Deborah Coonts--The Hard Way

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I love the connection of two DEBS, both with a history in Dallas, both writing things that they were not "supposed" to write. (Not to mention that we come up next to each other in Google searches...:-)) But this DEB takes the cake in adventurousness. 

Here to tell you about it is the lovely DEBORAH COONTS: 

I’m not proud, I’ll admit it:  I have a problem with “shoulds.”

The moment someone said, “You really shouldn’t.”   I jumped in with an, “Oh, yes I think I will.”   

Consequently, I had to learn most important lessons in my life, the hard way. 

I’d like to think that maturity has tempered my rashness, but, in reality, probably not so much.

So, when I was a beginning novelist, and the people who ought know, those I refer to as the collective they, told me I really should only write what I know, I bet you can guess my reaction?

Why would I do that? I asked.  What I already know is boring. I want to write about something I don’t know.  I want to write about something I can imagine.

So I did.

And I had a great time.  I wrote a light, romantic mystery series set in Las Vegas—the first in the series was WANNA GET LUCKY?  At the time I wrote it, I knew very little about the hotel/casino business in Vegas.  The research was a blast—and no I won’t tell.   If I violated that whole ‘what happens in Vegas’ thing, I’d lose my Vegas card, for sure.

So, off I went…three books in the series.  Four.  Five.  Now seven, plus five novellas.  Seven!!

All that research!  And, guess what—now I’m writing what I know. 

That part of me that prods me to do stupid stuff is missing the guiding light of the unknown.  Don’t get me wrong—I love writing the Lucky stories.  And each story does teach me something new.  I will continue reporting her adventures until she stops talking to me and tells me to leave her alone.  Curiously, and I really didn’t make this connection until just now, but the latest Lucky book, the seventh, is titled…wait for it…

LUCKY THE HARD WAY.  I kid you not. 

And I didn’t plan it that way at all.

Clearly my subconscious knew what my conscious didn’t—that I need that thing I don’t know, that story that scares me, that is way outside my comfort zone.  Like Lucky was when I first started.  So, in LUCKY THE HARD WAY, I took Lucky and the gang out of Vegas and dropped them in Macau, China.

At the time, I knew nothing about Macau.  Research trip!  Fascinating place!

But, now what?

So, I started talking to fellow writers about what to do next, about how to find that divine spark of the unknown.   I bet you know what happened.

They said, “Well, to be successful, you should pick one genre and write just that.”

Oh, no, no, no, no, no.  Not that.  Not going to do that.  Not me!

Of course, their rationale was very sound, grounded in basic business principles…but, well… 

Now I bet I’m a lot like you—I read practically everything.  Across many, many genres, through different age groups.  Give me a good story and I’m in.  I don’t care if it’s this century or another, magical realism, fantasy, or real life.

So, if I read across the board, why can’t I write across the board?  They told me that of course, I could, it would just be a very hard way to build a career. 

How did the line from A League of Their Own go?  It’s the hard that makes it good?  Justifying, I know, but it’s my best thing. And, if I’m anything, it’s consistent. 

So, I wrote a contemporary romance, CRUSHED, it’s out now.  In researching it, I learned a ton about wine, and got to stay in Napa for a month.  Heaven. Next up, the sequel, BROKEN.  Artisanal cheese, Sonoma county…and horses, there have to be horses.

And then I wrote a romantic suspense, DEEP WATER, coming out in February or March, featuring  a female helicopter pilot and a Coast Guard Commander.  I already fly, but I don’t have too much time in helicopters.  And I’ve never flown over the Gulf Of Mexico and landed on an offshore oil rig.  Have now.  So incredible.

And then there’s the thriller, AFTER ME, which is up for preorder now and launches on the 27^th.  I attended a stem cell conference, talked to tons of doctors treating the tangle diseases, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and ALS.  And I explored the nooks and crannies of Portland, OR, a city I had never been to.  And then there was the whole motorcycle angle…

Exploring the unknown!  I loved it!

I have found my stride as a writer.  I’m all over the board, learning so much new stuff, that I’m constantly energized and engaged.  Both very good things when trying to write stories that are both.

But, as I venture into this sort of schizophrenic approach to my writing career, I’m a bit worried—readers expect one thing from me, the Lucky stories.  My other stories…aren’t Lucky.  They are different in tone and voice, but they still are my stories, written in my style.

As readers, will you follow an author you like when she writes out of her normal genre?  Or do you want an author to stick with what she knows?

