Meandering On Monday with Janet Lane Walters #MFRWauthor #Poetry #am writing

Meander 1 - Poem

Autumn River

Restless,
Lashing against rocks and earth
In aimless efforts to win free from a channeled life
Trying to erode entrapping banks
Before the coffin beneath its grave cloth
When your currents are calmed
And you are snared.

Meander 2 _ Visiting With a Friend - Not in person, though I wish we could see each other again. I've been reading the books of my friend Kat Attalla and enjoying every moment. Her stories make me laugh and also bring tears. She had such a gift for snappy dialogue and very macho heros who were also human like some macho heros aren't.  I wish there were more stories but walking this pathway on occasion brings memories of the days we spent talking about writing and life.

Meander 3 - Writing. I am still slogging through Sweet Tea. Hopefully soon this will be at an end. Also typing up another short story to share. This is one story that really sounds like a synopsis for a book. One never to be written since the world has changed especially with technology and all. 1968 the story was possible. Not today.

My Places:

https://twitter.com/JanetL717

 https://www.facebook.com/janet.l.walters.3?v=wall&story_fbid=113639528680724

 http://bookswelove.net/

 http://wwweclecticwriter.blogspot.com

http://www.bwlpublishing.ca/authors/lane-walters-janet-romance-fantasy-usa/

Meandering On Monday with Janet Lane Walters #MFRWauthor #BooksWeLoveAuthor

Meander 1 - A new year has begun and let's hope the dark clouds cast at the end of last year go away. Life is a matter of changes but some of the changes aren't ones we like or want. So one must hope things become better.

Meander 2 - I've read a lot of books last year. Many of them are from my friends. Kat Attalla is one of my favorites. Love her Married to a Prince series. Wendy Marcus really wowed me with her contemporary romance, not so much the new adult one but it was a novella and sometimes novellas end too abruptly for me. Jen Probst always makes me laugh and hot. Steph and I can't remember her writer's name kept me on edge. Carly Phillips has some hot new stories. There are others, too many to mention but to all my writer friends, keep writing and I'll try to keep reading.

Meander 3 - My writing. I complained about moving my study to the second floor but during the move, I found a partial mss that's really good and rather different. It's maybe a fantasy or maybe something else. Now called The Goddesses of Solunda. I'm working on it and realizing it will end up somewhere between 65,000 and 80,000 words. Glad all but the last six chapters have been rewritten so I should be able to finish it by March. The interesting thing is this was written so long ago the copy I have is on yellow paper and is a carbon copy. Remember those. I barely do. Computers have made writing so much easier.

Friday Kat Attalla is talking about Heroes, Heroines and Villains #MFRWauthor #Suspense #BooksWeLove

Do you write a single genre or do your fingers flow over the keys creating tales in many forms? Do your reading choices reflect your writing choices? Are there genres you wouldn’t attempt?

I write both contemporary romance and romantic suspense. And while I read all genres those are my two favorites. One genre that I particularly enjoy reading is techno-thrillers but I would never attempt to write one. I'm not sure I would be willing to take on horror either.

2. Heroes, Heroines, Villains. Which are your favorite to write? Does one of these come easy and why?

I think my favorites are the heroines. I like them spunky with attitude and a little sarcastic. A lot like me. My heroes are alpha males. I was married for 30 years to a beta man and I wouldn't change it for the world but our great romance would not be a page turning book. I think the villains come hardest to me. I don't think or at least I don't want to think that there is Evil. Even villain has a story. But then in the end I end up making them too sympathetic.

 3. Heroes. How do you find them? Do pictures, real life or plain imagination create the man you want every reader to love? Do they come before the plot or after you have the idea for the story?

 I think that the most important thing about a hero is that your reader falls in love with him by the end of the book. I usually have an idea for the plot first. Then I choose the hero. I like them strong, flawed and oozing with sexuality

 4. Heroines. How do you find them? Do pictures, real life or imagination create the woman you want the reader to root for? Do they appear before the plot or after you have the idea for the story?

Once I have an idea of who the hero is I imagine the exact opposite to pair him up with. I heard once that if your hero is a firefighter your heroine should be a pyromaniac. A bit extreme but it makes the point. External conflict is easy to create but internal conflict comes from the characters. They need to be at odds with each other to carry the book.

5. Villains or villainesses or an antagonist, since they don’t always have to be the bad guy or girl. They can be a person opposed to the hero’s or heroine’s obtaining their goal. How do you choose one? How do you make them human?

I have gotten a lot of my story ideas from the news or just from observing like around me. My latest works have been novellas in the series I titled Married to a Prince. They are all set in fictitious countries in the Middle East where the alpha male rules. A smart and ambitious woman who is aware of what she wants and knows how to get it, matches wits with the man who says "not me."  Usually the stories do not involve villains. Probably the biggest issues are the cultural differences.

 6. What is your latest release? Who is the hero, heroine and or the villain?

 My latest release is The Prodigal Prince. Rashid is the black sheep of the ruling family who walked away from his title. Mona is the princess of a neighboring country who wants to study abroad without the constraints of palace bodyguards. The hero is hired by her father, the king, to protect her but never let her know that she is being watched.

