My Writing Process Blog Tour

I’d like to thank Maureen Fisher  for inviting me to play! If you haven’t read Fur Ball Fever  go get it soon!

This post is part of the "My Writing Process" blog tour. For more about my books, don't forget to visit my website!

What are you working on? I am writing the fourth book in my Colorado Billionaires series. The title is The Wedding Belle. A few fans have asked about Uly’s story. Ulysses is the brother of Thor Garrison in the second book, The Wedding Hazard.  Book four is Uly's story.

 How does your work differ from others of its genre?
Readers have commented that they couldn’t put it down. I try to end every chapter with an event or a development that compels the reader to keep going, even if it’s two in the morning and the alarm is set for six! That plan seems to be working.

Why do you write what you do?
Once I went indie, I no longer had to listen to well meaning editors telling me to shape and mold my story for the market niche they wanted to fill. Free from those constraints, I began telling the stories my heart wanted to tell. I love the marriage of convenience format, because it does what all great stories do. It takes two people and throws them together in a difficult situation and then makes things worse until they are forced to work together. And of course, they fall in love and we get a “happily ever after” ending. The fact that I write for women who are the best readers and fans in the world makes it all the sweeter!

 How does your writing process work?
I start with names and characters. Then I make sure I know where the story is going before committing too much to paper. I remind myself that I can save the parts that don’t make it into the book, because I can use those pages for different stories. I still allow a lot of flexibility in the writing process, but I have a plan in my mind. There are often surprises, though. A new secondary character may emerge from a situation and just blow me away. Or a main character may refuse to cooperate with some plot point and force me to change the direction of the story. But I’m not a total “seat of the pants” writer. I need structure to guide me in the right direction. As for a detailed knowledge of what will happen next, I can usually visualize the story up to three chapters ahead of where I am writing. The one exception is the ending. More than once I have written the ending, then went back and filled in everything else to get me there.

Don't miss Karen Docter's take on My Writing Process! Live now!

Next week go visit:Vicky Loebel! She writes urban fantasy, erotic romance, and later this year a new sweet romantic title!

Regina Duke, USA Today Bestselling Author
http://www.reginaduke.com
@ReginaDuke1

New Twist on the Vampire Tale

Cassie Skyler is alone in the world, except for her BFF and a building full of tenants she cannot evict. She's looking for Mr. Right. Will she find him at a vampire fan convention? Her parents hid that part of their lives from her until the day they died. It turns out that's not all they kept from her.

Bear Laco is a vampire working for the Collection Agency. His main mission: locate and register any remaining illegal portals between Earthside and Vampside. So why has he been ordered to investigate Cassie? To make matters worse, he can't afford to fall in love with a human being. Not again.

Hello everyone! Where have I been? Writing, of course. I wish I could say I am one of those people who can multitask like crazy. The truth is, when I am working on a book, other things fall by the wayside. That's no problem when housework is involved. But shame on me for neglecting my blog.

My Vampire Wedding is a frothy romp in an alternate reality filled with gorgeous vampires who love humans because we have exactly what they need. Not blood. Auras!

I grew up on Anne Rice and Bram Stoker vampires, and in my youth, they were lots of fun to read. As I grew older, I wanted my vampires to be a little friendlier, more accessible. I love the teeth but not the drinking of blood. Surely we as humans have more to offer than Type O (and A, and B, etc.). But why would a parallel world of vampires bother crossing over to Earthside if not for blood? Well, some of them become addicted to human blood, and others come to collect the human aura which is used Vampside to make medicine to protect the population from the vampire plague.

I hope you enjoy my user friendly vampires!

Regina Duke, USA Today Bestselling Author
http://www.reginaduke.com
@ReginaDuke1

Where in the World is Eagle's Toe?

The Wedding Hazard is set in Eagle's Toe, Colorado, but you won't find it on a map! Eagle's Toe is a little town with a big population of billionaires. It's the perfect fictional setting for my series, Colorado Billionaires. Located somewhere between Gunnison and Pueblo, many visitors fly into the Pueblo Memorial Airport and take a limo or the family Rolls-Royce for the thirty-minute drive to Eagle's Toe. Of course, your travel time may vary depending on whether or not you have a lead foot!

