WRITING MY WAY OUT OF A POTHOLE

Rogue's Angels have been featuring excerpts from a number of our books recently, and I thought it might to be interesting to share how "Chasing Rainbows," my novella in A VALENTINE'S ANTHOLOGY, came to be...

Have you ever been crabby? Or whiny? Or sniffly?

You might think romance writers are eternally focused on happy endings and don't hit these occasional potholes. If that's what you think, please skip to the happy ending of this post, as I don't want to disillusion you. 

Occasionally, I'm crabby because I don't get enough sleep. Or whiny because I haven't been writing as much as I want to. Or sniffly because the moon is full. 

These occasional potholes can be smoothed over by crawling back into my cave so I don't spread the malaise to others and eating chocolate or taking a bubble bath or writing.

However, several years ago I hit a major pothole and didn't want to smooth it over. I wanted to wallow, and got stuck there long enough I wanted to get away from myself. 

Perhaps everyone has their favorite way of pulling out of dark times. Mine is writing. 

However, I usually write dramatic stories with characters who overcome traumatic events. Didn't figure that would pull me out of the dark. 

So I decided to write a comedy. I tossed a bunch of quirky characters into my computer, and added a straight man--er, young woman--trying to keep up with her zany family's misadventures.

Writing this story pulled me out of my personal pothole and, with its therapeutic work done, the draft manuscript was tucked away in a computer folder. And I went back to writing dramatic stories. I sold three of them and figured this was my niche. 

However, I was asked to write a shorter story for an anthology and my publisher suggested polishing the comedy I had written.

Um, sure. 

Well, it took some major slashing and editing, but this therapeutic manuscript became "Chasing Rainbows," which appeared in A VALENTINE'S ANTHOLOGY, with novellas from two other Rogue's Angels, Christine Young ("The Gift") and C.L. Kraemer ("The Lending Library"). Though these stories are different, they all focus on Valentine's Day. And they are all available as an e-book or print-on-demand at Rogue Phoenix Press. 

I must digress here and say I am definitely not whiny right now. On February 11, I participated in a booksigning at MOONSTRUCK CHOCOLATE. Of course, I had to buy some--it would be rude not to. :) It seems I'm slower than most of the U.S.--including Oprah--in discovering this bite of heaven. Chocolates made right here in Oregon. Hovering at about a 12 on a scale of 1 to 10. And one of the prizes in our drawings. Yum doesn't begin to describe these chocolates. If I had known about these stores several years ago, this blog might have been a very different story...