Sunday, October 16, 2022

What We're Writing: To Be Read by Jenn McKinlay

JENN McKINLAY: Most of you know by now that I tend to set my stories in places that I want to travel to, consequently, my current work in progress TO BE READ is located in Ireland. I am getting the nuts and bolts of it written right now and I'll leave for Ireland in a couple of weeks to do the boots on the ground research that will fill out the pages with more accuracy and flavor. First stop, the Guinness Storehouse. Will it be in the book? No. Do I care? Also, no. Then it's on to visit Trinity College and the Book of Kells. Will that make it to the page? Probably.


Now because it's a women's fiction romcom, the meet cute is the stepping off place in the story. My character Emily Allen has just ditched her career as a librarian on Martha's Vineyard -- yes, she's in the ensemble cast in SUMMER READING (May 2023) -- and has taken the position of an author's assistant/bookstore clerk to her favorite author of all time Siobhan Riordan. 

Siobhan went into seclusion after her eighth young adult novel, leaving the protagonist of a hugely popular series at a wicked cliff hanger. Siobhan now owns and operates a bookstore with her grown son Kieran Murphy in a small village in southern Ireland. Kieran would like to maintain their quiet life, fearing for his mother's health and well-being if she takes up writing again. But Emily is there to do a job -- help Siobhan finish writing the last novel in the series -- and nothing, not even a hot Irish bookseller, is going to stand in her way.

This book has been so much fun to write. Not only because I get to go to Ireland but because I'm also examining the relationship between the author and the reader and the toll writing a novel takes on an author -- it's not all glitter bombs and cupcakes, people!



So here's the first meeting between Emily, who is a bit of a hypochondriac, and Murphy, who does not want her there.

“You're not dying. I just think you might be freaking out a little because it’s your first day of work at your new job,” Samantha said. It felt so good to hear my best friend's voice, even if I had woken her up in my flagrant disregard of the time change.

“I’m not,” I protested. I was. I absolutely was. “I just think I need to get on the train back to Dublin and hop on the next flight home before they discover I have some highly contagious pox or plague and I’m quarantined to a thatched cottage to live out my days in a fairy-infested forest, talking to the trees and chipmunks while farming for potatoes.” 

“Have you ever considered that you read too much?” Sam asked. 

 “No!” I cried and I heard her partner Ben, also a librarian, protest in the background. Sam laughed. She did like to goad us. “Just think if I leave now, we can meet for coffee and pastries at the Grape tomorrow morning. Doesn’t that sound nice?” I asked. 

“While I’d love to see you, you know that, you have to stay in Ireland and see your journey through,” Sam said. “Besides, if you go home now your mother will guilt you into never leaving Martha's Vineyard again not to mention clobber you with the dreaded ‘I told you so.’” 

“Fair point.” I sighed. “I still think I might pass out and then I’ll likely lose the job and this entire conversation becomes moot.” 

“You’re not going to pass out,” Sam said. “Find a place to sit down. Can you do that?” 

“I think so.” I was standing in the stacks, okay, more accurately hiding in the fiction section. The shelves were dark wood, long and tall and stuffed with books. They comforted me. Scattered randomly amid the shelving units were step stools. I found one and sat down. 

“Are you sitting?” Sam asked. 

“Yes.” 

“Good, now put your head between your knees,” she ordered. 

“Um.” I was wearing a formfitting, gray wool pencil skirt. I tried to maneuver my head down. No luck. The skirt was too snug. The closest I could get was to look over my knees at my black ankle boots. “Sorry, Sam, nothing is getting between these knees not even a hot Irishman.” 

Sam chuckled, but over that I heard a strangled noise behind me and I straightened up and turned around to see a man in jeans and an Aran sweater, holding his fist to his mouth, looking as if he was choking. He had thick, wavy black hair and blue eyes so dark they were almost the same shade as his hair. Also, if I wasn’t mistaken from the picture I’d seen on the bookstore’s website, he was my new boss.
 
***

This is my first run at the heroine meeting the hero. We'll see it if sticks the landing. 

Readers and Reds, weigh in. How important is that first meeting? 






