Megan Hart

I didn’t know you when you started.

Oh, I saw the articles in Entertainment Weekly, heard the buzz. But you came on in a time when I didn’t watch television, had no Tivo to help me. I didn’t care much about you, in the beginning.

And then…Netflix came into my life. That saucy whore. Teasing me, tempting me with unlimited rentals of programs I’d heard about but had never watched.

Like you.

So…yeah, I rented you at first. Just one disc. I said, “hey, if I don’t like you, I don’t ask you out again.” I didn’t know when I slipped you into the DVD player, slowly, carefully, that you’d turn out to be so. Damn. Beautiful. That first season murdered me. Tore me up, slit me open and sewed me up again. I screamed, I cried, I writhed.

I fell. Hard. Fast and deep. All the way.

Dr. Troy? Yes, please. Over and over again, and then one more time? Break my heart, please, because it yearns to be broken by the likes of you.

That first season was some of the most balls-to-the-wall, over-the-top, outrageous, horrifying, tantalizing, scintillating and sometimes disgusting television I’d ever seen. Oh, sure, you were too much to believe. Sure, you took everything that was good in anyone and turned it bad. I knew I could count on your characters to always make the wrong choices, no matter what.

You have no redeemeable qualities, Nip/Tuck. You know that? You know you’re filthy and unrepentant, don’t you? Just like you know you have me begging for more every single time you’re on.

Season two was next, and I ate that season. Oh, I didn’t rent any more. I had to OWN YOU. Yes, Nip/Tuck, you’re my filthy, nasty habit. I could watch you over again…and here’s a secret…oh, yes. Yes, I did. Snuck peeks at you during the day when I was supposed to be writing. “Research,” I called it. But we both know I lied. That’s what you do to me, Nip/Tuck, you turn me into your dirty, lying whore, and I LOVE IT.

Got caught up just in time for Season Three on broadcast, and with the help of some strange gadget called a DVD recorder (NOT A DVR, no, baby, this thing actually used RECORDABLE DISCS) I was able to keep up with you every week. Oh, sure, the dvds never recorded right and the timer was always off. Sure, I had to scream myself hoarse with frustration when I missed you. Thank God FX played you so many times I could always catch up.

This is it, Nip/Tuck. I wasn’t with you from the start, but I’ve been with you a damn long time. I’ve cried. I’ve laughed. I’ve cringed. I’ve stayed with you through every single unbelievable, repulsive story twist and plot line. I kept up with you even when Sean and Christian moved to L.A. because…how fucking ridic was that? But I was there with you. Loving you. Yearning for you. Aching to be filled with your weekly dose of OMG WTF.

And now…

Now, we say goodbye.

There’s only one episode left. And I can’t watch it. I can’t. I cannot bear to watch you end.

Christian, Sean, Liz, Julia, Matt, Connor, Annie, Kimber…none of you could ever get your heads out of your asses, and with one more episode to go, I don’t see as how you possibly CAN. But I guess that’s okay, because it would be unfair to expect any of you to get it straight after so long.

And after all, isn’t it what I so loved about you? Your constant flaws? Your never-changing lack of common sense?

Oh, Nip/Tuck, my dear Nip/Tuck…my beloved Nip/Tuck. I weep in advance at the thought of losing you. You were the one show I cheated on Supernatural with. The one I have to watch. Must see. Can’t be without.

I’m going to miss you.

<3,

M

I haven’t been here in a long, long time. Barnes and Noble, that is. Sunday mornings are sometimes spent at home, doing laundry and working on stuff while Superman takes the spawn to religious school. Or they’re spent buying groceries and running errands while the spawn are in religious school. Or, sometimes, but not lately, they’re spent at the Barnes and Noble writing.

I worked on some articles today (I write for Helium.com on a variety of subjects, nothing fancy.) Wrote a new “How-To” Guide for Helium (on how to apologize to your girlfriend, of all things!) and I checked out the shelves for my books.

Didn’t see any.

Saw books by Lauren Dane, Cynthia Eden and Beth Kery — oh, and I did see Naughty Bits 2 so I guess  I am on the shelves here after all. Checked out the final two books in Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series. Looked at all the teen books. There’s really a plethora of paranormal teen fiction out there right now, just the kind of thing I loved as a teen and still do. Also lots of books about angst and woe. Guess what, I like that, too.

Tomorrow I’ll get back to working on By Its Thorns, and I have confidence I’ll get back into the groove. I feel…overflowing…with ideas lately. I write them down. Sometimes I even plot them out a bit. I keep a notebook of idea snippets, though lately I’ve taken to writing a plot synopsis on the computer instead of doing it long-hand, and I made a folder on my hard drive to save all these “proposals.” My problem is not lack of ideas, but too many.

