I didn't get very far. I procrastinated a bit, and struggled to focus and remember all the juicy details I'd come up with over the last few months. I popped in a DVD of a Story Tellers episode from VH1. It was great. My favorite band to entertain me and make me feel better, and my favorite bass player was laughing and smiling. His hair was a bit too short for my taste but he is still great eye candy. Then he said it. Three words that got my motor started.

"I wrote it." That's not all he said but those three words stuck in my mind like a double-edged dagger.

That was it. Three words got my mind racing. I pictured him sitting on a sofa, acoustic in hand, picking out the melody and telling… someone…that he wrote it. Now if he were a famous singer/songwriter/bassist, how would that someone (obviously it had to be a woman) not know who he was? It occurred to me that she'd have to be blind not to recognize him.

Bingo! Okay, she's blind. The questions started pouring in. How did they get together? Why would they be alone if he traveled with the band? Where were the rest of the band members? How did he feel about her? What is their relationship? Would he trust her? Would she trust him, being blind and not knowing who he was? How could they have time alone to get to know each other?

All of this ran through my mind, all at once. That's the way my mind works. It comes in clusters, like grapes. I answered the questions one at a time, writing pieces to be arranged in the puzzle later. This is when a writer truly learns to appreciate a good word processing program. It's not as simple to move things around on a legal pad.

They had to be alone, stranded someplace. A cabin… during a blizzard. (That keeps the neighbors away.) How did they get there? Obviously they had to drive there but not together. They each had to be running from something. Why else would they both be out in a snowstorm late at night? He was running from the insincere women that hang out with the band. She was running from a nasty boyfriend. That answered the question of where the band was, too. They're back at the hotel, hanging out with the insincere women. (Such was the 80s style rock band.)

The woman couldn't be permanently blind. She had to get there somehow in the snow. Time for my guy to be a hero and save her. Easiest scenario, on a snowy mountain road, a collision had to happen. It had to incapacitate both vehicles and he had to have the opportunity to save her. The husband of a lady I worked with had been in an accident not too long before my "time off" and he had vision problems for a few hours. He'd been knocked unconscious and it took a while for his vision to come back once he was revived. That would work

The man's feelings about this woman would have to be guarded at first. I didn’t want the relationship to progress too fast. Nothing puts a man on his guard like an unfaithful ex-wife. So does he trust this woman? Not really. He hasn't trusted any woman in years.

I have to jump out of step here. Remember yesterday about the DC fan fiction? After I finished Echo Valley, I started another piece that would have followed it. I didn't get far with it and it sat in my computer gathering dust. For some reason, I couldn't write it the way I wanted it to be. It refused to come. I've never been one to waste anything, including words. (Grin) I dug out the piece, and reworked it into this guy's last meeting with his ex-wife. It flowed right along, so I guess it was meant to be. Now I knew exactly where he stood with women and why.

It was time to give my guy a name. I like to use unusual names, and I love to use odd spellings with "y" and "z". The name "Ty" jumped into my head. Short, strong, manly. It had to be short for something, though. I started out with Tyler. Last name? Something sinful. This is supposed to be the sexiest man in the band. Sin something. Sinclair. But with a "y". Synclair. Tyler "Ty" Synclair. Cool. Until I found out that my favorite bass player, on whom this character's looks were loosely based, has a son named Tyler. That was a little too close. I didn’t really want anyone to figure out who he was. So I changed it to Taylor "Ty" Synclair.

Building Alexis Rivers

I wrote most of the story from Ty's POV. I went back later and added her POV and made needed adjustments as I went. She started out frail and timid. I knew that would never fly. Women in today's fiction have to be tough and be able to handle themselves. I wanted a strong woman but with a weakness that Ty could help her with. I survived an abusive marriage and know how a phrase or motion can put a woman back into that frame of mind. It isn't always there but the fear stays with an abused woman for years. Thus, she was running from the abusive boyfriend.

I made Les Roberts ("less" of a man for slapping a woman around) a boyfriend instead of a husband so that the story could progress faster in her obtaining her freedom. Divorce takes too long. It is still frowned upon if infidelity is found in the hero or heroine so I wanted to avoid that.

I'm not sure where Alexis's name came from. It began as Lexy, but Ty thought Alexis sounded classier. It popped up and I grabbed it. It worked.

I started writing the book at the accident but later added some back-story and situations ahead of the wreck. As you can see, I write backward. I had two people stranded in a cabin in the snow, no transportation. Ty was the hero, so I sent Alexis over a cliff. He did his thing, (trying to avoid spoilers here), they made it to the cabin, and spent three days getting to know each other in a platonic relationship. She didn't trust men and he didn’t trust women. Together, one step at a time, they find their way to each other.

Tomorrow – The Road to Publication (read as "The stupid things I did to see my first book in print.")

Cheers,
Jena'
Check out the ShadowsForge Series at Whiskey Creek Press.
http://whiskeycreekpress.com/authors/Jena_Galifany.shtml

Link to part 2
Link to part 4