DEBS: I'd like to do half the research Deb has done, and I'm fascinated by her subjects and her settings. (Wine? Sonoma? Horses? And helicopters???? I love it!) But AFTER ME touches on a subject that's very personal for me--I lost both my parents to forms of dementia.  Deb, I want to know how you imagined what life seems like for your heroine, Kate.

READERS, are you willing to jump genres for an author you love? I certainly am.

More about Deborah Coonts!

 

My mother tells me I was born a very long time ago, but I’m not so sure—my mother can’t be trusted.  These things I do know:  I was raised in Texas on barbeque, Mexican food and beer.  I am the author of WANNA GET LUCKY? (A NY Times Notable Crime Novel and double RITA™ Finalist), its six sequels, LUCKY THE HARD WAY, the latest and just out, and four between-the-books novellas.  Currently I’m stretching my writer muscles working on a women’s fiction/contemporary romance series set in Napa—the first novel, CRUSHED, is out now^.  Next up is AFTER ME, a thriller incorporating cutting-edge science and a protagonist who literally can’t remember why everyone wants her dead.  In the pipeline is a romantic suspense series featuring a female helicopter pilot, as well as the next Lucky adventure—all very different projects. So, if you see me with a glass of Champagne in hand, you’ll understand.  I can usually be found at the bar, but also at www.deborahcoonts.comwww.deborahcoonts.com.

 And here's more about AFTER ME:

Kate Sawyer, a former NYPD undercover cop, injured badly in a takedown gone terribly wrong, is living in Portland, Oregon safe in the Witness Protection Program, while she undergoes experimental stem-cell treatment for a genetic case of early-onset Alzheimer’s.  Everyone thinks Kate can provide vital evidence that will lead to the recovery of twenty million dollars of diamonds that disappeared during the takedown.

If she could only remember.  

One night, Kate returns to her condo to find a dead man in her bathtub with a note stuck in his pocket.

I know what you’ve done.

Her cover blown, Kate runs, knowing the clock is ticking.  Chased by shadowy figures she can’t remember, Kate must solve the mystery before it’s too late.  People close to her are being killed.  Shadowy memories tease her.  Some she recognizes as her own.  Others don’t seem familiar at all.

Running from people she can’t remember, dogged by a past lost in the haze, Kate discovers no one is who they appear to be, perhaps not even herself.

 

Deborah Coonts--Lucky Break

DEBORAH CROMBIE:  Fellow native-Texan Deborah Coonts describes her Lucky O'Toole series as "Sex and the City meets Elmore Leonard in Vegas kind of thing." Just that makes me laugh out loud and that's only a peek at what makes her Lucky books such fun. Like romantic mysteries with laugh-out-loud moments (and a little bit of sex)? These are for you. I adore the opening line from the first Lucky book--and admire the determination that brought Lucky to the page.  Here's Deb Coonts to tell us more: 

DEBORAH COONTS: When I was a bit younger and much more impressionable, I wrote what I thought was a stand-alone.  Here’s the first sentence: 

As her final act on this earth, Lyda Sue Stalnaker plummeted out of a Las Vegas helicopter and landed smack in the middle of the Pirate’s Lagoon in front of the Treasure Island Hotel, disrupting the 8:30 p.m. pirate show. (Wanna Get Lucky? By Yours Truly.)

That sentence hid in the hard drive of a computer for five years.  In fact, I had to search through the detritus in the corners of the garage to find the computer so I could find that sentence.  But I knew—that sentence was gold.

Yeah, well, I always was a dreamer.  Still am.

But, that sentence, and the story that followed, did gain an agent and a contract with a Big 5   So, I was stoked.

publisher.

Until my editor called and wanted to see the sequel.

To be honest, I thought the idea for Wanna Get Lucky? was the only good idea I would ever have.  And, well, I had given the protagonist an HEA and so, exactly how could there be a sequel?

Funny what panic can do.

So, five books later, I find myself in the middle of a series.  HEAs aren’t necessarily forever you know.  I’m living proof.

But, back to the story.  After Wanna Get Lucky? the amount I knew about writing a series you could put in your eye and not impair your vision.

So, I went to the Oracle.

I watched numerous interviews with Janet Evanovich, whose books I loved and whose laugh-out-loud moments I wanted for my own work.  Janet stated in one interview that her approach to the Stephanie Plum series was to keep the main characters static and let the action happen around them.

