Sheila Roberts | Dieting

Dieting can be hazardous to your health. Take exercise for example. A girl could get Plantar Fasciitis jogging across the mall to Cinnabon. She could sprain her wrist fighting with her husband over the last piece of chocolate. You’ve got to be careful. Okay, you’ve got to be serious, too, which is why this last year I finally brought in diet reinforcements: my girlfriends. Dieting is something a woman shouldn’t do alone. It’s too hard, too lonely, too discouraging. But with girlfriends along for support, you’ve got a fighting chance to win the fat wars. The power of female friendship is huge. At least that’s what I’m betting on.

And that’s why I wrote my current book Bikini Season. I know I’m not the only one out there who struggles against the call of chocolate éclairs, potato chips, and banana cream pie. I’m hoping that after reading about my characters’ diet adventures women will get inspired to start their own diet clubs. I’ve offered plenty of great recipes in the book to help you on your way. And, speaking of helping, feel free to visit my website (http://www.sheilasplace.com/) and enter the diet tip contest. Let’s keep the girlfriend power going.

Sheila Roberts

Elizabeth Hoyt | Muses on Detours in Life and in Writing

I’m writing my sixth historical book now—the third in The Legend of the Four Soldiers series—and already I’ve gone off my writing map. Writers generally fall into two groups: ones who plot out their story before they begin writing and those who wing it. I’m in the former camp, but here’s the thing: no matter how meticulously I plot before I write, no matter how much I try to foresee all eventualities, I always end up making detours from my plot.

Detours, in writing as in life, are sometimes frustrating (How do I get back on the main road?) sometimes confusing (Can I get back to the main road?) but usually interesting, and sometimes revolutionary.

For example.

About ten years ago my life took a major detour. I was a stay-at-home mom living in the city where I’d grown up, spending what free time I had volunteering in a non-profit organization. Then my husband got a new job. In a different state.

I wasn’t pleased, but my husband was the main breadwinner at that time in our family, so I pulled up my roots, left the non-profit I’d been so active in, and moved away from both family and friends.

And you know what? If I hadn’t made that life detour I probably wouldn’t have started writing. I would’ve stayed in the non-profit organization, stayed near family and friends who kept me busy, and never had the push to start writing a book.

All because of a detour my life took.

The detours that happen in my books are frustrating for me as the writer, but they can be revolutionary for the book. In To Taste Temptation, the first book in The Legend of the Four Soldiers series, I suddenly started writing a scene in which my hero, Samuel Hartley, is running. In London, of all places. Why? I thought. Nobody runs in Georgian England for pleasure. Where is this scene going? Why am I writing this?

Well, as you’ll find out when you read To Taste Temptation, running becomes a central facet to Sam’s character. He runs to forget, he runs for the sheer pleasure of feeling his muscles move, and in a pivotal scene near the end of the book, he runs because his world will end if he doesn’t.
All because of a detour my writing took one day.

Cheers!
Elizabeth Hoyt
www.elizabethhoyt.com

Laura Griffin | A love story: sweet, salty, and shaken…

My favorite books are the ones that deliver pulse-pounding suspense and also touch my emotions. That’s why I love to read—and write—romantic suspense. This week I’m celebrating the release of my latest romantic suspense novel, ONE WRONG STEP.

This story is a definite case of opposites attract. Long, tall Texan John McAllister is a woman-loving-and-leaving, adventure-seeking, adrenalin junkie. He’s an investigative reporter, too, and I must admit that he bears a striking resemblance to many of the guys I worked with over the years when I was a newspaper reporter. Celie, on the other hand, is like some of my best girlfriends—a “still waters run deep” type of person who also knows how to enjoy a good margarita.

So what do Celie and McAllister have in common? An attraction that has been simmering beneath the surface for years, for one thing. And for another, Celie has a knack for getting herself into dangerous situations, and McAllister—with his nose for news—always seems to show up when things get interesting….Such as when Celie’s ex-husband comes to visit her and turns up murdered an hour later. That’s when Celie realizes that the police have their eye on her, along with an enraged drug lord who is seeking payback for her ex-husband’s debts.

But it’s not all mystery and adventure with these two. The core of the book is a love story. Celie and McAllister are so different, they really test each others’ limits and force each other to experience life—and love—in new ways.

I hope you’ll enjoy this story. For those of you who read ONE LAST BREATH and wrote to ask me, “So what about Celie and that reporter?” this one is for you.

Oh, and here’s a challenge for any of you readers who has ever been to Austin: If you can identify the Austin Mexican restaurant where Celie and McAllister spend their first date (hint: it’s the best Mexican food on the planet!!), I will gleefully send you a free copy of my next release, THREAD OF FEAR (Pocket Star, October 08). Just drop me a line at laura@lauragriffin.com. I’d love to hear from you!

Laura Griffin
www.lauragriffin.com/

One Wrong Step (Pocket Star)
One Last Breath (Pocket)

And coming soon:

Thread of Fear (Pocket Star, Oct. 08)
Whisper of Warning (Pocket Star, 09)

Meg Waite Clayton | In Defense of Happy Endings

Happiness is boring,” and “Riding off into the sunset is not true,” insisted a Noted Author at a symposium I attended earlier this month on the proposition that happiness simply cannot make good literature. And as I resisted – just barely – the urge to pull Sense and Sensibility from my backpack, he lobbed up this comment about Austen unprompted: She is “done for” because we’ve entered “a divorce culture.” One can no longer rely on one’s mate.

