I (heart) Romance Cliches...

...because it is so much fun to break them!
by M.L. Buchman

I actually started writing romance based on exactly that concept. I began as a science fiction and fantasy writer. I discovered romance and began incorporating stronger and stronger love stories into my writing (still not romances).

I wanted to try a romance, but I did want to write along a cliche. Why? One, I actively despise cliches and stereotyping (this is one of my rabid platform things, so don't get me started [don't believe me? Check out this Publisher's Weekly Radio interview.]) and two, I had seen the success of those who find the cliche and buck the trend.

Sandra Brown looked out at the world of romance and the world of mystery and made a huge success that practically created romantic suspense.

Suzanne Brockmann read an article on Navy SEALs and military romantic suspense exploded onto the market.

Both of them had looked at a cliche and wondered how to turn it on its head.

For me I was doing research for my Dead Chef thriller Swap Out! My hero had to be rescued by a cool helicopter. (I don't know where my writer brain comes up with these ideas, but I trust it and went looking for a really extreme helicopter.) While researching, I stumbled on the U.S. Army's 160th SOAR, the secretive, helicopter-flying Special Operations Aviation Regiment, also known as the Night Stalkers.

That still didn't do it for me. Cool, might use it some day, but it didn't have the cliche-breaker I'd been looking for.

And then I found the Night Stalkers application: "Must be male to apply." (After 30 years, this finally changed in 2013, but I was back in 2008 at the time.)

BANG!

I knew I had it! Was I going to create a whole new genre with this idea like Brown or Brockmann? No, but fitting right in as "Buchman" struck me as a good sign.

What did I create by spotting the cliche and breaking it?
Cliche: The alpha male hero and the woman he falls for along the way.
New: The alpha female hero who meets the alpha male on the common ground of the military, and  who gets the man she happens to deserve.

Thus was born The Night Stalkers series:

(this includes the first reveal of the draft cover for Michael's story coming in Spring 2015!)

And the Firehawks series:

(Full Blaze is coming Dec 2, 2014 and takes the wildfire battle Down Under.)

And I just sold two more "First Women of..." series that will be launching in 2015 & 2016. Maybe they're all just one big series: Buchman's "First Women" of Military Romantic Suspense... I like it!
---

M. L. Buchman has over 30 novels in print. His military romantic suspense books have been named Barnes & Noble and NPR “Top 5 of the year” and Booklist “Top 10 of the Year.” In addition to romance, he also writes thrillers, fantasy, and science fiction. 

In among his career as a corporate project manager he has: rebuilt and single-handed a fifty-foot sailboat, both flown and jumped out of airplanes, designed and built two houses, and bicycled solo around the world. He is now making his living as a full-time writer on the Oregon Coast with his beloved wife. He is constantly amazed at what you can do with a degree in Geophysics. You may keep up with his writing by subscribing to his newsletter at www.mlbuchman.com.

Light Up the Night

by M. L. Buchman

Sometimes titles are evocative, sometimes they're good, and sometimes they just suck. It's one of the wonders of traditional publishing when you aren't in control of your own titles. (Though I've certainly seen some awful indie titles as well.)

That said, for me: This one Rocks!

The title is totally cheerful, they "Light Up" the night! It's one of those words like working "Heart" into your title or finagling it into the last word of your pitch. It just makes you feel better.

The challenge of a good title is delivering on it.

• The Divine Comedy for Dante Alighieri's journey through hell
• Pride and Prejudice that has us still debating two hundred years later exactly which one is which but still sighing at the ending anyway.
• Zorba the Greek a title which I dare you to say without smiling. Or remember without smiling.

Frequently the trick is that you can make up the title after you've written the book.

• The Old Man and the Sea is about, um, this old guy and the sea
• Don Quixote is this book about this, uh, quixotic guy
• The Hobbit The "What-it?" You just have to pick it up to find out 

All great titles, and I'll bet they were all chosen after the book was at least well started.

The catch with my traditional books has been that the way traditional publishing works, they choose the title before I know what the book is about. I might have main characters, and some guess about where on the planet it will occur. But other than being a military romantic suspense, I don't know a whole lot more than that by the time the marketing pack is due at the sales team (over a year ahead of publication).

