Tag: fiction

Seeing Red – Book 2 revised

~ Meg ~ 18 Comments

While I was waiting for answers as to how to proceed with my existing material and querying options, I kept busy by revising and polishing up the opening scenes of my self published novels. I determined that whether I queried with them or not, they will be a major component of my ‘author platform’ and need to be as engaging and professional as possible. The second book in the series, Seeing Red, picks up where three Empty Frames leaves off. Literally. Not in the sense that the reader will be confused, but without anything dramatic to introduce the story. My female lead is in the car returning from vacation. Yawn. Right? Here’s the new opening scene to Seeing Red – Book Two in The Bucks County Novels.

Chapter One

Restraining order. Ethan Samuels couldn’t believe his ears. He sat next to his agent and across from his coach and his lawyer listening to the latter explain his options.

“Miss Evans is serious, Mr. Samuels,” he was saying. “Your coach here has a solution that might just be a little more palatable.” The attorney nodded at Coach Fielding. “Go ahead and tell him, Jeff.”

The coach leaned forward in his chair. “Ethan, it might be time for you to make a fresh start somewhere else. You’re at the peak of your career and very highly sought after. We have an offer on the table for a trade with Philadelphia. We think you should consider it.”

“Philadelphia?” he repeated. He grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, had been a fan of the football team since he was a little kid. It would be like going home.

His coach nodded. “It’s a good deal, Ethan. They are in desperate need of a star wide receiver. You’re a perfect fit for the team. It’s a new coach, they drafted a talented young quarterback and you’d be the last piece of the puzzle to get them in playoff contention. You know as well as I do Tennessee needs to rebuild and we won’t be getting to the playoffs this year. Even if you stayed on.”

Ethan looked at his agent who smiled and passed him a sheet of paper. “They’re throwing a lot of money at you, Samuels. I think you should take it.”

His lawyer added, “And the Kelly Ann Evans issue goes away.”

Ethan’s vision blurred. He had thought Kelly Ann Evans would be the woman he’d spend the rest of his life with. He loved her so much. How could she do this to him? If she’d only give him another chance… “What if I stay?” he asked, without looking at the figures on the sheet.

His lawyer sighed. “You are not allowed within two hundred yards of Miss Evans. She has also threatened to tell all on the talk show circuit.” He paused and held up a finger. “But, she has agreed to stay quiet if you take this deal and leave her alone.”

His agent put a hand on Ethan’s shoulder. “This is your best option, Ethan. It’s a multi year contract with a nice fat signing bonus. You’re not going to get anywhere sticking around here.”

Coach Fielding added, “It’s for the best, son. In more ways than one.”

Find it on Amazon!

Bad Romance

~ Meg ~ 47 Comments

Adventures in editing.

As I wait (still!) for answers from the second agent to whom I posed questions regarding the querying potential of my self published novel series, I have been keeping busy revising and editing the second book in the collection. Meanwhile, the fifth Bucks County Novel: Breaking Bread, has been in the hands of my beta readers for feedback. My backup plan is to pitch this book if the others in the series are untouchable, with the hope that if this one book catches an agent’s eye, then it might open the door for the other titles. 

My beta team is made up of 3 women and 2 men. Overall, reaction to the story was good. But like some of you who read it here on the blog, two of the beta readers thought the romance was lacking something. One of the women and one of the men agreed with some of the comments I received from you, my blog readers, that there wasn’t great chemistry between the couple. My male beta reader said it didn’t ‘sparkle’ the way the romances of the previous novels did. Obviously, I have some revising to do.

I admit to not feeling the romance between Maya and Brad myself, but I’m at a loss as to how to fix it. Does it need more tension? More heat? (FYI, I don’t write sex in my stories so it has to stay in the PG-13 realm. The four previous books were free of it and the romances worked without it.) Do they need more interpersonal communication? Or perhaps more internal dialogue to reveal what they are thinking about each other? Every romance needs an issue to resolve, something that prevents the couple from falling for each other immediately. After all, where’s the fun in that? 

I gave Maya and Brad two main issues work out. The first is that they’ve known each other as friends ever since they were kids. There is a history there that prevents Maya from seeing Brad as anything but her best friend’s brother. Although Brad has had feelings for Maya all those years, she never had any clue, nor were they reciprocated. Now as an adult, she has to begin to see Brad in new light: as an attractive man she could find love with in an entirely different way.

The second issue is that Brad has inherited a whole truckload of money and he wants to spend it on Maya. However, Maya is fiercely independent as a result of having no support either emotionally or materially from her family. She refuses his help even in little ways. It’s extremely frustrating for both of them. I thought… I thought… I addressed it pretty well about halfway in. 

Or maybe, just maybe…. the romance has to go.

Maybe I’m really not cut out to write romance. I may have exhausted my reserves with the other stories and I don’t have anything left to give these two. And I refuse to recycle the kind of thing I’ve already written. With some ruthless editing, I could still have an exciting mystery and the romance could just go away. Brad stays in Boston with his job and his friends and never even makes an appearance. Maya still has Olivia and Juan Paolo and Detective Jack Staley for company and finding love is not part of this novel. It wouldn’t be the end of the world, would it?

Any ideas, my friends?

Header image: Lady Gaga, video screen shot Bad Romance

Emptying your veins onto the page.

~ Meg ~ 79 Comments

Writing is therapy.

How much of yourself do you pour into your writing?  The answer may vary dramatically depending on the type of writing you do.  No one bares their soul in a technical manual.  But fiction writers, poets, lyricists… all inject their own joy and pain, fear and desire into their work.  The question is: what do we risk in exposing ourselves to the world?  How much do we give?  Sharing the very essence of yourself is either crazy or incredibly brave.

Part of it is about trust.  Do you trust yourself to convey those thoughts and feelings accurately?  Do you trust your readers to understand, to relate?  Because that’s kind of the point.  We are sharing.  We want it to reach someone, to entertain at a minimum, or to move the heart, stir the spirit.  This very notion gives your writing weight.  It’s a heady thing– moving a soul.  Choose carefully, the words you’re about to commit to paper.  Craft them with skill, arrange them just so.  Speak them aloud to see how they roll off the tongue.

Another part of it is honesty.  Do you share the difficult stuff, too?  The things that might make your readers cringe?  Exposing your fears, flaws, failures, and mistakes opens you up to criticism, rebuke and rejection.  And yet that cleansing, that catharsis may be just the thing you need to put out there.  Risk or not.

Consider your audience.  Who is reading your work?  Maybe you’re anonymous here on your blog.  That certainly gives you a lot of freedom to post at will.  For those of us blogging with full disclosure?  Not so much!  So what do you do if there’s something just eating away at you?

Some stories just beg to be told.  I’ve had an interesting life full of adventures and catastrophes, joys and pain.  The painful parts are the hardest to tell but they are also the stories that burn inside.  That doesn’t mean I have to write a memoir.  But I can tell a story.  Wrap a memory in the cloak of fiction and pen the narrative as if it happened to somebody else.  All the desperate hopes, crushed dreams and lost loves pour onto the page.

If you look hard enough, my writing empties my veins.  More of it flows out every day.  If you are able to separate the drops of fact from the volume of fiction, you will see the essence of me.  Go ahead and look.  I’ll leave you to decide which is which!

What do you say, writers?  Do you pour yourself out onto the page?