Lisa Phillips's Blog, page 6

Research: The Necessary Evil

I am a self-proclaimed history/geography/literary geek, so research is one of the elements of writing I most enjoy. If I am creating a hero who is a thirteenth century knight…such as in the second novel of my Everlasting Trilogy, Knight Everlasting… Surely y’all saw that coming. Anyway, the last thing I want is the reader jarred from the story by a hero from the thirteenth century, who looks at the heroine and says, “How you doin’?” Thirteenth century heroes don’t say that. They say, “Good eve, my lady.” And then he goes on to hopefully mesmerize the reader with his ridiculously charming chivalry that is what women from any century cannot resist.

And setting? If I am writing about… Oh, let’s say Savannah, Georgia…such as in my Everlasting Trilogy. I know good and well y’all saw that coming. I want the reader to smell the wisteria, hear the ocean churning into shore, and see the beauty of The Jewel of the South. By the time a reader closes that book, I want them to feel as if they have been there, whether they have, or not.

How the characters dress, what they eat, what they hear, see, and most of all, feel… I want to pull a reader into a world of my making that is real enough not to jar them back into their reality, and at the same time magical enough to be a place they could have never been before seeing it through my imagination. For me that is the best part of being a writer. And the only way to convincingly do so, is through the necessary evil of research.

The Glamorous Life

Years ago, I watched a movie starring Meryl Streep where she played a romance author. Granted it was a spoof, but I recall thinking if any of that is even close to truth… She floated around in frilly dresses with hair and makeup just right, and wrote passionate stories of happily ever after as she lived her own with some hunky guy whose name now escapes me. Okay, yes, she was shallow, spoiled, but I’m telling you spoof or not, it only served as another kick in the pants to pursue my dream of being an author and living the glamorous life.

Well, now I’m an author. Let me tell you, in my personal experience, that movie wasn’t just a spoof, it was one big fat lie! I don’t wear a lot of frilly dresses. As a matter of a fact, last week after spending 18 hours writing a passionate story, and sweating blood over how it would end happily ever after, I got into the car to run to the grocery store to buy food because I can’t write, and keep my sons from foraging the kitchen… Anyway, I looked down as I pulled out of the driveway, and realized I still had on pajama pants. I would have gone on, but the 12 yr old pleaded with me, reminding me it’s a small town and some people do know I am his mother.

Hair and makeup? Yeah, right… I said that with a snort, by the way. I wake each morning groping on the bedside table for the elastic band that will hold my hair into a tight ponytail until it decreases blood flow to the creative parts of my brain needed to finish chapter seven. I have two kids and deadlines. As well as a mother. On a really good day, I get to run through a shower. If I took time to put on makeup it would completely rule out the allotted time for tossing hot dogs at my boys as I nod at whatever my mother is saying while I draft chapter eight in my head. And as a true romantic, I must believe there is some hunky guy out there looking for me and happily ever after. I’m just too busy writing about romance to know his name.

In case my point has escaped you, my life could not possibly be any less glamorous. But, while I shop in pajama pants on the occasions the 12 yr old doesn’t supervise me going out the door, wearing no makeup and my hair in a ponytail so tight my eyes are slanting, I’m still living the dream. It’s not as glamorous as I once thought it would be, though it is no less my dream come true.

Back To School...Thank God!

Today as I swam the riptide that is Wal-Mart on tax-free weekend with two kids in tow, I constantly reminded myself of the benefits of all that hysteria. While the Type A 12 yr old anguished over folders with brads or without, and the carefree 8 yr old hurled washable markers and glue sticks at our cart, I envisioned how close I was to being able to leave my little darlings on another doorstep for seven hours a day.

Seven hours a day, five days a week!

I was so excited at just the thought, when we got to the shoe store, and I saw what the sneakers they wanted cost, my heart continued to beat as a result of the rush of adrenalin. In seven blissful, uninterrupted hours, I can finish a chapter that I won't later edit and find "Mom, I'm hungry" mistakenly interjected into my character's dialogue. For seven hours a day, five days a week, I won't have to break up a brawl, telling the 12 yr old if he thinks his little brother is bad, he should try writing a synopsis. I'll be able to write because I'll be able to hear myself think!

