A peek at my next project
I'm happy to say that my new eBook is coming along nicely. My countdown calendar gives me 7 weeks and 20 hours for my desired completion (prior to my editor tearing it up, LOL). This is an unlikely love story I'm tentatively calling Isn't She Lovely? and is shaping up to be the most layered, complex romance I've ever written, really more of a mainstream storyline, since I break several romance rules. One of the many good things about being an independent publisher is that I'm in charge, and there are no rules!
I started writing this story with one man and one woman who had well-defined backgrounds, each struggling to cope with the circumstances of their respective lives, he with the loss of his wife in a fiery car crash he and his son witnessed; she a divorced mother of two trying to make ends meet as she takes baby steps toward getting a college degree. To this I added one inciting incident that made their paths cross, in which his troubled teenage son through reckless behavior causes an injury to her young son. After that, the story pretty much plotted itself...the characters' personalities and those of the people close to them dictated the action.
I happen to think it's an exciting, fast-paced story that readers will be able to identify with (but of course, I'm biased). Today's reader tastes being what they are, though, I'm sure that some will complain that it takes too long for the hero and heroine to burn up the sheets. Given the circumstances of the hero and heroine's initial meeting, bringing sex into the equation too early would turn my project into some silly fairy tale. I mean, what kind of woman would look at the father of the boy who caused her son a grievous injury and want to jump his bones? Can you even imagine anyone behaving in such a manner? This heroine hasn't much use for either the father, whom she feels is a ruthlessly ambitious politician who is sacrificing his troubled son, or his son, whom she feels is being neglected by his surviving parent, but also feels he is more than a little spoiled.
I'm happy to say that my new eBook is coming along nicely. My countdown calendar gives me 7 weeks and 20 hours for my desired completion (prior to my editor tearing it up, LOL). This is an unlikely love story I'm tentatively calling Isn't She Lovely? and is shaping up to be the most layered, complex romance I've ever written, really more of a mainstream storyline, since I break several romance rules. One of the many good things about being an independent publisher is that I'm in charge, and there are no rules!
I started writing this story with one man and one woman who had well-defined backgrounds, each struggling to cope with the circumstances of their respective lives, he with the loss of his wife in a fiery car crash he and his son witnessed; she a divorced mother of two trying to make ends meet as she takes baby steps toward getting a college degree. To this I added one inciting incident that made their paths cross, in which his troubled teenage son through reckless behavior causes an injury to her young son. After that, the story pretty much plotted itself...the characters' personalities and those of the people close to them dictated the action.
I happen to think it's an exciting, fast-paced story that readers will be able to identify with (but of course, I'm biased). Today's reader tastes being what they are, though, I'm sure that some will complain that it takes too long for the hero and heroine to burn up the sheets. Given the circumstances of the hero and heroine's initial meeting, bringing sex into the equation too early would turn my project into some silly fairy tale. I mean, what kind of woman would look at the father of the boy who caused her son a grievous injury and want to jump his bones? Can you even imagine anyone behaving in such a manner? This heroine hasn't much use for either the father, whom she feels is a ruthlessly ambitious politician who is sacrificing his troubled son, or his son, whom she feels is being neglected by his surviving parent, but also feels he is more than a little spoiled.
I will probably use a disclaimer in my marketing efforts warning potential readers that this is more of a mainstream romantic novel than a single title romance with instant attraction between the hero and heroine (and trust me, there will still be people who miss it, just as people continue to ask me why they haven't seen my latest books on store shelves).
Yes, I've written books where the air has been thick with sexual tension from the very first meeting of the hero and heroine...in both The Heat of Heat (one of the main character's dress gets caught in a man's zipper while waiting for an elevator) and A Kiss of a Different Color (an unexpected dance dip inadvertently pulls down the neckline of the heroine's blouse, captivating the hero), and even in the tamer Save The Best For Last when the heroine experiences the equivalent of a taste bud orgasm and is embarrassed when the hero reminds her he's there. But I'm all about the individual story rather than writing the same kind of story, and in this story, at least the beginning, this type of action is inappropriate.
What's your opinion? I'd love to know.
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