#PlottingPrincesses welcome @ReeseRyan! & Making the First Move

Howdy, Reese, and welcome to the PP.

Put on your tiara and let's have some fun!

Reese Ryan writes sexy, contemporary fiction filled with colorful characters and sinfully-sweet romance. She secretly enjoys torturing her heroines with family and career drama, reformed bad boys, revealed secrets, and the occasional identity crisis, but always rewards them with a happily ever after. 

Born and raised in the Midwest, she now resides in Central North Carolina with her husband and young adult son who tolerate her propensity to sing and dance badly. A self-proclaimed Bohemian Southern Belle, she treads the line carefully between being a Northerner and a damned Yankee–despite her insistence on calling soda pop. Reese gauges her progress by the number of “bless your lil’ hearts” she gets each week. She is currently down to two.

What are your three favorite books of all time? Pride & Prejudice, Little Women, and Water for Elephants

Morning, afternoon, or evening person? I’ve learned that I work best in the early hours of the morning. Unfortunately, I don’t always go to sleep early enough to take advantage of this fact.

Music--with or without? What kind? I write with music most of the time. My musical taste is very eclectic. What I’m listening to is determined by either my mood, or the mood I want to set in the scene. I listen to everything ranging from Classical & Jazz to Rock and Hip-hop.

Plotting Princesses Kelly Lee: How You Know You're a #Mom

Hi all, I'm one of the quiet princesses unless I have something to say, but this really tickled my funny bone so I thought I needed to share. It hit me recently as I was rushing around in that harried-mom sort of way, I find myself in uniquely "mommish" situations that in a million years I never would have otherwise, except for the blessing (or curse) of motherhood.


As I spent a full twenty minutes searching my jewelry box for a matching set of earrings (none of them are paired anymore), the litany of mom-only problems I encounter daily cartwheeled around in my head, bouncing off my skull. Then I realized it wasn't thoughts banging around in there, but the beginnings of a headache that only a glass of wine would cure. 


After enjoying said glass of wine (or three), I got the giggles with my another mommy, and we made a list of the top 5 ways you know you're a mom. Now granted, yes, you already know you're a mom since you squeezed out the little 8 pound bowling ball of joy first-hand.... but it's funnier this way. So go with it.

#PlottingPrincesses: Who's in the house? Rayne Golay!

The PP Gals welcome Rayne Golay, guest author of The Wooden Chair. Hi, Rayne!

How did you get from your day job to writing romance? When offered early retirement, I jumped at the chance. Now I was finally free to pursue my lifelong dream to write. I procrastinated for a couple of years during which I traveled extensively with my late husband. I had all sorts of excuses why I wasn’t writing, among them that I didn’t have the right tools. Instead of going out to buy myself a PC, I complained that I didn’t have the right means with which to write. Part of the reason for why I dragged my feet was fear of failing at the thing I’d always wanted to do. When my children gave me my first lap top as a birthday gift, they removed my last obstacle. Now I had to do it, write. 

What are your three favorite books of all time?

“Middlesex” by Jeffrey Eugenides
“The Egyptian” by Mika Waltari
“The Senator’s Wife” by Sue Miller

Morning, afternoon, or evening person? I love the evening hours when all the have to’s  are out of the way. It’s happened that I get up in the middle of the night to write. There’s something both peaceful and exciting about the late hours when all is still, and I’m alone, just me and my characters.

Music--with or without? What kind? Quiet, quiet, genius at work! (LOL) Much as I love music, chiefly classical like Beethoven, Sibelius, Bruch, it intrudes on that space inside where my characters live.

PP Linda Steinberg: #Confessions of a #Happy Pessimist? HMMMMM

GLASS HALF EMPTY OR HALF FULL?


It’s said there are two kinds of people in this world. The optimist sees his glass as half full; the pessimist, as half empty. The optimist sees the rainbow, the pessimist, the rain. 

Presumably the optimist is always cheerful, sees the best in people, and is hopeful for the future. If there are several possible outcomes for a situation, the optimist looks to the brightest one, confident that his or her good attitude will help it come to pass. There is even a book, The Law of Attraction, which purports that if one believes something positive will happen, that belief will attract the outcome one desires.

Pity the poor pessimist. Extrapolating from the above, a pessimist then must be a grumpy, gloomy person, always looking to find fault with others. Where the optimist sees a silver lining, the pessimist focuses on the cloud. Surely misfortune must follow him everywhere because he is expecting the negative at every turn, and it will find him. True?

Not.

