Today is the release of Provocative in Pearls, the second book in my Rarest Blooms series. It also marks the first time that a title that I chose ended up on one of my covers. This is pretty pitiful when you realize this is my 19th book. I mean, I know authors who have titled all their books. I have too, just my publishers have changed my titles to other ones.  

I used to pick the title when I started writing a book, so those later changes bugged me at first. I had lived with that title for months. It was my book’s name. It felt weird to see it with another name attached to it. This happened often enough that I got the message, though. My titles sucked.

By about my fourth book I stopped thinking up titles until after the book was written, so I wouldn’t bond with it too much. I would have skipped it all together, but I had to put something on that cover sheet. I worked at those titles and even loved some of them. However, those did not survive either. I think the problem was that I tended to pick titles that made great sense to me, but I had read the book. To someone who had not read the book (like the publisher’s marketing director) the titles said nothing at all.

If I could just be removed from the entire titling process now, I would not be upset. Only it does not work that way. I still have to try and think of great titles even though the evidence is that this is overwhelmingly futile. My editors always asked for ideas and help, and it is my job to give it a shot.

My current editor (I actually had her for books 1 through 11, and now we are back together) likes to brainstorm when it is title time. We spend a few days trying to come up with title ideas that have zing and zip, will fit on the cover, will catch the eye, and will evoke all the things we want to evoke in what amounts to maybe fifteen letters of the alphabet. I shoot her emails filled with word pools, with combinations and variations of title words, with take-offs on songs and movies and all the other tricks. I ask my fans for help (and one time a fan did provide the title that was used.) It is pretty stressful for me.

My editor never says mine are horrible, but we never end up with one of them. We do, however, find a title. Or she does. The final title doesn’t seem to have any of my ideas within a hundred miles of it, but she honestly thinks our “brainstorming” produced it. I guess all my sucky titles help the good ones emerge in her head.

Anyway, with this series, we went through that whole process and somehow—I truly do not know how it happened— we ended up with a set of titles that we thought were very good, very cool, very apt, and also different. Well, except for one. The title for the second book, while it fit with the others, was “meh.”  We got into that thing where you both try to convince each other and yourself that it works, really it does, but both of us knew it didn’t.

Then suddenly, in a split second of inspiration, Provocative in Pearls came to me. We both knew at once it was perfect for this series and this book. It was brilliant. I was brilliant.

One out of 19 is a pretty sad score, but I could have struck out again. And who knows, maybe when it is time to title my 38th book, I’ll be brilliant again.

Publishers consider titles a crucial marketing tool. Have you ever been drawn to a book by its title?

Can you think of a book title that you thought was perfect for the book? Can you think of one that made no sense?

Is there anything about the way romances are titled that bugs you?

I have heard that the word Duke in a title helps sell an historical romance. Are you attracted to Duke books?

Are you the kind of person who is good at things like titles? If so, can I adopt you?

In case you are wondering, the next two titles are Sinful in Satin, and Dangerous in Diamonds. If you are curious about Provocative in Pearls, you can read an excerpt on my  web site  There is a video for PiP there too.

To celebrate this release date, two of the visitors who comment on today’s blog will win a signed copy of Ravishing in Red, or any novel in my backlist.

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We have ten writers blogging here, and I’ll bet we have ten different ways of writing. We get comments from other writers too, and each of them probably has her own way of getting the words down. Some listen to music while others require total silence. Some use the ”edit as you go” approach and others swear by  “charge through the first draft then go back and revise.”  Some writers do all the dialogue first, then fill in the rest.

Writers, however, for all their various craft techniques, tend to fall into certain types when it comes to basic working styles.

The Great Artiste. I have never met anyone who actually fits this profile. I just read about them in articles about literary geniuses. Often they write longhand, but not always. Sometimes they use old Underwood typewriters instead. They ponder each word, and spend three months crafting one chapter, then throw it all out and start over.  If they get published—yes, it happens— they are coddled by editors, who fear that demands for  more timely production will forever warp their creativity, lead to a deep depression, and mean the next book will be four years overdue instead of two. 

Romance writers never fit this profile. We aren’t allowed to. No one coddles us. More likely we are one of the types below.

