Sometime in January, my friend Ava tweeted me, asking if I’d be interested in a little thing she was calling Febwriteary. Nano, while awesome, happens at the least awesome time, in my opinion. November is only slightly less busy than December for me, and I absolutely do not have time to sit down and bang out nearly two-thousand words every day when I’m focused on things like what I’m going to over-make for a dinner for, generally, a whopping five people.

So she asked, I said, “Hells yeah!” and the rest was history. February 15th marked the kick off of the first annual Febwriteary. I made (what I thought was) a very achievable goal. Well. Let me tell you. I made it–barely and by the skin of my teeth–at the eleventh hour. I reached my goal with 195 words to spare at 11:40 p.m. on February 28th.

But.

I did it.

Not only did I add some much needed wordage to my (now officially) complete novel, but I was able to get a jump start on book two. Apparently, I write best under pressure and with a goal. Who knew?

Speaking of book two, have you seen my inspiration for the hero yet?

He’s quite a fount of inspiration, let me tell you. And his smirk is what’s earned him the lovingly given title of Cocky Bastard.

While I was pounding the keyboard during Febwriteary, I also managed to do a little interview with Ava where I talk a little bit about my writing process.

In my last post, I talked about Plus One and gave out some inside deets on it. I think we’ve finally got to the point where I can start releasing tidbits on it. (Eeep!) Teasing you with snippets from the book and the book cover and the official summary. Not sure if I’ll do this here or on Facebook, so if you haven’t yet, hop over and click that little like button so you can be in the know.  

In the next few months until the release date, I’m basically going to be running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Man alive, there is a lot to do that I’d never before even really thought of. Blog tours and book promos and other things of that nature. It’s all super exciting while also sending my nerves on a frantic bouncing spree around my stomach.

In the meantime, if you are or know of a book review blogger that’d be interested in reviewing Plus One, please contact me so I can add you to my list for when I get my hands on some ARCs! 

How fun is this? My first blog tag game thingie! And I have the lovely Melissa Marino to thank for this wonderful procrastination technique that feels a little like I’m still honing my craft…

If you haven’t hopped over to her blog to read her answers, do so! CRUMBLE looks amazing (how great is that one-line synopsis?), and I can‘t wait to read it in its entirety!

Okay, so, onward… Basically, an author answers these lovely questions about a current project (or a past project…I wasn’t quite sure on the deets, so I went with my soonest-to-be-published piece), then tags an author (or three!) to do the same.

Good? Good. Here we go…
   
What is the working title of your book? 
Plus One. It’s always been Plus One in my mind, from the first line that came to me. And I’ll let you in on a little secret…when the publisher acquired the MS and told me there was a possibility the title could be altered, I had a slight (albeit silent and private) freak out because I could never see it as anything but this. Thankfully, though, it’s here for keeps.

Where did the idea come from for the book? 
One tiny little piece of dialogue came to me in the middle of the night (my favorite line in the whole book) and from there, it spawned the entire thing.

What genre does your book fall under? 
Contemporary Romance

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? 
Hmmm…that’s tricky. I never really see actors when I create the characters in my head (or when I read books, for that matter). They’re just sort of…there. 100% original specimens in my mind. But, for the sake of this, let’s see what I can come up with…

Olivia I could maybe see as a brunette Rachel McAdams. She’s very girl next door in my mind.

Ian was tougher. How did I never realize what a shortage of hot blond actors there is? After much exhausting research, I think I’m going to go with a young Brad Pitt a la Se7en or Fight Club.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
When bad date guru Olivia takes a break from the abysmal dating scene, she doesn’t expect to find love now that she’s stopped looking for it, and certainly not in the one place she least expected it.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
Neither…I sought publication on my own, and it‘s going to be published by Carina Press in May.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
Is it sad that I can’t remember? That’s probably a little sad. Here, let me check my Word files for the dates… 
…
…

Well, that was fun. The computer will tell you anything! It appears the first draft took me a little over a month. 
 
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
This question sort of makes me squirm in my seat. (And by sort of, I mean I literally squirmed in my seat.) To list the authors that I’d hope my work would be similar to feels…weird. And awkward. And weird. And I don’t like to feel either of those things. So. Um. Pass.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
The quote I mentioned above was the entire inspiration for the book. From there, the line about cat urine (aha! I have your attention now, don’t I?) really hit it home and everything sort of fell into place after that. (You think I’m joking, don’t you? Nope, true story.)

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? 
When I started this project, I set out to write the kind of book I wanted to read. A real romance with a real hero and heroine–both believably flawed but still lovable. A heroine who I’d want to be friends with and a hero who…oh, hell. Do we really need to strive to like a hero? Well, in case you do, I set out to make Ian the perfect blend of strong and sensitive, funny and sweet. Oh, and there had to be laughs. And sex. And not any of that vague B.S., either. Just say no to Fade-to-Blacks is always my motto...

