Lisa Phillips's Blog, page 5

Fated

Just posted a new short story to my site! www.Lisa-Phillips.com And check back in during the month of November for details on how to win signed copies of the first two titles in my Everlasting Trilogy, as well as the release date for the third title in this series coming from Black Lyon Publishing.

Wishing you all a safe, Happy Halloween!

Guilty Pleasures...

We all fall victim to them. For instance, it’s only two days until Halloween, and I haven’t bought the first bag of candy for good reason. I simply cannot be trusted. Besides, my little one is getting old enough to rigorously defend himself when I imply he must have eaten that whole bag of Snickers. And then there are boots… I can muster all sorts of restraint for most aspects of fashion, given the fact jeans and sweatshirts are appropriate attire for a woman who spends a good portion of her life sitting on a bleacher, or helping a bear scout construct a rocket. However, I have on occasion been tempted to sell my soul for a pair of Ralph Lauren boots.

My other guilty pleasure began at age fifteen, a weakness that later in life saved my sanity.

My grandmother majored in English Literature at the University of Tennessee back in the 20’s, and went on to teach for more than forty years. At twelve, I was given a required reading list that included Dickens and Twain, which was later expanded to cover Shakespeare, Austen, and Fitzgerald. So you can imagine my grandmother’s dismay when she asked me as a teen what I read that week, and I reported on Janet Dailey’s newest Harlequin Romance. When she paled and clutched her heart, I quickly told her it was sort of like Jane Eyre for my generation. I then explained I knew the difference between a duke and a viscount thanks to Barbara Cartland historical romances. Her disappointment was still apparent.

That was my first brush with romance novels getting what I see as a bum wrap. Trashy, racy, unrealistic, frivolous… Yeah, so what’s your point? I’m a woman eating a bag of candy at a time, who would sell her soul for shoes. We have already established I have my weaknesses. I’m also a dedicated mother, businesswoman, and I can quote classic literature in my sleep. So if you see a novel with a bare-chested hero in my hand, please do not underestimate my IQ.

Now let’s list some other facts about romance novels. Such as, during the recent economic downturn, romance was one genre of the publishing industry that continued to show a profit, therefore possibly allowing houses to continue to release titles in other genres as well. So, all those who turn your noses up at the mere mention of happily ever after in favor of “real literature”, please say “Thank you! Thank you very much!” And in numerous surveys over the years, romance readers report they have more frequent and more satisfying intimacy with their partners. Partners, you may now proceed to my Amazon page, click on buy now… And feel free to leave “Thank you! Thank you very much” in the comments on my site, if you are so inclined.

I write romance novels because the businesswoman side of me knows it can be profitable, and it’s a wonderful way to escape a busy life of catering to others to do something just for me. But, mostly I write them because I love to read them. And there are millions of others who share this particular guilty pleasure if the very black sales figures are to be believed.

So, I say eat candy, buy shoes and proudly wave those covers with bare-chested heroes!

BOO!

When you write about vampires, shape-shifters, witches and zombies Halloween is pretty high on the list of favorite times of the year. That coupled with the chocolate I’ll be able to skim from my kid’s haul makes me one happy mommy/writer! My mother would let my brother and me stay up late and watch all the scary movies with her, so to this day we try to get in a horror marathon after my boys have canvased the neighborhood. After a couple of hours of sitting on the edge of our seats it is great fun for my mother to hide in closets and jump out at us to see if she can make us scream. Like my brother and me, my kids avoid closets and peek around corners to be sure Mimi isn’t lurking. In my family there is nothing funnier than scaring the snot out of each other.

I particularly enjoy greeting the goblins coming to our door. “One Reece’s Cup for you… Two for me!” I’m always amazed at how the tiny pumpkin in a stroller last year is now a fairy princess with really great shoes. Though it is a little disturbing when you realize another tiny pumpkin in a stroller belongs to the grown man who once showed up at the door every year as Darth Vader. “One Reece’s Cup for you… Three for me!”

When visions of vampires and werewolves dance in your head year round, often fueled by the chocolate stashed beneath your bed, it’s wonderful to enjoy a time of year when others are on the same page. Whatever your family’s traditions surrounding this time of year, I wish you a safe, Happy Halloween!

The Stories We Tell...

No matter what a writer sets out to say there are always elements of who we are woven into the story. Even when creating completely fictional worlds as I do, there are still often elements of a writer’s reality threaded through the story. Which is why I have yet to write anything that isn’t shaped by the importance of friends and family. This week I was reminded why those elements often find their way into the stories I tell.

