Author: Gina Wilkins

I finished my latest book this weekend (DIAGNOSIS: DADDY, Silhouette Special Edition, August, 2009). At around 9 p.m. Friday, I typed the words, “The End.” I’ve been worthless ever since.

Almost every author has a different process of writing. I know at least one who gets up every morning, dresses professionally, goes to her office and works an eight-hour day complete with coffee breaks and lunch hour, taking off weekends and holidays.

I hope it doesn’t disappoint you to learn that I’m not nearly so disciplined.

I’m a binge-and-purge writer (not an original description, I heard it from someone else). I can go several weeks without typing a word on my work-in-progress. Part of that is pure procrastination; writers are notorious for trying to find anything to do other than write. It’s not that we don’t love our job; it’s just so darned frustrating/exasperating/heartbreaking/mind-blanking/add your own description here. Characters won’t cooperate, ideas that seemed so clever at the onset suddenly either go south or dry up entirely, we find ourselves under or over word count, we worry that the editors/readers/critics won’t like what we’ve done. We spend too much time hunched over computers, resulting in neck/back/arm/wrist pain, eye strain, weight gain. It’s not a hard job when compared to so many others — but it has its own challenges. And other things just seem more fun than sitting down to work. Doing laundry. Dusting behind the refrigerator. Going shopping (my own guilty temptation I have to resist).

I once read that a certain writer’s agent had to lock him in a hotel room and refuse to let him out until he finished a book; I think that story was told about Douglas Adams. I can’t be sure if it was even true, but it sounds believable to this binge-and-purge writer.

When I’m between projects, I read the books that pile up on my to-be-read pile. Before I was published, I read all the time. Three or four books a week, easily. I reread my favorite books over and over until I had them almost memorized. Now I find it harder to read just for pleasure, for several reasons. When I do start a reading “orgy,” I tend to read four or five books all at once, finishing one and immediately picking up another. I don’t read as many new authors as I once did; I find it hard enough to keep up with my favorites. There are lots of times when I miss just being an avid reader.

Even when I’m not actually writing — I’m writing. In other words, the next story is always at the back of my mind. I live with the characters in my head, slowly get to know them, play out possible scenes between them as I lay in bed at night. Sometimes I have two or three stories building in my mind at once; the next book that’s due and then connected books, perhaps, or an idea I’m letting develop slowly for a future project. I’m constantly filing away mental notes based on something I read in the paper or see on TV or overhear out in public (I’m a shameless eavesdropper and people observer). Sometimes I write those notes down in one of the notebooks that is never far from my hand (there’s one in my purse, one in my car, at least one in every room of my house); usually I remember ideas that seem particularly workable.

Continue reading “Post-book blahs” →

My husband is a dichromate. In other words, he is colorblind. Not completely colorblind, or monochromate, but green-red colorblind, a condition that affects between 5 and 8 percent of all males and less than 1 percent of females.

He struggled in elementary school because his condition was undiagnosed. He learned early to compensate so that not even he was aware of what he was missing. It wasn’t until he was in college that he realized the extent of his colorblindness. He’d point to a green car and tell me to look past that “brown car.” Confused, I eventually realized that green and brown had no distinction for him. I would show him a red azalea bush in full bloom — and he wouldn’t see the flowers. He is unable to distinguish red when it is next to green, as it is on the bushes. He doesn’t actually see red at all, though he sees a color he has learned to identify as red.

There are a couple of good websites that show exactly what a dichromate sees. One is http://colorvisiontesting.com. The other is Vischeck.com. These sites were revelations for our kids and me, because my husband looked at the side-by-side photos at those sites and saw absolutely no difference. Where we saw reds and greens and all the hues in between, he saw different shades of sort of a khaki color with splashes of blue (he sees blue very clearly, but not purple, because purple has red in it).

John sees absolutely no difference between these two photos from Vischeck.com. He stares intently at them, trying to see what I admire  in the bright red flowers, but what he perceives is on the right. If the background behind the flowers were green rather than blue, he would not be able to see the flowers against the background.

To be honest, it makes me sad that he misses out on the vivid colors around us. I love color, red being one of my favorites, and it hurts me to know that the bright splashes of red I use in my decorating are nothing more than rather muddy tones to him. The colorblindness has been a disability in some ways. Many everyday tasks involve color perception; more than you’d realize if you couldn’t see them. Though he has always been very “handy,” able to fix just about anything that breaks around the house, he has more difficulty with doing electrical chores (he can’t see the differences between the colored wires, so he always has one of us help him label them according to color). He has often had to ask strangers to help him determine the color of something he needs to purchase.