So tonight I will fill backpacks and stuff boxes of Kleenex, rolls of paper towels, and antibacterial wipes into the trunk of my car. And I won't even groan as I count out the amount of money it costs to feed a 6'1" 12 yr old a school lunch. Because it is finally here, and Back To School is the most wonderful time of the year!

Giveaway Winners!

Just wanted to say congrats to Lauren Willshire, who won the autographed copy of Obsession Everlasting, and to Jessica Mason, who won the autographed copy of Knight Everlasting.

And thank you to all who entered and shelved the books! I will be setting up another giveaway for the third and final book in this trilogy as soon as I have a confirmed release date.

Did Someone Say The R Word?

If you ever want the complete, undivided attention of an author, mention you are thinking about writing a review of their novel. Yeah, only your mother has ever paid you that much attention. We spend huge chunks of our lives spinning tales while visions of five stars dance in our heads. The only thing more unnerving than the thought of a computer crashing, is the expectation of reviews.

Good reviews? No problem. You call your mother, she prints it, and leaves it on the windshields of cars in the mall parking lot. Bad reviews? Well, that is something akin to somebody looking at your newborn, and muttering about ugly babies.

I was chatting with a reader recently who asked me if I considered four stars to be a bad review. I told her no, offered to watch her kids and clean her house while she read my titles, and drank the case of wine I bought her. I've talked with other readers who tell me they have never rated any book five stars, and if they see a five star review, they assume the author's mother wrote it so she would have something to put on the windshields in mall parking lots.

As an author, I have come up with a theory. I have a dress I bought more than ten years ago. I love that dress. I have one friend who loves it too. I have another friend who thinks it is hideous. When I wear that dress, I stand a little taller and feel good about myself. I may buy another dress I love at some point. And I can only hope when I do, both my friends love it as much as I do.

Oh, Brothers!

I am fascinated by males. And it's a good thing, because I am surrounded by them. I'm the mother of two rough-and-tumble boys, and have a brother of my own. At my house it's all about football, hot-wings, and "Duuuude, Scarlet Johansen is the hottest chick on the planet!" Rivers of testosterone sweep gym socks and boxer shorts into my laundry room, and I've invested in a truck so I can buy food by the pallet.

Because of my boys, I have a daily prospective on the ever-changing relationship between brothers. One minute I am using a broom handle to separate them as they roll around on the floor punching and trading insults, and the next they are staunchly defending each other against the world. All this brotherly bonding made me decide my next series would be about the begrudged devotion between brothers. And after all, to the mother of two rough-and-tumble brothers, what's a couple more?

The Journey

I've taken a few creative writing classes over the years, and the single most resounding advice each teacher gave was knowing your characters well enough to make them believable. "Create them, live with them, love them!" one professor said. Now, this was a woman who wore an ankle bracelet with bells on it, so generally all I could hear was those darn bells jangling. But, that statement stuck with me.

Earlier this week, I finished the third novel in my vampire trilogy. For over a year, I have lived with and loved a cast of characters I created. I went on with all the daily responsibilities I have, but rarely where these characters far from my thoughts. I lost sleep, track of time, and on a few occasions the hair I pulled out while following a journey that somehow stopped being mine.

That's when I knew exactly what Professor Bells-On-Her-Ankle meant. Those characters had come to life, and I was just along for the ride. So I close the doors to the Eternal Realm, being very grateful to Professor Bells-On-Her-Ankle for teaching me the importance of the journey.

In My Own Backyard

I have yet to write any story, and certainly not one that will eventually unravel into a happily ever after, without a good portion of the plot devoted to home and family. I have lived on the south side of the Tennessee River, and just this side of the Smoky Mountains National Park for most of my life. I can count on one hand the times I've crossed the bridge in the last year. The house where I am raising my sons is just a few miles from the house I grew up in, which is just a couple of miles from the house my grandparents built in nineteen thirty-something, which is a mile from the house where my grandfather was born. And three generations of my family live under our roof, including my brother, who isn't going anywhere, and leaving me here alone with my kids and our mother! It's a big place, but most of the rooms go to waste, because everybody is always in the kitchen.

