Judith Post's Blog, page 124

Writing: when good enough, isn’t

Writing’s like Boy Scouts.  My grandson, Tyler, belonged to one of the most wonderful Boy Scout troops anyone could hope for.  He learned SO much.  But one of his leaders signed every message she sent him with “Good enough–isn’t.”  Thank you, Mrs. Dirig!  That was pretty much the motto for their troop.  Don’t just try to get by.  Excel.

I belong to a writers’ group–one of the BEST writers’ groups–and I’ve looked at pages for lots of writers who’ve joined us and stayed with us.  I’ve read writers with lots of potential who had no sense of sequence or grammar.  Those things are something a writer can learn.   Everything’s something a writer can learn, but some things are harder than others.  Using active verbs instead of passive verbs is something we yap about on a regular basis–so often, in fact, it becomes a mantra for us.  We go on and on about opening hooks and inciting incidents, about the book’s big question.  We ask about the protagonist’s outer and inner motivaton, pacing, plotting, the book’s big showdown–it had better deliver, word choice…you name it.   And we learn from each other.

The hardest thing to critique, though, is when someone reads and the words flow, everything SEEMS right, we can’t find a flaw, but none of us are excited about the story.  Clean, but boring, is harder to work with.  It’s taken me a while, but when that happens now, I know it’s not what’s THERE, but what ISN’T that’s the problem.  And that’s even harder to explain to a newer writer.

Sometimes, the yawn factor happens because the author tells, instead of showing.  We’re not living the events with the protagonist.  We’re not holding our breath when he’s in danger.  We’re not feeling heart palpitations because the guy who’s hot looks our way.  We’re kept at a distance while the author TELLS us what happened.  But even after writers master the art of Show, Don’t Tell, their stories can be flat.  Then our group has to take a harder look at what’s NOT there.

Are the stakes high enough?  Does the protagonist care enough?  Is the story too pat?  Has it been done to death?  Is there an original slant to it?   Or is it so out there, we can’t relate to it?  We ask all those questions, but when we’ve exhausted everything else, sometimes it comes down to something even harder to put a finger on.  Is the story immediate enough?  Are we connected enough to the protagonist?

I’ve said it before in this blog, but a lot of readers read for emotional impact.  They want to laugh, cry, and despair with the story’s main character.  I used to have problems with this in my own writing.  I tended to be too private.  I was more of an idea writer than an emotional one.  I started with mysteries that were plot driven instead of character driven.  When I switched to urban fantasy, it was hard to add the internal dialogue and feelings that drive those stories.  But that’s one of urban fantasy’s strong points.  The characters’ emotions are what ground the magic and supernatural action in reality.

To start the writing year off right, I’m including a list of great sites about the craft of writing and marketing.  I hope you’re inspired in 2014.  Happy writing!

Lisa Gardner offers one heck of a feast of advice on her site:  http://lisagardner.com/writers-toolbox

When Les Edgerton gets down to the nitty-gritty, I always learn something: http://lesedgertononwriting.blogspot.com/2012/03/character-actions.html?spref=fb

I don’t just use Victory Crayne’s critique advice to look at other writers’ work.  I use it when I look at my own:  http://www.crayne.com/howcrit.html

While you’re at it, why not learn from one of the best?  http://winningedits.com/neil-gaiman-on-writing

And why not finish with one of my favorites?  http://www.ilona-andrews.com/category/articles

 

May the Muses bless you for the year ahead.

 

 

 

 

 

Writing: never the same

I’ve been writing a long time, and I’ve tried a lot of different methods in search of the “perfect” combination.  I’ve plotted mysteries using a calendar to keep track of the pacing of the book.  I’ve used different colored markers for different characters to see if I was getting the balance right.  I’ve spent a lot of time analyzing my antagonist so that I had a worthy adversary for my protagonist.  And each method had its good points and its bad.