 Creating my own little town has been both fun and challenging. I just realized while writing the newest addition to my series (The Wedding Venture, coming in September) that I didn't really have street names! When I drive, I find places by locational memory. Turn at the grocery store, take a left at the third intersection, and so on. And my characters have been doing the same. But sometimes you just need a street name. So I will be working on a map of Eagle's Toe before the next book.

Besides, I've created a clothing store (Mina's Boutique), a bakery (The Muffin Man), a security business (Thor Security, featured in The Wedding Hazard), and a large hotel and restaurant (The Cattlemen's Inn featuring Il Vaccaro, an Italian restaurant that also offers American home cooking). Also mentioned in passing are a local garage, a veterinarian, a hospital, a burger stand, and a truck stop cafe, all fictional, and all frequented by the residents of Eagle's Toe. It's definitely time to draw a map!

The maps I've drawn so far are pen-and-ink reminders of where shops and businesses are located. One of my billionaire families lives outside of town on the Rocking Eagle Ranch (The Wedding Wager). Generally speaking, the richer residents have estates on the west side of town, either inside or outside the city limits. The more books I write, the more urgent it becomes to keep track of everyone. So some amateur and fictional cartography will play a role in my future.

But you won't see me pinpoint Eagle's Toe with latitude and longitude. When it comes to romance, sometimes it's nice to have a hide-a-way, a place people can talk about but no one can really find...except me and my readers, in our imaginations.

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Colorado Billionaires 3, The Wedding Venture, coming in mid September!

Paying the Price for Love: Aging Pets

Sir Darby will be eight years old in September. It's hard to believe that my precious boy is a senior citizen.  2013 has been a rough year for Darby. He has suffered from three bouts of hemorrhagic gastroenteritis, nearly died in the doggy ER from pancreatitis, and now he's recovering from damage to two discs which have been pressing on his spinal cord.

As the veterinarian showed me the X-ray, he said something that stunned me.

"Some people just choose not to treat these things."

I was horrified! Little Darby was in so much pain from his damaged discs, he was roaching his back and couldn't control his hind legs. The vet said his condition is called ataxia.  I couldn't believe that some people would choose not to treat such a thing. Then I realized, sadly, that what he probably meant was that they put their pets down when such problems arose. 

No one can judge another when they have to make the hardest decision regarding their pets. I've been in that position, and I know that each person must decide whether continued treatment is in the best interest of the dog or not. The pet's age is often a factor. Even though Darby is nearly eight, toy breeds can live much longer lives than larger breeds.  In Darby's case, we're treating his condition as if it were a sports injury.

Papillons think they can fly. They have those huge ears, and they zoom through the house, bounce off the furniture, leap straight up in the air to see what's on the kitchen counter, and sail off the arm of the couch just for the joy of flying. That's why I call it a sports injury. After nearly eight years of such activity, my little guy has hurt himself. And now it's up to me to keep him safe and quiet and, yes, medicated until his spine recovers.

He's doing very well after the first five days of treatment. He's supposed to remain in his crate unless it's time for a potty break. But I let him out after he promised me he would lie quietly at my feet. And that's what he has done.

Darby was a rescue. He came to live with me when he was eleven months old. He had no hair, weighed five pounds at ten inches tall, and was being eaten alive by parasites. My vets saved him, and he has shown amazing gratitude and love for the chance at a happy life. Considering all that he has given me over the years, I'm happy to provide the care he needs because he can get well and enjoy life again. I know that someday I'll have to make the hard decision on Darby's behalf. But for now, my littlest rescue is resting quietly, eating with gusto, and walking almost normally.  I don't know how long we'll have together, but I will be grateful for every day I get to spend with Sir Darby.

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Visit me at http://www.reginaduke.com

A new Colorado Billionaires romance is coming in September!