I have never in all the years I have lived here been into Kroger, or Wal-mart and not run into somebody I have known since grade school. My boys go to school with and play ball with the children of people I went to school with, and many of their parents grew up with mine. I was on facebook this morning with others from around here telling them how my boys roll their eyes when I start telling stories about growing up in South Knoxville. I know how they feel. I did the same thing when my father and grandfather told their versions of those stories.

My boys are still at the age where growing up here is not charmingly nostalgic. It's hard to get away with much, or have anything about your life remain private, when your mother runs into all your buddies' mothers at Wal-mart. They're thinking one day they are going to be grown, and they are going to cross that bridge, and never come back. I thought the same thing, and I even left the south side of the river for a short while. But, when it came time to decide where I wanted my children to grow up, I ended up right back on the south side of that river.

I'm sure there are other places just as beautiful, though I will say when those mountains light up with fall colors, you'd be hard pressed to show me one. I'm sure there are places where the people may be even nicer, particularly given how ornery we can get around here during college football season. But, the south side of the river is home to me, and many of the people here are family, whether we're genetically linked, or not. I guess that's what my dad wanted to give me, when he decided to raise me here, and I know it's what I want to give my boys. And one day, whether or not they choose to raise my grandchildren here...I'm laughing because I'm betting the chances of my boys telling me they are taking my grandchildren too far from me will be slim to none. I know they will have wives, but I'll deal with them when the time comes. Anyway, no matter where my boys end up, I'm betting their kids will be rolling their eyes when their fathers tell them stories over and over about growing up on the south side of the river.

I can't imagine a happily ever after being found anywhere but at home in a crowded kitchen!

Writers NEVER stop reading.

Well, except maybe when your deadline looms. And your kid is sick. And your mother...well, that list is too long to get into.

One of the biggest frustrations I face as an author is there are so many books, and not enough time! Yes, it's the same dilemma I faced before I became an author, but now the problem is twofold. Before, I didn't have to be careful not to mention to my editor I loved the new Sookie. What? Sookie? No. I said bookie. I am almost finished with the revisions of my new bookie!

So, now I have to figure all life's responsibilities, and writing around an addiction I have harbored for most of my life. It is embarrassing the things I will do to feed my habit. I have heard there was a traffic slow down on the interstate due to construction, and pulled off the road to read one more chapter. I swear to my family when I get home it was construction. Didn't you hear it all over the news?

I hide books under the bleachers at my kid's ballgames, and if anybody is interested, there are copies of various paranormal titles stashed in rest stops from TN to GA. I sometimes have to leave them, and run because my kids frisk me, and are threatening to found a twelve step program for readers/writers who lie to their children.

I have had numerous close calls in the grocery store as I read and shop. So shoot me! I didn't mean to bump into your cart, but I have deadlines, and kids, and do not even get me started on my mother! Now, is your ankle broken, or not, because if it is, I can get in at least one more chapter before the paramedics arrive.

Happy 4th!

I am a southerner. And in the south, all our memorable occasions are defined by food. In my family, if two or more of us shall gather together, there will be potato salad. My grandmother, Cleo, always made potato salad. It went well with the fried chicken. She didn't rely on the Colonel for her fried chicken. From what I understand, she raised those chickens herself. She also raised seven children, so needless to say, she is my hero.

I still make Cleo's potato salad. I'd give you the recipe, but then I would have to kill you. I don't raise chickens either. I don't even rely on the Colonel for my fried chicken. I have a local grocery store that fresh fries it on speed dial. I say for what the Colonel charges, he should come to my house, and chase chickens around it. But, I always make Cleo's potato salad.

My sons never met Cleo. She passed away years before they were born. But, they know her potato salad. They never met my grandmother, Helen, either but they know her cast iron skillet is in my kitchen and it's the secret to my cornbread. My boys know in our house, food is love, and it has been for generations.

Wishing you all a happy and safe 4th of July!