​Well, this topic made me think harder than it should have.

Describe a recent outing you took. Where did you go, who did you go with, and what did you do?

When I tried to think of a recent “outing,” I was stymied. Mr. C and I went camping in May, but that’s not really an outing, is it? And since then it’s pretty much just been the usual at-home stuff. The closest I can get is our daily dog walks. So I guess that’s what you’re getting!

We are lucky to live very close to many excellent walking areas. From our front door, my husband and I can walk half a block to a greenbelt that follows a small creek right down to the Fraser River. Or we can drive less than ten minutes to a variety of other trail systems where our beagle/spaniel cross, Aspen, can be off leash. It is not uncommon for us to come across signs (or even sightings) of moose, bear, deer, and other wildlife. At this time of year there are multitudes of blooms and the forests are scented with sweet and savoury wildflowers. Yesterday we squeezed our walk in between rain showers and the perfume of wet soil and fresh sap was bright and invigorating.

Now hop on over to see where Leslie Hachtel has been lately!

Today is the last day of my Father’s Day Sale! SIX sexy single dad contemporary romances are only 99 cents each. Find out more here.
TOO GOOD FOR WORDS
Cash (48) agrees to a fake relationship with a mother-of-four in order to build a relationship with his estranged teenage daughter. (Penta, 44)
CROSSROADS CORNER
Will (31) struggles to balance his beautiful business rival and the needs of his blind five-year-old daughter. (Camryn 31)
WHEN TIME FALLS STILL
Justice (29), divorced with a young son, battles his attraction to a brainy professor while seeking a stalker on the university's campus. (Charlotte, 33)
THE PROMISE OF FROST
Caleb (41) won't let his irritatingly attractive neighbour distract him from making his young son’s first Christmas as the child of divorced parents perfect. (Luca, 32)
AFTER WORDS
Gavin (48) and his bookstore boss track down the family of a WW2 soldier led by clues in a mysterious diary. Adult children. (Leeza, 49)
TURN THE NEXT PAGE
Phillip (53) seeks a second chance with his high school sweetheart. Twin sons in their twenties. (Aubrey, 52)

This week on the blog hop, we’re pulling back the curtain a little on our writing processes. The question is:

Plotter or pantser and why?

It is widely believed there are two main types of writers. “Pantsters” write by the seat of their pants. They just sit down and start typing and see what happens. “Plotters” map out their books like a general planning a military campaign.

I used to be strictly in the plotters camp, working with spreadsheets that listed each scene. But I found that most of my stories veered off in unexpected ways, usually somewhere between the 30% and 50% mark. I learned to embrace that. After all, if I don’t know what’s going to happen, the reader must be surprised, too!

Then a few years ago I took a conflict workshop. In the writing world, conflict is what drives the plot. It doesn’t have to be explosions and gunfights. It can be as quiet as “Will the main female character get the job she wants?” or “Can the main male character learn that showing vulnerability is okay?”

In this workshop, we learned to give our characters a “wound” that needed to be healed. This wound could be caused by upbringing, a traumatic event, or something else, but it was deep enough it made them the person they were. But that person wasn’t fully realized because they hadn’t yet healed from the wound. That healing would be the arc of the story.

Once I started seeing my characters this way, I started to design plots that made those wounds worse until they got better. So while I am still a plotter, I base the action on the character’s emotions, not the things they do. And because character’s need to grow and change, my plots need to evolve as they take me in unanticipated directions.

Now hop over to Leslie Hachtel to see which she chooses in her writing process.

Taking His Measure: The Complete Bendixon Sisters Series
Three steamy, open-door, full-length contemporary romances with all your favourite tropes!