The Next Big Thing

I've been invited by Susan Winters to participate in The Next Big Thing and share some information about my work in progress. 

What is the working title of your book?

The Wedding Hazard!

Where did the idea come from? What genre is your book?

I love writing marriage of convenience stories. The fantasy of finding true love through a contrived marriage has always appealed to me. Last fall, I published my first effort in this area of romance, which I enjoyed reading but never knew I could write. My other novels are romantic suspense, sweet romance mixed with cozy mystery, and cozy mystery based on two of my romance characters. So was I ever surprised when a dear friend challenged me to write a marriage of convenience! I loved it!!! That was The Wedding Wager, the cover of which you see all over my blog. :-)  In writing that novel, I invented a cute little Colorado town and named it Eagle's Toe. And I began thinking about other marriage of convenience stories and how the couple could end up in my little town. Next thing you know, I was writing The Wedding Hazard.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Ashley turns to Thor Security for help when her mother goes missing, finds the perfect bodyguard, the love of her life, and learns that every family has a little craziness in it, and if you're lucky, a whole lot of love to balance it out.

That's a very long sentence, but it's the best I can do at midnight! 

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I am a proud indie publisher. My books go through a stringent editing, proofreading, and formatting process to make them as perfect as possible. 

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Four months. From conception to publication, probably five and a half months. The last six weeks are editing, proofing, and formatting.

 For a look at all my available titles, check out my website:  http://www.reginaduke.com

Look for The Wedding Hazard on Amazon in mid-February! 

For information about indie publishing, check out The Business Rusch (in the sidebar). 

Thanks for stopping by!!!

Bucking the Trends

"Trendy" has never been a word people used to describe me. Little did I know, that fact would change my life. Two years ago I embarked on a journey called "indie publishing." It sounds like everyone is doing it today, but two years ago, it felt like bucking a trend: the old fashioned trend of waiting for some stranger in New York to give your work a chance.

Now, two years later, the new year has come in with a bang, or at least with a cold front. I've been busy writing the next novel, so I've been dismal about posting to my blog or updating my websites. As cold as it is outside (9 degrees in my neighborhood, with an expected high of 32), this is a great week to post something new. I certainly won't be gardening!

One of the activities I'm catching up on during the cold front is reading other blogs. I notice that there are a number of them talking about various trends in publishing and whether we, as authors, should pay attention to them. (Check out Jannine Gallant, and her article at Roses of Prose.)

In the old days (before indie publishing), the answer was a resounding yes. If you wanted to stand a chance of slipping through that keyhole in the gate of traditional publishing, you had to rush to revamp whatever you were working on to reflect the best seller of the moment. Ironically, all the editors and agents and so-called advice givers were telling you to ignore the trends, because they wanted to see something fresh. Then here comes the rejection slip. "Love your voice, love your plot. Not trendy enough." Or perhaps, "Can't sell Regencies set outside the UK." Or "Your romance element isn't strong enough. Tone down the mystery!" (Of course, mystery publishers would say, "Too much romance! Get rid of it!")

Now, however, writers have more options. We have the opportunity to test out our theories about the reading public. We can put our work out there without the blessing of traditional publishers. We can take our chances. We can see if something works by testing it in the marketplace.

Do I think everyone should go indie? No. It's a lot of hard work from Day One. The learning curve is huge. If you can't learn to format your own books, you must be ready to pay someone for that valuable service. Same goes for covers. It was a difficult moment when I realized that my childhood fantasy of being a visual artist was just that. A fantasy. My medium is words. If I wanted my covers to look great, I had to swallow that bitter pill of self knowledge and hire someone else to do it. And returns on your investment may take a while.

Do I think the effort and outlay is worth it? Oh, yes. For the right person, going indie is the perfect solution. For someone like me, whose books never clearly fit anyone's specific publishing guidelines, going indie has been a dream come true.

Trends? How about control over your output and your publishing schedule? Trending now! How about setting the prices for you own books? Trending now! And you can't beat the joy of knowing your books are "in print" until you decide to take them off the market. These are the trends I pay attention to.

