On Writing

I’ve been tagged by my friend, Lauren Smith, to answer the following four questions, so here goes.

1. What are you working on right now?

Some of my writer friends work on several projects at once, but I’m single-minded. Once I start a book, I write straight through until I type “The End”. The only time this isn’t true is if I get edits from my publisher, then I’ll get those done so I can hurry up and return to my work in progress.

So, right now, I’m seventy-five pages into my third K2 Series book. The first, CRAZY FOR HER, was a 2013 Golden Heart finalist, and I hope to have some news about that very soon. The second book is finished and in the hands of my agent. I’m sure she’ll have some revisions she’ll want me to do on it.

2. How does it differ from other works in its genre?

My hero, Saint, is different from most alpha male heroes in that he doesn’t drink or cuss, and is very discriminating in the women he sleeps with. As a young man, he was the exact opposite—wild and carefree. Then he made a terrible mistake and vowed to change his life. Okay, so he went a little overboard, but the woman he’s just met is about to turn his world inside out.

3. Why do you write what you do?

I write romance because I’m a sucker for Happily Ever Afters. My people might go through hell and back to get there but in the end, they are going to be happy, damn it! When I first started writing, I had a tendency for my hero/heroine to fall in love and be happy by the second chapter. Makes for a very short book, so I had to learn about conflict and motivation. Will I ever write non-romance stories? I doubt it, but you never know what story might pop into a writer’s mind.

4. How does your writing process work?

Painfully, sometimes. Fortunately, my muse (not a morning person) tends to wake up mid-afternoon and when I’m lucky, she’s a blabbermouth. I just try to keep up with her. There are days when she doesn’t feel like talking, and those are the days I struggle to put at least a thousand words on the pages. I’m a panster, meaning I write by the seat of my pants. I’ve tried plotting, but it just doesn’t work for me. Makes me feel like I’ve been closed into an airless box.

There you have it. I’ll leave you with a short excerpt from what I’m working on.

Everyone laughed, and it struck Jamie that since the death of his parents, he’d built a wall, shutting out anyone who tempted him to have fun. Even with the team, he held back, not letting any of them get close. What had he been afraid of? That if he had fun, he’d slip back to his old ways?

In the beginning, it would have been a strong possibility, so the rules he’d put in place had kept him on track. Yet, as the years passed and he’d matured, he could have eased up a little. But he hadn’t been tempted to…until Sugar.

She scared him. She excited him. Was he willing to risk the kind of honorable life he’d strived for the past ten years for a few good times? Because that’s all it would be. Sugar Darling wasn’t what he wanted in a wife, but no other woman had called to the wildness he’d tried to exonerate the way this one did. Did he dare take what he wanted and if he did, what would be the consequences?

I tag Jenny Hall, Jan Romes, and Dawn Marie Hamilton

www.sandra-owens.com

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