I frequently purchase my lunch in the coffee shop at the local grocery store in the mall where I work. It is quiet and dark and if I wear my mP3 player people usually leave me alone so I can do some editing on my current manuscript. I have become something of a regular at this coffee shop, and therefore chatty with the workers behind the till. One worker in particular has taken quite an interest in me and asked me once why I always brought a folder with me and what it was that I was writing? I told her, albeit it with some hesitation. She was delighted and it turned out she is an avid reader of romance. Next she wanted the title of one of my books so she could read it. I panicked. Strangely enough I said, “Oh no.”

I explained it would make me shy. I mean really she’s seen the food I eat. She knows I’m a cookie hound. She knows what brand of condoms I buy, not to mention the toilet paper, tampons and baby wipes that have crossed her scanner. Now here she is wanting to know what dirty thoughts my brain can come up with. I may as well have been standing there naked. She laughed it off easily but she didn’t give up.

Truthfully its not so much that she knows what I buy. More its how I will react after she has read my story. Will she ask the usual questions in regards to where I get my ideas, what fun research must be, and do i practice what I preach?

Knowing she is my source for good coffee I’d have to come back and face her again and again. What if she doesn’t like it? What if she doesn’t think I can write at all. Up to the point where she actually reads my work all she knows is that I’m published. Her imagination could make me out to be the next Nora Roberts and that stroked my ego in very good ways.

Its easy talking to readers on line. I can be brave and macho because they don’t see me. Then it dawned on me. They might not physically see me but I reveal a lot more when I’m just a figment of someone’s imagination.

I sought out the coffee shop for privacy because no one knew what I was doing. It was my own little hidey hole and I’d exposed it and myself like a common flasher. Sure people might wonder what I was up to but they would ne4ver be certain I was writing sex scenes. I realized then, sure, I write sex scenes. I have a dirty mind but so do my readers. They want to read those sex scenes. Suddenly I wasn’t alone. Suddenly I had someone I could talk to.

Perhaps this is a good lesson for me. After a few days I’ll go back and ask her what she thinks, inviting both the praise and the criticism.

If you asked me three years ago if I thought I’d ever write a romance, the answer would have been no. In fact, I thought I had never even read one, but that wasn’t quite true. Of course I had. Romance is found in most stories even if it is a violent, action packed, book aimed toward men, like Bourne Identity, (a particular story I happen to love).

I was a macho girl growing up. I shied away from most things typically feminine, leaving that area to my older sister. Instead of playing with dolls, I played with matchbox cars, instead of playing house, I built tree forts and rafted along our winding creek. Matters of heartbreak and wooing were ridiculous to me, and I would have run in the other direction if someone had tried to pin me down to watch Pride and Prejudice. What I didn’t realize, until I started to write my first romance, was that I thought of romance all the time. I mean, all the time, in everything I did. When my imaginary toy car people went for a drive they parked and made out. When I was rafting I was fantasizing that Tarzan was watching me from the trees and restraining himself from swooping down and carrying me back to his jungle lair. I just never recognized the romantic elements in my playing nor in the books I was reading because it was subtle.

The idea to write a romance came to me one day as a plot, a plot that could be nothing but a romance. At first I resisted the story, repeating the negative comments I have heard my co workers say every time a romance crossed our desk (I work in a bookstore), but then the story just kept nagging at me and I could resist no longer.

Until then I had focussed on teen novels, writing in your face stories about run away teens. What I didn’t know was that every story I wrote had a romantic theme. Recently I have gone back through my old WIP and finally found the missing piece that had stopped me from finishing those particular stories, the romance. Now I’m rushing to catch up!

Tomorrow is the release of my second romance novel. It is a tryst length story that is close to my heart. I’ve had crushes on boys I knew were out of my league, so it was easy to sympathize with Pyper Caden as she pinned for her childhood crush, Liam Patterson. The story is situated in a small cottage town where my family used to rent a little “A” frame cabin yearly, and every day I hoped to meet a boy just like Liam.

Here is an excerpt from Secrets of Summer, available April 18^th, 2008 through Cobblestone-press.

“It has been a long time, Liam.” She couldn’t hide her astonishment at his metamorphosis.

He visibly relaxed. “I hope I didn’t scare you. It’s such a nice night, I thought I’d sit out under the stars.”

Her gaze dropped to his waistline where she noticed the leather tool belt slung low about his hips. A hammer protruded awkwardly from a loop on his left side.

“I must admit, I’m a little startled. I didn’t expect to see anybody over there tonight. There hasn’t been anyone for years. In fact, I didn’t even know your family still owned the cottage.” She laughed nervously, fearing she was running off at the mouth.

He sighed wearily. “I know. What a mess that was.” The vehement tone in his voice warned her that the rumours were true and to not push the topic.

A long silence fell between them.

She still couldn’t believe he was there and still looked so magnificent. It dawned on her to consider what she looked like. She hadn’t expected a rendezvous, so she had worn her frumpiest sundress thrown over top of a ratty, old T-shirt. She intended to do some intense cleaning while at the lake, but she never would have wanted anyone to see her in such a state.

“I should set these down,” she said in a rush, indicating her bulky armful, using that as an excuse to get out of the spotlight.