Now, I keep it simple.  Before I write, I know the inciting incident, the set-up, two plot twists, and the story’s end.  I know what I want to happen, when. The rest, I leave to my characters.  Most of the time, that’s enough.  But I finished an Ally/Dante novella at the end of November, and I fought that story every inch of the way.  Nothing in that story cooperated.  When I finally got it done, I felt like I’d survived a wrestling match, and I had the bruises to prove it.

I worried when I started a new, longer Babet/Prosper novella, thinking maybe the planets and Muses weren’t aligned for inspiration.  I wanted to get it mostly finished before the boys were out of school for Christmas break, but this time, the words flew.  Just like before, I had enough plot points, but they were stretched between more pages.  No problem.  This time, ideas popped up as I went.  One scene inspired the next.

Today, the boys went out with friends, so I started plotting a new novel I want to start in January, and I couldn’t type fast enough.  True, I’d let that novel “stew” for over a month while I wrote the novellas.  I’d written notes and jotted down ideas for scenes, so the book was waiting to burst out and get the attention it thought it deserved.  But I’d thought about the Ally/Dante story before I started it, too.   So what made the difference?  The sorry truth is, books are sort of like kids.  You can love them and guide them, but each one is different.

I went to a mystery writers’ conference once and Mary Higgins Clark was the featured speaker.  I’ll never forget it.  Someone in the audience asked her, “When did writing get easy for you?”  And she said, “If you really care about your writing, it never does.”  And she went on to explain that she didn’t think she’d even be able to finish the novel she was working on at that time, she was having so many problems with it, until her daughter brainstormed with her, and she finally saw how to get from Point A to Point B.  That was an eye opening moment for me.  I’d always thought that someday, I’d master each and every ingredient of writing, and I’d know how to make each story its best.  But that just isn’t so.

Stories that look like they’ll be simple to write, aren’t.  Stories I fuss over, flow.  And it doesn’t matter if I write outlines or wing it more than usual.  No two stories ever work the same.  I was on a panel with Shirley Jump once, and she said that she’d tried to “always make things worse” for her protagonist and had written herself into a corner where she had no idea how to fix things for a happy ending.  So, she put on her running shoes and trusted her brain to figure it out.  Which it did.  And that’s the thing.  Writing pushes us to grow, to strive to make scenes and characters come to life.  And it keeps us humble:)

P.S.  I played with my website a little, hopefully made it better.  http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/

Happy holidays!

This isn’t my usual writing blog.  I’m in holiday mode.  December 20th was Nate and Tyler’s last day of school.  Ty’s coming home from Bloomington for the holidays, and Nate’s dropping in to visit more often.  Our “second” daughter, Heidi, (she grew up across the street and spent a lot of time at our house with our older daughter) came to town on Saturday to see her family, so we got a quick visit with her and her husband and kids.

My thoughts are full of family and get togethers.  For me, that means I’m stocked up with lots of food.  I made a pot of Tyler’s favorite vegetable soup and Nate’s favorite chicken and dumplings for easy lunches.  I bought steaks and ribs for special meals.  I have everything ready to make chicken marsala tonight.  There’s a ham for Christmas day.  And more, lots more.

Anyone who’s read my blog knows how much I love to cook.  I’ve managed to accumulate more cookbooks and files full of recipes than I’ll probably ever use.  Cooking and food sneak into the stories I write.  To me, food is the thing that brings people together, that cements a social gathering.  My writing friend Mary Lou has warned me she’s going to put a big, red X on “food” scenes in my stories that don’t advance the plot.  She says she can gain weight just beta reading one of my manuscripts:)  But what can I say?  I love cooking for people.

I don’t make as many big meals as I used to since it’s just John and me, so when I get a chance to feed the masses, I’m a happy woman.  This year, I didn’t just stop at the food for the holidays, though.  I wanted the table to look festive, too.  For years, more kids crowded around my table than adults, and kids could care less what food is served in.  They don’t care how their hot dogs, spaghetti, or Korean beef is plated, just as long as there’s lots of it.  But now that the kids are grown, I decided to give away my old, beat-up cookware.  I decided to upgrade.

