Lynn Raye Harris

I’m over at the Romance Author Hot Spot today, participating in the Christmas Bash! There’s a chance to win a Kindle! My post goes live at noon EST. Hope you can stop by!

**Winner of the BAM card and signed book is: Tracey! Email me at Lynn AT LynnRayeHarris DOT com to claim your prize! Thanks everyone for participating!

Hey, y’all! Just a quick stop here as I’m busily writing on Book #9, which is due very, very soon. But it’s the holidays, and y’all are my faithful friends and readers, so I wanted to say thanks for everything with a quick contest. I may do a couple of these over the next few days, but let’s start this off with a signed backlist book and a $10 Books-a-Million card. I’ll open it to international readers too, but I’m pretty sure if you win that I’ll have to limit you to the book because I don’t think you can spend that BAM card overseas. I’ll tuck in some other goodies to compensate though.

Leave me a comment and tell me what’s your favorite thing about Christmas and/or New Year’s! (Or your winter holiday of choice, if you don’t celebrate Christmas.)

I have the worst time with the beginnings of my books sometimes. There are times when it comes to me so completely formed that I don’t end up changing much in rewrites, and other times when I rewrite the opening chapters three or four times. I am currently working on one of those books.

Here are the openings of two books that came to me pretty much as they are: Prince Voronov’s Virgin** and The Devil’s Heart. (At the top of the pages, hit the forward arrows and you can read the first chapters.)

I just knew they were right — and other than a few minor tweaks, they stayed that way. But this book. Yikes. (The last as well!) I wrote it one way and I was struggling to make forward progress. I was convinced it was a good setup (opened at a gloomy burial in a storm swept cemetery) and I was pushing it forward as hard as I could.

But it wasn’t the set up that was wrong. It was the characters’ deepest conflicts. My editor helpfully pointed that out when I sent her the first chapter. (Thank God!) I’ve learned that when I’m pushing it hard to make forward motion, and it’s like trying to push Sisyphus’s rock uphill, that I really should listen to my intuition. Because when I cut the cemetery, changed the characters’ internal issues, and threw them together in a different setting, the story took off like a rocket. I know it’s working when the words just keep coming, when I’m excited about what the characters will do next, and when I’m nervous and a bit overwhelmed that I’m not getting everything on the page. That means it’s flowing naturally.

So listen to your internal voice. Often, she knows what she’s talking about even if you don’t understand why. If a section of the book is giving you hell, if you’re struggling for every word and trying hard to make it work, you might be traveling a wrong path. Have the courage to cut what isn’t working and go back to the fork in the road. Yesterday, I had to make another of those choices — I cut 2000 words — but it began to roll and I made it all up again very quickly.

Listen to the voice. It knows when you’re messing it up on the subconscious level and just can’t see it. Cutting is hard, starting over is hard, but don’t be afraid to try it. Save the words in another file and you haven’t really lost anything, have you?

**A huge shout out to my UK readers — in the two weeks it’s been on sale, you’ve bought all the copies of Prince Voronov’s Virgin that Mills & Boon had available on the website! And you’ve made PVV the #1 Mills & Boon bestseller for two weeks in a row! I’m thrilled and honored!

Just a quick post to tell you all that I’m working hard on book number 9 — yes, number 9! Can you believe it? I can’t. It’s been two years since I got the call, and only a little over a year since the first book came out. Time really does fly when you’re having fun! This one is untitled, but I can tell you it features a yummy half-Indian hero named Raj and a socialite named Veronica. So far, they are burning up the pages!

I also have exciting news about what’s next. In the UK, Prince Voronov’s Virgin is the Mills & Boon Book of the Month for January! I’ve been getting a lot of early reader mail about this story, and it thrills me that you all are enjoying it so much. It seems to be flying off the shelves over there, and for that I thank you! In fact, it’s the number 1 bestseller this week!! This book will be released in North America in June under the title Behind the Palace Walls. It will be a Presents Extra — my first, so I hope you’ll help me make it a success here too!

Next up in the UK will be Strangers in the Desert in May! I have no links for this one yet, or order information, but this is my first full-length sheikh book. Adan and Isabella have a delicious past together. When they are reunited, the sparks fly. I can’t wait for the back cover copy to share with you! I don’t have it yet, so no idea what sort of things it’s going to say — there’s a pretty big secret in the book that I don’t want to give away just yet. Though maybe the back cover will do so, LOL!

Next up in North America is The Devil’s Heart in April! I haven’t posted this cover on the site yet, but check it out. I am so in love with the Presents version of this cover!

Finally, coming in the UK sometime this summer, and in November to North America, is The Heartless Rebel. (Available at Amazon UK. No order links for NA yet.) This book is part of a continuity series called The Bad Blood Collection! In this series, you get to read about a family called the Wolfes and all their trials and tribulations. My Wolfe brother is named Jack — and he’s an absolutely delicious mess of alpha toughness and stoicism. Just wait until he hooks up with his heroine, though! This is a very sexy story — probably my sexiest yet!

That’s what’s coming up in 2011. And now I’d better get back to work on this book, since it absolutely refuses to write itself. Hope you’re prepared for the Holiday Season! I’m not, but what’s new about that?