7. What are you working on now?

My current work in process is a story between the older brother of the hero in the Prodigal Prince and former roommate of the princess, a feminist with a tragic past.  Despite their opposite beliefs an undeniable attraction has them agreeing to a no strings pure sex relationship. The villain of the story is not so much a person but the paparazzi who find hunting Royals a popular sport and a huge conflict for a woman hoping to prove herself as an equal when they are determined to paint her as no more than a mistress.

 8. How can people find you?

www.kathrynattalla.com  website

Facebook Kathryn Butti Attalla

http://www.amazon.com/Kat-Attalla/e/B001K8ME1E

Meandering on Monday with Janet Lane Walters

Meander 1 - Another month has begun. What I've been reading. Reading a lot of Kat Attalla's books that I remember all the beginnings but not the endings since she read them in critique. They have been re-issued by Montlake and were once from Avalon. I also started to look at my old Avalon one that was re-printed. I was able to get away with more than those more recent ones from there. But this is the story that was published even though they had a lot of objections. Am now reading The Eye of God. James Rollins certainly does keep one on the edge of their seats.

Meander 2 Am looking for a car again, not just for me but for my granddaughter who will be living here while going to school. Will be an interesting year.

Meander 3 Writing is going and I'm still grappling with the Aries hero who ends up in trouble with the heroine again and again. Things are about to heat us as Rekindled Dreams moves forward. This story has been an adventure and I've pushed myself forward. That's where things should go, pushing forward, If a writer stands still and puts out the same book over and over, they haven't grown.

Just a Few Lines from China Blue by Kat Attalla

A Few Lines From. . .Kat Attalla

This week, a few lines from Kat Attalla's China Blue:

At eight p.m., he drove to the camp. The dark skies overhead made it seem later than dusk. Just to make sure he covered his bases, he ran his Jeep off the road in a ravine deep enough to need a tow-truck to get out. By the time he reached her Craftsman house, he was soaked to the skin. Damn! He never thought a summer rain could be so freaking cold. A woman who fed the squirrels and birds would not turn her back on a stranded motorist. Would she? 

He knocked on the door and waited. The air rumbled with a distant thunder. In the past decade, he had thought about her many times: The sad young girl with the magnificent eyes. So he wasn't prepared for the woman who opened the door. Her eyes were that same bright blue, but the rest of her bore little resemblance to the skinny teenager in that hospitalbed. Her hair had grown back and fell below her shoulders in thick black waves. Denim jeans molded long legs and a fitted tee shirt revealed a hint of cleavage at the scoop neck. But her most striking feature was the rifle cradled in her arms.

http://bookswelove.net/attalla.php

Please stop back next week for a few lines from Hazel Statham.

Meandering On Monday with Janet Lane Walters #MFRW #amwriting #amreading

Since I'm doing the rough draft of a new story, I've been reading a lot since for me rough drafts take a lot of deep thinking. and I need to clear my head during the process. Now admitidly some of the books I've read are re-reads but I do that a lot. Once the rough draft is done, I'll pull back from reading and then start making the story make sense. There are some chapters in the rough draft that have few words. Those are the scenes that take a bit of working. Some of the scenes are in show and others are in tell. Hopefully all will be in tell. A Spicy Seduction is the last of a six book series of novellas.

So now to the reading part. First is China Blue by Kat Attalla. I heard part of this years ago in critiqie and hoped she would finish the book. She has and it's a wonderful love story. The second book, actually 3 books released together by a former critique partner Carly Phillips, Truly, Madly, Deeply is the title. The first story in the trio remains my favorite of all the books she's ever written. Yes, her writing has changed but this is among the first I ever heard from her. The other two are good stories and the interesting thing is that I remember parts of both the stories but not the ends. Pathway to Tomorrow by Sheila Claydon I found interesting and deals with autism and horses. The story was interesting and the heroine had to learn to give up control. The hero was a dream. The final book was by an author I've never read before and I found I'm going to order the two other books in this series The Ardis Cole series. This was the first book in the series and takes place in Egypt involving murder and archeology.

That's it for now. I'll be reading paperbacks this week and they take longer for me to read than the ones on the reader. I'll also be working on the clean-up draft of Shattered dreams and perhaps talking on the BWL group about neither loglines or taglines but a system I use that starts me writing my story and is used for writing the dreaded blurb.

What Janet Lane Walters Has Been Reading #amreading #suspense #romanticsuspense

The past week the reading has been all suspense or romantic suspense and this has been a fun time.

Guarding Kelsey by Kat Attalla was a great read. Even though I heard a good bit of this in critique, I found Wolf, the man who didn't want to fall in love fun to watch struggle. Kelsey is a strong heroine. From the opening scene this story has laughter, suspense and love.

The Last Surgeon by Michael Palmer - Christmas stocking gift. I've enjoyed most of his books since I read The Sisterhood, I think that's the title. This time I was kept on edge when one of the most evil mass murderer showed up to plague the hero and heroine, Nick and Jillian. Thanks for another great read.

