writing a good story

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Meet Calisa Rhose, Author of Risk Factors

One of the things I enjoy most about having a blog is being able to interview a fellow author.  It is a great way to get to know them a little better and hear about their newest release.  Today I have the awesome Calisa Rhose in the house.

Kylie:  Welcome Calisa!  Thank you for visiting and being brave enough to answer my questions.

Calisa:  I’m thrilled to be here, Kylie! We are gonna have fun!

Kylie:  You say that now, but you haven’t been grilled – ahem- interviewed yet. 🙂 Let’s start out with your newest release.  I’d love to hear about it.

Calisa:  It’s titled Risk Factors, released by Lyrical Press, Inc.

– available March 4, 2013

Love, like life, is not without risk.

 

 

Risk Factors

Risk Factors

BLURB- Veterinarian Vivian Dane has purchased her uncle’s practice in the tiny town of Wales, Missouri, where most residents still doubt her ability to treat their pets. But Viv is used to being considered less-worthy than her predecessors. After all, her parents are world-renowned wildlife vets, and most everyone is unimpressed she’s chosen to not follow directly in their footsteps.

Now Connor, a patient’s owner, is hot for Viv, but clearly doesn’t think she’s dating material because he has a daughter…who he believes no woman is good enough for.

Being a perfect dad is EMT paramedic Connor’s life focus. He can’t seem to stay away from sexy Doctor Viv, but attraction is as far as he’ll ever let it go. His mother abandoned him, leaving him to be raised in the foster system, and then his wife abandoned both him and their daughter. He absolutely will not risk bringing another woman into his little girl’s life and having her feel the hurt of being left…again.

Forfeiting is easier than attempting and failing. So why does Viv feel compelled to prove she’s a sure bet for Connor and his daughter? Can Connor trust Viv–and  himself–enough to play the possibilities?

Kylie:  Ooh, this sounds good!  Who doesn’t love an EMT or a man who is raising his daughter?  Connor can rescue me any time – just saying.  Okay, moving on…who is your favorite character?  I’d love to see an excerpt that showcases why you like this character.

Calisa:  I adore Viv’s tenacity to get her man, no matter what it takes. Here’s a sample:

“Jelly Bean? What people?” Was he deliberately trying to confuse her? If so, he was wasting his time, because she spent half her time in that state…without help.

Connor laughed. The slow, husky sound curled Viv’s toes several times, like one of those party favors that rolled tight, and then straightened with each breath. His eyes darkened slightly.

Viv knew she was staring. Didn’t seem able to look away.

“Janna calls her pets ‘people.’ And some are territorial, while others think they can move where and whenever they choose. Giggles is a mover.” He still smiled.

Viv forced a swallow down her dry throat and broke her gaze from his. “I see. Jelly Bean…Janna, calls her animals people, and you call your daughter food. Got it.”

Boy did she. Bad at that moment.

His laugh ratcheted up a decibel, increasing her level of oh, my God, where have you been all my life? I think I lust you! craving. Not the it he was talking about, but definitely the it that made her walk from the room, before she said or did something stupid. His smile prompted uncontrolled idiocy in her for some awful reason she couldn’t figure out.

“Where do you want this?”

She turned at the surgical station to find him standing a foot behind her, holding up the carrier once again. The light gray polo shirt he wore stretched tight over his chest, outlining hidden muscles. He lifted the carrier, standing so close she could smell his light aftershave and soap.

Viv knew before she spoke that it was about to happen. She was helpless to prevent it as her mouth opened. “Do you want to have dinner?”

Kylie:  I love the line “I think I lust you!”  🙂  I’m curious…have you been writing long?  How did you get started?

Calisa:  I’ve been writing since I was a teen, but didn’t get serious about getting published until 2005 when I wrote a manuscript with the express purpose of submitting it. It’s sitting on my hard drive still. :/

Kylie:  I think most of us have a manuscript or two either hidden on our hard drive or gathering dust under the bed.  I dig mine out every once in a while just to remind myself how far I have come since those early days.  Which brings me to my next question – How do you deal with rejection letters?

Calisa:  With a grain of salt. Rejections just mean that one (or two or ten) publisher didn’t want my story, not that all publishers don’t. I’m a firm believer that if I do my job right and good there is a home somewhere for every story.

Kylie:  I couldn’t agree more.   Do you have a critique partner or a beta reader to help you polish your stories before you send them out?

Calisa:  Both! I am in a critique group and have several friends who are usually happy to Beta read my completed work and offer last minute suggestions. To me cps and Betas are invaluable. Every writer needs at least three. 🙂

Kylie:  What drew you to the type of book you write?

Calisa:  Mostly my love of romance and contemporary settings, modern cowboys and first responders.

