Now that Beautiful Carnage is written and ready to head off to the editor, I’m diving into the fourth book in the Hollywood Guardians series, Deceit.
Read MoreWaaay back in 2007, I fell in love with a beagle. Her name was April, and she was my first ever fur baby and my first ever baby. My husband and I adopted her when we bought our first house, and we were in love. Fast forward five or so years and our lives had changed dramatically and because of that, it was impossible for us to keep our girl.
Read MoreI mentioned in my last post that Crossed Souls had started in my head as something so much different than it turned out to be when I wrote it. Originally, I imagined Willa as a sort of Cupid-like character. She was compelled to help everyone around her find their soulmates while not having one of her own and she was definitely bitter about it.
Read MoreWhen I start brainstorming a series, that can look different every time. For Crossed Souls, it started with the characters—Willa specifically. I saw her initially as a sort of cupid-like character who was destined to help people find love while also being a person who couldn’t find it herself. She’d never known what being in love felt like, and was a really lonely person.
Read MoreI’ve been a big fan of reading reverse harem for a while now. At this point, it makes up about 98% of what I read in my free time, so because it’s my favorite, I wanted to try my hand at writing a series. I’ve had a lot of ideas about what my first RH series should be, but Twisted Soul Magic wouldn’t leave me alone, so it’s first up (and for the record I have about five other series’ in the works for the future that I can’t wait to get to.
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Taming Griffin is upon us (eek, just 13 more days!) and now seems like a great time to introduce you to Magnolia Dawson, Griffin’s other (better!) half.
Magnolia’s fresh out of college, so she’s young like Griffin, and she’s already had a pretty rocky life. This book explores some dark subjects like domestic abuse, but I wouldn’t call the book itself dark. It’s more a redemption, a story of a girl finding herself and her happily ever after despite the circumstances she’s been through.
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Almost right off the bat with this book, I knew I wanted to tackle the issue of domestic violence with Magnolia. When I decided the band was going on tour in Taming Griffin, I wanted to figure out Magnolia’s motivation for wanting so badly to keep her job. The answer came to me pretty quickly—she was afraid if she stopped moving, her past would catch up to her.
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When I wrote Finding Zen, the thing that inspired me most of all was a song. I’ve talked about it before but The Hills by the Weeknd was the song that originally inspired that book. I didn’t have the same instant song inspiration with True. My book inspiration comes from all over the place. Sometimes it’s a song, a random idea that will just pop into my head, a trope I’m fascinated by… it could really be anything.
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From the moment True announced his presence in my mind, he’s been the sweetest, most caring guy ever. He has the ability to handle shit when he has to, but mostly he’s a laid back surfer who’s good with going with the flow. He’s the peacemaker and he’s a total romantic.
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Maddox was actually the second character that really solidified himself in my mind when I was writing Finding Zen. He was partially inspired by the song “Marry Me” by Thomas Rhett. I knew what his story would be like, but I wasn’t quite sure about his personality.
But the more I wrote him, the more of an asshole he came to be. But I loved that about him. He was the snarky one, the first one to make a snide comment, to flirt unabashedly, to stir up drama and give people shit. He spoke his mind without reservation and I loved that about him.
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When I originally came up with my first book idea in Finding Zen, I knew I was going to be writing about a band of guys. I like reading books in a series, so that’s what I wanted to write. So, I had to decide how many guys and how the band would be put together.
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Zen was the very first character I ever came up with. I’ve talked a little bit about this before, but when I heard the song “The Hills” by The Weeknd, I really started to wonder what that lifestyle would look like. For my first foray into attempting to write my own book, I wanted to write something exciting. What better to start out with than rock stars?
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As you probably know by now, Finding Zen was my first attempt at writing a book. It’ll always be my favorite story because of that, but when I was doing character development, I really had no idea what I was doing. I jumped into 12-page character questionnaires that were FAR more detailed than necessary.
Thankfully, I learned how to streamline the process and it’s not nearly as intense now as it used to be.
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When I first started thinking about the story line for Saving Maddox, I knew who Maddox was because I’d already played with his character and spent some time developing it in Finding Zen and Loving True. I also knew some of the details I wanted to have happen in the story because they were inspired by a song. (If you’re curious, check out the Playlists tab).
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When I’m starting the process of writing a book, I figure out who my main characters are going to be and then I start digging into their backstory. Who are they? What was their childhood like? What’s their relationship with their parents like? And do they have siblings?
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The original idea for Saving Maddox came from the song “Marry You” by Thomas Rhett. I listened to the lyrics and pictured a guy who was totally tortured and heartbroken sitting in the back row watching the woman he’d loved for basically his whole life marrying someone else.
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Whenever I start writing a new book, I spend a lot of time developing the main characters, their families, and the main antagonists, but outside of that, I don’t give it a lot of thought. I started writing Saving Maddox and realized there was a gaping hole on Ryan’s side that needed to be filled by someone. But who?
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