I've Got...Gasp...Not Me. Writer's Block?

MUSE MONDAY

A setting in The Art of Love and Murder

At least I think that's what I've got. I've never had it so I'm not sure what it feels like, but it sure looks like Writer's Block. I found myself lost, not able to get from chapter fourteen to chapter sixteen in the second book of the series I'm writing. Wandering around the house, glassy-eyed and moaning, my son stopped me and said "Mom, I'm a lyricist not an author, but it would seem to me you have to write chapter fifteen to make that bridge." Louder moans from me.

True, my writing time has been sporadic for the last two months. It all started when we took a vacation, stayed a couple of days longer than we should have and came back to harvest season on the farm in full swing. Some days, I'm lucky to get a half hour to myself to write. But, really, I don't think that's the whole problem.

Phoebe saw prong horn while riding with Mason

It's all Chance's fault. Chance is the character in the first book of the series, The Art of Love and Murder. He's a sheriff and a strong, take charge kind of guy. Now I'm writing the second book in the series, Southwest of Love and Murder, and his twin brother, Mason, is the main male character. When Mason got into trouble, Chance bolted from his honeymoon in Mexico to come to his brother's aid. Trouble is he's stealing Phoebe's story out from under her. She's the main female character. With Chance around, Phoebe isn't acting as she should, and I  have no idea why the heck the bad guy is doing what he's doing.

The story has been coughing and jerking along until it died at chapter fifteen.

It took me a few days to figure this out. Now, the solution seems clear - stall Chance in Mexico for as long

Landscape near Mason's ranch

as possible and let Phoebe take over. Simple enough? Well, I have to go back several chapters and rewrite hunks of the story to set this up properly.

I sure hope this is the cure. Hard to know when I haven't experienced the ailment before. Wish me luck.

Novel Research is Great Fun

MUSE MONDAY
My current work in progress is set in the ranching area around Chino Valley, Arizona. Chino proper is eight miles south of where we have our little family farm, Tortuga Flats. My hubby and I hopped on the motorcycle and explored the golden grasslands and juniper tree habitat where my hero, Mason Meadowlark, ranches. Kind of nice to be so close to my novel's setting for research. I thought I'd share our motorcycle tour with you.

Once we broke the confines of Chino Valley, we took Williamson Valley Road until the pavement ended. I'll be out of town and off line when this post goes live. If you want to comment, I'll be sure to see your comment but a few days late. Hope you enjoy the tour!

(1) Leaving Chino Valley

(2) The wide open spaces

(3) Large homes dot the prairie

(4) Foliage grows heavier

(5) Now we enter ranching territory

(6) More ranching

(7) And more ranching

(8) Land changes

(9) Ranching gives way to farming

(10) Pavement  ends

(11) Choices where the pavement ends

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The guy I sit behind!

The Loudest Yell Gets a Story First

MUSE MONDAY
Today, I'm thinking about secondary characters - the supporting cast. What usually happens to me when I'm writing is that I form attachments to the people who populate the world of my primary characters. They have entire lives that my readers know nothing about. But I do. I'm wondering if when you read a book do the secondary characters ever interest you to the point you wish the author would tell their stories?

The only problem when this happens to me is that I might not have time to get into their story right away. I've decided (just today - you're the first to know) that I'm going to start making time. I might have other stories in my head that I need to tell, but I also owe it to my supporting cast members to not ignore them too long. Or at the very least, I will put them on my "To Be Written" list.

My partial TBW list to date:
Paulie - Remember Claire's best friend in Honey On White Bread, my1945 historical romance? Paulie was flighty, hard to please and had a huge crush on the guy that had a huge crush on Claire. All it got her was the loss of her virginity and a slap in the face with the knowledge she was nothing more than a stand-in for Claire. There is something brewing with the return of her father that left the family years ago, and there's a guy who worships the ground she walks on. Paulie has her flaws so I'm not too sure about telling her story - even though she's demanding I unleash her on paper.

Ruth - Ruth had a bit part in Honey On White Bread as the wise older sister of Paulie and Benjamin. She had short, bleached hair and smoked unfiltered cigarettes. Ahead of her time, she believed women could work at whatever they wanted and deserved equal pay. She was a waitress but intended on owning a restaurant some day. Sassy lady. Her story should be fun to write.