The Pantser.  This is a word that is short for “seat of the pants.” Pantsers like to fly into the mist and just see what develops in a story. They do not outline, and if a synopsis is required, they tend to write one that is vague, then don’t follow it anyway. I was a pantser when I started, and still am to a large degree, although I have learned from hard experience that having some direction for that flight of fancy is a very, very good idea.

The Outliner. The opposite of a pantser is a writer who outlines in detail before starting the book. Sometimes every single scene is worked out in advance, and often there are supportive documents like character studies, dramatic arcs, drawings, and neatly filed research articles. It goes without saying that pantsers don’t know how outliners can stand working this way, and outliners can’t imagine being a pantser.

Between these two extremes there are writers who sort of do a little of both, of course.

Besides the process for developing the story itself, there also are differences in daily work habits.

The Pager.  There are a lot of these. They know that in order to complete the book on time they need to write X pages a day, and they methodically do so. Or so they say. If they miss one day, they double up the next. Or so they say. This approach is admirable. It is disciplined. When done consistently, with time left for editing and revisions, it is the most logical way to get through a manuscript.  The writer loops are full of writers who swear by the Pager approach. I even do it this way. Well, except that I miss a couple of days early on and never catch up. Then I miss a couple of more. Then I catch a cold, and relatives come to visit, and somedays I just don’t feel like writing. 

The Deadliner.   The deadliner waits until close to the deadline before really digging into the book. Then she crams. She writes many pages a day, doesn’t wash, feeds her family take out for three weeks, and emerges at the end exhausted and looking like hell. If I sound like I know this writer really well, see the last couple of sentences above. A pager who gets behind turns into a deadliner whether she wants to or not. Now, there are actually benefits to this hellish approach to writing. There is forced total immersion in the story, for one thing. There is a natural high produced by adrenaline and sleep deprivation. There is also the possibility of having an excuse to leave home for a few weekends, hole up in the peace and quiet of a hotel, and order room service. At least one very experienced, well-known author is famous for her self-imposed isolation in hotels when deadlines loom. I suspect she would not become a pager if you paid her.

I recently learned of yet another approach. Let us call these writers Timers. Instead of X number of pages a day, they commit to X number of hours writing each day. I assume that access to the web is verboten during those hours (but I do wonder about that.) This makes a lot of sense to me and I may try it. The problem with X pages a day is that when I have written X, I just stop. Maybe, if it is going well, I shouldn’t. Maybe, if I was a Timer instead of a Pager, I would write more. Then again, maybe if I were a Timer I would find excuses to leave my chair, to get coffee or something. Often. In the end, I may not get more written, but less.

How do you approach big projects? Lots of planning and research, or diving right in? Dividing it into daily bites or blasting through to the end?

If you are a writer, which methods do you use? Any special tricks to share or advice to give?

If you are a reader, which kind of working style  do you think you would use if you started writing?

How long do you think it took the author to write your favorite romance novel? 

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Our special blog celebration coincides with a week that ends on Valentine’s Day. That is appropriate for a romance blog, don’t you think?  But I have a confession to make. I have had a love/hate relationship with Valentine’s Day. Due to February 14th, I have been to both hell and heaven.

Valentine’s Day has a way of creating romance expectations that the significant others of the world (translation: men) often don’t meet. In my case, a whole series of boyfriends seemed to go out of their way to make Valentine’s Day miserable for me.

There was the guy who broke up with me on Valentine’s Day. In his defense I will acknowledge that he did not realize he was warping my view of the day forever. See, he had forgotten what day it was. All my friends had big plans with their boyfriends, and I assumed he was going to surprise me , only the big day came and —nothing. at. all.  So we had a big fight over the usual–he was thoughtless, I was crowding him—you know how it goes, right? The result was we split. I should have blamed him, or myself. Instead I blamed Valentine’s Day.

But we will put him aside, as an unusually tragic case. The others ran much the same way, only I had learned not to make a big deal about it. I tended to go out with guys who had that as their favorite line– why make a big deal about it? As I became wiser (it did take a while) I realized that what they were really saying was– why make a big deal about ME? So Valentine’s Day became a day when I often faced more than I wanted to face about just where a relationship really was going.

By the time I was 24, I had given up on Valentine’s Day. Nothing but trouble there. No expectations at all. February came and went and I didn’t  much notice when Valentine’s Day had passed.

