So one day, back in mid-February, I was having a bad day. Not a bad writing day, just bad, life is driving me crazy, day. And Larissa and I had just been batting around the idea of writing something together - and yes, I concede that it was her idea to write together - and when I say, batting around the idea, it was really more like this:

Me: Did you write our book yet?

Larissa: No – you were going to write it. I was going to supervise.

Imagine several emails a day, all with a variation of the above lines. But on that Friday – I was ready. I opened up the first half of a chapter that I loved, but I couldn’t move forward because the heroine refused to speak to me. So I sent the chapter to Larissa and said, your turn.

She asked what the heroine was supposed to be doing, and I said, whatever you want. She’s all yours. < —–no plotting, no fear.

And we had a blast. Wrote a novella in under 10 days, and during those ten days, both Larissa and I both sold our first books. And still, we kept writing this story.

I mentioned it to Roberta – she said she’d look at it, that we’d need a synopsis for a 3-in-1 novella anthology. We did that. I sent to Roberta, who sent it out to some publishing houses, and Larissa deserted me for Germany. She left me a number in case I had to call her about anything.

And holy crap – I HAD TO CALL HER!! In Germany. Because it’s not every day you get to call your friend on vacation in Germany to tell her that we needed to consider an offer from Bantam Dell for a 3 book deal.

We don’t have any other details yet, other than our new editor loves the stories so much she wants them to all be single titles. *ggg*

And seriously? Don’t listen to anything Larissa tells you. It’s all lies. Except for the non-plotting part.

I can’t wait to send her out-of-order scenes. Heh. Oh wait - I already did that, didn’t I? See - and it all worked out!

Steph T.