Phoebe - She's the best friend of the heroine, Lacy Dahl, in The Art of Love and Murder. This is kind of unfair to mention since this is an unpublished book and I've already started writing Phoebe's story, Southwest of Love and Murder. Phoebe murdered her first husband - on paper - but now he's actually been murdered, exactly as she wrote it. She's an artsy, free spirited writer and she's falling for an uptight, playboy rancher named Mason. There's lightening between them while they deal with a murderer.

Penny - Or The Black Fairy, as Lacy named her because of her goth attire. Penny is a very minor character in The Art of Love and Murder. Penny mans the front desk of the haunted hotel where Lacy stays in Flagstaff. We don't know a lot about Penny except she's likeable. She has told me about a man who comes to stay at the hotel who is down on his luck, a drifter. There's a mystery our little goth fairy gets deep into.

Dirk and Margie - I have to include both because I'm not sure who will take the lead. These are older characters, even for me to write about. I like older characters with all their history and experience. Dirk made a brief appearance in The Art of Love and Murder and has a bigger role in Southwest of Love and Murder. He's the father of Mason and Lacy's husband, Chance. He's a rough, tough ranch owner who has a sweet spot for Margie, who is a petite, spitfire of a rancher. They're in their early sixties, long time friends but ready for some romance - if they can avoid the dangers they face.

There are more but you get the picture. Lots of characters vying for attention in my head. I wonder who will yell the loudest once I have the two books I'm working on right now finished?

Don't forget to join my Quarterly Newsletter Group for a chance to win some gift cards and find out which characters will get their own books!
http://www.brendawhiteside.com/contact.html#newsletter

Sleeping with the Lights On

MUSE MONDAY

Today, on Muse Monday, I want to do a little plug for my very first published book, Sleeping with the Lights On. The Wild Rose Press has reduced the eBook price to $2.99, and I'm excited that some readers might take advantage of a fun read. It's pure entertainment. 

When I wrote Sleeping, I did what the sages tell you to do - write what you know. So I looked to people I knew for inspiration, and I came up with my sister. She was single and at a turning point in her life. And she approached her situation with a good dose of humor, like Sandra. In Sleeping, Sandra is single, her career is stalled and she is still searching for her niche even after years of experience and two marriages. Women like Sandra are inspiring. We’ve all known people who have gotten to a certain point in their lives and realized they aren’t really where they want to be, whether in love or career or experience. This is my favorite kind of discovery story. Sandra figures it out.

Sandra isn’t the typical romance heroine. She’s fifty, twice divorced, but still looking for Mr. Right. And a career. She sees humor in most situations, even when being stalked by a tall, vamp-like redhead. Talk about an optimist!
 

People often say, if I only knew then what I know now. I say, if I’d known as much then, I would’ve avoided way too much and wouldn’t know now what I know. Nor would I have been where I found myself that morning—the object of affection by a man I’d yet to fully discover on a lazy spring morning. I had to believe my future held some good possibilities.

And then there's Carson, the hero of this romance. Who wouldn’t lust over a Las Vegas country crooner with swoon-inducing good looks? Add a Texas drawl and, well, let’s say he knows how to fill out his jeans!

His jeans, tight cowboy style, hugged nice thighs and hips I remembered all too well. I avoided looking at my favorite part. I hoped my face didn’t twitch like my insides. 

And he certainly knows how to sweet-talk a lady, even one like Sandra who was once married to him.

When he lowered his voice, I lost my peripheral vision to the point that we were the only two people in the restaurant. “Sandra, when a gal’s figure fills in the spaces to make it a woman’s body, a man can lose all common sense just lookin’.”

Buy Link for eBook 

Don't forget to join my Quarterly Newsletter Group for a chance to win some Amazon gift cards!
http://www.brendawhiteside.com/contact.html#newsletter 

Condoms, Castles and Navajo Blankets

Muse Monday
Even if you write fiction, you have to get your facts straight. The story of a novel may be pure imagination, but the detail better ring true or readers won't stick with you. For instance, if your hero is a motorcycle enthusiast you might want to know the names of a few real motorcycles. Or if your heroine is a famous French chef, you better include some restaurant lingo or French cuisine recipe names. Researching is a necessary evil.

