by Charlene Teglia | Mar 10, 2011 | Uncategorized
I mentioned my test stories earlier on the blog and I thought it was worth an entry to talk about them. But first, we have to jump into the way-back machine to talk about why I was doing them in the first place.
Long ago and far away, I made my first (and second and third and so on) RWA recognized sales to Ellora’s Cave. The first book won an RT award along with earning enough money to encourage me to continue, and my career was off and running…in the erotic romance niche. My first book in print was an anthology with Jaci Burton and Shiloh Walker, among others, so I was in excellent company.
But life and publishing moved on, and I began to see the limitations of the erotic niche from a creative perspective. The boundaries between subgenres blurred, mainstream got hotter, and erotic came with increasing pressure to focus on the exotic and more of it. Books considered “erotic” in the early days are mainstream by today’s standards.
For those whose imaginations flourish in the realm of exotic and lots of it, no problem. For me, I found myself increasingly frustrated by the fact that I couldn’t focus on aspects of stories I thought were more interesting than sex and that I wanted to devote more space to, but couldn’t and still be producing an “erotic” romance. The endless pressure to be hotter, hotter, hotter, interfered with my creativity and I began to struggle to write at all.
I tried writing a romance with no sex on the page, but that didn’t seem like a balance to me. Romance, let’s face it, deals with sex. Sex is not the be-all and end-all, but it’s part of romance. And very, very few romances have none, unless they’re inspirational. Which is not where I fit.
The problem of sex and romance and how to balance it with the kind of story I wanted to write led me to set everything I was working on aside and take a break. I considered leaving romance altogether and writing YA or UF solely. But all of my ideas for those genres also had strong romances. So I kind of had to face the fact that my imagination runs to romance. In particular, my writing has a UF/para rom bent that due to the blurring of lines between them is not marketing death anymore.
Enter the test stories. The first one was a test of; could I return to writing the occasional erotic story and be happy with it? The answer was a flat no. I couldn’t get past chapter one.
The second one, Mad Stone, was a test of writing the kind of story I wanted to write, the way I wanted to write it; UF with romance and heat. It was fun to write, and while it was not easy, and I invested a huge amount of work into it for the final word count, it did what I wanted it to do. It was the story I wanted to write, the kind of story I’d like to read. And it proved to me that I am ready to pick up the work I set aside and finish it, putting romance and sex and story together in the blend that I think serves best.
It would be a real fairy-tale happy ending if this led to fame, fortune, NYT bestsellerdom and book contracts galore, but the most important thing, believe it or not, is that I’m happy with what I’m writing. I hope that makes readers as happy as it makes me.
by Charlene Teglia | Mar 9, 2011 | Uncategorized
A lot of my mental creative space has been taken up with tons of decision making lately. It’s easy to see how this happens with real life events, but something I didn’t really take into account is how this happens in fiction, too.
Examples:
In real life, I realized I was pregnant this fall, which triggered a thousand decision dominoes. About the only straightforward decision was who to see for maternity care, since the doc who delivered the last child hadn’t left the country or retired. From there on, it was decisions all day long. Even diapers aren’t simple anymore. Everything had to be investigated, considered, and decided.
In creating a work of fiction, I have a similar array of choices to weigh and make. Mad Stone is short, but I still had so many things to decide. Even once the logistics of the plot were nailed down, there were character-based decisions that dictated who was present where and when, the order of events, whose goals were driving each scene.
I think it’s a lot easier when you have fewer choices, or aren’t aware of them. But once you become aware of the array of choices you have for each scene, each act, each story, you have to think through the consequences and choose the one that best fits what you’re trying to accomplish, what reflects the theme and tone of the story, what is consistent with the world and characters, what is most effective.
I keep wondering why writing doesn’t get easier the older and more experienced I get. I think Mad Stone is somewhere around my 30th work, and one of the “benefits” of all that experience is that I’m very, very aware of the array of choices I have and the tools at my disposal.
Writing with blinders on, when I saw fewer possibilities and choices, was probably a lot faster. The flip side of this is that experience lets me identify problems and see solutions much, much faster than it did in the blinder days when I once set a book aside for several years because I couldn’t see the solution.
Decision making takes creative energy and space, but having a lot of choices at our disposal means that we can create something better and richer in the end. I will tell myself that while I get frustrated with how long it’s taking me to write this chapter because I have to decide whose scene it is and if changing a planned order of events will give it more impact.
by Charlene Teglia | Mar 3, 2011 | Uncategorized
So many projects, and the clock is ticking down on the due date. Mine, not the projects, but I plan to finish all I can before the Big Arrival, after which I will do a lot of napping and reading and also diaper-changing.
I did an experimental story towards the end of the year which taught me a lot. I then wrote Mad Stone, a Neuri novelette in between Animal Attraction and Red Queen, which taught me even more. I am now applying what I’ve learned to Red Queen and have high hopes it will see the light of day this year, as the book I wanted it to be.
Other stuff in the works: standalone ebook versions of Shoot to Thrill and Wolf at the Door. (Finished but the formatting, covers, etc. will take time.)
Under development: Channeling Cleopatra, probably also a standalone ebook. Unless I shock myself by finding a NY taker for a book about ancient weapons of mass destruction and the professor and medically-discharged Army Ranger attempting to keep them out of the wrong hands while failing to keep their hands off each other. Kiss of the Demon, which is really dark and probably not a good one to work on with impending post-partum insanity looming, but then again, maybe it’ll be therapy.
For today, switching over to this playlist:
Billy Idol, White Wedding
Social Distortion, When She Begins
Naruto, Dragon Rising
Naruto, Hero’s Comeback
Social Distortion, Ball and Chain
Foo Fighters, Learn to Fly
Powerman 5000, Action
Social Distortion, When the Angels Sing
Mazzy Star, Fade Into You
The Clash, Rock the Casbah
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