by Charlene Teglia | Feb 14, 2006 | Uncategorized
Updating my previous post with a snippet from Mitch and Lucy in Love Spell: Ellora’s Cavemen Legendary Tails II, in honor of their CAPA nomination for Best Erotic Anthology. Visit the link for the whole list! Lots of terrific reads there you may have missed.
Mitch and Lucy, Legendary Tails II
“Good thinking.” Lucy smiled and snuggled closer. Then a thought occurred to her and she sat upright. “Mitch, I really did it right.”
“I’ll say.” Satisfaction rang in his voice.
“No, I mean the spell. I really did something right. Real magic. You really are my true love and that’s why I saw you at the end. I thought you weren’t interested in me, which is why I thought I’d screwed up again.”
She’d been shown the truth in the candle flame, she realized. That she already had what she’d been asking for. All she’d needed to do was recognize it.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Lucy, but if you think you don’t have my interest, I will prove you wrong.” Mitch paused, then added, “In about half an hour. I’m thirty-eight, not eighteen.”
“You don’t have to prove anything now.” She dropped back down beside him and kissed him the way she’d wanted to for months. It took a long time.
And then she said the silent thanks she’d neglected to give at her altar.
She would never be sure, but she thought she felt an answering touch, a brush of joy.
Maybe it was magic. Maybe it was simply love. Maybe they were one and the same thing.
Wishing everybody out there the magic of love today and every day, however you say it or celebrate it!
by Charlene Teglia | Feb 13, 2006 | Uncategorized
Dylan and Lou, Wolf In Cheap Clothing, Ellora’s Cave:
She’d known him for only a few hours.
She was probably certifiably insane.
But she was pretty sure she did, in fact, love him. The term he’d used, recognition, really did describe what she felt. It was as if her wolf self recognized him, remembered him and was making her human body and her heart remember too. Almost as if they’d known each other before in some other realm, where they’d run together under a distant sky, hunted together, depended on each other, mated for all time.
Lou opened her mouth to tell him what he needed to hear, but before she could, an inhuman howl split the night.
Erik and Lorelei, The Gripping Beast, Samhain
Erik shook his head at both of them. “My brother and my beloved have both lost their wits.”
“Beloved?” Lorelei beamed at him. “You said it. I didn’t think you’d ever say it. I thought we’d spend the next fifty years fighting and making up and you’d never actually say you loved me.”
Scott and Veronica, Catalyst, Cerridwen Press
“Hi.” He leaned casually against the doorjamb and eyed her sodden state in unspoken curiosity.
Veronica opened and closed her mouth, silent and at a loss for words.
He raised an inquiring brow. “Still not speaking to me? Well, you look cold. Would you like to come in?”
He held the door open for her.
She sighed again and trudged through it, dripping.
Scott disappeared briefly. When he returned, he held a large, fluffy towel. He unfolded it and held it up in a silent invitation.
He didn’t have to ask her twice.
She walked to him and let him wrap her in delicious warmth. He blotted the dampness from her hair and rubbed her skin until it tingled. When he finished, he set the damp towel aside and pulled her into his snug embrace, her back against the hard wall of his chest and stomach. One hand splayed possessively over her belly while the other molded the curve of her hip.
“Better?” The low, rough voice caressed her ear just before warm lips kissed the sensitive spot beneath it.
Veronica nodded. She was feeling much better, in fact. She hadn’t realized how badly she’d needed him to just hold her.
“I can’t help noticing that it’s two in the morning, and you’re in your underwear. Soaking wet.” Having prompted her, Scott waited for a response.
“My roof leaks.” Her voice came out sounding pathetically small and woeful.
“Ah. I see.” Thoughtfully, Scott began a lazy exploration of the outline of her stunning outfit. “If you were speaking to me, you might ask me for help.”
She sighed, a long, sad sound.
He was going to make her say it.
If he gloated, she was going to cry.
“I love you.” She said it in the same way she might announce that she’d just discovered that she had terminal cancer.
by Charlene Teglia | Feb 12, 2006 | Uncategorized
Sharon at Writeminded had a question about procrastination of the 2nd kind. Not the first kind, where you make excuses and avoid working and the answer is just plain “park your butt in the chair and do it”. But the second kind, where you come to a halt because you know you’re going in the wrong direction, that’s trickier. Rather than take over the comments over there, I thought I’d blog about it over here. Besides, it’s Monday and I need a topic.
