April 26, 2008

In it for the Long Haul

I’m so thrilled to visit with you today. I appreciate Cindy inviting me!

My first book, a Steeple Hill Love Inspired titled Her Unlikely Family, just came out in February, and two things about this journey recently occurred to me:

1. I started writing when my middle child was nursing—holding him in one arm while typing with the other hand. He’s now 13.
2. When I used to need writing time, I would bribe my three children by telling them if they would let Mommy write, then I would use money from my first advance to buy them a swing set. Hmmm. My oldest is about to graduate from high school, and my youngest is now 11. She’s almost as tall as I am, and her feet would drag the ground on an old-fashioned swing set.

Obviously, it took much longer than expected.

When I started on the road to publication, I never, ever would have imagined waiting this long. In fact, when I sat down and first started to act as a professional and wrote down goals, my number one goal was to be published in 5 years.

Okay, you can quit laughing now. I realize how silly that was, not because it can’t be done in 5 years, but because it’s not something I can control. And yes, I was very naïve, then.

This business isn’t for the faint of heart. And it isn’t for those who give up easily. Stubbornness can be an asset (and luckily, I have those stubborn genes). I’ve also been blessed with lots of writing friends in my local RWA chapter and also online writing groups. They’ve kept me going through the years. As well as my children who kept cheering me on, hoping for that swing set. And my husband, who wondered when I would ever quit spending his paycheck on books, conferences, and contests and actually make some money. 

But maybe taking this long wasn’t such a bad thing after all. For one, I believe it happened in God’s perfect timing. But, also, my children are now old enough to really enjoy the thrill with me. When that wonderful box came from Harlequin in December, after everyone cheered for me, my 13-year-old, a reader like me, grabbed one out of the box and took off to his room to devour it. He also grabbed one for his lit teacher. My oldest took one to church to show it off. And my youngest picked up my Alpha-smart to continue writing her own story. And then in February, our whole family made a trip to Walmart to see it on the shelf and to celebrate. All well worth the wait!

So what’s your dream, and how long have you been pursuing it? (Not necessarily writing related.) If you’ll leave a comment with contact info, I’ll enter you in a drawing for a copy of Her Unlikely Family!

April 17, 2008

Lisa Plumley Blogs About Opposites

Hello, Jaunties! Thanks a million for having me here.

It’s a pretty safe bet to say that men and women are the ultimate opposites. For instance, women excel at multitasking. We’re capable of compiling a datasheet, making a PB&J, phoning a friend to make plans for the weekend, and prying bubblegum out of a four-year-old’s hair…all at the same time. Men excel at focusing and making sense of spatial relationships. So if you need an IKEA bookcase assembled during a chaotic family reunion brunch, a man is your man. The typical male is unfazed by relatives arriving, children dropping water balloons, sweet-potato casseroles burning, and the very real possibility that Uncle Joe just parked his SUV in the neighbor’s prizewinning hydrangeas, sparking a block-wide feud. Until the job at hand is accomplished, everything else can wait.

I envy men their ability to focus. I also envy their confidence in their athletic prowess (even if their last slam dunk was in third grade), their fearlessness when hoisting little kids on their shoulders (it’s the only way to watch a parade), and their ability to pee standing up (face it, it’s convenient). Men are brave, protective, and willing to sit on the stadium bleacher with the caramel corn glued to it (so I don’t have to). They squash bugs. They work hard to be good providers, good boyfriends/husbands/friends, and good people. The world is a better place because men and women share it, and no one can convince me otherwise.

However, once you put men and women together, the results can be…hilarious! I mean, with two such divergent viewpoints, how can they not be? Maybe that’s why, in my books, I often pair up a hero and heroine who are *totally* different. After all, why not make the most of the possibilities? I love a good “opposites attract” story. It gets me every time.

So how about you? Do you believe opposites attract?

April 16, 2008

Kimberly Logan is Our Guest!

Okay, I know what you all are probably thinking. “Boy, didn’t we just get rid of this crazy broad a couple of months ago?” (Ahem. Not one word from you, Jaunty!) But my esteemed JQ sisters were kind enough to invite me back to talk about my latest release from Avon, SEDUCED BY SIN, which hit shelves on March 25th, and I was delighted at the opportunity to revisit my old stomping grounds and say hello to everyone. For those of you who are glad to see me, thank you so much for having me! For those of you who are not…well, putting up with me is better than one of Jaunty’s sharp quills in the eye.

