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Bethany’s musings on life, writing, and whatever – squirrel! Uh… crosses her path.

Luckless Love

November 13, 2024/in Life, The Stiletto Gang

3-D rendering of the print edition, Luckless Love, a sweet romanceLuckless Love Releases November 18!

Next week will see the release of Luckless Love, a contemporary ā€œenemies to loversā€ romance with a hint of ā€œmistaken identityā€ set in Eastern Washington with a ā€œhappily ever afterā€ ending.Ā  This standalone novel was fun to write, but more fun to research. The story revolves around a winery and it’s head enologist (that’s wine maker for us less fancy people) who falls for a new-to-town photographer.Ā  To be fair, Juel Lugo, my co-author did the most research, I just tasted the wine.Ā  And I was very much OK with that division of labor.

Did I Learn Anything?

Yes, I did! Dom Perignon is not just the name of expensive champagne. He was a real person who helped in the invention of champagne.Ā  The people of Champagne wanted to make it more bubbly and Monsieur Perignon figured it out. This fact is of zero relevance to the plot of Luckless Love, but I still enjoyed learning it. Each section of Luckless Love does come with a wine recommendation and I hope that readers enjoy trying new wine as much as my co-author and I did.

So What is the Book About?

Photographer, Simone Laurent is homeless, loveless, and luckless when her motorhome conks out on the last leg of a year-long road trip. Arriving at Ryan’s Garage in the small town of Luckless Washington, Simone meets Jordan Ryan, the grumpy wine-maker from the Amante Winery, and mistakes him for a mechanic. But while sparks and tempers flare, normally sunshiney Simone is still unable to pay for repairs to her motorhome. Simone sets out to get a job, vowing to dismiss all thoughts of the sweaty ā€œmechanicā€ from her mind. But that’s hard to do when Jordan turns out to be her new boss. But while Jordan and Simone are determined to focus strictly on the big wine event coming to town, their friends, family, and Cupid have other plans. With the crush coming from more than grapes, this hapless duo will need all the help they can get to make sure they end up in Luckless Love.

Luckless Love is a wholesome standalone rom-com, full of quirky characters, laughs, true love, and a guaranteed happily ever after.Ā  The print edition is now available! Follow the links below to get your copy!

AMAZON: https://amzn.to/4dfmAO6

GOODREADS: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/216958888-luckless-love

 

***

Bethany Maines is the award-winning author of action-adventure and fantasy tales that focus on women who know when to apply lipstick and when to apply a foot to someone’s hind end.Ā She participates in many activities including swearing, karate, art, and yelling at the news.Ā She can usually be found chasing after her daughter, or glued to the computer working on her next novel (or screenplay).Ā You can also catch up with her onĀ Twitter,Ā Facebook,Ā Instagram, andĀ BookBub.

https://bethanymaines.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/LucklessLove-3DinVineyard-02.jpg 1081 1081 Bethany Maines https://bethanymaines.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Aug2016-Logo-op3-300x69.png Bethany Maines2024-11-13 05:15:362024-09-03 11:14:34Luckless Love

Can I be a Co-Writer

October 9, 2024/in Craft, Life, Romance, The Stiletto Gang

A Co-Writer Spills the Beans

image of Luckless Love, from co-writing team Bethany Maines & Juel Lugo, on a e-readerIn my upcoming release, Luckless Love, my heroine is returning from a year long road trip and searching for someplace to belong.Ā  Wanting to belong to a community is a universal theme that I think appeals to readers, but when I started to write the book, I didn’t immediately leap to that theme.Ā  I had to explain my reasoning for using it to my co-writer—Juel Lugo.

Luckless Love started out during COVID when Juel who is my business partner in real life and I took a script writing seminar on how to write a Hallmark movie.Ā  We both felt that we could write one, and with too much time on our hands and since we were in each other’s COVID pods, we gathered around a computer and took notes on how to write a Hallmark movie.