Continue reading “Life in modified color” →

It’s common knowledge that aromas can evoke strong memories. Evergreens, cinnamon rolls, fresh-cut grass …

Music does the same for me. I love modern music (I check iTunes almost every Tuesday for new rock, pop and alternative releases), but occasionally I listen to some “oldies.” Just a snippet of an old song can transport me back in time, bringing memories so sharp, so clear that I can almost imagine I’m there again.

Music is a part of my very earliest memories. One of the first songs I remember hearing on the radio is “Your Cheatin’ Heart” by Hank Williams. Written a couple of years before I was born, it was still played on country radio stations when I was old enough to pay attention. I couldn’t have been more than five or six in my memories of singing along with that song from Daddy’s radio (he was and still is a country music fan).

My mother’s father, my beloved “granddaddy,” loved music. I remember sitting with him on his living room sofa beneath a big print of a woman playing a harpsicord (I have that print now). Every day, he watched the Lawrence Welk Show and a local TV program starring Little Rock’s Venable Quartet. I specifically remember two songs that group sang — “This Old House” and “Scarlet Ribbons.” Granddaddy loved both those songs, and I remember him singing along. I would have been less than nine years old, because my grandmother passed away and he moved out of that house after that.

My mother and her three younger sisters all had beautiful voices. They sang together often while growing up, less often but still beautifully as adults. Mother had a strong, rich alto voice. She sang around the house all the time, and very frequently in church. Sometimes she performed  duets with our family friend, Bobby Messer. I can still hear them singing “In the Garden” and “Fill My Cup, Lord.” Hearing either of those songs now brings tears to my eyes. As does the song, “Stardust.” That was Mother’s favorite. She simply adored it. A few days before she slipped away, her youngest sister, my aunt Gerry, and I sang the song to her. I don’t know if she heard us, but I hope she did. I didn’t inherit Mother’s voice — I sing a decent alto, but nothing like hers — but she passed along her love of music to me and to my brothers, two of whom have sung in country and gospel groups.

I grew up in the Salem Baptist Church in a rural area outside Benton, Arkansas. Open the old Baptist Hymnal and turn to any page, and chances are I’ll know almost all the words to the song there. Music was a big part of the services in our church that had once been a dairy barn. There was still a big drain in the center of the concrete floor of the sanctuary. That old building has long since been replaced, but I loved that dairy barn church. I can still hear the slightly out-of-tune piano played with great enthusiasm by Jessie Thurman, my best friend’s mother,while music director Kenneth Floyd (a well-digger in his day job) led us in singing, “Nothing But the Blood of Jesus” and “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus (Sweetest Name I Know).”

Mother and Bobby Messer were the leaders of the youth group that was the center of my teen social life. We sang a lot. In the late sixties and early seventies, youth group musicals were very popular, and our group traveled to many other churches to perform. If ever I hear “The House of the Rising Sun” on an oldies station now, I remember how we sang “Amazing Grace” to that tune, and thought we were so cool for doing so. Mother led the song, very proud of herself for keeping our performances “hip.” I’m not sure she ever knew the tune came from a song about a house of ill repute.

I live nearly an hour away from that church now, and I have to confess that I don’t attend services every Sunday, even though I’m a long-time member of a church closer to where I live. Services aren’t the same now. We no longer sing the old songs from a worn hymnal, but newer choruses from a projector screen at the front of a modernized, sound-wired sanctuary. I miss those old dairy barn services that filled every Sunday of my childhood. Mother and Bobby are both gone now, but they’re still with me when I hear those old songs.

Like many teenagers, I spent hours in my room. I had a record player that never rested, playing the same LPs (look it up, kids) over and over until they were worn out. I had every album The Monkees released (Granddaddy bought several of them for me before he died in ’67, even though he hated their music, himself). I was deeply enamored with Mickey Dolenz, David Cassidy and Bobby Sherman. Even then I wrote stories, filling notebook after notebook with melodramatic fan fiction that I stashed under the bed where no one could read them. After I outgrew my childhood fantasy of growing up to be Carol Burnett (she could sing, she could act, she was funny and she seemed fearless to me), I concentrated on my dream of someday being a published writer like Mary Stewart, my all-time favorite. To this day, music and writing are intrinsically connected in my mind. I still write with music, though it comes from my computer rather than a record player.

Continue reading “Memories in music” →

Cover art used by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises Limited.

All rights reserved.

