Romance writing

My mother has a tradition at Thanksgiving. We all hold hands, the meal spread before us on the table, and tell everyone assembled what we’re thankful for this year. When I was a kid, this made me cringe. First, the tradition made sure everyone was staring at me—horrifying when I was a self-conscious teenager. Second, what the heck was I going to say? I would obsess for days ahead of time to come up with the perfect short, thoughtful phrase. Inevitably, I would flub it and a slight titter (or out-right guffaw from my brother) would circle the table. Eventually, as I matured, I learned to play to the crowd, keep it simple and the moments eased on by.

These days, it’s so easy to focus on the worst. Crisis after crisis hits the headlines and pops out of every mouth, TV, blog or tweet. The stories are frightening and devastating. Every-day life is full of small calamities, too: the car breaks down, the toilet backs up, the cat throws up on the new sofa, bad hair, really bad dust-bunnies. Sometimes it seems like there’s nothing to be grateful for. Then Thanksgiving arrives and I remember my mother’s tradition. I spend a few days thinking about all the great things in my life and I re-focus on what’s important: family, love, laughter.

This Thanksgiving, I won’t be sharing a meal with my family, but maybe that’s a good thing. The turkey would need a sweater to keep from catching a chill while I list all the things I’m thankful for this year. I have a wonderful husband. I have terrific friends, some of whom just helped us move. You have to be grateful for people who help you haul an eight-foot sofa up five flights of stairs. I get to write every day. I have romance readers who enjoy my stories. The list goes on and on.

Now I’m going to pass this wonderful tradition on to you. Join hands, everyone. What are you thankful for this year?

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Do you get nervous? I do. Public speaking, flying, and being in a gale on my sailboat: all moments when my pulse speeds up. Lucky for me, I don’t have too many outward signs of my inward trepidation. To an innocent bystander, I can seem perfectly calm, cool and collected. Inside, an 8.2 earthquake shakes me. And my hands get cold. Really cold. It takes about an hour for them to warm up after the episode of nerves has passed.

I spent the weekend at the New Jersey Romance Writers Convention, “Put Your Heart in a Book,” and my nerves were right there with me. You see, talking about my writing makes me nervous, too. It is immensely important to me. It’s part of who I am. I am afraid that when I talk to others about my writing, especially agents and publishers, I am not doing justice to my written words. My audience will dismiss what I say, because I’m not saying what I ought. Have you ever had someone excitedly describe the plot of a book or a movie you haven’t read or seen? How long did it take before your eyes glazed over? I’m afraid that’s exactly what happens to anyone who hears me talk about my most cherished characters and stories.

At any convention, I try to meet as many people as I can. I ask a lot of questions. I am amazed by what others are doing, how prolific and creative they all are. Invariably, the people I meet ask me questions, too. My nervousness kicks in, but I answer as clearly as I can. I want them to understand what I’m writing, what I’m thinking and the delight I find in the writing process.

So, in a lot of these conversations, my hands go vampire cold while the rest of my body stays warmly mortal. I know when I say goodbye and shake that person’s hand, she’s going to shiver and wonder if she’s been unwittingly discussing romance with the undead. But that’s okay. I’m glad I’m having an attack of nerves. Because if my stories matter so much to me, then maybe—just maybe, at least when I write—I can make them that important to my reader.

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Last Friday I moved my sailboat into a small marina in Annapolis, Maryland. It’s one of a dozen or more marinas that crowd the shores of Back Creek. When you step off the docks, you are in the Eastport neighborhood—known locally as the Maritime Republic of Eastport. A less-touristy area than Annapolis proper, Eastport has none of the bustle that accompanies the capitol of a state. If you didn’t know the State House was just a short walk across the Spa Creek bridge, you’d never guess it. The streets are lined with small charming houses. Trees arch out to form a canopy of green overhead. From around every corner you catch a glimpse of water and, of course, boats.

Walking out of the marina parking lot to look around, you find the Leeward coffee shop two blocks to the east. About a half-block west is Davis’s Tavern, a former mercantile store in the 1930’s, converted to a local watering hole. Really, this is about as perfect as it gets for a writer: libations for either end of the day all within walking distance.

