Wicked Worthingtons | Runaway Brides | Heiress Brides | Royal Four | Liar’s Club | Courtesans | Holiday | Others
Wicked Worthingtons | Runaway Brides | Heiress Brides | Royal Four | Liar’s Club | Courtesans | Holiday | Others
Wicked Worthingtons | Runaway Brides | Heiress Brides | Royal Four | Liar’s Club | Courtesans | Holiday | Others
Wicked Worthingtons | Runaway Brides | Heiress Brides | Royal Four | Liar’s Club | Courtesans | Holiday | Others
Wicked Worthingtons | Runaway Brides | Heiress Brides | Royal Four | Liar’s Club | Courtesans | Holiday | Others
Dr. Seuss taught all of us about fantasy, about nonsense, and about red fish and blue fish. I’ve tried all my life to hold on to my sense of the absurd, to my willingness to look silly, to the dreamy sense of infinite possibility that I felt as a child, rocking in a rowboat on Lake Ponchartrain, staring at the sky.
I think it can be done. I don’t think you HAVE to grow out of something if you love it. I used to tease my daughters that if they declared there was no Santa, there would no longer be any need for me to pretend there was (in other words, no presents!).
To this day, in their mid-twenties, they will stand up in public and staunchly declare that they believe in a fat home invader who exploits flying reindeer. Even though it is something of a family game, I think they like leaving that impossibility open to possibility, and so do I.
If you want to be a writer, or artist, or designer, software engineer, you are already acquainted with your imagination. You know that when you imagine something, you can probably create it. But have you really applied that force of belief to yourself? Can you remember what it was like to believe in something as wholeheartedly as you believed if you stayed awake long enough you would hear jinglebells? Can you believe in yourself that hard? Can you create yourself as a bestseller? Can you create yourself into a gallery, or a business, or even just a fitter version of yourself?
I believed in my creativity, and that creativity gave me dreams, big ones, and mine came true. I believed hard in family, and I have created and clung to a loving one. I believed hard in love, and I have love. I believed hard in fairytales, and people who told them, and now I am one of those people. Not everything came easily, not everything happened the way I’d planned (ha!) but it’s an adventure, a roller-coaster and a great source for storytelling.
Whatever it is that you want for yourself, put on your Santa hat, grab your fairy wand, mount your unicorn and go find it. When you believe, it might happen. When you don’t believe, it can’t happen.
Dream onward!
Oh, Nathaniel, what have you gotten yourself into this time?
Known far and wide as Lord Treason, Nathaniel carries the burden of his ruined honor with fortitude, but he has vowed never to pass on that poor reputation to a wife or children. Let his ruined name die out with him, and let the Royal Four’s secrets be safe, and he swears to uphold the mystery of his true story.
That well-laid plan lasts about as long as a ride through the countryside, where a stray projectile from a slingshot wielded by a jinxed young woman cracks open his future like a shattered hornet’s nest. Forced at the point of a country innkeeper’s displeasure, Nathaniel must wed the young lady he has accidentally ruined. No one bargained on Willa, a quirky orphan with a sharp mind and a relentless belief in Nathaniel’s better nature, despite the rumors of betrayal.
To Wed a Scandalous Spy is truly one of my favorite novels that I have written. Willa and Nathaniel are so good for each other!
I love all my characters. Even the villains, because I empathize with being misunderstood. Still, every once in a while someone comes along, just strolling down the lane of my mind, and becomes one of my favorite people in the world.
Willa from To Wed a Scandalous Spy is one of my dearest friends. She’s smart and funny. She’s so loyal that nothing can convince her of Nathaniel’s guilt. Her blithe confidence in herself and the people she likes makes me want to be a better sort of person myself.
Even though she is quite pretty and comes from a good family, she is an orphan and a misfit in her little village. They love her dearly there, but they really need to get Willa out because every time a young man gets too close to her, something terrible happens to him! They are starting to run out of young men! Beloved jinx that she is, when a gentleman (who had an untimely mishap with his horse and a falling hornet’s nest) compromises Willa by accidentally spending the night unconscious by her side, Willa is cheerfully forced to marry him and be on her way to London immediately, where supposedly there will be many more young men to come to bad ends.
Willa was originally from a story called An Uncommon Fancy, which was never published as such because I turned it into the first book of the Royal Four series. Everything changed in that story, except Willa. She remained stalwart and perpetually upbeat, so sure that she could just MAKE things–and people–be better. Some books write themselves. Willa wrote her own story. I just typed it for her!
I have another Halloween treat for you! Have you checked out the fantasy novels of C.J. Redwine?
The Shadow Queen begins the fairy-tale inspired Ravenspire series–and let me tell you, this ain’t your mama’s Snow White! Some people consider this YA, but I think it’s a fantastic tale for all ages. I’m not going to give you ANY spoilers (don’t you just hate spoilers?) but here’s a link to a big fat 4-chapter sample!
Many years ago, while I was living near Nashville, I met C.J. Redwine in a coffee shop. She tells the story much better than I could, but I will say that I am so proud that I knew her when!
People often want to know if I wanted to be a writer my whole life. The answer to that question is no.
“If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” –Toni Morrison
These are the words that made me a writer. My story is that simple. I am a lifelong voracious reader. I read everything. I would read every word on the cereal box while I ate breakfast as a child. It never occurred to me that I could be a writer. Writers were special, crowned in glory, gurus on the mountaintop. I was a reader.
Until the day when I realized that if I wanted a different story, or a different ending to a story, or a different character in a story, that I could make my own. Despite people telling me that it was impossible to get published, I wrote a story. I didn’t write it to be published. I didn’t write it to be rich, or famous, or get followers on social media. I wrote it because I thought of it, and the characters began to feel real to me, and then I didn’t want to leave them hanging, unliving, almost alive. I worked for a year just to do a thing.
The thing that I had done, with the oblivious confidence of the absolute beginner, was to write the book that I wanted to read.
That book was FALLEN.