In any case, I thought I would share a bit about SBS and fill you all in on some of the behind-the-scenes tid-bits on the writing of it. As always, I wrapped up this book with the usual conflicting mixture of happiness and sadness. But as this was the final book in my Daventry Sisters series, those emotions were even more profound than usual. Though I am looking forward to moving on to the next project, having to say goodbye to characters that have been such a big part of my life for the past three years was even more difficult than I had anticipated.

The youngest of the Daventry Sisters, Lady Aimee has long been haunted by the night she witnessed her mother’s murder. Only nine-years-old at the time, the trauma of the incident had caused her to erase most of the details from her memory. Suddenly, however, those memories have started to return as fragmented parts of her nightmares, and she is beginning to recall things that make her believe there may be more to what happened that long-ago evening than anyone might suspect. Enter Royce Grenville, Viscount Stonehurst. Scarred in more ways than one, Royce is the man Aimee has loved for years. Having once made the mistake of confessing her feelings to him, she had been ruthlessly cut out of his life without a backward glance, leaving her convinced that he cares nothing for her, and he is definitely the last person she wants to see now. Little does she know that his feelings for her go far deeper than he lets on. For his part, Royce has tried to keep the shy Aimee at a distance. But when her life is endangered by her returning memories, he is forced to step forward and act as her protector. Will they finally learn to put their tragic pasts behind them and move toward the future in each other’s arms?

Some tid-bits:

-Surprisingly enough, Aimee and Royce turned out to be the most stubborn characters I have ever created, and they caused me no end of headaches trying to get them to cooperate with my plans for the story. Even more so than Maura and Gabriel in THE DEVIL’S TEMPTATION, who took the prize before. Aimee and Royce both had their own ideas about how the tale should progress, and it took me a while to get them to interact the way I wanted them to!

-As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t usually picture a particular actor or famous person whenever I am creating a hero, but there are definite shades of Gerard Butler in Royce. Maybe its because of the whole scarred Phantom thing? LOL.

-Some of my favorite scenes to write involved eldest Daventry sister Jillian’s young twin sons, Thane and Roddy. I just adored them.

-When I originally sat down to plot out the overarcing mystery of the Daventry Sisters series, a different person was supposed to be the final culprit in the murder of Lady Albright. Can you guess who it was?

I hope that readers who pick up SEDUCED BY SIN will be satisfied, not only with Aimee and Royce’s love story, but with the solution to the mystery that has been at the center of the Daventry Sisters series!

April 7, 2008

TJ Bennett Blogs on The Legacy

My debut novel, The Legacy (April 2008), is a historical romance about the destructive nature of secrets. Set in 1525 Wittenberg, Germany, the novel weaves events occurring during the Early Reformation period into an intimate love story played out on the canvas of history.

I was inspired to write this outside-the-box historical romance about a printer and the runaway nun he is blackmailed into marrying when I came across a book entitled Martin Luther Had a Wife. The book described how the sixteenth-century religious reformer met and married Katherine von Bora, an ex-nun. She and eleven other nuns engineered a daring escape from a convent and fled to Luther’s doorstep in Wittenberg, asking for help in starting a new life. Luther decided to help the women, finding most of them husbands in a round of hasty matchmaking. The twelfth nun, Katherine von Bora, decided she’d rather marry Luther than anyone else, and theirs became one of the great love matches of history.

It got me thinking: What must it have been like for the other eleven women? They went from nun to wife in such a short time, most of them marrying strangers. And what if one of those women hadn’t wanted to marry the man chosen for her as a mate? The idea morphed into one of intrigue and suspense: What if an escaped nun was recaptured by her family and forced to marry a certain man for reasons she didn’t understand? And what if his reasons for marrying her were just as mysterious? Thus, The Legacy was born.

I created the three Behaim brothers to tell the story, one of whom is thrust into an arranged marriage with Sabina von Ziegler, a runaway nun with a tragic past. In the beginning, neither plans to consummate the marriage they each want to have annulled, but they find themselves challenged by a fiery passion they cannot resist. In addition, they must also solve a mystery revolving around why Sabina’s adopted father forced these two together in the first place. In the course of their discoveries, they find love and a truth that sets them free from their past.

While writing The Legacy, I also came across research describing the lives of the 16th century German mercenaries known as Landsknechts, or servants of the country. These mercenaries were hired by the Holy Roman Emperor, among others, to fight territorial battles between the major powers of the day (France, England, Germany, Spain, and the Low Countries). I was so fascinated with the difficult and spectacular lives of these men, I decided to make one of the Behaim brothers a mercenary fighting in Charles V’s Italian campaigns. Günter Behaim meets and falls for a Spanish blade artisan’s daughter who believes she is cursed. Their romantic adventure is featured in The Promise, available May 2009.