That fall some friends insisted on setting me up with another friend of theirs.  I broke my rule about blind dates under their persistence. I didn’t have high hopes. One dinner, I figured, and I would get my friends off my case.

Instead I was pleasantly surprised.  He wasn’t bad at all. It was not the date from hell that I had anticipated. He was a little older than I was. He was established. He was responsible. He was, oh thank you Lord, a grown up man. We began seeing each other. And when February rolled around, one day he showed up with a dozen red roses. Picture me looking impressed, dumbfounded, and confused. Valentine’s Day, he hinted. Oh, yeah. Valentine’s Day. I looked at those roses, at that BIG DEAL, and I almost cried.

I had nothing for him, of course . But I had cooked something I knew he liked, for him to take home. So he gave me a dozen red roses, and I gave him a jar of pickled mushrooms.

Then, dear readers, I married him.

We still celebrate Valentine’s Day. We exchange sentimental cards, and go out for dinner. But flowers— he gives me those all the time, just because. I think he knew that day that I had never been anyone’s Valentine before, and that those flowers told me that he thought I was worth making a big deal about.

DH was a blind date that worked out splendidly. Many others that I had were dates from hell. Do you have a blind date story, one that goes either way?

If you were planning a big deal for Valentine’s Day, what would you do?

Do you love Valentine’s Day? Hate it? Love/hate it?

PRIZE: One of the visitors who posts will receive a winter reader’s box that includes a knit ruana wrap for snuggling while you read, a leather journal for keeping track of your thoughts and TBR list, a card-sized magnifier for when your eyes get tired, and signed copies of both Ravishing in Red and my forthcoming Provocative in Pearls (pre-release copy, hot off the press). Two others will receive $20 gift cards to either Borders or B & N.

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Today is a big day in my writing career. Ravishing in Red is released today. It is the first book I have had out in a year. The first book in a new series. And the first book with my new publisher.

Now, maybe you think the title of this blog should be Cheers, Celebrations and Delerious Happiness but, well, this is ME and I like to be honest with all you other goddesses. Trust me, my title is more appropriate to where my head is today.

The truth is that release days are stressful for me, and this one has been more intense than usual. My DH has been finding excuses to stay out of my way for a while now, because I have gotten a little hard to live with. Neurotic worrying started a couple of weeks ago, and has just built.(What if there is a blizzard and all the books end up in a train wreck? What if none of the stores remember to stock it until April? What if—-).  Today I will concentrate far too much of my mental energy on obsessing over the book’s release, and trying to talk  the Force into being with me.

This will continue for at least another week. During that time, I will enter every store that carries books wracked with fear that my book either won’t be there or will be invisible on the bottom shelf. Common sense says just stay out of stores, but instead I will find excuses to go to as many as possible so my neurotic worrying can be fed. I will pounce on any online mention of a sighting of my book, and even ask my readers to feed me those little morsels of relief. I will clench just a little as I open reader email, braced for it to say “man, this one sucks!.” And, as the bestseller info starts filtering out next week, I will pretend I am not waiting to hear, when in fact the waiting will pretty much immobilize me.

The whole experience reminds me of my fear of flying. For years a plane fight for me involved a week of worrying in advance. Then, when the plane began to take off I would inhale—and, in a manner of speaking, hold my breath until we landed. I might look normal there in that seat, but my mind and nerves were on hyper alert, so much so that I used to joke that only my nervous energy kept that plane in the air. Worrying about a new release absorbs all my energy the same way. I suspect my subconscious thinks that if I worry and stress enough, it will keep the book “up in the air” just like those planes.

 Someone once told me the official name of a fear of flying. It had phobia at the end of it. Only a phobia, according to the dictionary, involves an irrational fear. In my opinion there is nothing irrational at all about being afraid to fly. (Lemme see—great big metal object weighing many tons rises into air and speeds along on wind and wings, and I am afraid it might fall? Nope, nothing irrational there.) There isn’t anything irrational going on with my NRNS (New Release Neurotic Syndrome) either. I am just having, in both cases, a normal human reaction to being unable to control a situation where the final result really matters to me.

So if you run into me this week and my eyes appear a little wild, and my mood seems a little frantic, now you know why. NRNS passes about 10 days after release, and I’ll be back to normal then. 

