Am Writing

My sexy Latinx short story featured in Whoa!mance podcast

(Author’s note: The Twelve Naughty Days anthology is no longer available, so I’ve made this short story available on Patreon. For just $3/month, you can read a steamy short story from me every month! You can learn more here.)

It may be long past Christmas, but I just discovered this phenomenal 45-minute podcast about my "Twelve Drummers" short story in the Twelve Naughty Days holiday anthology.

“Twelve Drummers” is about what happens when a Latinx jewel thief, a Latinx museum guard, and an ancient Mexica drum magically collide on the longest night of the year.

Here's what Morgan and Isabeau of the romance podcast Whoa!mance had to say about it:

Morgan: Very very steamy. I realize it’s been a long time since I read a Sierra Simone-level steam.

Morgan: I’ve become desensitized to pretty run-of-the-mill sex scenes.
Isabeau: I don’t know that I feel that I’m desensitized, but this is certainly something that blows me out of the water. Like I haven’t read this level in a really long time. And I think that’s probably not necessarily unique to this author.

Morgan: I actually read a lot of supremely boring sex scenes. You know, where it’s pulling all the levers and pushing all the buttons. It’s putting the cream in the Twinkie, but this is someone making an eclair and slowly warming the shoe pastry and baking it. This is a whole other level.
Isabeau: It’s a feast.

Morgan: The majority of this story is a sex scene so it is taking up more real estate, but I also feel like it doesn't detract from the character building in this short story. It's rich for twenty pages let alone twenty pages of an erotic romance. The world building was perfect, you had just enough things. Our characters dream or goals, their reason for being in this space, their reasons for doing what they do, are completely fleshed out.

Isabeau: This books gives you something evocative.

Morgan: And I think it’s so fucking keen that you take this pretty Christian-centric content of the twelve days of Christmas and being part of an anthology with that theme and being able to cleverly but not shoehorn in a different cultural tradition that’s kind of a subtle critique. Once again this story occupies just 20 pages of this anthology.

Isabeau: I was mostly surprised by every sex scene. I just walked in to each one like, “What’re we gonna do next?”

You can listen to the whole podcast here.

And you can still get your hands on Twelve Naughty Days, which will only be available for a limited time. Each story is a never-before-seen short from NYT and USA Today bestselling authors: K.A. Linde, Skye Warren, Fiona Cole, Nana Malone, Claire Contreras, Nikki Sloane, Giana Darling, Sierra Simone, CD Reiss, Laurelin Paige, M. Malone, and me!

All of the proceeds go to the Trevor Project, which is a national, 24-hour, toll free confidential suicide prevention service for LGBTQ youth. Twelve Naughty Days is available in ebook, paperback, and audiobook. Just like the ebook, all the narrators on the audiobook are donating their work and time to the project!

Two sexy stories in upcoming anthologies just in time for Christmas!

(Author’s note: Twelve Naughty Days is now available and was named a #1 Amazon bestseller! Best Women’s Erotica of the Year, Vol. 7 has been delayed until Dec. 21 because of supply chain issues.)

Right before Christmas, I will have sexy short stories coming out in two well-known anthologies. The Best Women’s Erotica of the Year collection puts together stories from some of the best steamy romance writers in the business — I was thrilled to be asked to submit for Volume 7, along with romance greats Adriana Herrera, Holley Trent, Lucy Eden and others! It will be available in ebook and paperback.

The other anthology pulls together incredible New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors to celebrate Twelve Naughty Days. It’s a sexy anthology based on the Twelve Days of Christmas song; I got Twelve Drummers Drumming 😅! I can’t wait to see what the other incredible authors — Sierra Simone, Skye Warren, M. Malone, Nana Malone, and others — come up with!!

One thing that makes Twelve Naughty Days collection very exciting is that all of the proceeds will go to the Trevor Project, which is a national, 24-hour, toll free confidential suicide prevention service for LGBTQ youth. Twelve Naughty Days will be available in ebook and audiobook for a limited time. Just like the ebook, all the narrators on the audiobook are donating their work and time to the project!

What are the stories about?

For the Best Women’s Erotica of the Year, Vol. 7 anthology, I wrote HOT POCKETS, a story about a busy married couple with kids who have to squeeze in time for intimacy whenever they can find it. Editor Rachel Kramer Brussel asked us to write about surprise for already established couples. In romance, we usually write about people’s journey to their happily ever after; I loved this opportunity to write about people after they’ve reached it.

