The best laid plans, and all that. I have experienced this in a real way for the last six months.
In June, (in three weeks), I wrote a romance novella, a prequel for a new series. It is a romance, I promise. But it is set in a historical fantasy world. (Think Greece in 200-300 BCE, but a fantasy version of that time and place).
I couldn’t believe how much fun it was to write, and how quickly it came together. I am excited to write the rest of this series. And to share it with you.
But first, I needed to publish the second book in my Rebel Hearts Series (IT”S AVAILABLE NOW!–Can you tell I’m ecstatic). Check out Dear Lord Wycliffe.
But there’s more on that list. I needed to finish book three in the Rebel Hearts Series. (It is 1/2 way written). I was a woman with a plan and all things were going my way.
But first, I always take a few weeks off in July to spend with family. Independence day is huge in our family.
Then instead of life according to my plan, a crazy version of life just came rushing at me. Covid, house sale, house purchase, moving, renovations, and the holiday season. My writing has been, shall we say, less productive, less regular, shorter in duration for six months.
But I am an author. And January is a new year. I am back at work and excited for everything that is to come.
And, I just happen to have another regency romance due for release in the next month. It’s much later than I anticipated, but it’s almost ready to go.
First draft of the cover of my upcoming Regency Romance
(And remember, I still have Book 3 of Rebel Hearts I’m working on and that delightful new project and the series it begins).
You know how it feels when have to do something important or necessary? Sometimes that thing is difficult or distasteful. Not always though. Sometimes you actually want to do that thing, but you feel nervous about it.
So, you put it off. Everything else suddenly clamors for your attention. Wash the dishes, yes! Change those sheets? It will feel so good when you climb into bed tonight.
Read that book? You deserve a little break.
And doing those other tasks seems easier. At first.
You are working hard. You are productive. But there is just that little twinge of anxiety. And the longer you avoid “the thing,” the worse the anxiety gets.
Yes. I hate to tell you, but this happens in writing, too. Sometimes, I get a little stuck in the middle of a book. Sometimes there is a scene that I know is going to be fabulous, but I’m nervous to start writing it. (Because I want so badly for it to be fabulous).
I’d love to tell you that I am disciplined, and I just push through.
And sometimes I do, but I have been known to get caught up in avoidance behaviors.
There. I said it.
But let me tell you a little secret. Sometimes when I’m avoiding the main work in progress, I will write something else. I wrote both Smoke and Shadows and Veiled In Mist when I hit a wall in my main works.
Each time, after I finished writing a fun, delightful novella, I was ready to return and finish the main project: The Lies We Tell and The Masks We Wear, respectively.
So, right now I am working on Brothers’ Knot, Book 3 in my Rebel Hearts series. I love the main character, Philippa. But she is really struggling to figure out what will bring her happiness. These two brothers are causing her some serious confusion.
And she keeps changing the course of the book, so I’ve spent a little time this last month avoiding her. And I enjoyed every minute of it.
I wrote the first draft of a historical fantasy romance. It is the prequel to a new series that I now see I must write. (Don’t worry, not yet).
I also wrote a bonus epilogue for Dear Lord Wycliffe, Book 2 of the Rebel Hearts series. This epistolary novel will be released this month. Watch for that!
But never fear. My avoidance anxiety is just about at its peak. I’m ready to return to my main work. Philippa is now ready to learn some things about life and about herself. And she will find her way to love too–very, very soon!
So, what do you do when you’re avoiding? And how long can you avoid before you force yourself to do the thing?
First, I always start with a character (or two). I don’t decide on a trope up front. In fact tropes are never part of my planning process.
While writing the Illusions historical romance series, I found myself wondering, what would have made Amelia’s mother marry Mr. Hatton? And Lady Cecily Ballantyne was born. She met Mr. Hatton while she was looking for a way to support her five-year-old daughter, Amelia.
I didn’t realize I had a Pygmalion or “My Fair Gentleman” thing going until I had written four chapters. Mr. Hatton was An Honorable Man.
But that Pygmalion theme became the basis of their bargain. He would provide work, and she would help him refine his manners so he could enter society. It became a match made in heaven!
Lady Cecily had an intriguing best friend, Lady Jaminna (Minna) Capener.
She was already married and the mother of a young son when we met her in An Honorable Man. But she was such a delight that I wanted to find out how she met and married her miserly husband.
