So, on with the writing blog
hop! It centers around 4 basic questions:
1) What am I working on?2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?
3) Why do I write what I do?
4) How does my writing process work?
I write classy erotic romance as NY Times and USA Today bestselling
author Jasmine Haynes. I also write romantic comedy with a twist of mystery
under my Jennifer Skully pseudonym, and right now I’m working my next
Cottonmouth book. The first two in the series are She’s Gotta Be Mine
and Fool’s Gold. I haven’t
written a Cottonmouth novel in years, and it’s been so fun to revisit that
little town I created and catch up with the couples from the first two books. Can’t
Forget You centers around Maggie Halliday, a newly divorced mother of a
college-age daughter, returning home to Cottonmouth after a 20-year absence.
Her grandmother has just passed away and Maggie inherits her house, along with
all her grandmother’s boarders still living there. And guess who lives in the
attic room? Cooper Trubek, the high school sweetheart she dumped. The story is
about whether you can really come home again, but it’s also about all the
secrets we run away from. And her grandmother’s house has lots of secrets that
it doesn’t want to keep buried anymore. There’s a little bit of magical realism
going on here, because the house can actually make things happen. I’ve finished
the first draft, and I’m now working on the first revision. I’ll tell you all
about that process in a bit.
My romances differ from many of those in my two romance
genres because I write about mature characters. Most of them are in the late
thirties or their forties. I’ve even had some of my characters in their
fifties. Their at a different stage of life. Their kids might be in high school
or fully grown. They’ve had divorces. They’re not starting out anymore. They’ve
done all that, and now they’re looking for something different. The issues they
tackle are different from characters in their twenties. And make no mistake,
just because I write erotic romance, my stories aren’t all sex-sex-sex.
Everyone has an issue they’ve got to deal with. I guess I’m really answering
the third question here as well, why do I write what I do? I’m no spring
chicken, so I write about people who are older. I was an accountant in Silicon
Valley for many years, so a lot of my books feature people in the business
world. Max Starr in the Max Starr series is an accountant. She’s also a
psychic, and she has visions of murdered women. The West Coast series takes
place in a Silicon Valley company similar to one I worked in (without all the
sexual hijinks!). The first book in the Cottonmouth series, my heroine was an
accountant! So there’s a lot of “write what you know” in there. I like to write
funny stuff, mystery stuff, sexy stuff. And I like combining them. Someone
recently said that I write humorous erotic! I’d never thought of it that way,
but my latest, Teach
Me a Lesson, did make me laugh! I’ve done a bit of
paranormal with Max Starr and my reincarnation story, Twisted By Love. Those are the
paranormal things I believe in, ghosts, reincarnation, and psychics. So I write
what interests me about characters who are closer to my age in settings that
I’m familiar with or that intrigue me.
As for my writing process, I’m a linear writing, meaning I
write from beginning to end. I know people who skip around, but often how a
scene plays out changes scenes that come later. A small or big thing happens
that directs the course of the books, sometimes changing it in ways I never
expected. I guess I’m sort of living the story along with my characters as I’m
writing it. I have a basic plot which I enter into a chapter-by-chapter
outline, which I call the Toad. LOL, I
was telling my friend Rosemary Gunn about my “roadmap” in an email, and I
accidentally typed Toadmap. So we just kept calling it the Toad! I know where
I’m going. Usually, LOL! There was one Max Starr book where I had no idea who
the killer was until my heroine figured it out for me! But for the most part I
have the basics down. Things can change, though, in unexpected ways as a scene
is playing out, and that often directs the action later on. Just like it does
for a real person! I pick out my characters, names, ages, backgrounds. It’s
important to have all that up front so I don’t lose the characters as I’m going
along. That’s not to say they don’t surprise me, too, and I find out things I
didn’t know! I try to write between 2000 to 2500 words a day. I don’t edit or
rewrite unless a scene is totally hopeless and I have to scrap it. I do make
notes in my Toadmap about what I need to consider revising, things I forgot to
seed in earlier, etc, etc, but I push through to the end. My first revision is
going back to all those notes in the Toad and revising. Some of them might be
more global and I’ll take care of those on the second revision, which is a full
read-through. After that I do one final read and send it to my editor. There’s
one more revision after I get it back from the editor, and it’s done. I try not
to go over and over and over the manuscript. That can take all the joy out of
it and erase my voice. Sometimes a book can be totally polished but completely
bland because all the good flavor has been revised right out of it.
So that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!
I’ve got some fabulous authors coming up next so please be
sure to check out their writing process blogs next Monday, April 21! I adore the books of each of my guests, and I'm sure you will, too. Here's an intro to each of them!
Golden Heart Award winner and Epic Award nominee Pamela Fryer writes contemporary
romance with a dash of paranormal, and edge-of-your-seat romantic suspense that
will leave you breathless. She lives in Northern California, but has never worn
Birkenstock sandals. Visit her at her website www.pamelafryer.com,
where you can sign up for her newsletter, or at facebook.com/pamelasbooks
newsletter. Look for her blog at http://pamelafryer.blogspot.com/. If you
haven’t read one of Pam's books, then now’s your chance! The Lost Finder—I loved this book—is free thru
Tuesday, 4/15. Reward yourself for finishing your taxes by getting a great free
book!
Regina Kammer
writes erotica and historical erotic romance. She has been published by Cleis
Press, Go Deeper Press, Ellora’s Cave, and her own imprint, Viridium Press. She
began writing historical fiction during NaNoWriMo 2006, switching to erotica
when all her characters suddenly demanded to have sex.
2013 releases include:The Pleasure Device (Harwell Heirs Book 1): http://kammerotica.com/books/pleasure-device/
The General’s Wife: http://kammerotica.com/books/the-generals-wife-an-american-revolutionary-tale/
Connect with her:
Blog: http://kammerotica.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Kammerotica
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Kammerotica
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/Kammerotica
Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+ReginaKammer
Liz Adams, author of the bestselling
erotic fairy tale Alice’s Sexual
Discovery in a Wonderful Land, lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, CA. Her
short story Amy “Red” Riding’s Hood,
an erotic version of Red Riding Hood, won Goodreads’ Book of the Month for
October 2012. Liz studied music and creative writing in college before making
her writing her career. In her spare time she cuddles with her lover on the
couch to watch her favorite shows, and often they work together doing research
for her books.
Link
to website: http://www.lizadamsauthor.com
Link to blog: http://www.lizadamsauthor.com/my-blog/
Teach Me a Lesson is available for preorder on Amazon http://amzn.to/1fpPZAD BN http://bit.ly/1iK9QlF and iBooks http://bit.ly/1nq2Igu. I hope you all will enjoy it as much as The Naughty Corner.
Invitation to Seduction, Open Invitation Book 1, is still free! Find it on Amazon http://amzn.to/1nt0v3Z
iBooks http://bit.ly/1iPvRvg
BN, Kobo, Smashwords, and ARE!
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