I’m not a fussy person.  I have no desire to have anything fragile that requires much care, so fine china and crystal were out.  That’s when I discovered stoneware.  Worse, my sister, Patty, told me about the joys of In the Kitchen with David on QVC, and a monster was born–me.  My husband encouraged me.  He was happy when I bought a new bakeware set, cheered when I ordered new pots and pans and casserole dishes.  I’m not usually much of a shopper…But things for the kitchen?  When I was actively looking for them?  Watch out, world!

I was actually slowing down on my love of loaf pans, pie plates, and 9 x 13 bakeware when my second sister, Mary, gave me all of her Christmas dishes, coffee cups, and stemware.  Her love of entertaining had reached the designer, paper plate level.  Her Christmas tree plates didn’t match  any of the stuff I had, but there was a holly painted cook set that would go perfectly with them.  So guess what?  I had to store my new stuff away to make way for the even newer, Christmas things.  Now I have more stoneware of different shapes and colors than I ever dreamed possible.

It’s a good thing I only binge on cookware a few times a decade.  It’s even better that I write five days  a week, because it keeps me out of trouble.  Who knows what I’d find if I devoted more time to it?

I’m ready to enjoy the holidays.  And I hope yours are full of food and friends and merriment!

Writing: my New Year Wishes

This post is not about real goals.  It’s about the unachievable that I strive to achieve.  It’s my fantasy wish list.

Someday, I want to plot as well as Agatha Christie did.  I want to be as clever with red herrings and mislead readers as easily as she did.  I want to write a twist as unpredictable (at least, for me) as the one in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

I want language to flow from my fingers to the keyboard to the printed page that’s as lyrical and evocative and smooth and lush as Elizabeth George’s or Nancy Pickard’s.  I want the depth and layers of their writing, and still achieve the poetic essence that flows in Sharyn McCrumb, Sarah Addison Allen, and Alice Hoffman’s stories.  I want readers to finish a page of mine and marvel in the beauty of words.

I want to trigger visceral reactions strong enough to make readers bite their fingernails and squirm in their seats, like Stephen King.

I want the imagination and creativity, the originality of Neil Gaimann.  I want readers to lick their lips, amazed, at the directions my stories go.  I want the sense of intelligence that permeates Robert Reed’s or Theodore Sturgeon’s stories.

I want the sheer knowledge base of skill and craft that Les Edgerton flings out casually when I sit on panels with him.  The man reads five novels a week.  Studies writing.  Teaches writing.  And is never shy about voicing an opinion.  His blog is worth reading.  http://www.lesedgertononwriting.blogspot.com/

I want to marry fantasy with action and myths as well as Patricia Briggs, Faith Hunter, or Ilona Andrews does.

And if pressed, I’d be happy to have a career like Nora Roberts’s.  She can use romance as a foundation to explore the fantastic, like in Midnight Bayou, or to thrill with crime, as J.D. Robb, or to play with mysteries (Three Fates) or love stories (too many to list:).

I respect each and every one of these writers when I delve inside their pages, and I come away determined to write better.  This is not the typical list of famous writers to emulate.  I don’t need to be the next Shakespeare or Flannery O’Connor.  I admire literary genius, but I have humbler ambitions.

Who are your writing idols?  Who inspires you?  If a fairy waved a magic wand, and you could steal any writing talent you chose, whose would it be?

Good luck achieving your dreams in the coming year:)

P.S.  This is my 100th post, and I never thought I’d achieve that….

