Category Archives: Romantic Suspense

The Perfectionism Trap

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Submission for Off The Grid is in the hands of my lovely editor at The Wild Rose Press. Whew! It’s a romantic suspense (of course) and takes place in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. In an area called the Downtown Eastside which is notorious for being Canada’s poorest postal code. It’s the first book of my West Coast Trilogy. I’ve very excited about this story so fingers crossed.

My initial intention was to write a short story. Then it stretched into a novella. It now stands just shy of 60,000 words. And I’m good with it. And now I want to attempt to write it into a trilogy. I don’t what it is about a set of three books that I love, but I do. I’m not big on reading series. I get to about, well, book four and stop.

But I want to give the idea of a trilogy a go. So I have plans for two more books: Off The Ledge, and Off The Streets. Even though the idea scares the beejeebers out of me because…what if I fail. What if I can’t do it. What if I can’t make it right? Or weave the threads together? Or? Or? Or in other words, make it perfect?

But luckily inspiration came my way while I was editing Off The Grid. I read on a blog post by Kristen Lamb: 10 Ways for an ADD Writer to be OOH! SHINY!…Productive. I didn’t need to get past the picture to discover my new mantra.

The world doesn’t reward perfectionists; it rewards finishers. Kristen Lamb

It just so happens that Writer Unboxed has post today titled Good Enough by M.J. Rose about conquering perfectionism.

If we allow ourselves to remain at the mercy of our desire for perfection, not only will the perfect elude us, so will the good.” – Alex Lickerman, M.D. in Happiness in this World

The Harvard Business Review: How To Escape Perfectionism.

But the world doesn’t reward perfection. It rewards productivity. And productivity can only be achieved through imperfection. Make a decision. Follow through. Learn from the outcome. Repeat over and over and over again. It’s the scientific method of trial and error. Only by wading through the imperfect can we begin to achieve glimpses of the perfect.

check out The Feel Good Lifestyle blog and Pia Savoie’s post on From Perfection to Action: 5 Simple Tips to (Finally) Free Yourself from Perfectionism.

The allure of perfection is like a mirage. It cannot be achieved, because there is no final destination.

I’m going to work on the letting go of perfect when it comes to my writing. To strive for quality, but not at the expense of finishing. To try new approaches. To stretch my wings. To help others reach their dreams.

To imperfection.

To honesty.

To effort.

Rocky Mountain Inspiration

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Easter and Calgary 2013 025We spent a lovely, lively four days with my sister, brother-in-law and two nephews in Calgary, Alberta, last week. Alberta is the neighboring province to our west. We also took a little  with a side trip to the picturesque town of Banff located in the Rocky Mountains that divide Alberta and British Columbia.

How’s that for a geography lesson? A teacher I am not. That’s my sister! She’s also a foodie. So we ate very well while we were there. Porridge with a variety of toppings for breakfast, homemade tomato for lunch, trout for dinner. Lawd, it was delicious. Good company and good food make for good times!

My husband and I lived in Calgary for four years after we were first married. We loved it there, but it just wasn’t where we were meant to live. I love my wide open prairies and my small city. But I still enjoy going back to the mountains and we hadn’t been there for far too long. Writers gain inspiration from all kinds of settings. But there’s something about being surrounded by the majesty of the Rocky Mountains that stirs the creative juices. For a romantic suspense writer the possibilities are endless. Every setting comes with it’s own dangers. With it’s own storms. It’s own extremes. Own challenges. There are high divides, passes and alpine lakes here. Variations in weather and season. These mountains are home to moose, bighorn sheep, mountain lions, black bears, and others from butterflies to eagles. It is a rich environment to draw from.

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What settings inspire you? Have a favorite book set in the midst of a mountain range? Do you pick books because of setting?

End of November Update

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One day until the end of November and it’s snowing. Again. NaNoWriMo is over. Mustaches and beards disappear. Hopefully. And all is well with the world. Except here comes Christmas. I used to be an uber organized person. Now, I’m not. I don’t know what happened. I have no excuse. The good news is I remember most things.

November did see me taking part in a writing challenge, just not the official NaNoWriMo. At this point slinging out 50,000 words that require major rewriting at the end of it doesn’t work for me. I tried it once. I ‘won’. I ditched 95% of those words but have kept the same characters and the same town. That’s it. I’m much happier with the story this time around. My goal for November was 500 words a day. It was an informal challenge supported by my writing group. We weighed in everyday on our private Facebook page and inspired each other. I didn’t keep super strict track but I’m pretty sure it’s all evened out and I’m on pace to slightly exceed that goal.

Obsession (Kate and Seth’s story) is currently sitting at 30,745 words. 13,693 of those words written prior to November. Here’s a sneak peak at the first paragraph.

Kate Logan figured hiking the long road back to self-respect sucked at the best of times. These weren’t the best of times. The splintered wood of her boutique’s back door jamb was rough and sharp under her fingers. With her bank account sitting at next to zero, repairing the break-in damage was an expense she couldn’t afford. She had insurance, but collecting took time.