The story explores how two people who love and are devoted to each other keep the “happy” in the HEA when real life and all its demands — jobs, kids, packed weekends, errands, chores, tight budgets, aging parents — get in the mix.

A #1 Amazon besteller

For Twelve Naughty Days, I wrote TWELVE DRUMMERS. Discover what happens when a Latinx jewel thief, a Latinx museum guard, and an ancient Mexica drum magically collide on the longest night of the year. It’s verynaughty. I’ve already made my mom swear not to read it (or if she does, she has to swear to never EVER tell me!!!!).

Can I read an excerpt?

I've loaded up excerpts of the short stories on the super secret, newspaper-subscribers-only spot on my website where subscribers get all their goodies! Want a sneak peek? You can sign up to my newsletter here.

Join me online to celebrate the release of Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Vol 7

Why my next book is close to my heart…

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I just turned in After Hours on Milagro Street, my first book in a new series, to my editor. It’s about a Mexican-American middle sister and black sheep who returns to her small Kansas hometown to save the family bar and discovers an idealistic East Coast professor standing in her way. It’s a high-heat, small town contemporary with:

  • a huge Mexican-American family

  • two opposites who are irresistibly attracted to each other

  • a just-one-bed scenario

  • and lots of small-town legends and family lore.

A story close to my heart

 
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I was born in a small town in southeast Kansas; the Mexican-American side of my family has lived in the same town since the early 1900s. But so often, when I told people that I was from Kansas, they’d answer, “Where are you originally from?”

As if someone who looks like me, with the last name Lopez, can’t be from Kansas.

People think small towns can only look one way. In today’s day and age, that has unfortunately translated to a belief that the United States only looks one way, or was somehow an ideal when it looked less diverse. My family’s story – part of a community since 1908, tortillas at every meal, huge 50-person family gatherings for lunch every Sunday after mass, a Mexican food stand at our town’s annual celebration, piñatas at every birthday – shows that America has been an integration of a lot of people, a lot of cultures, and a lot of ideas for a long time.

The Milagro Street series is finally an opportunity for me to tell that story.

Why I wasn't -- at first -- excited to tell this story

After the ugliness of the 2020 election season, I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell this story. I was embittered about the backwards way we seemed to be heading as a country. Also, my story was about a Mexican-American male bartender coming home.

I realized the core story that I have to tell is about women finding their strength to determine their destinies, so I decided to make the story about three sisters coming home. And that’s when the idea really came alive for me. This series is about three Mexican-American sisters who return to their small Midwestern hometown to revive their family bar and, to their surprise, save the town they didn’t realize they loved. It's got all my standard tropes: bonkers story lines, strong women, supportive men, a focus on life's pleasures, lots of sexy times. But it’s also an opportunity to talk about the magic of brown women. The world is made magical by the strong, diverse women who make an impact on it.

I’ve seen the cover for After Hours on Milagro Street and it’s GORGEOUS!!! I can’t wait to show it to you. The release date is July 12, 2022, but you can preorder it now. Preordering is a great way to show your favorite authors love because it builds hype for the book. Thank you!

Newsletters subscribers will be first to know all the exciting After Hours on Milagro Street news.

How to avoid the sophomore slump

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Ah, the journey of the sophomore book. The road to that second-book-for-publication can vary widely. Maybe the first book published was your first book written. Or maybe it’s the 100th. Perhaps you published traditionally. Or published indie. But in the trenches of the sophomore book, many things are similar for writers. And yet we think we’re the only ones who’ve battled there.

“As authors enter into deadline pressure, the most common struggle is learning how to juggle everything else,” said editor extraordinaire Angela James. “The second is learning how to just deal with the deadline pressure and realizing that you’re not writing just for ‘fun’ any more, but writing under an obligation to someone else. That can sometimes paralyze authors!”

And I can tell you from personal experience, that paralysis is not fun!

My latest released book, Hate Crush, was my sophomore effort. The curse and blessing of the first book, Lush Money, was that when I delivered it, my editor complimented it for its clean copy and said it needed few edits.