My mother is the youngest of seven siblings, so family is something that has never been in short supply. Like most families, we don’t see each other as often as we’d like, but when we do I look around at all those people and think were it not for Jesse and Cleo sneaking off to get married all those years ago, none of us would be here to argue and laugh and wonder why we don’t make the time to do it more often. And while having dinner with high school friends I have known for more than thirty years, I realized people often come in and out of our lives as wonderful reminders of who we once were, and how that shaped who we are today.

I was asked in an interview once what I thought made a really good story. My reply was heart. Not just the hearts and flowers of romance, but the elements of a story that give the reader a glimpse of who the writer really is. I am thankful this week for the family and friends who have shaped my life and given heart to the stories I tell.

Have a wonderful week all!

Are You Kidding Me???

I would be interested to know if anybody else stumbled into forty-something, looked around and said, “Are you kidding me?” Actually, I’m pretty sure I’m in good company. I’m beginning to think of my generation as those who live life with school calendars, coupons, parental power of attorney and date planners clutched in one hand and a prescription for antidepressants in the other. We’re the people wedged between aging parents, who thanks to medical advancements are still fit enough to drive us closer to the edge and kids ready to shove us when we get there. For us keeping up with the Jones’ is wondering if we’ll end up as close to foreclosure as they are. Our children live tech know lives while we fumble for reading glasses to try to make out the text we may or may not know how to return.

However, we do know what WTF means because we mumble it under our breath all the time.

I’ve become accustomed to saying are you kidding me over and over. Like when the cashier at Kroger gleefully hands me my receipt and says I saved fifteen dollars, but glosses completely over the fact it cost me over three hundred dollars to feed a family of five that week. Or when my mother announces she is going to trim the crepe myrtle beside the driveway…from the roof. Or when the 13 yr old needs $200 to play basketball, the 9 yr old chips a tooth…again. And all the while I’ve got deadlines to meet because it is fall and I have boots to buy in an effort to make up for ANOTHER laugh line I see when I look in the mirror. I laugh a lot. It’s that or sit in a corner rocking back and forth as I wait for the next crisis my family orchestrates.

Life might not be what my generation imagined at twenty, but if we are lucky it’s close to what we worked so hard for the next twenty years to build. And if we are really fortunate, those years were filled with family, friends and a faith that taught us it’s the unplanned messiness of life that brings the wisdom few of us would trade for even a day of being the blissfully ignorant twenty year old we once were.

Enjoy your weekend all!

Finally...

Patience has never been my strong suit. According to my mother, I came into the world with an agenda and the Type A personality to pursue it. I have long fantasized about how many more things I could mark off my never ending To Do list if not for those pesky hours of sleep. Alphabetizing the spice cabinet, making relish out of all the Granger County tomatoes I hoard all summer, and knocking out four novels a year instead of three… While much of the world pays tribute to the long, lazy days of summer, I’m getting all the stuff done I don’t have time to mark off the list during the months I spend shuttling my boys to school, ball games, and scout meetings. My life is a constant whirlwind and I like it that way!

However, there is something about the first cool days of autumn that always make me slow down and take notice. First of all, there’s SEC football. Who in their right mind can’t make time for that? There are bright, sunny afternoons sitting on the porch looking at the mountains, and wondering how many more crisp nights before they explode into breathtaking colors. There’s my favorite sweater I’ve had since college my Aunt Carol begs me to throw away every year. I wore that sweater helping my dad put up firewood, raking leaves in the yard of the first home I called my very own, and Trick-Or-Treating with my boys when they were still toddling. I am not throwing it away, I don’t care how ragged it gets! And there are the hours I spend in the kitchen making pots of the chili, beef stew, cornbread and apple pies that announce the season to my family. We spend a little more time sitting around the table and out on the porch, and I’m far less likely to worry about To Do lists and word counts for novels.

I know I should be better about it year round, but there is something about autumn that makes me more thankful for little things I take for granted the rest of the year, the times and traditions I want my sons to look back on and be as thankful for as I am. So today, I put on my ragged sweater and stirred up a big pot of chili because the game is on soon. That spice cabinet will still be there when I get around to it, but autumn in the mountains only lasts so long.

Be Careful What You Wish For...

This time of year is ridiculously busy around my house. The boys are back in school, so it’s homework, scouting events for the 9 yr old, and fall baseball and basketball for the 12 yr old. Both my sons are diligent about volunteering me for everything from class field trips to organizing fundraisers. And rarely does a weekend go by that my house isn’t crowded with hungry kids sprawled across the family room floor doing battle on the PS3. For the most part, I enjoy the insanity of my life, but it does often make the peace and quiet needed to write awfully elusive. So, I am often wishing I had more time to just sit, listen to my muse, and write without feeling guilty about all the things that need to be done.