 

Writing–Goals for 2014

Each writer has a different approach to his craft/skills.  And no one’s right.  And no one’s wrong.  But I work better when I give myself goals.  One of my friends at Scribes–my writers’ group–believes that a writer should give a book however long that story takes to grow into itself and be the best that he/she can make it.  He says that a writer who writes less, writes better.  And that works for him, but it’s not necessarily true for me.  If I dilly-dally over a story too long, I tend to rewrite it for no good reason, and I don’t always improve it.  I do better when I think out a story BEFORE I start writing and then make it the best that I can while I pound on the keyboard.

I do believe that a writer can rush a story, to the novel’s detriment.  Or to the writer’s.  I’ve seen people do it.  They burn out.  But I also believe that a writer can play with a story over and over again without making it better.  I’ve seen people do that, too.  This year, I am going to push myself, but I think that my goals are do-able.  This year, I want to write the third book in each of the series that I’ve started.  That means that I’ll have to write three novels in twelve months.

Like I said: do-able.  I’ve never tried the nanowrimo month of pounding out words.  50,000 words in one month would leave me with so many re-writes, it wouldn’t be worth it.  My brain doesn’t function that fast.  It would take me longer to fix the holes in my story, play with transitions, and smooth out the wrinkles of a plot on speed that I’d spend more time polishing than doing it my usual way–plodding along.  I won’t even mention how much work it would take to flesh out my characters.  I usually have to do that anyway.  In a hurry?  The reader might learn what color hair and eyes they have.

But when I plop my fanny in a chair and get serious, I can usually produce 5 to 10 pages a day.  I never work on weekends–except for writing my blog, and that doesn’t count.  It’s “talking” to friends, not writing.   And I never write on Scribes’ days, because I think and talk writing so much, I can’t write when I get home.  But even with those days scratched from use, I should still end up with twenty, good, writing days a month.  That’s 100 to 200 pages, probably somewhere in the middle.  In 2 months, I should have a rough draft.  Give me another month, and I might have a finished draft.  If I’m lucky.  That means, if nothing jostles me off track–and I am well aware that Life happens, best laid plans, and all that–but if nothing goes seriously awry, I should be able to write a book in three months.  That gives me time to think and plan about the next book before I have to start writing it.  And if I finish THAT book in three months, I have a month to do character circles and plot points before I sit down to write the third book.

It all looks good on paper.  It could work.  So why not give it a shot?  If it doesn’t happen, I won’t hang my head in shame.  I might bang my head against a wall, but that usually improves my thinking:)  Anyway, hopefully, by the end of 2014, I’ll have three books in each of my three series.

I don’t know what your writing goals are for 2014, but good luck with them!  It never hurts to plan (and maybe dream) ahead.  Here’s wishing you all the best!

http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/

https://www.facebook.com/JudithPostsurbanfantasy

 

my book’s on sale

Just wanted to mention that my novel, Fallen Angels, is on special from Dec. 5 to 12 at amazon, B & N, and smashwords for 99 cents, if anyone would like to take a peek.  Thanks!

http://www.amazon.com/Fallen-Angels-Judith-Post-ebook/dp/B0079MLWSQ/ref=sr_1_5?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1386265515&sr=1-5&keywords=Judith+Post

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/fallen-angels-judith-post/1108862149?ean=2940013942929

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/132573

 

 

 

Writing: Titles & Covers

I’ve sloughed off a bit on writing, tweeting, and connecting this week.  Tyler came home from Bloomington & took over the upstairs from Monday night to Friday night before he had to head back to I.U.  We don’t get to see him that often, so everything got jostled out of his way.  Holly and Nate came to see him a lot.  (Holly’s my daughter, but she has a small, two bedroom apartment, so Ty stays here and lets his mom and brother come to us.  It works for everyone).  There was a lot of cooking, eating, laughing, and visiting.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  The business of writing got pushed aside.  But when I finally got back to my writing table, I found a note from one of my critique buddies at the top of the manuscript she looked at for me.  “How attached are you to this title?  Maybe change?”

