How to recharge this geek's creative batteries

Nerdgasm and geekgasm are fun words. Especially in a house full of geeks, or when watching one's nerdy brother play Killer Bunnies and the Journey to Jupiter for the first time. You get your supplies at Zumdish's Intergalactic Department Store, fyi. Major geek points if you know what that's from!

There aren't any nifty words for the opposite effect, though. Which I've been in for the last few weeks when I discovered Farscape was no longer on Netflix streaming. My brother has it all on DVD, but he's three hours away. Most inconvenient when the sudden need for Farscape hits.
The whole fam are recent converts to Fringe, which is free for streaming to Amazon Prime members. Yay! But I watch it with my sister so we don't get all mixed up like we did with Doctor Who and have to remember who's seen which episode and where we left off together.

She went to bed before me the other night, when we were watching Fringe, and I'm sitting there feeling the need to recharge the creative juices. But there's no Farscape on Netflix and last time I checked it on Amazon Prime it wasn't free. What the heck, I'll check again. Boom! Free for Amazon Prime members!!

One happy geek with creative juices recharged: Check.

Read More

To Romance, Or Not To Romance

When I first started writing seriously in 2007 (by that I mean with the idea of getting published someday) I initially balked at the idea of calling myself a romance writer. Part of that had to do with impressions I formed as a child, part of it had to do with the not so great things many Christians think when they hear the words "romance novel".

But as I've grown and matured as a writer--and a woman--it's been easier and easier to accept that yes, I do indeed write romance. And I'm quite proud of it. Writing a good romance is hard work.

I'm hard at work on the second book of what I fondly call "the space opera", mostly because I haven't found the right series title yet. The first one was clearly a romance. Hero and heroine meet, instant attraction, he wants to protect her though he knows his heart will never survive losing yet another person he loves. She's waiting, without even knowing it, for the man who will see her and need her, unlike every other man in her life. Their first kiss clocks in at 600-something words. They get married at the end of the book. It's a romance. Set in the future. That involves faster-than-light travel and oh, can't forget the aliens!


The second one, not so much of a romance. H&H from first book are the main H&H in this one, are still very much falling in love and dealing with the fallout of who he really is and how it changes their relationship. So it's very romantic. But it's not a romance according to the definition of a romance.

Last week I realized I missed it. The whole crafting a romance thing. Boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. I really miss it. A lot. There's nothing more amazing, for me, than watching two people discover each other.

So while it is with great sadness that I finish up The King's Mistress and say goodbye to A'yen and Fae as my leads, it is with great anticipation I start plotting To Save A Life and make Ro and Jasmine fall in love.

Read More