I’m also working on a manuscript called Off The Grid. Today I signed up to pitch it to  Harlequin’s Dana Hamilton on January 4th as part of their Speed Dating with Editorial Assistant Dana Hamilton opportunity. We’ll see what happens.

And this morning I was busy jotting down an idea for the first scene of the third book in a trilogy that doesn’t have a book one or two. Just plenty of ideas about three adopted brothers and three women who understand about sacrifice.

On December 5th I’m giving a reading along with Mary Balogh and Annette Bower called Some Enchanted Evening…A Romance Reading.

If you happen to be in the Regina area, join us at New Dance Horizons at 7:00 pm!

Starting December 1st I’m offering a Goodreads Giveaway for two copies of my romantic suspense, Backlash. It’s open until the 15th of January.

 

Tuesday’s Table: Mimi Barbour’s Cranberry Shortbread Cookies

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Thank you so much for inviting me to be on your blog, Karyn. I’m really happy to share my story and cookie recipe with your readers.

Author of The Vicarage Bench Series, Angels with Attitude Series, and a hot, new romantic suspense series called Vegas. Mimi Barbour lives on Vancouver Island and writes her romances with tongue in cheek and a mad glint in her eye. “If I can steal a book lover’s attention away from their every-day grind, absorb them into a love story, and make them care about the ending, then I’ve done my job.”

I once won a cookie contest with my Cranberry Shortbread Cookies.

I had decided to enter into the Chatelaine contest, because my recipe had such a great history that I thought to share it with the readers. To my astonished delight, my cookies were picked, if I remember correctly, as winner #3. I still have the coffee pot, blender and various baking ware as proof.

All 10 winners were printed in the Chatelaine magazine for the entire world to see, and I’ll admit to walking around with a puffed up chest for a few days. Now that I remember, I do believe it was the first time I’d ever seen anything I wrote in print!

The story goes that as a new bride, I had moved to northern Canada, to a place called Stewart, B.C. It was within a few miles of the Alaska border so it was pretty isolated. In those days (and unfortunately still today) the best meal I could produce was a killer peanut-butter and banana sandwich. Needless to say, my husband is our chef and has been since the beginning. My little contribution to our meals is the dessert.

Understandable, as a new bride, I had very few recipes and the holiday season was approaching. So at a bingo game with some other ladies I lamented my terrible lack. An older Scottish woman, who I thought a real sweetheart, said, “Lassie, I will give you a true Scottish shortbread recipe handed down from my mother and hers before her. I’ve kept this to myself for that many years, but I like you. Since you’re a new bride, I’ll share.”

So saying, she took a napkin from the table and wrote her shortbread recipe on it. I quickly rewrote it once I got home and have used the basis of this recipe for many others

The variety that won the contest has ½ cup of dried cranberries and ½ cup of pecan pieces added.

To this day, I get so many compliments on my wonderful cookies that it truly isn’t Christmas for my family without a plateful of these decorating the table.

**A sequel to this story is that the woman’s daughter, who was a young girl back then, called me a few weeks after reading the magazine. She asked me if these were her mother’s cookies. When I said yes she laughed and told me that many years ago her mother had slowly faded with Alzheimer’s without ever having written her precious recipe down. By the time her daughter’s had realized they had no copies, she couldn’t help them. Now they were finally able to have the cookies they had grown up eating.

Contacts for Mimi:

I do enjoy meeting readers so please drop me a line at mimi@mimibarbour.com

 Amazon Page: http://amzn.to/SUv0yv

http://www.mimibarbour.com/

http://mimibarbour.blogspot.com

Twitter @mimibarbour

Facebook 

Sensational Secondary Characters

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The Girly Girl Blog Hop

It’s a tough job but someone’s got to do it. After all, every protagonist needs backup, be they crazy neighbor, quirky best friend, or stranded alien. But it’s a tough gig. Your character file is smaller. And frankly, your odds of surviving are greatly reduced depending on the type of story you turn up in. But while the job may come with less perks, if you do it right, you might just win recognition as Best Supporting Secondary Character.

So, in honor of secondary characters everywhere, let the Sensational Secondary Characters Blog Hop Begin.

Where would King Arthur have been without his Knights of the Round Table? Where would Calvin be without Hobbes? Can we even picture Robin Hood without his Merry Men?  I met one of my favorite secondary characters as a teen while reading Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Diana Berry becomes Anne Shirley’s bosom friend on first sight. She’s privileged, pretty and amiable. The perfect kindred spirit for an orphaned girl with an overflowing imagination and talent for finding trouble. Adorable Diana is the perfect foil for Anne. But it is her immediate acceptance and steadfast loyalty to Anne that makes her special.

Minor characters can be playful, vengeful, fussy, or any number of others things as long as they remember their place. No novel can survive without them, but they’re not allowed to steal the show. In my romantic suspense, Backlash, my heroine Lily Wheeler has her best friend Kate Logan. She’s nothing if not loyal.

Here’s a sample. Kate is grilling the hero, Chase Porter.

“Is this the part where you ask me what my intentions are?” (Chase) returned the once-over glance. Spectacular from head to toe and born for high heels.

(Kate) ignored him. “I’d rather know how much trouble Lily’s landed in?”

“Nothing is going to happen to Lily.”