For me, titles are a slippery slope.  Not so easy to summon.  I tend to think of them as metaphors for the story I’m telling.  When that fails, I try to think of something evocative that hints at the subject and tone of the novel.  Or if I’m desperate, I simply state what the story’s about.  Fallen Angels tells the story of two angels cast from heaven–Caleb because he wanted to join Lucifer, Enoch because he wrestled Caleb to the ground and wouldn’t let him.  I admire those writers who can think of a gimmick to make their book titles click with readers.  Sue Grafton used the alphabet–A is for Alibi, C is for Corpse, etc.  Martha Grimes named her novels after British pubs.  Lillian Jackson Braun started her titles with “The Cat Who…..”   Some authors use one, recurring word, like Ilona Andrews’ Kate Daniels series:  Magic Bites, Magic Burns, Magic Strikes, etc.  The minute a reader sees their titles, they think of their series.  Clever.  I didn’t think that far ahead.

My same writer friend recently redid all of her book covers, and her novels started selling better.  Just like my book titles, I like my covers to give a sense and tone of the stories they represent, but I recently read a blog post from Book Bub, http://unbound.bookbub.com/ , which listed the 8 best things to have on covers to sell books.  Number one was a cute animal, especially dogs.  Okay, I wouldn’t have guessed that.  Seasonal themes and shirtless men ranked high on the list, too.   Shirtless men I suspected, since cover after cover feature them on the romance and fantasy shelves.  A lot of urban fantasy covers display a woman who looks like she could kick ass.  Some wear tattoos.  A lot of them wear black leather.  There’s usually some skin involved.  Sometimes a weapon or a motorcycle.  I should have done more research.  I failed at those too:)

It takes a lot of time to write a good book, and sometimes, we choose our titles and covers as extensions of the mood, tone, or language of our stories.  But we should also stop and think of them as marketing tools.  Does your book title imply the type of genre you write?  Have you glanced at the types of covers most authors use in your genre?  Do covers with dark backgrounds seem to sell better than light colors?  It’s all worth thinking about.

Do you have some favorite titles?  Some favorite covers?  What drew you to them?  Both are sells tools.  Choose wisely.

 

 

Writing: What do you HAVE to get right?

My friends and I were talking about some of our all-time favorite books.  What I found interesting was how much we disagreed.  An author one of us loved, another person might not bother to finish.   And the very thing that elevated a book for one of us was the same thing someone else considered a flaw.  That made me wonder.  What are the essentials for a good book?

At my writers’ club, I used to cringe when a person said, “This isn’t really something I read, so I’m not sure how to critique it.”  The qualifier used to bother me, but not any more.  I’ve learned to take very seriously what type of book a person’s writing.  Because, let’s face it, each genre offers an implicit promise to deliver certain things to its readers.

One of my friends writes Regency historicals and another writes historical romances, and a lot of times when they read at Scribes, they get the comment, “There’s so much description.  Does it really matter if her gloves have buttons on them or if her gown is silk?”  And the answer is yes.  Historicals aren’t just about characters and plot, they’re about a time period.  Readers want to be transported to that part of history with its mannerisms and social nuances.  Part of why I enjoyed Pamela West’s Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper was due to the realistic view of how miserable life was for the lower classes during Queen Victoria’s rule.  Caleb Carr achieved the same gritty feeling in The Alienist–showing the beginning of psychology in detective work.   And Barbara Hambly’s Fever Season depicts a New Orleans riddled with diseases during flood seasons and a social stratum that teeters in a delicate balance between whites, slaves, and freed blacks.  I read those books because of great story lines and wonderful characters, along with eloquent writing, but the historical settings added to my reading pleasure.  And yes, details matter.  They whisk me from my living room to a past that, in those books, I’m glad isn’t mine.

Writers–myself included–often bemoan novels being lumped into genres, and heaven help you if you cross one or two.  But the truth is, when a reader picks up a contemporary romance, that’s what he wants.  He wants boy meets girl, obstacles keep them apart, and then boy wins girl.  He wants a happy ending.  My friend Ann writes women’s fiction/romance, and that’s why she chose it.  She wants to feel good when she finishes a book–the one she’s writing or the one she’s reading.

