Where's this story going?

Not many people realize it, but I don’t unilaterally fall in love with my stories. Don’t believe me? My hard drive is riddled with fragments and false starts that have never seen daylight, simply because they weren’t up to my standards or something was inherently wrong with them.

Take, as a case in point, “Ancient Magic.” I started this story back in June, with pure intentions and what I thought was a good idea. The problem was — it involved vampires.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with vampires. Check out my backlist, both here at Noble and elsewhere, and you’ll see vampires are a big part of my writing. But that was part of the problem: I’ve already got an established vampire mythos I use. (No, they don’t sparkle.) To create a vampire who would work within the framework of the world I was in the process of constructing, I would have had to go back to the drawing board, so to speak. Besides, I’d already done vampires for the Red Roses and Shattered Glass anthology, so I wanted to try something unique. 

So what did that leave?

Angels? Nope. As much as I love them and exploring their erotic potential, I’ve already got plenty of those in my backlist, thanks just the same. Werewolves? Heh. I’m holding off on doing any more of those until I see how “Dancing On Flames” performs. Ghosts? Been there, done that, also in the Red Roses and Shattered Glass anthology.

I winced, cursed, swore, damned my absolute stupidity, questioned whether or not I was worth my keyboard, poked, prodded, and generally freaked out. Every combination I could come up with that seemed to fit with the “Timeless Desire” theme opened up whole new vistas of suckitude, and for the first time in my professional writing career I started to seriously consider the idea I might not be as immune to  writers’ block as I’d like to believe. For me, this simple statement is an admission tantamount to a deathbed conversion.

Then the answer occurred to me. So simple and laughably obvious that I’d managed to completely ignore it.

Why not make the main characters human?

*Gasp.*

Sure, in most of my stories, there’s a human or quasi-human protagonist. But they almost invariably have some special talent or capability that removes them from the average press of humanity. In the case of “Ancient Magic,” I decided to go a different route and make my characters fully human, devoid of special or unique talents. No telepathy, no fangs, no magic. Just two people who were intended to be something more than what fate made them, but nevertheless capable of amazing but not supernatural deeds.

In fact, the only things I kept from the original three and a half thousand words of what started as “Night Eternal” were the setting and Varath’s name. The setting was inspired by the image of a ruined Greek temple; antiquity has always fascinated me, so Hell or high water, that element of the story wasn’t to be touched. Varath had a perfectly good name, so why waste time seeking something better? 

While I was having my mental slugfest with my muse over the whys and wherefores of the story, my time to finish the story was inexorably running out. The contract had already been inked; the clock was ticking, and lost in the fog of battle with my recalcitrant plot, I didn’t notice until an email arrived in my inbox.

“When are you going to have the story done?”

Sometimes, you just need a good, sharp poke with a long stick. So I sat down and started to work. In two days, “Ancient Magic” was completed. I fired it off and anticipated a scathing email which boiled down to “WTF do you think you’re trying to pull?” 

You’d think I would’ve known better; after all, Bryl hasn’t kicked back one single story I’ve subbed for Noble yet, so it would stand to reason after five accepted submissions it probably wouldn’t happen now either. But the first few days after I put in a submission are always characterized with a slightly panicky air of “Oh, shit. This is where everyone’s finally going to realize I’m a living monument to ineptitude and shouldn’t be permitted anywhere near the company of real authors.”

It’s admittedly a little melodramatic, but it’s part of my mojo. The stress over whether or not my work will be judged worthy inspires me to work all the harder, and some of my best writing has come out of post-submission jitters. And frankly, I fear the day when I don’t get that gut-clenching shrieking fear when I send out a manuscript, because that will be the day I lose my edge altogether.

Did I succeed with “Ancient Magic?”

You tell me.

Until next time,

Best,

J.S. Wayne

Don’t forget to leave a comment for your chance to win some great prizes, and then click the Special Blogs button to continue on the “Timeless Desire” blog tour!

The Thrill of a Release!

Nooo, not that kind of a release, though hey--definitely thrilling.

I'm referring, of course, to new book releases. I've discovered, so far, the excitement over a book coming out doesn't diminish after the first book. If anything, my excitement builds. I know some of what to expect: The guest blogging, the self promotion, the subtle threats against family and friends who don't snatch up my book right away. But there's definitely new hope with every release.

Will this be the release that changes my career somehow?


I'm lucky in the sense that I not only have a release out today with Noble (Love Revisited: Davit and Jenova), but I also have a recent release on Amazon of a book I wrote many moons ago with a friend of mine (Murder Creek).

I'm having a blast promoting two books at once. It's double the work, of course, but well worth my time. I write fast. Faster than the industry can accept and offer a contract. ::grins:: And I need to be kept busy. I have too many stories in my head to sit back and write a book at a time. I have to at least have three stories going. It keeps me from hitting a writing wall and staring at the same page of a manuscript for three days in a row. If I'm unsure where to go next, I hop over to the next story and keep on working.

I hope this isn't the last time I'll be promoting two books at once, and I hope, friends and fans, that you all have the time to check out both stories.

