Being Keyboard Smart - Nancy Warren

I’m off to hot fusion yoga soon. It’s my new discovery. I’ve learned the hard way that writing is an occupation that is very hard on the body. We think it’s easy sitting around all day but in fact horrible dangers lurk. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, back troubles, neck troubles, not to mention the expanding derriere, you know the one that turns your back end into a shelf suitable for storing the books you spend all day writing? So, anyway, after months of my hands turning blue after about twenty minutes at the keyboard, I now have a neurologist, physiotherapist, massage therapist, rehab Dr. -- a plethora of medical professionals working on my poor aching body. Don’t let that happen to you. I offer the following suggestions learned from painful experience. Don’t get so caught up in writing, reading, blogging, playing online solitaire, emailing, whatever you do at the keyboard, that you don’t take time out. I now have to set a timer for every twenty minutes to make sure I stretch. I think even a ten minute stretch break every hour would be fantastic. Strengthening the core muscles and getting regular exercise is obviously important as is sitting up straight. It’s so easy to start slouching as you get tired. Anyway, I hope my sad history will inspire you to keyboard smarter!

However, in good news, blue hands or not, I’ve got a brand new Blaze out for February, Under the Influence. When a workaholic management consultant on assignment in a laid back surfing town on the California coast walks into a restaurant/bar one night in February she’s so clueless she doesn’t even realize it’s Valentine’s Day until she notices the place is crowded with romantic twosies and she’s the only onesie in the place. Except for the sexy bartender known locally as Hot Johnny. With no place to sit, she ends up at the bar and the two develop an instant attraction. I really love opposites attract stories, and the truth is that I met the real Hot Johnny in a coast side surfing town. How could I not write about him? Of course, my Hot Johnny is entirely fictional but I did borrow the name. I also made full use of him for background info and I got some insight into how a bartender goes about inventing a new cocktail. RT gave Under the Influence 4.5 stars and a Top Pick.

This month I’m also part of Harlequin’s 60th Anniversary celebration. My first NASCAR novel, Speed Dating is available as a free download at eHarlequin.com, so check it out. You can visit me anytime at http://www.nancywarren.net/

Happy Valentine’s Month. Make sure to treat yourself.

Happy reading,

Nancy

Coffee Shop Research - Nancy Warren

I think about love a lot. It’s my job as a romance writer, after all, but I’m endlessly fascinated by couples. What attracts two people to each other? Why this one, and not that one? In my wonder and curiosity for how the process works, I spend a lot of time covertly studying couples in coffee shops, restaurants and public places like airports. I often go to coffee shops to write -- so a good day of people watching usually means a sucky day of word production. But when I watch two people together, I like to guess what their relationship is, and, if it’s a love affair, where they are in the course of it.

There’s a scene in the movie When Harry Met Sally that takes place at an airport where Harry watches with interest as Sally passionately kisses her boyfriend good bye. Billy Crystal, as Harry, is able to guess, pretty accurately, how many weeks Meg Ryan’s Sally has been going out with the new guy based on the heat of the kiss and the fact that her lover is still interested enough to drove her to the airport. It’s a funny scene, and makes me think that screenwriter Nora Ephron is another voyeur. But then I think all writers are. Richard Curtis, who wrote Love, Actually has my favorite airport scene. If you watch the final scene of Love, Actually, it ends at Heathrow and we see glimpses of the couples we’ve been following throughout the movie, but then the camera turns to random strangers, embracing, laughing, crying. More and more of them, until the screen is filled with tiny films of strangers embracing those they love. I adore that scene with its quick, intimate peeks into lives we’ll never know.

In The One I Want, my Kensington Brava that just came out this week, I finally got to use some of my coffee shop ‘research’. I have a scene where my heroine, Chloe, who is starting The Break Up Artist, a business breaking up relationships that aren’t working, is at the mall having a quick coffee in the food court and observes a couple getting engaged. Getting engaged in the food court? Of course she can’t take her eyes off the intimate drama. She’s joined by her annoying (but very hot) landlord, an ex-cop and trained observer and they both watch the scene play out. Afterward, they have a bet about what really happened and, naturally, Chloe, the woman who understands the heart wins the bet over Matthew, the guy who doesn’t see so well below the surface of things. It was a fun scene to write and I suppose gets at the heart of the book. Love is always a mystery, and often the truth isn’t what appears on the surface, but what’s hidden deep down where the authentic self lives.

Have you ever done that? Watched a couple and been able to read the unspoken clues of body language, facial expression, eye contact, even the way they’ve dressed for each other? It’s amazing what people reveal about themselves and their hearts. And thank God for that, they sure make the romance writer’s job easier!

Have a great day,

Nancy
http://www.nancywarren.net/

I made it! - Nancy Warren

Hi all,

I was all excited to come and join and then I discovered I couldn't log in to my blogger account. I needed my Google account. I have a Google account? It seems I do. Then I had to reset the password because I've forgotten it. You know, all this Internet stuff is a lot of work and you'd have to be Mr. Memory himself to remember all the passwords. However, I'm here at last and most thrilled to be in the company of so many good writer friends. Lee is such a great friend of romance.

I'm starting to get organized for my trip to Daytona and the official launch of Speed Dating, which is the first of the 2007 officially licensed NASCAR Harlequin romances. Hot, young NASCAR driver, Carl Edwards, driver of the 99 car, appears in Speed Dating and so, of course, the brilliant folks in HQ marketing decided to do an actual speed dating event in Daytona. Carl is confirmed to be there and he's planning to go a few rounds of speed dating. I think we'll have a blast.

I'm chatting about the book, my experiences writing about NASCAR, writing in general and anything else that comes up over at eHarlequin. I'd love to see some friendly faces. That's at http://community.eharlequin.com/webx?13@@.4a842e0f/0

In the meantime, now that I've figured out how to do this, I plan to stop by often.

Nancy
http://www.nancywarren.net
http://www.myspace.com/nancywarrenbooks