The perfectionist, Virgo, ex-journalist in me preened. There is NOTHING I like better than giving clean copy. So I thought I could write Hate Crush just like I wrote Lush Money: pantsing it, amping up the bonkers, and writing with the same bravery and exhilaration that I wrote when I didn't have a contract or a deadline.

Yeah… No.

During the months of writing, the words HOT MESS began to scroll across my brain like a Times Square ticker. I tried to rein the book in. I suggested to my agent and editor that I felt the book was “experimental” and “taking a new direction.” They were gently and kindly silent. They both knew that this is just what happened with sophomore books.

Ask multi-published romantic suspense author Adriana Anders: “I wrote Book Two before Book One was published, so I actually felt pretty good about it, overall... until Book One came out. My first release had some good responses from the trade mags, which was great. It also made me miserable, convinced that I was a one-hit wonder. Writing after that first release was very, very difficult.”

When my editor got back to me with revision notes for Hate Crush, she never said the words, “Hot mess.” But what she did say was, “Fix it. I believe in you.”

For thirty days leading up to Christmas of 2019, I re-wrote Hate Crush with 50,000 new words. I dropped plot lines and characters. I made my protagonists softer. I clarified my villains.

I saved the damn book. I hoped.

And although the first review for the book was a scathing 1-star that the reviewer made sure to post EVERYWHERE, the other reviews let me know that my career wasn’t over: Readers said they might love Hate Crush even more than Lush Money. Author friends said it didn’t read like a sophomore effort. And then came these reviews from Booklist, Entertainment Weekly, and NPR.

I’d done it. I’d pulled that book back from the brink.

My hope is that these encouraging how-tos from me and other romance folks help you avoid the sophomore slump before a 30-day re-write and help you embrace the fact that, if you’re having a tough time, it’s part of the process and you’re not alone.

1. Take your time (and try to make the time)

“One of the things I used to counsel authors on when we were doing their first contract was to think about how they were setting new manuscript delivery dates,” Angela James said. “Most new authors don’t have any experience with what it’s like to write a book while also editing, marketing, promoting, reviewing cover copy, chiming in on cover art and doing everything else that comes along with publishing the first book. So I would always tell authors to take a step back before they confirmed manuscript delivery dates and to think about how much extra time they’ll need to write a new book, now that they’ll have the distractions of everything else publishing added in while writing.”

Many romance authors wish they could deliver books like a Pez dispenser. But we need time to write books that readers will fall in love with and that will help build our brand. So try to be realistic about the amount of time you’ll need to write the sophomore book so that it’s a reflection of the quality that readers fell in love with in your first book.

One way to manage your time wisely: Time blocking. Block out the time each day you will devote to your book, and deny the distractions (social media, the news, the dog) that will corrupt that time. Just devoting one hour is still one hour closer to being done!

2. Allow your process to change

I entirely pantsed my first book, Lush Money, and figured I would write Hate Crush the exact same way. But as I tried to stick to the freedom and exhilaration of pantsing, I knew I was getting lost in the weeds. Hate Crush was a different kind of book, a second-chance romance with a bit of a whodunit element, and it needed a plan.

Unfortunately for my editor, I didn’t figure that out until after I’d gotten the book back from revisions. When I broke down the plot threads, streamlined and clarified them, the book was so much stronger. I wished I’d embraced the fact that my process could change earlier in the writing. But as internationally bestselling historical romance author Diana Cosby said, “Ignore your doubts and keep writing, get the story out. You can edit later.”

Thank God for the opportunity to edit!

“You can’t get to a place of confidence by thinking about it or planning it. You gain the most confidence by doing it. Action helps stop fear and doubt.”
— Editor Angela James

3. Believe in yourself

Imposter syndrome and the fear that we’re a one-hit wonder plagues many writers. That fear intensifies as more people – readers, agents, editors, book bloggers – look over our shoulders.

“You have to do a series of ignoring them for a time and purging negativity. Take what they say, use if it you agree but let go of the rest,” said best-selling romantic suspense author Tracee Lydia Garner. “We allow things into our psyche like residue and think about them at length. Residue is something that is often stubborn and needs scrubbing. Folks, impressions, thoughts, really do take up too much residence and yet we let them drive the moving truck to our brain… We don't often take the time to evict, we just let folks hang out eating our popcorn, wine and cheese.”