Today, I'll be running an easy contest. Leave a comment, get a chance to win. Friend me on Facebook and leave a comment on my wall and get another chance to win. Make sure you mention the contest. If you're already a friend, you only have to write on the wall. For a third shot, "like" me and leave a comment on my fan page wall. (Again, mention the contest.) At stake: a free copy of Love Revisited: Davit & Jenova or a free T-shirt. One lucky winner will get both.

If you miss today, don't worry. The contest goes on one more day on another blog where I'm a guest on Tuesday. You'll have to see my Facebook page for details.

Have a great day all, and Good Luck!


All my best,
Allure

A WRITER’S LIFE: GLAMOROUS PARTIES, EXOTIC TRAVEL, JEWELS, COUTURE CLOTHES--NOT!

As I write this, I’m sitting on the terrace of my mansion on the island of Mustique. The blue-green waters of the Caribbean swirl below and lap at the pink-tinted sand. Hunky native boys wearing loincloths dive from the cliffs facing my sprawling house.

My gorgeous houseboy brings lunch on a silver tray. Lobster bisque and fresh sea scallops, delicately grilled, on a bed of jasmine rice. Yum! A bottle of Italian pinot grigio complements the meal. And for dessert, lemon cheesecake. My cook has outdone herself again.

My two beautiful daughters are in Paris attending the couture shows. They dropped out of college, but who cares? They don’t need an education or jobs. My writing income will keep them in couture for the rest of their lives. Every major fashion magazine loves to publish pictures of them partying their way
around the world.

My agent just called with the news that my publisher has offered another multi-million dollar contract for my latest romance novel.

Ah, the life of a romance novelist.

Not!

I shake my head and wake up from my fantasy. I’m not in the Caribbean, but sitting at my desk in my small office. Rather than blue-green water, I face a window overlooking the spindly rose garden. It’s winter and all the roses are gone. I once saw a fox bury a dead squirrel under one of the bushes. That’s about as exciting as it gets around here.

Sure, there are romance authors who make scads of money and could afford that mansion overlooking the Caribbean. There’s no doubt they worked very hard to get there. My hat is certainly off to them and their success.

For the vast majority of us writers, though, life is much different. I liken romance writing to the entertainment industry. In the movie business, there are those actors who make the mega bucks. You know who they are: Brad, Angelina, Jennifer, etc. You get the picture. Then, there are the thousands of actors who struggle for jobs and eek out an existence working for Starbucks between acting roles. Some of these actors eventually make a living at acting, but we barely know their names. As tough as it is, most won’t give up acting because they love their chosen work.

It’s the same with writers. Some of us will never publish; some of us will publish one or two books with small presses and make minimal money, maybe enough for a few lattes at Starbucks. But we won’t give up. We can’t give up. We love writing. There are stories in our heads crying to get out. We can’t not write. I know that last line is a double negative, but it says it so well.

Let me tell you about a day in this writer’s life. And it doesn’t include a house in the Caribbean and hunky houseboys. Or a cook who makes lobster bisque. I’m the cook and I don’t know how to make lobster bisque.

When I was a corporate drone and cubicle dweller, I wrote every lunch hour at my desk. I squeezed in writing every Tuesday night and every Sunday afternoon. It was all I could manage, but I was organized and I wrote five books while working full time. I published two of those books.

Now that I’m no longer working, I’m not so organized. I wish I could make myself sit at the computer by eight every morning and write away. But I had to be to work by eight a.m. five days a week for decades and I now enjoy my leisurely breakfasts too much. Much as I love writing I need balance in my life, so I’ve devised a schedule of sorts. Four days a week are devoted to writing, with time out to go to the gym. Exercise is very important, especially with such a sedentary occupation as writing. I manage to write between five and six hours on my “writing” days.

I have a house to maintain and meals to cook and food to buy. And my husband actually expects me to talk to him once in a while. Plus, there’s my fat black sweetheart of a cat, Killer, who craves my attention. She comes into my office during the day, crying for me to pet her or walk her to her food bowl. How can I resist those big yellow eyes?

Left alone, I’d never leave the house, but spend every waking hour writing.

Balance. We all need it.

Therefore, three days a week I devote to everything else that doesn’t involve writing: cleaning, food shopping, doctor’s appointments, hairdresser appointments, etc. Even on my supposedly “non-writing” days, I manage to keep up with emails, do online promo and squeeze in a little writing.

Where do I write? In the aforementioned office. I do have a very nice side porch though, overlooking the driveway. On warm days I take my laptop to the porch. Until two years ago, I wrote at a desk in the crowded, dark basement. My husband and I converted a spare bedroom on the first floor into my office.

Not a very exciting life by a long shot, is it?

So what’s my point? Writers, especially romance writers, are compelled to write because we love the genre, love the written word, love those sexy heroes and the happily-ever-afters. We don’t need the fabulous lifestyles of the rich and famous, although we wouldn’t turn it down. Our imaginations will transport us to that house on the Caribbean, to that ranch out West, to glamorous cities, and lovely small towns. Our imaginations will take us back in time to Ancient Rome, Medieval France, the American West. We’ve got a wealth of stories knocking around our heads, a plethora of evil villains and beautiful, strong heroines fighting for freedom and for love.

We’re rich, after all. That’s the life of a writer.

PS-I love Starbucks, and their lattes are awesome.

www.caramarsi.com