What Are Your Co-Writer Goals?

Juel is not particularly interested in being an author.Ā  She doesn’t want to do the work of putting words on a page, but she is endlessly interested in stories and structure.Ā  As a life-long reader, and marketing expert, she knows that stories are what move the human psyche.Ā  So our deal was that she would do the bulk lifting on inventing the plot. I would walk her through how to outline and then I would do the actual writing.Ā  But that meant that we had endless discussions on our characters, their motivations and how to get them to fulfill their plot obligations.

I don’t know how other co-authors work together, but with over ten years of experience in working with each other, we managed to make it through the outline with very little disagreement.Ā  Having both taken the seminar we both could recognize when we were deviating from the Hallmark pattern.Ā  And then we could also agree when we were fine with leaving that path.Ā  Hallmark has a lot of constraints about how serious or realistic things can be (don’t mention divorce or cancer!), which is understandable for their brand, but for writing a novel it can feel like the characters are lacking in depth.

Did We Make it the End?

So did we make it through the writing process with our friendship and partnership intact?Ā  Absolutely. It was a fantastically distracting project during a time when we very much needed one.Ā  It was also fun to take on a challenge that neither of us had done before.Ā  The script version achieved a PNWA Literary Contest Finalist ranking and we are quite proud of our little romance novel.Ā  We’re looking forward to it’s upcoming release on November 18.Ā  Check out the links below if you’re also interested in a sweet romance, all about wine, second chances and finding some place to call home.

AMAZON: https://amzn.to/4dfmAO6

GOODREADS: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/216958888-luckless-love

 

https://bethanymaines.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/LucklessLove-titleb-square-04.jpg 1081 1081 Bethany Maines https://bethanymaines.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Aug2016-Logo-op3-300x69.png Bethany Maines2024-10-09 04:15:112024-09-03 11:17:30Can I be a Co-Writer
all creativity is a process

Creativity

September 11, 2024/in Carrie Mae, Life, The Stiletto Gang

Is it Creativity or Goddess?

As someone who works in a creative field professionally, I’m endlessly interested in how creativity functions. Where does anyone get their inspiration?Ā  Heck, where do I get my inspiration? The Greek idea of a muse—a goddess who comes by to inspire an artist—makes sense to me because sometimes ideas do feel external to myself.

Well, how did you come up with that?

Well, first I was doing the laundry while listening to Pandora (can’t get away from those Greek myths today, can I?) and the song used the phrase ā€œbad for businessā€ which reminded me of Risky Business, which made me think of Tom Cruise, and then I started to wonder why so many people were confused by the original Mission Impossible plot.Ā  Thirty minutes later, I was jotting down an idea about what would happen if a demon burst through the floor of a non-profit fundraiser.Ā  Basically, I came up with the idea by having a lived experience and feeding it all into the hopper of my brain and letting everything pinball around like one of those kid’s mower toys with the balls that go pop-pop-pop.

So You Live With that Brain All the Time?

I do!Ā  And I like it!Ā  I worry about people who can’t connect completely random dots.Ā  Don’t they get bored just going from A to B to C?Ā  It’s so much better to go A to Q to C to R.Ā  But that’s not to say that creativity is just something that happens.Ā  There are ways to lure the muse into the house and trap her in a box.

To be clear, I’m referring to a computer where my muse has full reign to create whatever she wants. We are not shoving women in boxes over here. (I never saw Boxing Helena, but I have been troubled by it since I read the back of the box in a Blockbuster in the 90s.Ā  Who greenlit that?!Ā  Don’t Google it.Ā  You’re happier not knowing.)

The trick is to gather both the correct input (Read books! Watch movies! Experience the creativity of others!), and make sure I have the space and time to create. But probably my number one trick is to look for a problem to solve.

What problem?