Whee! That was a lot of fun! Thanks again, Mel, for tagging me on this post. Now for my tags, huh?

Let’s see here… I’d love to hear more about one of the twenty-seven billion projects my dear friend and critique partner, Jeanette Grey (@jeanettelgrey) is working on. She’s on vacation now (somewhere sunny and warm. Harrumph), but hopefully she’ll have a minute or ten when she gets back to play. 

And I know the lovely Kat Watson (@msfictional) has something up her sleeve that she’s been working on and is super excited about!

And lastly, Spangly (twitter & blog still getting prettified). She completed her first original novel for Nano in November and I’m so excited to read!

But seriously. It is. I’m currently sitting, snuggled up on my bed under roughly three blankets with the space heater going, watching movie-perfect snowflakes fall outside. All in all, a pretty fan-freaking-tastic day.

This past week, I finished HSD, got that damn synopsis (*shakes fist at my nemesis*) written and the query all ready to go. What’s that mean? Time to move on to one of the 213484123 other projects I have going on in my head.

Which one, though?

That’s what I’ve been spending the last week struggling with. I have roughly eight plot bunnies that are grappling for first place. And it sort of sucked to realize that the one I wanted to write first was not the one I needed to write first. Huh. How about that. That whole you wanna be an author for real, so start acting like it thing kind of bashed me upside the head.

So. Today I dove into the outline for the second book in my planned three book, companion series. And do you know what’s amazing? If I stop fighting it, the words? They just come. 

See? Amazing.

While I’m over here with my fingers flying over the keyboard, getting ready to throw a wrench into my very straight-laced heroine’s life plan, why don’t you grab a glass of wine and a blanket, curl up on the couch and read (since I can’t). Really, you’re doing it for me.

And if you don’t have anything to read, did you know that the swoontastic Anna and the French Kiss is only $2.99 today? This is, without a doubt, in my top five YA books. And Etienne? Whoa, mama. He is in my top three swoony boys.

So, while I’m over here writing about swoony (and sort of badass) boys, go read about one.

I’ll be honest. From day one, this entire thing has felt surreal. Sometimes I think, did I really get that call that said I was going to be published or was it all just a dream?

In the long months since I decided to take the step and do this, I‘ve sort of stumbled my way through this process. The submitting and querying and editing and editing and more editing. It’s been scary, but amazing. I didn’t know what to expect and fell into that tiny spot between a rock and a hard place of not wanting to ask too many questions and not asking enough. Or worse, not knowing what questions to ask in the first place.

Fortunately, I’ve had Jeanette with me the whole way. She’s held my hand and answered my (admittedly over–dramatic, frantic) texts at midnight about one thing or another. Thank God for friends who have gone through this before me (and ones who don’t judge my freak-outs), that’s all I can say. 

Walking into this blindly, I never realized just how long of a process this is. I queried Plus One a year ago, got the call of acquisition nine months ago, and started edits six months ago. Yesterday, it was sent off to production. That is a lot of time. And a whole lot of hurry up and wait, like I was told would happen in the very beginning.

But. But. Did you see where I said it was off to production? MY BABY IS GETTING PRETTIFIED! *muppet flails*

It still doesn’t quite feel real yet, and I suppose it won’t until I can walk my fingers over to Amazon or B&N and buy that baby. Though, I’ll be honest, seeing the cover will probably help. 

Well, holy hell. Has it really been *mumbles behind hand* months since I posted? I’ve been a bad, bad blogger. Fortunately, me being a bad blogger means I’ve had time to do other things. Like, you know, write and stuff.

And you might be interested to know that the last thing I wrote? Was based on this dude:

I know, right?  I affectionately refer to him as Hot Single Dad (HSD for short). Yes, ladies, we have Daddy Swoons in this novella. And if you enjoyed that little ditty, you might also enjoy the board full of inspiration I often gazed at while writing. (What did we do before Pinterest?)

Besides being lost in HSD-land, I’ve (still) been working on edits for the full length novel I completed back in…yeah. October. *hangs head* Editing is a long and grueling and tedious and sometimes heinous process. So, you know, it takes a bit of time. And, to be fair, I did stop in the middle of editing because HSD kept waking me up at night, demanding face time. He’s very bossy.

During my (not so) brief hiatus, I also received news that Corporate Affairs will be available in print sometime this year. I’m not sure the definite release date, but I’ll post as soon as I find out.

And speaking of release dates… I got notification that Plus One’s release date has been set to May 6th! The back cover copy has been finalized, but copy and line edits are still taking place. And then there’s the cover art (which I can hardly wait to see…and show you!), but things are moving along. As soon as I can properly tease you with content of Olivia and dear sweet Ian, I will share here on the blog.  

Until then, go and do as I sometimes do: scroll aimlessly through those Pinterest boards. You know, for research.