Random Stuff I've Learned, Writing this Book

First thing--Happy Memorial Day. To all who've served, to all who still serve, to those who are forgotten and those whose memory aches inside us. To those who've come home and those who still have to deploy, thank you.

Today is my turn to blog, and I have no time. When I’m pushed for time on my own blog, I love to make a random post. Just stuff I think about.

Right now, I feel as if I'm swimming in quicksand toward a deadline for the first book in a series I’ve set in the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, so I thought I’d mention some random things I’ve learned while writing it.

Love Adding the Real Title

First, my lovely editor, Victoria came up with a great title for it last week. It’s called Now She’s Back. I’m so excited. Just in case you're reading this, Victoria, thanks! I’m pretty bad at titles, and mine were not earth shattering. This one works on many levels in the book because the heroine ran away from trouble when she was younger, and now she’s back, she’s stirring up plenty!

Writin' Music

Next random thought--my playlist. Sometimes, I write with television on in the background, but this book has worked better with music. Here we go:

• Several by Florence and the Machine: “Seven Devils,” “Spectrum,” “Never Let Me Go,” “Howl,” “Cosmic Love,” and “Bedroom Hymns." The drama, all the lovely drama!
• “Adore You,” by Miley Cyrus. (I know—I’m not the target demographic.) This song is so full of longing. I find myself singing it as I walk through the neighborhood. (Feel bad for the guy who’s usually lounging on his patio while I’m strolling up the turn-in for our subdivision!)
• I love Marvin Gaye! So: “Inner City Blues” and “Got to Give It Up Pt. 1” Something about the latter just makes me happy and hopeful. I totally get being the wallflower, anxious not to show off my fine moves, but willing, just in case there’s love to be found on the dance floor! Hmmm. I’ve never known—is there a Pt. 2?
• Next, Ne-Yo. Oh my goodness, if you haven’t listened to Ne-Yo, you are missing the ultimate in smooth! “Beautiful Monster,” “Let Me Love You,” “Unconditional,” “Closer,” and possibly my favorite, “Mad.” (That’s a song about relationships, for sure.)
• Ne-Yo introduced me to Tim McGraw in their song, “She Is.” Oh, no. I’ll be singing that for the rest of today! I need to look into this Tim McGraw fellow!
• And finally, by A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera, “Say Something.” Wow. Heartrending. Perfect for climbing into emotions.

Gratuitous, Random Pic of Kitten, Stalking Fitbit!

Which is my next random point. I always have a hard time with beginnings. This book, especially had a false start. What I submitted to Victoria didn’t work, but she got me on track with a few salient questions. I rewrote the synopsis, and that worked, but then I panicked in the first chapter. I could not get what I wanted. Instant emotion.

The book is set in a place I love that holds my family's history since the Revolutionary War. We are a tree with long (quirky) roots. My heart is happy each time I see those mountains in orange and red and burgundy, with the sun tilting to lay down Autumn shadows. I put my heroine in a house I love, and she had real issues to face, but I was writing all around the point. Then, after about a week, I slipped my own grandmother into the story. Suddenly, love flooded those pages and the words came. Grandma always saved me when I needed her help most.

Last bit of random—you can write a book at the speed of light, grasping for emotion, and holding a kleenex at the same time. I have a summer cold, and I can’t stop coughing. You know you’re in the book when you’re furious because you have to stop to cough.

I hope if you’re writers, you’re finding that kind of passion for your work, and if you’re readers, I hope you’ll find the love I have for all the people who are vitally alive in my small, fictional town of Bliss, Tennessee. I’m eager to finish on time, but I’m already missing the people I’ll have to let go of to write The End.

Give us one bit of random information about yourselves, something that just strikes you as you read this, and I'll choose a winner. The winner will have to wait a while, but I'd love to offer a copy of the holiday anthology that Melinda Curtis and Anna J. Stewart and I will have out in November.