Long Time Passing…

…In between web site updates, that is. The last year absolutely flew by. Real Life kept interfering with so many of my best intentions. On the stroke of midnight Sunday, January 13, I finished the new B&B book, Gone With the Win. It took me seven months to write that book, sixty days longer than it usually takes. Don’t ask why—I don’t know.

The problem with writing a book that takes so long is by the time I’m half-way finished, I forget what I wrote in the early chapters. This can lead to some confusion. And mistakes, such as forgetting what I named new characters and why did I introduce them in the first place. Thank heavens for editors. But by the time I finished, I think I got it right.

Most authors—or so I’m told—send in detailed outlines or lengthy synopses of their proposed work. I tried that once or twice, but it didn’t work for me. I don’t plot my books (no smart remarks here, please—plotting isn’t my strong suit). I do have some idea of what the book will be about, but that’s it. I sit down and start writing. I let my characters tell the story. My theory is that if I’m surprised at what I write, then the reader will be surprised, too. I don’t want to bore myself—or anybody else.

I always get to a point about fifty pages short of the finish line where I panic and wonder how in the world I’m ever going to pull all this together. But now, after writing fifty-three books in the two series, I calm down and remind myself that if I’ve done it before, I can do it again. And I do.

You can be the judge when GWTW comes out in July.

BACK TO MY LURID PAST

Back in 1980 when I submitted my first manuscript to an agent, it was 850 double-spaced pages of a historical novel set in 16th century Scotland called The Royal Mile. I had worked on that book for years, researching it assiduously. Inspired by a visit to Edinburgh in 1964 (with Coz Judy—who else?), I fell in love with the city and its history.

Along with mysteries, my favorite books back then were historical novels of the traditional kind. To my great surprise, my agent, Donald MacCampbell, informed me that the genre was no longer marketable. He asked if I’d ever read any of the books that had revolutionized women’s mass market fiction in the past few years. I told him I’d never even heard of them, let alone read them. Thus, he told me to hustle out to buy a couple. So I did—and was amazed at the bodice-ripping contents. I never did read them cover-to-cover, but I sure got the picture. Donald told me if I wanted to get published, I’d have to make some changes—so I did. The Royal Mile became Love’s Pirate—my editor’s title. But it sold extremely well and I was stuck in the genre.

I wrote seven in all before I decided to make a career change. I didn’t fit into the romance genre—I kept focusing on the history, a bit of mystery, character development and even some humor. Hard-core (dare I use that description?) romance readers weren’t keen on those distractions. I don’t blame them—I get a charge out of reading baseball box scores.

But when I was approached about reissuing my earlier books, I thought why not? I always put 100% effort into my writing and wasn’t ashamed of the results. It just wasn’t the best genre for me. In Reunion (originally titled Pride’s Captive), the heroine is Serena Farrar, a young woman from Maine who wants to be a journalist. I chose her first name because my paternal grandmother was Emma Serena. I like to think of Serena as Emma Lord’s ancestress. (Emma doesn’t know that—she’s not into genealogy.) Like Emma, Serena ends up in a small town—New Bern,* North Carolina. Being a Yankee doesn’t make her the most popular person in her new environment. But editors often aren’t, no matter where they work. Of course there’s a love interest and according to my husband, Dave, Yankee sea captain Brant Parnell is the best male character I ever devised. And he definitely has a sense of humor. Go ahead and read it—I think you might enjoy seeing how Serena—and I--evolved.

*Ironically, New Bern, like Alpine, would become a timber town, but would suffer the same fate—a decline in logging. Only one mill remains there—Weyerhaeuser, a name especially familiar to Pacific Northwesterners.