Today I have an absolutely fantastic guest post by author Siobhan Kinkade. With my second little princess turning one this weekend, I can relate to the lessons she shares today. Be sure to keep reading to find out more about her book Loki's Gameand enter to win a copy.
Writing Lessons
A year ago, I became a mom. Since then I’ve learned more than I ever imagined about writing. It’s kind of amazing the things that parenthood puts into perspective for a person. Bad things don’t seem quite so awful, and the good things become even better. I never imagined the way my life would change when my little girl was born, and for a while before she came along, I worried I wouldn’t be able to fit all of my life into just twenty-four hours at a time.
For example, major plot crises aren’t quite so major when you’re up to your elbows in stinky diapers and dirty bottles. Oh, and when your characters throw tantrums about their next set of actions, they can never scream as loud as a hungry infant.
Of all the interesting lessons my baby girl taught me, I think the best one is the feeling of unconditional love. When I look into her big, brown eyes, I see nothing but love. When I hold her, words can’t describe how I feel about her. It’s a feeling that transcends any other.
It’s a useful bit of knowledge. When I’m writing romance, to know that feeling makes it much easier to put pen to paper and transfer emotions. To know true, absolute love makes my characters love each other that much more.
She’s at the age now where she’s starting to pick up bad habits. Tantrums, for example. When we tell her “no”, she balls up her fists and starts to cry. The crying isn’t real, of course, because she’s always looking around to see who’s going to react. When we don’t react, it makes her even angrier. Then all of a sudden, she gets over it.
This latest lesson has made it much easier to diffuse stubbornness in my characters. I know how to handle them when they want to do things I don’t want them to do. Tantrums are unappealing no matter the age, and I’ve learned that if I can handle a fussy toddler, I can handle a grown-up sliver of my imagination.
At least, I think that’s how it works. I never know from day to day what new lesson I’m going to learn. The good news is that I don’t have to do the day job tomorrow, so I get to stay home with my baby girl and learn something new.
Wish me luck.
About the Book:
Unemployed museum curator Lily Redway responds to an advertisement in the newspaper, thinking she is applying for a job. On the other side of that small, black-and-white box waits two things: a fantasy world come to life and a man named Rowan Keir.Rowan is a man with many secrets. He is a shape-shifter, a descendent of old world mythology, and the guardian of a rare and valuable Nordic artifact. He is also being hunted by the god Loki and has spent the last six hundred years outsmarting and outrunning him.
With the fury of Asgard on Rowan’s trail, Lily finds herself caught up in a real-life fantasy story, a love triangle, and an ages-old war that pitches her into a different world and one very hard truth: All is fair in love and war.
About the Author:
At a very early age, Siobhan developed a love of reading. By first grade she was on a fifth grade level, and by the time she was a teenager she spent every penny she earned on new books. Oddly enough she gravitated toward science fiction, fantasy and horror while avoiding the romance genre at all costs. It wasn’t until her mother introduced her to Nora Roberts that she realized romance could be fun.Not much has changed since then. She is still a voracious reader and recovering grammar junkie.
Left to her own devices, she plots interesting ways to seduce, frighten, and destroy. While she finds herself drawn to the dark and eerie, she is also very much a free spirit and hopeless romantic. With multiple stories in publication and several more on the way she spends her time writing happy-ever-afters for the underdogs.
Siobhan writes both contemporary and dark paranormal romance (and a little bit of fantasy and horror under another name, omitted to protect the guilty), much of it of a highly erotic nature. Having never really enjoyed reading romance, she finds writing it to be a cathartic act. By manipulating the characters, she can make the happy endings much more satisfying for herself, and hopefully for her readers as well.
