The Gardening Bug by Samantha Hunter

I love gardening. Sometimes, like now, when the yard is a mess, the grass is all matted and the garden needs to be seriously cleaned out from last year’s overgrowth, and one hour outside yesterday just turning and feeding the compost pile was exhausting, I wonder why. . .but I do. I don’t know if gardening can be in your DNA, but I think it’s in mine! Both of my grandparents, though I never knew them, were farmers. My father once told me I was like his father, Jack, because I’ve had the urge to garden since I was a kid. My father also had a wicked green thumb, as did my mom, so I guess it’s in my blood.

The craving usually starts sometime around the New Year, when I normally will put in a seed order for things I want to plant. Then I drag out the gardening magazines, and start taking notes, making changes based on the previous year’s successes or failures. Then when March and April roll around, the bug really bites and I pace in front of the windows, waiting for the snow to go so I can get outside and start in.

Then, when I get out there, I realize what hard work it is, and wonder why again. LOL But I know why – partly, it is because I like the hard work. There is no exercise on the planet like gardening – there is no workout like what you will get turning a compost pile or digging sod. Even planting and pulling weeds is a good bit of exercise as well, as well as being outside for hours. Many days in the summer, I need no other exercise.

Then there is the reward of the flowers, vegetables and fruits. . .watching them grow is a sense of accomplishment, and I enjoy all of those goodies in the kitchen and long into the bare winter – we preserve jams, jellies, fruits and salsas, and I will freeze fresh and roasted tomatoes for sauce and other dishes.

Some of my favorite things to grow are sunflowers (the beauty of them for us, the seeds for the birds), and heirloom tomatoes. Other annual favorites are beets (I really love growing beets, it’s weird), Swiss Chard, and lettuce. We have a large rhubarb patch as well as berry patches and fruit trees, and love it all. Newcomers this year will be asparagus, given to me by a neighbor, and I’m going to try my hand at growing potatoes. It’s supposed to be easy – we’ll see.

What occurred to me today is that for all of my love of gardening, I’ve never written a book with a gardening character – clearly, that will have to change at some point. Maybe in the winter, when I am pining for my garden and hating the blank slate of the snow, I’ll write some gardens for my romances.

Do you get bitten by the gardening bug? Do you have favorite books, magazines or tips for gardening? Share, and I’ll give away a signed copy of my January Blaze, Unforgettable, and a print copy of my Samhain anthology, Strangers on a Train, with a story by me and four other great authors. 

*** Samantha's winner is Di! Please email totebag@authorsoundrelations.com with your mailing info.***

Donna Alward: Behind the Book - Off the Clock

A few years ago a friend of mine was in a terrible accident. She came out of it with "minor" injuries, but it was very traumatic. You see, she was hit by a drunk driver. She was pregnant. And her two other children were in the car.

Luckily everyone made it out okay, but it did start the ball rolling into some really tough times for that family.

So let's flip to something completely separate - my love for a man in uniform. Soldiers, flyboys, cops, firemen, EMTs....yeah. I'd been toying with the idea of writing a First Responders series for a long time. I had an idea but I had no story. I knew I wanted a story for each profession of paramedic, cop, and fireman. But that was all I had.

Finally, last year, it came to me. But it wasn't like it popped into my head as a fully formed idea. At first I thought...what if the paramedic witnesses an accident and steps in to save the heroine - who is pregnant? (see, now you get the tie in with the first part of this story).

Talk about setting myself up for trouble. First of all, I had about 25000 words to write it (as it's a novella). I have a woman pregnant with another man's child. And romance is the furthest thing from her mind as she's sitting in her car, injured.

And by the way, is a woman pregnant with another man's child even ATTRACTIVE to a man?

I had some work to do.

I had to ask myself a lot of questions. Who is the daddy and why is he not there? I figured that out and phew, that was covered. Then I thought...who is the paramedic and why would he care for the heroine beyond that of a patient? And then I figured that out - and gave them a history. A history that would mean that seeing Gabe's face is the best-and worst-thing that could happen to her.

But the writing troubles weren't over. Can a post-natal sleep-deprived mom even be thinking about love?

