One of the early mistakes you make as a writer (and I’m guilty of it still sometimes) is breaking the old “Show, don’t tell” rule. It makes a big difference when you learn how to do this effectively. For example: Continue reading
Tag Archives: Writing
That Great Fist-Punching Moment When Your Plot Takes A Twist You Didn’t Anticipate
I’m winding up my work on Someday In Dublin, and doing a few chapter reworks, when all of a sudden, one of the major twists in my plot suddenly branched off and became this whole other thing that added an entirely new layer of depth between these two people and oh, holy cow was it amazing when it hit me.
I actually jumped back and shouted “Yeah!” at the top of my lungs, startling a cat and nearly burning myself because I was cooking dinner at the time the inspiration hit.
You don’t always get a fist-pumping moment like that as a writer. Despite the romance of the written word, part of the time the story flows and a lot of the time you’re just slogging along, putting words down, ripping words out, rearranging words, and doing it all one-handed because your other hand is tearing your hair out.
But this time? This time it was right. It was perfect. Yes.
So that’s my big happy for this week. Now here’s yours: Today is your final day to get Eight Nights At Sea at a discount! The Kindle Countdown Deal ends tonight at midnight EDT (US) so get it while you can!!
The Fine Line Of Classifying Your Book
I’m having a real problem with my books.
Here’s the deal. I write books that have to be classified as “erotic” because they contain descriptive sex. That’s the way publishing platforms work and I get that. You don’t want some twelve year old picking up a book with detailed sexual content (though they can find that in fanfic all over the net anytime they want…so go figure).
At the same time, the advent of indie publishing opened the doors for a whole lot of people who write hardcore erotica, and quite a bit of it is just porn scenes with a plot haphazardly slapped around it. There’s also a lot of “outside the mainstream m/f romance model” stuff involving same sex couples, group scenes, BDSM, fetishes….the list is endless. And when you mix in fantasy/paranormal, you don’t even have to be having sex with people anymore. Continue reading
I Wrote All Night To Get To You (Is That All Right?)
I woke up at 1:30 am and I was wide awake. So I looked out the window at the stars and the overly bright moon and I knew I had to write.
Problem is, I had to write the story that’s three stories away from what I’m working on right now. I’m knee deep in Someday In Dublin, working on a non-fiction book under another pen name, and piecing together a novella due out April 1st.
This story shouldn’t be a priority. But the night was dark and magical, the stars were shining, and the fact is, this story is about a girl in the desert who sings stories to the stars. The mood was there and ideas were flickering and I would have been a fool not to take advantage of it.
By the same token, now that story is overtaking my brain because I allowed it to unfurl and now I need to clip its wings and get back to work on Someday In Dublin or it’ll never get done.
This writer thing….very frustrating sometimes.
Back to work.
How Far Is Too Far When You’re Talking About Sex?
I like to write stories where the characters do what any hot-blooded, very attracted people would do when thrown into close proximity to each other.
They have sex.
They don’t only have sex, and sometimes, they almost or nearly have sex a few times before they actually have sex and then something might drive them away from each other and when they find their way back together…guess what? Yep. They have sex.
And while writing these sexy people and their sexy situations, of course, some personal bias comes in. Continue reading
Falling In Love With Your Characters
I am so in love with Michael.
He’s the man from Someday In Dublin, and he’s very devil-may-care and impulsive and crazy fun. I could write about Michael, talk like Michael and let Michael get naked and do all sorts of wild and exciting things to me all day long.
The problem is, the story isn’t just about Michael. The story is about Amy, too. Continue reading
So, I’m Playing Around With My Blog Template (As You Can See)
Please excuse the way the blog is going to look for a while. I’m playing around with various templates, trying to figure out what works best for me and if it’s worth it to me to pay the upgrade and get a more customized look. It’s not like I have thousands of followers here – it’s more a touchplace where I can put my book, fanfic and social media links and send people to. I’ll have to ruminate on that.
On an entirely unrelated note…I was hugely productive this weekend. From Friday night through to today, I’ve written over 9600 words!! And mostly good ones! Of course, I had a power outage for a good chunk of the weekend with nothing to do but read or write, and that certainly helped.
And the cold made me wish I was cuddling. The thought of cuddling made me wish I was doing a whole lot more than cuddling and before I knew it, I had a couple more chapters of my next book completed. God help me if I land a boyfriend anytime soon. I’m honestly afraid I’ll lose my mojo.
Maybe I’d just better make sure he’s an adventurous sort (she says, waggling her eyebrows).
In the meantime, the power’s back on and I’m off work for President’s Day, so I’ll keep on writing as long as the muse takes me there.
Just a reminder that Changeling is now out and already has a great review – please feel free to add more reviews on Amazon, Smashwords or GoodReads – I can really use them!
Stay warm!
Heat Up Your Valentine’s Day With My New Story, “Ready In Red!”
It’s Valentine’s Day, and a girl shouldn’t be alone with only Netflix for company. Val gets pulled out to a bar by a friend in need, only to find a hot and friendly bartender who makes her very glad she remembered to wear her matching red lingerie that morning. She’s primed and ready for a steamy night, and Zach more than delivers.
Ready In Red is available at Amazon for Kindle or Smashwords for all e-reading devices (as well as online) and it’ll only set you back $.99!!
Get it while it’s hot and enjoy a hot, sexy Valentine’s Day!!
My Thoughts On “Traditional” Publishing
You’ve no doubt noticed that I’ve published exclusively in e-book format and on my own platform via Kindle and Smashwords. I did try to go the traditional route first, but Sky Woman was a tough sell due to the nature of the plot – it sort of went out of the bounds of a mainstream romance but not far enough out to be considered kink or fetish. Every editor that saw it wanted me to either pare it down or load it up with vampires, lesbians, three-ways and bondage scenes.
That wasn’t this book.
Where Do You Get Your Inspiration?
Inspiration is, of course, a very personal thing. We’re all inspired differently and probably a lot of it is happenstance (isn’t that an awesome word? I so rarely get to use it in a sentence…).
In my case, I do a lot of daydreaming.
I mean, a lot of daydreaming. More so now that I’m a single woman, and I have to confess to you that I honestly worry about finding myself in a stable relationship someday. Will I lose my mojo? God, I hope not.
I often get a kernel of inspiration from a TV show or a video I’ve seen – that’s where the latest one came from. I saw a YouTube video that took place in Dublin and I’ve been toying with the idea of visiting myself (and even went so far as to bookmark some sites for different places around the area that I’d like to visit) and on top of that I was re-watching an episode of a favorite TV show and suddenly, a plot started twisting through my head.
My next series (it’s going to be a quad instead of a trilogy) began as a short story I wrote for a contest I was in. It was a horror flash-fiction and creepy as hell, but I wondered what would happen if I made it not as creepy as it seemed? What if I took that premise and shifted it a bit, making it fascinating instead of flesh-crawling? And what if there were others like this girl, whose abilities were similar, but defined by other elements? Hmmmmm…and now suddenly I have a series.
And of course, I’m always inspired by sexy guys I want to get busy with. And they’re all around and easy to write about.
What inspires you?
Britt DeLaney 