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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
February 27th, 2010 at 11:19 pm · Link
Don’t you hate when your characters switch things up on you? By the way, Megan, I’ve been in love with him for YEARS! Haha, I had the same thing happen to me this week. Like, thanks for the memo my lovely character.
February 28th, 2010 at 5:35 pm · Link
You’re disappointed because you only wrote 41 pages? Sometimes I could hate you, little ole speedy writer.
March 2nd, 2010 at 11:49 am · Link
@Susan Gourley: don’t forget, I’m home all day doing it.
February 28th, 2010 at 6:05 pm · Link
I have to admit I love when one person doesn’t know who the other is AND when the person in the dark has no real reason to know the first person. Better yet the person in the know has the illusion of “being in the driver seat” but not… Heh. Yeah, I have to agree, pretty darn delicious.
March 2nd, 2010 at 11:49 am · Link
@Rosie: then I think you’ll like this one. She’s been in love with him since he saved her life ten years ago and now she’s back in his life in a totally different position, and he doesn’t know her at all!