“And you’re basing that assumption on what?” She cocked a hip.

“On the fact that it will happen over my dead body.”

Her eyes stayed cool. “As reassuring as that statement is, I’d feel better knowing you have an actual plan.”

He ground his teeth together. “You’re going to have to trust me.”

Musical laughter filled the air. “Be thankful we have a history, and know if I didn’t think I could trust you, believe me, we’d be having a very different conversation right now.”

Because they did have a history, and because Kate loved Lily, he attempted an explanation. 

I’m giving away one ebook copy of Backlash to a commenter. All you have to do to enter is tell me your favorite quality in a secondary character, leave your email address, and be entered to win. Click here to continue on your way! Thanks to Libby Mercer for bringing us all together.

What he’s sworn to protect, she’s willing to sacrifice to save those she loves…

When dedicated teacher Lily Wheeler interrupts a vicious gang attack on one of her students, she vows it won’t happen again. But her rash interference puts her in the path of a cold-blooded killer and the constable tracking him—a man she has little reason to trust, but can never forget.

Constable Chase Porter returned to Aspen Lake to see justice done, not renew old acquaintances. But when he rescues the woman he once loved from a volatile situation, he realizes his feelings for Lily haven’t lessened over the years.

Now, the dangerous killer Chase has sworn to capture has Lily in his sights. Can Chase and Lilly learn to trust each other again before it’s too late—or will old insecurities jeopardize their future?

Manic Monday

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It’s the second last Monday of August. How did that happen? Harvest is in full swing here on the prairies. Wheat being one of our staple crops with the first attempts at planting dating back to 1753. Stats like that one always make me smile. When I was a little girl I remember thinking everyone’s grandparents had come from somewhere else. Mine were immigrants to this country by way of Poland, Norway and Sweden. It wasn’t until I started school and began learning about the long and rich history of our First Nations people and that of the first European settlers coming later at the beginning of the 18th century that I realized how new our roots were to Canada.

My romantic suspense novel, Backlash, takes places in the month of September. My fictional setting of Aspen Lake, being a resort town located at the foot of the scenic Moose Mountains, would still be surrounded by farmland. Frost is on the ground in the morning. Days are still warm. Nights are filled with stars.

I love to savor the approach of autumn. Warm enough to enjoy the beach during the day and cool enough for backyard fires in the evening. The air smells different. It’s heavy with dust of harvest, the scent of ripening fruit, and the bittersweet smell of brand new back-to-school supplies. We’re mixing the daytime summer fashions of shorts and flip-flops by adding jeans and light jackets to our evenings.

And let’s not forget the stars. So bright. A startling reminder of the vastness of the universe. With the sun setting earlier we have more time to enjoy them. I never fail to look up and wonder what others in past centuries have thought about as they gazed up at the same stars.

What is your favorite part about this time of the year?

I’ll sign off with this is a snippet from page 97 of Backlash. It’s early evening in the middle of September. Chase, Lily and Jason were involved in a incident earlier in the day. Lily is waiting for Chase to come by and let her know what’s happening.

Lily led Mike out onto her front steps and lifted her face up to catch the leftover heat from the setting sun. It didn’t help. The bone deep chill remained. She rubbed her arms, wishing for a sweater.

She wondered where Chase was and why he’d sent an emissary. “So, he’s with his aunt?”

 Here’s What Reviewers Are Saying About Backlash!

5 Stars

“Chase and Lily are made for each other; they complement each other so well.”

“The description of the enforcer was so vivid that it seemed that I could actually envision the soulless enforcer in front of me.”

CozyReader at The Romance Reviews

4 Stars

Ms. Good sure spins a tale of deceit and a trail of clues that lead right to a climax I never imagined.
Need some suspense to keep you up long into the night? Why not giveBacklash a chance. Immerse yourself in the strong sense of right and wrong, with a great cast of characters.

Sunflower at Long and Short Reviews

 A Rating

Add to that, this book is fabulous on the suspense side. Lots of high-stakes danger, really evil bad guys (super-creepy spider tattoo guy), and it kept me guessing how the author was going to resolve it all till the very end. Overall this was a fabulous book and definitely one that reminds me why I LOVE to read! Perfect entertainment and escape!

Christi Snow at Smitten With Reading

 5 Stars

WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW… could i say WOW anymore? You bet! I don’t have time to write my full review now, BUT if you enjoy romantic suspense with killer sexual tension and a smokingly HOT yet tortured lead, then y’all need to read this!!

Sheryl on Goodreads

I Can’t Believe It’s Day 8

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It’s Wednesday and Day 8 of my virtual book tour for my romantic suspense, Backlash. Once again I’m in two places sharing information!

Cathie Dunn – My Top Ten Writing Romantic Suspense Tips

It’s Raining Books – Five Things You Might Not Know About Me

Stop in and share your thoughts and be entered to win a $25 GC to Amazon!

 

What he’s sworn to protect, she’s willing to sacrifice to save those she loves…

Backlash is available from: The Wild Rose Press ,  Amazon – Print ,  Amazon – Ebook ,  Barnes and Noble ,  Bookstrand ,  All Romance Ebooks