The evening after we tied up, we decided to go see what was happening at the tavern, see what the locals do for fun after the long work-week. To our surprise, Davis’s was crowded. Outside, people stood in clusters under the green awnings or sat at the tables. Inside, the barstools were full. We took a table nearby and overheard several lies . . . I mean sea stories being told. Most of the patrons had houses nearby, or boats at the marinas across the street, or both. It was a happy, convivial atmosphere that made you want to stay and mingle.

That’s when my first attack of déjà vu hit: I had been there before. No, I don’t mean that I had ever been in Davis’s Tavern. Before that evening, I didn’t even know it existed. But there was a feel to the place that was very familiar, except I couldn’t figure out the connection. The next morning, writing away on my latest book, I realize that Davis’s shared some striking resemblances to the bar I had created for my characters. My bar—The Laughing Gull—is in an old, historic building on the waterfront. You can see boats from its windows. The vibe I get from the bar I created is a lot like the real one: warm, welcoming and boisterous.

A few days later we stopped into the tavern again. It wasn’t so busy on a weeknight, so we pulled up a stool. As I was sipping my wine, a man walked up to the bar next to me, smiled and ordered a drink. He had a thick accent that sounded Italian. After the bartender served him, he took his beer outside to a table. Through the windows, I could see him sit down with several other older men who all seemed to be talking at once and having a great time. Forgetting my manners, I started to stare. He looked very like my image of Antonio Berzani, patriarch of the Berzani clan and father to my hero, Ian. Did he have an Italian accent? Yes. Did he talk with his hands? Yes. Was he tall, have silver hair and dark eyes with a twinkle lurking in their depths? Yes, yes, yes.

Whoa.

Did one of my characters just come to life? And was he in a bar that came out of my imagination? The universe isn’t supposed to work that way, but what if this is one of those mysterious anomalies? What I love most of all about this “déjà vu” experience (I’m sure there’s a better psychological term for experiencing something you imagined beforehand) is that it shows I’ve successfully translated my experiences on the Chesapeake Bay extracted from a myriad of small communities—Chestertown, Deltaville, Oxford, Easton—into a “real” fictional place, somewhere my characters really would live, laugh and love.

So far, none of my other characters has made an appearance at Davis’s or around the neighborhood, but I’m not giving up. Any day, I expect to see Kate and Patrick with their baby, strolling along Chester Avenue, or Ian lugging his tool box into a boatyard, or Mimi strumming her guitar and singing at a local hangout. I believe that there’s a thin spot in the fabric of the universe somewhere around here and through it, my stories are entering this reality.

How cool would that be?

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I love Fall.

I can feel it coming, though here on the Chesapeake Bay, Summer is far from over. The days are still hot and sticky. Most evenings, wild thunderstorms generated by all the land-heat push out to sea and crash over the boat. The storms are like grand temper tantrums staged by Mother Nature herself: rumbling thunder flaring to a wild pitch of rain, wind and lightning, then over quickly, leaving calm. The waters are filled with jellyfish galore—a product of the higher salinity this time of year—all the way to the northern end of the Bay. Still, Fall is on its way.

The first harbinger is all the “back-to-school” sales. Advertisements for everything from Notebook computers to notebook paper everywhere you look. Pencils, erasures, backpacks, sweaters: all necessities of the new school year. Though I am long out of school, it makes me want to go out and buy shoes; a new pair to celebrate the new year. Because, for me, Fall is—and always has been—the start of the New Year.

Soon the weather will match my mood. The air will lose this humidity and become crisp. The skies will be a crystal blue, all haze swept away in the northerly winds. Leaves will turn brilliant colors and slowly fall to the ground to be shuffled under our feet and raked into piles. The season I love the most will truly arrive and—here in the mid-Atlantic—linger and laze its way into Winter.

So, I’m sending you all a bouquet of No. 2 pencils, to celebrate Fall. I hope you enjoy their heady aroma of new beginnings. Perhaps they will inspire you to sharpen one, pull out that new notebook, open the cover and write a few words. As for me, I think I’ll go look at shoes.

