May 19th, 2010
My editor rocks! My revisions for Secret Legacy are already back, so you know what I’ll be doing for the next two weeks–besides watching my son graduate from middle school and talking with you guys (which I’ll be doing daily, no fooling, because I miss you too much to keep staying away). Where was I???
Oh, yeah, Secret Legacy is lovely (says the world’s BEST editor says), but there are some amazing suggestions, too, for making it an even more exciting read for fans. So begins the BEST part of my job–reworking a completed draft. Shaping it. Spinning turning points. Honing characters. Upping tension and conflict and the impact of every scene. Adding new ones that create richness and depth I couldn’t see while fighting to make the first draft work.
It’s a lot like life, revising a manuscript. I like to think we live out each decade with a playbook that continuously evolves., kind of like an outline for a book. We draft out our currently life, learn and grow, then as the years turn we see more and understand more and kick things up a notch into the next ten years or so. We work on who we are, what we do, how we live, and whom we expend our energy and experiences with. Just as we learn to deal with the crisis or conflict at hand, there’s a new level of tension waiting around the next corner. There’s no time for a total rewrite (not that we’d go back and start over, anyway), but there’s always our next chance to make everything that “is” work better and everything that “will be” as exciting and successful as possible… Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: creativity & inspiration
Posted in Revising a Year, Secret Legacy | 2 Comments »
May 18th, 2010
Okay, folks, because you’re all waiting for the good stuff…
I have tons of prize winners to report from last month’s The Firefighter’s Secret Baby launch:
First, From My April Fresh Fiction Contests Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Where Contests Go When They're Over | 4 Comments »
May 17th, 2010
When you’re living within a moment that you know will change everything about who you are, when you’re revising every step that you take because nothing’s as it seems, you’d better hold onto each dream like it’s your only way home…
Loosely, that’s the truth our Secret Legacy heroine, Sarah Temple, must deal with. You first met her (just recovered from a 10-year coma and losing her sanity because she and her psychic gifts have been the target of secret government dream research) in Dark Legacy, and she’s still battling back from the darkness consuming her mind. Only this time, she’s fighting to reach a terrified child no one else believes is real–and her only weapons are her misfiring dreams and the family she’s lost the ability to trust. Oh, and the man whose honor to his duty comes before all else, even his love for her… Which makes for an amazing fictional-paranormal-fantasy-thriller journey, even if I do say so myself (the draft’s in to my editor, who will no doubt be letting me know her revisions any second now ;o)
Loosely, it’s also continues to be the story of my life this year,though my dreams don’t have the power to kill or program others’ minds, the way Sarah’s and the secret child/legacy in my new Dorchester novel do. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: creativity & inspiration
Posted in Dream Theories, Revising a Year, Secret Legacy | 1 Comment »
April 18th, 2010
A $20 Amazon Gift Certificate and 5 Signed Copies of The Firefigher’s Secret Baby are up for grabs through the end of April. Leave a comment in any April blog entry (or all of them), to be in the running. Winners announced in early May.
Let me count (pulls fingers from keyboard, just to be sure)… Yep–that’s 6 winners in all ;o)
And, yep, that means you can scroll back through the entire month and leave a comment on every post. In fact, I’d kinda prefer it that way ;o)
Also means I’ll be blogging every day from now through the 30th (now that my finger’s not bleeding all over the keyboard and I’m allowed to type with both hands again)–so watch out, I’m on deadline and who knows where things will go from here. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Romantic Suspense, Where Contests Go When They're Over | 24 Comments »
April 16th, 2010
I’m guest blogging today at Fresh Fiction, talking about how the concept for The Firefighter’s Secret Baby came to be. Scoot on over, for your chance to win one of the 5 signed copies I’m giving away there.
While over here, me and my bum hand will be giving away a $20 Amazon Gift Certificate to one lucky commenter in this blog (all comments from April are in the running, up ’til the 30th!), because I can’t seem to stop myself ;o)
And where are all those pics I promised? Hang on. Hand is healing, draft of Secret Legacy is taking shape, and I’ll be posting more regularly soon (next week I hope). Meanwhile, enjoy some more cover model love and think of how woderful it is to be alive with Spring blooming just outside our windows ;o)
Tags: What About Everything Else?
Posted in What About Everything Else? | 12 Comments »
April 13th, 2010
Just found out I’m doing a LIVE (why does that word insist on being in all-caps???) Radio interview tonight (Tuesday), on BlogTalkRadio, from 8:30-8:45, EST.