To me, every genre, even literary, comes with certain expectations.  And a writer strives to meet them.  So…what is the essential for a good book?  I think part of it depends on what kind of novel/genre you’re writing.  Every book needs a great story line: a hook, a problem, and a goal to fix it.  It needs characters we care about.  We don’t have to like them, but they have to hold our attention.  A novel needs clarity, so that we don’t stumble and jerk our way through the plot, and it needs a voice that we want to hear.  It needs tension and pacing with no sags that lose our interest.  But I’ve read novels with plot holes that a truck could drive through, characters that I’d like to knock on the side of the head, and pacing that stops and starts in fits, and I still liked the books.  Why?  Each novel delivered what I picked up that book to find.

I’m a Martha Grimes fan, but one of her books–I can’t remember which one–had a roundabout plot that made me too dizzy to even try to follow along.  Usually, in a mystery, that would make me put it on a shelf and move on.  But the characters were so eccentric, the clues so bizarre, I kept turning the pages.  And if it’s true, that the end of a book makes you go out and buy the next one, Grimes did something right, because I did just that.  Still, a mystery has to have something to solve, a few clues to add up, some kind of detective–be it amateur or pro–or I might as well read some other genre.  There are all kinds of mysteries, and each comes with its own special spin.  P.I.s have a certain attitude, a flavor that’s completely different from a cozy.  Thrillers have the “ticking clock,” and women in jeopardy have…well, women pitted against some evil foe.  I have to admit, I can be had by a good woman in jeopardy book as long as the woman doesn’t do contrived, stupid things to up the tension.  When I have to yell, “Don’t go in the basement,” the author’s lost me.

Horror has to scare you or make you squirm.  Fantasy has to whisk you to some new setting with different rules than we have now.  The author has to make that world come alive and establish rules that are consistent with what she’s created.   Dystopian plops us in a future world after a disaster has changed mankind or society or both.

Anyway, reading and writing are subjective.  When I pick up a book, I want to like it.  I think most readers feel the same.  When I love it, I consider it a bonus.  But when I choose a novel, I’m looking for something specific–humor, a puzzle, a scare, or a happy ever after, and I feel gypped if the writer doesn’t deliver.

What stops you when you’re reading  a book or disappoints you?

By the way, if you like serdoms and myths, I have a new novella (short, 40 page read) online now:)

 

 

 

 

 

Writing: Settings Can Hook Me On Series

My friend, Paula, and I are buddy-reading Julia Spencer-Fleming’s newest mystery, The Evil Days.   Fleming’s books are as much character driven as plot driven, which we both love.  For me, that’s what distinguishes a literary mystery from a straighforward mystery.  That, and the use of language.  But the other reason we love the series is Millers Kill, the location of the stories–a town in the Adirondack region of upstate New York.

In the best books, settings become integral to the storyline.  If the author picked up her characters and dropped them somewhere else, the whole tone of the story would change.  Sharyn McCrumb wrote mysteries about the Appalachia region with its folklore and traditions.  She took the same coast as Fleming, but painted it with a Southern voice and got an entirely different feel.   Martha Grimes named her novels after English pubs, and Elizabeth George nailed the tone of the English mystery and Scotland Yard.  P.I.s walk the “mean streets” of big cities–like New York, Detroit, or L.A.  When I think about V. I. Warshawski, I think about Chicago.  They’re almost synonymous to me.

