Fixing Ain't Easy

            It was broken. It was haunted. Just like her.

            But it had bones, and it had memories, and it had the ability to be something strong again. Just like her.

- Fix You, by...Me

 

 





Writing the first ten chapters or so of a book feels like herding cats most of the time. I've learned, during editing, that what I thought was chaotic while writing isn't truly chaotic on paper. So I don't sweat the beginning-of-book jitters too much. So far, though, Jessica is proving to be the most prickly Walker and her story is the most challenging.

 

I've never considered myself a method writer, but talking through Fix You makes me think I might actually be one. Jessica's life gets turned upside down, and, hardass that she is, tackles her new life with teeth and claws. She takes on a massive project, and, as I'm writing, the story begins to feel like a massive project too. Jess's tired resolution about the house she's just bought is exactly how I'm looking at the book. As usual, the character is steering this ship and I'm just up in the crow's nest looking for icebergs.

 

Figuring out the source of my anxiety, though, is a blessing. If I've gone method with Jess, then hopefully "fixing" her will be an organic process. Aside from a few key scenes I have stamped in permanent ink, characters rarely take an exact path to the realizations at which I wanted them to arrive. It's a pattern of constant questions I ask them and myself, and usually, the twists I didn't plan for end up being more inspired than anything I could have planned in advance. Working through scenes like this - focusing on nuance and detail and approaching the moments like a movie director watching them unfold - save me a lot of second-guessing and revision when I edit. Everyone writes differently, but I think everyone has jitters...even if they don't always admit it.

Shelter: First 3 Chapters

My readers have called it suspenseful and steamy, and you can read the first three chapters right now, for free.

Prologue

 

It should have been raining. Or snowing. Sleeting. It should have at least been overcast. But instead the sun sliced down through a crisp wedge of blue, cloudless sky and laughed as the swaying willow limbs threw its dappled light across the grass, and over the coffin.

Select Quotes

I've been helping my brother with his political theory paper the past three days and it has robbed my brain of oxygen. It is done! But I'm still a touch brain dead, so the update of Better Than You I wanted to put out hasn't happened yet. Apologies!

I have a peace offering of quotes. (I know, lame, huh?) Quite a few agents ask for a writer's favorite quote from his or her own work, and I can never decide how to narrow it down. Do I go for the best use of language? The most emotional? The one that best summarizes one character? It's a lot of pressure. So since I can never decide, these are some of my faves from Dream of You.

As Jordan sagged back against the door and his eyes did an aimless sweep of the antique sideboards that lined the foyer, the glass and brass lantern above him, the discarded socks tossed over the post at the foot of the stairs, he didn't for a second think "normal" was anywhere close to ideal. Normal was jaded and sleepy-eyed and kicking him out of bed before the sweat had cooled. Normal was no-strings and no love and nothing but cold comfort.

- Page 249

 

 

"Tammy," she'd whispered against his neck, voice choked with tears, and the word had wrapped around both of them, warm and tingling with how much she loved him.

- Page 282

 

 

For one perfect, precious moment, everything that ate at their sanity melted away into the shadows, and the crackling energy that arced between them was nothing but bright, sparkling memories of all their moments together in this car and all the things she'd let him teach her in it.

 

- Page 304

 

 

Midnight was the first word that came up off the page and made a sound. Start here, that word said, and keep going. Midnight came in on a thunderstorm, Ellie had written, and Jordan could hear the line in her voice, a throaty lover's whisper in the dark.

 

- Page 308

 

His voice was different in the small, intimate spaces that existed when they were pressed together like this; it was sweet with a familiar sort of sleepiness, a voice just for her that the rest of the world didn't get to hear.

 

- Page 313

 

"I'm good to the people who are good to me.That's a short list most of the time."

 

- Page 402

 

"Being responsible for someone - putting a stake in the game and knowing that you might hurt them...that's scary shit. That scares me every day."

 

- Page 452

 

He knew what he wanted, down to his bones and deep in his brain and even in the scrawny little heart he sometimes wondered if he even had.

 

- Page 458





This Boy

Is seven today. Happy Birthday, Riddick. Thanks for putting up with me. And for protecting me from squirrels.

Finding Bravery

I'm a writer who's never been in the habit of giving other writers advice. I've read and made suggestions on projects when I was asked to, but - and this is bad to admit - I have trouble making writers' conferences work for me. That's not a good admission, I know, but it's true. When I get to the table and we all start talking about what we're working on, the advice that gets thrown everyone's way tends to be uninformed. It's hard to make suggestions when you haven't read someone's work. And sometimes - I know I'm this way - as writers, we're always looking at other works through our reader lenses. We ask ourselves, is this what I would read? And if it's not, it can be hard to separate our personal opinions from our critique.

This is one of the difficulties when pitching to agents. Agents have favorite genres and storytelling styles, and they want to represent what they like as readers, or what they think will sell. Whenever a book hits the top of the bestseller lists, they start snapping up very similar works, assuming they'll sell too. But I always wonder, how many gems were passed over because they didn't fit the mold? The book market is almost impossible to saturate - even if something isn't a bestseller-wannabe, who's to say it won't become its own unique, trend-setting bestseller original? Agents say they know what readers want, but I don't like most of what's being passed off as romance these days and won't read it, so in my case, agents don't know what I want. And I'm betting there are other readers out there like me who feel the same way.

So, if I had to give other writers advice, it would be this: be brave. Be brave enough to realize that agents are talent managers, and that writers are the talent.

I was terrified when I first considered indie publishing. I've always been a person who did what I was "supposed to", and if the agents had told me no, then clearly I wasn't writing what I was supposed to...right? But then I looked at their comments more closely. They liked the way I wrote, they enjoyed my samples, but I was unproven. I was a risk. And some of them didn't think I could pull off the story that I'd promised in my query letters. "I don't think you can do it," a few said. They had their opinions, and I respected them, understood them. But I wasn't just a writer, I was a reader too, and I wanted to write the sort of book that people like me were missing. I loved my characters and wanted to share them. And I knew that, at the end of the day, it's the readers who make a writer a success, the people who connect with their stories. The agents doubted me, but they hadn't read the whole manuscript, hadn't watched the rain in Ireland with Jo, or slid their hands into Tam's when he needed it so badly.

Finding my bravery was scary, and I still doubt myself, but it was rewarding too. I'm not the girl to go to for advice on impressing agents, because I quit trying. But, writers, I will say this - be brave. Writing is art, and no one can tell an artist how to hold her brush, or what colors to use. I look to the greats, and the classics, and I aspire to them, to be as brave as they were.

My Twitter Experiment

I've been told that all authors MUST be on Twitter, so even though I'm shy, and I don't want to be on Twitter, and I'm shy (did I say that yet?), I've finally caved.

I'm @lauren_gilley

There's a link on my sidebar too.

Better Than You: part 10

10.

 

“Won’t he hear us?” Delta asked at the top of the staircase. She swore she could feel Tam glaring at her through the walls as she glanced down the narrow, dark hall that stretched away from the landing.

 

Mike caught the hem of her sweater between two fingers and tried to tow her through the open door beside them, but she stood rooted in place. “Depends. How much noise are you planning to make?” She swatted him away and his smile became exasperated. “What?”