Behind The Story: Everything You Need

This story sticks out when you line up my books and see what they're about. All of them, except this one, are pure contemporary romances. There's absolutely no sense of an otherworldly element.

Why did this one become an oddball?

Freak accident is why.

This book was supposed to be part of a novella with another author. That fell through. I was writing humorous women's fiction at the time that had a very strong magic realism element. I was more than sure this was the direction my writing would go. I was once again leaving behind contemporary romance. (I hadn't learn yet this is what I come back to.) I didn't see any problem adding in a disgruntled angel named Angie. (We did talk about how I'm original, right?)

So, I wrote this book and then spent three years trying to make it into something it would never be. For one, I tried to make Brice less stubborn and willful and...less like Brice. I tried to figure out how to cut out the magical element, because I wrote pure contemps. Hazel, well, I always thought nothing was wrong with her except for her love of Brice who was opinionated, passionate...well Brice. Before I decided to self-publish I was intent on opening the document where this story had grown dust and took up room on my harddrive and deleting it. I was going to wipe this story out of existence.

Two things stopped me. I had already edited the book. Like sent it off and had someone take a pound of flesh out of this book, do their best to fix my wayward sentences and so on and so forth. I had sat down and fixed all the things she told me to fix. I'd done all that. The second reason was everyone who had no thought to what this book was supposed to be liked it. They liked Hazel. They even liked Brice because he was the kind of insufferable but loveable hero. They absolutely could not wait for Tony's story.

With that in mind I decided to let the book speak for itself. It's one of my bestsellers. Who knew? (Ok. Everyone but me.)

In the end, even though I was dead wrong, I get to write Tony's story. He's a charmer. I love to write charmers. I do. I absolutely do. So, I'm calling this a win. (Here's a link to Tony's storyboard.) (You can check out my books tab to find out more about Everything You Need.)