When I got my revisions back from my editor and knew I had to re-invent that book in 30 days, the one thing I wouldn’t allow myself to do was cry. If I started, I was afraid I wouldn’t stop. What I did was tell myself over and over again: You’re a professional. You can do this.

You’re a professional. You can do this.

Whether the first book you published was the first one you’d ever written or whether you had eight books (cough, cough) under your bed, you did something the majority of people don’t: You finished a book. You figured out plot, characters, love scenes, a dramatic high, the black moment low, and the HEA. You sat your ass in the chair and did the hard work.

I promise, you can do it again.

4. Rely on your resources

When a book starts going off the rails, the last thing you want to do is show it to other people. But those other people – beta readers, your agent, and most importantly, your editor – are exactly who you need to lean on for help.

Award-winning romance author Alexis Daria said: “I wish I’d asked for more support from my editor when I was stuck or didn’t know something.”

My editor told me repeatedly that sophomore books were tough, and although I was too much of a chicken to show her the tough stuff, knowing that I wasn’t the first author in her talented cadre that experienced difficulty was helpful.

I did show the book to beta readers. Romance author Cate Tayler and romance lover and life coach Wendy Reed were instrumental in helping me figure out what wasn’t working. When working with beta readers, be very clear about what you want their insight on. I asked specific questions about areas that I felt were weak, and they gave focused answers. If you’re already feeling shaky about a book, getting advice you don’t need can push you further from clarity.

5. Know you’re not alone

“I think many authors hit a moment when they start to believe they only had one story in them, that they can’t possibly write a second book, and that the second book is going to be awful when they do finish it,” said Angela James. “That’s just not true, it’s just a function of nerves, imposter syndrome, putting too much weight on reviews, comparing yourself to your fellow authors, and basically forgetting to focus on all the great things about you-as-a-writer instead of focusing on fears, expectations and doubts.”

I’ve always felt like a distinctive person, a unique individual. I’m sure you do, too. But I’ve been ASTONISHED during this journey how often my writer insecurities are echoed by other authors. Multi-published authors. New York Times bestselling authors. BIG authors. I was once at an event when Eloisa James talked about feeling imposter syndrome.

So this feeling that your first book was a fluke – it’s not just you. It’s part of the process. But how do you get past it?

“Keep writing. Keep writing. Keep writing,” said Angela James. “You can’t get to a place of confidence by thinking about it or planning it. You gain the most confidence by doing it. Action helps stop fear and doubt. And even when the fear and doubt are still there, if you keep writing, at least you’re moving forward and not staying stuck!”

Countdown Advice for Authors Before Publication

*Author’s Note: I wrote this blog counting down to the release of my debut book Lush Money. While the book has now been in the world for a bit, I think these seven tips are still worthwhile for unpublished authors or authors on the eve of a debut. I hope you find them helpful.

Today marks ONE DAY until the release of Lush Money, my debut romance novel. I’ve wanted to publish a book my whole life and I’ve been writing romance for 19 years — this is a dream long in coming (you can head to my FB page to see my reaction when I finally get to hold my book).

Alongside all the dreaming, many practical skills have been learned as well. So as I count down one week until the launch of Lush Money, I will offer seven tips — a tip each day — for other authors in the space I’ve been in for the last year-and-a-half: between a finished manuscript and the launch of a book.

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You are the only one who can tell your story

Writing is hard. Sitting down, every day, getting down the words that will eventually create coherent imagery in other people’s heads, is really hard.

Writing to publish is harder. When you’re writing stories to be publicly consumed, there are so many voices warning you about the wrong ways you’re doing it. They want to tell you how NOT to craft, what topics NOT to write about, what subgenres NOT to write in if you want to publish.

But the only voice that will truly say what is right for your writing is your own.

Look, I have a ton of caveats for the above statement: Learn the craft. Practice it. Write a ton of words before trying to publish. Be aware of your implicit biases. Educate yourself about the people and topics you’re writing about. Stay on top of what’s happening in your industry.

But, as you do all of that, listen to your gut. Absorb what feels useful and reasonable. Reject what doesn’t speak to you.

Because with a billion storytellers out there, the only thing that will make you stand out in the market and bring joy to the process when you sit at your desk is your voice.

No one has it but you. No one has had your life but you. No one has your unique perspective on a million topics, and no one but you can breathe that one-in-a-billion perspective into a story.