So tune in and call in with questions about anything you’d like, including my latest Atlanta Heroes release, The Firefighter’s Secret Baby.
More tomorrow on the hand injury that kept me from blogging last week, as inteded, plus news about the fun stuff coming up on Wednesday, including guest blogging at Fresh Fiction!
Posted in Romantic Suspense | 6 Comments »
April 5th, 2010
I need to spread my wings this year. Learn to enjoy what’s new. Not look back at the old that wants to keep pressing down on me. This week, come back daily to share in the fun as I relish the ways three months of hard work are finally paying off, because I have…
A NEW Spring to enjoy…
A NEW novel to revise…and it’s already a “Guaranteed Read” from Dorchester–learn more about this amazing publishing program I’m lucky enough to have been chosen for, and look for Secret Legacy in stores in November!
A NEW Harlequin Superromance release on shelves 4/10…and there’s already only one left on Amazon, so don’t miss your chance to pick on up on B&N or in your local bookstore/section of choice. Cool!
New contests to offer…win $20 Amazon Gift Certificates here AND here (AND out here the week of the 10th, when I launch my blog release contest for everyone who visits and comments the rest of the month).
New travels to share…from the two weeks in March that saved my sanity and got me back to one (where I could relax into Secret Legacy and make it sing for you).
Of course I have more pictures to share than just this one with cover model and friend Bill Freda, but what a lovely place to start, right ;o) All week, I’ll be uploading pics to the blog so you can see why I’m feeling so amazing and new this Spring morning, while my teenager is upstairs sleeping ’til noon because it’s Spring Break, and my body’s luxuriously tired from hiking all day yesterday on a nearby mountain and my mind is dreaming up dream things to write so you can feel this new, too… Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: creativity & inspiration, hunky guys i've met
Posted in Revising a Year, Romantic Suspense, Secret Legacy | 11 Comments »
April 2nd, 2010
No– I’m not talking naughty, so those of you who snickered at the blog title, be ashamed of yourself…
What I am is mired in the writing, and rewriting of Secret Legacy (what do you think of the cover and my C. L. Wilson quote???).
AND I’ve been travelling like a nutcase fulfilling teaching obligations I made before my surgery, even though I have the SL deadline looming and need every minute I can spare to write. AND it’s Bunny Day and Spring Break season, so my son’s busy life is making mine even crazier.
Which isn’t to whine, but to explain my absence. But I’ve reached a happy place with drafting (just the BIG FINISH to complete now in my latest paranormal romantic thriller) and am taking an extended break from the writing cave to revise and enjoy holiday/family time.
So, while I’m out and about amongst you muggles, I wanted to share: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Revising a Year, Romantic Suspense, Secret Legacy | 9 Comments »
March 9th, 2010
I’ve been thinking a lot about the gifts that experience gives us –when we look back from the other side of hard work and FINALLY understand what it’s all been about. Why doesn’t time just man up every now and then, and whisper what we’re about to learn into our ear, so we can relax while it’s happening? I’m guessing because then we wouldn’t “learn nothin’” while life does it’s spinning out of control thing.
Relaxing amidst chaos is one of my “revising” goals for this year. As you might guess, chilling can be hard for me. When something’s important enough, and the war is difficult enough that I can only see the day-to-day battles rather than the finish line, things can get a little sticky.
Finding the solution to every problem was a given when I was in school. Easing off on the overracting was simpler then. And all I had to do was study and work hard and trust that I’d get to the core of every challenge. As long as I didn’t get so frustrated that I self-destructed, as long as I was patient, I’d eventually graduate to a new world where I could finally start my life. Wouldn’t it be nice if the battles we fought beyond school were that straight forward?
Well, exactly who said they weren’t? Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: creativity & inspiration
Posted in Revising a Year | 7 Comments »
March 8th, 2010
My latest I Write THOSE Books post is up over at Pop Syndicate’s Book Addict Blog, where I’m Keeping It Positive!
Join me and fab. author Holly Jacobs as we talk about how romance novels help readers stay positive in difficult times like these, and how writers keep writing, even when life does its best to get in the way. Her leatest jewel of a novel is on shelves now from Superromance!
This is the first in my new Book Addict series where authors share their secrets to staying positive while they turn out the exciting, inspiring stories we love. Just one more part of my “Revising a Year” mission ;o)
Hope you enjoy!
Tags: writing articles
Posted in Revising a Year | 3 Comments »
