1 .

Prior to writing my story, I was doing security and working the nightshift. It gave me a lot of spare time to kill so I started reading romance books released by Harlequin. After reading one in particular—can't remember the name now—I thought, "Hey, I can do that."

And shortly after making that decision, I started thinking about my old high school sweetheart and how he had an identical twin. That's when my story idea was born. I wondered what would happen if a woman lost her abusive husband in a tragic accident and suddenly found herself face to face with him again a few months later. How would she respond? What would she do? Did he come back from the grave just to haunt her?

And there was no better fitting name for my story than "Her Lover's Face."

2.

When I first started writing it, both of my characters had gone through something traumatic and had lost people close to them. It seemed to work well for the story until I reached the climax. I just couldn't get one of my characters over the last hump so to speak. They were backed into a corner, and I just couldn't figure out how to make them reach their big epiphany to complete the character arc. I became acquainted with the infamous writer's block.

For weeks, I mulled over what to do, but eventually I realized that one character needed to be brought back from the dead. Don't worry, that's not a spoiler. *lol*

3 ?

The response has been amazing. Readers on Wattpad gobbled up the story, helping me reach over 1m reads. Their positive comments gave me the courage to send my book to Black Velvet Seductions. It's now officially published and can be found on Amazon. I have to send a huge thank you to @tamlaura1 for all her support and for telling me about BVS.

The comments on Amazon and Goodreads have followed suit and are very encouraging.

That wasn't the initial response though. Some people early on, before my Wattpad days, often told me the storyline wouldn't work, that it wasn't believable; but, in the end, after a lot of work, I hear the exact opposite. That my characters responded in a very relatable way to their traumatic experiences, and it pulled the readers in immediately.

4

I think I enjoyed writing the tension between the characters, the spark. They meshed very well together so that when we reached the main intimate scene, it flowed very smoothly.

I love conflict and tension because it tends to make story more interesting.

?

The novel was created as a standalone, but ends in a way that allows for a second if I wanted to write one.

?

My story is very trauma driven and my characters respond in certain ways to their circumstances as a result. I would hope by the end of the story that the readers see that pain doesn't have to define you. That you can rise above it and learn how to be all that you can be.

7

To just write. Don't let yourself get caught up in getting everything right the first time through. Writing a story is hard enough already, but adding all the rules you hear about and trying to edit at the same time just makes the process harder and a lot of people just give up.

So if you've never written a complete story, then your first and main objective should be just to complete it. You learn a lot along the way.

8

My heroine is very stubborn and I've been told that I am too, so there's that *lol* She gives Alex a run for his money and is quite likely more stubborn than he is.

9

I think all of us working together and sharing our stories is what will bring in new readers. An amazing book cover and blurb will also help do the trick, but you need to get your story out there for it to get noticed and the best way to do that is by helping each other. Sharing our reviews, posting about our friends stories, and making books like yours that feature authors.

10

My future project list is endless. I just finished writing the sequel to "Her Lover's Face" called, "His Sweet Addiction." This story was written more than a decade later. I really had no intention of writing a sequel, but it eventually called out to me because people wanted to know what happens next.

There are many irons in the fire, including a middle grade series that I want to get started on eventually. It's just a matter of finding the time and figuring out how to stop procrastinating. Haha