Excerpt from A Real McCoy:
An hour and a half. That’s how long Kathryn had been in the bathroom. Ninety long minutes that left Harry trying to remember if there was anything sharp enough in there with which she could take her life.
Panic. That’s what he’d felt first.
But now that he stood staring at her huddled, naked, on the floor of the bathtub, looking like a cold, wet cat, anger suffused his every cell.
He reached out and shut off the water then pulled a towel from the rack and draped it over her, being extra careful she didn’t slip when he grasped her shoulders through the towel and helped her to stand. She was shaking all over but barely seemed aware of her condition. With the corner of the towel he wiped the tears from her face, ignoring how red her eyes were.
“He’s not worth your tears,” he said.
She blinked at him as if he’d spoken a language other than English.
He wasn’t sure which bothered him more: that she was mourning a man like Darin Ichatious, or that she was doing so without regard to her own health. All he knew is that if he could be assured putting his fist through the wall would release some of the black emotion filling him he would have done it.
He thrust another towel at her. “Dry off. I ordered room service.”
He turned toward the door.
“James was worth a sea of tears,” she said quietly.
Harry hesitated. “Darin wasn’t worth a single one.”
Bonus Feature: The Writing Life
6:00 a.m.
Wake up five minutes before the alarm goes off to the smell of Tony making coffee downstairs. I join him on the back deck where big, steaming cuppas and glasses of orange juice and the morning papers await. I get the comics, the entertainment sections, the store flyers and read our daily horoscope; Tony gets the rest. A story about a 65-year-old man in New York City shooting at hawks from his second-story roof with a 12-gauge because they’re bothering his pigeons provides our morning chuckle…and also gets the creative juices flowing.
7:00 a.m.
We feed the animals – three indoor cats, countless outdoor cats, a Blue Jay and squirrels – then go up to our shared office. Tony switches on a Greek radio station via the Internet that stays on all day (think opa Zorba music), and we both check email on our separate computers. Then while Tony meticulously maps out the plot for our next book, I compile all the post-it notes and little pieces of paper with snippets of dialogue and ideas one or the other of us jotted down the day before and decide which stand the test of time and which are tossed. We’re both in deep immersion mode now, living in worlds that aren’t ours but are of our making; spending time with characters that are as dear to us as family.
12:00 p.m.
Fifteen brilliant new pages in the can, our next story coming to exciting, vivid life, we knock off to make dinner. Today it’s dolmathakia (stuffed grape leaves), feta, fresh bread and a nice boutari (red wine).
2:00 p.m.
After dinner, we take our daily siesta, snuggling up together and allowing ourselves to dream about what we’ve accomplished so far that day, and what we hope to accomplish yet.
5:00 p.m.
We go for a brisk long walk through a nature preserve, hoping to glimpse deer, beavers and chipmunks and watching the old grounds keeper chat with the rose specialist. There’s love there, we think, which reminds us of our own love.
6:15 p.m.
Our boys Tony, Jr. and Tim (adults now but they’ll always be our “boys”) come by and we snack on salami and an array of cheeses and black olives on the back deck, all of us sharing details of our day and talking about books we’ve read, movies we’ve seen, and discussing questions that confound us or delight us.
8:00 p.m.
Tony and I head back up to the office. Deadline looming, so I write five more pages while Tony follows up on email.
10:00 p.m.
Conversation sparks. I put my feet up on my desk, Tony leans back in his chair and we start talking. Just talking. Sometimes about our work-in-progress. Sometimes about our family. Always about life.
1:30 a.m.
We power down our computers and close the office door and head downstairs to catch a bit of Letterman and local and international news before switching to a favorite DVD or broadcast movie and losing ourselves in worlds of other writers’ making. We both fall asleep during the best part then I wake Tony up at a little after one. We both make sure all the animals are feed and tucked in for the night, lock up the house, and head up to bed, happy and tired and looking forward to making tomorrow even better than today.
Writing Tips
Ask an editor, any editor, what they’re looking for and they’ll invariably tell you “a good book.” And when all is said and done, that’s what we’re all really looking for, isn’t it? We want to laugh, cry, be surprised and touched. We want to immerse ourselves in familiar or different worlds and live lives that reach beyond the everyday, yet share a fundamental theme that bonds us with the characters, lets us into their hearts and their minds for a short while, seduces us to understand the problems they’re facing and the decisions they make and – especially in romance – cheer and rejoice in the happily-ever-afters they find. We want each story we read or movie we watch to linger with us beyond the last page or the closing credits. And if the writer is really good, well, maybe we’ve also learned a little something along the way. Something that perhaps alters our own lives, makes them that much better, or provides a glimpse of something we may not have considered before. Gives us cause to say, “ah” or “oh” or hopefully both.
We’re of the belief that everybody has at least one book in them. A good one. The key is in the telling, the sharing. Dig deep. You can’t merely crank out pages, marvel at how the words snap, crackle and pop, and how they’re just as good if not better than those published by other authors you’ve read. That’s not what a good book is about. What it is about is the heart of the story and the storytelling. You can’t be the outsider looking in, recording external details; you must live the story, be the characters, feel their angst, their humiliation, their pain, their love. You must laugh out loud at the passages you want to be funny; sob at the black moment when it appears all is lost. Do this and what will come shining through is your own unique voice. Your way of telling a story in a way no one else can. Oh, sure, there are no truly new ideas out there. But what is different about your story is that it’s yours. Colored with your beliefs, your experiences, your distinctive take on life. And in the end, that’s what all stories are: reflections of life…reflections of you.
We also subscribe to the “plotting is better” school of thought. Think of plot as a rough map of the road you want to travel. A guide that keeps you on track but doesn’t prevent you from breathing in the unexpected scents you come across, appreciating the panoramic scenes you encounter or stop you from taking that fork in the road that’s not even on the map. To provide an example, with our McCoy miniseries we brainstormed a very detailed personal outline for the first five books. One that – based on the characters and their own perspectives – defined the roles they played in each other’s lives, created something special between all of them as well as between two or three of them, experiences only they would understand. And by extension, we hope it created an intimacy not only between each of the characters, but between the reader and the characters as well. This roadmap was something we were also able to refer to as we wrote Kat’s book. It allowed us to help shape a bond between the brothers and their baby sister that was shaded with all that came before, and colored with everything that is new and fresh and about promise for the future.
So, that said, the best possible tip we can give you is to write a good book. Everything else – the list of Top Ten Ways to Make a Your Book a New York Times bestseller, how to edit, what other authors/reviewers/editors/agents have to say on the subject – well, they’re all excuses not to write, really. And all topics you can take in after you’ve written that good book.
A good book we’re out here dying to read.
Here are a few online links to resources if you find yourself in need of those excuses, or have your good book in hand and are ready for the next step:
eHarlequin.com is an excellent resource for writers
Romance Writers of America’s home page: http://www.rwanational.com
In the NW Ohio/SE Michigan area? Check out Maumee Valley Romance Writers of America (MVRWA) at http://www.mvrwa.net
http://www.fictionfactor.com/articles.html
http://www.forwriters.com/
http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/
We wish you joy in your own personal journey…
FROM McCOY, WITH LOVE