Relentless Pursuit by Adrienne Giordanno - Lots of tension here and the hero Billy is a real trip and a fun hero. The man is relentless. Kristen the heroine is intrigued but she has problems. This book not only deals with car thefts that lead to something more sinister but also with body-image problems.

Thursday - Who I've Been Reading - an Eclectic Mix

This past week, I've been catching up with books written by my friends and colleagues. I do have a thing for trilogies and always have to read all the books in the set but this week I just concentrated on catching up.  The first one was:

Deadly Consequences by Jude Pittman. Love this detective.

Jude Pittman's third Kelly McWinter PI mystery has Kelly McWinter and Gillian Tanner keeping a promise, taking their first vacation as a couple at Bubba’s Paradise Lodge. Of course, the fact that Cam Belscher, the owner of the Hideaway and feisty redhead Stella Davis have picked this particular paradise to tie the knot is the icing on the wedding cake.
Flash forward to the middle of the night. The sound of Bubba Tate banging the hell out of the cabin door is enough to put a damper on any vacation, and when the reason for Bubba's late night intrusion turns out to be the murder of one of Gillian’s stableboys back at her riding stable in Fort Worth, the wedding trip is over. Paradise is in the rear view mirror of the 747 taking Kelly and Gillian back home to Texas.

The small community of Indian Creek is rocked by nasty doings at Eagle Mountain Lake: a dirty rotten snake peddling child porn, a psychopath killer and a monster who beat a pretty teenage girl over the head and left her for dead.

Kelly and his old partner Augustus Graham are hard pressed to discover the truth disguised by the lies and mis-directions hidden in this intricate whodunit. Kelly is desperate to solve these crimes before Gillian sinks in the muck that someone is dumping on her riding stable.

The second book was:  Hawk's Haven by Kat Attalla  A great romance that will warm your heart. One of my favorite heroes.

In Kat Attalla's Hawk's Haven, published by Books We Love, everyone in town knows wealthy Gillian Hughes is a spoiled daddy's girl. When she's arrested after staging a public protest to a social injustice, no one is more surprised than Hawk Carter. Is there more to the society princess than meets the eye? The young lawyer would just as soon not find out. But Gillian's been sentenced to community service on the local Indian reservation and her doting dad has elected Hawk to keep an eye on the errant heiress.
Gillian vows that no one will ever control her again. Not her father, not the judge, and certainly not a hunky Native American attorney whose Harvard education and imported suits surely mean he's turned his back on his proud heritage. But Gillian soon suspects that Hawk might not be a shallow social climber after all. Unless she's mistaken, he really does care deeply about his people, his career -- maybe even about Gillian herself.


Third was No Bells by F.M. Meredith a delightful mystery set in a small California town.

Rocky Bluff reels with the news a woman’s body was found buried in a shallow grave, and the culprit of a series of home break ins leaves a peculiar and disgusting calling card. Detective Milligan develops some concern that his partner has rushed to judgment on the case they are working, and the wrong person is accused of the crime. Officer Gordon Butler has finally found the love he’s been seeking for a long time, but there’s one big problem -- she’s the major suspect in the murder case.









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How She Does It -- Kat Attalla

We all know there are six elements in writing fiction and often fact. Who, What, When, Where, Why and How. I believe the first five lead to the sixth which for me is the plot. What's your take on this?

I agree that in the end those elements have to be there. And usually in that order.



1. How do you create your characters? Do you have a specific process?

When I start, I usually have the heroine in mind first. I have a sketchy idea of goal, motivation and conflict. And then I build my hero around the exact opposite of what my heroine wants. I read that if you make your hero a firefighter then your heroine should be an arsonist. Not really but you get the point.



2. Do your characters come before the plot? Do you sketch out your plot or do you let the characters develop the route to the end?

I usually fly by the seat of my pants. I just recently wrote a synopsis for the next story I want to write. We will see which works better for me.



3. Do you know how the story will end before you begin? In a general way or a specific one?



When I am writing with suspense elements I know how it will end and 'who done it." Then I work backwards to make sure all the clues are there but not too obviously. There's nothing I hate more that an ending that comes out of nowhere... unless it is an ending that is so obvious that I can't read to the end.



4. Do you choose settings you know or do you have books of settings and plans of houses sitting around?



Most of my settings are either in my Metro suburbs or in places I have lived. The specific settings are usually in buildings I am familiar with. A house I have been in, a town center where I spent time. I find when I read a book based on a real town, I am disappointed if they get the facts wrong. I prefer fictional towns unless you know for a fact that the "catholic church in on the corner of 5th and Main."



5. Where do you do your research? On line or from books?



Mostly I research on line. But when possible, I like to take a road trip. I spent time on the Iroquois Reservation for Class Action. Road around costal Rhode Island for Sex and Key Lime Pie, and the mountains of Vermont for Codename: Romeo. The biggest challenge I ever hand was when the editor of my first book, Homeward Bound, asked me to change the setting from Oklahoma to New Mexico.