So as I was finishing up STRIP SEARCH last month, I was frantically typing away most of the time I was at home. (I got totally obsessed with finishing the book, but that’s another story…) My daughter is learning to read. Her bedroom and my office are only separated by a bathroom. It’s not uncommon for her to sneak up behind me, and I get so engrossed that I don’t hear a thing. As I’m lost in “the moment” between my hero and heroine, I hear this little voice start reading, “She took off his… Mom, what’s with the word u-n-d-e-r-w-e-a-r?” Hmm. I told her it was underwear. She frowned at me, then asked why she took off his panties. Why didn’t he take them off himself, she wanted to know. Were his arms broken? I started laughing. I just couldn’t stop. I hedged with a “not exactly” and sent her back to bed. The experience did teach me two things: to password protect my computer (which I did immediately) and next time the door between her bathroom and my office starts to squeak–don’t fix it!

Moving up the family tree, my folks came to visit recently. Now my mother has always read military, legal and political thrillers. She and my husband share reading taste: Grisham, DeMille, Clancy, Patrick Robinson, etc. She’s never been a big reader or a big romance fan. Occasionally, she’ll take an interest in one of my books and ask if she “should” read it. Code for, is there too much sex? Well, when she last visited, I basically had to tell her that she shouldn’t read any of my next few titles. “Are they kinky?” she asked. By her definition, they probably are, though I didn’t exactly ask how she defined kinky. Just too weird to discuss the merits of bondage with Mom, you know? But a funny thing happened… I had a Black Lace title laying around that I picked up from a friend recently. I came home one afternoon to find can’t-have-kinky Mom reading it! She actually finished the book–a feat in itself. So I’m guessing she can handle the heavy-duty stuff…just not from me.

My husband, on the other hand, is alternately amused and annoyed with the guys who, once they find out what I write, give him the nudge-nudge/wink-wink and say “You’re a lucky guy.” Being quite private, he usually says nothing. Though I think he’s still looking for a good comeback. Suggestions welcome!

Come back in a few days and I’ll tell you all about what happens when 2000 romance writers plan to get together. It’s…interesting.

Several Blogs ago (more than I can count without wincing), Terri asked me about the writing process. There’s a BIG question, hence the procrastination. I’ll take a stab at it.

First, the writing process is different for every author. It centers around the way your mind works. I’m a linear, closure-oriented person. And I plan EVERYTHING. If there’s a vacation in this family, I plan it. If there’s a schedule to be juggled, that’s my responsibility as well. My hubby, bless his heart, usually can’t plan his way out of a paper bag. It’s just not his thing. So all of this makes me a certain type of writer.

I map out the whole plot in advance. I have a storyboard with every scene, the point of view character, the gist of the action, the point of the scene and an ending note mapped out before I ever start writing. I have a timeline that shows the day, date and approximate time of day for every scene. I’ve also written a synopsis, which my editor has often had some input on. I don’t, however, complete complicated character forms. Characters come to me as full-blown people with personalities, names, histories, etc. I work from Myers-Briggs personality types, so when I know the character, I know their tendencies and general patterns of behavior. I do complete some charts about conflict and character growth, so I make sure all that’s accounted for and is solid.

Once I’m comfortable with all that, I sit down and write the book, I write from the first scene to the last, in order. I write one draft, read each chapter as I complete it, send it out to some trusted readers and writers for feedback. Once the whole book is finished and I’ve incorporated the changes necessary from the others who have seen the book in chunks, I sit down and read the whole thing myself, start to finish. I tweak it a bit more, print it out and call it done.

Frequently, the plotting takes me almost as long as the writing. I like to know exactly where I’m going before I start. Do I sometimes go off the planned path? Oh, yeah. Do I get back on the path eventually. Yep…sometimes later rather than sooner. But that’s typical. When writing, you roll with the punches.

Funny, before I knew a lot of writers, I thought everyone worked that. Boy, was I wrong!!!

I know now that I’m very much out of the ordinary in this. Many writers are what we at Romance Writers of America affectionately term pantsers. In other words, they fly by the seat of their pants. They know the high points of the plot before they start writing–and that’s it. Many focus their “pre-writing” time on characters, filling out character sheets that have the author delve inside her mind to glean information about their characters, everything from their favorite color to their most embarrassing moment to the lesson they most need to learn. When I talk plotting with pantsers, quite a few say that if they already know the plot before they write that it takes the fun out of the book. A common phrase is “once I know the whole book (or see the movie in my head), why write the story? I already know what’s going to happen.” More than a few don’t write the book in chronological order, but write scenes as they occur to them. Then when they have enough scenes to comprise a large part of the book, they start mapping them out and figure out how to string them together. I scratch my head at that, wondering how they ever make the emotions flow because my brain just doesn’t work that way. Some pantsers write the whole book, read it, then rewrite half or more because they can see then what they don’t want. I shudder at the thought!

Personally, I need to knowing what’s going to happen before I start. What I don’t know is the dialogue, the exact emotion, the wording that will make or break the scene. This is the joy of writing fiction for me: having a pretty clear vision and bringing it to life.

