Still alive!

What can I say? We’re lazy bitches around here.

I have not forgotten about this blog, though it may certainly seem like it. I just find myself with very few things to say that don’t sound exactly like the last thing I said here. I mean, how many times can I talk about doggedly churning out my 5 daily pages, or the odd conversation about plot or character that I have with Christine or with my boyfriend? I think that stuff gets old pretty fast, and while I want this blog to be primarily about my life as a writer, it’s obvious that I need to come up with other stuff to talk about. Because right now? My life as a writer is pretty boring.

(Christine’s life is a bit more exciting in that regard, but she’s pretty sure y’all will find it boring, too. Different writer, same problem.)

So I’ll be trying to find a way to make this blog more of a daily part of my life from now on. I do have a few ideas percolating for posts. Some of them are book related (My Favorite Lines in My Favorite Books), some of them are life related (Why 6:00 AM Yoga Is Saving My Life), and some are sports related (The Shootout - NHL Experiment Gone Wrong, or Definitive Evidence of Evil on Earth?).

And I'm sure I'll get to those soon. Really, I promise!

She's alive!

We both are, actually - just incredibly, insanely busy.

Me, I'm busy with my job, which since our fiscal year ends a full three months behind the calendar year, gets a little crazy right about now. The last couple of weeks have been chock full of my regular work duties, special projects requiring me to work some overtime, and last minute "oh my gosh this has to happen now!" emergencies.

Oh, and I'm also trying to work on my manuscript every night. Twenty-five pages a week is my goal every week, and there are nights when I don't close the laptop until close to midnight. I'm staying on track, but some nights it's a close thing.

Christine is on deadline. She's due to turn her current manuscript in to her editor on Monday and yesterday she realized she's writing the wrong book. When you look at the outline, realize you're on plot point #12 and nothing has actually happened yet, well, that's not a good thing. Today she told me she pretty much scrapped everything and started over. With three days to go.

I guess she thought she didn't have enough challenges.

So that's what's going on around here. How are y'all?

feast or famine

For the last six months I haven’t had one good story idea. Not one. To be fair, I’d just finished polishing a manuscript for submission (the editor at the Big NY House to which I sent it has now had it for 49 days, not that I’m counting) and was gearing up to do a lot of promoting for the July release of Secrets Volume 27, so I did have other things occupying my mind.

But an artist doesn’t quit painting just because he finished the one he was working on. He picks up his brushes and starts anew with a blank canvas, and a writer must do the same. The problem was, my whole mind was a blank canvas, and trying to pull an original idea out of it just not working. There is nothing more frustrating to a writer (at least to this writer) then not knowing what to write.

Then lo, lightning struck. A story idea I’ve been kicking around for a very long time finally slid into place, and after four years (yes, four years!) of not knowing where to go with it or how to make it work I suddenly knew exactly what to do. And the floodgates opened.

And not just for that story. When that little thing, whatever it is, clicked open in my head and let in the juju, it invited unrelated juju to the party as well. So now, in addition to that project, I have four others jockeying for position in my head. Two that are related to the current one, and two that are completely separate. And every single one of them wants to be written right fucking now.

(Incidentally, I used to hear writers talk about how the people in their stories would harass them, or nag them, or not let them do what they wanted to do with the story, as if these were actual people instead of made up characters. And I used to think, “Jeez, you must be nutso – they’re made up people! They can’t nag you, or make you write the story their way, because they don’t exist!” Yeah, I was completely wrong about that. I imagine that this is a little like what multiple personality disorder must be like, except the people in my head don’t actually push me out of the way. They just nag and harass and refuse to let me write the story the way I want to write it.)

Having all that going on is great! It’s fantastic, knowing that when I’m done with this project there are four more ready to go. It gives me a sense of security, and relief that I won’'t have to face that blank canvas again (at least for a while), but the problem is that I can’t write more than one book at a time. Oh, I can think about more than one, but I won’t be able to start writing any of the other stories in my head until the one I’m currently working on is finished.

But that doesn’t mean the people in those stories are satisfied to wait until I’m ready to talk to them – quite the contrary. They want to be heard, they want their story told, and they’re not shy about letting me know. The notebook I keep in my purse is getting crowded with my little scribbles about characterization, plot, research…so much so that when I go back later to look at them I’m having a hard time telling which notes are for which book. So I’m going to Office Max today to get four notebooks to carry around – one for each story.

I’m going to have to start carrying the big purse.

up and coming

There's a lot going on around my house these days. Christine and I are starting to finalize our plans to fly to Washington for the RWA National Convention early next month - arranging for the pet sitter, buying plane tickets, trying to figure out how much clothing I can fit into a carry on bag. And of course finalizing our workshop presentation.

