The Author's View: My Thinking Spots (Or, how I write books by staring at yesterday's leftovers) by Cheri Allan

Congratulations to Cheri on her release day! This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Cheri will be awarding a $25 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter and a $15 Amazon or B&N gift card will be awarded to another randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter. Enter at the end of the post and click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

My Thinking Spots
(Or, how I write books while staring at yesterday’s leftovers)

I stare out the window a lot. I was not always a day-dreamer, mind you. I was once the studious girl who avidly listened to her teachers and dutifully took pages upon pages of notes. But then I took a left turn somewhere and threw out my outlines. I was the student who always wrote first and drafted the outline after anyway. I couldn’t do it the other way around, because my best thinking comes about when I’m writing.

I’m a total pantser, which means that I start writing when I’ve got a seed of an idea, character, plot point or conflict, and I begin writing to see how it fleshes itself out. This process requires lots of revising, but also lots of thinking.

You see, as a writer, when I’m staring into space or typing out pages of drivel I know I’ll only discard later, I’m not doing nothing: I’m thinking. Thinking is hard work requiring lots of coffee and chocolate and which does not like being interrupted by hungry children or large dust bunnies. Thinking is SERIOUS BUSINESS requiring just the right environment.

So, for LUCK OF THE DRAW and my other ‘Betting on Romance’ novels, I’ve surrounded myself with scenes and settings which make me comfortable, happy and inspired. At my writing desk, I have a pastoral Vermont painting my parents picked up on a trip decades ago; a photo of my father because he was a hard worker, and I like to think I’ll be more productive with him staring at me; and a little fabric fairy my daughter made which reminds me to remember the magic. These scenes and items keep me grounded in the characters and setting of Sugar Falls, the amalgamation of the New Hampshire towns and locales I’ve known growing up. And, when my fat thesaurus can’t give me the words I seek, I can look deep into the acres of woods that surround our New Hampshire property and feel calm and quiet and clear-headed and lose myself in the scene that I’m writing. But, sometimes, sitting isn’t the answer either.

Sometimes thinking requires movement, so while my desk appears quite businesslike, I have auxiliary thinking stations: My treadmill, my laptop and bed, the kitchen… all of these are writing spaces, too, and it is not unusual for me to peruse the contents of the fridge, turn to my husband and say, “Wait! I have an idea!” which will have nothing to do with menu planning and everything to do with the perfect solution to my plotting issues.
,br> My writing space is ever changing. While writing a book, I collect assorted post-its and slips of paper with snippets of dialogue or character traits hastily jotted down. I have audio recordings of plotting sessions to listen to. I have dog beds under my desk, a cat on my lap, and, somehow, the stories evolve… with a little bit of nature, a little bit of fairy magic and large quantities of coffee. But never an outline.

What is YOUR creative passion? When or where do you find you are most creative? Share!

If only life had a refresh button...

Kate Mitchell never planned to be a 31 year-old widowed single mom, but when her soon-to-be-EX husband up and dies, her dreams of finishing college and starting over are thrown in the air like a game of 52 pick-up. When she’s given a leave of absence from work and told to “quit or recommit,” Kate retreats to idyllic Sugar Falls, New Hampshire, to figure out whether she can discover her passion and pay the bills. Cue the fresh air, summer sunshine and one sexy local contractor.

Tall, dark, and handy…

Volunteer fireman and all-around hunky guy in a toolbelt, Jim Pearson has sworn off complicated women with messy baggage. They cling to his nice-guy stability and skills with a power saw just long enough to straighten out their lives and move on… but then he meets the cute single mom staying at Grams’ lake house for the summer.

While a sizzling attraction draws them together, Jim's distrust of complicated women and Kate's incredibly complicated life threaten to pull them apart. But forces beyond their control—match-making grandmothers, the lazy backdrop of summer, and their own reckoning with the past—conspire to make them risk it all... and bet on love.

Enjoy an excerpt:

“But when I think about going back… to a job I know is safe and secure… I can’t breathe.” She felt her arms grow cold despite the sunshine. “It’s like my future is closing in and there’s no way out. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that going back would mean I’m giving up hoping for something better. And… and I can’t bring myself to give up on me quite yet.”

She stared at him in the silence that followed, her chest rising and falling, feeling brittle and defiant all at once.

But then he tugged her hand until she sat beside him on the porch steps. He blew out a breath. “No one’s asking you to give up on yourself.”

“You think I’m giving up,” she said. “But I’m not. I’m not throwing my hands up in despair. I’m not trying to quit. I’m trying to let go of the handlebars to see if I can do this without help.”

“I don’t understand what that—”

“I’m saying… I know you mean well, but you’ve got to let me figure this out on my own.”

After a long moment, he nodded. “Okay,” he said, and he turned, the corners of his eyes crinkling in that warm, lovely way that always turned Kate’s insides to jelly. “You may not believe it, but I do believe there’s something better waiting for you.”

“You’re talking to a practically unemployed widow,” she sighed. “It’d be hard not to go uphill from here.”

About the Author:

Cheri Allan lives in a charming fixer-upper in rural New Hampshire with her husband, two children, one dog, four cats and an excessive amount of optimism. She’s a firm believer in do-it-yourself, new beginnings and happily-ever-afters, so after years of wearing suits, she’s grateful to finally put her English degree to good use writing romance. When not writing, you might find her whizzing down the slopes of a nearby mountain or inadvertently killing perennials in her garden.

Cheri loves to hear from readers! E-mail her at cheri@cheriallan.com, friend her at facebook.com/cheriallanauthor, like her on Facebook, follow her on Twitter, or visit her website and blog at www.cheriallan.com. Luck of the Draw, Book 1 in the ‘Betting on Romance’ series is available now through Kobo and Smashwords. a Rafflecopter giveaway