Kylie:  Do you spend much time on research for your story?  If so, what do you like most about it?

Calisa:  It depends on the story content. If it’s a cowboy or small town story there’s not a lot of research necessary since I’m a good ol’ girl from the ranch and know most of what I write, unless I write about a specialty like a veterinarian as I did in RF. But for my first book, Home, I had to spend hours learning about the Vietnam war. I love learning about things I don’t know so research is fun usually.

Kylie:  What other titles do you have available?  How about its tag line?

Calisa:  Home, with The Wild Rose Press

What could a gypsy and a Vietnam veteran have in common?

Kylie:  What a great tag line!  I certainly want to know the answer.  Do you have a favorite book?

Calisa:  I don’t think I have one. I enjoy so many authors and so, so many books I can’t think of one I like above all others.

Kylie: Are you a plotter or a pantser?  Tell me about a perfect writing day for you.

Calisa:  I am a pantser! I’ve tried to plot but so far it hasn’t worked well for me. Lol A perfect writing day…well, I get up at 6, get the granddaughter off to school at 7 and go home and check a few emails. I’m also an editor so I have ‘work’ to do and this often means edits for my authors before I can settle down to write. I try to get to my work in the evening when I have other edits to work on, but we’ll say I don’t for this interview. I’d open my word doc around nine or ten, after checking four email accounts, and then write as much as I can (hopefully without interruptions from FIL whom I care for in my house too) until hubby and granddaughter gets home around three. Then it’s family ‘stuff’ until about seven when I’m free to check blogs, emails or ‘play’ on social media, then get in a few more words before bed.

Kylie:  That’s quite a schedule even on a perfect writing day – wow.  Do you ever struggle with writer’s block?  If so, how do you work your way through it?

Calisa: Yes. I’ve actually been struggling with it off and on since moving FIL in with us two years ago. It’s hard for me to ignore surroundings to write so I struggle with blocking others out even when they aren’t in the room.

Kylie:  Okay, one last question.  Do you use a pen name?  How did you decide on the name?

Calisa:  I do, sort of. Calisa is my real name. Rhose is after my mom who loved roses; flowers, color, perfume—everything rose. I added the ‘h’ in my name because there are already several authors with the common spelling and I like to stand out. <grin> I chose a pen name to protect my family, but thanks to FB I think most everyone already knows my real last name too. Lol

Kylie:  Thank you for taking the time to visit and being such a good sport answering my questions.  It has been a lot of fun 🙂

Calisa: Thanks for inviting me on your awesome blog, Kylie! It’s been fun talking to you.

I’d like to ask readers what you like to read about. If you could name a heroine, in one of my contemporary books, what would you name her? I have trouble coming up with jobs for my heroines. What should her job/career be?

Kylie:  Do you want to know where you can get Calisa’s book?  Links are listed below.

LPI- http://lyricalpress.com/risk-factors/

Amazon- http://is.gd/OOGR4t

B&N- http://is.gd/PfGvg9

iTunes- http://is.gd/J2aelz

Also, Risk Factors is on Authorgraph! Get your copy signed. http://www.authorgraph.com/authors/CalisaRhose

 

Calisa Rhose

 

Author Bio:

Calisa Rhose is an Okie, born and bred, through and through, and proud of it. While growing up, when she wasn’t on the back of a horse, she could be found with pen and paper in hand. Her writing career began with poetry in her younger days. Then she discovered Rock-n-Roll and cute musicians. Poetry turned into stories of romance and dreams. These days she lives with the same man who convinced her to take a romantic journey with him almost 30 years ago. After raising three strong daughters she spends her days loving their granddaughters, hoping for a boy someday, and writing. When she’s not writing, you can find Calisa putting on her editor hat and working to help other published and aspiring writers.

She is working on more projects with her favored contemporary cowboys, first responders and firemen, as well as, the occasional ‘other’ heroes – and their sexy female counterparts, those sassy, stubborn heroines.

Find Calisa at her website/blog http://calisarhose.wordpress.com

Twitter@CalisaRhose, Facebook/Calisa Rhose, Goodreads, Amazon and Pinterest

 

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The Only Way to Travel

“It is pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed.

            ~Kin Hubbard

I recently had the pleasure of flying first class.  Having made the first leg of my journey in the back of a plane it was an unexpected delight to be bumped to first class for the longest stretch of my flight home.  Let me just say…wow!  From start to finish it was a wonderful experience and one I hope to  repeat in the future.  I am now officially spoiled and I can totally live with that 🙂

I admit I savored everything from the warm, damp towel to freshen up with to dinner served on china with linen napkins.  When offered my choice of dessert I chose ice cream with candied nuts and smiled to myself to have it in a glass bowl.  This was a huge difference from the $9 sandwich I’d bought when seated in the more economical part of the plane.  Okay, fine – the cheap seats.