That's another of the reasons Light Up the Night rocks for me. The characters really do, almost like a pinball machine. Not only their battles with evil forces (of which there are plenty in the book), but in their sparring with each other. Neither wants to be in love, especially not with the other one, which turned out to be really fun to write.

Lieutenant William Bruce is a Navy SEAL who is working undercover in Somalia.

Trisha O'Malley is an Army helicopter pilot for the secretive Night Stalkers and saves his behind when he doesn't think he needs it.

He's dirt-poor Scottish from Chicago; she's well-bred Boston-Irish.

He's strong and silent; she's so not...silent that is. (Though she teaches him a thing or two about what strong means.)

So, when they take on the Somali pirate lords, and each other, it definitely Lights Up the Night. And like the umpteenth crazy good thing about that cover is that, at least to my author's eye, that's pretty much how they look. (Okay, I'm looking at the really cute girl. I'm a guy who writes romance, so sue me. :) )

Anyway, this title (the latest addition to my "Night Stalkers" series) is available in just 6 days on September 2nd (or sooner if you're reading this later).

The reason I chose older titles above is I'd love to hear what are some of your favorite romantic suspense or romance titles that just really fit the spirit as well as the story of the book.

You can sign up for my newsletter at www.mlbuchman.com to receive release news and free short stories. You can also read an additional  free short story during the Ides of Matt (the 14th-20th of every month).

Realism, PCism, and Surrealism

by M. L. Buchman
My pal and all around amazing author Sarah A. Hoyt just wrote a piece entitled The Publishing Business is in Crisis. I won't argue with Sarah (for one thing I'd probably lose, for another, I'm not sure that I disagree). But there's a few items deep down in her article that really caught my attention on an entirely different subject.

She points out two small examples to make points that collided for me to open up insights into something I have long been contemplating in my own writing. (Holy wow is that a messy sentence, but you get the idea.) (pardon my paraphrasing):
1. (While discussing mysteries): The extreme realism that has moved into fiction is really irritating. For that "I read the news."
2. (While discussing romances): The extreme emphasis on PCness has taken historical romances and turned them into Politically Correct stories in which every woman of the ton is a closet suffragette or a corporate maven of the 1700s.

In both my Night Stalkers series about the women and men of the U.S. Army's 160th helicopter regiment and Firehawks series about the women and men of heli-aviation wilderness firefighting, I work very hard to be realistic. But I also work to strike a balance for the reason I'm telling these tales is still a love story that is the main point of my books. This balance is something I pay attention to all the time while I'm writing.

Curiously, my writing habits and my reading habits have both been making a slow shift lately. Some of which is already evident, some of which will not be evident until next year. (Fear not fans, the Night Stalkers and Firehawks will fly onward.) This is a subtle rather than a drastic change, but one I have been contemplating for some time. What I am looking at doing is: "Avoiding the Surreal."

To me, the "Surreal" is when the story lost the reason I picked it up in the first place. When tale-telling becomes so realistic and PCistic that we lose the joy that made us pick up a romance. For I too have started up books and found the same reactions that Sara discusses above.

What drew us to read in this genre in the beginning? Was it great story or great realism? Was it love, romance, passion, or was it politically aware characters who bear twenty-first century sensibilities and mores even if they were rakes and wantons? Was it great adventure or accurate recounting of events? I recently read a romance in which the road trip was more important to the author (i.e. way more detailed) than the characters. I should say I started it, I didn't finish it.

I try to step aside from my own writing and ponder it sometimes as if from the outside. One thing I know for a fact, there is no worse judge of my own writing than me. This is true of every writer. Beginners think, "Wow! This is great stuff I'm writing." (Uh, sorry, probably not.) Seasoned pros have learned that when they think, "This is such crap that it's embarrassing," that they're probably on the right track. (That's what a trusted first reader is for, a reality check on the storytelling.) So I have to look through the eyes of others. My latest Pure Heat was 4-1/2 stars and Top Pick in Romantic Times. It garnered a starred review and Top 10 Romance of Spring 2014 in Publisher's Weekly. Great reviews came in from Booklist, Fresh Fiction, and many cool notes from fans. (Thank you all, btw.)

