Wednesday's Women ~ Lexie Chambers

Wednesday is Heroine day, or Wednesday's Women. This week I'm introducing Lexie Chambers from Having Her Best Friend's Baby.

Lexie is one of those girls, that finds it easier to chat with her man friend (James Darcy) than girlfriends. In fact if she had to, Lex would find it hard to name a really close female she can talk to openly.

HEROINE:

Name: Lexie Chambers

Age: 34

Height: 6'

Hair colour: Blonde – long & wavy

Eye’s colour: Blue

Physical description: Slim, toned body, almond shaped eyes, full bottom lip, high cheekbones, and long eyelashes.

Family Affiliations: The youngest of two girls, has always been treated as a blonde bimbo by her parents and her older sister.

Career: Co-owner and head Ad designer of own Marketing business with James Darcy.

Basic Traits: Intelligent, funny, friendly, impulsive, stubborn, independent, lacks self-confidence around her family.

HER GOAL: To have a baby she can love and who will love her. Have her parent accept her for the person she is.

HER MOTIVATION: Wants to prove to her family that she is responsible.

CONFLICT: She wants to conceive her child by AI. She is afraid if she and James cross the line from friends to lovers she will lose him as a friend and a business partner.

HER CORE BELIEF: That sooner or later everyone she loves will turn his or her backs on her.

I'm still working on finding out more about both Lexie and James, as well as their story.

Sandie

Male Monday ~ James Darcy

Welcome to Male Monday. Let me introduce you to James Darcy, my hero from Having Her Best Friend's Baby.

HERO:

Name: James Darcy

Age: 34

Height: 6’ 6”

Hair colour: Black

Eye’s colour: Blue

Physical description: Athletic, with toned muscled arms and legs. Oval face, full lips, tanned complexion.

Family Affiliations: Only child parents divorced: Mother has had a sting of younger lovers and his father has been married 4 times.

Career: CEO & Co-owner of Marketing Business

Basic Traits: Strong, reliable, trustworthy, ambitious, and determined. Can be suspicious of women and their motives.

HIS GOAL: To make his business a success and to have his partner Lexie look at him as something other than just a friend.

HIS MOTIVATION: James wants to prove to his father that he can make his own way without the help of family money.
He has loved Lexie for years and she is the only woman he would ever think of settling down with and give his children the stable home he never had growing up.

CONFLICT: His father can be over powering and believes his way is always the best.
He wants to help Lexie conceive a child, but NOT via AI.

HIS CORE BELIEF: That he will never make a good husband or father as he never had an example of how to act like one, plus he is often told he is like his father.

Meet Lexie on Wednesday.

Sandie

A Contemporary Romance Novel

This is the contemporary novel I’ve been working on lately. It is also the one I have entered in the M&B New Voices Contest. Originally I was going to enter it in the Romance Writers’ of Australia High Five contest, but instead decided to use my Historical Romance for that one.

So here is the basic outline and blurb:

Title: Having Her Best Friend’s Baby

Hook: Best Friends become lovers – Marriage of Convenience

Setting: Sydney around the beach areas

Time Frame: Late October to Early July

Target: HM&B Sexy Sensation

Blurb:

Lexie Chambers and James Darcy have been friends since 1st grade and have a strong working and personal relationship. So it seemed natural to Lexie, that when she decided to have a child, that she would turn to her best friend and business partner for help.

James Darcy is less than impressed when Lexie tells him she wants to have a baby and wants him to be the father. He is even less impressed when she announces that it’s just his sperm she wants and not his body. The last thing James wants is to course problems with their friendship, so why is he so insistent that they conceive the baby the natural way?

What will taking the step from friend to lover mean to their friendship? Are they willing to pay the price?

Tomorrow I’ll post a brief character sketch for my hero James Darcy. I really like James, he is so good for Lexie, even if she doesn’t know it yet.

See ya around

Sandie

Working with Margie

Empowering Characters’ Emotions with Margie Lawson is going well. Of course there are gaping holes in my writing, too much yellow highlight, not enough body language. Too much tell, no enough showing.

The joys of being an aspiring author, I have no idea why I thought the writing was the easy part. LOL. On a bright note, I am really enjoying Margie’s course and think I’ll do the Deep Editing: The EDITS System, Rhetorical Devices, and More in May. I can see a lot of work in front of me as I rework my way through my WIPs I’ve already started to edit.



I’ve had to have a rethink of my Regency romance, the English law pertaining to inheritance due to women. Nothing like having your great idea derailed. With the help for the RWAus Historical loop girls and some research, I think I may have an answer to my heroine’s dilemma, however I will have to do some rewriting when it comes to my subplot. At least words are being added to ‘Lady Mounthall’s Lover’, unlike ‘Having Her Best Friend’s Baby’.