38 comments:

  1. Sweet, cute, funny . . . I hope you don't change a thing. I loved Emily's panicked call to her best friend and her "oops" meeting with Murphy. Now I can't wait to read the rest . . .

    It’s always fun to see how things progress when the first meeting is awkward and maybe a bit embarrassing . . . .

    Hope you have a wonderful trip . . . .

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    1. Thank you, Joan! Did you know Siobhan is the Gaelic version of Joan? :)

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  2. I love it, Jenn! My son and his wife got home from Ireland Friday night, and they sent a picture of that very library/reading room!

    Have a fabulous "research" trip!

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    1. Thank you, Edith. Very excited to see the Book of Kells!

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  3. You are so clever Jenn, to set books where you want to travel! I love this opening, and also can't wait to read the May book!

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    1. Thank you, Lucy! That books been quite the yo-yo with its release date.

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  4. JENN: Yay to setting your new book in Ireland and going on a research trip!
    First impressions are "important" and I am looking forward to reading about Emily and Murphy and Siobhan.

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    1. Thank you, Grace! I’m looking forward to the research! Always a good sign.

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  5. Best meet-cute ever!! I LOVE your stories!! You put the "com" in rom- com!

    Have a great time in Ireland! I'll be following your journey on Facebook so post pics!!

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    1. Thank you, Judy! I’ll be sure to report in!

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  6. My sister and I were taken on a month long bus trip across the British Isles and Southern Ireland. It was a sort of inheritance from my Dad, Mum wanted to travel while she still could.
    Most of the other travelers spent free time shopping but Sister and I wanted to see historic sights.The British Museum had the Rosetta Stone. Mum said bunch of old stuff.
    Stonehenge was amazing. Mum sat on the bus because why would you want to look at old stones. Sister and I spent the afternoon looking at the Book of Kells and marveling at the Library the housed it.
    Mum loved the trip, oddly enough.

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    1. So funny! When we took my 16-year old grandson to Kenya the entire time he begged us to find him "normal" food, ie, American fast food. (Which tastes nothing like ours there.) And he pushed around the delicious meals we had on safari.

      After we'd been home a couple weeks I asked my daughter what he'd been saying about the trip: "He has been raving about the food." Ooookay.

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    2. Karen, ha, ha! I love that!!

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    3. One of the Hooligans was a moody teen when I took them to Paris. I had to practically force the child out of the room at gunpoint. Three years later, his recall is "Wasn't Paris fantastic?" As Karen says, "Ooookay."

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  7. Great first meeting! So fun and funny! Enjoy the trip!
    Your story reminds me a little of my parents' meeting, as they too, met in the stacks. My mom (who grew up here in Oregon) had just started her job as a children's librarian in Leeds, England. The boss was taking her around to see the different library branches. In the Armley branch, he introduced her to a young librarian, and asked the young man to demonstrate the Yorkshire dialect by reading some poetry. The poem was romantic and the young man's neck and face got very red. Mom felt sorry for him, but also was a bit confused because she didn't understand a word of the poem.

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    1. Oh, my, that is fantastic! I love this story so much.

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  8. 10/10, Jenn! You stuck that opening!! Enjoy Ireland and 'sneak' off from duty to enjoy as much as you can!

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    1. Thank you, Flora! I am looking forward to some shenanigans!

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  9. Love it, Jenn! Great opening, and great setup for future events.

    We didn't meet in a library, but Steve was an English major, and since we'd both been single for a long time, we were both in the habit of reading at the table. Which has happily continued for 44 years. When we were raising children of course we had lots of family discussions during meals, but also times when we read, sometimes aloud. I always said our kids learned to read early our of self-defense.

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    1. I love that, Karen. Hub and I did meet in a library and we do the same thing!

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  10. I always love to read what you have written, Jenn! I think we readers have almost as much fun as you do writing. Okay, Emily knows who he is, but does he know who she is? So many possibilities there for awkward and/or humorous scenes thereafter.

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  11. Love it so far. That first meeting does set the stage for the whole relationship to unfold.
    Please remind me how to pronounce Siobhan!

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    1. Brenda - it's sheh-VAHN accent on the second syllable.

