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By Robin Kaye Every November when NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) rolls around, I’m always flying at lightning speed toward a December deadline. I hate the word deadline, but that’s a topic for another blog. I wish I can really do NaNoWriMo—not just try to get 50,000 words written in a month, which I’ve been known to do when I’m speeding toward the big “D.” I want to start a new book at the beginning and write my little heart out; to fully immerse myself in my characters and story line; to get that cool little winner doohickey to put on my website. Winner! Ah, that must be so wonderful! Alas, NaNoWriMo just doesn’t jibe with my publication schedule, but New Years does. I awoke New Years Day still suffering from the stomach flu and wishing I was hung over. At least when you wake with a hang over, you usually had fun the night before, and there are all sorts of age-old remedies for it—a known cure. The flu—not so much. Still, despite the queasiness, there was that excitement bub...

By Robin Kaye Happy New Year! It is for me, especially since New Year’s Day was the official Launch Day for the fourth book in my Domestic Gods Series— Yours for the Taking ! And to make a good thing even better, Eloisa James made Yours for the Taking the featured title in Barnes and Noble Review's Reading Romance calling it "an urban twist on a classic tale of marriage for convenience" and "a treat to read, and a sweet, funny way to start the New Year." So let’s get this party started! He might be too good to be true… Ben Walsh shouldn’t be single. Handsome and wealthy, Ben is equally at home in Idaho where he grew up and in Manhattan where he’s now an art dealer. Suave and successful with impeccable taste, he normally has women beating down his door, but the one woman he wants can’t be convinced that he’s for real… She isn’t sure if she has the time for fairy tales… Gina Reyez has fought for every bit of her success, and it’s about time for things to start g...

By Robin Kaye Last night I met with my critique partners and went over the changes I’ve made to On the Wild Side . As I crawl toward the end of a book—sometimes it feels as if I’m crawling over glass—I find myself going back to tweak a scene here and there, just adding a line or two, or a thought to up the tension or connect the dots so that the big black moment is indeed black and not gray. Although I’m adding a ton of words, it feels as though I’m making little forward progress. A few books ago, I’d probably be freaking out right about now, but since this is my 5th, I’ve learned that ‘looks’ can be deceiving. In a blink of an eye I’ll be typing those dreaded words: The End . Why dreaded, you might wonder. You’d think I’d be thrilled to complete yet another manuscript. Believe me, part of me will be doing my version of the Snoopy Happy Dance while another part morns the loss of my characters. I’ve spent the last six months in their heads. I know their life stories, I’ve laughed and c...

By Robin Kaye Joanne recently wrote a blog about falling in love and the altered state of consciousness that is brought about by infatuation. This is something I tend to suffer from with every one of my heroes. Joanne’s blog was wonderful and as all great blogs do, it got me thinking. Always dangerous, I know. The one question I’m usually asked by readers and interviewers alike is which of my heroes is my favorite? The answer I always want to give is the next one. I have a nasty habit of falling in love with my next hero—the one hero I’m not supposed to be writing about. I’ll be writing one book, and a secondary character will invariably appear and steal my heart. I’m fickle that way when it comes to fictional men. I’m just lucky that hasn’t been my problem in real life. If it were, I doubt I'd still be happily married to the same man for over 20 years. When I wrote Yours For the Taking , which will be released in January, 2011, I met a bevy of new characters—several of which were ...

By Robin Kaye The theme for this month is new beginnings and since I’m beginning a new book and a new series, it seems apropos. For me, the beginning of a book is the hardest to write since I’m usually still learning about my characters. It’s as if I’m feeling around a strange room filled with furniture in the dark, searching for the light switch or lamp, and trying not to kill myself in the process. Normally, I know my hero/heroine, or both from one of my previous books but not in this case. While Hunter, my hero, was a character in Yours For the Taking, he was a very small secondary character. He may have had a line or two, but I knew what he did for a living, what he looked like, and everything there was to know about his family, yet Hunter was kind of an enigma Unfortunately, I knew nothing about Toni, my heroine. She just popped into my head one day in all her goth regalia, and introduced herself. I knew what she looked like, what she wore, and how she sounded, but it took a lot o...

By Robin Kaye Being a writer is hard for me because I find myself housebound, more often than not. I can’t wait to go out, explore the world, and fill my creative well. I love to travel to foreign lands, soak up different cultures, and take in the architecture, art, music, and most especially, the food. However, exploring with a family of five is a little cost prohibitive. Since my children have definitely inherited my travel gene, my husband and I have taken to doing low-cost day trips. We pack a lunch and sometimes a dinner too, throw a game in the back of the Sequoia, grab the kids, and head out on adventures. When we lived in Boise, Idaho, it was as simple as packing a picnic basket and hiking just outside of town to find evidence of the nearby Oregon Trail, taking a tour of the haunted Old Idaho Penitentiary, or driving to the nearby ghost town of Silver City to pretend we were miners. We always kept a few mining pans in the car, so if we caught valley fever, or needed to escape t...

By Robin Kaye For those of you who haven’t been following the blog long, you probably don’t know that my husband is not the most romantic guy. Actually, I usually say he’s about as romantic as a stump, and really, what’s romantic about a stump? Nothing. Now don’t get me wrong, he has other great qualities—he’s a Domestic God after all, which in my book, counts for a lot. However, when it comes to the cards, flowers, chocolate, and gifts thing he’s so not into it. For Valentine’s Day this year, I received a kiss and an “I love you.” Although nice, it’s no big whoop since I get those the other 364 days of the year too. Still, there was one day in our twenty + years of marriage that he actually did something romantic. In fact six years later, I’m still pinching myself. Really. Though after such a huge success, I think he’s under the misconception that he’s still on the positive side of the romance-meter, and according to his calculations, is good for the next nine years. At the time, our ...

By Robin Kaye Today was my favorite day as a writer—the day I finally wrote The End. This is a good thing since Yours For the Taking is due on my editor’s desk on Monday, February 1. I drove home today from my lovely critique partner’s house knowing I had to write this blog, and I thought about the experience of writing this book. I know every book is different, and no two experiences are going to be the same, but having just finished my 4th book for Sourcebooks, I’m beginning to see trends and subtle changes in my writing process. With every book, I find that writing that beginning and the end gets more difficult. It’s been my experience that the book will be almost finished for the longest time, but I go back and rewrite the beginning and the end over and over and over again. A book not only has to begin with a hook, it has to end with a hook. It has to make the reader want to reach for my next book. Unfortunately for me, hooks are not easy to come by. So I’ve been writing and rewri...