If there is a little bit of ‘The Matchmaker‘ or “Hello, Dolly” in there, I only saw it after I’d already written chapter one. But once I saw it, I embraced it. They are perfect for each other.
Lady Corinna Capener made her first appearance in Minna and the Miser. She was a serious minded thirteen-year-old. The younger daughter of the miser in that story. And she was especially interested in influential women in history.
AI inspirations cover (cover reveal next week!)So when I began writing her novel, Dear Lord Wycliffe, (an epistolary novel), it was her need for information that guided her actions, not any idea of a trope. If she had grown into a “bluestocking” while I wasn’t watching, what could I do but go with it?
And if Lord Wycliffe is a little older than she is, say thirteen years, that isn’t really enough years to be considered a May/December romance. He just needs to be convinced of that.
AI Inspiration Cover only
Now, I’m in the middle of writing Philippa’s Story, Brother’s Knot. (October/November release). During a dinner party in Dear Lord Wycliffe, we met Captain Archie Broadbent. I planned that he would be the main male character in Philippa’s book. Really!
But then on the way to a house party, she met his brother, Lord Thornwood. I would never plan a love triangle trope. Not in a million years.
But here I am with Philippa torn between two men. And involving herself in a little intrigue on the side. And I’m having the best time.
So what trope will I be writing for Delia? She’s next. I don’t know. That’s not where I start. Romance always begins with the characters.
My romance begins with hope and excitement. Everything about this new book seems brushed with a golden glow. My characters are delightful. Their story is engaging. Every day is a lovely adventure. And the first part of the book flies by in that romantic, giddy haze.
Life is beautiful. I have found my place in this world. It’s perfect!
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And then, the challenges appear in my romance. My characters are rebellious and obstinate. They don’t agree with my vision for them and my ideas about what they should do. They have a mind of their own.
And suddenly, I come face to face with my own limitations and imperfections. Surely, if I could mark the path more clearly, find the right words, and string them together in the right order, I could return to those first halcyon days and weeks.
But it isn’t to be. I must learn how to work through my book’s idiosyncrasies and my own growth process. It is one of the most difficult and frustrating relationships,. But I keep working at it because it has so much potential. Even with the problems, I can see how beautiful it can be.
That middle part takes the longest, and it’s different with every book, but as I work with it, sometimes patiently, sometimes not, we come to an understanding. That first excitement and romantic haze grows into a rewarding trust in my characters, a contentment that I am doing my best, and a deep and abiding joy that it is a wonderful thing we have created together.
The final happily ever after is more satisfying when it is earned, both for my characters and for me, the writer.
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Life is beautiful. I have found my place in this world, and even with its scars and struggles, it is perfect.
I love writing. I love my characters and telling their stories. I even love the struggle, the days when I just hit a wall, the worry, the reworking. It is all part of the process. At least for me.
I don’t think writing is something that you ever master. (Using an olympic metaphor), writing is a continual effort to break your own record. That constant struggle to get better.
So, this weekend, I went to a writer’s conference. I took classes on writing better characters, how to plot, how to use dialogue more effectively, and so much more.
I also explored some topics I hadn’t considered before. A class on illustrating my books and a class on getting inspiration from wonder tales (fairy tales) from around the world.
I am ready to dive in to the two books I am writing right now. I’m so excited to use the things I learned and the ideas that came to me in between classes.
As the reader, you may not–you should not–see the effort and craft. I want you to be swept away to another time and experience the lives of these characters. But behind the scenes, I am working hard to give you a wonderful, immersive experience. And I am always striving to make that experience better for you.
What are you working on, striving to improve? How do you describe that process of growth? Let’s talk.
If you have relationships, you live with thoughts of other people, always making their way through your brain. You think of your brother, your child, your friend.
“I should call my dad today,” you think. Or, “how can I help or support this person?”
I have all of that. I also have a cast of characters, imagined but real, who inhabit my space. I have the book characters I’m working on right now. I also have those from the next book. These are forefront in my writer’s brain.
But there are also the characters from the the sudden inspiration or nighttime musings. (I try to write them down right away or they can get lost. And that’s a sad, sad thing). I tell myself I will write their story soon, or someday.
Now that I am moving into the mult-genre romance space, it’s getting pretty crowded up there. I have more than 24 historical romances in various stages of planning, from niggling idea, to concept, to basic plotting.
But now I have more than a dozen historical fantasy romance main characters that have moved in.
Contemporary romance? Yes. They too are making an appearance.
