Monthly Archives: May 2012

It Never Gets Easier, Does It?

Posted on May 24, 2012 | Leave a comment

I’ve been MIA for the past two weeks. I could blame the whirlwind pace of my life (Hah!), but even after all these years of writing, it never gets easier.

To a writer, a blank piece of paper can be as frightening as jumping off a cliff: Will I die? Will I sprout wings and fly? Is there a team of hot firefighters holding a net at the bottom? Will I think of anything to write?

If you are about to write me off as a flash in the pan, wait just one darn minute. I have been writing. I have. I’ve managed to get 5,000 words of my new book written over the past 10 days. This means that the first 55 pages of Luck Is a Lady is complete. If you have ever written anything, and I mean anything — letter, article, advertisement, whatever — you know that the beginning is the hardest. Once you get rolling, things begin to flow.

For me, the first section means layering all the characters and their GMCs (goals, motivations, conflicts) so that I can spend the rest of the book (last 275 pages), unraveling everything until we reach a satisfactory conclusion. In other words, the fun part of writing a book.

That wasn’t so hard.

Mari

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Posted in Blogging about My Author Life

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A Day in the Life

Posted on May 10, 2012 | Leave a comment

Although I style myself as a writer and blogger, I spend most of my day behind a desk. Yes, I am a desk jockey who fortunately has access to the internet. That and my writing keep me from jumping out of my office window. For those of you unfamiliar with the thrills of office life, here is a snapshot from today.

Phone rings.

Me: “Hello?” (It’s a lady from the audit department)

She: “You’re going to kill me.”

Me: (With sinking heart) “Oh good.”

Yup.

Then I go home to my husband, Mr. Meat-and-Potatoes who must create the nightly menu. Sometimes I try to squeeze a pasta dinner in, but not much gets past the chef.

Me: “How about spaghetti for dinner. I made sauce this weekend.”

Mr. M&P: “You go ahead. I’ll have the leftover pork roast.”

Double yup.

After dinner I go upstairs and work on my next novel, which I have tentatively titled: “Luck Is a Lady.” I’m trying my hand at a true mystery woven into the romance, or maybe the romance is woven into the mystery. In a few weeks, I’ll send my first chapters to a fellow author for review. We’ll see what she says.

No food tip or recipe this week — you get leftovers, too — but I am three week away from the debut of my first e-book, Holding Out for a Hero. I am including a picture of the cover with the post providing I figured out how to do it.

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Posted in Personal Life of an Author

Country Music Confession

Posted on May 4, 2012 | Leave a comment

When I was about 11, my father got it in his head to take the family to the Ozarks for vacation. I only have two memories of the trip: A family at the resort with five daughters whose names all began with the letter “T,” which fascinated me at the time, and a song that came on the radio every 30 minutes: “I’m Walkin’ the Floor over You.” It was twangy and drawly, and made me crazy, but it was the only station we could get on the radio. For about a  year afterward, my father sang the song in the morning as he got ready for work, which made me crazy too.

Country music has come a long way, and I love it now. My iPod is full of country music from all the greats like Carrie Underwood, Taylor Swift, Rascal Flatts, Brad Paisley . . . The list goes on.

Soooo, I was bummed last night when Skylar Laine was voted off America Idol. She has a lot more talent than Scotty and Lauren from last season, and she was fun to watch. What a firecracker! She would make a great heroine for a romance novel. Hmmm.

Winning America Idol seems to be indicative of nothing, just ask Jennifer Hudson, so I suspect that we will be seeing more  of Skylar in the years to come, and I am looking forward to it.

I am an unabashed northern girl so I don’t know much about southern cooking. However, in Skylar’s honor I would like to propose a twist on traditional strawberry shortcake, which seems like a treat that may have southern roots.

Instead of plain old whipped cream, fold in a little lemon curd to give the dessert some extra sweetness and tang. Also, a little trick for keeping whipped cream stable for a few days in the fridge: add a teaspoon or two of powdered sugar. The cornstarch prevents the whipped cream from bleeding.

Mari

P.S. My cover for “Holding Out for a Hero” came out this week! I love it. Go to my Facebook page if you want a peek. The book will be out on June 4, and I will keep you posted on where to buy it, etc. as we get closer to the date.

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Posted in Personal Life of an Author, Recipes that Remind Me of . . .