I hope readers will find the settings for these books a refreshing addition to their usual historical novels. If you’ve had a chance to read The Legacy, let me know what you think! You can stop by my website and read excerpts, send me an e-mail, check out pictures of conferences I’ve attended, and comment on my blog.

In addition, I’m giving away a free book and a $40 gift certificate to either B&N or GermanDeli.com (a German foods importer) to any one who comments on at least two of the blogs I’m touring. Comment here. For a list of the other places, check out my blog. Good luck!

April 3, 2008

Gayle Callen - Never Trust a Scoundrel

Hello! Thanks so much to the ladies of the Jaunty Quills for inviting me to blog. As you can guess, I’m here to talk about my new book, writing, and anything else you’re interested in! NEVER TRUST A SCOUNDREL was released this month by Avon, and it’s my sixteenth published book. Since I’ve been at this a decent amount of time now (ten years published), and this is the first book of a new series, I thought I’d share with you how I come up with my trilogies.

I can’t seem to conceive of an idea that stands alone. As I flesh out secondary characters, they’re always so interesting to me that they seem to demand their own book. Long ago I gave in to the inevitable and plotted in trilogies. After a while they even received trilogy names, like “Spies and Lovers,” “Sisters of Willow Pond,” and the newest, “Sons of Scandal.” I come up with an over-arching theme, like spies, penniless ladies, or with this new trilogy, a group of cousins who have to live with the scandal of their parents. I started with the male cousins first, and I hope to do a “Daughters of Scandal” trilogy next.

Each hero had to have his own reaction to the scandals in the family: one strives to be perfect, another tries to leave it all behind, and the third, Daniel Throckmorten of NEVER TRUST A SCOUNDREL, gives in to the notoriety and revels in his own scandals. Of course, our heroine, Grace Banbury, comes from a disgraced, scandalous family, and only wishes to live a quiet, secure life. They have opposite goals, which really helps the plotting! Daniel’s newest scandal involves a mortified Grace: he wins her in a card game against her mother. He offers his own wager to Grace: if he can’t seduce her into his bed in two weeks, she wins security for herself and her family. Grace thinks this will be easy, of course, since all she has to do is resist. But how can she resist a handsome, scandalous man, especially when she’s determined to reform him? If you want to check out an excerpt, you can visit my website at GayleCallen.com

I always try to make sure the reader doesn’t miss out if she reads the books out of order. So do you like reading trilogies, as long as each book stands alone?

March 31, 2008

Julianne MacLean Ponders the Ups and Downs of Finishing a Book

I am on top of the world today. Not only is it my birthday, but I just turned in my manuscript a month early. Let me just explain the inconceivable sense of relief and accomplishment inherent in that sentence. When you start a book, knowing you have a deadline to meet, the pressure, both creatively and professionally, can be intense. I usually like to estimate more time than I really need to write a book, in case I run into plot problems, or someone in my family gets sick. It also allows time to revise at the end, so that I can give my editor a more polished product. But with this current book, I had the opportunity to move up in the 2009 schedule if I could deliver early, so of course, I said, “No problem.”

What followed was pandemonium, a necessary flood of creativity, and a very messy house. I wrote the book faster than usual, which meant working evenings and weekends and missing some movies I really wanted to see in the theatre. (Thank goodness for DVDs.)

When I finished on the day I said I would, I was drunk with euphoria (and oh, how I loved the smell of the ink as my printer spit out 400 pages!). Now that I’ve taken it to the courier, I can emerge from under my rock. I can read the paper, go see movies, do laundry, and generally rediscover the world.

The thing that gives me mixed feelings, however, is that this book was the last in a multi-book deal, which means I am now officially unemployed. I’ll be submitting a new proposal to Avon, and if the fates are kind, I’ll continue to be a working writer. But right now, I have no deadline in sight, and that is both liberating and unsettling. How an author feels about this uncertain period between contracts can be a blessing or a curse. I think it depends on whether you’re a pessimist or an optimist.

Generally I’m an optimist, which mostly makes me feel good right now, because suddenly the possibilities are endless. I’m free to write something different if I so desire, just to see what might come of it. I get to dream up the concept for the next book, which will be the final book in my latest series. This is when creativity can really explode – when you have no commitment to any particular story idea (or contractual deadline), and you can imagine whatever you want.