So, uh, I guess I'm on track.

Still I find I must worry at the boundaries of the Surreal, like a puppy who won't let a squeaky toy lie until the squeaker has been excised (whoever thought up squeaky toys must really despise parents and dog owners). I write fictional heroes doing heroic tasks that pale beside what our soldiers and firefighters are doing out in real life. The Night Stalkers of the 160th and the wilderness firefighters who face the monster of wildfire share a daunting dedication and the more I learn of both groups, the more they astonish me. It is hard not to gush about the amazing people I have discovered in my research.

But I try to tread lightly for I have a story to tell.
A love story.

Saying Goodbye! ...to a series

by M.L. Buchman

I did a shocking thing this last weekend, I said goodbye to an entire series. I started the idea for my Seattle set "Angelo's Hearth" series when my wife gave me a 2005 calendar of the lighthouses of Puget Sound. I still have it, too! (But since no one waves goodbye to lighthouses, I gave you the original Titanic departure photo instead. Uh, okay, perhaps not the best way to say goodbye to a series, but let's just not go there. Okay?)

Over that year, we set out to have a series of dates, going to visit each lighthouse in the calendar in turn. As we pursued our quest all over Puget Sound, from remote capes to cozy islands to Seattle beaches, we began discussing characters. Two people, each gifted with a calendar, going to visit them in turn on the first of each month.

Where Dreams Are Born took its time being, well, born. It grew a synopsis in 2006, a draft in 2007 (that I threw out), and a different draft in 2009 (after some other projects).

The problem with the early draft and synopsis was that the heroine kept having friends (I know, very rude of her). I kept trying to shoo them aside until I realized I wasn't dealing with a single novel, but rather with a series. Three girlfriends from college, now a decade into their careers, each questing to find their own success and their own heart. Once I accepted that I was working on a trilogy, things went much faster and in 2011 Where Dreams Are Born saw the light of day.

Where Dreams Reside (book #2) was also a reluctant story. It's real problem was that my "Night Stalkers" series was born. That series began taking flight when Sourcebooks picked it up and the first two were named Booklist "Top 10 Romance of 2012" and NPR "Top 5 Romance of 2012." Let's just say that poor Jo and Angelo spent a long time begging for their book, which they finally received in early 2013 when Where Dreams Reside was released.

I thought my trilogy was well under control with the writing of that book. The  only problem was that Angelo's mother interfered. When Maria Amelia Avico Parrano came on the scene, as any fine-looking Italian single-mom will, and insisted on her own book, well, I was a bit shocked.


But, like my wife and I, Maria has a real soft spot for Christmas and friends around a dinner table. Because she was such a great personality, I had to give her a short novel for Christmas of 2013, Maria's Chirstmas Table.

I had just one more novel to go, or so I thought. The third college friend, Perrin, had grown through three other books to prove herself to be the heroine of the group. She's what brought them together and held them there. She had a dark past and an insightful brilliance, both of which she kept well hidden behind an outrageous shield of razzle-dazzle.

But when she is asked to design costumes for a new opera, the stage manager and his two children walk past every barrier and shield she has as if they weren't there. It was such a joy to write her book, the just released Where Dreams Unfold.

You may notice a trend here. I loved all four sets of these characters. Finishing each story was both a joyous and a painful event. To discover their stories and find my way to a Happy Ever After for them is a long labor of exploration and and sheer fun.


But!
Why is there always a but?
There was one more character lurking around. Melanie, a one-name supermodel, had been the former lover of book #1 hero. Fine. I thought that was all she had to say. Then she unexpectedly became the confidant of the book #2 heroine. With a shared passion for fashion (rhyme wholly unintended) as well as her own dark past, she and Perrin (book #4) always understood each other. Melanie is the anchor that Perrin's career needs. But what about Melanie's story?

Huh?! She was never supposed to have her own story! She insisted that she did.

So, there I sat last fall, with Perrin's book and the series essentially done, but I learned I had one more story to discover and tell. (I assure you discover is the right word. I didn't know her story until I told it.) Melanie was more tenacious and vibrant than I had thought. She was to be granted a short novel, such as the one Maria had been content to receive. But no! She stamped her heel, did one of those strutting fashion walks to get right up in my face and insisted she had a whole story to tell and a series to finish.

