Fresh
from my friend Ashley York’s post last week at her blog, http://wp.me/p3ButH-3z, I’m going to continue
with my own musings about My Writing Process.
What am I
working on now? Well, I’m smack dab in the middle of Book II
of my Eagle Trilogy with “The Eagle’s Lady.”
Set in 800’s A.D. Ireland and Norway, it’s the story of Maeve and
Ari. Son of an impoverished, dying
chieftain, Ari raids for booty to support his home. He’s a raider, a heathen, a murderer. It is
forbidden for any Christian woman to love him.
In Book II, Maeve fears she may have done just that.
How does
my work differ from others in the genre? I will let one of my readers speak for me. “I like your books. Fun! Reminds me of the books that I sought
in my twenties. I outgrew those books but missed them. I tried to read them
again but they were too poorly written for me to enjoy. You have solved that
problem...your writing makes the stories more adult and therefore more believable stories. As I said: great fun!”
I was
happy to see her comment not because I consider early romance poorly written
but differently written—for a different time and market. I loved those books, too, but I was 56 years
old before I wrote my first one and from the beginning I envisioned a book with
a gritty dose of realism. I write
primarily historical romance, about times and places when life was vastly
different, and I try to portray it as accurately as possible without missing
the timeless element of love.
Why do
I write what I do? Ah…that’s an easy one! Just for the sheer joy of it.
How
does my writing process work? If I knew that, I’d
patent it, although I’m not sure anybody would want to buy what I’d be selling! It all begins with my Muse, Persephone, and
she is a heartless mistress. Mostly she
comes steaming into my life in a fit of temper and I sit down and write until
she tells me to stop, which is usually when I’m so exhausted I’m of no further
use to her. She gives me just long
enough to recover and—BAM!—there she
is again, banging at the door or, more frequently, breaking it down.
My
Writing Process Blog Tour will continue on April 21 at the blogs of my friends
Denise Alicea and Patti Koontz :
http://denisealicea.org/blog-tour-my-writing-process-1229
A member of Romance Writers of
America and several of its chapters since 2005, Denise has won two awards
for her short stories and several finalist nominations.
Patty Koontz enjoys
keeping a "wee bit of magic" or "the spirit of
magic" alive by writing fantasy and paranormal romances set in the
mystical glens of Northern Island and Scotland.
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