It’s a good place to be. Full of ideas. Full of the feeling I could actually write most of them, that the ones I really like, the ones that have been hanging around, in some cases, for years, are good ideas. Viable. They’ll be good books, if I have the chance to write them, which really depends on a lot of things, since some of them aren’t in genres for which I have current contracts and would therefore require I get new! exciting! contracts!

I’m all for that.

I don’t want to write the same kinds of books forever. Rather, I do — I want to keep writing what I love and what I think I’m maybe a little good at, or at least decently skilled. But that doesn’t mean I want to write ONLY those books. I have a lot of books in me and the drive to write them.

One of the problems in becoming complacent, in writing the same sort of books over and over, is that I could forget how to write something else. Like, how exciting it is to follow a different path, not the same formula (and listen, there’s always a formula, or else how would you be able to do the same thing over and over?) — to remind myself that I don’t have to keep to the restraints of certain genres, or I don’t have to limit myself to one certain kind of plot point; that some things in some books are necessarily more important than in other kinds, and what will simply not work in an erotic romance is totally fine in horror novel.

Yeah.

I like that.

I want to keep doing this for a long time, and I don’t want to run out of enthusiasm. I don’t think I’ll run out of ideas. I guess you never know. But for now, I have notebooks and documents full of some crazy, crazy ass shit, ya’ll.

Write on!

M

So, I started the book with the tentative title By Its Thorns (apt to change) last week and got a whopping…41 pages. Yeah, I know, not quite the amount I’d hoped. HOWEVER — I lost my notes from the other three books, so that was sort of annoying. I know I have them, I just can’t find them! Then, the character’s name changed. The heroine still has a name I don’t really like, so I have to think of one I do. And then it just took some time to switch the gears and move from one book to another, one genre to another.

By Its Thorns is the fourth Order of Solace novel so the world is established and yet there’s so much possibility for more stuff! (Of course, if I could find my notes, it would help. A lot.) On the other hand, the style of it — the language, the way the characters interact, is very different from the contemporary erotic fiction book (Collide) I just finished the rough draft of. Things take longer in the Order of Solace world. People talk a lot more, using more words to say less.

It takes a little time to get back into that. Plus, while Pleasure and Purpose was pretty hot, sex-wise, No Greater Pleasure was quite a bit less graphic. The third book, Selfish is the Heart, out this fall from Berkley  Sensation, is also less graphic. It was my plan that By Its Thorns would be a little more on the erotic scale rather than sensual, and so far, it seems as though it just might be. But four chapters into it, I realized something — the heroine’s been in love with the hero for YEARS! Which means I have to make some changes in the first chapter or so to reflect that. He, on the other hand, has no idea who she is at all.

Delicious.

It’s tricky, getting people into bed. Sure, they can just have sex for the sake of having sex (people in real life do it all the time) — but in a book, well, I kinda sorta like to have it mean something, if only to further the plot or make a point or something like that. It’s not real life, it’s a novel, every word counts. So while they can get into bed on page one, for me, it still has to make sense and mean something.

Of course this week I have TWO days with obligations, but I hope I can get into the writing groove again and pound out the pages on this book! Hooray! Hooray!

M

My futuristic erotic romance, PASSION MODEL, will be re-released from Samhain in May (or possibly April!) 2010, so be on the lookout!

http://www.cynthiaeden.com/romance/write-on-wednesday-megan-hart-on-writing/

So, with Collide finished in its rough draft form and put to the side so I can get new eyes for it (not literally, obviously) I am about to begin a book tentatively titled By Its Thorns. I think that’ll change. But it’s the fourth Order of Solace book, and I am SUPER DUPER excited to be working on it. I actually plotted out the story eons ago, and I still really like the idea for it.

I’m also stoked because it seems I’ve managed to keep my 20 pgs a day habit, which means this book should flyyyyyyy along, fly along, barring issues with plotting or kids having days off from school, etc. I already know there are days off coming up (oy!) so if I could finish the rough draft of this before that all starts, I’d be in a very very good place. Editing and tweaking and polishing is easier done around interruptions than page count.

So, here I go. Beginning today, officially! Starting…now!

M

I don’t celebrate Lent. I wouldn’t even have known it *was* Lent if not for the internet and people around here talking about fashnachts (which I didn’t even eat any of this year, sad!) If I were going to give up anything for forty days it would be something I could already live without because I’m ornery that way — I gave up bacon a looooooong time ago and you know what? I don’t miss it, ever. So when I want to do something, I do it, but if I feel like I *have* to do it because of New Year’s Resolution or something like that, well, I just don’t.

I’m more likely to pick up a habit (let’s say writing 20 pgs a day, go me!) rather than drop one (drinking too much Coke Zero, I know, bad me!)

But I was thinking about confessions, so here are my top ten confessions.

1. I get a picture of Keanu Reeves emailed to me EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. And I LOVE IT. I will never unsubscribe!

2. I sing karaoke in my living room when I am home alone. Also when I’m not alone, but sometimes when I’m alone. I like to sing Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves.

