So putting the promise to the reader into words for the types of stories I offer people was hard. For one I don’t know if I always knew what kind of stories I was telling.
This helped me with the editing of Electing Love which I will get back to the publishing house by the end of the month. The editor wanted me to break Nicole. I kept thinking about my brand and the types of stories I like telling. In Borrowing the Doctor, Kate is bold. She’s opinionated and in the words of Dirty Dancing ‘Nobody puts baby in the corner.’ With one exception being Gigi in Chaperoning Paris, most of the women I write are pretty courageous in some sense of the word. Erica climbed a mountain and solved the mystery of the house. In Stormy Peril, her sister Kimberly fights for her life. In Electing Love, Nicole has to deal with family stuff, a la Kate in Borrowing the Doctor, but I don’t want to write broken sad women.
If life throws you lemons, you have to make lemonade. I was told that growing up and more importantly I believe it in my soul. Something bad doesn’t define who you are. It’s a challenge to make you better.
So in thinking about my heroines and commonalities, I went to the crux of the rebranding question. I want to be like my heroines. I write them because in some sense these women would be my friends in real life. I don’t think the characters are necessarily part of who I am, but I do think part of me is reflected in them. It’s the same with the circle of friends in real life. We don’t choose our family. We choose our friends. This choice says something about who you are.
So now I’m off to edit. Talk to you all later about more of this rebranding stuff I’m doing.
Victoria