I hope, like me, you love romances of all different kind–All clean, all with Happily Ever Afters, but set in different times, and settings, and worlds. Because these people in my mind are clamoring to get out!
While writing Book 3 in my Rebel Hearts series, I came to a little road block. I wasn’t really worried. This sometimes happens because I’m a discovery writer. I have to sit with my character for a little bit before I know what she or he would do next.
Only this time, while waiting for the clouds to clear, I got an idea for another little story. So, I started writing. That’s what I do, isn’t it?
Only this time, the story wasn’t set in regency England. It is set in a fantasy world. And the main character is a siren! And while I was writing this little novella, the ideas for a full series blossomed in my mind.
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I made copious notes.
Now, I’m back writing the original work–Book 3 in my regency romance seres. But the time will come when I will write this fantasy series. Later, but I must do it.
This is so outside my usual historical romance. Right?
Except, not really. I realized as I wrote, it’s romance. Each book in the series will be about two people who find each other, who overcome obstacles, who change and grow, and who love. It’s Romance.
Mystery, contemporary, fantasy, suspense. Stories of love and romance can happen any time, in many circumstances, and they can happen in any world.
Do you like to read your romance in one sub-genre exclusively? Or if you find a clean, sweet romance in a different time or place, will you try it?
Someone told me recently that they didn’t like books with any romance. It made me a little sad because everyone needs a little romance.
But it also made me a little philoshophical about stories and relationships.
Some say there are only seven possible types of conflict used in any story.
person vs. person
person vs. him or herself
person vs. nature
person vs. society
person vs. technology
person vs. supernatural world
person vs. destiny
Person vs. person is obviously a story about a relationship, no matter what genre we’re reading. Sometimes it’s about love, but sometimes it’s adversarial or competitive. If so, it may end with someone winning and someone losing, but it is still about people learning about each other and dealing with each other.
A story with person vs. him or herself conflict is about that important relationship with ourselves.
The other 5 kinds of conflict might seem trickier at first. But if our main character is dealing with nature, society, technology, the supernatural world, or destiny, three things can be true of that story.
Either that conflicting thing is anthropomorphized–given human characteristics. In this case, the story becomes, in effect, a person vs. person conflict. (Moby Dick, by Herman Melville).
Although in this very complex novel, we meet more than one type of conflict. Ahab vs. Moby Dick (a malevolent God or destiny), but it is also about Ishmael, Queequeg, and the other sailors, their relationships with each other and with themselves. And it is about Ahab’s relationship with himself, his anger and fear.
Another possibility is that that entity (society or technology, etc.) is embodied or typified by one person. (President Snow in Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins becomes the figurehead for a society).
I wonder if, at heart, all of these faceless conflicts are really about our main character learning about him or herself. The story just happens to be set in a world of technology or supernatural happenings, or the other conflicting entities.
(Think about Louie in Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand. The outward conflict with his captors is at the forefront, but what he learns about himself might be what makes the story so enduring).
I’ll add this: If the conflict is person vs destiny (or possibly sometimes vs supernatural), it might be about a relationship with some kind of divine presence–still a relationship.
This is a theory, which means you might prove me wrong. I’d love to hear what you think. Have you ever read or viewed a story that isn’t about relationships?
A phrase I hear more often is: Write to Market. This means try to find what is trending/what is selling and write that kind of story.
But I really prefer the first.
But what exactly does it mean? When I invite you into the world I’ve created, what journey do I want you to embark on ? What experiences will you have with my characters?
And I have to ask about the journey I want to go on as well. Where should writing/creating take me?
Part of the meaning of the phrase, write to mission, has to be building my world (my day to day world, my author world, and my fictional worlds) grounded in my values.
So, here I’ll try to list a few of those values.
I believe that love is the key–to everything good. Love is the answer, not only in a good story, but in life.
It’s easy to recognize love in the sweet, joyful times. Those moments of deep and meaningful connection and sharing are exhilarating and exquisite.
But love is also the answer in the middle of difficulties and disagreements. It requires respect, sacrifice, forgiveness, and compromise, but it’s worth it. Because love solves problems. Or, when a problems can’t be solved (and some challenges are long term), love helps us to understand and bear the load. And share the load. It gives us the strength to go on.
And I’m speaking here about both love for ourselves as well as love for others. Honesty and trust, courage, commitment, loyalty, fidelity, serving, nurturing and caring. All are part of love. I believe in these. I hope for these things.
