we tried to get together to say hello, have a meal or watch pilots during RWA. Then that summer in 2008 we had breakfast in San Francisco. As usual we talked about everything from our families to TV to books. She always was kind about asking what I was working on, and I told her that I wanted to try my hand at writing something like the Woman’s Murder Club meets Burn Notice. Sexy detectives and spies coming together and solving cases.

She said that sounded like something that would work for Blaze. I was shocked. She told me to put together a proposal. My agent thought it was an awesome idea, and that, my friends is how the Stonegate Investigative Agency came to be. My idea was that these very strong women who ran the agency would have to deal with cases all over the world. Of course, they’d also fall in love.

Mariska, my heroine in Take Me if You Dare owns the agency that was bequeathed to her by her mother. But it was the hero, who really brought this book to life for me. Jackson is a burned CIA agent and all he wants to do is get out of Bangkok. It was kind of my ode to “Burn Notice” and that sexy Michael Westin (Jeffrey Donovan). Jackson needed a heroine who could hold her own, and that is how Mariska was born. Of course, you “Law & Order” fans know where I stole that name from and it fits this character.

What I like, and yes I know I wrote it, is that even though there are mob guys and intrigue, there is also a lot of humor. Jackson and Mariska are fun, sexy couple, who always seem to find themselves in trouble. I had a blast writing their adventure and I hope you’ll enjoy it too!

I’m celebrating all month and have lots of ways for you to win cool prizes, so be sure to check out www.candacehavens.com. Oh and you can check out the first episode of RAW CANDY where I talk about books, television, movies and celebs at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6B3slnuGVk

I’d like to hear about your all-time favorite romantic couples. Do you have one couple that stands out above all the rest? Tell me, I want to know!

I think I know why people read romances. I figured that out at thirteen when I found a Harlequin Presents left behind at the family cottage. But why write romance when there are so many “loftier” forms of literature?

Way back when I first decided to write a novel, I was thrilled to join a small, apparently dedicated group of writers who met once a week in a community building. They were “fiction writers” and I joined with bright-eyed enthusiasm and barrels of energy, eager to learn and absorb all they were willing to share.

The group consisted of a retired English teacher, an extremely talented writer married to a musician who was convinced he was the only creative in the family and she didn’t deserve the time to study craft or to write. There was a family man who wanted to write adventure. Another member sold non-fiction articles and had a fabulous idea for a women’s fiction novel. We had a woman married to a professor (for some reason she thought his position was relevant in terms of her ’standing’ in the group) She was convinced that literary fiction was the only thing worth writing.

I found this group in October of that year…and had already begun my first romance novel. By January, I’d completed a partial and had queried Harlequin to see if they’d be interested. I never considered not querying. The whole thing of you write, you submit, you write, you submit just made sense.

Apparently I was alone in that theory. As time moved along, I realized not a one of them had ever submitted their work (aside from the article writer that is).

The retired teacher was actually afraid of what her family would think. This was a woman well into her middle years who’d raised a family, had a successful career and a genuine love of the written word.

By the next fall, I’d had my first rejection from Harlequin, (the first of many!) had found the local chapter of RWA, and was working on a new story. I wrote, I submitted, I wrote . . .

The chance to do a reading from our works in progress came to the group. I was asked not to read. Why? Because I wrote romance, and you know, they didn’t want the writing group’s rep to be tarnished. Huh.

I went to the reading: heard a member read a poem by Robbie Burns instead of his own work. Other people in the group finally admitted they hadn’t actually been writing and had nothing to read.

And these people were encouraging me to stop writing romance. Huh.

I write romance because I believe in romance. I believe love is what makes us get up in the morning. It is a driving force in our lives. Love makes us connect with others, makes us have pets, makes our lives glorious and miserable and messy and beautiful.

Love makes life . . . life

. . . and I wouldn’t trade my romance writing for anything else.

And if I feel a twinge of validation for my efforts and in my career I hope you’ll forgive me. There’s a five year old in most of us who gets a one-shot at blowing raspberries and when my first Harlequin Blaze hits the stands in a few weeks, imagine me, mouth pursed, blowing the biggest juiciest raspberry EVAH!

Okay, I admit it, I have some wild and crazy friends. One of the things I both love and sometimes don’t love about this bunch is that they push me out of my comfort zone. Sometimes waaay out. Which is how I find myself today going clothes shopping to several stores I have never before been inside.