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My fabulous editor, Johanna Raisanen, called me Friday and told me Harlequin is going to buy my fourth book.  Yea!

For those of you paying attention (and I know you all are, lol ) this is the third book in the “Berzani Tirlogy.”  Book one was Baby On Board (January 2009), which told the story of Patrick Berzani and Kate Taylor.  It is the tale of an unexpected baby and a mother who wants the best for her child. Unfortunately, the best does not include the child’s father. Somehow, he must convince her she’s wrong and that he is the only father for her child! 

The second book, An Unexpected Father (April 2010), tells the story of Ian, Patrick’s older brother, and the bond that grows between him and nine-year-old Jack Green–and Jack’s lovely mother, Mimi.

This new book is all about Patrick’s best friend, Evan McKenzie.  Evan is a playboy who will never settle down. At least, that’s what he thinks!  Stay tuned to see what happens when he and Anna Berzani spend a passionate night together with unexpected consequences.  Look for it later in 2010.

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I emailed a friend recently to ask if she thought there was a difference between an assassin and a serial killer. And, if so, what was it? I got back a long email that started with: “This is why I’m a writer. I LOVE these kinds of questions. Writers are the only ones who ask them expecting to get a serious answer.”

I don’t know if she’s right about only writers asking the questions, but it’s true that we do tend, putting it politely, to think outside the box. “What if”, starts most of our sentences. We suddenly stop in the middle of a conversation—looking as if we’d been hit on the head with a pipe-wrench—and say things like: “of course, that’s why the demons want control of the internet.” The world (and all ones running parallel to it) holds endless possibilities, bound only by the breadth and depth of our imagination.

Over breakfast one morning, I asked some of my non-writer friends the same question. I found out that everyone around the table could be friends with an assassin, but not with a serial killer. Why? Because they all agreed that assassins have an ethical code, no matter how twisted it may be; serial killers don’t. Ethics=trustworthiness—at least to a degree. Since I am writing a book where the hero happens to be an assassin, this was valuable information. It told me I have a character that, while he’s outside the bounds of “normal,” a reader could still understand him. If he sticks to his moral code, maybe they would even feel sympathetic to his plight. The really fun part was how engrossed my friends became by the directions I pushed their imaginations.

Writers or non-writers, our imaginations are the key to understanding the world. We all make up stories in our heads; most of them involve the mundane. But what if they didn’t? What if the guy sitting next to you on the train is really an alien? Or a spy? Or an assassin? That would make an interesting story, don’t you think? The questions and possibilities can turn a prosaic ride on a train into an imaginative adventure.

So, what if . . .

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I love books. Every writer loves books. We covet them, horde them, pile them in corners when the bookshelves are full. My husband threatens all manner of dire consequences when I bring home more books. His blusters do have a point: we live on a boat. Unlike other horders who live on land, my love of books could eventually sink us. So I pause as I lovingly finger the spine of yet another passageway to adventure. I don’t buy that book, even though I want to read it. Instead, I go to the library.

I love libraries. There is no place in the entire world—a seat next to Colin Firth at a dinner party included—that can make me happier. I love the smell, the hush, the way you can get lost for hours and find treasures buried so deep you feel like you are the first one to discover them. Then you find a train ticket stub, or a scrap of a grocery list or a smudged fingerprint that tells you someone else has found this treasure before. I think it’s completely appropriate that libraries are quiet. For me, they have a cathedral-like quality; they are hallowed, sacred temples to books.

My cousin works in a library. When she and her associates read my post about how boring I think my life is, she says they all laughed. But what they don’t realize is that I think they have exciting lives. All day long, they get to work with books—ones that are already written, edited, revised, printed and waiting to be read. I don’t know how they get any work done. I would constantly scold patrons: “Go away. Can’t you see I’m reading?” Surrounded by new books every day, old books that I loved when I was four, fourteen or forty, I would be a hopeless librarian. But I’d be a happy one.

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I just started blogging on a new site last month. The blog is devoted to Harlequin American Romance with all the authors for this line taking turns posting their thoughts on books, stories and the writing life. Every day brings something new: awards and upcoming releases one day, cleaning tips and recipes another. Check out Trish Milburn’s recipe. It made my mouth water! You can find links to all the author’s websites, too, plus easy access to purchasing books from Harlequin.

