Terri also writes under the names TL Schaefer and Keira Ramsay. She has been published by Samhain and Liquid Silver Books. Please leave a comment for a chance to win a signed copy of The Summerland and The Brotherhood. Winner will be announced on Monday.

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The Hills are Alive…

…not so much with the sound of music, but with the beauty of imagery. Imagery plays a pivotal part in creating any book, though it is something often overlooked, especially early in an author’s career.

When Dionne asked me to guest blog, she just said it should be about “writing.” Hell. I’m not a “funny” person by nature (hence the reason I write romantic suspense and erotic romance), and not usually snarky… at least not online . So I pondered long and hard about what to write, and hopefully I got it down without sounding preachy or too didactic. And if it does, my only defense is that I work for the military in my day job! LOL. Sigh… So, with no further ado, a subject near and dear to my heart… using setting as a secondary “character”. I hope you enjoy, and that no cyber rotten tomatoes are thrown my way!!

Picture an erotic romance, rife with emotion and sexual tension. If that is all the author strives to create, it may leave the reader “floating” or disconnected. Why? Because establishing the scene, making setting a “character” is often what grounds us in the story, making it more real, more tactile.

But, as with everything, an author can completely go the other way, and give us so much that it bogs down the story, or makes the reader skip huge chunks of text to get to the “good” stuff.

Seriously, everyone has that “favorite” book or author, one who touches our heart and makes us want to gobble up everything they write. My first was Stephen King (and we all know that he can write setting like there’s no tomorrow), and when I started reading romance again in my thirties, it was Tami Hoag… specifically Dark Paradise. She kicked ass in describing everything about the setting, so much so that I’m sure I’d recognize some of the places she took me too if I ever visited. Two other authors who excel at this are Jennifer Crusie and Janet Evanovich. You not only know where the story takes place, but you feel it, and in doing so, learn something vital about the hero or heroine in the process.

Dark Paradise inspired me to sit my happy ass down at the keyboard and attempt my hand at storytelling. My first book (The Summerland) was okay, but probably a bit overboard, at least when it came to setting:

This portion of his county had always reminded him of a living, medieval cathedral, like something you would see paintings of in history books. Black oaks wore a stately velvety coat of emerald moss, their thick, sturdy arms reaching for everything and nothing at the same time. Warring with the oaks for supremacy were the rod-straight bodies of huge Ponderosa Pines, evergreen boughs clawing toward the searing beauty of the sun. Beneath the grandeur of these monarchs, a graceful carpet of purple-blue lupine bobbed playfully in the searing breeze, their feet firmly entrenched in a thick layer of pine straw and oak leaves and red mountain clay.

That living carpet now crackled and shifted beneath each deputy’s feet, concealing and revealing with each movement.

The one thing I will say about that book was that people who had been to Mariposa (where the book is set), told me the actually recognized some of the places I’d described, so at least I did that right!

My second try was a bit better (at least I think so):

It was boring, bland, a cookie-cutter residence in a neighborhood full of them. He could afford better, and had, in fact, only bought the place to appease Dena. He really took a look at it for the first time in a while, maybe ever. It was not a home, not like Josie’s. Not even like his parent’s house downtown. No, his place was exactly what it appeared to be. A wooden box that housed a single man. It even smelled sterile. The odor of a well-loved or even well lived in house was conspicuously absent.

There were no vibrant colors in his living room, no splashes of light or texture. Instead, he’d buried himself in a sea of sand-colored furniture, of Antique White walls and off-the-shelf doors with standard knobs.

The fireplace across the expanse of tan carpet was white, the mantle adorned with standard brass candleholders and never-burned candles. The fireplace itself had never been used, even on the coldest of nights. He knew what his house looked like. It was a showplace home, all shiny veneer and no real guts.

Using the above as an example… by giving the reader a slice of Doug’s home life, I hopefully revealed something about his character as well… that something was missing in his life. If you compare the two blurbs, the first is simply a “thing”…a “tell”, if you will, rather than a “show”.

Maybe it’s just me, but when I read, I want to lose myself in the sweeping saga of a book, even if only for my allotted reading time. If I don’t have a good grasp of where I “am”, then I’m never pulled fully under. If I read about London, I want to feel the cobblestone streets under my feet, feel the fog as it licks my skin, smell the Thames as it sweeps by.

