The Writer's View: Rose Gordon

This post is part of a Virtual Book Tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Rose will be awarding a $100 gift card to Amazon.com to a randomly drawn commenter during this tour and her Reviews Tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour. In addition, commenters on this post will be entered into a drawing to receive an autographed copy of her my award-winning novel His Contract Bride

The Writer's View Over the years, my “office” has evolved.

When I first started writing, it was at the dining table of all places. My boys, who were three and four at the time, would often play with their trucks and Legos on the floor about ten feet away from me until they “got bored” then it was Candyland time. Fortunately, our table was long enough to allow for a small army to sit down to dine at once and I could use the last third without my things being interrupted.

This worked great for a year.

Then one night at dinner, my youngest son who I do love, got a little zealous reaching for something during dinner and rattled the table—sending my laptop to slide right off the edge and to the ceramic tile.

I sat frozen, staring at the fallen laptop. I finished dinner as best I could, then opened the laptop. The screen lit, and I heaved a sigh of relief. I'd been in the middle of my fourth book, Her Sudden Groom (I can still tell you exactly what sentence had just been typed...) and it had been spared. Not wanting to take a chance, I hit the save button. And dum...de...dum, dum, dum, the screen went black and the thing died.

Despite my efforts and that of Geek Squad, I lost all 50-something thousand words I'd written on the book.

That was the last day I used the dining room as an office and moved to a small corner of a bedroom for the next eighteen months. It wasn't fancy. It wasn't spacious. It wasn't “open”. It wasn't clean. It wasn't much of anything, really but it was safe! (Or at least safer than the dining table.)

This last November, however, it had become apparent that I needed a genuine office. I was no longer just writing books and had a few reference books that were stashed on the family bookcase. I had acquired more than one hundred books over the prior eighteen months and they were climbing the wall. Not only were books abundant, I'd begun ordering promotional items to send out to conferences and give to readers.

My kids were now in school and so was my husband, so I thought, “Instead of renovating this bedroom, let's just move into a house that has the room that's needed.”

My husband was not convinced, however, and wanted me to pay $3,000 (yes, you read that right) for a “professional organizer” to come and “fix” the room so it would be functional.

Not to be deterred, I got on the web and the first house that met the criteria I put in regarding square footage, location, and price looked great in the pictures—and I was sold. Oddly enough, after going to see it and a handful of others, it's the one we bought!

Before moving in, I was super excited that I'd finally have enough room to have a nice desk to sit at and a comfortable place to read (reference books, of course!). What I never imagined was how this would change my family life in a positive way.

Before with sitting in the dining room to write or trying to get comfortable in a bedroom, I was often interrupted or had to read and write while someone was watching TV in the same room or some other distraction. But now that's not really a problem.

The majority of the house is downstairs, but there is a portion upstairs that consists of a bonus room and a very small bedroom/office over the garage that I have converted into my domain. Of course this means, nothing “writerly” is allowed downstairs. This is where this arrangement has benefited my entire family and my relationship with them. When I'm upstairs, I'm at work. When I'm downstairs, I'm not worried about my books or writing or emails or anything of the like, I'm there to just be Mom!

Here are some pictures:


Built in bookcase full of reference books. Double stacked in there with more than 1,000 books for various time periods and topics


As you can see, my office is overflowing with swag items! This is just a fraction of what I have stored in my closet. This is the overflow that wouldn’t fit!


This is where I keep MY books. I order cases of them at a time and this is where they sit until I can find new homes for them with book club members, attendees of conferences/conventions, libraries or even just strangers on the street.


Though I do actually have a desk, when I’m able, I like to sit in front of the window to write. I find that moving to different places helps keep the creativity flowing and keeps me on my toes.

About the Author:USA Today Bestselling Author of ten unusually unusual historical romances that have been known to include scarred heroes, feisty heroines, marriage-producing scandals, far too much scheming, naughty literature and always a sweet happily-ever-after. When not escaping to another world via reading or writing a book, she spends her time chasing two young boys around the house, being haunted by wild animals, or sitting on the swing in the backyard where she has to use her arms as shields to deflect projectiles AKA: balls, water balloons, sticks, pinecones, and anything else one of them picks up to hurl at his brother who just happens to be hiding behind her.


Website: www.RoseGordon.net
Blog: http://rosesromanceramblings.wordpress.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rose-Gordon-historical-romance-author/178033968907233

It's her wedding day and there is no groom in sight. But why should Amelia Brice be surprised? Hiram, Lord Friar is known for having no gentleman's honor to speak of and his jilting her on their wedding day makes it official.

Elijah Banks cannot allow his childhood friend to continue to be shamed this way. It's been almost an hour past the time when the wedding was to start, and that bounder still hasn't shown up. Unable to sit still a second longer, Elijah does the only thing that seems logical from where he stands: kidnap the bride and marry her himself in order to escape this scandal with one far more forgiving for a young lady's reputation.

The only trouble is, she has a secret...but so does he; hers is big...but his is bigger.

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