I post on the 27th of each month. Last month our topic was heroes. This month we’re exploring setting as a character in the novel. The diverse perspectives spark new ideas for me. Check out your favorite authors and find some new ones, too. I hope you’ll be back, again and again.

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Living on a sailboat, I am keenly attuned to the weather. Unlike land-dwellers, my roof is mere inches above my head with four hatches that open to the sky. I hear every drop of rain, every tap of hail and even snow makes a soft hiss as it hits the decks. Wind is perhaps the most intrusive of all the elements. The rigging taps and hums in light winds. All manner of vibrations and rattles shake the boat in the higher gusts. In storm-force winds, the rigging howls like there’s a banshee imprisoned in the crow’s nest, wailing to be set free. Okay, I don’t have a crow’s nest, but the banshee’s out there, screaming at me. It is an unnerving sound and one I don’t—thank goodness—hear too often.

So, weather is my constant companion, if not my friend. The past two days in the Chesapeake have been full of rain, the dreariest of weather anywhere, but especially on a boat. We’re anchored in Rock Creek, surrounded by houses on the shore, most with docks and boats out front. The scene is lovely, but I can’t sit outside in the cockpit and watch the birds swoop and soar through the trees that press the water’s edge. I can’t listen to the frogs croak and the fish splash since all our hatches have to be closed. It’s damp, chilly and all I want to do is torture my characters with plot twists that will end in heartbreak and tears. There’s not even any wind, just the steady drizzle. I lament the lack of wind because, if there’s wind, at least there’s the fantasy of sailing away from the gloom.

Feeling very put upon, I turn to the internet for escape. I log onto Facebook and check out what my friends are doing on this miserable day. Oddly enough, they’re all just as depressed by the weather as I am. Even though they are in houses and offices, in cars, trains and planes, we all have the same response. And we all try to cheer each other up by sending e-gifts and e-flowers, messages fun and funny. The weather is still inches above my head, but I realize everyone else feels the same as I do. That makes the gray day brighten, just a bit. A spark of enthusiasm hits and I pull up my latest work-in-progress. Maybe my hero doesn’t have to fall out of love with the heroine. Maybe she will reach out a hand when he needs it the most, offering love and support. Maybe I’ll get through this day. The forecast calls for sun tomorrow and a nice breeze from the south. Perfect for sailing up the Patapsco. I can endure and hope.

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I recently joined Facebook, something I’ve avoided doing for about a year. Being a writer, you’d think I would jump at the chance to write about myself. Wrong. I love the fiction I write and can work at it all day. When it comes to writing about myself, though, I struggle. Maybe because I don’t think of myself as having a very exciting life. I live on a forty-foot sailboat and rove the sea at will: yet I do it everyday, and the everyday can become boring no matter how interesting it sounds to someone looking from the outside. After fifteen years of it, I don’t find the sailing life unique. So, as you, faithful, yet so often unfilled reader know, I barely keep up with this blog—three posts in nine months is not “keeping up.” The daily blogging on Facebook just seemed like one more thing I wouldn’t use. And one more thing I’d feel guilty about not using. Wrong.

In my case, Facebook might as well be called Funbook, because that’s what it is: tons of fun. I’ve made contact with people from my past, present, maybe even my future—who knows? It’s a tiny window into everyday life from where I can spy on others just as they spy on me. The variety of posts and the scope of people’s lives touches me, makes me feel connected with a large community of people. I feel closer to my friends than before. It seems like, since I know what they’re doing over the course of the day, I know them better. Maybe that’s my own fantasy, and I’m still in the limerance phase of my Facebook experience, but I’m happy to live there for the nonce.

I don’t post on Facebook as often as many others. I’m not online all that often—especially now that I’m traveling on the boat—so there are gaps in my participation. Then when I get back online, another delay while I catch up to what’s going on in my friends’ world. But when I log into Facebook, I still feel in touch, in the loop. I like that.

So, you want to be my friend?

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