So. Sometimes you come to a point in your writing (or your career) where you just can’t seem to move forward. Something is wrong. You don’t know what, but until you do, you can’t get going again. What to do?
Begin with recognizing that the unconscious mind knows the answer and all you have to do is get it out. (Your unconscious brain telling you that you’re going wrong is what’s stopped you in the first place. I can promise you it knows why.) Go for a long walk. Play chess with yourself, or solitaire. Write in your journal. Make lists of possibilities or ask questions and then write the answer as fast as you can without stopping to think or second-guess. Write “I want…” and then list ten things as fast as you can. Call your story’s characters in for a conference and talk to them about the project.
Here are some things which might turn out to be the problem:
Your story is miscast. You need to replace one or more of the main characters.
Your story has taken a wrong turn. You shied away from doing something and everything after that point is flat and lifeless and wrong. Usually this means throwing away everything after the wrong turn, going back, writing it right, and moving ahead.
You’re not where you think you are in the story. With The Gripping Beast, for instance, I had planned more events taking place in the Viking village and I thought I was far from the end. But I came to a halt and eventually I realized why: the hero and heroine had reached the point of love and commitment. When you reach that point in a romance, the story is over. I had reached the natural finish without realizing it and sooner than I expected. At that point I could finish the story where it wanted to end, or drum up some thin excuse to separate the lovers so the story could lumber on for another 100 pages. Since I figured drummed up excuses are universally lame, I wrapped it up. But not recognizing where I really was in the story stopped me for some time.
Your story is aimed in the wrong direction. You think you’re writing a story that’s suited for one market, but key elements are the wrong fit. Step back and look at it. Maybe your story is really women’s fiction or a mystery or chick lit or YA and by trying to push it in a different direction than it’s suited to, you’re crippling it and missing out on the real right place for it. Analyze it as if it were written by a stranger and ask yourself what kind of story it is and list 5 potential markets.
Sometimes it’s very hard to let go of what we intended or planned or expected to accept what is. I’ve learned that the longer I fight this process, the longer the halt drags out. If I just deal with it, accept the new direction and get going again, the pause doesn’t have to mean days or weeks or months of no new progress.
With Miss Lonely Hearts, I had to face up to the possibility of throwing away a lot of really good writing because it may not fit the story in the end, due to an initial wrong take on a main character. I hope I can save some of those scenes, but it’s more important to save the story. When I became willing to let go of those scenes, I began to see new possibilities. When I remained stubbornly fixated on “but this has to happen”, I was frozen.
Sometimes there aren’t any easy answers to procrastination of the 2nd kind, but the sooner you find the answer (hard as it may be to accept) and get going in the right direction, the sooner you’ll find yourself feeling good about life, yourself, and your writing again.
by Charlene Teglia | Feb 11, 2006 | Uncategorized
Gotta love this lazy blogging. From The Romance Studio, 4 Hearts/Explicit and this outstanding review of The Gripping Beast:
“This tale of a rock star sent into the past by a magic armband is very engrossing. The author describes Viking times so well that you can almost picture yourself on the longboat. Lorelei and Erik are never boring, always challenging each other. Lorelei helps Erik find his sense of humor as well as love. I picked this one up and did not put it down until the last page. This is a very involving story.” – Maura Frankman
I love that she didn’t put it down until she finished, and found the historical detail well done. This is my first historical setting and I did lots of hair-ripping over the research and finding the balance between bringing the setting to life without turning it into a history report. Always nice to hear it worked!
by Charlene Teglia | Feb 10, 2006 | Uncategorized
The slush god has a neat article about building a career from small and indie presses. Not permalinked so you’ll have to scroll down. I think I agree that there are advantages to starting small and building and gaining momentum.
On that note, the world of small/indie presses has been good to Lora Leigh! Her new trilogy for Samhain has been offered contracts by Berkley Heat. Samhain is releasing Nauti Buoy so that the series can be kept together, so if you haven’t picked up your copy of this ebook yet, it’s now 15% off and will be gone in a few days.
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