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  12. I love the bit you posted and am ready to get to know Emily. The setting sucked me in! —Emily Dame

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  13. Oh, can I tell how Mom met her second husband (when I was 5 and my brother 8)? He was a vacuum cleaner salesman, and somehow he set up an appointment to come to our house and demonstrate the product. He did his thing, but knocked over and broke an ashtray (this was 1955). So he said he'd fix it and bring it back. And that's when he invited us all on a picnic. I have wondered if he broke the ashtray on purpose, to give him a reason to return. (She did not buy the vacuum).

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  14. That is such a funny "first encounter." Actually, we first went to Braga because I wanted to set a mystery in Portugal, and Braga was the closest Portuguese city to Galicia, a region in Spain we went to often. I wrote the first draft doing research online, and then we went to Braga for a few days to firm it up. Well we fell in love with Portugal and moved to Braga!

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  15. Jenn, that sounds like a perfect meeting to me. I feel like we’ve already made friends with Emily in that passage.

    My dear friend visited Ireland a few years back & loved everything about it.

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  16. Sounds like the perfect first meeting!

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  17. This is SO Jenn and SO great! Your comic timing is perfect, and sneaky backstory, too. First meetings in non rom coms are a different deal, right? Because you don;t know if either person is a good guy. In your books, it's clear they'll get together, and the fun is the complications on the journey. I am in awe at how accomplished you are at that. (And you know Jonathan and I met by chance on Nantucket. Details if you wish...it was a perfect rom com beginning. Including when he asked me give him a shipping list for the ingredients for dinner. I was cooking pasta primavera for ten people, and gave him a list that said: Pasta, zucchini, broccoli, cherry tomatoes, yellow squash. He said: "There are no quantities on this list." I said: "Get enough for ten people." He said: "Are you sure you know how to cook?" And I said: "We shall see, won't we?"
    We have not been apart since then. Truly.

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  18. My question for you: you said that writing a novel isn't all glitter bombs and cupcakes. But is that still true if you are writing about cupcakes? Or a cupcake bakery? ;)

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  19. Hahaha! That was a great first meeting, Jenn! So funny. I hope you keep it in. You are so smart to set your books in places you want to travel to. I wish you a great Ireland trip.

    Sometimes a first sighting is the important part of a relationship. Then comes the meeting. So many things had to go right the day my husband saw me when he was looking out a window on the University of Kentucky campus. I hadn't wanted to wait for a person who asked me to before we made our way to the student center from the education building, but I did. Philip, my husband, knew this person and he happened to be looking out of the ROTC building when we passed by. He asked his friend with whom I was walking for my number. I wasn't sure I wanted to meet him and deliberately got back to my apartment past the time he was supposed to call (that's right, no cell phones in the dark ages), but he called back. We went to a movie, and the rest as they say, is history. Without that first fortuitous sighting, there would be no Ashley, no Kevin, and no amazing granddaughter Isabella. So, I'd say that the first sighting was life-changing, world-altering important.

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  20. JENN: That is a great first meeting! Agree with Kathy that I hope that you keep it in. I love the idea of setting your books in places you want to travel to. I am already hooked by your new novel! Love love love all of your rom com novels and I want to pre-order this novel. You are blessed that you can visit Ireland. I would love to visit Ireland someday! I am not only writing my historical cozy mystery but also writing a modern day rom com, inspired by recent online dating adventures.

    Thought you were going to ask a question about readers meeting their favorite authors.

    Diana

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  21. Love it. That first meeting is so much fun when the awkward level is ramped up past normal.

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  22. This is brilliant, Jenn. Absolutely what I want to read right now! ( and move to Ireland!). Rhys

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  23. I envy you your trip… esp to the Guiness Storehouse. Def not to be missed. Be sure to take in the Gravity Bar on the top floor… great glass-walled 360 degree views of Dublin, and enjoy a fabulous glass of Guiness with the logo etched into the foam on the top… and the MOST AMAZING OYSTERS I have EVER tasted in my sad, sorry life. They smell and taste completely of the Irish Sea… briny, salty, and absolutely “more-ish” as they say across the pond. Truly transformational. Okay, I’ll stop now. Bon voyage. And, oh yeah, good luck with the research thing, too.

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