3. I once allowed my son to wear the cowboy boots that were mine in 8th grade to school. He was in second grade (I think, time has a way of becoming hazy.) He wanted to wear them, I have no idea why, but I was like, you go on with your bad self. And he did.

4. I did not wait “until I was married.”

5. On average, I say “fuck” about six times a day. Sometimes a lot more. Most often, not less.

6. I allow my children to watch disgusting, violent zombie movies (with my supervision.) I’ve made them promise not to become serial killers. So far, so good. *fingers crossed*

7. I have a forearm fetish– a man’s nice forearms with just the right amount of arm hair, nice wrists, sleeves rolled up…gah. I trace this DIRECTLY back to a substitute teacher I had in high school. I think his name was Mr. Wilson or Willard or Wilfred or something like that; maybe that’s just what we called him. He didn’t like us much. I think we teased him. But he had some HOT forearms.

8. I believe I once told someone I loved him when I didn’t. On the other hand, I think I didn’t tell someone I loved him when I did. So it all works out.

9. If you piss me off enough, I’ll put you in a book, and not as the hero/heroine. But you know what? Maybe if you weren’t made of evil, you wouldn’t have to worry.

10. I kissed a girl…but I’m not sure I could say I liked it.

There it is, confessions!

Got something to get off your chest? G’head!

M

First, we were going to go away for the weekend.

Then, we were not.

Then, we got a call that a tree went through the roof of the beach house, so we had to go.

Then, we had to stay longer and therefore, the day I thought I’d get to make up work because of the days I missed work due to snow days…well,that day was spent not working.

And today, I have to go see my kid’s play.

However, I’m going to shower and eat breakfast and get started on the work. I want to finish Collide this week, though it’s Tuesday already — GAWD! and I’m not sure…wait a minute…yeah, I could very well finish this week. Rough draft, I mean, nothing in readable format. But that means I’d be well on my way to making my goal.

Cool! See? Not so doom and gloom after all. (Well, let’s forget about the holes in the roof and the lack of a heat pump and all of that junk.)

Yeah, okay, so I’ll get to work and finish Collide so I can move onto the next project. Awesome!

Hooray!

M

PS — this post has been brought to you by the letter “M” — my internal monologue. My private pep talk. See how it works?

What, it’s not enough to seduce me, you have to tease and taunt me, then leave me weeping, writhing, screaming NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO?

Yeah, eff March 25th, bring me more Supernatural next effing week!

I *loved* this episode. My Bloody Valentine, anyone? Oh, haha, so clever. *snerk* I mean, starting off with a pretty steamy (for Supernatural) sex scene that was NOT including Sam or Dean sort of made my insides shrivel, but when they started eating each other…wow.

I was eating during this episode, and lemme tell you, I was disgusted.

I loved it! So much to love. So gross. So many funny lines. Cupid of course knocked my socks off with his naked bear hugs and intrusion on Dean’s personal space. Castiel — “They’re not incontinent.” BWAHAHAHA! Oh, God, Misha Collins, you slay me. Seriously. The writers write the lines, but the DELIVERY, oh, my goodness.

They worked through the mystery, figured out what was going on, it all tied in nicely with the overall arc, Sam drank demon blood and though I know it’s wrong, oh, how I know it’s wrong…Evil!Sam, with the one hand out and the sneer, I’ll wait my turn if that’s what you want. I know it’s wrong to like Sam slurping demon blood but…well…listen there are a lot of reasons why the bad boy trope is so well-loved and it makes it even better when the damage is something he can’t help. So, bonus points for Evil!Sam! Hooray!

More demons, more nasty stuff, Famine’s teeth seriously made me want to barf. He reminded me of the guy from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and that really really old decrepit guy with the creepy voice…I can’t remember what movie he was in or what his name is…dangit…he made a career out of being old and decrepit and creepy in a wheelchair being evil and gross! Well, Famine reminded me of him. AND IT WAS GROSS, Y’ALL.

And then the end.

Dean. Oh, Dean. Dean, Dean, Dean.

Dean.

I stopped watching Lost because Jack cried too much, but I could watch Dean’s eyes well up every single freaking episode and want to cradle him to my bosom and comfort him and tell him it will be okay; but of course it won’t, you know, it’s the motherfucking apocalypse, son, and you and your brother CAUSED IT.

Jensen Ackles, seriously? Why are you so good at breaking my heart? WHY?

So that was last night’s episode, and now I have to wait until March 25th for a new one. Yeah. I am sad.

Not quite snowed in any more, but still have work to do to make up for the snow days. Twenty pages a day, dolla dolla, holla holla. Gonna finish COLLIDE next week or even this weekend, depending on the craziness that ensues (I don’t usually write on weekends but if the family goes skiing or some such thing, I will work.)

Today I also have to clean my house, because…ew.

M