Of course, every experience can be fodder for writing and this was no exception. The difference between classes could not have been more obvious and I realized I have the perfect opportunity to explore this divide in my current WIP.

Lyra D’Kir has a lot of responsibility resting on her shoulders, but has been surrounded by wealth and privilege her whole life. How is she going to cope when circumstances thrust her into a situation where sleeping on the hard ground and being asked to carry her own weight are temporarily the new normal? Will she rise to the occasion or be defeated by it?

By the same token, how does a former soldier react to the wealth and privilege he finds himself surrounded by?  Burke Wulfric has little sympathy for his latest charge, but can he appreciate the finer things in life or will he be too busy comparing the differences in their lives and circumstances to see beyond the glitz to the real person underneath?

Interesting questions, right?  I guess we will see what happens 🙂

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Is He Hero Material?

“I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.”

~ Bob Dylan

What makes a hero in a story?  Is it a strong and disciplined body?  The way he moves across a room and commands attention or that roguish glint in his eye?  Initially those are the things that will catch a reader’s attention.  But, if that is all your hero has going for him then your reader won’t stay long.

When I began Rayven’s Keep I wasn’t sure what my hero eventually would be like.  I had a basic idea, but it took time to make Nick Rayven more than one-dimensional.  I had to ask myself what traits did he posses that would make my heroine fall in love with him.  What was it that made him a hero in her eyes?

To know that I had to understand where he came from, what experiences molded him into the man he was now.  Right away, I knew he was an honorable man, driven by duty and his own moral compass.  I knew he could be impatient and once set on a course he would see it to the end no matter what.  He’s a man who has seen the worst life has to offer and still managed to survive.

In other words, he’s one tough dude.

That might be attractive at the on-set, but my heroine is feisty and a romantic at heart.  There had to be more to Nick’s than a tough exterior to keep her interested and willing to break down the emotional barriers he’s erected.  After all, this is her journey as much as his.

So how does a man who spent his life in the military fighting for a cause he believes in deal with the destruction of everything he’s fought for?  How does he move past seeing his home world destroyed?  For Nick those final horrendous minutes of battle are relived in nightmares.  This is a vulnerability he hates and has no control over.  Yet, in spite of everything, he has managed to build a new life for himself by being focused on establishing his business, Rayven Security.  It’s how he copes.

He’s also lived in an emotional vacuum for so long he doesn’t quite know how to deal with one small female getting under his skin and shaking up his world. It’s his gruff kindness, his protective instincts and the vulnerability she senses in him that draw her.  It’s the heat she see’s in his eyes and the baffled expression he can’t quite hide.  Its knowing he will walk through fire for her and recognizing it goes beyond his sense of duty.  That’s the Nick she fights for.  Wouldn’t you?

This is one of my favorite scenes with Nick.  What do you think?

Nick was no stranger to the tumult of feelings coursing through his body. He’d felt the punch-drunk assault of adrenaline many times in his career. He understood the heady rush of euphoria once the danger had passed and knew firsthand the reckless need for physical release in its aftermath. He recognized it a very human response to the need to reaffirm life continued.

All those feelings and needs made his hands shake and drawing breath into his oxygen-starved lungs difficult. He wanted to follow Tru to her bed and sink into her warmth with a painful intensity leaving his muscles taut and his emotions a tangled mess.

If the situation were different, he would have gone with his friends to a tavern and indulged in the usual male bonding ritual of congratulatory back-thumping and drinking until he was either too drunk to stand or had found a bed partner. A sobering thought. He’d been younger then, still idealistic and sure of his ability to survive what life threw at him. It seemed like a lifetime ago, and he’d learned surviving was sometimes almost too painful to be endured.

To let her walk away had cost him. The heavy thud of his heartbeat pulsed in his temple and restless energy held muscles rigid. He called himself ten kinds of a fool, even though he knew he did the right thing. He ran a hand across the back of his neck before he went in search of a canister of ale he knew was onboard. He didn’t drink often, but tonight promised to be long and lonely.

After he snagged the chilled canister, he returned to the bridge. Slouching in his chair, he nursed the drink and stared moodily into space.

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A Writer’s Voice

Never give up. And most importantly, be true to yourself. Write from your heart, in your own voice, and about what you believe in.

~Louise Brown

If you Google Writing Voice you will discover pages of material.  I literally found everything from what Voice is to instructions on how to develop it.  There is information in abundance to help you discover your own unique style. Wow.

