The Illustrated Romance

Hi! Welcome to my new website, dedicated to my writing career which is basically just as new as the website. Well, maybe a bit older, but not by much.

Last March I started a novel, I had a vision (no not that kind of vision) I don’t remember whether it was a daydream, or a regular-style dream. All I remember at this point is the scene that opened the book, and the first line. She ran as if the devil himself were on her. Yes, a bit cliché, but this is my first foray into writing and so it began. Much to my editors consternation it hasn’t changed, yet, but I imagine at some point it will (Don’t tell her that, she would gloat.)

A couple weeks into writing I discovered the novel was a romance. That was a shock to me since I had never read a romance novel. Ever. So I started reading some. I loaded my Sony Reader digital book, my very best friend, and infested my brain with some sassy romances. I was limited by the selections at the Denver Public Library, but I have yet to get through everything they have at this point, so it hasn’t been much of a hindrance. I’ve read close to one hundred books in the past year, more than I would count for my entire life.

The truth of the matter is that I have always wanted to write, but my brain has always worked much faster then my fingers. I just can’t do the asdf hjkl fingering thing by touch. I simply can’t. My ability to keep up with my brain has come from years of surfing the internet and, in particular, chatting with friends and colleagues. I can now trust myself to type without staring at the keyboard, but I still get nervous when the backlight on my keyboard decides to shut off.

My novel was finished May 19 at 5:51 a.m. I know because I updated my Facebook status as the sun rose and I typed the last words. It was monumental for me. Since then I have been culling and weeding, rewriting and editing. I have been working with a very talented editor, and my book is in the hands of another wonderful copy editor, and has been read by many friends who have given me various levels of feedback and encouragement.

The thing is, I am a photographer. I have been a photographer for more than two-thirds of my life. It is what I was born to do, what I live and breath for every day. This last couple months I have been reading the novel and changing the title and messing around with cover art, I learned how to design while working as the photo editor for the Metropolitan, a local newspaper. So i pulled out my design cap and made a cover. The picture wasn’t up to par though and I decided I should do exactly what I was born to do. So I planned to shoot the cover. I cast a model, hired a studio, and started planning which scene I wanted to portray. I realized what I wanted on the cover was a simple image, the hero. A personality portrait, something I specialize in. But I wanted to get more from the photography.

That was when I realized with my Reader I could incorporate my photography into the book much more extensively than I would be able to in a traditional printed paperback. That is where the dedicated ebook idea came in. If I could incorporate my passion for photography into this novel, it would be the coup de grâce.

Last week over two days locked in the studio with a beautiful man and my dedicated editor-cum-art director I came away with some dynamic, sexy, ferociously hot images to accompany the manuscript. I have another shoot planned for this spring when the weather warms and the sun shines more often, and in the meantime, I continue to edit, tweak, cut, and refine.

I’ll be updating the blog here with future news and fun stuff, I may drop a few preview images from the shoot, and some snippets of the book. As I edit I might make announcements and of course when I find an agent, publisher and venue, you’ll be the first to know.

So welcome to my latest endeavor. Please leave feedback, info, critique, complaint or compliment. Everything is useful and replies are ready.

-Jenn