TO BE RICH
What's it like to be rich? Not just comfortably wealthy, filthy rich! I'll never know but I can imagine. Today, while working on book #3 in my Texas Boys Falling Fast series -- Taming Tori (Jake's story) -- I was in my heroine's head. Or at least I tried to be. Victoria "Tori" Caye is a spoiled fragrance heiress that hasn't wanted for anything in her life. Whatever she wants she gets.
Time to 'fess up! I've struggled with Tori's character from the get-go. I'm not sure if it's because she's so well-to-do that I can't relate, or because I can't fathom someone acting so badly. Believe me, she's a real treat.
This brings me to what the experts say about writing -- write what you know. I agree with that advice, to a point. If I only wrote what I knew, I'd never get enough words written to equal a novella much less a full length novel. Since I'm not rich (far from it) and never have been, (I used to be dirt-freaking-poor) should I shy away from writing about those fortunate enough to be considered well-to-do or affluent? No siree-bob! I consider it a challenge. Has it given me a few grey hairs? Yep. But that's okay. I'm old(ish) so grey hairs are fast becoming the norm.
I digress.
Anyway, back to being distracted by Tori's character. She had me so twisted inside I wanted to cuss. (Hard to believe, but yes, a cuss word or two has been known to slip out) Instead of cussing, however, I took a walk around our pond. Water seems to have a calming effect. A few laps around relaxed me. Thoughts began to zing through my brain so fast I was afraid I'd forget half of them before I made it back in the house.
After tapping the keys for awhile, I wandered back outside. This time, I cut some flowers from by beds and snipped a few colorful weeds from the ditch on the north side of the house. And voila! This is what I came up with. (Did I mention that flower-arranging isn't my forte?)
Too bad this isn't a scratch-n-sniff picture because there are sprigs of spearmint in the arrangement!
In the midst of jamming those beautiful flowers and weeds into the pot, I was struck by a profound thought -- I have a good life. A comfortable home, albeit nothing fancy. A pond to walk around to refresh my mind and soul. Flowers to admire. An awesome family. Great friends. And a partridge in a pear tree. (Okay I threw that last line in to see if you were still awake) What I'm trying to say is, I may not be rich dollar-wise but in the big scheme of things, I'm rich beyond measure. Soooo...I guess I can write what I know!
I found new inspiration just by backing away from my work-in-progress for a little bit. I feel that I now have a solid grasp on Tori's character! I'm eager to finish Jake and Tori's story so I can share it with you.
Taming Tori will be published later this month. If you read it, please let me know how I did with Tori? (any and all thoughts are welcome)
For those of you who write, where do you go when you need to sort out stubborn characters or things in your story that drive you wonky?
Random thought: If Martha Stewart, Barbara Corcoran, Donald Trump, or Warren Buffett is reading this post (yeah right), I'd love to hang out with you. You know, for research. (A girl can dream)
Thanks for popping in to read my ramblings!
Until next time...
Hugs!
~ Jan
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