Some authors love the research phase and spend weeks at it before they ever start the first chapter. I prefer to do it as I go. I'm not always sure what I need to know until I need to know it.

While writing The Morning After, I had to stop and call the Amarillo Marriage License Department. I had a wonderful conversation with a woman who not only educated me on the law in Amarillo in regards to getting married but charmed me with her drawl.

For the first book in the Love and Murder series I'm currently writing, I brought my family into my research. I wrote a scene involving a kidnap victim and a gunshot from a sheriff. I could picture in my mind how I wanted it to go down but would it work? I assigned everyone their part and told them what would happen. They acted it out and my error was glaring.

The Internet is a goldmine for most of the research although I can get so caught up that not much writing gets accomplished. I got hung up for an hour the other day trying to find out the name of the golden grasses in the Chino Valley area. In the middle of a scene, I needed the name. Sometimes I might type xxx and come back to it later, but other times it's as if I get an itch and can't write another word without scratching out the fact.

Other writers are also a good source for research. Who else can you go to when you need to ask a graphic question like would a condom break if it had a pinhole in it and are the statistics I found on the Internet accurate as to the failure rate of a vasectomy? I suppose I could've called a doctor, but the varied answers I got were a lot more fun than the doctor might have recited to me.

No telling what questions will pop up tomorrow when I'm writing. What does an Austrian police car look like? What's the name of the first room you enter in a castle? Can a Navajo blanket fit in a saddle bag? Who has jurisdiction over a murder on a college campus? What's the name of an unusual herbal tea? How do you say "kiss me right here" in German?

If you still haven't signed up for my Quarterly Newsletter to be eligible for a $15 Amazon Gift Card at the end of this month and a $25 Amazon Gift Card at the end of April, then hop on over to my web page and just do it! www.brendawhiteside.com

Promo, Perspiration and Pain

Muse Monday
I did another promotion appearance Saturday night. There's always an opportunity to learn something at these events. And it usually hurts. I'm not a shy person. Oh how uncomfortable these learning activities must be for shy authors. But even though shyness is not a personality trait pour moi, there's still a bit of suffering, and I usually wonder at some point why am I here?

I'm an author, I want to write - not sell myself or my product. Unfortunately, there's no getting around the fact that in order to find any success at being an author, you have to get out there and convince total strangers that your books are better than all the other millions of books they might consider reading. I'm not very good at it, I've decided.

What usually happens is my attention is drawn to the other authors around me. Watching them in action, or at least those who seem to enjoy or hate the process, shows me what I should and should not be doing. Avoiding what I shouldn't do is much easier than adopting the methods of those who appear to be successful. I know to stand, unlike the writer who crouches in her seat afraid that someone might actually speak to her. Smiling isn't a problem for me. I like people and feel friendly. But - big but - confession time - I have trouble with those first few words to reach out, rope that reader and make he or she salivate over my books.

Speaking of salivating, I have another problem as I see it in the world of romance novels - no drop dead, hunky hero on any of my covers. I use to pooh pooh the importance of such a thing, but at a walk by promo you better believe the cover with a yummy hero will get more than a few ladies to stop in front of you.

I can't change the covers, but I can work on my spiel. All I have to do is figure out how to relay how I really feel about my books. They're entertaining, and I have to be able to say that in a totally intriguing way in three sentences. Not an easy task for me. Feel my pain?

Now that that's off my chest, I'm going back to writing my current book. I'll think about this promo stuff more tomorrow.

How Important is a Title? Huge!

Muse Monday
Coming up with titles is a struggle. Sometimes they come to me as if out of ether. Others take a hammer and a crow bar to pry an idea from my head.

I don't believe I've ever known the title of a story or book before well into the manuscript, except once. One of my favorite published short stories, Amanda in the Summer, came to me from a wedding announcement. In fact, the entire story grew from the title. The announcement was printed on an 8 1/2 x 11 page of parchment. The bride's name was Amanda and it was a summer wedding. When I pulled the page out of the envelope, it was folded so that the words Amanda, in and summer aligned. Amanda in the Summer struck my fancy.