I confess, I am a pessimist. And I am a very happy person. How can that be? Well, where an optimist is always looking at the bright side, I am always thinking, What’s the worst that could happen? If I follow a certain path, what’s the most dire consequence that could befall me? Could I live with that? If the answer is yes, I will usually go ahead and take the path. If the worst happens, well, I knew what I was in for and I accepted it. And if the worst doesn’t happen? Well, then, I’m happy.

Michelle Miles: In Which I Talk About Vacations

I have vacation on the brain. It’s short-timers-itis, I think. Where all I can think about is getting away from the office and doing something FUN. Ya know? Do you ever get like that?

Last summer, husband, kid and I traveled to West Texas and New Mexico. We had this grand idea to go to the Davis Mountains and Carlsbad Caverns. We were going to drive.

Now, if you’re not all that familiar with Texas let me tell you…it’s, um, big. We live in the Dallas/Fort Worth so heading west meant it would be about 10 hours before we got to the mountains. At the time, I was driving a 2006 Kia Spectra. Two days before we left for the trip, the air conditioner broke. I thought it might just need to be recharged but no such luck. And getting it fixed on the weekend before we left? Didn’t happen. No one could get in fixed in time.

I was mad.

I decided we were going anyway, dammit.

A Quick Peek at what the Plotting Princesses are up to!

Plotting Princesses' June Newsletter for your reading pleasure

Extra! Extra!

The PP June Newsletter…

 

 

Is out! Catch up on what's happening with the Plotting Princesses. We have links to great articles written by PPs Liese, Kathy, Vicki, and an extra special one about the PP at RomCon written by Michelle. There's breaking news and sneak peeks at great covers.

 

Go to: http://ymlp.com/zJJ72d

 

 

Thank you for your support!

Elizabeth Essex: In Praise of Pinterest

One of the things I am asked most often as an author is, “Where do you get your inspiration for your stories?”

And my answer is always the same: everywhere.

I get them from other books that I’ve read, and photos that I have seen. From the music that I listen to, the stories that I hear, and experiences that I’ve had. I remember all these things. But I am a visual thinker. I think of my collected experiences as a series of live pictures—like

an endless personal movie running constantly in my head. And so, for inspiration, I like to surround myself with pictures of the things that help me visualize my story.

My current book, SCANDAL IN THE NIGHT, is a story of love lost and found, set in pre-Raj India, and in the mid-19th century English countryside. To help visualize and write the story, I sought out photos that augmented or supported the images that the story had created in my head. And the place where I could most easily find them and collect them was Pinterest.

Pinterest gives it’s users the ability to search through a vast store of varied visual images, on a variety of different topics of interest, at one centralized  “web location.” And better yet, it lets users manipulate, move and store the images in ways that are useful to the user.

The Great Hunt for Readers

Some of the Plotting Princesses attended the RomCon Convention, and have been talking about what a great experience it was spending three days with readers. For those who don’t know, RomCon is a romance readers convention. A place where women who love romance novels get together for a weekend. There were silly games, contests, meeting authors and a book signing. Mainly there was just a lot of fun attending events.

As a writer, you want to interact with readers, but sometimes they’re hard to find. I’ve done book signings where there were a few readers lined up, and I’ve done them when I sat there all alone and smiled thinking I’m so uncomfortable, I just wish this hour would end. People will walk by gaze at you and think, oh my God, she wants me to purchase something from her. You can see the panic in their eyes, right before they run.

Plotting Princesses: Guest Author is Anna Jeffrey & The Tycoon--cool!

Talented! Awesome! Sweetiepie!

Why that's Anna Jeffrey is our guest.

So Girlfriend, let's get to the nitty gritty...

How did you get from your day job to writing romance?  LOL. Actually, I haven’t made that transition yet. I still have a day job and always have. But I still write every day.  

What are your three favorite books of all time?  “Gone with the Wind,” “Sophie’s Choice,” “The Second Coming of Lucy Hatch” are the ones that come to mind immediately. “Sophie’s Choice” isn’t a romance, but it is so powerful, so tragic and so well-written, it has stuck with me for years.

Morning, afternoon, or evening person?  Definitely morning. I can accomplish more the first hour or two in the morning than I accomplish the rest of the day.

Music--with or without? What kind? No music. It distracts me. However, I do love music. Maybe that’s why it distracts me.

First or third POV? Third. But I’m itching to write a first-person novel.

How's tricks? Do you juggle multiple projects?  Constantly. I learned to juggle at an early age.