At home and in the world, love conquers all.
These beliefs are the foundation of my life and writing, and the foundation of my stories.
I think you must share my belief in love and my hope that love will win in the end.
I bet you have stories of what love has done or allowed you to do in your life. I’d love to hear your stories of love, in the good times and the bad.
A Palette Cleanser, or a New Addition to Gigi Lynn Writes?
I love writing historical romance!
Rebel Hearts Book 1
I love the characters. I love the research. I love that “love conquers all” theme.
Free Rebel Hearts Prequel Novella
I think I will always write historical romance.
And Book 2 of the Rebel Hearts Series is sceduled for the first week in July. The writing on Book 3 of the Rebel Hearts Series is going well.
But I had an idea a week ago that planted itself in my mind and won’t let go, so in my spare time, I’ve been working on it.
It’s still a sweet, closed-door romance. It just happens to be set in a fantasy world. It’s set on an island nation of shape changers–Sirens, with power in their voices.
Would you like a sneak peek of my first draft of Chapter 1?
Here it is. I hope you enjoy it.
Working title: Charmed
Thick, dark clouds gathered on the horizon as we prepared for the coming battle. This time the enemy were Jemarri, skilled in combat and archery. They claimed to be descended from the Gods millennia ago. It might have been true.
This Jamar force sailed toward us in five triremes, each big enough to seat 170 oarsmen in three rows. Our scouting party had spied them out and found that each ship was armed with four ballistae modified for harpoons, two on the port, two on the starboard side. I gripped my spear in my right hand and kept my primary knife in my left and watched their large square sails moved inexorably closer.
Zephyrois approached me and took my chin in his big hand. “Raidne, I need you to stay in the shoals. Take the watch.”
I shook my head. “No Zeph. I may be the youngest daughter of the house of Nereidos, but the queen’s blood runs through my veins. I can help. I can fight.”
“Of course you can. I trained you myself, didn’t I? But I’m depending on you. You’ll be the last defense. You’re the protector of the inner villages and the stormquartz fields. And Raidne,” he tugged the braid that hung over my shoulder, “you are to protect yourself. You are our heart.” Zeph leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead.
“Alkaios,” he said to our brother, “watch over her.”
Kai didn’t argue.
I glared at Zeph’s back. “Of course, you can fight, Raidne.” I muttered as he strode to the front of our gathered forces. “But I’ll leave a guard for you, so you won’t hurt your helpless self.” I turned to Kai. “Does he realize how his last words undermine everything he said before?”
“If it’s any comfort to you, he doesn’t want me at the battlefront either.”
“Zeph is only three years older than I. Only two years older than you. We have trained and—”
I stopped talking as the queen, our mother walked up to the highpoint of the Isona Promontory. Wrapped in a white robe, trimmed in gold threads and fastened at her shoulder with a large gold clip worked in the insignia of our house, she looked over her assembled soldiers. Her long blonde hair lifted and fluttered in the freshening breeze.
As the sun sank below the horizon, she raised her arms to the sky. Her whole being seemed to spark in the dying light.
Only then did she release her powerful, hypnotic voice, “Once again we are called to defend our homeland and our way of life. Again, an enemy from beyond the sea thinks to roam our seas unsanctioned, to steal our precious resources, our stormquartz, to limit our power, or destroy us if they can.
“They think they know the bounds of our strength, so they have stopped their ears.” Her mocking laughter rang through the surrounding bluffs and eddied through the assembled army. “But this night we will show them that the Syrenii will not bow to any being, above or below the seas.”
Her chaunt began as a low, mournful melody, quickly building in volume and power, increasing in tempo until she was belting a militant but lyrical battle cry. At the crescendo, she unclipped the badge at her shoulder. The white ethereal robe fluttered to the ground to reveal gold scales already spreading down from her hips to encircle and fuse her legs. Before her transformation was complete, she thrust herself from the precipice, her tail fin forming while she descended to the deep blue sea below.
In ranks, we followed our queen, leaving behind a pile of silk and linen robes, wraps, and sarongs to litter the mountain.
At last, Kai and I dove into the sea, but instead of following the advancing army, we swam around the beachhead to the pools protected by the ring of jutting rocks that poked out of the tide like sharpened teeth and nearly surroundedSyreniia, our island home.
Kai took his thumb and smoothed the line between my brows. “This enemy knows our greatest power. They have armed themselves against the siren’s song. The women will be no more powerful than the men in this battle.”