Value your voice. Treasure it. Protect it. Stand up for it.

And I hope, when you’re on eve of your book release, you’re ready to let your voice sing.

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Connect with those who can connect you to readers in your community.

While many people want to write a book, few pursue it. So if you are writing or have written a book, you’re a rare bird and your local community wants to support you when you publish. 

So go introduce at your local bookstore and library BEFORE you have a book to promote. Buy and check out the books. Attend the events. Follow them on social media. Make yourself a real-world supporter of these mighty voices that you hope support you. 

I shopped at my local indie bookstore, One More Page Books, and – after some deep-breathing exercises – commented gently on the fact that they didn’t have a romance section. Well, lo and behold, I got into a fantastic conversation with the book buyer about how they were about to launch a romance section. A few months later, I moderated their first romance author panel and, in November, will host my book launch party there!

There’s nothing like seeing your book in the wild and that’s a lot more likely to happen if you have the support of your local book sellers!

Actionable tip: Go to your local bookstore or library this week and have one conversation with an employee while you’re purchasing or checking out a book.

One link can send book buyers to all retail outlets

You know how author’s social media posts are full of links for the various book retailers? Usually it looks something like:

Buy my lovely book!

Amazon: XXXXXX
My Indie Bookstore: XXXXXX
Barnes and Noble: XXXXXX
Apple Books: XXXXXX 
Kobo: XXXXXX

Rather than junking up your posts and running into Twitter’s character limits, there’s a way to gather all the retailers under one link. Use Linktree.

Linktree allows you to offer a bunch of “where to go next” options under one link. It was developed as an answer to Instagram, which only allows you to show one link in your bio.

I decided to use it to gather all the places a reader can go to purchase Lush Money. There is a free version. The $6/month paid version allows you to name the page, brand the page with image and colors, and a couple of other things that I can’t remember. I went with the paid version because — you know — DEBUT BOOK!! But I’ll probably go for the free version for the other books in the series.

Actionable tip: Click on the image above to explore how I used Linktree.

Be prepared when you get “the call.”

Imagine getting "the call": an agent calls and offers to represent you. After you scream and cry and run around the house, what do you ask the agent to make sure that this is the person with whom you can entrust your career?

I had no idea, either. 

This is a blog I wrote in January 2018, two months before the amazing Sara Megibow of KT Literary offered to represent me. I have been in her caring and capable hands ever since and have never felt anything but blessed.

I did have a good series of questions to ask her when she called. 😉

Go to: What to ask an agent before you sign.

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This design tool is free, easy to learn, and allows everyone to make great-looking graphics.

You know how you see those authors who have beautiful and informative graphics on their social media and website? And you wonder how many thousands of dollars they’re paying a graphic designer to create them?

Most likely, the author – without a drop of graphic design experience (me!!) – is creating them for free on Canva.

Canva is a website design tool that allows you to put together graphics as easily as putting together a Word document. It’s intuitive, relatively reliable, and dummy proof. Want to create a graphic for Facebook? Click “Facebook post,” choose one of their many templates, and fill it in with your own words and images. Download and post. Simple.

One thing I did early to bring continuity to my graphics was to pick two colors and three fonts that would define my “brand.” If nothing else, the colors and fonts give me a starting point whenever I design an image.

Actionable tip: Choose two colors for your brand colors. Then got to canva and create and post two graphics this week. 

Author’s note: RWA has defied the trust the authors were trying to have in it. So I’m no longer recommending that anyone join this organization. The local chapters are struggling with what steps to take next. The foundation of this advice still remains true, however — find a networking group that you can share the highs and lows of the publishing journey with.

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RWA and your local chapter are a ready-made source of craft and industry knowledge

I’ve been a member of the Romance Writers of America since 1999 and a member of my local chapter, the Washington Romance Writers DC, since 2004. WRW DC has been INVALUABLE in teaching me the craft of writing, providing easy access to intimidating industry professionals like editors and agents, and helping me build a tribe of friend-authors. 

As an aspiring writer, there was no better tool for keeping me writing. Now, on the verge of being a published author, I have this group to thank for my understanding of the publishing process and for cheering me on during this debut year. I’ve never felt alone.