No matter what sort of pre-plotter an author is, I’m convinced that in most every case, the author’s sub-conscious knows the book in advance. It’s up to the conscious mind to dig that book out and find the right words to convey the book in their heart. Writer’s block for me…it only happens when I don’t know where I’m going or when my conscious mind tries to get in the way of what my sub-conscious knows the book needs to be. In those cases, it’s best to take a deep breath, close my eyes, forget I ever wrote a synopsis and just let what’s going to happen, happen.

Welcome award-winning author Alesia Holliday to my blog. I’m excited to have her with us to talk about the Myth of the Nice Girl, in conjuction with her new release NICE GIRLS FINISH FIRST. Enjoy!

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NICE GIRLS FINISH FIRST

So one day I was thinking about today’s woman, as I often do, considering that I write funny books about the everyday (and not so everyday!) things we all go through, and I was wondering about that perpetual dilemma – the Myth of the Nice Girl.

Somehow, through a peculiar evolution of the professional environment, women today are finally recognized (mostly) as equally competent, ambitious, and dedicated as men in the workforce. (We’ll leave the “we have to work smarter and harder” argument aside for now.) But yet, we have an added burden: we have to be NICE.

Now, this isn’t really tough for most women, most of the time. We were raised to be nice. That’s what little girls do, right? “Play nice!” “Be nice!” Except, well, there are times when you can’t be all that nice… Boyfriend cheating? Kick him to the curb! Um, in a nice way? Opposing counsel trying underhanded tactics? Notify the judge and get him sanctioned! Er, nicely?

The idea of a character who is very ambitious and a great person, but a little bit of a tough chick on the surface, really intrigued me. And I had the perfect character in Kirby Green, newly-hired exec at the Whips and Lace Co. She’d pretty much stolen every scene she was in in AMERICAN IDLE (Double RITA finalist, how cool is that??). Then I wanted to compare and contrast Kirby with a character who was so nice that she was in danger of becoming a doormat. Brianna sprang to life. My good friend who is an opera singer (no, really!) provided some great background for her. Then I set the two of them loose to play on the pages – each helping the other learn something about life, and about herself. That’s how NICE GIRLS FINISH FIRST was born. (http://www.alesiaholliday.com/nicegirlsfinishfirst.cfm
– link to the book page)

Can we be successful as women today and still retain some of that niceness that was so valued in earlier years? I think so. But nice doesn’t mean dumb, and today’s nice girls DO finish first. They might just have to kick a little ass along the way.

Nicely. Thanks for helping me celebrate the release of my second novel!!

Alesia Holliday

(p.s. This nice girl is frantically polishing some pages due to Hollywood interest
– you can see the details at http://www.alesiaholliday.com/blog/)

Okay, I’m usually a get along with everyone sort of woman. I don’t care if your beliefs match mine; if we all thought the same thing, the world would be a deadly dull place. And while I like healthy competition, not everything in life is a competition. But I HAVE to get this incident off my chest.

I went to the gym the other day for my usual Wednesday step aerobics/abs class, looking forward to the advanced class, which is only once a week. The added bonus was that my favorite instructor, whose schedule doesn’t often match mine, was teaching. I love this class because I love a good challenge and the fact it really helps me unwind.

When I saw this very petite woman behind me, I didn’t give her much thought–until said twig gave me a pointed look. Then I overheard her tell her friend that no one who wore a size of clothing in double digits could possibly finish this class. I gotta say, this stupid assumption rubbed me the wrong way in a big way. So, like a lot of Weight Watchers who have fallen off the wagon and writers who spend their days with their ever-widening butt parked in front of a computer, I carry a little extra weight. She had no idea what I was capable of. I have years of jazz and modern dance under my belt–and I have the aching knees to prove it. I’ve been a faithful stepper for the last 2 1/2 years. And by golly, I was going to show her.

The class started, and the music was very quick. The advanced class jumps right into the thick of things. It didn’t take me long to smile. Into about the second combo, I could tell she was struggling and looking at me like she couldn’t understand why I wasn’t. Twig may have been thin and in good shape, but she didn’t know the commands and had a hard time keeping up with the complicated choreography–and she was every bit as sweaty as I was. I focused to make my way through the mambo alternate, stomp to a reverse hop, cross cha cha to a reverse turn, tick tock over, followed by alternating knees, then a hop turn hesitate with a hustle. The pace picked up from there. Twig got lost along about the reverse turn. I even stayed for the 15 minute ab sequence and the 125 glut lifts–though, not without pain. Let’s be real here. Twig struggled as well, so again, we were even.

I’m not wanting to make myself feel better by making her feel small. I know exactly who I am and what I’m capable of. Rather, I’d hoped that she saw that, to use an old cliche, judging a book by its cover did not always present the most accurate picture.

Whew, I feel better now, so I will step off my soapbox. In the next few days, I’ll send forth my writing processing blog and tell you what happened when I had to explain to my mother recently exactly how sexy my books are getting…

For all my fellow Americans, happy Independence Day!
Shelley