Then of course, there are the financial ramifications. My experience in the past with signing a new contract has always been positive, because that’s when you get the “signing check” - usually the biggest portion of your advance, which is paid out in chunks as you deliver proposals and completed manuscripts in a multi-book deal. I love the signing check! All I need to do now is send out a new story idea…

In the interim, I’m happily attacking the massive laundry pile, and will be content to tackle seemingly mundane tasks over the coming weeks… even my taxes. I wonder if this is normal.

March 29, 2008

A Home Of His Own by Janette Kenny

Janette’s Bio:

Janette Kenny grew up on her family’s farm in Kansas, dreaming up plots and characters for the stories she yearned to write. She’s ridden the same trails as her western heroes and heroines, slept in authentic log cabins listening to the lonesome howl of a coyote, and came frighteningly close to crossing paths with a grizzly bear high in the Rocky Mountains. Currently, the fourth-generation Kansas native is busy writing her next romance. Visit her website at Click Here

First off, thanks to Jaunty and the wonderfully witty sisters for inviting me to visit. This is one of my favorite blogs, so I’m honored to be here.

I did something last week that I’d procrastinated about for a month—I went to my local animal shelter and adopted a dog. He’s a 7-month-old Chow mix pup who’d been brought in with his sister a month ago. The cute girl puppy was adopted within a week.

Her brother—big, scruffy and lacking manners—had just about overstayed his welcome there. Then I came along and rescued him. I wanted a companion/guard dog, and he fit the bill. He’d never had a name, and after trying out several, he and I decided Samson fit him.

Bringing Samson into my home and my life has been a huge adjustment. I’ve had to alter my lifestyle, forgive him for being bad, and accept his effusive brand of puppy love. I’ve also learned that beneath his rough exterior, there’s a gentle soul yearning for a place to call home.

Somewhere midweek, it dawned on me that Samson has many of the same qualities as Gil Yancy, the hero in One Real Man, my April release. Gil was brash, reckless, and determined to have his way come hell or high water. In short, Gil had to grow up and start thinking in terms of “we” instead of just “me.” It took a lot of patience, faith and love from Josie to free the real man Gil kept hidden from the world, and win his heart.

With Samson and me, we’ll be going through this adjustment stage to live comfortably together until he grows out of his puppy stage. If you hear someone mumbling the Serenity Prayer, it’ll be me.

So tell me, who was the most challenging man you’ve welcomed into your life, and heart? If you had it to do all over again, would you?

March 28, 2008

Christie Craig Blogs on Playing Favorites

It’s happening to me now. I sort of knew it would. How did I know? Because dadblast it, I’m guilty of doing it myself. Guilty of asking authors . . . “So, which of your books do you like the best?”

Now, with my next book coming out in June, the question is targeted toward me and I realize how unfair it is to ask an author this question. I mean, please, it’s just like asking a mother which child she loves the best. Or which child she thinks is prettier.

To an author, our books, and characters are like our children. To show favoritism is like . . . well, it’s just so wrong on soooo many levels.

As mothers it’s our job to make all our children feel like they are our favorite—without ever really saying it. Right?

Okay, I’ll admit it, mothers aren’t blind. We do see things. For example I know that one of my children has a prettier nose than the other. But gawd forbid I ever say it aloud. I’d probably scar the child for life, they’d sign up to get a nose job, expect me to pay for it, and would be discussing this very issue to a therapist long after I’m worm bait. (Don’t forget Mother’s Day is coming up and I always rate some really nice gifts. And in case one of my own read this: Think Gucci purse this year.)

And besides the child who inherited my great uncle’s nose has gorgeous to-die-for eyes, which almost, well practically, makes the huge honker unnoticeable.

My point is that while my books, Divorced, Desperate and Delicious and Weddings Can Be Murder have some things in common—i.e. They’re both humorous, sexy, and have a bit of murder in them—they are unique in their own way as well. Sure, you can look at them and know they are related, that they were written by yours truly, but it’s not like they are identical twins are anything.

Divorced is more of a romantic suspense, where Weddings is more of a mystery. My heroine in Divorced, was so finished with men, she swore she was never going to have sex again (you can guess how that turned out.) Katie in Weddings, on the other hand, is desperately seeking the perfect man to make her life complete. And just when she thinks she’s found him, Mr. Not-So-Perfect comes along (hey, he probably even has a big nose) and she totally flushes her life plans down the John. The fact that she already accidentally flushed her engagement ring down John almost seems like a sign.