Truth be told, I've always been a little in awe of strong women (and perhaps a little bit daunted as well)--my wife and kid being two prime examples. So, Melanie's insistence turned into a dual release this week of Perrin's book and hers, where Melanie falls in love with a novelist, Where Dreams Are Written. (Now where did I get that idea? Honestly, my writer side somehow didn't see the parallels or wishful thinking or whatever it was, until the book was done. And Melanie's a little scary to me, because it turns out she really is as amazing as she looks. Who knew?)

So, now it is time to say goodbye to a series and I find that as the author, I am deeply saddened. Now the only place I will be revisiting them is on the printed (or electronic) page. Yet I am also thankful and filled with joy. Over the last several years I have been "forced" to visit lighthouses, cook and eat a lot of Italian food, taste wines, and study fashion (though I didn't quite get into designing and sewing clothes, I do quilt). It also gave me a chance to revisit favorite haunts from the heart of Pike Place Market to backstage (even in the ceiling) of the McCaw Opera House. I have also journeyed with five amazing couples as they discovered what inside themselves brings them true joy.

The "Angelo's Hearth" series is both a journey of joy and an homage to a city (Seattle) and a place (Pike Place Market) that have been such a major part of my life. So, I wave bon voyage and wish to send a thank you to my wonderful cast of characters who joined me on this journey.

[Hint for readers: E-book of #1 Where Dreams Are Born is now free or $0.99 at fine vendors everywhere. (The $0.99 may be free soon as those vendors get with the program. Kobo and iTunes already have it for free.)]

What's replacing this series now that it's done? Ah, well...stay tuned for that. A new romantic suspense series "Firehawks" debuts with Pure Heat on May 6th (already named a Top 10 Romance of Spring 2014 by Publishers Weekly). It is the story of heli-aviation wildland firefighters finding heat and love in the sky. And after that... :)

The Three Bears of Writing Size

by M.L. Buchman

Well, it's that time where bears are looking for places to hibernate with bowls of porridge and beds of just the right size to stretch out in.

And while bears aren't a big deal on the Oregon beaches, I'm sure they're up in the Coast Range hills, somewhere. We used to have a nice little brown bear that lived behind our backyard in Western Washington. Alas, we never saw him/her with a mate or cub, and we always felt a little sorry for it at this time of year having to curl up all on its lonesome. Friends who lived on various sides of its range always reported it alone.

Well, I've got some big, middle, and small presents to help while away the winter season. And I'll mention just a few things about them as I going.

I was always afraid of writing short stories, I "think" in novel and series lengths, not short fiction. "I don't write short!" I said it so many times that an editor I know said, "Okay! Now you will!" She invited me to be a name author on the cover of her Christmas Ghosts anthology. Well, like a bear backed into a corner, and knowing better than to even think about fighting with this particular editor--Kristine Kathryn Rusch (aka Kristine Grayson) can be fierce--I wrote a "Night Stalkers" Christmas story. I threw it toward her from my narrow corner and ducked, waiting for the laughter. Instead she purchased and published it...who says editors aren't confusing.

The result, available now in the splendid Fiction River anthology "Christmas Ghosts," from my "Night Stalkers" military romantic suspense series about which Publisher's Weekly says:

>Among the standouts are M.L. Buchman’s “The Ghost of Willow’s Past”<

Kindle, Print, Kobo, Nook, iBooks

Once I stopped struggling and whimpering, the story took less than a week to come together. Now that my baby bear seemed to be resting happily, I had to think about my Mama Bear. Mama Bear's are fun. The mid-sized, short romance novel, especially the romance Christmas novel is so much fun to write! It's an opportunity to just go in and play as an author. It's not like a short story, which I still find a bit scary, with all of its fussy little details having to fit together like a tiny jigsaw puzzle (ever try to make a baby quilt? they're like that only worse). Nor is it the papa bear of a full-length novel in a series (that I'll get to in a moment).

