A Story is Born and Other Interesting Things by Liz Flaherty #RomanceGems

Me in front of that blank screen.

One of the very best things about life is how interesting it all is. Even if you get bored you can always go somewhere else, do something else, or if you're a writer, you can look at the same old things in brand new ways and, voila!, a story is born.

Now that I've made that landmark statement, I'm trying to think of a way to illustrate it. While I sat here staring at the screen (it stares back; have you noticed?), my phone clanged a message received and Facebook dinged in a notification on the computer.

I know very well the phone message is from the pastor and the Facebook notification is a new comment on a post I'm following. But if I were sitting here unable to think of anything to write--and the screen was staring back blankly--that clanging message could be from "the guy who got away" years ago or a doctor's office with a scary "call me Monday" message or even an "I was born on this date. Were you there?" warning. The notification could be from someone from school. Who died junior year. Didn't she?

I'm not one of those who have so many ideas teeming in their writers' minds that they won't have time to get all their stories written, so it's important that I find things interesting. In 2012, Carina Press published One More Summer. It's the only book I ever wrote that "wrote itself." Its first draft was 83 days of getting up at 3:00 to write before work. It took more than 10 years and I have no idea how many submissions to sell it. Its publication is still one of my favorite parts of my writing career.

I never intended to write a sequel.

But a few years after One More Summer, I saw a tall guy

walk across a hospital parking lot. He was moving quickly, impatiently. He got in his car and just sat there. In retrospect, I'm not sure if I actually saw this scene or dreamed it, because I can't tell you what hospital it was, but it gave birth to the sequel I never intended to write. Both my Carina editor and I were shocked when it didn't sell there, and for a long time, I let it lie under my virtual bed while I sulked. And then I started it on the rounds, and like the book that came before it, it's been through more submissions than I can remember.

Like the book before it, it still holds more of my heart than any one book should hold. It's all well and good to say I don't have a favorite, and I don't, but there are some that still make my heart ache for the people within them. Still have protagonists who, even in their happily-ever-afters, come back to visit and remind me that the happily-ever-after road has potholes in it.

Should I interject here that, even though I have a few indie projects, I am for the most part a trad author and like being one? If you know that, you know how happy I am that the sequel, The Healing Summer, will be released by The Wild Rose Press sometime soon. I am living on edge from day to day, waiting for the cover and the release date.

I can't begin to say how much this means to me. My husband laughs because of my goals over the years. You know how they went: If I could just sell a story. If I could just sell a book. If I could just sell another book. A series. Make one of the lists. With The Healing Summer, I feel as if the last goal has been reached.

So I guess I better make another one. Goal, that is. Because writing, like life, is much too interesting to stop now.

My Kind of Hero @karilemor #RomanceGems

So many people talk about book boyfriends and I have to admit I don’t really have any. Not that I don’t like the heroes I read about. I do! But typically, I read romance. In these stories I am looking for a connection between the two main characters.  If I end up with the hero, that means the other character does not. Then it wouldn’t be a romance. Or it would be my romance, and since I’m already married, that would be a problem. I’m not into cheating.  In my life or in my books.

When I do choose my heroes, I have to say I like certain things. And some things I’m not a huge fan of. Jerky alpha billionaire, Pass. Any guy who’s ever cheated on a woman, Pass. Royalty, sheik, hit man. Pass. I’m more into those who serve, like military, police, firefighter, or government agent.  Or I like the manly type who work with their hands. Cowboy, carpenter, or farmer.

One of my good friends checked out my ‘Hero’ Pinterest board and said I definitely have a type. Yup, I do. Physically, I like them trim, clean cut, lean muscles, and swoon worthy. I do appreciate a bit of chest hair as well. But that’s all superficial.

What I really want in a hero is vulnerability. Sure, I want them to be macho and strong, physically and emotionally. But I also want them to be real. To have problems they need to work on. I want them to love their woman with every fiber of their being and fight until the death for them. Since many of my books are romantic suspense, they do exactly that. Well, not quite to the death, but often times close.

It’s great that most books now have the hero’s point of view as well. I love the inner thoughts and the struggles they go through in the story. One favorite is Nikko from Peggy Jaeger’s Cant Stand the Heat. He’s a definite alpha male who takes no guff from anyone. But he’s got this teenage daughter who is going through quite an ordeal. Instead of being the absent father, or the one who rules with an iron fist, he is caring and loving and his daughter is more important to him than anything else in his life. And he constantly tells her so. This man, this father, dug so deeply into my heart, I thought I might bleed.

Another great hero with a vulnerability is Ty from Marianne Rice’s What Makes Us Stronger. Ty is a man who works with his hands and very masculine. But he suffers from depression and struggles to get through life with this around his neck. This is a real issue that so many people suffer from.  I love watching him as he finds a way to make things work with the heroine. Swoonworthy.