Apparently this is a very serious subject and one a writer needs to pay attention to.  Who knew? Certainly not me. When I first started to write it never occurred to me I needed to find my Voice. I had no idea what it was to begin with. I just wanted to tell a good story.  So I wrote.  And wrote some more.  Then I rewrote.  Along the way I discovered a tendency to head hop just a teensy-weensy bit – okay, I raised it to an art form, but, hey, I eventually figured it out.  Adverbs are not my friend and the word “that” can be overused.  Good to know.

Writing a sentence is fairly easy, but what gives it life beyond the words you read? What glues you to the pages anxious to see what happens next?  Words have power and the way they are put together on a page can transport us to other worlds and on wonderful adventures or make us want to hurl the book across the room.  We laugh, we cry, we smell the ocean on the breeze or hear the thunder of a waterfall and we fall in love with characters that become real to us for a short period of time. All because of words.

Okay, so we’ve established the importance of sentence structure (my English teacher would be so proud), but that alone isn’t enough to keep us interested is it? I know you’ve picked up a book and several paragraphs in you are wondering why you are wasting your time. Maybe you keep reading, hoping it will get better or toss is aside because you would rather wash dishes. Yet the book came highly recommended from a friend/co-worker/stranger on the street (you get the picture) because they loved this book and thought you would too.  What is it about the book you just didn’t like?

You know where I am going with this, right? It is Voice!  It is the cadence of the words put together, how it is punctuated, the dialogue between characters and how they are developed that either bores you to tears or keeps you awake half the night reading.  It is how the writer perceives his vision and translates it to the page that we either respond to or turn away from.  It is an emotional reaction.

If the writer is lucky his Voice will touch the right cord with a lot of readers, but I can say with great confidence that even bestselling authors have detractors. Not everyone will like what we produce and that is okay.  If everyone liked the same thing then we wouldn’t need a wide variety of reading material. Boring!

So, I’ve discovered along the way my rhythm for words and descriptions – my Voice.  I am comfortable there and fall easily into the pattern when I sit down to write.  My hope is others will like what I have done and few will be tempted to toss my book aside.

In my world, that would be pretty darned cool. 🙂

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Here a blog..there a blog…

“We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how well we do it?”

 ~Erik Qualman

I spent a little time visiting blogs and web sites today.  I don’t do it as often as I should, because keeping up with the publishing industry and writing in general can be a daunting task.

Advice flows across these sites like a wide river, enticing the reader to stop and dip a toe in or, in my case, get sucked in for long periods of time while I lose myself reading interesting tidbits.  I find out about new releases from favorite authors, worry over the affects the economy is having on the publishing industry and what will happen now that e-books have exploded.  I mentally commiserate with other writer’s who blog about their trials and tribulations, laugh over anecdotes they share and get to do it all from the comfort of my office.  Most days it is a pleasant way to spend time.

Occasionally, I will read something that makes me stop and consider a point that is being made on a deeper level.  That happened today.  There are all kinds of opinions circulating in regards to an author having to find creative ways to stay in the collective conscious.  A publicity machine backing your newest release is not often an option for those just beginning their careers. Much is being asked of the author to promote their own work.

What has been repeatedly touted is the need for an author to have a presence beyond a book on a shelf.  What does that mean?  Sometimes it is as simple as a bookmark that you can give away or as complex as hosting a blog, a web site or having a twitter account.  With all the noise in our daily lives it gets harder to be heard, harder to get shelf space for a new untried author and suddenly writing isn’t just about writing a good story anymore.  It becomes about putting ourselves out there, showing up and raising our hands to catch a potential reader’s attention so they will find our book.   We spend our own money to help launch our creation in the hopes we will recoup our investment on the back end and garner enough attention we help our sales.

I am a bit of a late bloomer when it comes to joining the cyber highway.  It wasn’t until my book was almost ready for release that I finally got this blog up and running.  I joined Twitter thinking that would be easy (Ha! 140 characters to say something is hard work!) and finally after much whining and, well, more whining, I added an author Facebook page.

Want to know what I discovered?  I actually like blogging.  Who knew?  I get a thrill every time someone visits and actually leaves a comment. When I get a notification my tweet has been re-tweeted I breathe a sigh of relief because I managed to say something worth passing along.   Better yet, it is pretty darn awesome when someone tweets something good about you.  And Facebook – I quit whining.  Okay, maybe I just slowed down a bit.

Social media is a challenge and could take over my life if I let it.  It hasn’t been easy finding the rhythm that works for me, but I think I am getting there.  I make a point of leaving a comment when I visit a blog nowadays.  I want the author to know I enjoyed what they took the time to write.  It is all about give and take and making connections and new friends.

Will my efforts help my sales in the long run?  I haven’t a clue.  It will be fun to find out though.