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.)

How My Obsession With You've Got Mail Turned Into A Book

Some people hate this movie. Hate it. Fox took her store in the end and that makes him a bastard and not a hero. Except every time I looked at the movie and the heroine, Kate aka Shopgirl, I saw a woman stuck in the past. When one of the characters asked her What if you do lose the store what would you do? She looked flummoxed. Her enter life had been that store and nothing else. Hell, even her AOL name was Shopgirl. She identified as nothing else even though it was apparent she loved books.

And, I may have been the only person who watched that movie and thought, Thank God, when the store closed. Go ahead. I'll wait for the tomatoes and rotten eggs to be thrown my way.

Ok. Done?

The single redeeming factor is that from the first scene you knew Fox and Kate belonged with each other and not the pompous buttholes they were with. When they found out who each other were, you knew, just knew, still they belonged together.

In the end I just couldn't get one nugget out of my head: what if you had to let something go? Something you loved with all your heart? Something, that maybe, you should have let go a long time ago.

I bridged that nugget with my favorite trope. The I Loathe The Very Being Of You romance trope. Love it. You get to banter and I love banter. You get to sneak in all the glimpses of the real person underneath and watch the hero and heroine fall. And there's nothing better to get to that scene where the character realizes they are head over heels in love and their general reaction is, Oh, hell. Not you! I mentioned I was bent, right?

And then Lynne sort of just lurked in the back of mind. She's a wannabe rebel. She's a big ol' softie. The more I thought of the type of man who would make her go all Oh, hell. Not you! The more I kept thinking You've Got Mail needs an argument in its defense. (Ok. Not really what I was thinking, but close enough. And it's a Nora Ephron movie and really she needs no defense. She's brilliant.) I imagined the kind of man who'd make her want to strangle herself before falling for him and then Nate started to form. He's alpha, he's a jackass and he's brilliant at what he does. And at the core he's a big ol' softie.

So, yeah, that's the big reveal in how an obsession turned into a book. Frightening or enlightening? lol