Rekindling Inspiration

About four or five years ago, I was going through a horrible dry spell in my writing. I'd finished a suspense novel (Watch Over Me), and wasn't sure what I wanted to do next. I tried a few story ideas, got a few chapters in, and stalled out.

Ironically, this is something I went through again last year and just overcame it by finishing a book last week. However, that's not the story I'm telling today.

So, anyway, about that time I was offered my first publishing contract so I felt like I might be making progress with my writing. Even though that was in my head, my heart wasn't listening and I couldn't fall in love with a new plot. So, I indulged in my personal guilty pleasure for several months - writing fanfiction. Specifically for the science fiction program Stargate SG-1 (I love me some Jack O'Neill LOL). I wrote it and I wrote it a LOT! It was through that fanfiction that I met my best friend and now business partner... but again... a story for another day. I'm getting to a point here, I swear.

I wrote so much fanfiction (In fact, you can still read it here), that my good writing friends and critique partners started hounding me... "You love writing Stargate, why don't you write a sci fi?" At first, I thought they were insane, and ignored them for quite awhile. Until Jaycee Clark brought out the cattle prod. LOL So, I started to play. I took my affection for the snarky, sarcastic and oh-so-sexy Richard Dean Anderson, jumped ahead a few decades on Earth, and actually adapted a couple of my 'dead-in-the-water' plots... and began writing The Phoenix Rebellion. About this time, my first book was published.

Maybe a month after the release - and maybe 20k words into the first book in my new series - I was contacted by an editor for another publisher. She liked what she'd seen and heard about me, and wanted to know if I had anything available. I told her I didn't have anything 'done', but I had this idea for a series. She asked for it.

I figured that would be the end of the road. I didn't write Phoenix like a normal romance novel. One hero and one heroine with a mission in one book, complete by the end. etc. This series was written with a 'Cast' of Characters. While each book had a focus, every book had everyone in it, and with several POV's (not head hopping - just scenes written from the POV of not necessarily the main character of the BOOK). I figured I was way outside the box, and there was no way they'd take it.

I was wrong. She loved it. Next thing I knew, I had a 4-book contract (mind you.. 20k written on the first book) and I had a year to write the whole thing... the books would release as I wrote them. Panic set it... followed by euphoria... and then panic again.

In about 10 months, I wrote 4 books - each being in the vicinity of 80k words. My fingers were a blur and the stories just flowed. I didn't have to think, it was all just THERE. I trusted my instinct with each scene and let it happen.

What a rush!

(I know... you're still wondering where the point is...)

That was then, and now I'm ready to write the next series within the series. Another 4 books that continue where the first series left off. For days now, I've been attempting to plot them out. I tried typing notes on my computer. I tried a notebook. I tried index cards... but whenever I started, I just froze. Not knowing where to go or how to begin. I'm not a plotter... never have been...

And apparently never will be.

I decided I need to just write. This is my process, this is my method, and this is what works for me.

Last year, I actually 'started' working on it but switched to another project. The one I just finished (saving that for another day). Tonight, I opened that file I started and read it... and I love the feeling of reading something I've written and thinking "Oh, this is good!".

And I realize as I read... it is good. And I didn't plot it. I didn't use a notebook. I didn't get index cards. I just wrote and let the characters lead the way. So, I'm going to set my fingers to my keyboard... and hang on for the ride.

The Story Behind The Story

Tender Hearts

Available Again December 1, 2009

Instead of just providing you with a blurb and excerpt for Tender Hearts, I'd rather tell you why I wrote it.

Of course, none of my explanations will make sense unless you know what the book is about. So, here's the blurb:

What was the song the kids sang in school? First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage.

Not quite. First comes three amazing days in Maui, then comes the surprise baby, then comes... love? Yeah. The kind of love that sneaks up on you like a sudden rainstorm. You don't know it's coming until you're soaked to the skin.

What will it take for Billy and Erin to take the chance and admit their love? Admit that what they have is about more than the baby they will soon share? When tragedy strikes... they have to find strength in each other... for the love of their child.

Now... why I wrote it.

This book served as a cheap yet cathartic form of therapy for me. And before anyone assumes otherwise, NO, I didn't have a hot three-day affair in Maui that resulted in a love child. Not even close.

In Tender Hearts, Billy and Erin come together to plan a future for their baby and along the way realize that the attraction they felt in Maui wasn't just physical --- there is the potential for a great and wonderful love --- a great and wonderful life --- if they open themselves to it. But it can never be that easy.

Just as they turn down the right path, Erin's pregnancy takes a bad turn on its own and their daughter is born nearly three months premature. And herein lies my therapy.

My son, Patrick Michael - who is now 11 1/2 years old - was born three months premature due to the sudden and sever onset of clympsia. I skipped right over the Toxemia stage, right past the 'pre'-clympsia, into a full blown condition that had my blood pressure at a whopping 215/120. At one point, there was a serious concern I might have a stroke or suffer permanent neurological damage. And so, my son was brought into the world far too early.

I thank the Lord daily for my boy, because even though it wasn't easy, we could have faced far worse problems than we did with him. He weighed 2 lbs 15 oz and was 18 inches long. Yeah, 18 inches long and he still had 3 months to go. The doctors said then he'd probably clear 6 feet by the time he stopped growing - and looking at him now - I have no doubt. He looks eye to eye with his 17 year old sister. ;-)

He was in the hospital for 6 weeks. But, for me those six weeks were little more than a single, recurring day. I woke in the morning and called the NICU to check on how his night went. Then I took my daughter to school and headed for the hospital. I would spend hours there, just holding him. Sometimes I sang, sometimes I talked, sometimes I just read to myself and kept him close. My husband would come at lunch time and sit for the hour. Some time in the afternoon, I would go home to be with our daughter. He would go to the hospital after work and eventually join us at home. Before bed, we would call the NICU. How much did he eat? What does he weight? Did he have any apnea spells? Did he suffer any bradycardia?

I remember it now much more clearly than I did in the year or so after he was born. That time was spent just getting through. Just processing. And when he turned a year old, I decided I needed to work it all through somehow.

I'm a writer... so, how else would I deal with it but to write? :-) From that hard, hard year came Tender Hearts. Even now, nearly 12 years after Patrick's birth, I can't read some of the scenes in this book without openly weeping because so many memories come flooding back to me. The fear was the most raw, but I look at him now, and would live through it all again in a heartbeat.

Some writers say they have a "Book of the Heart", and I guess on many levels Tender Hearts is that book for me. It helped me heal my heart.

I hope you might find the joy in the story that grew out of all the sadness and fear. Because the greatest joys come at a price.

Purchase HERE on December 1

Gail R. Delaney

I had to find a new home

This is what happens when you go for too long without signing in to your blog - in my case, two years. You can't for the life of you remember what email or password you may have used at the time... you try every possible scenario... and in the end, you give up and start a new blog.