Yesterday I decided my boys were due for haircuts, so I got out my handy-dandy Wahl clippers, and ordered them out onto the front porch. I’m a big believer in paying nobody to do what you can do yourself. I proceeded to drop the clippers onto my left foot, and break a bone. While my family stood around watching my foot swell to three times its normal size, I said some really ugly words…

So now here I sit with my foot propped up, and my laptop front and center. Apparently my family can make due with takeout, and all those ugly words I said yesterday have made them fearful of intruding on my solitude. And I’m wondering just how much my muse had to do with me having no choice but to slow down and give her due. Under the guise of always trying to see the glass as being half full, I’m going to knock out a chapter before the pain med kicks in, and remember from now on to be very careful what I wish for.

Vampires, Werewolves and Witches...Oh my!

I recently overheard a conversation between two women as I sat in the bleachers watching my kid’s basketball game. One was lamenting over her daughter’s current obsession with a certain young vampire. Okay, up until then I hadn’t been actively eavesdropping, but I tuned in on that comment. The woman just couldn’t understand the “sudden obsession” with all things paranormal. This always makes me chuckle as I was reading Anne Rice years before many debating Team Jacob and Team Edward were born. Today, my boys and I eagerly await the next Harry Potter flick as much as my mother and I did a new episode of Bewitched when I was a kid. I also clearly recall how long my younger brother was grounded when he cut out the lining of my father’s favorite coat to make a costume so he could look like a teenage werewolf. And though I am sure there are those who might disagree, my vote for character building across the genres will always go to Tolkien and the magical elves of Middle Earth.

I will agree the popularity of Paranormal Romance has given the fascination with spooky creatures a new spin. It’s getting a little more difficult to feel sorry for the tortured vampire and werewolf when they are the ones always scoring with the hot chicks and living happily ever after. But, readers being captivated by tales of blood lust, full moons, and magic aren’t anything new. From the magical fairy tales read to children to the most wicked of supernatural grownup tales, many have long been eager to give a little love to creatures of the night.

Have a wonderful weekend all!

Chivalry Is Not Dead!

I spend a great deal of my life in Wal-Mart. I’ve got two boys and three cats, so I shop in bulk…frequently. Today I was still bleary-eyed from my 8 yr old hosting a sleepover and trying to meet a self-imposed deadline for a short story I have been working on for the last week. It had been raining all morning, and the sun had finally come out to turn East TN into something akin to a sauna. I steered an overflowing cart across the parking lot, swearing I would never again brave the Saturday crowds. I slung sacks into the trunk, and realized since I had dropped my boys off at their dad’s house, I would be the one toting all those groceries into the house…

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a woman pushing a cart piled just as high as mine was. A boy who looked to be seven or eight plodded along beside her. She glanced over at me as I closed the hood of my trunk, and leaned over to whisper something in the little boy’s ear. He nodded, and jogged across the parking lot. “Can I take that for you?” he asked. I told him he certainly could, and thanked him as he pushed my cart toward the corral.

I write about heroes for a living, about chivalrous men, who win the hearts of heroines with their selfless deeds. Today I saw a good example of behind every hero, there is probably a parent who taught him what it is to be chivalrous. That mother in the Wal-Mart parking lot was hoping for the same result I am when I flick my boys on the ear to signal them to offer their chair to a woman in a crowded waiting room. Chivalry isn’t just an old fashioned ideal. It’s a time honored way for young men to exhibit self-respect by extending that same respect to others.

I’m betting years from now that little boy in the Wal-Mart parking lot gets the girl, because his mother taught him the importance of chivalry.

Outlines, Synopsis, and Happily Ever After...

To be as ridiculously Type A as I am, I am not what I deem a schematic writer. I don’t begin a novel with an outline, or even a synopsis. As a matter of a fact, I equate a synopsis with a root canal, and thank God, my publisher feels the same way. I sit down and begin with CHAPTER ONE. I have an idea of the characters I want to bring to life, which leads to the story I want to tell… It’s sort of like when I tell my boys we’re ordering pizza for supper, but I’m not really sure if they’ll want double pepperoni, or extra cheese.

I am certainly not discounting the importance of pacing a plot, or building a conflict characters must over come. But, for me, the creative process is more about being true to characters, and following through on what they would do, or say. I write about love and happily ever after for characters who, whether they are vampires, witches, or shape-shifters, are looking for the one who will comfort their tortured souls. Which gives all of us something in common with vampires, witches, and shape-shifters. And it’s a lot of fun to fly by night when you are creating a vampire looking for his soul mate. Yeah, really bad pun, but you get my point.

The schematics of writing can often be an important element of any story. But, sometimes the best part of happily ever after is being surprised by finding out if it’s going to be double pepperoni, or extra cheese.