(Thanks to Kimberly for being our last guest blogger at Naughty and Spice! She even–without knowing–went with our change theme for the week ;) )
Wow, it’s so pretty here! I love guest blogging in a new place – new friends to make , new conversations to have. I love my regular blog haunts, but sometimes it’s fun to shake things up. It keeps me from getting bored, changes my perspective, and works new brain cells.
But while I like change, I also fear it a bit. Change is… well, it’s change and you never know what’s going to happen. Could be good; could be bad. The thing is, you never know until it’s too late to turn back.
Of course, change is at the heart of every book. That’s the point, right? No one wants to read about the same-old-same-old in a character’s life. I think the technical, writerly-type term for that change is the “Inciting Incident.” Something happens that changes the heroine’s life from the ordinary and sends her on her journey through the plot. In romance, that change is often called “The Hero.” ~grin~
But I like books where the heroine – for good reasons or not – makes a decision to make a change. Maybe she steps outside her comfort zone, does something she always wanted but only got the courage to do it today. Maybe she’s smarting over being called a prude by her ex, so she intentionally sets out to prove she’s not.
Is that always the wise, mature thing to do? Not necessarily. But I like those heroines who say “Nope. Not anymore. Today, I’m going to be brave, impetuous, and listen to that little inner voice that’s urging me to go for it.” That attitude is almost guaranteed to create one heck of a story for our heroine.
That’s one of the reasons I love my newest release (you knew I’d get to that eventually, right?). In Magnate’s Mistress…Accidentally Pregnant!, my heroine Ally is a bookish bookkeeper who is on her honeymoon – alone. She dumped her cheating fiancé but is just too practical to let a pre-paid vacation go to waste. Stepping outside her comfort zone onto a tropical island where she can be anyone and anything she wants, she embraces her inner femme fatale when the hero arrives on the scene.
That’s change. The good kind. The kind we should applaud.
But as I think you can tell from the title, that decision kinda backfired on my heroine, and now her life is about to change in a whole different kind of way. Pregnancy is a “no-going-back” kind of change, you know. J As the author, this kind of change is fun for me to write for my heroines, even if it’s not all that fun for the heroine herself.
One of my favorite quotes by Eleanor Roosevelt reads, “Do one thing every day that scares you.” Maybe that’s why I like those moments in a book when the heroine makes that decision to do the thing that scares her simply because she wants to shake things up and make a change. Even if it doesn’t work out quite like she planned.
Have you ever listened to that inner voice that told you to go for it? Done that scary thing just because it seemed like it was time to do it? How’d that work out for you? Did it backfire or did it work like a charm? Tell me all about it, and I’ll send one of you a copy of Magnate’s Mistress…Accidentally Pregnant!
PS: Be sure to drop by my website… I’m running the Writing Playground’s Jan/Feb contest and you could win a prize pack to help chase away those winter blues!
Magnate’s Mistress… Accidentally Pregnant! is a February release from Harlequin Presents.
Pregnant by the wild and wicked billionaire!
Ally Smith might have dumped her cheating fiancé, but she refuses to waste her non-refundable honeymoon in the Caribbean!
Trying to embrace her freedom, Ally meets sexy stranger Chris Wells… Not recognizing him as the famous thrill-seeking tycoon, Ally throws caution to the wind and allows Chris, with his hot body, to sweep her into an even hotter summer fling!
But back home Ally realizes that, unlike her tan, memories of their wild night will never fade… Oh-so-sensible Ally is expecting the playboy’s baby!