Do you have fears or phobias? Afraid of heights (my DH is, to the point of physical distress)? Snakes ? Other things?

 Do you have situations where fears and nervousness just kick in every time, whether it is dentist visits or anything else?

Have you overcome some prior fear? (I am happy to say that after much experience in planes, I pretty much did. The fear just gave up one day.)

****An Advanced Reading Copy of Provocative in Pearls (my March release) will be given away today to someone who makes a comment.

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The recent rerelease of a book got me thinking about my private collection of little gems. These are books or films or even television shows that are not necessarily famous, but that impressed me either for their emotional content or because they were beautifully crafted. Often they are quiet stories, or are told in a different way from others of their ilk. Sometimes they defy conventions, or seem out of the mainstream. On occasion they are stories that are not especially unique, but the artistry of the writer or director made them special.

The film Chocolat is in my gem box. It stars Johnny Depp. He is actually a secondary character and he shows up late in the story. The main character is a woman who breezes into a French town one day with her young daughter in tow, and sets up a shop where she makes incredible chocolat candies, cakes, etc.

Here is the thing about gems. Often when you explain what they are about, people look back blankly. A one line description or the blurb on a DVD or book cover never does them justice. So my description of Chocolat does not convey the magical realism of the movie, or the neatly delineated relationships that develop.

Another film gem is the Victorian- set Angels and Insects, which tells the story of a naturalist who enters the rarified world and home of a wealthy patron impressed with his work, eventually marrying his daughter, only to discover that the family is not quite what it seems.

From farther back in time, Diner was one of the first gems I collected, but it is better known. It launched the careers of several actors, and was Micky Rourke’s “break out” film. In it, friends from high school, now out in the world, still meet at the diner of their youth as they find their ways to their next stages in life. Not a new story, but it was told with heart and optimism.  I think Dangerous Liaisons can be called a gem too, even though it received considerable attention and critical acclaim. I mean the one with Glen Close and John Malcovich (who may have found his perfect role in this movie.) It also starred Keanu Reeves and Uma Thurman very early in their careers.

So what was the little gem of a book that got me thinking about this? Mary Balogh’s Precious Jewel. I read it when it first came out and to say that it turned Regency romance expectations on their head is an understatement. A heroine who is a prostitute (no prettying it up, either), a hero so ordinary he  is almost an anti-hero—- there were scenes from this gem that rang so true that I still hear the bell.

Share your gems, if you have some. Are there any movies or books in your jewel box that were not bestsellers or must-sees when they were released? Any oldies but goodies that you want to point us toward?  

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On one of my email lists, some writers were talking about a special writing program available only for Macs called Scrivner. I only paid passing attention because I don’t have a Mac. However, it was pretty clear that this program falls in the category of Cool Stuff. It was so cool that I think some of us were thinking of changing computer platforms just so we could use it.

I am a fan of Cool Stuff. I like finding it, and I like hearing about it. Cool Stuff is anything that is unexpectedly neat,  so fun and engaging or useful that the only response is That is SO Cool.

Technology offers lots of cool stuff, and lots of not really cool stuff. Clearly many people think the iphone is cool stuff. On the other hand, I have never heard a printer called cool, no matter how many bells and whistles it may have. And some things that should be cool, like bluetooth technology, have never really made it to cool. 

I have a few cool stuff discoveries to share. There is a free program on the web called Mikogo that allows several people to work on the same file at the same time. The person who starts the “meeting” loads the project onto her desktop, and the others who are on a conference call can see it on their computers and even take over the curser and file’s program to make changes. Very cool. 

Something similar is the process where a computer repair person can take over your computer to fix it remotely. Also cool, and it has saved me a couple of trips to the repair store, and helped me get snags out of programs too.

Cool Stuff doesn’t have to be technological though. For example, nail polish remover towelettes that I can pack when I travel are, in my opinion, very cool. I used to buy a bottle when I got to my desintation, then have to leave it there when I came home. So I had a Cool Stuff moment when I found these little packets. 

Other Cool Stuff: Stats counters on web sites. I love them. They amaze me. Widgets are major Cool Stuff. Those are those little applications that sit on your desktop or on a web site and show whatever— tweets, the weather, the time–there are thousands of them out there, and someone with basic tech knowledge can make them. And although it is not new anymore, I put blog software in the Cool Stuff category forever . I can remember when every single line for the web had to be coded by hand and uploaded by an expert. Now the basics come ready made and you just start typing.