It’s not that Lexie and James’ story wasn’t working, it is more a case of hours in the day. I’m editing one complete novel, as well as writing and editing another as I go. I’m testing out my CP, Heather Brown’s, idea of writing one day and editing the next, to see if that will help when I come to the end of the novel.

I’m still reading Paula Roe’s blog each week, to stay on top of her ‘A Novel in 3 Months’, as I’m using some of her writing techniques with ‘Lady Mounthall’s Lover’, it is all good. Of course, I am still finding out things about my characters, especially my Hero, The Duke of Chesterfield. I discovered the other day he has alternate motives to pursue heroine, Lady Josephine Mounthall.
If you’re interested in finding out more about how “Lady Mounthall’s Lover’ is progressing, I’ll be posting an update on my Novel blog later this week. For now, it is time to organise dinner for my hubby.

Catch you next week.

Sandie

Margie Lawson - Empowering Character's Emotions & Other Things

I am starting Margie Lawson’s ‘Empowering Character’s Emotions’ today, (well later tonight). I’m really looking forward to this course and hoping to be able to put the needed emotion into my characters and novels. There are a few Aussies doing the course with me, Diane Curran (who was the one to give me the push to the course on line), Suzanne Brandyn (Suz is one of my fellow NewMait members), Natalie Hatch, Shayne Collier (Shayne is a fellow Bootcamper), Chris Weston, Louise Ousby and Lesley Smith, I think that’s all of us so far.

Diane has set up a separate loop for us to be able to discuss the course between us, as well as talk about homework set down by Margie.

On the writing front, I’m moving forward slowly. I’m enjoying Paula Roe’s ‘A Novel in 3 Months’ and have managed to get myself into some form of routine. Writing a plan for each scene before I start writing each day is helping, so hopefully by the time I’m finished the editing won’t take too long in future.

‘Having Her Best Friend’s Baby’ is delivering a few surprises, like the parents from hell for my poor heroine. No wonder Lexie has issues. As for my hero, well he has enough on his plate trying to avoid his new step-mummy who has her sights set on him (this I did not see coming).
With my Regency romance, I’m really enjoying this one. Except for the fact that the heroine has changed her name three times LOL. H/H have had their first meeting and she is not impressed, he on the other hand has already started to work out ways to get the newly widowed Lady Mounthall into his bed.

I have the outlines with GMC and character charts on my novel blog if you’re interested.
Well that’s all my news for now.

Sandie

Writing by Mini Plotting

As you know I’m following Paula Roe’s, ‘A Novel in 3 Months’, you may also know that I’m a pantser, not a plotter. I may however have come across a way to be both. Twice a week Paula posts the steps she takes in getting her novel plotted and ready for writing. I’m taking those steps as well, it’s just that I’m writing as I’m plotting. Yes, so as not to upset my temperamental characters, each morning I plot (or draft) what I want to happen that day in the scenes I’m writing. So far, it’s working, I’ve had no hissy fits where my characters stop talking or just go off on a tangent of their own desire. I’m a happy girl.

I’m also a girl who is working on two novels, a contemporary and an historical, as well as editing for CC. I’ve split my days into three parts. In the morning I’m working on the historical, the aim is to complete one scene a day. The lengths vary so this is affecting my word count each day.

Did I mention I’m doing BIAW with the RWAus Historical loop? Well I am, you know what I’m like with challenges. Okay back to my daily routine.

After spending a couple of hours on my historical, I then move onto editing. I’m aiming for five pages a day. Seeing, as it is a novella of around 13,000 words, I’m hoping to have this finished by the end of the challenge. I’m also hoping to increase the word count to about 15k.

After lunch and as long as I’ve reached my five pages of editing, I move on to my contemporary ‘Having Her Best Friend’s Baby’. This is working out well, and I’m happy with where I’m going with the story line. If you would like to find out more about ‘Having Her Best Friend’s Baby’ have a look at my Novel’s Blog.

All of this has been running very smoothly, until today! Today I’ve done nothing on any of my projects. Today, I’ve worked on blogs. This blog, my Historical Blog, the RWAus Blog for ‘Cruisin’ the Blog’ and this week’s ‘Bookshelf Saturday’. Tonight, I need to sort out my office so I have somewhere for a friend who is coming to stay for a night or two. So no writing for me today.

Tomorrow is another day, and with any luck, I’ll be able to make up for my slackness today.

Sandie