“Here,” he said suddenly. To her surprise, he sprang from the deck to the ground below. “Let me help you.” He reached for a paper bag overflowing with a variety of foods she would prefer he didn’t see. Such as the bag of cheese puffs poking out the top, or the chocolate chip cookies and the six pack of soda. “How inconsiderate of me to hold you up so long with such a heavy load.”

“No, no. It’s okay.” She winced, trying to dissuade him, but he was already up the steps to her deck and had the screen door propped open with his toe. “Okay,” she conceded through gritted teeth.

She fished the keys out of her pocket and slid one into the lock. With a thump from her hip, she opened the door and stumbled inside.

She flicked on the light around the corner with her elbow then moved to the kitchen where she set her bundle down on the table. Then she turned around to take the bag from him.

She smoothed down the folds of her skirt in a self-conscious motion.

“I see you still wear your hair long,” he said out of the blue, his gaze fixated on what she assumed was a mess of strawberry-blonde frizz.

Was that a good thing? She raised her hand to her unruly, shoulder-length tresses and patted the top of her head, flattening a few rebellious curls. Her Irish ancestry both blessed and cursed her. With her fine bone structure, moss green eyes, light sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and wild light red, curly hair, she might be mistaken for a sprite. But on days like this when it was muggy, her cheeks burned a deep pink with an internal fire, and her hair did a jig, dancing straight up on top of her head as though it had a life of its own.

“I’m too chicken to try any other style,” she confessed through a nervous laugh.

He shrugged easily. “I’ve always liked it.”

She was surprised that he was aware she had hair, let alone had bothered to have an opinion about how she wore it. He smiled at her kindly, as though it were an everyday occurrence that they might be chatting in her cottage kitchen. It was then she realized he was still standing in the open doorway. He seemed rather like he anticipated something. Could he be waiting for an invitation to come in? Her eyes widened at the idea.”

Here is a picture of my cover, which I adore, done by the very skilled Sable Grey!

There has been some talk about pen names lately that I have noticed across the forums and blog sites which got me thinking about my own reason for choosing a new secret identity for myself. I started to wonder why, when I’ve told most of the people that i work with, most of my closest friends, my mother and even some of my husband’s co workers, just what I’ve done. (published a book that talks about SEX!)

There are still quite a few people, crowds actually, that I do not wish to explain my reasons for writing hot and heavy sex scenes too. One is the young adult readers of my other identity, nor the publisher editors of that genre, nor those teens parents. I’ve heard the reactions are, … strongly against. The other social network I’d like to not explain in gory detail what I do late at night to, is the small town where I grew up, rebelled against, then moved back to. Yeah, I don’t thiunk they’d understand either.

Then it dawned on me what having a pen name really means to me. I get to be myself, say (almost) what I want without holding MYSELF back, (there are boundaries I just don’t want to cross). While writing as Tara S Nichols I can talk raunchy because my boss doesn’t know its me saying “cock”. My pen name gives me cover, allows me more freedom. As I’ve learned, the hard way, loved ones reactions can be stifling. Lets just say I won’t be showing my work to my mother again.

I started to wonder then about actresses who take it all off for the silver screen and what reactions they get from their loved ones. Do they say, “Look ma, this is what I did at work today?” Do they hide it or tell it?

I feel a close kinship with my pen name. I feel as though it is my name and I don’t balk when I see my pen name on my work. It still feels like mine, the voice is mine and hopefully the voice the reader hears is the less inhibited one too.

Pantser; writing in a style similar to flying by the seat of your pants or otherwise known as writing as you go.

For more description, here is an interesting web site; “http://www.hodrw.com/ppii.htm”

I am indisputably a pantser writer. I don’t plot. My characters come to me after the fact or in as a complete image. Sometimes I see a person that I think would make a great character but mostly my brain sees them and then proceeds to show them to me. The same goes for scenes in my stories. I will get a section of a story in a way that I can see it, as though I am watching a movie. As a pantser I have to be on my toes, as I suppose most writers must be, but to be able to catch all of the info for the scene at once I have to have pen and paper ready to just start writing. I write from the beginning of the idea, whether it be a conversation between characters or a bit of drama or action in a scene. For example, today I had to stop drop and roll when the hero of my fireman story first caught sight of my pyromaniac heroine as she watched the flames of the burning building he had been called to put out. I saw everything through his eyes, the way she looked, the smell of the smoke, the heat of the fire on his skin, his reaction to her, his thoughts regarding his past as well as the nearby future. Hopefully I got it all. Up until that moment I had no idea he suspected might have been the one who started the fire. I have yet to find out. Only when I’ve got the story written will I really know what happened.

I have tried to be a plotter, outlining the scenes, cutting out photos in magazines, making a portfolio, detailing the lives of the characters, but it goes against my natural tendencies. For me it starts to become homework, a task, a job, a boring aw do I have to… and I know then that the story will suffer. I almost believe it goes against my muses, if indeed there is someone filling my head with these dirty thoughts, (and for that I thank them). I far prefer to be the cork bobbing about on the surface of the water waiting to see which way the current is going to pull me.

I also enjoy the other type of pantsing so make sure to wear a drawstring.

-Tara S Nichols