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It’s never too soon to start marketing

Just sold your book? It’s not too early to set up your website, social media, and newsletter. And if you’ve just finished your manuscript or are writing a book or thinking about becoming a writer — it’s not too early.

Here’s the truth: Ninety to one hundred percent of your marketing will be your responsibility. You will not be the rarified writer who defies this reality of publishing. You will have to do the work to get your name out there and connect with your readers. And learning how to manage your website/social media/newsletter is a steep learning curve. SO START THAT LEARNING NOW.

I’ll say it again. START THAT LEARNING NOW. Learn how to effectively manage these marketing tools in the calm before the storm of a publishing contract.

Don’t bemoan what you don’t know — no one knows what they have not learned. Don’t cry about how uncomfortable it is — we are writers, not marketers. It’s uncomfortable for everyone. And don’t pine for the good ol’ days. Those days are gone. You’re doing the hard work of writing the words; make sure you also can do the work so as many people as possible can read them!

Actionable tip: Set aside 30 minutes a day for the next week to learn how to implement your website, social media, or newsletter.

How I Pantsed My Way to a Bonkers Book That Still Works

I’ve been surprised – and delighted -- how some people have described my debut romance novel, Lush Money:

“Absolutely wild”
”A bit crazy”
“Old skool”
“High drama”
“Telenovela”
“Over the top – in the very best way”

Why surprised? Because I wasn’t TRYING to write an “absolutely wild,” “old skool,” OTT, bonkers book. I literally just sat down at the computer each day and thought, “What happens next?”

As you do when you’re a pantser.

As some of you read in an earlier blog, I began my writing years as a plotter, deliberately planning a book with outlines and story arcs. After several years, I “plotted” my way into hating writing and I set down my pen. When I picked it up again four years later, I did it with a determination to be free, to type stories on my phone if the spirit moved me, to post first drafts serially to Wattpad, and to let the story unfold in my head at the same time it did on a page.

So how did I pants my way to a bonkers book that still – miraculously – comes together?

Step 1: A strong title

Over Christmas vacation of 2015, I was skimming through ebooks and thought I saw the title, “The Billionaire’s Prince.” I assumed it was a male/male book. In a flash, I realized what I had done: even as a lifelong feminist, I presumed the billionaire had to be a man. But what if the strong and self-determining master of the universe was a woman?

That title and concept gave me focus and set the (bonkers) tone for the book. When you start with a gender-bias-smashing, trope-flipping, grandiose title like “The Billionaire’s Prince,” – later to be renamed Lush Money -- you’ve got to presume the story is going to be a little larger than life. (BTW, the actual name of the book was “The Billionaire’s PRICE.”)

A strong title gave this pantser a lot of plotting direction.

Step 2: Time barriers

As an unpublished author, I was posting fanfiction and original stories to Wattpad, an app/website where writers can post their stories and readers can like and comment.

Wattpad writers are encouraged to post serially to build readership. Writing and posting serially, without a clear sense of where the story is going, definitely works the pantsing muscles! I discovered while writing a popular fanfiction story for the site that the key for pantsing a serial story is to put time barriers around it. My couple in my story Desperately Seeking was going to go on five dates before they had sex. These “dates” – the only time we saw the characters -- put time constraints around what could have otherwise been a meandering story.

When I began putting together Lush Money, I wanted to use a similar time-barrier device. So I decided that my billionaire and prince would agree to meet each other three times a month for a year for sex. Readers would only see them during these three-times-a-month interactions.

These time barriers kept the story immediate and moving forward, when one of the issues of pantsing is letting the story wander.

Step 3: A conflict-focused summary

Wattpad is a great way to vet ideas to see if they have any traction. So I designed a cover and wrote a summary for Lush Money to see if the concept was appealing to readers.

I was pantsing my way into this story one step at a time, so when I wrote the summary, the only steps I had were my characters -- a billionaire and a prince – and the time barrier. But what was the story about? What was the conflict? Why would people be interested in this story?

I slowly typed out: Three nights a month. That’s all the billionaire wants from the prince. Just three nights a month for a year, and at the end, she will give him enough money to save his struggling winegrowing kingdom that means everything to him. Just three long, hot nights a month in her bed. And his heir.