Well, eventually it seems she can. Especially when it's Gabe, who is willing to take it slow and steady.

Sometimes the books that are the biggest challenges turn out to be the ones we enjoy writing the most. I know I enjoyed writing OFF THE CLOCK and I'm definitely enjoying writing the next one, IN THE LINE OF DUTY.

OFF THE CLOCK released yesterday from Samhain Publishing and it's also available on amazon and other ebook sellers. :-) You can read an excerpt on my website.

Finding Homes for Stories - Donna Alward

Every now and then a story won't leave you alone. Every now and then, it takes a few tries to get it right. Sometimes it doesn't quite meet the needs of an editor. At that point you have a few questions to ask yourself: What is wrong with the story? And Is it worth reworking? In other words, how much do you believe in the story? And how far are you willing to go to revise it into the story it is meant to be?

I've had a couple of those books. Like my Harlequin Romance debut. I had written that story in an earlier ms. The Marriage of Convenience/pregnant heroine hook began oh, four books or so before I sold. I had a different hero, a different setting, and a lot to learn about writing. In short, it just didn't work. I believe I titled it The Reluctant Husband as a working title. I wrote it, I submitted it, it was rejected, I moved on.

But the idea wouldn't leave me alone. The heroine wouldn't either. So several books later I went back. I wrote the same story in a completely different way and it became Hired By The Cowboy. I believed in the story. I believed in it so much that I was willing to go back to square one and start from scratch.

Believing in it doesn't mean it's perfect the way it is. It just means you feel in your bones that it's worth pursuing - even if it means ripping it apart and rewriting.

I've only done that one other time and that's my current release, BREATHE. This was a very different story in its first form. My characters have altered backstories, different names, different perspectives. They are not from the same place they were when I wrote it the first time and that changed everything. It changed who they were and how they spoke and how they looked at things. But the core story remained the same, and so did the setting. I believed in it. I wanted to find this story a home. And in order to do that, massive revisions were in order to make it the kind of story it needed to be.

So I did that, and sent it off to my editor at Samhain Publishing, who e-mailed me back after reading it and said "thank you for writing this wonderful book and sending it to me."  She followed that up with "I want it."

Music to my ears. I am so, so happy that you now get to meet Jace and Anna and spend some time at Two Willows Winery.  And how about this cover? I love it. I've loved it since the draft of it first landed in my inbox.

BREATHE released on November 2 and you can purchase it from Samhain Publishing, Amazon Kindle or any other e-book retailer.

Writing for Fun - Donna Alward

I love writing.  I think I have the best job in the world.  I get to write in my jammies if I want, I don't have a commute...it's all good.  I love writing for Harlequin Romance as well.  The Romance line is a warm, feel-good place to be.  I'm surrounded by great authors and I have a fantastic editor.

But once in a while it feels good to mix it up and do something different.

That was the case when I started writing Sold To The Highest Bidder.  I wanted to write something just for fun. When I heard about the Samhain Cowboy Round-up call for submissions, I thought, oooh, perfect!  I surely could fit in a novella to my writing schedule, and satisfy that urge to break loose from my normal fare.

Only I never subbed it.  It didn't take me long to realize that this book was going to be a full length, not a novella.  It went through a few different versions, trying to see just what kind of story it was going to be before I finally settled on one I was happy with.  I'd just been assigned a new editor at Samhain too, and I had heard she liked cowboys.  It seemed...kinda providential.  So I sent it off with a wing and a prayer.

Lucky for me, my editor liked it a lot and today it hits e-shelves with the print version coming in Feb of 2011.

Is it different from my Romances?  In some ways, yes.  It's a little bit hotter.  It's set in the US, rather than in Canada.  It pushes a few boundaries I don't push in the Romance line....some of the differences are obvious and some are more subtle.  And yet I think anyone who reads it will realize it stays true to the way I write - an emotional ride with characters trying to find exactly where they belong.  And like any good romance, we all know that place is TOGETHER.  Geography rarely has anything to do with it.

All in all, breaking routine was really fun - and I hope you enjoy it too!  You can check out the deets HERE.

http://www.donnaalward.com/
http://www.samhainpublishing.com/