Amid all that I'm also really gearing up for the release of Secrets 27! The first of several interviews I'm doing is up over at Romantic Crush Junkies and its sister site, Erotic Book Junkies. There's still time to enter the drawing for a free download from my backlist, just leave your email in a comment.

The other big news is the contest I'll be launching on July 1st. I'm giving away some beautiful bondage rope courtesy of TwistedMonk.com, and entering the contest is going to be quick and easy. Believe me, the prize is worth it, so check back soon for more details on that!

Sometimes it's a little mind boggling, everything that's going on. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

God is in the details

One of the best and most interesting parts of my job as a writer - you know, besides the fame and fortune (insert eye roll here) is the fun of research.

It's important for me as an author that the elements of my books be believable. I don't need to come across as an expert in all things, but I hate it when an inconsistency or error in research pulls me out of a story, and I never want that to happen to any of my readers. God is in the details, after all, and over the years I've had to research handguns, the CIA, the parts of a sail boat, Mackinac Island, restaurants in Chicago, what a house on the Jersey shore would look like, Irish ruins, bondage rope, medical conditions, hotel management, musical instruments, gourmet cooking, and magic spells.

While fiction writers are, by definition of being a fiction writer, allowed to make things up, there are some things I'm not really comfortable inventing from scratch. For example, settings - unless you're creating an entirely imaginary universe such as you would in a science fiction or paranormal novel, made up places don't go over very well. There are exceptions, naturally, and I I know some authors who do it very well. Jennifer Crusie, for example, sets most of her books in Ohio, and as far as I know the towns that her stories are set in are not real.

But Jennifer is from Ohio, and she knows what a small town in that state would look like, so she does a very credible job of making everything fit together. I myself am originally from Michigan, and I've lived for long periods of time in other states, so I suppose I could do the same thing. But I think it's a better use of my creative juju to keep the setting real and concentrate on the story.

Along with places, things need to be researched, and my method of doing this is slightly unorthodox. Instead of researching handguns or sailing terms before my story is written, I do it after. Leaving holes in the story where the details will go and filling them in later keeps me from getting bogged down in the possibilities before I know exactly what information I need. I developed this method after I spent nearly a week digging up information on weapons and became so overwhelmed by all the varieties and variations available that I didn't get any writing done.

Of course, some things need to be researched very, very thoroughly. Every detail thought out, scrutinized. And sometimes, one does need first hand experience of something to properly tell the tale. This is, of course, my preferred method of research in all matters; unfortunately, my budget doesn't run to me visiting Irish castles. Fortunately, some research doesn't require travel or sailing lessons. Sometimes, all you need is a willing boyfriend, an empty house, and a Sunday afternoon.

Did I mention I love research?

That never happens!

My boyfriend and I have this little game we play. Well, it’s not really a game, since we don’t keep score and there’s no winner. So maybe it’s more accurate to say my boyfriend and I have a thing we do, and we call it That Never Happens In A Romance Novel.

Here's how it started: a while back we were having sex, and things were hot and sweaty and progressing very nicely, when all of the sudden I got a hip cramp. Like, a big one, and it hurt a lot, so my chant of “ooh yes baby” turned into “ow, shit, get off me!”, and my hands, which had been clinging to his shoulders, suddenly pushed him away. Caught off guard, he went flying backwards – off the bed and into the nightstand.

So the sexy times had to stop for a bit – for me to stretch the cramp out of my hip, and for him to put everything back on the nightstand. And I remarked as I watched him put a new light bulb in the now slightly bent lamp, “You know, stuff like this never happens in a romance novel.”

So that’s how it started, and now it’s like a game – or rather, a thing – where we try to point out the million little things that happen in real life relationships that never or rarely seem to make it into a romance novel. For instance:

• Instead of cuddling up and going right to sleep after sex, having to get up to pee lest you get a UTI – or sometimes because you just have to pee.
  
  
• The need for a towel. Mind you, this is only necessary if condoms aren’t involved, and thankfully most romance novels portray characters practicing safe sex…but still, in real life, there are wet spots, people!
  
  
• When the woman is on top and leans down to kiss her guy, and instead gets a mouth full of her own hair.
  
  
• And speaking of hair, I have two words for you - fuck hair.
  
  
• Lost orgasm – you know what I mean, when you’re on the right path and you think you’re almost there, it’s close enough you can almost reach out and grab it, and then….gone. And you try to, but you just can’t get it back.
  
  
• Being too tired for sex.
  
  
• Forgetting to shave your legs or underarms so you come to bed fuzzy and/or bristly – I swear, every woman has done this at least once.
  