Gulp.

Here’s a hint, they sell a lot of black – leather, pvc, mesh and so on. One was called Dare to Wear.

 

 

 

 

This is because I am joining said crazy friends at a club on Saturday called Sin City. I would send you photos of me (snort) but no photos are allowed in this club. There is, I am told, an area downstairs called the dungeon. I would wear my normal twin set and pearls, but it seems there is a dress code. Show up in fetish gear or go home. Apparently, twin sets and pearls constitute a different kind of fetish. Hmm.

 

Of course, I am going in the name of research. And I hear the dancing there is really great. Naturally, I will report back. Hopefully not from the dungeon!

Update on the shopping trip: I actually did really well at H&M. Got a darling little black dress covered in metal studs, which is apparently all the rage. Who knew? And black chunky heels that I will never be able to walk in.  Long black gloves and a friend is lending me her red wig. Should be fun.

Anybody  have any experience of these kind of clubs?

What’s the craziest thing your friends have ever talked you into?

Tell all!

Your intrepid researcher,

Nancy aka Nancarella

I’ve decided I don’t want to do New Year’s resolutions any more. They cause me too much stress. Every year it’s the same. I promise to eat better and exercise. I promise to work smarter not harder. I promise to travel and spend more time with family. By February everything is hopeless and I feel like a failure because I haven’t done any of those things.

So I’m trying something different. A little reverse psychology. As long as I make my daily deadlines for columns and such, and my book deadlines, I’m free to do whatever I want. Well, within reason. I’m taking two graduate classes this semester so that will go into the mix. I also have some speaking engagements and things like that I have to do. BUT other than than, my time is my own.

Freedom. It’s something I haven’t allowed myself in a long time. Say I want to take a nap on a Thursday afternoon, well I’m free to do that if I want. I no longer want to make myself feel guilty, because I should be working. If I want to spend an hour trying to get through that last castle on the Mario Bros. game, I can. If I want to sleep in on a Saturday, throw the ball with the dogs, and eat gluten-free pizza for breakfast, I can do that too.

I have tendency to always come from this place of guilt. It’s one of the reasons I’m so productive. I never give myself a break, but that’s about to change. Mind you, it’s not any kind of resolution, I’m calling it Grace. Giving myself Grace. Time to figure out what it is that makes me happy. Take exercise for example: I don’t like traditional exercises like running and tae bo kind of stuff. But I do love to dance. And I love the Wii games where you do downhill skiing and snowboarding. The NFL has this new campaign to get kids moving. It’s called Play 60 (Or something like that). They’re idea is to get kids outside and moving. I’m using it a bit differently. I want to do something for 60 minutes a day that makes me smile.

What I want from you are some ideas. What are some fun things I could try? What would you like to try?

May I suggest you check out the upcoming release TAKE ME IF YOU DARE. It’s loads of fun and I can guarantee you’re going to have a good time. It’s available in ebook this month and in print in February.

Are you making any resolutions this year? Are you trying any fun and crazy things? Tell me, I want to know.

NaNo

If you see this word and are of a certain generation, you might just think Mork from Ork. It was actually Na-Nu Na-Nu, but it’s still what I think about when I see it written.

Anyway, this is an acronym for the National Novel Writing Month – 30 Days and nights of literary abandon! It runs from November 1-30th and many many writers I know not only participate, they complete whole rough drafts of a novel during that time. For more information, check out their website here.

Despite my urgings to move NaNo to March due to the week long break I take to clean house and cook so I can have my entire family over for the Thanksgiving holiday, NaNo is firmly set in the time of Science Fair and PTA Reflections. This is pretty rough – but that’s not an excuse. You can always mentally move NaNo into another month that works best for you, or still do a month of work, just break it down into one week timeframes throughout the year.

I’ve put together a running list of things that I have to do BEFORE I start NaNo – feel free to add to this list – it’s fun to see other ideas.

1. Laundry. Wash every towel, delicate and school spirit t-shirt. Inform family that any “special” item of clothing that needs to be cleaned must be requested BEFORE November 1 and if not, they will have to do laundry themselves. This last part CAN be dangerous, and I must admit I’m a bit controlling when it comes to laundry in the Monroe household.

