We're excited to have bestselling author Robyn Carr stopping by on her blog tour. Her latest Virgin River trilogy title, Wild Man Creek, just went on sale February 1. In her post, she shares insight into her writing process, and tells what gets her excited as an author and a reader.
I truly love spinning a story. I fall in love with my characters and am rooting for them as they search for their own Happily Ever After.
My new Virgin River trilogy contains Promise Canyon, Wild Man Creek and Harvest Moon. Promise Canyon is a very passionate story set in Virgin River—a romance between Clay Tahoma, a Navajo veterinary assistant who is also a horse whisperer and Lilly Yazhi, a beautiful young Hopi woman. Clay and Lilly are bonded by the care of a couple of horse—one beautiful Arabian mare who was abandoned and a traumatized Arabian stud colt in need of special intervention. Because the story is set in Virgin River and part of the ongoing series, old friends are present. There are some newcomers besides Clay and Lilly, and some difficult good-byes.
In Wild Man Creek, we meet Colin Riordan is the wild man of Wild Man Creek and Jillian Matlock, uber-gardener. He’s a former Army Black Hawk pilot who retired the hard way by being pulled out of a burning mess of mangled metal and she’s been through the corporate war zone. Not only do these two have to forge completely new personal identities, but for the first time they’re discovering what it’s like to become half of a couple.
One thing I love about Virgin River is being able to explore some of the minor characters from one book in the next. One of the newer characters who you’ll meet in this new trilogy, a very upbeat and handsome young man, will star in Bring Me Home For Christmas, which is coming out in October 2011. He’s found a home in Virgin River and friends he’s very committed to, but being reunited with his ex girlfriend who lives hundreds of miles away forces some very tough choices. And of course, any story about Virgin River isn’t just a romance—it’s also a story about a deeply-knit community.
My stories are about people and their issues and challenges and problems. There will be events that might put them up a tree, but it’s who they are that determines how they will resolve their issues and the eventual outcome of the story.
I’ve been writing for 35 years or so. My first few manuscripts were created at the typewriter. I bought one of the earliest word processors with a check for my third historical romance—and it cost more than my Vista Cruiser Station Wagon!
When I’m not writing, I absolutely love to read. When I’m reading a book in which the story flows seamlessly from page to page, chapter to chapter, the arc always building so that I can’t stand to put the book down and go to bed without knowing what comes next, that’s ecstasy. I happen to not only love to write a character driven story, but that’s my favorite type of reading, too. Characters need to sound the way real people sound, with concise individuality. That’s so important to a story.
