I am a new writer again. I became one about a year ago. That was when I made the decision to start the Rothwell series. It would be totally new, with no connections to any characters or events I had written about before.
As I sat down to build that world in The Rules of Seduction, something peculiar happened. Starting the book reawoke in me the feelings that I had when I began my first novel ever. The excitement, the fear, the sense of flying into the mist—it was all there again, creating a little internal buzz. I literally held my breath while I typed the first words of the first chapter.
The book found its rhythm after a few chapters. The characters emerged and found their voices. The flutters in my heart calmed and I forged ahead. I finished the book and turned to the next story in the series, Lessons of Desire.
Now the new world was not so new. I had mapped out its shape and main roads. The characters were familiar. However, while I mentally sought the place to begin my story, the same thing happened.
Once more my heart fluttered. The feeling that I was about to embark on something daring and audacious simmered in me yet again. I had thought it happened with Rules because it was the beginning of a series, but here I was experiencing it with the second book too.
I am now writing the first chapters of the third book in the series and once again it is happening.
The sensation is seductive. So seductive that I can understand if writers who experience it hesitate pushing beyond the beginning of a story. There is something to be said for those deadlines! They keep us from dwelling too long in the heady creative stimulation that comes with starting a new work.
Eventually, of course, it literally becomes work. My heart may be palpitating now, but eventually I will get frustrated and think the creative well is dry. I have never had a book write itself and all of them hit snags. Finishing the journey can be arduous. But, oh my, what a thrill it is at the beginning with all the choices still to be made. For a month I get to be a new writer, alive with that glorious buzz.
It is also during this period, after a book is finished and while the new one is just beginning that I come out of my cave and notice things, such as the need to update my website. You will find some new entries here under my History Page and my Author page. I have finally uploaded some photographs of places I have been visiting, and they are accessible off the Author button (go to the Off Topic Stuff dropdown).
Lessons of Desire will be published in October 2007. Readers of Rules have already met the main characters, Elliot Rothwell and the very unconventional Phaedra Blair. I expect the copyedits any day, and once they are done I will post an excerpt and an introductory page for it, so stop by again soon!
And for all the readers who have been writing to me and wondering—yes, Christian will get his own book!
Madeline