2. Inform family members and friends what you are doing, and that you’re on an “emergency only” phone status until November 30. During this time, I don’t answer the house phone, but keep my cell phone nearby – people who MUST get a hold of me know that number.

3. Cooking. This is my big time waster because I cannot make meal plans. I just never know what I want to eat for dinner a week ahead. My husband and I usually decide what we’re going to eat in the evening (and who’s going to cook) over the phone in the morning. So I do end up going to the grocery store about every other day, but in NaNo – we stick to a true meal plan (even if I don’t feel like pizza that night). We also eat a lot more frozen foods. And sandwiches, but I also bring out a lot of crockpot meals (which last longer than just one meal). Here’s my favorite crockpot meal – and I’d love to read yours!

Mulligan Stew

Sausage (optional)
Stew Meat
3 Potatoes
Green Beans
Cabbage
2 Roma Tomatoes
Carrots
Celery
2 Cubes Beef Bouillon
Green Onion

Brown meat and throw in crockpot. Prepare veggies as desired and toss in crockpot. Boil two cups of water, add bouillon cubes and pour into crockpot. Heat on high for four hours – easy breezy!

4. Writing – During a NaNo you should be free to absolutely write, so prep work ahead of time might be research, character worksheets and a working synopsis.

5. Have fun with it!

The NaNo might not be the right thing for you at this time – one thing I tell people who ask me how to write a book is that if you write one page a day, just one, you’ll have a book done in a year!

Good luck. I’d love to hear any experiences you might have with a NaNo and don’t forget to share those recipes – I’m always on the lookout for something good!

My first Blaze is on the stands! Whoo hoo! I was looking forward to its release because the number one question I’m asked is, “Where do you get your ideas?” and this time, I’ve got an easy answer. Naturally, no one has asked me that about this book. But the month is young.

UNDRESSED is four stories about couples who overhear conversations in the dressing rooms sharing a wall between a bridal salon and a tux rental shop. The idea for the book came from shopping for a wedding dress with my sister, who got married last year. You would not believe some of the conversations we overheard in the fitting rooms. At one point, I wondered what would happen if the grooms could hear their brides and future mothers-in-law talking . . . and a book was born.

I made up the conversations in the book. The real ones were too unbelievable. A lot of what happens in real life is too unbelievable to use in a book.

For example, at my sister’s wedding last May, I, as matron of honor, am standing next to her, listening as the minister preaches about marriage before the nitty gritty of exchanging vows and rings.

Now, what’s the classic cliché here? The missing ring, of course.

Yes. A horrible, awful, terrible feeling goes through me as I realize that I don’t have the ring. It’s on the table in the bride’s dressing room.

As I am thinking of how I can sneak off the dais and retrieve the ring without anyone noticing, I am also thinking that I could never use this in a book because it’s such a cliché. I turn to the other bridesmaid and mouth, “I don’t have the ring.”

She smiles and mouths back, “I have the ring.”

I go limp with relief. She discreetly hands it to me and I stick it on my thumb. Moments later, I hear, “May I have the rings?” And that’s when I go for cliché number two–the stuck wedding ring.

I’d been working with the flowers and my hands–and thumb–were sticky from florist’s tape. Since by now I was holding the bride’s bouquet as well as mine, I tried to slide the ring off my thumb with the fingers of the same hand. There was no sliding. The ceremony pauses as the minister waits for me to give him the ring. My sister thinks I’m joking. Finally, I pass off a bouquet and use my other hand to remove the ring because I’m afraid it’ll suddenly become unstuck and go shooting across the dais.

You’d never believe that in a book. I didn’t believe it as it was happening. But I can use the idea, if I make up something more convincing and less like real life.

It’s June! What are your wedding stories?

In the last 18 months or so, I have had the chance to write three Blaze short forms, novellas. I’ve found, as a person, I like both long and short projects for different reasons. For instance, when it comes to sewing, I make large quilts than can take me a year to finish (or more), and those are really wonderful to see come together, but I also love to make bags and small projects I can finish in a day, because I get the immediate gratification, and I learn a different set of skills. It works the same with writing.

