My first love (and first book) is back

There is nothing like seeing your first book in print. Except maybe seeing it in print again.

ODD MAN OUT, my first book, set on Hebgen Lake near West Yellowstone where I grew up is back out now under the Harlequin series Safe Haven. The tag line on the cover reads: Risk everything for a love that matters

And that is what I did when I wrote it. I wrote about what I knew, growing up just outside West Yellowstone and about lost love.

It is the story of Denver McCallahan. "The two men Denver loved most were now accusing each other of murder. One had stood by her…the other had broken her heart. Would Denver choose the right man?"

I still love this book. In some ways, it broke all the rules. Harlequin Intrigue didn't want a hero who was in question. They also didn't want two possible heroes. They also weren't wild about horn hunting.

I will never forget my revision letter that came with the sale. It was pages long and the gist of it was: we love the characters and the pacing, but if you want to change the plot that would be all right with us.

I had no idea what to do. I rewrote the book, had a friend read it, completely rewrote it again. Ultimately, it was the same story. The hero stayed in question. There were two possible heroes. And I kept the horn hunters.

When the editor insisted that the hero had to be the one driving the snowmobile even though the heroine was the obvious choice since she had been riding snowmobiles for years and the hero hadn't -- and they were being chased by killers...I found a way around the problem that satisfied us both. :)

I was determined to be true to my story and my setting.

Both the story and the book had a happy ending. The book received 4 1/2 stars from Romantic Times magazine (the bible for the genre). I thought that was out of 10 stars and was pleased to learn that 4 1/2 stars was the highest I could get at that time. My editor was delighted, saying it was very unusual for a first book. For me, it was a testament to the hard work I'd put into the book and the love I had for it.

The book went through a lot but it survived and is still going and I still love it. Who could ask more of a first love?

ODD MAN OUT, with a new cover and in paperback, is only available at eHarlequin online. Type in B.J. Daniels. And meet my first love.

Baby, it's cold outside

I'm not ready for winter. I've been spoiled this fall. Only one snowstorm and fortunately the snow melted fast and then it got warm again. The other day it was almost 70.

So no wonder I'm freezing now even though there is no snow on the ground. Yesterday the wind was blowing and I don't believe it got above freezing. Today the sun is out and it's beautiful but there is a breeze and it's still COLD.

It takes me a while to get into winter. With global warming, I've gotten use to warmer temperatures in our part of the country. Sorry about the melting icebergs, but it's been nice having fall last so long. Winters in our part of the country last long enough as it is.

I know I just need to toughen up -- and bundle up. I need to quit whining and starting walking to my office no matter the weather.

That reality hit home this morning when my husband and I were driving to the office and I saw an elderly man riding his bike. The breeze hurt my face from the house to the pickup. I couldn't imagine riding my bike on a day like this.

And I realized what the problem is. I'm a wuss. But besides that. I haven't accepted that winter is on its way and tried to work toward the really cold weather that will be coming. I need to embrace the cold. I need to be as tough as that elderly man on the bike at least.

I remember walking to the office last year on snow-filled mornings when you can see your breath and your cheeks are bright red by the time you get where you're going. It was exhilarating, an adventure.

So tomorrow I will walk to my office. It's time to toughen up. Winter is coming and I want to be ready for those beautiful snowy days when it's truly cold outside and I'm too lazy to clean off the pickup to drive to work. :)

Almost 31,000 words into NaNoWriMo

I feel like I'm cheating. Writing 10 to 15 pages a day (to get the 1667 words needed) is something I do most days as part of my "job." But there are 115,000 writers out there trying to get to 50,000 words before Dec. 1 who don't write for a living. I know some of them are struggling and I feel for them.

I've decided that writing is a lot like learning to play the guitar. I'm told it gets easier when the "muscle memory" kicks in. Last night I was practicing the first two chords I'm to learn. Going from one chord to the next is the hard part, but I was starting to get it and what came out didn't sound half bad.

But it's such baby steps. And nothing brings that home like when someone who actually plays a guitar picks mine up and shows me what can be done on it. It's discouraging because I have real doubts I can ever get there in this lifetime.

So I know how some writers feel right now. They've written a few thousand words and, if they haven't already quit, they're thinking about it when they look at some of the other word counts being turned out.

I suspect they're taking all this way too seriously. No one is going to write the Great American Novel in a month. Sure the "nut" of the book might be in those 50,000 words, but the writer is going to have to dig it out. Which means editing.

So if they went into this thinking they were going to have a "book" when they got to the end, they are probably regretting the experience right now.

I'm not saying that writing a book in a month is a bad idea. I think it pushes writers to WRITE. But I suspect some writers had great expectations that they now realize aren't going to materialize.

I've put down a lot of words. Some of the things I've come up with, I like. Has it helped me see where I want to go with this book? I wish.

But there is still almost two weeks so who knows what will happen. I'm waiting for some form of "muscle memory" to kick in.

Five-minute cake in a cup

This recipe came out in the Great Falls Tribune the other day and I had to try it. Chocolate cake in a cup? The minute I saw the recipe I knew the grandkids were going to love making it.

