Book Stories: Just One Thing

I spent most of my career writing for publishers and their guidelines.  And I loved it.  Those guidelines gave me a roadmap.  I knew how far off-roading I could go.

But I had this story that nagged at me.  It was a story that wouldn't fit into the guidelines of my publishers.  It was a story that was definitely more of an off-roading story.  

So...

I wrote Just One Thing on my down-time over the course of a year.  A friend said she set aside Sundays for playing with writing, and I liked that...so I started calling it my Sunday Book. I didn't worry about what a publisher would say...I just wrote it for me.

When I was done, I sent it out to my agent and she loved it.  She sent it out to publishers and we kept getting back the nicest rejections.  They all said things like..."We loved it, BUT we don't know what to do with it."  LOL

Finally, a publisher took a chance with it.  And it turns out, readers don't always need to have a book that fits neatly into a category.  Just One Thing was one of my earliest Romance+ books...books that focus on a heroine's journey.  Her journey includes a romance, but romances isn't the reason for that trip and it's not her ultimate destination.

I'd written two other more emotional books that in hindsight were my first steps into Romance+ market, even though I didn't know it at the time.  Same Time Next Summer and Briar Hill Road set me off down that new path.  And I'm still traveling down it.

(On a side note, for those who follow me here or on Social Media, you know I'm taking a ceramic class.  You can see how much I wanted to try this art in Just One Thing...there's a wistful homage to it.  And now that I'm actually taking it, I realize that this is a case where my fiction really inspired my reality!)

If you haven't checked out Just One Thing, I hope you'll give it a try.  

Holly

PS If you like Just One Thing, my Romance+ story,
check out the rest:

Same Time Next Summer

Briar Hill Road

Words of the Heart Series:

Carry Her Heart

These Three Words

Hold Her Heart

Book Stories: The Book

In the interest of truth, every book I write is a story.  I thought we should start there.

I'm starting a new blog series called Book Stories that will be small stories about the way a book came into existence.  Maybe what inspired it.  Maybe something that happened when I was writing it.  Maybe what the story meant to me.

I've found that when I go out to speak, those are things people always ask about.

I'm starting with The Book.  It's a short story.  So this is a short Book Story.

I found a copy of Gene Stratton-Porter's The Harvester at a housesale.  I was so excited because I love her A Girl of the Limberlost and never read The Harvester.  I brought it home and found...

Who does that?  I was steamed, not because of the $1 I'd wasted but because someone messed with a book.  

I stewed about that book for a few days, wondering why someone would ruin a perfectly good book.  What could be so important?  And then voila...I had an idea. And that idea grew into a story.  That's how it normally goes for me.

And that's the short story on how this short story came about.  I also took the pictures for the story.  I wanted to mimic the original illustrations.  So that's my picture on the cover and the rest inside.  It's The Harvester sitting on one of my quilts.  
Now that you know a bit about how it was written, I hope you'll check out the story.  It's at Amazon, Kobo, and B&N.
I hope you enjoy the new Book Stories series!  Some will be current books, and some will be about older books.  If you have a question about a book, feel free to send it to me and I'll see if I can answer it!

Holly