Coleen Kwan

I was tagged by my writing friend Jennifer Brassel for this blog hop. Jen is a history buff whose reincarnation story The Curse will be released later this year. Thanks Jen!

As you can guess, this blog hop is all about an author's writing process. Here are the questions and my answers:

Question 1: What am I working on?
Answer: I have just finished the first draft of a category-length contemporary romance, and I'm letting the manuscript marinade a bit before embarking on the second draft.

Question 2: How does my work differ from others of its genre?
Answer: Hmm, that's a question I don't dwell on much. My work is constantly evolving, but I like to think I write emotional, character-driven romances.

Question 3: Why do I write what I do?
Answer: Because that's what I like to read, and those are the story ideas that pop into my head. Seems I don't have much control over that.

Question 4: How does your writing process work?
Answer: I don't follow any hard and fast rules. I tend to plan out my book with short chapter summaries outlining the major plot points. Then I write a fast first draft which inevitably throws up lots of plot holes and deviations which need to be resolved in the second draft. The third draft is more to do with polishing and copy-editing.

My latest release:

Bittersweet Rescue

She rescued him, and saved herself.

When Ellie Sherwood rescues her boss from drowning, she never anticipates the consequences. For three years she’s existed in an emotional limbo after a catastrophic family tragedy, but now she’s awake and ready to seize life with both hands. And that includes the sexy boss she’s been secretly infatuated with for some time.

Drake Crawford is about to achieve his lifelong goal when a car accident plays havoc with his life. Not only is his plan for revenge delayed, but his once demure personal assistant is now shockingly, irresistibly forward. Drake is against office affairs, and Ellie is vital to his success, but he can’t get her out of his mind, and besides, he does owe her...

His solution—a two-week break with Ellie at his wilderness hideout. They’ll indulge in a scorching, private affair, and when it’s over they’ll return to their normal lives. But as Drake discovers more about Ellie, he realises her quiet exterior hides a backbone of steel. When she asks him to walk away from his ultimate goal, he knows it’s time to let her go.

I always enjoy visiting this Aboriginal cave shelter. It lies in the slope of a hill overlooking a grassy meadow. The stencils along the back wall depict hands and weapons. The roof of the shelter bears the smoke of many fires, while the floor is soft ashy sand. The people who used this cave would have hunted game in the surrounding eucalyptus woodland - wallabies, possums, wombats, goannas, and snakes. For water there's a nearby gully which only fills with water during storms, but a permanent river runs further down the valley.



It’s a peaceful, meditative spot. When I’m here it’s easy to imagine people gathering together in the shelter and lighting a fire to cook their hunt. Afterward, as the night draws in, I can see them sitting around the fire and exchanging stories, perhaps about the day’s hunt or myths about the Dreamtime. From these early beginnings storytelling evolved to become an intrinsic part of our culture. The people who sat around those fires passed their tales on through oral means, while my stories exist as a series of magnetised dots on a hard drive, but I like to think I share a connection with these early story tellers.

Some writers love nothing better than to pop on the earphones and crank up the music while they write. It energises them, gives them inspiration. I’m the opposite. I can’t write with distractions like music or TV on. But sometimes listening to the right piece of music can help set the tone for a particular scene.

 I needed some mood-setting music when I was writing a pivotal scene in my first contemporary romance WHEN HARRIET CAME HOME. In my scene it’s night time and my hero and heroine, Adam and Harriet, are at a quiet lookout, dancing together under the stars. Music plays from Adam’s car. But what song were they dancing to? I wanted something emotional to match the scene and eventually found an evocative song by Melody Gardot called ‘Our Love Is Easy’.


I have to confess straight up that I’m not a fan of jazz, but I happened to catch a TV interview with singer-songwriter Melody Gardot and was intrigued by her story. An horrific accident put her in hospital for a year and left her with serious injuries, one of them making her hyper-sensitive to both light and sound. During her recovery she learned to play the guitar and began writing music. Her music has been described as ‘a blend of cocktail jazz and torch song’, and her singing is rich and soulful.

After I listened to ‘Our Love Is Easy’ several times, it made writing the scene in my book much easier and hopefully improved the emotional punch too. If you like smooth, cool jazz, or even if you don't, take a listen!

Does your character like risotto or paella?

Before I start writing a new book, I like to do a lot of planning. I write a lot of description of my main characters—what they look like, what their childhood was like, what their hopes and dreams are. But it’s only when I start writing the story that I start to find out more about them. Do they like reading? What kind of books do they enjoy? Would they be the kind of person who owns an ereader, or is it dead trees all the way?

The other day I was writing a scene in which the heroine cooked dinner for the hero. In my initial draft I had her cooking risotto, simply because I couldn’t see her cooking a roast lamb, for instance. But when I reread the scene, risotto didn’t seem right, so I changed it to paella. Paella suited her much better, I thought. Paella was spicy, messy, robust. It was her. Now it made no difference to the scene whether she cooked risotto or paella, and the hero would have enjoyed whatever she made, but it made a difference to me. It’s this level of detail I wouldn’t have thought of in my initial planning. Only when I came to write the scene did I realise that she was a paella girl.

By writing the first draft I discover so much more about my characters, their motivations, and their conflicts. The characters, who before were just a list of words in my plan, become real people. My first draft is messy, laden with clichés and mistakes, missing important scenes, lacking the right pace, but it’s also where my characters start to breathe and (hopefully) behave like real people, even to the point of preferring paella over risotto.

VRoig

Whenever I receive a revision letter from an editor, I experience a moment of panic. The revisions seem so drastic, so difficult. I can't possibly see how I'll manage them or get them done on time. I think part of the problem is I'm too attached to the manuscript I submitted. I've laboured over it to the point that in my mind this is the final product, not to be tampered with.

But I've learned that the panic is only momentary. My manuscript should be dissected. And words are just words. I'll survive if I cut out a few thousand. I can write a few thousand new ones. And once I jump in and start shoving things around, I see how right my editor is, how spot on her comments are, and I begin to breathe easier. I can do this. It's only words.

I've been tagged for 'Lucky Seven' by my writing friend Whitney E-K! Lucky Seven involves going to page 77 of your current manuscript, counting down 7 lines, and then posting the next 7 sentences on your blog.

My 7 lines come from a Victorian historical (with steampunk elements) which I recently completed.


But now she’d transformed into something else, some shameless creature with primitive, insistent urges. Or perhaps it was Julian who was the cause. Perhaps she’d always carried these latent feelings buried deep within, and it was only Julian who could bring them to the surface.

The idea perturbed her. She screwed her eyes shut, but still Julian’s image floated in her mind. His bronzed body was a thing of beauty, the sculpted lines of muscle, bone and sinew a hymn of virility.

She must get away from him.