Funny what a total economic collapse can do for you.

The last week in September my day job ground to a halt. As America limped into October and I waited for Harlequin to decide if they were going to approve my next project, I decided to try something new: writing a book in a month.

Sound crazy? Yep. It was. But it was also fun, challenging and set my muse free.

Instead of writing a story for a specific target/publishing house. I decided to write a story that’s been kicking around in my head for more than a year and let my voice tell the story any way it wanted to. Wow. Freedom with the keyboard is a powerful thing.

I came up with a fun ritual – window open so I can see the late blooming rose outside, play a little Queen or Kelly Clarkson, shake my groove thing, then settle in to write. Don’t have a plot detail? Stick a colored notation into the document. Can’t think of a name/appearance/gender for a supporting character? Name them Character A and think about it later. No editing. No monkey sitting on my shoulder saying, “that won’t get by editorial”. The only rule I stuck to was 10 pages a day.

So now I’ve got a whole new manuscript – kind of like a big lump of clay waiting to take shape. There’s a lot of work to be done, but for the first time in a long time, writing was fun.

Since this was so much fun, I have to ask myself if I sold out to get published, compromising the way I like to write and what I like to write about. I’m not sure I did. Maybe I started out loving those stories and writing one way and now years later I’ve grown and need to move on. Only, will I move on if those Superromance proposals sell?

(pause for a moment of panic)

It doesn’t matter if I did or didn’t. I am in a new place and on a mission to reclaim the Eye of the Tiger!

M