After noodling on that, and after consulting with my characters, we all decided (yes, this was before the therapy that I eventually decided against) that wasn’t going to work.

Lucky, my protagonist, wanted to learn some things, to grow as her story unfolded.

Of course she did.  My real world is populated with complex, interesting, often difficult folks.  Why would I think my imaginary world would be any different?

Yes, we write what we are.

And the people who surround us are the ones we attract.  That works in the imaginary world as well.

To be honest, I mean really… it took Stephanie Plum a loooong time to learn to use her gun.  With my son’s help, I accomplished competence in multiple firearms one afternoon at an indoor firing range in Vegas.  So, if I can do it, I want to read about folks who can, too.

Anyway, I didn’t have time to get the counseling necessary and still meet my deadline, so I decided to roll with this whole character growth thing.   And now I was faced with the difficult task of creating a series arc as well as an arc for each character in each story. 

(Is there an App for that?  Because my SO is getting tired of the office being wallpapered in sticky notes.)

So, on the home front things might be a bit dicey decorating-wise, but, as a storyteller, how has that worked?  Well, besides feeling like plotting is akin to regression analysis with three variables and a slide rule, and besides the Champagne habit, I’ve emerged relatively unscathed—or so delusional I imagine my own functionality.  It turns out the character arcs are what intrigue me.  The mysteries are an excuse for Lucky to run around the Vegas I know and love, finding the magic and the mischief.

But it’s the people and their troubles who capture me.

At the beginning of each book, I know what I want Lucky to explore and hopefully learn.  The other characters as well, but their growth is a bit ancillary.

Sometimes I get to the end of a story and I don’t even realize that I had a particular theme—like absent fathers or difficult mothers or the importance of girlfriends or the frustration on men (an ongoing theme I have yet to resolve.)  My subconscious is my best writer tool, apparently.

And I do ascribe to the truism that if I as the writer am not sucked into the drama, then the readers won’t be as well.

Apparently it takes a lot to keep me interestedJ 

My mother and the Detention Hall proctors at school could’ve told you that, though.

So, I sustain my interest as a writer by analyzing the growth or allowing it to happen in various characters.  Somehow real life becomes more clear in the analysis.  Yes, for me writing is cathartic.

Life is in the adventure.

So, what about you?  As a writer and/or a reader, do you like to see growth and change in series characters?  Or would you rather just know who they are and be entertained by what happens to them and what they do?

My sixth book in the Lucky series, LUCKY BREAK, is launching TODAY!  I’m giving away five free digital copies, the winners to be chosen among those who comment below.  Here’s the jacket copy.  Hope you find it irresistible.

 

With Christmas a few days away, Lucky O’Toole, Vice President of Customer Relations for the Babylon, Las Vegas’s premier Strip casino resort, is in a festive mood. The upcoming wedding of her assistant to the Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock and her own engagement to her delish French Chef, Jean-Charles Bouclet have Lucky in full holiday cheer.

And even bigger celebrations are afoot. The national media is focused on the grand opening of Jean-Charles’s restaurant atop Lucky’s very own slice-of-heaven hotel. The opening gets a boost when Holt Box, a retired country-western singing legend lends a hand in the kitchen, adding mega-watt celebrity buzz.

Lucky’s life is humming.

The only sour note is her former lover, Teddie.

Teddie claims Lucky’s father, the Big Boss, has put an end to his return to the Las Vegas stage by handing that stage to Holt Box. Box is returning from retirement, a comeback of epic magnitude that will give the Babylon—and Lucky's career—an incredible boost.

Taken by surprise, Lucky takes the high road. Or rather, she does what she always does when life overwhelms…  She ignores it.

Until she finds Teddie and her father, bloodied and angry, standing over the lifeless body of Holt Box, a dagger in Teddie’s fist.

The media sharks are circling.  A Macau heavy-hitter in town, flying under the radar but making his presence felt.  An old nemesis of Lucky’s is out of prison and salivating for revenge.  Lucky’s mother is ramping up her political campaign while juggling her new twins, who still don’t have names.   And Christmas is racing toward a crescendo.

Time is short as Lucky must discover whether Teddie is a killer.

And why she still cares.

DEBS: READERS,  How lucky do you feel? Lucky enough to win one of FIVE digital copies of LUCKY BREAK?  Tell us how you feel about static characters in the comments!

REDS ALERT: Kathy Reel is the winner of Will North's Too Clever By Half. You know the drill, Kathy:-)!