Starting a new book is like falling in love all over again. I mentioned before that I re-visit my characters from previous books occasionally, just to say “hi.” After all, I was in love with them once. It’s like running into your high-school boyfriend (unless he was a complete dog) and feeling that rush of affection for what once was. They will always hold a special place in your heart. You move on, though, and meet new characters (literary and real) and you fall in love again. Recently, I had some time off and started a new book. I had a beginning, a middle, and an end all queued in my mind. I was developing the characters. I had a purpose. What I didn’t have was love. Writing every day became a chore. I dated a guy once who became a chore. I had run out of things to say to him and even going to see a movie was painful. I had thought that I would like being with him, but I was wrong. There was just no connection. So I moved on–from the guy and from my book. As much as it pained me to give up on a book that I had dedicated so much time to, I set it aside. Within 24 hours, new characters came knocking in my brain, and I can’t stop writing. I wake up early, anxious to get back to the story. When I’m not writing, I think about my characters and how long it will be before I can get back to them. I’m falling in love all over again.
Monthly Archives: April 2014
Flawed characters
There’s a saying: Perfect boys only exist in books. Although certainly true, you’ll never find a perfect boy in one of my books… or a perfect girl for that matter. I like to write flawed characters. I prefer that my characters say the wrong thing or wear the wrong clothes or think the wrong thoughts. Doesn’t it feel so much more satisfying when you come to the end of a book and the flawed character has found happiness or love or peace? He or she has learned a lesson and through doing so, is so much more deserving of our affection. When I was a young girl, I loved reading romance novels with perfect men. Then I became older and began to date such very imperfect men. I even married an imperfect man. This works out really well, since I’m nowhere near perfect. Perfect is boring. Perfect is a fairy tale. Bring on the flaws.
Ghosts, ghosts everywhere….
It’s no secret that I believe in ghosts. Three of my books deal with the paranormal and Saved by Grace specifically explores the ghostly world. It’s my family culture–we believe in, talk about, and celebrate the paranormal world. My great-aunt Alice proclaimed proudly that she was a witch. My grandmother, Iva, ghost hunted in her own low-tech way. My family has always sat around late into the night, telling our own ghost stories, all of which we passionately believe to be true. A few years ago, as I was locking up the house for the night, I saw in the reflection of a window a movement of some sort across my upstairs landing. Not normally afraid of such things, I went to explore and found nothing. As I prepared for bed, I was overcome with a wave of sadness and began crying. Oh no, I thought to myself. Early menopause. My father called the next morning to tell me that my beloved Uncle David had suffered a stroke and was on life support. Once family made it to him, life support was removed and his body was allowed to rest. I believe that his spirit had visited me the previous night before it left this earth. Now, fast forward to last week. The weather was disgusting, I was exhausted from orienting at a new job, and all I wanted was to soak in my tub with my Kindle. The glass shower cubicle next to my tub was making strange noises which I attributed to a trapped ladybug. Without warning, the shower door opened wide. As I mentioned, I am not normally afraid of things. There was something about being in the presence of something paranormal while I soaked in my tub, though, that unnerved me. It was a quick soak. That experience aside, I love ghosts. It’s such a confirmation that there is more to our existence than what we are currently experiencing. Expect more paranormal books from me. For me, it’s a celebration of life.
Second Chance
My most recently published book, Second Chance, is a new addition to my paranormal genre and explores how you would feel if your husband woke up from a coma and thought he was someone else. To complicate matters, what if you liked the new husband better than the old? Set in Sarasota, Florida (someday to be known as my permanent home!), the story also travels back in time to World War II England and Germany. I had to do pretty extensive research for the historical section of the book even though it only encompasses a few chapters, but I wanted it to be authentic. Much thanks to my husband, a WWII buff, his friend Tom Burns, whose father flew in bomber planes over Germany, and my departed father-in-law, who left us an impressive collection of books on the war. As I sat in my office on a rainy day, poring over first hand accounts from bomber pilots, crew, and prisoners of war, I was overwhelmed by the danger they put themselves in to protect our country. They were incredibly brave men. I hope my character of Griffin King lives up to their memories.
Stand up for romance writers!
This is an excerpt from an interview with Ruby McNally, author of Crash, a romance novel. I love her answer!!!
RUMBLR: A few days ago, I was telling a friend about how excited I was to talk to you for The Rumblr, and he got this weird look on his face, like, ew, a romance novelist?? Do you encounter this from the people in your life? What’s it like, working in a genre that’s so — I don’t know — looked down on?
MCNALLY: Looked down on, absolutely! I’m in an MFA program in my other life, and it’s safe to say they’re not exactly coming up to me in droves at the bar to compliment me on my romance novels. The overwhelming attitude, both in literature and in life, seems to be that there’s something embarrassing about romance—that it’s girl stuff and therefore stupid, as if falling in love is an exclusively female act and so unworthy of being explored in fiction. And like, that’s bunk, clearly, but it’s also problematic on more than just an aesthetic level, because it’s how we end up in a culture where prestige television is way more likely to depict scenes of graphic rape than scenes of female pleasure, and a shot of a man’s face mid-orgasm will earn a movie a PG-13 rating while the same shot of a woman gets an R. Dismissing an entire genre as dumb lady stuff or ”Mommy Porn,” as if there’s something inherently disgusting or shameful about women wanting to read about pleasurable sexual experiences, is a form of socially acceptable misogyny—full stop.
Are there dumb romance novels? Absolutely. But there are also dumb crime novels and dumb war movies and really dumb literary short stories that people submit to their MFA workshops (ahem), and at at the end of the day I kind of feel like, you know what? With all due respect to your friend who I am sure is lovely, a person who cannot find it in himself to appreciate a really well-written sex scene is not really a person I want to sit next to at a dinner party. Or, frankly, go to bed with.
Sandy Huth 