Wednesday night I finished up a submission package and fired it off into waiting-for-response land. Back to dragons (again) yesterday. After a panicked, despairing, this-book-sucks-what-am-I-gonna-do email to my editor, I held myself at gunpoint and opened the file for Book 3. It’s been limping along for about 10,000 words, dull and dry and blah to me. No passion. Too much going-it-alone. Why do I never remember that writing gets excruciating if a character is on the page by herself for too long? The whole point of a story in a relationship genre (romance) is the showcasing of, well, a relationship. The ways in which one character relates to another. Push and pull and (if we’re lucky) lots of cooperative petting in between. Masturbation is pretty deep into Snoozeville, and so is the 10,000 word heroine soliloquy.

So the book obviously needs more sex, right?

Well, yes. ;) But it also needs a sympathetic character pairing on as many pages as possible. So tonight when I get home, if I don’t pass out from being awake at FIVE AM this morning, I’ll be going back to chapter two and giving Cora’s companion back to her.

I always feel so dumb when I fumble around like this and the solution comes zap! just like that - months after worrying about it.