The conflict in these billionaire stories is almost always the power dynamic – that the powerful individual wants to buy something that the less-powerful individual struggles with giving. So what would a prince need? Sitting on a bench at my parents’ vineyard in Sonoma County, I looked up and decided he had a nearly-destitute kingdom whose fortunes were based on wine grapes. And what would a billionaire want that she couldn’t buy? A perfect, fairy-tale princess baby.

Having a clean sense of the conflict gave me bumper lanes – crazy, weaving, mountain-road bumper lanes, but still – that kept my story from going over a cliff.

Step 4: Raising the stakes

The conceit of the book is that the billionaire and the prince are going to meet three times a month for sex with a goal of impregnating the billionaire. Which was great and all. Until the point when I’d written two detailed sex scenes within three chapters and realized that I couldn’t have a book with 36 sex scenes (sex 3x/month x 12 months = 36 sex scenes.) While I like to consider hot, sexy times a part of my writer trademark, that was pushing it even for me!

The plot of this book, and what made the book bonkers, derived from the fact that I needed to throw impediments in the way of my increasingly hot-for-each-other couple. As they are drawn to each other -- which HAS to happen for two smart, accomplished, hard-working, caring and BEAUTIFUL human beings – I had to raise the stakes to keep them apart.

When the prince demands that they build a “conversation-only” night into their three dates – check! When paparazzi throws open the car door and interrupts coitus – yep! When a little sister bursts into the room that I didn’t know he had five minutes earlier – that too!

The increasingly tense and wild plot turns in the book surprised me as much as they surprised my couple. And they kept my writing satisfyingly loose and free.

Step 5: Understanding “my” story

Over the years of writing, I’ve come to understand what my essential story is: No matter the setting, I generally tell a small-town story about a community of real-and-found family. Lush Money takes place in three settings: glamorous San Francisco, the romantic mountain kingdom of the Monte del Vino Real, and the small hometown of Freedom, Kansas. In each place, our protagonists have “families” of employees, villagers, and townies that depend on them.

Traveling to these locations contributed to the sense of it being an over-the-top book. But it also helped bring the book home. This is a divisive, self-protective couple who see the other’s heart most clearly when they’re in the other’s place of birth.

Understanding your essential story helps pantsers tell a big story that doesn’t lose its heart.

Check out Lush Money now!

Writing An Alpha Heroine

Note: I’m now offering a workshop on Writing Alpha Heroines: How to Write Strong Heroines Readers will Root For. See the bottom of this article to discover where it’s available to watch now. Interested in this virtual workshop for your romance writing chapter or group? Contact me.

The heroine of my debut book, Lush Money, came from a lightning strike of an idea: What if the romance billionaire we’ve spent so many years reading and writing about was a woman?

Great idea, right? But Roxanne Medina, self-made Mexican-American billionaire and CEO of Medina Now Enterprises, was a struggle to write.

I’m a writer and ex-journalist who works from my suburban home and, while now an empty nester, I spent the last 21 years taking care of children. I’m ruler of my fiefdom – my husband concedes that the dog recognizes me as alpha – but that doesn’t make me knowledgeable in Roxanne’s skin.

In the beginning of the book, I had to stop a lot to ponder what Roxanne’s thoughts, impulses, and reactions would be. How would a woman with a billionaire’s level of power and self-determination move in the world? What would her desires be? How would she interact with others? What could she still want for herself when she could buy everything?

All the things I figured out writing Roxanne Medina allowed me to develop some guidelines to make writing alpha heroines in the future easier.

1) Don’t write a man

Okay, we’ve all read her: She’s a “tough” heroine, doesn’t like “girly” stuff, is sexually adventurous, into technology, and spares the man in her life (who women can’t get enough of) all her messy emotional stuff. She’s generally written by a man. And, if you squint, she IS a prototypical man with the addition of the fun lady parts.

Creators can do better than this. We women deserve better than this. To dismiss all of our womanliness as something that makes us weak or lesser is just a phenomenal bunch of crap.

Roxanne Medina wants a baby and uses her Wall Street Journal to bookmark her Vogue and enjoys her phenomenal good looks as a tool and cries easier than she likes. And all of these attributes are an extension of what make her a great leader and a great boss: she’s a nurturer, she stays in-the-know, she uses all the tools at her disposal, and she’s empathetic.

Our womanliness makes us mighty.

