Paranormal Romance Blog

Author Karen Whiddon’s newest paranormal romance novel WILD WOLF (part of The Pack miniseries) hits the shelves this month. But writing it didn’t just happen! Karen blogs about why writing — and a few other things — aren’t as easy as you may think…

by Karen Whiddon, author of WILD WOLF

Writing. People (the non-writers anyway) seem to think a writer simply sits in front of the keyboard, places fingers on the keys, and dashes off a book in a matter of days or weeks.  How I wish it were that simple.  While I’ve heard of writers who claim the story simply “poured” from them, my process is not that easy.  Often I spend hours agonizing over a particular scene, and have been known to stop and try to find the perfect word in the thesaurus.  It’s tough, not only working out the plot details, but the character’s growth and all that.  Yet it seems like it should be easy.  Actually, I’ve heard writing compared to sweating blood on to the page.  Sometimes, that’s pretty accurate.  The Silhouette Nocturne currently on the shelves WILD WOLF, was a culmination of several years of dreams and fragmented images.  It’s a special story and I worked very hard writing it, but it was fun too.  Those are the best kind of books.

Losing weight. Sure, I lost 25 pounds once before (13 years ago), and it wasn’t easy for fun,  but come on.  I don’t remember it being THIS hard.  Last time I counted calories, kept a food log of everything I put in my mouth, and did cardio only (treadmill, two miles) every single day.  It took me from March until July, but I did it.  And I don’t remember suffering so much.  Seriously, I had one normal dinner without counting calories and gained two pounds.  I had to work twice as hard to even get back to the weight I had before the dinner and to start on the downward tract again

And keeping with the above – Movie stars and their bodies.  Sure, they all look perfect.  Yes, we suspect they diet all the time.  But until I hired a personal trainer and started going to the gym 4 days a week for an hour or more each time, I had no idea what they went through.  Those washboard abs and perfectly toned arms and legs don’t come easy folks.  Let me tell you.  Not only do you have to work like heck to even GET them toned, once you achieve that, you STILL have to work constantly to KEEP them that way.  I now have new found sympathy for all those stars who have to look good to appear in public.

Now, what’s yours? The thing that should be easy, but isn’t?  Come on, don’t be shy.

More about WILD WOLF:

Turning her back on humans because of her ability to shape-shift into a wolf, young and beautiful Raven doesn’t believe she needs anyone. Until the day a darkly handsome man appears near her remote cave…and she watches him turn into a wolf.

Simon Caldwell has been sent to assess the threat of a new feral wolf prowling the Rockies. But he’s wholly unprepared for his intense attraction to Raven. His investigation is about to take a deadly turn as he and Raven become the hunted. Now their very survival depends on Simon’s ability to win what this wild wolf holds most dear!