I’ve got my own vulnerable hero coming out soon. The book, Elusive Dreams, is the first in my new series, Storms of New England. The series is a small-town family contemporary set in…you guessed it… New England.

Erik Storm is the oldest in his family, with three younger Storm siblings. He has always been popular, handsome, well-liked, and successful. But his time as a Marine over seas left him scarred, barely able to walk, and hiding other medical secrets he never wants his family or friends to find out about. But he promised a dying mother he’d take care of her children. How to do that in the physical shape he’s in?

Tessa Porter has bounced around through a variety of foster homes her whole life. In her teens, she finally came to live next door to Erik’s grandparents in coastal Maine, where Erik spent many summers working at a local restaurant. Due to abuse in her past, Tessa hates to be around people and cringes at any form of touch. But she’s willing to help Erik take care of the children. They are younger and weaker and therefore can’t possibly hurt her.

Unfortunately, a social service worker doesn’t think Erik is in any shape to care for these children, so Erik and Tessa embark on a marriage of convenience to ensure the children will have a stable home and loving family. Both Erik and Tessa face challenges, so creating a family might be the only thing to heal these two scarred souls.

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As soon as I have a cover and release date, I will share. To get up to date news, you can subscribe to my mailing list (I only send out a newsletter when I have a sale or new release or other exciting news). Or you can follow me on BookBub.

Now tell me, what is your favorite kind of hero?


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July Giveaway

Starts at 12:01am CDT, July 5, Friday.

Ends at 12:01am CDT, July 25, Thursday.

You can click Rafflecopter here at any time, or scroll to the bottom and find the form. Remember, it opens July 5 so enter often and tell your friends. There are some great prizes up for grabs.

July Prizes

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Is Pinterest the new Writer's Vision board? by Peggy Jaeger #RomanceGems

I'm a very visual person. I'm that annoying girl who can remember the exact color of a dress someone wore to a wedding twenty years ago, or how long someone's hair was on such and such a day in high school. I see, and navigate through, the world in colors, shapes, hues. Considering I can't remember what I had for breakfast today ( did I have breakfast today??) this is a good trait for a writer to possess.

When I start to pen a new book I usually see the entire story in my head first, like a full length movie, and then I set about putting words to describe what I've seen. When I first started writing fiction ( 175 years ago!) I made Vision Boards. Armed with a blank poster board, I'd save all my fashion mags for a few months and then meticulously pick through them looking for the faces of my hero and heroine, the setting of the story, secondary characters, and anything else pertaining to the book I was about to write. It took forevah!! All the searching, choosing, cutting, pasting, taping, arranging, aligning. It got to be almost a second job at times!

Imagine how elated I was to discover PINTEREST

No longer do I need to troll through magazines and periodicals searching for the perfect visuals to capture my story's essence. Now, with a few clicks and a well worded search, I can plot a book in pictures in half the time - maybe even less. And having Pinterest on the computer is great because when I'm stuck trying to remember if my hero has blue eyes or steely grey, one or two clicks and  I've got my answer in full living color. It's so much easier now to describe people, settings, objects, since I have innumerable choices to view.

For my new bridal series A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN, I originally did my standard vision board for all three books.

As you can probably tell from this picture, the poster board is a tri-fold, stands three feet tall, and has over 100 images on it. Imagine all the fun ( and I say that with heavy sarcasm attached) I had cutting and pasting all those images in a coherent manner for me to understand my story, one book at a time. There are 3 books planned with a 4th I may throw in for a holiday story.

Now, compare the above to my Pinterest boards for the same book series: O'DOWD, Cathleen & Mac, Izzy's Shower ,  Nanny Fee and Maureen's Aprons. I can't even begin to describe how much easier it's been to just refer to those boards whenever I need to remember an item, a heroine's outfit for the day, the color of a wedding palette.

Bliss. Pure and total bliss. Plus I'm saving a fortune on paper, poster board, tape, magazines, and time!

I can devote so much more time to actually getting the movie I saw play in my head written down on my laptop so it can be read by romance readers everywhere!

My darling daughter recently got engaged and has set up wedding boards on her private Pinterest account. Oh, how I wish I'd had this available to me 150 years ago when I wed!!! I spent the equivalent of a small country's gross national product on bridal magazines back then. I'm not kidding. Not even a smidge.

Book 1 in my MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN series, DEARLY BELOVED is out now and tells the story of  36 year old single-and-looking Wedding Planner, Colleen O'Dowd and Financier Slade Harrington. If you like opposites attract, oil and water characters, this book has your name on it! Click on my Pinterest boards again if you've read the book and you'll understand the meaning behind all the images I picked.

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