2) Honor her femininity

As we embrace the fact that gender is fluid – and that personalities, preferences, upbringings, and cultures vary widely – it’s counter-productive and dangerous to define specific traits as “womanly” or “feminine.” Being a woman can be all things and everything. But whoever our female character is – whatever female traits we’re bringing to the table as the story builders and our character is bringing as she develops in our heads – we should value her female-ness as part of her alpha strength. Not shy away from it as something that makes her weak.

I realized early writing Roxanne that she was a mama bear, a protective nurturer. How did she take care of those in her den? By supporting and engaging the female business owners whose companies she invested in or acquired, running a morally responsible company that took care of her employees, and funding her small Kansas hometown that she claimed to disdain.

Roxanne’s feminine instinct to nurture was the engine that made her powerful.

“The elephant in the room with strong, alpha heroines is that many times they’re called “unlikeable.” We’ve coded “make her likeable” with “make her relatable.””

3) Allow her to fully occupy her space

What defines an alpha heroine? I don’t believe it’s her job – soldier, spy, billionaire – or the fact that she can kick ass. An alpha heroine is defined by the way she occupies her space and understands her importance in that space.

Imagine a woman standing in the middle of an empty room. As people come into this room, we are preprogrammed to expect this woman to shuffle to the side. Usually as she’s asking everyone who enters if they need anything. She might even press herself into a corner to make sure others have more space.

We’ve been taught to appreciate women who accommodate other’s needs. Women as caretakers used to be an evolutionary imperative.

But an alpha heroine stays in the center of the room. Why? Because she knows how important her place there is. Only from the center can she get a full picture, assess what other’s need, and balance those needs against her own. She doesn’t diminish herself because she knows she is necessary. Others will not receive the best she can give if she’s tucked into a corner.

Roxanne makes mistakes when she first meets Príncipe Mateo de Esperanza y Santos, a Spanish prince with a struggling kingdom, who she contracts for a year-long marriage of convenience and sex three-days-a-month so she can have her royal baby. But it’s her own judgement – that Mateo is a good man, that she behaved poorly and against her own standards and morals -- that inspires her to change and triggers this enemies-to-lovers couple to work together instead of against each other. Roxanne doesn’t let Mateo take over as her mea culpa; instead she apologizes, sincerely makes amends, and welcomes him to stand as an equal by her side.

4) Know her vulnerability

Her vulnerabilities – the balance to her strengths -- are what make our alpha heroine fascinating and real. Not weak. If we deny her those vulnerabilities, all we have is a caricature of a strong woman. So it’s important we know those tender spots going in.

Roxanne’s strength is that she’s a nurturer. Therefore her vulnerability had to be that she was lonely. She worried, because of her upbringing, that she would never be valued and loved. That she would never have anyone to truly nurture. So why wouldn’t she try to buy herself a baby? Her exterior strength is her vast resources and wealth. Her vulnerability: That no one – not her employees, her hometown, or her prince – could love her unless she paid them.

I don’t want to get to spoilery so I’ll just say that vulnerabilities create issues for the hero to discover and comfort and provide fun, wrenching, awesome, heart-rending moments for the author to explore.

5) Make her human

The elephant in the room with strong, alpha heroines is that many times they’re called “unlikeable.” We’ve coded “make her likeable” with “make her relatable.” I hate both words. Instead, we should just make sure to create a living, breathing human with all of the corresponding foibles.

Give her a favorite junk food. Or an irritating habit. Or a favorite reality show. Whatever. We just make sure she isn’t perfect because perfect is sterile and boring.

When Roxanne first sees her prince in a suit, she’s so knocked out by how gorgeous he is that she slips on her four-inch-high Louboutins. It’s a tiny moment – she just passes it off like there was something on the floor – but after a couple of chapters of her imperviously ramming her agenda down his throat, I loved seeing her this way. Human. Jaw-dropped.

Because of the close perspective that romance novels are written in, it can be difficult sometimes to show an alpha heroine’s love-strewn and foible-filled humanity. An alpha heroine is not going to acknowledge them in her POV and the hero – either filled with lust or enemies-to-lovers irritation -- might not see them in his.

So, I found it useful to let my secondary characters do that work. I showed my secondary characters loving her, respecting her, teasing her, valuing her for her strengths AND vulnerabilities AND foibles, and—hopefully—set the tone for the hero and the reader.

Want to take my Alpha Heroine WorkshoP?