Eileen Davidson | My Writing Process

I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying Dial Emmy for Murder. If you haven't picked it up yet, I certainly hope you do and give it a read! It's the perfect summer getaway!

I thought that the best subject for me to blog about would be my writing "process". It's multi faceted actually because I have a writing partner and we certainly have our own process, and I write about the Soap Opera world and that is another process. And I have my own personal process of getting words down on paper!

The first part of my process involves my writing partner, Robert Randisi who lives in Missouri and we write vis a vis email. I have come up with the basic premise for all three books and have written the first few chapters for all three, as well. I'll email those to Bob and he takes it from there, usually writing the next few chapters and emailing them back to me. I'll rewrite and/or change whatever he sends me and send them back to him. We usually do this for the entire book until we are finished. One interesting dilemma is Bob doesn't like to map out the book in advance. He likes to "discover" the villain and different plot points along the way. This drives me crazy! The first book we wrote his way, the second and third were written my way.. which is having the killer in place and the basic plot in place before we begin. I have a hard time knowing what to write unless these ar decided upon upfront. We both always maintain open minds, though, in case somethng else happens that is better than the originall idea.

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Anna David | Fiction Vs. Reality

When you’re a writer, there's a tricky line you have to balance between having experiences with people and using those experiences as material. As a writer who spends time with a lot of writers, I’ve been on all sides of this equation. I've been the girl who found herself summarized, not so kindly, in an ex’s article in a magazine. I've counseled a friend through a fight with another writer who was making my friend into a regular "character" in her columns and didn’t understand why my friend had an issue with it since her name had been changed. And I’ve been the one who’s lifted scenarios, situations, names and characteristics of the people she knows.

Obviously, I try to be as careful as I possibly can. While we can’t copyright what we say and do among friends and lovers, everyone should feel comfortable behaving exactly as they want to without fear of ending up as a tragic or unintentionally amusing character in a friend’s novel. I take bits and pieces from different people or change so much that even the people who’d been at the incident I’m describing might not recognize it (for my first novel, Party Girl, I actually went through each chapter with a lawyer who made sure of this).

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Tim Maleeny | Relationships Can Be Murder

Mysteries and Thrillers have always been popular for their fast pacing, smart dialogue and unexpected plot twists. And as both a writer and a reader, I'd certainly agree those are essential ingredients to any page-turner.

But what about relationships? I'd argue that characters drive plot, and your empathy for the characters, as a reader, is what drives suspense. It's your relationship with the characters — and their relationships with each other — that makes a mystery work. And it's the tension in those relationships that keeps you up at night turning the pages.

Think about it. Does the action matter if you don't care about the people involved? We've all been to movies where we're sitting on the edge of our seat, mouth full of popcorn, knuckles white as cars tear through narrow city streets on the big screen. And yet we've also been to movies where a similar car chase nearly puts us to sleep, and even the final explosion as a car tumbles down the cliff only lingers as an after-image inside our drooping eyelids. The only different between those two movies was our empathy — or lack thereof — with the people in the cars.

My latest novel JUMP begins when the city's most despised landlord plummets twenty stories from the roof of his own apartment building. Was it suicide or did someone help him jump? Well, it turns out that everyone living on the top floor of the building had reason to want him dead. But the murder isn't the real story in this novel, it's only the catalyst for uncovering the relationships between an eclectic bunch of strangers who call themselves neighbors. Library Journal referred to the "fast-paced, rollicking humor and characters right out of a 1930s Agatha Christie country house mystery" and ForeWord Magazine said, "This is one hilarious yarn [with] one of the most bizarre collection of tenants since One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest." Though the literary and film references couldn't be more different, clearly both reviewers were struck by the characters, which brings me back to relationships and their ability to drive a story.

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Pamela Stone | All Time Favorite Books

We all have a select few favorite books. I don’t just mean the ones on your keeper shelves. I’m talking about that book that you’ve read until the pages are dog-eared and the cover is coming off, perhaps the pages are falling out. The one that you raved to your friends about and possibly loaned them and never got returned. My theory is that they liked the book so well, they just kept it. Since I love good books and enjoy sharing my passion, I just buy another copy for myself. I have purchased, full price, at least three copies of Sea Swept by Nora Roberts. One I actually bought for a friend, but the other got lost twice before it didn’t make it home the final time. The other books in Nora’s Chesapeake series are also wonderful reads, but Sea Swept stands out. Shanna by Kathleen Woodiwiss is another book that sits atop my shelf. I’ve read many, many good books, but these are the ones that make me swoon. They aren’t just on my keeper shelf, if they disappear, I will go to all lengths to replace them.