So let's set a new trend for 2013. Let's set the trend of following your dreams and testing what you're made of. If not now, when?

Happy New Year, everyone!

Regina Duke

http://www.reginaduke.com

THE WEDDING WAGER  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0094KFI7W

Marriage of convenience.

Reviewer: “Don’t. Miss. This. One.” !!! 

CALIN'S COWBOY  http://www.amzn.com/B008600QX2 

Sweet romance, cozy mystery, & dogs! 

 Reviewer: “Terrific read!” “Page turner” 

NORTH RIM DELIGHT http://www.amzn.com/B0050Q57SY 

Romantic suspense.

Reviewers: "Suspenseful entertaining read" "Romance & adventure" "What fun!" 

WOOF IN THE WEDDING PLANS  http://www.amzn.com/B005JSPBV6

Reviewers: “Romp of a novella” “Barking good fun” “Dog lover’s delight” 

How to Write Romance in Five Easy Decades

The Wedding Wager is Live!  

Megan leaves the hospital whole but in despair. Can Kevin heal her heart and still save the family fortune?

When people say romance is easy to write, I laugh and say, "Where's your book?" 

Romance is a lovely balance of human interaction, emotional transformation, and page-turning storytelling. For years, people (who didn't read romance) told me to concentrate on mystery and science fiction. Those were the genres that appealed to them. Those were the only stories they felt worth reading. It was no coincidence that many of these people worked at the same university where I worked. They considered romance to be fluff. "Oh, anyone can write that silly stuff!"

Anyone? Really? Again I say, "Where's your romance? Where's your novel about the hearts of two people falling in love?"

Try to tell them that Jane Eyre or Madame Bovary were romance novels and these academics will turn pale and sputter to defend "the classics." My personal theory about academic acceptance of mystery and science fiction is this: Academia is still dominated by men, and men like to read mysteries and science fiction. Female academics who read romance would never admit to that in the presence of their male colleagues.

Well, guess what? I don't work there anymore! I love romance, and I love writing romance! But it didn't happen overnight.

 After years of reading and yes, even studying romance novels, I finally plunged in with a romantic suspense called North Rim Delight. The stars of that book, Terri and Russ, now have their own mini mystery series. Well, I guess I can't call it a series until the second mini mystery is published later this year. But the point is, they moved into a mystery series because it's hard for the same people to fall in love in multiple stories. 

Even so, I felt that the inclusion of the suspense and the mystery forced me to pay less attention to the romance of the book. So I decided to try again, with a completely sweet romance. Because I love dogs so much, my characters love them, too. That inspired my next novel, Calin's Cowboy. The sweet romance was there, but the book also appeals to lovers of cozy mysteries as Calin and Derek solve the puzzle of Calin's forgotten memories when he pretends to be her fiance for her class reunion. Calin and Derek are dog lovers, and their pets provide many humorous moments throughout the book.

Then I read another lovely novel by one of my favorite writers, Sandra Edwards, called The Marriage Bargain. I loved it! I had so much fun reading it, I thought maybe I could write a marriage of convenience novel. After all, I had been reading them and studying the genre for ages. 

The Wedding Wager is my first offering in this genre, but not my last! I had so much fun writing it, even my editor commented that she could tell on every page that I was having a great time. And hopefully my readers will feel the same way.

So don't let anyone tell you writing romance is easy! It may be fun, but it takes all the skills you can muster as a writer to provide a satisfying romance novel.

http://www.reginaduke.com

http://www.lindalouwrites.com

My other titles:

CALIN'S COWBOY  

NORTH RIM DELIGHT  

WOOF IN THE WEDDING PLANS  

TRICKSTER & OTHER STORIES  

And my dog books (as Linda White)

LOVING THE SENSITIVE DOG http://www.amzn.com/B0055KXLJW

SIR DARBY: ANOTHER SENSITIVE DOG  http://www.amzn.com/B006KS24F0