So while the books are different, they are both books of my heart. Each special to me in their own way, just the way my kids are. (Seriously, think Gucci, kids.) I’m just hoping that the readers feel the same way.

So here’s my question to all of you. Do you have a tendency to love every book from certain authors? If you are a writer, (and yep, I’m gonna do it again) do you have your favorite book, or are you like me and love all your books, big noses or not so big noses?

Below is my video for Weddings Can Be Murder, which will be out May 27th and the video for Divorced, Desperate and Delicious.

Please visit me at my websiteand my blog where I joined forces with five other Dorchester authors to explore the crazy/humorous side of life.

March 24, 2008

Judy Duarte Blogs about Difficult Questions and Simple Answers

“Oh! You’re a writer!”

When people learn that I’m multi-published, most of them ask where I get my ideas. Some even want to offer suggestions for stories they don’t have the time or the confidence to write. But truthfully? I’m not in need of ideas. I’m bombarded with more than my share every day.

Sometimes a song on the radio will spark an idea. Or an article in the newspaper will catch my eye. Even a nearly forgotten memory will do the trick.

In fact, that’s how MULBERRY PARK, the book of my heart, came to be.

Do you remember those notes we used to write in school?

Dear Jimmy,
Do you love me? Mark the one .
Yes____ or No____

Well, that’s the kind of letter I’m talking about. But the one that tickled my imagination and sparked the inciting incident in MULBERRY PARK wasn’t written to a boy I had a crush on.

It was written to God.

When I couldn’t find a satisfactory answer to my question through ordinary measures, like asking the adults around me, I sat down and wrote a letter to God, tucked it between the mattresses of my bed, and went to sleep, knowing I’d have the answer by morning.

Of course, God didn’t respond in the way in which I’d expected–with the pen I’d included in my letter and a big X in the Yes or No boxes I’d drawn. So, needless to say, I was disappointed.

In retrospect, and with a few years behind me–I won’t tell you how many–I now realize that I’d had His answer all along.
You see, my mother had already given it to me. I just hadn’t agreed. So I went around her—and over her head. I’d planned for God to clarify things and set her straight.

Two years ago, during an RWA conference, I was sitting in a hotel room, resting for a moment between workshops. I was a long way from home and waxing nostalgic. Memories are often linked, and as one flipped to the next, that letter to God came to mind, and I thought, “Wouldn’t it be interesting if I wrote a story in which a child wrote a letter to God?”

Oh, wow. And wouldn’t it be cool if someone found that letter and wrote back, as if he or she were God?

Ooh. And what if the child began peppering that poor person with more notes…?

And there you have it–the start of MULBERRY PARK, my first women’s fiction novel.

God didn’t answer my question that night–nor did He eat the red licorice I left him. But He answered me indirectly, which is what He does in MULBERRY PARK.

When Analisa Dawson, a seven-year-old orphan, can’t find the answers she seeks, she takes a felt-tip marker and addresses God. Then she places her note in a flamingo pink envelope, decorated with globs of glue and glitter, and sets it high in a large Mulberry tree in the center of the park, believing the branches reach all the way to Heaven.

Claire Harper, a jogger whose faith was shattered by the loss of her son, finds the heartfelt plea and feels compelled to respond. That simple act sets motion to a miracle that touches the lives of nine different people, all strangers to each other, all lonely and hurting in their own way.

In the pages of MULBERRY PARK, the characters learn, as I have over the years, that sometimes God’s voice is a whisper in the wind, a peace within the storm. And that some of His biggest miracles occur when the heart listens and obeys.

March 17, 2008

Sari Robins ~ Batman & the Governess?

Batman is sexy. He’s built like a rock, moves like a gazelle and protects those who can’t defend themselves. Yum! But there’s more to Batman’s allure than simply being a hero—his secret identity makes him mysterious, intriguing…exciting!

A reviewer recently called the hero in my new book, The Governess Wears Scarlet, a Regency-era “Batman”. The gorgeous Jason Steele is a daring Viscount haunted by tragedy and in need of understanding. Jason leads separate lives — by day he’s a barrister and nobleman, and by night he’s a masked vigilante. One night he rescues a veiled woman and their anonymity unleashes flaming passions too tempting to ignore. Jason doesn’t realize that he knows the tantalizing woman he meets under the cover of darkness each night, a woman with secrets of her own to hide.

Does the mysterious stranger appeal to you as a hero? Have you read any good books where secrets identities enhanced the story? Please share!

Thanks, Jaunty Sisters for inviting me!