More of My Favorite Authors

Sure, I love Regency Romances more than any other genre but I do love all Romance novels and even science fiction novels. Let’s jump in with my all time favorite Regency author who really is at the top of the game. I aspire to write as she does, adding layers and layers to characters and stories.

Some of My Favorite Romance Writers

In high school, I had a close friend who loved “Pride and Prejudice” and told me all about the story. But not all at once. I couldn’t string it all together, so I decided to read it for myself. Hooray! Then a family friend gave me a bunch of historical Romances. We knew her through our church. She would read the book first, and if it had dirty scenes in it, she would put it in the trash. That let me know there were spicy books out there! In any event, I started reading a lot more Romances and have a tidy list of my favorite writers.

What If?

I have decided that outlining my novel on Scrivener will be the best option for me. For one reason, it will let me learn more about the app. And another reason is that I can have the freedom to write things out and then drop in parts from the original version. If you followed the link from my last blog to Michael La Ronn’s videos on outlining, you will see the awesomeness of this decision. So here is the first part, the What If brain storming part of Scrivener.

Tweet What Your Read for October

If you love to read, please be sure to leave a review on Amazon or BookBub or Goodreads, or really, any reader-focused site. Doing this supports your favorite authors, helps them qualify for some advertising platforms, and in general helps authors and readers to know what the readers of their books thought about the story. Feedback is super important to any writer of fiction.

Try a New Genre

Romance exists in almost every story and novel out there. It may show up as love of country in spy and war novels. There’s love of mankind, brotherly love, and love of family, as well as love and attraction between two people. If you are working on a Romance right now, think about how it would look if you moved it into a different genre.

Musical Interlude

Lots of authors these days include playlists with their books so you can get a full experience of what they listened to while writing. I mostly listen to thunderstorms and rain, because that makes me more creative, it seems. I hear Mozart is also good. Finding music that my Regency characters would have sung or played on the piano-forte is a bit of a challenge. And are my contemporary characters more like me, and prefer the music they listened to as teens and young adults?

Ghosts of Stories Past

A sudden uptick of interest in my Regency trilogy has gotten me thinking more about my last book in the series. The one that is a few thousand words shy of finished. The one that wraps up all the loose ends and gets all the Curtis children married happily ever after, plus a few surprises for their father and Cooper’s aunt. Maybe it’s time to finish that, between working on Crazy for Trying and all the blogs and Facebook pages.

Sex Behind the Scenes

As a writer of hot, mostly erotic, romances in historic settings, I need to research a lot of ways for my characters to indulge their needs without breaking their social norms. Since Regency etiquette severely restricted the opportunities for sex among all classes except maybe the lowest, invention and inspiration need to go hand in hand to make a story believable. Also, a writer must use creative license sparingly.

My Name on The Cover of a Romance Novel!

That statement is true, but it’s not quite the realization of a goal that it might seem. The book is Miss Hungerford’s Handsome Hero by Noël Vreeland Carter. My husband found it on the internet and bought it for me. He is certainly my handsome hero.

December Word of the Month

Tidings — A word you usually hear around winter holidays and no other time, right? A perfect word to use for December’s Word of the Month, especially as I had been wondering if there was any connection between tides and tidings. Like did news arrive on the ships with the tide.