Redemption -- I'm not talking about taking a story that you wrote a long time ago, dusting it off, and performing a little plastic surgery to make it workable. With ACCIDENTAL, I had to do some major redemption. I wrote this story I don't know how many years ago, before I started pulling the Tabor Heights stories together. Before I realized it was a Tabor Heights story. I had to change the hero's last name, his sister's marital problems, and bring the heroine's parents back from the dead. Along with minor details like street names, city names, and current events. But that's not what I mean by redemption.
Big confession time: There was a period in my writing when I succumbed to the allure of writing "sexy" -- and the requests of some of my editors, and the pressure of the people around me in RWA. When Tyler plans the "get to know you better" getaway for him and Abby, in the original version of the story, he was planning on proposing, convincing her to fly to Vegas to elope, and even packed a lacy negligee to surprise her with. Ummm, NOT the Tyler and Abby we know now! And in the original version, they were seriously considering having the honeymoon first, before they were interrupted by their rescuers. (Hope that doesn't give away too much of the story...)
I have other stories I've put back into storage that I hope to redeem someday, take away the sex and concentrate more on the relationship and the action, the conflict, the challenge in the story. It's going to be hard, but I've been learning -- and maybe God has been teaching me -- that you don't need the hormones going at 300MPH to have a good story!
Web site: www.Mlevigne.com
Trailer: www.Mlevigne.com/tabor-main.html
OR www.MLevigne.com/trailers.html
Buy link: http://stores.desertbreezepublishing.com/-strse-326/Tabor-Heights%2C-Ohio-cln--Accidental/Detail.bok
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Michelle, very informative post and nice to get to know you more. The best in your continued writing.
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