* Second Chance * Grumpy/Sunshine * Forced Proximity * Best Friend’s Younger Sister * Virgin Hero * Forbidden Love * He Falls First * Enemies to Lovers * Single Dad * Starting Over

Allegro Court
Determined to save her beloved construction company, Mattie Bendixon makes a reckless wager with Marcus Temple. All he has to do is stay in his hated hometown for one month. All she has to risk is her heart.
Gateway Crescent
Neither flighty Jo Bendixon nor steadfast Luke Donwell prophesies the temptation flaring hot and bright between them. It might scorch them to the heart…or spark a match made in heaven.
Crossroad Corner
Will Danson can't stop thinking about his captivating business rival. Camryn Bendixon won't be distracted by the sexy single dad standing in her way. They are competing for construction bids and career-making contracts—but it is her battered heart that he truly wants to win.

On November 1, 2012, two days after my 45th birthday, my very first romance novel was published. MOUNTAIN FIRE had been several years in the writing, and I am still extraordinarily proud of it, though I have to say I am a MUCH better writer now, LOL.

The reason I bring this up, though, is the topic for this week’s Blog Hop:

What advice would you give yourself when you first started writing?

I sold MOUNTAIN FIRE to the first small press that I submitted to. I was thrilled, to say the least. And while I didn’t have real hopes of making the bestseller lists, I did think it might be the start of a career that at least paid for itself.

And so I think that would be the advice I’d give myself twelve years ago: Be Patient and Enjoy the Ride.

I’m still waiting for that breakout moment. For that book that resonates with readers and inspires them to tell their friends. For my backlist to take off and start paying for all the sweat and tears that went into it.

But despite the lack of monetary reward, I really am enjoying the ride. I have met amazing authors who I call friends, though some of us have never met in person. I’ve learned a lot about writing and marketing romance and being persistent. And I’ve felt the thrill of getting a scene or sentence or word just right after struggling with doubts and blank pages.

I know other authors who started publishing around the same time I did and who have seen remarkable success. But my path is not their path, and I’ve had my own highlights and rewards. And that’s okay.
​
If you looked back to yourself a dozen years ago, what advice would you offer? I’d love to hear it. Then hop over to Jill Haymaker to see what advice she'd give herself.

This week on the Blog Hop, we've been asked to talk about our pets and how they help our writing. With pictures, please.

Over the years, we’ve had both cats and dogs. I like them both for different reasons. Cats are independent and don’t mind being left alone for a few days. Dogs are happy when you come home and are a good excuse to get out of the house for a walk.

Currently, we have one dog. Aspen is a beagle-spaniel cross with some odd quirks but we love her anyway. I can’t say she is particularly helpful with my writing, but she does keep me company, lying beside me as I work.
​
Animals have comedic roles in a number of my books, including a horse in NO LIFE BUT THIS, a Bernese Mountain dog named Chaucer in WHEN TIME FALLS STILL, and Mutt, a canine of indeterminate breeding in GATEWAY CRESCENT. I love writing about animals - they can showcase a character's personality and make us laugh, all at the same time.

What about you? Do you have pets? Do you like reading about them in romances? Leave a comment below, then hop over to Leslie Hachtel to find out about her pet!

If you could be any one of your characters, which one would you choose?

Gah. This was tough! To be honest, I probably would rather be one of my secondary characters than a main one. I put the hero and heroine through some pretty rough stuff before they get their happy ending!

But in the end, I went with Abigail Garsson from NO LIFE BUT THIS. She’d probably the character that starts out the least like me, but I also think she grows the most out of all my characters. And she deserves to be recognized for that! She even does things I’m not sure I could ever do, like paragliding, which makes me want to be more like her.

Also, Abigail ends up with her handsome Portuguese adventurer – much like I did, LOL.
​
Is there a character in a book you would like to be? If so, who? Let me know in the comments. Then hop over to PG Forte to see who she chose.

Abigail Garsson feels trapped in her safe, boring, conventional life. Desperate to escape, she signs up for an adventure vacation on the Portuguese island of São Miguel.

Santos Carregado enjoys introducing tourists to his tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic. At first he barely notices the unassuming Abigail. He soon finds her meek exterior hides a vibrant woman who teases his senses and ignites his passion.

