How I Write

I had it pointed out to me that Sarah's Private Dick should be in the Romance Category rather than Interracial, because romance between two characters is romance, no matter their skin color. I rather liked that point.  But I didn't realize exactly how romantic it was going to get when I first started writing.  Sarah and Derrick kind of took off on their own, falling for each other before I even realized what was going on. I knew the attraction would be there, but they really ended up clicking.

Does it sound weird that I didn't know what the characters were going to do? Probably. But it's true. I always have a basic outline to a story, but sometimes that outline has to flex or bend, or outright change halfway through the story. I recently wrote an entirely new outline for Venus Aspiring, because Jessica, Justin and Chris were not behaving the way I had originally thought they were.  Things got more complicated.  Partly because the men are both alpha males who don't always do what I want them to. And also because the three of them are not communicating with each other the way I thought they would. *sigh*

I recently wrote feedback to Cherise Sinclair, one of my favorite e-book authors, and she was kind enough to respond to me with a little insight into her next book, and she mentioned having the same problem. Unruly characters who weren't following her original plot plan. It happens. But that's when the best moments of the story happens too, when things get off track because the characters have come alive. One small moment can change the entire way a story is developing.

For Venus School of Sex, that moment was the weekend at the school, when Justin, Chris and Jessica were able to get to know each other as people. Originally I'd been planning to skip writing about the weekend, just have Jessica hanging out with her friends and only briefly running into Flood and Fire. But when I started writing, all of the sudden Jessica's hike turned into something spectacular with Flood, her art class with Fire got personal, and they spent all of Sunday not having any sex at all, but getting to know each other. It completely changed the dynamic of their relationship and, I think, made for a much more emotionally satisfying story. It's great when things like that happen.

Anyway, I got a bit of a surprise with Sarah's Private Dick, apparently Derrick found a little extra something under the pictures in the hidden drawer, which he didn't let me know about until today. I'm not done with the chapter yet, but I'm getting there. Hopefully will have it submitted this evening. In the meantime, here's a little excerpt from it, just for fun:

Derrick felt unexpectedly reluctant to leave Sarah’s house that morning. He’d wanted to stay curled up next to her in bed, although he didn’t think she’d be up for another go around.  Not that he should anyway.  What had he been thinking?  She needed to be tested. And now he did too. Although he would have needed to be tested anyway, after their first bout of incredible sex. Maybe that’s what he’d been thinking. Already exposed, might as well just keep on going and get the maximum of pleasure out of it.

Yeah, real smart.  It was pretty obvious which head had been doing the thinking last night. At the same time, he couldn't regret it. He might if he turned out to have something, but some goofy inner instinct kept telling him that everything would be okay. It was probably wishful thinking. Ignoring that little voice seemed like the best idea for the moment. Even if it had led to one of the best nights of his life.  Sarah was like an addiction. He couldn't get the taste of her out of his mouth, the feel of her off of his skin, or the image of her out of his head. Truth be told, he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to badly enough.

But he had things to do. Underneath all those pictures had been an entirely new set of ledgers. He'd packed the pictures into an envelope and put them back in the drawer, tucking it under the desk so that Sarah didn't have to look at them unless she really wanted to, and then taken the ledgers with him.  Hopefully these ledgers were for the missing money that Martin had been skimming.

He'd called Nick and let him know he was on his way over.

"Hey buddy," he said when Nick answered the door, thrusting the small stack of papers at him. Nick rolled his expressive dark brown eyes.  Derrick's best friend looked like an accountant, although a very in shape one. Tall and slightly gawky, he had a good amount of muscle from running constantly. Definitely not a body builder, his lanky and lean body was incredibly fit and he'd never had any trouble picking up girls who went for the geeky type.  The two of them made an interesting looking pair, both so tall, but Derrick being much broader and dark as night where as Nick had lily-fair Irish skin that burned the second he stepped into the sun.  Even though he wasn't a redhead he hadn't been able to escape the curse of the fair skin.

And, being Derrick's best friend, Nick knew something was up the moment he looked at his friend.  A man couldn't have a night of incredible, mind-blowing sex without it leaving behind a kind of glow. He raised his eyebrows at Derrick as he let him into the house.

"What have you been doing?"

Derrick realized that he had a rather goofy grin plastered on his face.  One that wouldn't quit even when he tried to tone it down. "Ah. Gathering evidence." He nodded at the stack of papers that Nick was now holding.  Nick eyed him suspiciously.

"Gathering anything else while you were at it?"

Although it was impossible to see a blush on Derrick's dark face, he could feel his mouth stretch even more. Damn smile gave him away completely. Not that he ever lied to Nick anyway. "Ah... maybe."

"Not an immediate yes followed by a shrug? She must be special."

Huh.  Despite the many times Derrick had responded to Nick's question about a woman, he'd never noticed his automatic response before.  Yes, Sarah was special. He didn't want to shrug her off. He wanted to go back and do it again, and again, and again... after a moment he realized that he was staring into space and now Nick was looking at him with his own loony grin.

Letting out a low whistle, Nick laughed. "Oh, you've got it bad. Who is she?"

This time Derrick did shrug, but in a defensive kind of way. "The client. Her name's Sarah."

"You dog!"  It was not said in a complimentary way, and Nick punched his shoulder. Hard. "She's a widow!"

"I know," Derrick said, backing up with his hands in the air. "It just kind of happened.  I found a hidden drawer that those," he pointed at the papers as he backed away from his righteously indignant friend, "were in and it also had a bunch of pictures of her husband and several other woman.  And then she just... kissed me."

Nick stopped advancing, but he was still glaring. "What, so you threw her a bone? Pun intended."

"No. Look... I like her. We had lunch yesterday, sort of by accident, when I went by to check out the office at the restaurant. I liked talking to her. And then we went back to her place so I could look through the home office again, and I found that stuff...." He ran his hand over the top of his bald head in frustration. "Look, it would have taken a saint not to respond when she kissed me like that.  She's gorgeous. She wanted me. I made her dinner afterwards.  And breakfast this morning."

"THIS MORNING?!"

Aw crap.  That's what he got for babbling.  Derrick spread his hands wide in front of him, shrugging helplessly.  To his surprise, Nick burst out laughing.

"Man have you got it bad."

Shaking his head, Nick turned and headed towards the kitchen. Relieved that the third degree was over, Derrick followed.  Was Nick right? How bad did he have it? Considering that part of him was already thinking about making another stop by her house today, for no other reason than to tell her that his friend was looking over the ledgers that he'd found, Derrick was sure that Nick was right. He had it pretty bad.