 It is hard to resist cool stuff that is not too expensive. I am weak when cool stuff  is a beautiful piece of china, or artistic lampwork beads (You made that by hand with a torch and molten glass? That is so cool!)  Office supply stores are cool stuff heaven (wow, a purple accordian file with color coded dividers and a bungee cord closure!)

One person’s Cool Stuff may be another person’s big shrug. But lots of us have the same reaction. If someone says to me “Is this cool or what?”– I usually agree. Yes, that is seriously cool.

What Cool Stuff have you seen recently? Have you bought anything mainly because it was just too cool to pass up? Any Cool Stuff on your wish list?   What is your favorite cool stuff?   

Anyone posting will be entered into a contest for an ARC of my March release, Provocative in Pearls.

(Credits: the big bead is by ravensrain.com and the set is by lovinglampworkbeads.com)

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A few years before a publisher agreed to put me in print, one of my writer friends got “the call.” Just in time too. Her 5 year plan was almost up. She had given herself five years to work at this,  at which point, if she had not yet been published she would—-?

It was never clear to me what was supposed to happen then.  Was the five years just a period when she gave herself permission to do what she wanted without doing a cost/benefit analysis? Was it supposed to make her work harder because the clock was ticking? If the publishing contract did not show up on time, was she going to bag the whole idea, or just regroup and rethink?

I have never had a five year plan. I have worked at places that do, though. Lots of companies and organizations have them. I think it is considered sloppy not to. And yet I have seen them become straight jackets as often as they provided guidance, so I am a little skeptical of their value in those contexts, let alone for individuals.

A mini version of a five year plan is the Goal. I have probably had goals, but I don’t think I’ve ever had Goals. I am supposed to though, that is clear. I read all the time that if I don’t set Goals, I’ll never amount to much or get anywhere.  This goes for career, life, losing weight, saving the environment, etc.

During one of my first conversations with my agent, she wanted to talk about my writing Career Goals. I felt like an idiot because I didn’t have any, other than to write stories and hopefully get published. I had not mapped out when I would make X amount of money, or even how much at all, ever. I had never announced to myself that I wanted to hit a bestseller list. My goals were very short-term, very modest, very one foot in front of the other, and hope for the best. A large part of me, the part I rarely acknowledged, probably knew that my goal was most likely a dream, not a goal, and if I examined it too much I would realize that. Better not to, then, because dreams often don’t come true.

I think that I resist this Goal-setting and long-range life planning for a couple of other reasons. First, most of this reminds me a lot of making lists, and I have already blogged about my feelings on that! Second, not reaching the Goal sounds a lot like failure, and sometimes you just want to take a shot at something, you know? Without anyone keeping score. This is especially true if what you are doing is taking a shot at making a dream a reality. I guess I don’t understand why I would need a Maoist five year plan to do that.

Now, lest you think I am only going to diss Goals and Plans, I’m not. In doing a bit of research for this blog I learned some interesting things about setting Goals and ensuring you reach yours. I’ll pass them along.

It seems that if you write down a Goal, you have a 60-80% chance of reaching it. I wish I had known that twelve years ago when I began penning my first novel. It would have saved me a lot of time. If you do not write it down, you only have a 3-6% chance. (The academic in me is raising an eyebrow and wondering where these stats came from and how they were derived.)

I also learned that a Goal needs to be specific, the more the better. It also has to be measurable. I learned that breaking the Big Goal into several smaller Goals helps (we all know this already.) Also, I learned that it helps to visualize achieving the Goal.

A lot of this made sense, and perhaps, like lists, I do it but in a more free-form way, or even subconsciously. But they lost me with the last one. I don’t do that visualizing stuff. I make it a point not to. I think if I visualize achieving a goal, I will  jinx myself.

Do you set goals, or Goals? Do you write them down and do it right? Does it work?

What are your goals? Any you are working on now? Any you plan to set soon?

Are most of your goals personal ones, or professional? Do you clearly set them, or are you more like me?

By the way, if you Google “goal setting” there are tons of forms, tips, etc., on the web. One site wanted me to start with a quarter century plan, though. Too late for that!

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