In my "Angelo's Hearth" contemporary foodie-romance series, I admit to being startled when Angelo's mom showed up in his restaurant and announced that she was his new pastry chef during book #2 in the series, Where Dreams Reside. It didn't take me long to understand that Mama Maria Amelia Avico Parrano and her Italian pastries weren't going to settle for merely cooking in the background. Within just chapters of her arrival she started messing with her son's love life and befriending his love interest causing no end of consternation from one end of the cook line to the other.

So, she insisted on her own book, but she was a pretty determined woman and she knew what she wanted. She started working on me last spring for her own book and, as Mama Maria always does, she got exactly what she wanted. I'm thrilled to present Maria's Christmas Table.

Kindle, Print, Kobo, Nook, iBook

Then there's Papa Bear! My Papa Bear this Christmas season will be book #4 of my "Night Stalkers" series. Originally conceived back in 2010, he'll be crawling out of his cave on December 3rd. A beast like that can literally take me years to build properly. While writing other books, I'm reading research. In between edits and publishing of other works, I'll work on character, story, plot. I can't begin to tell you how many walks with my wife turned into brainstorming sessions (thankfully, she's a very patient woman). Then I get it a third written...and I begin to weep, because that's where I always get stuck in any book. (did I mention how patient my wife is?) And finally with the help of many people including my wonderful editor Deb Werksman at Sourcebooks, copyeditors and the like the book is ready to be born.

Take Over at Midnight is already garnering such praise, I find myself a bit surprised and more than a bit humbled.

• Fans of Buchman's Night Stalkers series will delight in this strong fourth installment -Publisher's Weekly
• Buchman proves his literary military romance prowess with likable and multifaceted characters, a good plot and riveting action. -4 stars, Romantic Times
• Once again Buchman takes the military romance to a new standard of excellence. -Booklist

It is currently available for pre-order (due out Dec 3rd):

Kindle, Print, Nook, iBook

Hope you feel as snug as I do!

Thanks so much for reading.

Matt
 

Resurrecting Old Haunts

Twenty years ago last Saturday I started writing fiction.

Yes, it may seem odd to know it to the day, but here's why I do. Oh, sometime before that I'd taken the apparently obligatory one-day extension class short story workshop, with appropriately miserable results. I think I'd written three totally useless short stories in my first 35 years totaling less than 5,000 words.

Then in July of 1993 I was on a Quantas jet traveling from Korea, through Singapore (to get an Australian visa), and on to Darwin, Australia. I was about to, as the Aussies say, "Ride a pushie down the Alice." It was the next leg of my mid-life crisis on wheels, to ride my bicycle the 1,500 kilometers across the Outback from Darwin to Alice Springs. While in the air, I started writing a little vignette in my journal. It was about a freshman roommate who killed alarm clocks...literally. I used to lie in my dorm bed and watch yet another poor, hapless clock go flying out to the end of its electrical-cord tether, then smack into a wall and slide down behind my bed with a shiver of tiny fragments.

When he awoke in my story, he wasn't in his dorm bed, but rather sitting across the conference table from St. Peter, who was asking for his help with the broken gates of Heaven. Where that came from I still don't know to this day. While the roommate didn't survive the first draft, St. Peter did and through Australia, Indonesia, India, Israel, and Greece, I wrote of his journey and others. This went on to become my first professional sale, The Cookbook from Hell. It's ultimately about the Devil's mid-life crisis, because she's sick of cleaning up after God for 14 billion years. He may be a creative genius, but his follow-through is lousy and she's always picking up the pieces.

Years later, I wrote the sequel, but I never published it. Why? Well, Cookbook suffered from two things. One, a severe case of first-book-itis and two, the tiny publisher collapsed after book 2 of my 3-book contract... I try not to take it personally.

So, as part of my 20-year celebration as a writer, I redrafted the first book so that I could finally release the second, a dual launch. I was surprised at the emotional baggage, both good and bad that came up. That's part of the writer's journey though, digging down deep, seeing what we find, and doing our best to turn it into entertainment. And I have to admit, I find this world immensely entertaining. While they are not romances, they are definitely stories from my heart.

And that's sort of the whole point, isn't it?

Split-brained thinking

by M.L. Buchman

Last month when I posted here (and actually a couple of other times since), I've was asked in the comments, "Do you write linearly or simultaneously, in order, out of order...?" So, here are a few of my thoughts on what I do.

