Lily Writes

This morning I’m drinking coffee in a log cabin within walking distance of a private Lake Michigan beach. It’s quiet. Everyone else is still sleeping. Perfect.

Michigan’s sugar-sand beaches are every bit as beautiful as Maui.

Yes. I said it.

The water is a little cooler, granted, but Lake Michigan is basically an inland freshwater sea. You can swim without coming out sticky with salt. And no sharks.

There is an undertow that can get you if you’re not careful, but let’s not ruin my sales pitch.

This is a family vacation. Son. Daughter-in-law. Grandson. Another in-law. All of us tucked into a cabin near the lake for a few days.

It’s been a long time since we’ve done a real family beach vacation. S’mores around the fire. Board games when it rains. Early morning beach walks. Sitting together to watch the sun disappear into Lake Michigan.

All the good stuff.

Yesterday, my partner and I were on our own while the others went off to ride dune buggies and hike the Saugatuck dunes.

I wanted to plein air paint.

Over the years, I’ve learned something very important about plein air painting:

Scout first. Haul gear second.

I have an easel. Paints. Water. Brushes. Panels. A wagon. It’s a lot. So before unloading everything, we decided to check out one of the nearby parks and find the perfect painting spot.

Excellent decision. Because the walk from the parking lot to the beach turned out to be nearly a mile. Through wooded dunes. Over rolling hills.

And stairs.

So.

Many.

Stairs.

Up.

Up.

Up.

Then sharply down toward Lake Michigan.

Which feels wonderful until the small, rational part of your brain points out that everything you are currently walking down will eventually have to be walked up.

I counted the stairs.

Of course I counted.

822.

Eight hundred and twenty-two stairs.

I’m shocked my legs aren’t sore this morning. I certainly don’t do that much on a StairMaster. I can barely tolerate five minutes on that damn machine.

What amazed me even more were the families hauling beach gear along the same trail. Coolers. Towels. Beach toys. Little kids.

All of it going down those stairs—which means all of it eventually has to come back up.

Nope.

But my favorite person on the trail was an eighty-something-year-old woman we met on the return trip. She was fit. Really fit.

I had to stop more often than she did.

Goals.

Seriously.

#RoleModel.

Writing Update

While all this hiking, painting, swimming, and family time is happening, the characters in my head have apparently decided there is no such thing as vacation.

Love Secrets came back from my proofreader with only a few changes. Including one particularly important catch. Apparently, I renamed a lawyer halfway through the book.

Didn’t notice.

My proofreader did. Thank goodness for proofreaders.

Next in line was supposed to be Love Not, Rose and Marco’s story. I started working on it. And then Ali and Miles began pushing forward. Fine.

Love Nut. Ali is a single mom whose son is about to leave for college. He’s worried that once he’s gone, his mother will become even more isolated, so he decides she needs to get back into the dating world. Except this is Pinkerton Falls. We don’t date. We find soulmates. And Ali’s son has some ideas about how to make that happen—with or without his mother’s cooperation.

I started working on their story.

And then…

I took a break for two weeks of intensive art classes. Apparently that was all the opening another set of characters needed. Move over, Ali and Miles. Move over, Rose and Marco.

Camille Voss has entered the building.

This is what writing a series feels like sometimes.

Characters jockeying for position inside my head, pushing and shoving and yelling: Me next!

Fine.

Camille wins.

For now.

Love Bound

The first draft of Love Bound is almost finished. And surprise, surprise… Morally gray characters. I love writing them.

This time it’s Camille Voss, former mayor of Pinkerton Falls. Camille is vain. She’s ambitious. She’s a little power hungry. She’s accustomed to being in charge.

And right now? She’s unemployed.

When I first started thinking about Camille’s love story, I knew I couldn’t pair her with someone who would simply accommodate her.

She needed someone who would see her. Challenge her. Someone strong enough that she wouldn’t automatically steamroll him—and secure enough that he wouldn’t need to diminish her to prove his own strength.

Because I don’t believe love fixes people.             

I don’t even think love necessarily changes people.

Sometimes love simply gives us a safe enough place to stop pretending and reveal who we’ve been all along.

So who is Camille’s soulmate? Anton Volkov.

Dom trainer. Dungeon master for Dakota House North and Dakota House South.

Ohhhh…

These two. Their story has been an absolute delight to write.

And apparently a quiet log cabin overlooking Lake Michigan is exactly the place to finish it.

Everyone else sleeps. I drink my coffee. And Camille and Anton get my undivided attention.

Meanwhile, in the Waiting Room…

As Love Bound moves toward its ending, another story has finally started clicking into place. Love Naked--Layla and Hamlet.

I’ve known for a while that I wanted to tell their story. Hamlet has a mysterious past, and I have pages of notes about what happened to him. I know who he is.

I know what he’s hiding. I know Layla. But knowing the pieces isn’t the same as knowing how to tell the story. Something wasn’t gelling. I couldn’t find my way in.

Then yesterday, somewhere around stair number…

I don’t know.

Four hundred?

Five hundred?

While we were hiking up, up, up and then down, down, down and then—because apparently the people who built this trail are sadists—up again…

There it was.

The beginning.

I could finally see it.

That’s how stories often come to me. Not sitting at my desk staring at an outline. Walking. Driving. Painting. Standing beside a lake. Doing something completely unrelated while some other part of my brain quietly works on the problem.

Then suddenly—

There you are.

Hamlet and Layla, I think you’re next. Then Ali and Miles. Then Rose and Marco.

Probably.

Because I’ve learned better than to make promises about the order. There are simply too many characters in the waiting room. They’re restless. They’re competitive. And apparently none of them respects the line.

Don’t worry.

You’ll all get your moment to shine.

Promise.

Now I’m going to finish my coffee before everyone wakes up.

I have a lake waiting for me.

And apparently several dozen fictional people who refuse to go on vacation.