Will the realities of life shatter Abigail's holiday daydream? Or can the shifting sands of a short-term fling become the rock on which a life-long relationship is built?

Get it now or read an excerpt here!

CHALLENGE:

Write a letter to one of your characters, either from yourself as author or from another of your characters.

RESPONSE:

Dear Any Character:

Let me apologize in advance for all the pain I am going to put you through on the way to your happy-ever-after. You see, books where everyone is perfectly happy until they get even perfectly happier aren’t that interesting to read. So I have to give you some trouble along the way.

But don’t worry. I’m also going to give you the strength to deal with your problems and loyal friends to support you. And that annoying person who is causing most of your pain? That person is going to become the best thing that ever happened to you. All you have to do is hang in there, be yourself, and trust me.

Can you do that? Trust me? Because things are going to get ugly before they get better. But it will be worth it in the end. I promise.

All the best, and with lots of love,
Brenda

Jenna Da Sie is next! You know what to do. :)

This week's Blog Hop challenge:

Choose a photo that you’ve taken and that you love. Tell the story behind the photo.

Hi. I’m Brenda, and I’m a photo-aholic.

Even before cameras in phones, I took a lot of photos. But the digital age makes it SO EASY to go overboard, LOL! On our recent trip to Spain, I took about 300 photos a week. That’s more than 70 a day.
​
Yes. I have a problem. But I don’t mind going through all those photos and choosing the best ones to put in an album (or publish in a photo book, which is what I’ve done recently). So it’s no one concern but mine how many photos I take!
​
It made this week’s challenge particularly difficult, though. How can I possibly choose just one?

In this end, I went with the above image from Palm Sunday in Málaga. And I couldn’t resist sneaking in a second one as well.​

Hey! I’m back…finally. We had a wonderful three week holiday in March, but then I caught a nasty head cold and am just getting back to whatever normal is these days.

Which means I’m back for the Blog Hop!

This week’s topic:

What common mistakes or misunderstandings do readers have about authors? What myths or half-truths do you find yourself hearing again and again?

What non-author/writers often don’t understand is that I have to write the story I can—and want to—write. Everyone once in a while, someone says to me “You should write XYZ story. I would definitely read that.” And they are often right – their idea would be a good story. But it isn’t a story that speaks to me, so I just nod and smile.
​
I think another misconception is all the hard work is done once the book is written. Let me tell you, for me at least, that’s just when things are getting started. I often do three or four drafts of a story, based on my own opinions and those of my beta readers and critique partners. And that’s just the writing part. I’m not even talking about cover design and formatting and promoting and marketing and all those other “non-writing” things an independent author needs to do.

Now hop on over to PG Forte to discover what myths she has encountered!

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And that includes all of my books, too! If you want to check it out, just click here.

This week’s question is a double-edge one:

Scent is important. What is your favorite and does it help in your work?

It’s possible this question is asking if scent helps me write. Do I light a candle or need fresh coffee beside me? In that case, the answer is no. I don’t find scent stimulates me to write.

But if we are talking about using scent in my writing to help set the scene and engage the reader, then, yes, I do. Scent can be strongly evocative and it can really help a reader feel as if they are in the scene when used properly.

Taking His Measure: The Complete Bendixon Sisters Series
Now Available!
Allegro Court
Determined to save her beloved construction company, Mattie Bendixon makes a reckless wager with Marcus Temple. All he has to do is stay in his hated hometown for one month. All she has to risk is her heart.
Gateway Crescent
Neither flighty Jo Bendixon nor steadfast Luke Donwell prophesies the temptation flaring hot and bright between them. It might scorch them to the heart…or spark a match made in heaven.
Crossroad Corner
Will Danson can't stop thinking about his captivating business rival. Camryn Bendixon won't be distracted by the sexy single dad standing in her way. They are competing for construction bids and career-making contracts—but it is her battered heart that he truly wants to win.