I flipped to the back of the journal in which I was taking notes: Pfhew, the photo of my husband of twenty years was still there.

“At home later, I Googled “happy ending”: what I got was nothing about literature and everything about a massage that … well … people do seem to like. As I sat in that symposium, though, I had only my own favorite books to stack up against the Noted Author’s no-happy-endings admonishment. Among the classics, five of my eight favorites qualified, I decided, for happy ending status: Pierre and Natasha, Princess Marya and Nikolay, and even young Nikolinka all leave us with a sense of contentment and hope in War and Peace, as do Dorothea in Middlemarch and pretty much everyone in Austen’s books. Despite the tough spots in To Kill a Mockingbird, it ends with Atticus’s “youthful step … returned” and even Boo Radley emerging as a nice guy when one got to know him; most people are in real life, Scout learns—unlike in books! As for Mildred Lathbury, the most excellent of Barbara Pym’s Excellent Women? She ends up feeling as if she “might be going to have what Helena called ‘a full life’ after all”—even without finding a mate on whom she couldn’t rely for her happiness anyway, if the Noted Author is to be believed. Admittedly, my other three favorite classics tilt toward deadly endings, with an emphasis on suicide—but only three of eight. And, yes, my favorites among contemporary works do tend more toward cautiously hopeful rather than unabashedly happy, but if the choice is happy ending or sad, most would fall on the happy side of the line.

Which I understood the Noted Author to say puts me at best as someone who sticks her head in the sand and at worst a person who doesn’t care about the sad condition of my fellow travelers on this earth. Which maybe I am – we’re never the best judges of ourselves, are we? But here’s the thing: I get the grim truth from The New York Times and NPR every morning; I get an evening News Hour of it from Jim Lehrer. When it comes to books, I like to feel better when I turn the last page than I did when I opened the cover. That’s much of why I read: to experience joy, and to discover hope. And isn’t it hope that moves us forward, that inspires us, ultimately, to put our own shoulders to the task of making this world a better place? Isn’t that – the power to change the world – the defining greatness that makes the best of literature endure beyond whatever culture we might or might not be in at any given time?

Meg Waite Clayton
author of The Wednesday Sisters (Ballantine, June 17, 2008)
www.megwaiteclayton.com/

Kathleen Long | The Gifts of Writing

I want to thank everyone here at Fresh Fiction for inviting me to blog today. I was sitting at my computer this morning trying to settle on an interesting topic for today’s blog. My new series? My future plans? My typical writing day?

Instead, I found myself thinking about the gift of writing—or should I say gifts, plural. Writing has brought so many layers of good to my life—new friends, new challenges, new skills—that describing those gifts would take all day.

Then, the best “gift” of my life announced she was awake for the day. That was the moment I realized a toddler’s chattering was the perfect place to begin—and focus—this blog.

Did writing bring about my two-year-old? No, but my writing career taught me to work hard and chase my dreams. In life, just as in writing, there aren’t any shortcuts. Our daughter came into our lives after a ten-year pursuit of parenthood, and I wouldn’t trade a single moment of the journey. After all, each step brought me to this wonderful moment filled with alphabet songs and questions and belly laughs.

My writing journey has been no different. Writing—like life—is about doing the legwork.

Writing is about believing your dream is worth chasing. It’s about dusting yourself off and trying again each time you face an obstacle in the road. Writing is about reading—how-to books, favorite authors, market news. Writing is about learning—pacing, plotting, story techniques. Writing is about writing—first drafts, second drafts, third drafts, and more. It’s about starting over time after time simply because you refuse to quit and because the need to write is part of who you are.

Writing is about setting the alarm to wake up two hours before your family to steal time in front of your computer. It’s about staying up far too late—or early—because the storyline in your head won’t take no for an answer. It’s about rolling over at 3am and thinking, wait a minute…what if my heroine said this instead? then racing downstairs to make notes or fire up the laptop.

Writing, for me, is its own reward.

Writing is about setting free the words and characters and places in my mind that come to me so clearly and purely I couldn’t ignore them even if I wanted to.

Writing is about creating worlds into which readers might escape for an hour or two or three.

The Body Hunters is my first trilogy—my first series—and I loved the process of creating the cast of characters and their stories. Developing the series provided me with the opportunity to form a longer-lasting, deeper connection to the characters in my mind. I hope the series will provide the same opportunity for connection—and escape—for readers.

Escape. That one powerful word sums up why I write.

At a particularly difficult point in my life, a book pulled me out of the fog of grief that had overtaken my every thought and movement. A book carried me away, helped me turn the corner toward becoming whole again. Since then, books have been my escape time and time again—be they books I’m writing or books I’m reading.

That particular book gave me the kick in the pants I needed not just to live again, but to write again. That book made me want to provide that same escape for others.

I sat back that day and decided to value my dream enough to chase it.

To every author out there—both published and as-yet unpublished—thank you for believing in yourself enough to chase your dream. Without you, I might still be stuck in my fog. Instead, I’m headed upstairs to help a two-year-old start her day. I can’t imagine a greater gift than that.

Please visit me at www.kathleenlong.com for the latest news and release info, and at www.thebodyhunters.com/ for the latest on The Body Hunters trilogy and just what inspired your favorite character or scene. Join me all this week over at the www.eharlequin.com/ Forums where an entire thread has been dedicated to discussing The Body Hunters. Most importantly, thank you for stopping by today, and thanks again to Fresh Fiction for inviting me to blog!