But I was worried about the part that said "don't be alarmed." I hate to see that in any recipe so I thought I'd better give it a test run. My husband likes chocolate cake and since I'm off sweets, I thought mug-sized cake was perfect. It wouldn't last a heartbeat and I wouldn't be tempted.

My husband loved it. The trick is to eat it as sooon as it comes out of the microwave. Forgetting it for several hours, as a friend did, makes the cake less fun. :) The top stays a little moist so no frosting is needed.

So here it is. I thought you might want to give it a try:

FIVE MINUTE CHOCOLATE CAKE
4 tbsp. flour
4 tbsp. sugar
2 tbsp. cocoa
1 egg
3 tbsp. milk
3 tbsp. oil
3 tbsp. chocolate chips
a splash of vanilla

In a large MUG mix the dry ingredients well. Add the egg and mix well. Pour in the milk and oil and mix well. Add the chocolate chips and vanilla and mix again.

Put the mug in the mircrowave and cook for 3 minutes at 1,000 watts. (I have no idea what our microwave is but 3 minutes worked great.) The cake will rise over the top of some mugs but don't be alarmed. Allow to cool just a little and eat it right out of the mug. It is supposed to serve two. Yeah right.

Could a recipe be more simple? And fun for that quick treat that doesn't even dirty the kitchen.

Shouldn't you be writing something that sells?

Yesterday I dug out a short story I had published in Yokoi, a quarterly journal of the arts, that came out in 1990. My short story, That Summer, appeared in the first issue. Almost twenty years later, Yokoi is only a distant memory.

But that short story and the reason behind why I wrote it still haunts me. And that I realize is why I'm writing a novel about that summer for NaNoWriMo, the month long writing challenge to get 50,000 words down before Nov. 30.

What I find strange reading that short story from 1990 is that I can no longer tell fact from fiction. Did those characters exist outside my imagination? And if not, why are they so real to me after all this time? Did any of the story even happen?

Reading it also made me wonder about where I was in 1990 writing wise -- and why it's taken me so long to get back to that story. Or why go back there at all?

I'm 20,000 words into a novel about that summer in 1959 in a campground resort on Hebgen Lake. Originally I wrote the short story because I'd just done an article for the newspaper about the 1959 earthquake and where I was on the lake when it struck. That article had stirred up memories that generated the short story.

The funny thing is that in the short story I never got to the earthquake. I reached a point in the story where I knew I didn't need an earthquake -- I already had my story.

I can't tell you how many times I've asked myself why I decided to write a novel about that summer for NaNoWriMo. This book isn't like anything I've been writing over the last 18 years. Shouldn't I be writing something that I know will sell?

I dug out the short story because I was having doubts about writing this story. But after reading the short story, I felt even more compelled to write the book. I'm not even sure whose story it is, the 12-year-old girl's or her mother's.

I definitely question what I'm going to do with it when it's finished. Writing the first 50,000 words is just the beginning. There will be hours and hours of rewriting, then editing and then what? Probably nothing. It's not a murder mystery like I usually write. Although there is a murder. The reader just doesn't know it until book two. Yes, I see this as the first book in a series. Which makes it all the more crazy. I should stick with writing books that I know will sell, right?

But when I wrote my first book, I knew there was a good chance it would never see print. It's the nature of the beast. If you only wrote things you knew would sell, how few things would ever get written and some people would never write at all because there was no market for what they had to say.

Writing is about taking chances. Sometimes you have to write about a summer that you're not even sure happened but still haunts you.

Writing for the fun of it

I'm four days into NaNoWriMo -- the month-long writing challenge to get a 50,000 word novel written.

The first day was hard for me. I wanted to start something good, something marketable. I worried too much about the words. I broke free a little and got 3117 words down.

The second day was much better. I'd loosened up. Another more than 3200 words. The next two I got a couple thousand words written and started enjoying it.

Each day has gotten better. I'm having fun. The characters aren't the ones I came up with, they've already changed. Their secrets are starting to come out, their vulnerabilities. I'm getting to know them.

The first thing I had to overcome, which is always a struggle, is that little voice in the back of your mind that says: you don't really think this is a viable book, do you? Who cares about these characters? Where is the plot? What are we doing here? Wasting a month.

The thing is I've never really believed writing is ever a waste. Often times I write scenes that never make the book. Apparently though I needed to write them.

I believe that writing a novel is about getting to know your characters. I do that by standing them up, get them walking and talking and then they write the book -- I just take it down.

That means letting characters loose, letting them be themselves. Sometimes they make me uncomfortable with what they do or say. They aren't me. I wouldn't do some of the things they do nor say what they say.

How is it possible the author doesn't know what her characters are going to do? Beats me. It's the magic of writing.

So that's what I'm doing this month. Enjoying the magic. No worries. No problems.

Where is this story going? Probably nowhere. Doesn't matter. I'm writing. It's 1959 on Hebgen Lake in a small campground resort. My heroine is 12. Her father has left her and her mother there for the summer. She is trying to survive her parents problems as well as her own as summer draws to an end in the days just before the earthquake that changed everything.

It must be a story I have to write.