Fantasy writers have always had to create a world for their characters to inhabit, and the more real the world–whether it’s dystopian or imaginary–the stronger the series.  In Ilona Andrews’s Kate Daniels novels, Andrews gives us a world where magic and technology clash with each other.  Sometimes, magic rules and technology goes down.  Other times, technology hums along and magic recedes.  That creates an interesting challenge for her heroine, who uses magic, but knows that sometimes, her energy will surge, and sometimes, she’d be better off with a weapon.  All urban fantasy writers take a world, much like ours, and people it with supernatural characters.  The trick is defining the rules for each supernatural and staying true to those rules.   Some writers only let vampires roam when the sun sets.  Others let them sparkle.  If they can make it believable and consistent, it doesn’t matter.

I’m always happy when a setting becomes almost a character in the stories I write.  It doesn’t always happen, but it did in the Babet/Prosper novellas.  River City is loosely based–and I do mean loosely–on a trip I made to New Orleans.  That city had an essence I haven’t experienced anywhere else.  I wanted to incorporate that feeling in my writing, especially since I wanted to have witches, voodoo, and succubi treading its nooks and crannies.  Faith Hunter cranks New Orleans up even more to give her Jane Yellowrock series its gritty feel.

Emerald Hills came alive for me in a completely different way.  In my mind, it takes place in Nashville, Indiana–with I.U. and Bloomington close by, the Brown County national park a stone’s throw away, and wineries within corking distance.  I could picture the quaint, unique tourist shops, but those can be found many places.  What makes Emerald Hills special is the magic that seeps into the bonbons, shoes, and garden gnomes that are sold.  When I write those novellas, I can almost picture Tinkerbell’s magic dust sprinkled over this shop owner or that.

Some stories are universal.  They can take place anywhere.  The characters and plots are enough to carry them.  But I always love it when a setting sticks in mind–a place so real, I want to return to see what’s happening there.  It’s something to consider when you start your next book.

http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/

 

 

Writing–stretch yourself

My four Emerald Hills novellas are featured on Jen’s blog right now for her Friday Foodie Affair:  http://lratrandom.blogspot.com/.  Jen was one of the first people I met when I joined Goodreads, and like so many of the people I’ve met in the groups I joined there, she’s enriched my writing and reading.  For her foodie blog, she did an author interview and posted  one of my recipes, too.  In the interview, she asked if I had other Emerald Hills novellas in mind to write, and at the time, I did.  I finished two more, but I’ve decided to use those to close out the series.   I hope to make the six of them into a bundle and start concentrating on writing more novels, less novellas.

I’m happy I wrote the Emerald Hills series.  I’ve always been a plot driven person, but I wanted to focus on more romance in those stories.  I started out small.  I hung More Than Bonbons on a mystery frame and padded it with Tana and Nate’s sparring and attraction.  I added even more mystery for Mallory’s Magical Gourds, but by the time I reached Sheri Hits The Right Notes, I was getting more comfortable with characters driving the story line.  Sole Responsibilities doesn’t have any mystery at all.  And I liked it that way.

I’m glad I tried something new, something outside my comfort zone, for that series.  I learned a lot.  Clues and action are great, but so are misunderstandings, conflicting goals, and chaotic emotions for creating conflict and tension.  By concentrating on trying to get two people together, I had to amplify the give and take of relationships, the nuances that hint at something more, and for me, what seemed nearly impossible–filling 40+ pages with two people taking one step at a time toward becoming a couple.

I didn’t think I had romance in me, but I did.  And it’s made me a better writer.  I like to try things in my writing that I’m not the best at, so that I concentrate on the “how to” of getting them right.  I hope I always keep growing as a writer.  Sometimes I bomb, and then I have to shift gears and grit my teeth for rewrites.  But that’s what second and third drafts are for, right?   So for me, it’s worth taking a chance and flexing muscles I don’t have yet, but muscles I just might get.

P.S.  The Babet & Prosper Collection II bundle will be free on Kindle from Nov. 12 to 15.      http://www.amazon.com/Babet-Prosper-Collection-II-Bogeyman-ebook/dp/B00FBG7J4I/ref=sr_1_10?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1384045162&sr=1-10&keywords=Judith+Post