  
• Yeast infections!

And I’m sure there are a million more.

Now, as a writer and a reader, I certainly understand that some things are just a little too real - like farting. I really don't ever want to be reading a sex scene and run across something like this:

Suddenly, a sound rent the air, and Miriam was jolted out of her blissful haze. There was a grimace on Jeff's face, his cheeks growing ruddy with embarrassment, and she realized what had happened.

He avoided her gaze, never pausing in his thrusting, obviously hoping the gaff would go unnoticed. But a moment later, as a fetid stench filled the room, they both realized that would be impossible.

That, boys and girls, just ain't sexy. And while romance novel sex can be a lot of things - funny, sweet, loving, intense, dramatic, silly - it should always be sexy.

But I do like a certain amount of reality in my books – the ones I read and the ones I write. I like to see the characters as real people. I want them to have flaws, and quirks, to bicker and be unreasonable. That's what makes them real to me, and what makes the story interesting. You can have the greatest sex scene ever written, but I'm not interested in the people who are having it, it might as well be a copy of Penthouse Letters - after the scene is over, I'm not going to care much what happens.

So I always try to inject a little reality into the fictional relationships I craft - I think it adds dimension to the characters, and by extension the story. But I don’t think I’ll give any of my characters a yeast infection. That might be a bit too much reality, even for me.

~ Have something to add to the list of things That Never Happen In A Romance Novel? Leave a comment!~

What's In A Name?

What on earth or all the exoplanets made you call your blog about being romance novelists something as ridiculous as Sweet Savage Thighs?

Well, my friends, despite popular opinion there was indeed a method to this madness.

I was raised--and genetically predisposed--to become an avid reader. I started before I entered kindergarten (or maybe even before nursery school) and had made my way through The Lord of the Rings, the Encyclopedia Brown books, the entire Anne of Green Gables series (the original series), and Gone with the Wind by the time I entered fifth grade. Coincidentally, around that time my mother had a semi-serious illness that kept her from being very active for at least a couple of weeks, and one of her considerate friends brought her a bag of books in order to stave off boredom. Since my mom was a much slower (and pickier) reader than I was, I naturally decided to look through the selection in the bag to see if there might be anything that interested me. Pawing through the paperbacks, I came up with 2 volumes of a sort I'd never seen before: romance novels! One was an old Harlequin Presents title by Carole Mortimer, and the other was a historical set in medieval Scotland by an author I can no longer remember. Intrigued, I snagged the two books and began to read.

It was the beginning of the end.

Someday I may relate the entire story of my early days as an addict (Hello, my name is Christine, and I'm a romance-aholic...), but for now, suffice it to say that I have continued to gobble up romance novels from series contemporary to historical to paranormal and regency right up until this very day. Naturally, this involved spending lots and lots of time in bookstores, often with my dear high school friend.

Anyway, one evening after dinner, my friend and I were strolling through the aisle between the sci-fi/fantasy and romance sections of our neighborood big-box bookstore, and I was alternately looking back and forth at the shelves and perusing the books of both enjoyable genres. At the time, the American Western historical romance was a bit more prominent than it is today and several novels of that sub-genre had been faced out on the romance shelves. My eyes drifted over titles and cover art featuring passionate clinches, long and wind-swept hair styles (occasionally with the hero's and heroine's hair somehow swept by winds moving in opposite directions), loincloths, leather, and ruffled skirts. Then, without warning, I burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" my friend demanded.

I blinked, looked at the shelf again, and shook my head. "Nothing, really. I just glanced over from the fantasy shelf, and I saw that book out of the corner of my eye."

I pointed to the novel in question, something with a title intended to help the reader identify it as one involving a young, blonde, innocent heroine who is kidnapped and falls in love with her strong, noble, vigorous, and tender Native American captor.

My friend shrugged. "What about it? It doesn't look funny to me."

"Oh, it's not, but I thought the title was Savage Thighs, and I thought, you know, that was getting right to the point."

So, from that moment on, Savage Thighs became my default fictional romance title of reference. After I told the story of it to Hannah, she agreed that it would make a grand blog title, especially enhanced with the addition of the "Sweet" in front.

This is not to suggest that I (nor Hannah, for that matter) find romance novels ridiculous or cliched or an object of comtempt. I LOVE romances. Heck, I make my living writing them! But one of the few rules in life that I try to never break is to always be able to poke fun at the things I love, including myself. It seems to me that whenever we begin to take a subject too seriously, we take all the joy out of whatever it was that used to make us so happy.

So for pete's sake, LAUGH! It's the second most important thing you can ever do in this world. The first, of course, being to LOVE.