I have an online read (which I believe starts on Aug 17 on eHarlequin — the title is Caught by Surprise and it’s a linked story to my October “Dressed to Thrill” Blaze, Caught in the Act), and my other two novellas are anthology books, my story “No Reservations” which came out last July in the What I Did On My Summer Vacation collection, and my upcoming 2010 Bedtime Stories two-fer. All of these novellas were different lengths, different formats, and from them I get that same short-term, immediate gratification blast that I get from any other short project — it’s a brief, intense experience that teaches you a lot about focus and pacing in a whole different way than writing a full novel. I also learn to be flexible in my story telling, to break out of the well-worn lessons we learn in writing long contemporary.

I love writing the short form, though I know some people find it more difficult. But I also love subplots, and I suppose those are a kind of short format, as well. I think I’ve brought some of that focus and speed that a short-form teaches you back to my regular book writing. I hope so, anyway. I find the expansiveness of the longer book a much bigger challenge. In a long book I need to dig deep and pull out a lot of layers, an experience that I find satisfying in a different way, like mining for gold. But it can be stressful, and stressful over a longer period of time. Still, I think writing shorter format has taught me how to get into stories faster and how to hit a level of intensity in a more focused way, and I think that will make writing longer books more interesting as well.

As a reader, I tend to like full-length books over anthologies or serials. I don’t even like short chapters — I never understood how people enjoyed The DaVinci Code because it was so chopped up for me, all those one or two page chapters, it drove me batty. I didn’t feel like I could get into it, like having commercial breaks every 3 pages. I like the feeling, as a reader, of really soaking up a story and staying in there for a while, and shorts never let me do that. However, though now that I’ve discovered how much fun they are to write, I think I will go get some anthologies and read some novellas b/c I have a feeling I would read them differently now, too.

How about you? Reader or writer, long or short, or both? What are the benefits and downsides for each? Share, and for those of you following me long in my blog tour, this post counts to qualify you in my contest to win a handmade bag and signed books (details at ). Even if you missed my initial post, it’s not too late to join the tour starting with this blog, so I hope you’ll hop on and follow me through June blogging.

Sam

Twelve years ago, I began writing my first novel. I was fresh out of college, having studied to be an English teacher. I still had my teaching internship to do in the fall, and I was terrified. I knew student teaching was going to be difficult, especially for a shy, awkward girl with a monotone voice and the stage presence of a cucumber.

I thought I should do something easy in the meantime to distract myself, something like, you know, write and sell a 300-page novel. I was sure I could do it. After all, I had a bunch of college essays under my belt.

I wrote a book in about six weeks, and I was thrilled when I held in my hands that hefty manuscript (a bit of trivia: the title of the book was Desert Rose). I packed it up and sent it off to a publisher. The same day, I also went to the library, thinking, hmm, well, while I’m waiting for the publisher to send me my first check, I should study up on writing a bit so that my second novel will be even better than the first.

I checked out a stack of how-to-write-fiction books, and I hadn’t made it through chapter one of the first book before I was overcome with dismay. In the author’s description of all the glaring mistakes first-time novelists make, I saw my own beloved novel. I’d made every beginner’s mistake, and I suspected I’d even invented a few new ones.

I didn’t have to wait long for my belief to be confirmed by a second opinion. Less than a week after I’d mailed the manuscript, it came winging back to me with a form rejection letter attached.

I wasn’t shocked at the speed of the rejection. By that point, I’d read all the how-to-write-fiction books, and I could tell by re-reading the first page of my novel—the first paragraph even—that it sucked. I knew the editor was right. I had to start over from scratch.

Which I did. Many, many times.

I went on to do my teaching internship, but afterward my then-husband’s job transferred us to a rural town in Germany for the next five years. I couldn’t find work there as a teacher, so I had lots of time to write.

After four years of frustration, rejection, and self-doubt, I got my first hint that I might not completely suck as a writer—I was a finalist in the Golden Heart contest. Then I got my first agent. And five years from the time I started writing Desert Rose, I made my first sale to Harlequin Temptation and my second sale to Blaze.

The moral of the story? I’m not sure. The stupidity of youth can pay off? Writing leads to lots of frustration and angst? It’s important to read the how-to manual before you write the 300-page novel?

What did you do when you were young and stupid that you’re most glad you did, because you might not have had the guts to try it once you knew better? I’ll send copies of my first two published novels, Some Like It Sizzling and Pleasure for Pleasure (or winner’s choice of any other two), to the person who posts my favorite answer to this question.