Romance writing

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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Baby on Board, my second Harlequin American Romance, has just come out. I enjoyed writing about Patrick Berzani and Kate Stevens. They are two people from two different worlds: Kate is an artist who works in glass. Patrick races sailboats across oceans. When I started the book, I knew a bit about Kate’s world (I was once an interior designer) and a bit about Patrick’s world (I live and cruise on a sailboat). Thanks to them, I now know much more. It’s almost as though each character takes me by the hand, leads me to their home and shows me who they are and how they live their lives.

Currently I am working on the story of Ian Berzani, Patrick’s older brother. He just finished telling me how he met Mimi Green. And how he fell in love with her. I just finished the first draft, so I’m pretty sure I know how it all ends. I’m not going to give it away—you’ll have to read their story for yourself.

I knew I would have to write about Ian after his younger brother introduced us. He is such a quiet man, always careful in how he treats other people. He is definitely more cautious than Patrick. In Baby on Board, he tries to rein in his brother, but with little success. His advice to Patrick proves right, but Ian is not one to force his opinions on others. Patrick has to choose for himself the right path to take.

As much as Ian wanted to remain backstage, I wanted to shine the spotlight on him and see what would happen.

Ian’s big dream is sailing his own boat around the world. He built it from the hull up and it’s ready to go. He’s been trying to leave Crab Creek for years, but something has always stood in his way. Finally, he sees his chance and he can’t wait to slip the lines. Then Mimi enters his life. I understand Ian’s longing for what’s over the horizon; I’ve felt it, too. Sailing on the open ocean is also a thrill that beckons: blue water, white, cresting waves and dolphins playing in the bow wake.

I love seeing dolphins when I’m out on Thalia. In the lore of sailors, they portend good fortune. It seems like I have always had something good happen to me after they pay a visit. In November, when we were on our way south down the Chesapeake Bay, I ran the boat aground. Hard. I was horrified, but it happens to most sailors eventually.  Another sailor/writer, Don Bamford is quoted as saying, he only met two sailors who had never gone aground: one who never left the dock and one who was a terrible liar.

After hauling out the boat and patching the divot I’d taken out of the keel—and installing a new depth-sounder to prevent it from happening again—my husband and I continued on our trip south. Part of the journey took us through the IntraCoastal Waterway. After my grounding I was very paranoid about this shallow water route that runs just inside the coastline, from Virginia to Florida. Just before we entered the waterway, four dolphins came to play around the boat. I had never seen them in the Chesapeake before and I knew it meant good things.

After the dolphins, our passage was pretty smooth sailing. We had some nasty cold and windy weather, but we handled that. Again, just when things looked grim—high winds and blowing sleet as we were docking in Beaufort, North Carolina—here came more dolphins. We pulled into our slip effortlessly, tied up and were snug in our berth that night.

Dolphins. Almost everywhere I sail, they seem to be there, ready to frolic in the boat’s wake and welcome me. They play tag under the water, first one leading, then another. They grin as they look up at you on the bow platform, waving down at them. In the middle of the night, just when you’ve relaxed into the rhythm of the passage and settled down to read a good romance, they sneak up and blow their air-holes right next to the boat. Whoosh!  Scares me half out of my wits. I swear I can hear them chortle as they swim away.

Maybe the good luck dolphins bring is simply my over-active imagination creating magic out of coincidence. I don’t care if it is. They make me happy and, when they smile up at me from their underwater world, I always smile back. I want to know what they think. What are their secrets? Do they fall love like us? Someday, I’ll have to write a story about dolphins and find out.

Thalia, the sailboat that my husband and I live aboard, has been anchored at the mouth of Weem’s Creek for the past week or so. We are here to attend the Annapolis Sailboat Show, which we’ve come to see for the past eight years. There are hundreds of boats and endless booths with all kinds of stuff for sailing; the basics, like rope and paint, to the latest technology in electronic navigation and chart plotting. We go as much to meet our friends, old and new, as to see the boats and the gear on display. This year I was lucky enough to have a new friend along: Patrick Berzani.

Patrick is not your usual guy. He races big, fast sailboats across oceans. Storms, calms, snow, icebergs, big seas, Patrick tackles it all—not a sport for the timid—and goes back for more every time. Patrick’s also in love with Kate Stevens, who is not so sure that she’s in love with him. Kate’s a glass blower and not ready to commit her heart or her baby to a dare-devil like Patrick. Kate had an art show the same weekend and could not come with us. This gave Patrick and me the chance to talk about sailing and boats, two subjects close to our hearts.

Did I mention that Patrick is also the hero in my novel, Baby On Board?

Before you think I’ve gone nuts, give me a chance to explain. I’ve known Patrick for over a year now. I’ve spent many days writing his story, worrying if he will find love and win Kate’s heart. His struggle has consumed months of my waking life and, at night, drifted through my dreams. I like Patrick. I learn new things from him about sailing, sailboat racing and love. He’s become more real to me than some of the people I have known for years. I look at a new laminate sailcloth or a smart-looking foul-weather jacket and wonder “What Patrick would think about this?” And poof! Patrick sort of pops out of my imagination and begins to tell me what he thinks about it.

Am I crazy? Maybe. But I like being crazy like that.

So there we were, Patrick and I, walking the docks of the Annapolis sailboat show, looking at boats and talking to the brokers and builders, asking all kinds of questions. Well not exactly. Patrick is invisible and can’t really speak for himself. I must be his spokeswoman and ask his questions for him. He likes light-weight, high-tech racing boats. As a cruiser who makes her home on a boat, I’m more interested in things like large water tanks, comfortable berths, stout construction and lots of room to store food and my shoes. Patrick wants to know about hull construction, upwind performance, movable ballast—the things that make a boat go fast.

So with Patrick along, I see things at the boat show that I missed all those seven other times. I’m curious about them, because he is curious about them. Thanks to Patrick (and Kate and Ian and all my other characters), the world opens up to me and becomes a much more interesting place.

Welcome to my thoughts about writing, romance and anything else that occurs in the course of a writer’s life.  Or anything that occurs in a boater’s life, too.  If you’ve clicked around my site, you know  that I live on a 40 foot sailboat.  I’m about to sail to Maine from the Chesapeake Bay–we plan to leave next week, if the weather works out.

How often should you expect to hear from me?  That depends on the wind, the waves, writing and internet connection.  My life is one of random, sporadic connections with people, places and the world-wide-web.  Sailing is a fluid endeavor, as is writing.

Come back and visit from time to time and get to know a bit more about my world.

Cheers!

Lisa