First, note the word "I." This is what works for "me." If it doesn't work for you, for cryin' out loud, don't do it!

My wife made a serious mistake once, she asked me what I was thinking. So, I told her, and she asked me to never answer that question truthfully again. In the forefront of my mind is whatever's going on around me, usually. If you ask me a question and I look at you blinking and say, "Huh?" I was focusing on one of the other tracks in my brain. And the place that I'm probably busy multi-tracking is my books. I'm not saying I am simultaneously thinking on all the tracks below, but I certainly am thinking about each one many, many times during the day.

I work on four books at a time. Sounds scary? Then this post may not be for you. Sounds totally freakish? Then you may have a brain like my wife's, very, very smart lady, creative as hell, but certainly doesn't think this way.

My method of thinking of my writing in multiple tracks began years ago when I was a beginning writer volunteering to help organize a class in the 1980s where Mary Daheim was one of the guest speakers. She showed up for the three-day retreat bearing a thick manuscript and a slightly panicked expression. During breaks, when we were going to walks around the lake or chatting about craft, she was at a table off to the side reviewing her publisher's copy-edits of her latest manuscript (yes, it was done on paper back then). And more than once she talked about the next one she was writing and how hard it was to take a three-day break from it at the current stage that had been called for by the coincidence of the class and the copyedits.

Over one of the meals, and at a booksigning we shared later, I had the chance to talk about that multitasking mindset. She said that every author either had to be able to multitask, or they had to be willing to dump one project (even though incomplete) out of their brain, and pick up the interrupting project, and then figure out how to go back into the other.

I'm a multitasker by nature, so that is the route I've followed. For me, at this point in my career, it means I'm working on 4 books at once (sometimes more). As a demonstration, here they are as of this moment.

Book #1: Noodling
This is the book I'm noodling on in the back of my mind. A bit of story, a few characters, are they in London, Nigeria, or maybe Poughkeepsie, New York? (That's Poe-kip-see where I spent my teenage years.) I'm trying stuff on, like clothes in a store, to see what fits together. Occasionally I'll pop on the Internet for a few minutes research, or to look at some photos, just to see. Right now, this is for book #5 of my Night Stalkers military romantic suspense series. Book #4, Take Over at Midnight, is coming out in December, but #5 is due at the publisher in October, for release next August (as in 2014). So, I'm doing bits of research on current news on where the U.S. Army's Special Forces helicopter regiment might be flying. There's also been a shakeup in the cast (you'll have to read book #4 to find out what) and I need to think about how that all fits together.

Book #2: A few scenes
Once I'm deep enough into the noodling stage, I take a break and write a few scenes. These are sort of character and setting tests, and will typically end up being the opening of that book. There are actually three of these at the moment. Two Christmas novellas (1 in SOAR and 1 in my foodie contemporary romance series). I also have the third installment in the foodie contemporary, "Angelo's Hearth" series, the follow-on to the recently released Where Dreams Reside. (Where Dreams Unfold is actually really irritating at the moment because it is just screaming to be written, but I fear that, for scheduling reasons, it will have to go after the Christmas novellas, and maybe even after SOAR #5!) These each have a couple thousand words written and are now just waiting for me to get to them.

Book #3: Actual writing
I have long had a wacky fantasy series going in my head. My very first book (pubbed back in 1997 and just filled with awful, 1st-book writing) has sparked a long legacy of noodling around ideas. Right now I'm deep in writing the relaunch of the "Dieties" series, Cookbook From Hell: Reheated. It's about the Devil having a mid-life crisis. But before she can settle into a proper state of self pity, a Buddhist hungry ghost steals the software that runs the universe and it all goes to hell from there. I'm having so much fun I can hardly stand it. (It's not a romance, though there is a love story, of course. So it will be under my Matthew Lieber Buchman name.)

Book #4: Dealing with what I've just finished
This is marketing, copyedits, production madness. Sometimes there is one book here, sometimes four. At the moment, I'm waiting for copyedits on my latest manuscript from my traditional publisher and focusing on the marketing of my latest novella in my SOAR series, Frank's Independence Day and my latest foodie contemporary novel, Where Dreams Reside.

So, that's a trip through this writer's brain. Hope yours is more rational. :)