“And yet, I am the only daughter of the queen that isn’t fighting.”
“I understand. Other than Xanthos, who is still with his wet-nurse, I am the only son who is not fighting.”
“Why doesn’t it bother you more?”
He opened his mouth to speak, but a thud and creak of tearing wood broke the night air. Our force had breached the first ship.
I submerged and swam from behind the rock formations so I could see. The waves on the surface frothed with the coming storm, below the water swirled back and forth. Sediment from the sea floor stirred in the swelling water.
Still, I saw the two huge harpoons, those made to hunt whales, break the surface, slanting down through the water. One pierced the shoulder of the leading soldier. The attached rope tautened, and she was pulled toward the surface.
Without thought I started swimming toward her. Kai followed.
With the knife in her left hand, the syrenii sawed at the rope. Moments before she reached the surface, the last strand broke. She paused only a moment before she dove down with the harpoon still jutting from her shoulder. She didn’t stop. She stabbed her steel- tipped spear into the hull next to the hole she had already made. She twisted the spear and pulled at the breach, even as the water darkened with her blood. The hole widened.
Once again, the harpoons speared through the water. Her long dark hair obscured her face, but I recognized my eldest sister, Leucosia. She would be killed if those thick, barbed spears kept coming.
I swam faster than I ever had before into the deeper water, heading toward the ship’s bow, with Kai close on my tail. Clouds of silt obscured my sight of the distant syrenii. Every breath felt as if it came through a filter of sand. When I neared the surface, I slowed and raised only the top of my head above water. I searched the deck of the ship. It took only moments to find the two archers.
Dropping my head below the water, I pushed my words into Kai’s mind. He nodded and swam behind and below me. When we neared the bow of the boat, I took a kneeling position very near the water line, facing the enemy. When I lifted my hand, Kai charged up toward me with powerful strokes, bending and snapping his fin like a whip and building up speed.
With a surge, he half-pushed, half-threw me up into the air. At the apex of my flight, I pulled my right arm back and hurled my spear at the closest harpooner.
Before the sailors could react, I dived back into the sea.
Kai handed me his spear, and sunk below me, so that he could throw me again. Again, my spear flew true, and the second harpooner fell to my bolt.
Kai and I rounded the starboard side of the ship and raced to Cosia. Though her shoulder still bled into the water around her, she resisted until Kai pried the spear from her hands. “I will finish this,” he pushed the thought. “Go with Raidne.”
She considered for another few moments before she inclined her head and joined me. We moved at an angle to avoid the notice of the Jemarri sailors. Cosia swam awkwardly with the harpoon still buried in her shoulder. I slowed to keep pace with her.
By the time we were half a league from the shallow pool in the lea of the rock where Zeph had told us to wait, she was so weakened that I had to carry her. Breathless, I finally settled her in a tide pool deep enough to cover her body and propped her head above the water.
Cosia was pale, but she tried a smile. “Did you just pierce their throwing arms? I know you don’t like to kill.”
I examined the wound. “It was necessary this time. They would have kept shooting until they captured you.”
“Thank you.”
I met her eyes. “The barbs will shred your shoulder if I pull the harpoon out. Do you want to wait for Geia?
“No. You do it. I can’t wait.”
I nodded and put my back against the rock. Cosia submerged herself fully in the water and nodded to me. I gripped the end of the staff closest to the long whale bone head of the harpoon. I drew in one deep breath, and on the exhale, I pulled with all my might. Cosia’s scream spread in ripples through the water, and she passed out.
“No!” I cried. Throwing the harpoon toward the shore, I rolled forward to pull her into my arms. I kept her damaged shoulder in the healing salt water and put my ear to her heart. When I heard the deep thrum, rapid but steady, tears filled my eyes, slid across the bridge of my nose, and dripped onto her chest.
Sitting hip deep in the water and holdingCosia, I watched the rest of the battle. I could only see the men on the ships, fearlessly fighting a fast moving, at times nearly invisible foe. It took two more hours before the last ship sunk beneath the waves.
“It is finished. Everyone will return soon.” Even as I said the words, I knew it was impossible that all would return, but surely all my sisters and brothers.
Cosia was conscious though still pale. She kept her right shoulder in the water and started stretching it gently, working to prevent the loss of her range of motion and strength. “It should never have happened. I must make mother see that her determination to hold onto the old ways won’t work anymore. We must change if we want to survive.”