As a writer, I’m totally guilty of only writing about the places I’ve been to. Why? Because I want the description, the feel of the locations, to be as accurate as possible, but also to have that extra something that pulls the reader in so totally that they forget about what time it is, that they put laundry in the washer, or that they wish the damned day job was over so they could enter my world again.

Sheesh, I could go on for days about this, and probably do it much better in person than in the cyber world, but I hope this at least entertained.

Thanks Dionne, for letting me play!!!

Grade: C+

Dear Bam,

You’ll have to forgive me. I know I’ve been delinquent of late, seeing as how I’ve been busy studying for the big exam [Ed. Note: Which she passed. Holla at yo gurl!] and *ahem* spawning, as you so eloquently put it to someone else. Since this is the case, I am stealing your fabulous review format (which I plan to use from now on, ’cause I’m a lazy bitch…and when you do something right it should be repeated often). Believe it or not, I have read a few books that had nothing to do with Taxation, Accounting or Corporate and Securities Law. While I know you would find reviews of those books scintillating, I’ve read Sasha White’s Trouble and will review that rather than Executive Stock Options and Stock Appreciation Rights. Everyone… don’t sigh with relief quite yet.

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Happy birthday, Daniel Radcliffe. Science, it’s not even pervy to lust after him anymore. Heh.

Is it me or is he starting to look alarmingly like Stuart Townsend?

One random commenter will win a copy of Midnight Brunch AND Happy Hour at Casa Dracula. Go for it! Winner will be announced this Friday.

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When I first started writing fiction, an editor told my agent, “If she ever writes anything conventional, I’d love to see it.” I took this as encouragement (which is different than taking it as advice) and wrote a romantic comedy — with vampires. Why vampires? I thought it would be funny to have a romantic story in which a smart, feisty young woman was socially rejected by rich, snobby bloodsuckers. As a result, my novels Happy Hour at Casa Dracula and Midnight Brunch don’t fit neatly into any category.

I was so out of the publishing scene that I didn’t know that books were marketed by genres. Even if I had known I probably wouldn’t have paid attention, because I always think that rules are for other people. This doesn’t make me an ideal employee, which is why I admired former co-workers who spent every day reading romance novels. They’d balance books on their laps and when anyone came by, they’d slide their chairs close to their desks, hiding the books. I thought it was fabulous that they’d figured out a way to get paid for reading.

They loaned me a few of their novels. I have a vague memory of a story involving a pirate and a captive woman, the high seas, and lots of thrusting and heaving of various things. I liked the books well enough, but I never got hooked on the genre. Occasionally I would write a short romantic spoof to entertain my pals. “They’re good,” they said. “Keep writing.”

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I can’t ever discuss Joey W. Hill without squeeing like a 13 year old girl in a Justin Timberlake concert. My voice gets all high-pitched and I start flapping my hands around my face and it just gets embarrassing. My first JWH book was Natural Law, the first BDSM book I had ever read, and to this day, nothing has ever beaten it for me in terms of emotional impact in an erotic romance novel. With Miss Hill, it’s not just about the sex. It’s just not about the butt plugs, the whips, the handcuffs… but being able to experience vicariously what it’s like to have true mastery over someone or to truly submit to another individual. Every single sex scene in her book advances the story and contributes to the development of the character. She doesn’t write sex for sex’s sake. She makes every lash across the back seem like a tender kiss on the eyebrow. She… ahem. Sorry, got carried away there for a second. Have I told you guys how thrilled I am Joey FRICKIN’ W. Hill agreed to guest-blog for me? And HERE IT IS!

If you leave a comment, you may be randomly picked to win any book in Miss Hill’s backlist (print or digital), PLUS a deck of snarkalicious Ellora’s Cave playing cards. How awesome is that? Winner to be announced on Friday, July 27.

When I asked Dionne what she’d like me to blog about, she suggested that “people would be thrilled to read about your writing process. You write such evocative, dark and moving prose. It’s beautiful.”

So here’s a taste of the beautiful process…

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