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K. M. Daughters | Real Men Should Read Romance

At the 2008 Romance Writers of America conference, a talented and prolific author entertained and informed attendees as a luncheon keynote speaker. We delighted in her anecdote concerning her husband. Relating that he had never read a single one of her impressive body of published novels, she declared that she always made a point to kill somebody in each of her books with her husband’s first name.

The moral of her story for us is: real men should read romance for their overall health, oh yes, and enjoyment.

Our contention is not as tongue in cheek as it sounds. Men are, of course, half the equation in the yin and yang of traditional romance genres. Our heroes yearn for equal measures of romantic fulfillment and personal happily ever after conclusions as do our heroines. Sensuality, present in varying degrees in romance, isn’t as tantalizing and stimulating to the…imagination…for men?

Our virile husbands are delighted (forced) to read our books. In fact one of our husbands brought our latest release on a men only long weekend in the deep woods. By day, he and his friends blazed trails on ATV’s, fished and threw their catches back in the lake, canoed, hiked, and did rugged, outdoorsy real men things. In the evening he apparently read and finished our romantic suspense novel, sending home a text message: “Just read a great book. I got a ----- (slang word for aroused) and I cried. Who could ask for more?”

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Tracy Wolff | Why I Write Romances

A couple months ago, my husband and I were interviewing prospective agents to list our house as we thought we were going to have to move to Dallas for my husband’s job. I bring this up because, as we talked to the agents, all of them asked what we did for a living. My husband is an electrical/environmental engineer and I, of course, am a romance novelist. When we told them this, they all oohed and aahed over my husband’s job (he’s a green guru/save the environment guy/energy efficiency kind of guy) but when it came to my career, two of them—both men, I might add—laughed. “So you write those books?” one asked.

“What books?” I responded, more than a little annoyed by his condescending tone.

“You know, those trashy books about …” His voice trailed off.

“Love?” I inquired sweetly, though with bared teeth. “Life? Family? Happily Ever After?”

“Yeah. And, umm—“ The guy was such an idiot he hadn’t yet figured out that it was offensive to refer to my career choice as “trash.”

“Oh, you mean sex?” I filled in the blank for him, much to my husband’s embarassment. “Why, yes, real estate agent moron (names have been changed to protect the terminally stupid) my books do have some sex in them. Why? Do you not like sex? Or is it just sex with love and commitment and a happily every after that you object to?”

Needless to say, he went running from my doorstep like the hounds of hell were after him and we decided to go with a different agent—one who could respect both my husband’s career and my career own.

But his attitude (there was more to the dialogue, but I shortened it for time’s sake) has stuck with me for a couple of months now. All of my friends in the business tell stories of running into people (once again, usually men) who make fun of what they write, but this is the first time I’ve ever had someone actually say something like that to my face. And I was—and still am—ticked off about it!

So here’s the answer I wish I’d given him, and would have if I’d been more prepared and less angry.

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Sandi Shilhanek | Book Signings

This week I again went to a book signing. This time the author was MaryJanice Davidson. I don’t personally read this author, but have many friends who do, so were anticipating a big crowd. When I arrived at the bookstore it was obvious that they too were expecting a large crowd as there were plenty of seats available, but not enough to hold hundreds of people should they show.

I have to admit to being surprised by the low number of people who showed for the signing. Admittedly the weather was less than desirable, but when I headed out who knew that North Texas was going to be bombarded…certainly not I. I was inside and dry and warm. Yes, the lights flickered, and yes, I was worried about getting home but those things could wait to fret about until I had all my books signed.

What you don’t read her but you were getting books signed? Yes, I got books signed for friends. I’m trying to be good and let various friends around the country know when an author is coming to Dallas and getting a book for them should they desire. After all if I was honest wouldn’t I want someone to get a book signed for me if I didn’t have the chance to do it, so I’m just trying to play nice and hopefully along with getting reimbursed for the book will get reimbursed with someone going to a signing whether they want to or not and getting a book for me.

Is there an author whose autograph you’re dying to have? Perhaps an author you’d love to meet in person? It’s time to play the what if game…what if you could meet an author whether they be dead or alive who would it be and what would you be wanting to know about them personally or their plans for the characters?

I’d love to meet Nora Roberts. I’d probably be too dumbstruck to ask her a question should I have the chance to meet her. Another author I’d love to meet is Robyn Carr. What would I ask Ms. Carr? Hmmm…hard to know since I’m in her yahoo chat group and have talked with her as part of the DFW Tea readers phone in dinner clubs, but I’m sure I could think of something!

Until next week happy page turning!

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Sandi