Today we're welcoming author Theresa Meyers to the blog on her tour with Bewitching Book Tours for her Steampunk Romance, "The Slayer".
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The author is giving away an Advanced Reader Copy of her second book in her Legend Chronicles steampunk romance series, THE SLAYER, along with an autographed cover flat and an antique china cup (cups will vary) accompanied by an assortment of teas and decadent Bliss chocolate!Just enter to win
By Theresa Meyers
Since I’m here today at It’s Raining Books, I thought it only appropriate to talk about why rain makes the best writers. I live in Washington, so we get plenty of opportunity to test the theory. But if you look at the writer’s groups locally, there’s a plethora of fantastic writers. I blame the rain. Seriously.
When I lived in Arizona, there were days you looked out at the cloudless blue sky in the morning and wished for some kind of cloud or weather disturbance, just to break the monotony. Having spent a good part of my teens in the Pacific Northwest, I had this inexplicable urge to be working outside whenever the sun was out. It’ was like a mandate from Mother Nature, which conversely meant that I didn’t get a whole lot of writing done unless it was pen on paper and I detest writing in long-hand because I can’t keep up with my own story in my head. Now it might have been having two teeny people in diapers and nursing at the same time, but I like to think I could have worked on stories even then.
But when we moved back to the Pacific Northwest after about a decade a wonderful thing happened: rainy days. When it’s raining outside, there is no compulsion to get out of your desk chair, away from your computer and work outside. You know it’s ridiculous so you don’t even try. It’s far more tempting to settle in with a nice hot cup of tea at the keyboard and let the imagination soar.
That’s one reason I think rain makes better writers.
The second is because once you’re housebound, you don’t have much choice but to deal with the stir-crazy stories in your head. Writers are a little different than most people. One of the questions I often get, especially when I talk to groups of young writers, is “Where do you get your ideas from?” I try to explain that it’s not so much a process of going out and searching for the ideas as siphoning them off of my brain so that my head doesn’t explode with the sheer volume of them crowded up in my cranium. Writers see stories everywhere. They materialize just when we’re the busiest, on deadline, trying to juggle dinner, homework and the checkbook, or when we are doing the most mundane things like washing dishes or walking the dog.
That’s why I think the rain helps. In Arizona, when the rain comes it pours down in buckets and sheets like someone unzipped the sky and let it all drain out in one big slosh of water. In Washington, it’s more of this constant. It might be a drizzle that you feel like an idiot taking out an umbrella for, but you’ll get soaked if you don’t. Or it might be this steady pelting that goes on for months. But because it is somewhat of a constant (except for those glorious few weeks of summer and a few nice days in mid-winter) it becomes mundane, like walking the dog. It somehow lulls the brain into a state of creativity.
Of course, it’s also far easier to imagine the Victorian streets in their misty haze, when our weather in Washington isn’t much different than London’s. Which makes writing steampunk, like my latest release THE SLAYER, so much easier. It’s not like I had to go that far to know what being soaked to the skin in a hazy drizzle feels like.
The third reason rain makes better writers is because of the old saying “April showers bring May flowers.” The rain allows us to be creative for long stretches, but it also allows us to appreciate so much more the end result. It’s like a sunny day here in Washington. When it comes, you revel in it. Those spots and momentary celebrations are exactly how a writer’s life goes. Work for long stretches, more of it dreary than not, and in the end you get a brief moment of euphoria. It’s enough to keep you going because that moment is so brilliant and bright.
So say what you will, but I think the rain makes us better writers.
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Brothers Winchester, Remington and Colt know the legends—they were trained from childhood to destroy demon predators, wielding the latest steam-powered gadgetry. It’s a devil of a job. But sometimes your fate chooses you...
CHASING TROUBLE
Winn Jackson isn’t interested in hunting nightmares across the Wild West—even if it’s the family business. Unlike his rakehell brothers, Winn believes in rules. As sheriff of Bodie, California, he only shoots actual law breakers. That’s what he’s doing when he rescues the Contessa Drossenburg, Alexandra Porter, a lady with all the elegance of the Old World—grace, beauty and class. And then he sees her fangs.
Alexandra isn’t just some bloodsucking damsel in distress, though. She’s on a mission to save her people—and she’s dead certain that Winn’s family legacy is the only way. Luckily, aside from grace and class, she also has a stubborn streak a mile wide. So like it or not, Winn is going to come back with her to the mountains of Transylvania, and while he’s at it, change his opinions about vampires, demon-hunting, and who exactly deserves shooting. And if she has her way, he’s going to do his darnedest to save the world.
About Theresa Meyers:Raised by a bibliophile who made the dining room into a library, Theresa has always been a lover of books and stories. First a writer for newspapers, then for national magazines, she started her first novel in high school, eventually enrolling in a Writer's Digest course and putting the book under the bed until she joined Romance Writers of America in 1993.
In 2005 she was selected as one of eleven finalists for the American Title II contest, the American Idol of books. She is married to the first man she ever went on a real date with (to their high school prom), who she knew was hero material when he suffered through having to let her parents drive, and her brother sit between them in the backseat of the car. They currently live in a Victorian house on a mini farm in the Pacific Northwest with their two children, three cats, an old chestnut Arabian gelding, an energetic mini-Aussie shepherd puppy, several rabbits, a dozen chickens and an out-of-control herb garden.
You can find her online on Twitter, Facebook, at her Web site or blogging with the other Lolitas of STEAMED!
http://www.theresameyers.com/
http://www.theresameyers.com/blog/
http://twitter.com/Theresa_Meyers
http://www.facebook.com/TheresaMeyersAuthor
http://www.ageofsteam.wordpress.com/
Sounds very interesting!
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