I love James Bond, but when I wrote my first novel, there weren’t a lot of female spies in the marketplace.Ā  So I solved that problem.Ā  I wrote Bulletproof Mascara about a girl who starts by selling make-up and ends up saving the world. Check out my my full catalog to see what other problems I’ve solved.

BethanyMaines.com/catalog

https://bethanymaines.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/creativeprocess-september.png 483 540 Bethany Maines https://bethanymaines.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Aug2016-Logo-op3-300x69.png Bethany Maines2024-09-11 05:15:542024-09-03 11:21:22Creativity
Larceny & Last Chances Anthology cover

A Little Larceny…

June 12, 2024/in Anthology, mystery, The Stiletto Gang

Is it Larceny or Just Larcenous?

Short stories are their own art form and while I enjoy writing them, I will frequently wait for inspiration to strike rather than trying to force one into existence. And this year, I’ve only had one short idea that I wanted to work on—The Rage Cage.Ā  However, once I do have a story, I really like to give it a chance to exist out in the world. Submitting a story is usually a long wait for a stack of rejections which may or may not be kind.Ā  And usually I take a spreadsheet approach—pick my targets, check my deadlines, read all the lists, and be strategic about my submissions.Ā  But this time I had barely finished The Rage Cage when I saw the deadline for this Larceny & Last Chances Anthology was quickly approaching. The fourth anthology from Superior Shores Press has a theme could not have been more perfect for my story. But even more desirable, the promised wait time between submission and rejection was only a few weeks. I leaped into action to get the story proof read and formatted per the instructions and turned it in. And then I had to wait…Ā  Fortunately, The Rage Cage was accepted and I could breathe a sigh of relief.

Larceny & Last Chances features twenty-two stories that must include, yes, you guessed it, theft and a final chance at something.Ā  In The Rage Cage my heroine Amber has a dog, a Dutch oven, and finally a plan.Ā  Amber’s life has been complicated by poor choices, but when she realizes that she’s not entirely to blame for everything that’s gone wrong, she decides to pick herself up and steal her last chance at happiness and maybe sobriety.

The Superior Shores Anthologies have been nominated for multiple awards and I’m excited to have been included.Ā  You can find all of the anthologies — The Best Laid Plans, Heartbreak & Half-Truths, Moonlight & Misadventures, and now Larceny & Last Chances –– at all book retailers.Ā  (But here is a quick link to Amazon: https://amzn.to/3UmMrvV )

Larceny & Last Chances Anthology coverLarceny & Last Chances: 22 Stories of Mystery & Suspense

Edited by Judy Penz Sheluk

Sometimes it’s about doing the right thing. Sometimes it’s about getting even. Sometimes it’s about taking what you think you deserve. And sometimes, it’s your last, best, hope.

Featuring stories by Christina Boufis, John Bukowski, Brenda Chapman, Susan Daly, Wil A. Emerson, Tracy Falenwolfe, Kate Fellowes, Molly Wills Fraser, Gina X. Grant, Karen Grose, Wendy Harrison, Julie Hastrup, Larry M. Keeton, Charlie Kondek, Edward Lodi, Bethany Maines, Gregory Meece, Cate Moyle, Judy Penz Sheluk, KM Rockwood, Kevin R. Tipple, and Robert Weibezahl.

Release Date: June 18, 2024

Buy Link: www.books2read.com/larceny

https://bethanymaines.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/LL-Final-ebook.jpeg 1280 853 Bethany Maines https://bethanymaines.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Aug2016-Logo-op3-300x69.png Bethany Maines2024-06-12 05:30:442024-04-30 21:36:02A Little Larceny…

A Happy Birthday

May 8, 2024/in An Unseen Current, Free Book, Life, mystery, Paranormal Romance, The Deveraux, The Stiletto Gang
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https://bethanymaines.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/BookGiveaway.jpg 992 992 Bethany Maines https://bethanymaines.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Aug2016-Logo-op3-300x69.png Bethany Maines2024-05-08 05:32:222024-04-26 10:37:02A Happy Birthday
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