In October, 1987, I received a phone call from a close writer friend, Sally Hawkes, who still lives a little over twenty miles away from me. “I was just in the Waldenbooks close to my apartment,” she said excitedly. “Your book is on the shelf!”

Even though it was their bedtime and we had only an hour before the store closed, my husband and I bundled our two little girls (our son wasn’t born yet) into the car and drove that twenty-plus miles just to admire my very first book, a Harlequin Temptation entitled HERO IN DISGUISE, on display among the other books for sale that month. I had been ecstatic when I’d made that first sale, and had already sold two follow-up books (HERO FOR THE ASKING and HERO BY NATURE), and I had already received my author copies, but seeing the book there on the shelf with the other published authors finally made it sink in for me. I had achieved my lifelong goal of writing and publishing a novel. It was a thrilling moment for me — but a scary one, too. All those strangers would be reading my story. What if they didn’t like it? What if the reviews were bad? What if I never sold another book?

Twenty-one years and ninety-some-odd books later, those same feelings come over me whenever I visit a bookstore and see one of my titles on the shelf. There’s still the joy of having a career I love, and the hope that my stories will be well received. And there’s still a little of the fear. I make a firm habit never to seek out or read reviews (except good ones people send to me), but I know that not every book will appeal to every reader. Still, there is so much of myself invested in each story that it’s hard to open myself to criticism each time.

A few days ago, I received my copies of my upcoming February Silhouette Special Edition, THE TEXAN’S TENNESSEE ROMANCE. As I ripped into the box to examine the cover I hadn’t yet had a chance to see, I realized that I still get excited whenever one of those shipments arrive. I love adding that new title to the bookcase I bought just for my own books (it’s pictured on my bibliography page). And I still cross my fingers hoping my readers will enjoy my latest story.

Someone (hi, Heather!) told me recently that she was buying some of my titles for her new Kindle reader. That, too, is exciting — and scary. A new format, a new technology … as resistant as I am to change, it’s intriguing to be a part of publishing’s future. What other changes will we see in coming years? Will I be able to keep up? To change with the times? I’m certainly doing my best. I can’t imagine not telling more stories, no matter what form they’ll take in the future — paper, electronic readers, or a medium I can’t even imagine yet.

I’ll have four releases coming out in 2009. The first is THE TEXAN’S TENNESSEE ROMANCE. For those of you who’ve read my Family Found series, the hero is another Walker cousin — and you’ll find a few familiar characters in the story, even though the book stands on its own for new readers.

In June, I’m part of a Harlequin anthology entitled FROM THIS DAY FORWARD, along with bestselling authors Candace Camp and Allison Leigh. To celebrate Harlequin’s 60th anniversary, the three of us collaborated on connected stories about a couple celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary. My story, featuring that couple’s granddaughter and her military hero, is called ALWAYS THE GROOMSMAN.

In August, I’ll begin my new Silhouette Special Edition series, DOCTORS IN TRAINING, with a book entitled DIAGNOSIS: DADDY. I’ll tell you more about that series later.

And finally, to wrap up the year, I’ll have a Christmas story in the next Harlequin NASCAR holiday anthology. (I’m not sure of the title yet. I’ll let you know as soon as it’s finalized).

As each of these books arrives on the shelves, I’m sure I will experience the same excitement/nerves I always feel with a new release. And in the meantime, I’ve got more projects underway. I hope you’ll enjoy the stories I’ve written for you … and that you’ll let me know if you do. I love hearing from my readers.

There’s something about a new year. All that potential … all those possibilities. Maybe this will be the year to lose those extra pounds. To start and stick with an exercise program. To make a little extra money, meet a new friend, achieve a long-sought goal. To watch a favorite team win a championship. To make a dream come true.

Life isn’t really that much different than it was a few days ago — but there’s still something a little exciting about writing a new date for the first time, starting a new calendar, clearing away the last of the holiday decorations that marked the end of the year past. There’s something intriguing about a fresh start, a clean page, a new administration, the unseen other side of a tunnel. What lies ahead? What adventures await us? We hope the new year will be a good one.

I have several goals for the new year. Some I’ll be sharing with you in future posts. Others are just for myself. Not resolutions, exactly … but possibilities. Dreams.

Whatever lies ahead for each of you in 2009, I hope it will be a positive year for you. That you’ll find moments of joy, hours of contentment and days of delight. Good books, good friends, good times … and most of all, peace. It’s a journey we’ll be taking together … and I’m excited about what lies ahead. I’ll see you again soon.