My first published novel, Sleeping with the Lights On, had the working title Of Men and Bullshit. I knew that wouldn't stick but because I drew on my sister's dating experiences, well, it fit. It was somewhere around page two hundred that the title came to me. Abby asks Sandra how she can get any sleep if her husband doesn't come home that night. Sandra tells her to sleep with the lights on - which she's been doing since her divorce. And so we hope Sandra finds love again so she can turn the lights off.

The same sort of epiphany gave me the title for Honey On White Bread. I didn't even have a working title. There were scenes that would come to me while riding in the car or falling asleep at night. One of those times, I saw my heroine, Claire, and the hero, Benjamin, in a sweet moment. (This story takes place in 1945.) Ben explains to Claire why she's so special.
 

“You know what honey does to plain white bread?” He kissed my cheek softly, his lips like the touch of a butterfly wing. “You dribble it on, slow…and…thick. The bread soaks the honey in and changes.” His lips caressed my earlobe. “Well, I’m white bread to your honey.”

 
My short story about a blind date, which I originally titled Blind Date (brilliant, huh?) became Tattoos, Leather and Studs because the hero is wearing just that. And I wanted a sexy title.

Right now I'm working on a three book series. The titles I've come up with may or may not hold once an editor gets them. Because they're a series, I wanted a common thread. They are mystery/suspense and of course romance. Love and Murder series sounded good to me. The first book concerns art so The Art of Love and Murder is the title. But I didn't come up with either the series name or the book title until the first book was written. I put out a cry for help on Facebook for the second and third book. I needed to submit the series to my agent and couldn't do it without titles - an impossible task for me before I've even written the books. With help from my FB friends I have Southwest of Love and Murder (the book takes place in the southwest) and A Legacy of Love and Murder (the plot deals with an inheritance).

The last book I released, The Morning After, has a funny story about the title. I can't remember what title I suggested to my editor once the book was accepted, but she didn't like it. I submitted five more titles and she vetoed all of them. She's tough! Then she emailed me and told me when I originally submitted the book I entitled my email The Morning After. I guess way back I had that title and forgot! She liked it.

P.S. If you aren't part of my Quarterly Newsletter Group, I hope you'll consider it and be eligible for an Amazon Gift Card in February and April. http://www.brendawhiteside.com/contact.html#newsletter

  

What Comes First - the Story or the Characters?

Muse Monday

It's a question all authors get asked at some time or another. My answer is quick - the characters. My imagination is so character driven that there are times I've really had to search out their story. I might have only a vague idea. For instance, Sleeping with the Lights On started with a fifty year old woman who hadn't found the right man or the right career. I knew Sandra Holiday was upbeat and funny, but why hadn't she found what she needed in life? I gave her a past, and voila! The story began. I started her on her path of discovery but she led the way and got into all kinds of trouble.

1945 friends

Honey On White Bread also started with a character, Claire Flanagan. This young woman was inspired by my mom, so when I created her past, I plucked a few events from my mom's childhood. I wanted to write a story set in the 1940's. Although still character driven, this time I allowed the era to determine my direction. But Claire's sass jumped right off of page one and gave me the reason for the book.

For my novella, The Morning After, I answered a submission request from my publisher. They set the scene (at least one pivotal moment in Amarillo, Texas at the Lonesome Steer Honky Tonk) but the story was the writer's choosing. So...Texas, dancing, drinking and romance. A thirty-something lady came to mind. Abigail Martin woke up with a hangover in Amarillo after a wedding at the Lonesome Steer. And since she needed a sexy cowboy to spice up her dull life - redheaded Bobby Stockwood swept her off her feet. And he gives the meaning to the word character.

The hotel Lacy stays at in Flagstaff

I'm currently writing a series, my Love and Murder series. I tried to start a bit differently this time. My intent was to write three murder mysteries and begin with the storyline. I came up blank. And then Lacy Dahl popped into my head - a woman looking for her past and a new future because her present had been yanked away. Why wouldn't she know her past? Why was it dangerous for her to make that discovery? So, as I did for Sandra Holiday, I created Lacy's past. Only this time, it was my secret. Or I thought it was. Once the story began, it got way more involved than I first thought. 

Because I write romance, there are of course heroes in all of my books. And where they come from is about as mysterious to me as where my heroines come from. All I know is, they're born before the story. I know most of their pasts, how they look, how they dress, how they smell and how they sound long before they divulge their stories. I share that with my characters - discovering the story.