Wow, a plot...

I was reading this book, part of a series, by a well known paperback writer and I was about four pages into it when I found out a character died.  Just like that. He's dead. I flicked back a couple of pages to make sure I hadn't missed anything and that pages weren't stuck together. I checked the series number of the book to make sure I hadn't skipped a book in between - but no, the character was dead. I avidly read on trying to work out what had happened, how the heroine was coping and wondering what she would do next now that this person had left her life. I liked that the heroine was pretty stoic, albeit heartbroken, about it and that she was getting on with her life wondering what she was supposed to do as I was wondering what she was going to do. 

To me, this is a good writer and a good book. Make me think. Make me wonder. Too few people write those books and when you find them, that's golden for a reader. It beats the hell out of shag the heroine for 99 pages with a plot on one page to suggest credibility.

I'm still standing...

Yes, I am still writing. No, I’m not rushing to get anything out there. I’m writing an ongoing series that requires re-checking the last story with the current and making sure story number five ties up elements in the other four stories. It is romantic but it’s not a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am story. There’s nothing wrong with those stories. They’re just not where I’m where mind is focused at the moment and I don’t feel inclined to followed trends. Is it about growing as a writer? Nah, I don’t believe in all that existential, fluffy bullshit reasoning used to explain why you're wasting time contemplating your navel. It’s simply about doing something different. Will it sell? Who knows? As someone who dabbles in writing, I believe you have to be realistic and accept things sell or they don’t and you write as your conscience dictates without worrying about anything else. That’s how I started this gig all those years ago and that’s how I’ll finish it…whenever that may be. Writing. It can be something you do. Life is something you live. Don't confuse the two.

Dirty, filthy but I like it....

So Berengaria Brown – or BB as I call her because like all Aussies I’m into casual speech and the name Berengaria alone has 5 syllables – and I have been writing a series. Why? We just got talking over email one day and I mentioned an idea and she added to it and voila a series is born. And oh hell no, there was no way we could co-write a story because she talks funny – she’s one of those foreigner types - and wants to make all the sentences make sense. Boring. She’s not like me with my random thoughts and half arsed sentences. I drive the spell checker on my computer mad due to ‘fragments’ of sentences – which I like and the computer just has to get over. Anyway, so we came up with the idea for 6 distinct stories all revolving around one theme. Three are mine – three are BB’s. It’s been painless other than the agonizing over what sex to write in the book. I reckon if sex to do was as boring as it is to write then the human race would have died out years ago - that or working girls would be the tycoons of the world as they would corner a market others would yawn over…just one of my many hardly thought out theories.

Anyhow, BB and I have picked up some contracts on this series. The first books are due out January. As for the sex in the series? It’s described as dirty. My work is done.

Amarinda Jones
Penn Halligan
www.amarindajones.com
www.amarindajones.blogspot.com
Be daring...read an Amarinda book