In my time as a blogger, short as it has been, I don't usually talk about the dark stuff. Sure I talk about death and destruction but not about the every day stuff that hurts like hell. It's a tough subject to broach and a lot of writers are hesitant to. Not Nadia.
Nadia Simonenko, writer of the New Adult Contemporary Romance Lost is here to talk about her experiences while writing this modern love story about healing and finding love.
Sometimes
you need someone else to help you find your way.
Maria's life was torn apart when she was fifteen, and for seven years she's
kept her terrible secret hidden from the world. Now, in her final semester of
college, she still struggles against paralyzing fear just trying to speak up in
class, and the terror and helplessness linger on in her nightmares.
Across campus, Owen sees his scars in the mirror every morning while he gets
ready for class. They remind him of the broken home he left behind, the father
he hates and fears, and the little sister he couldn't protect. Now, in his
final semester of college, he's scared that he may have to return to the hell
he called home after staying away for almost five years.
When Owen becomes a teaching assistant for one of Maria's classes, they find
themselves irresistibly drawn to each other. As the two learn each other's
secrets and grow closer, they realize that although they may be lost, they're
not alone anymore.
On
the planning and writing process for Lost
Hello, Nadia here! Extra-special super-thanks (the kind that
gives you wings and magical powers) to Vicki for hosting me today.
For everything I write, the first step in
the planning process is to figure out what I want to do. I have several pen
names for other genres, and the first step for me has always been to ask, “what
do I feel like writing?”
Lost’s answer to that question was “characters that the reader believes
are real.”
That’s where my usual structured approach
breaks down. Lost breaks every rule I’ve ever tried to follow from there on. It wrote itself long before I ever put pen to
paper. (Yes, those archaic things still
exist, and I still use them when my arms hurt too much from typing. Stop laughing at me.)
Lost is a very special book to me for reasons beyond simply that “I
wrote it.” It’s also special to me
because it’s partially a diary.
Remember my answer to the question up
above? Every character in the book is real. They’re all combinations of more
than one person, but every single one of them is real.
First step to writing Lost: Building the characters. The male lead, Owen, was
built from a combination of my husband’s childhood and my own, as well as one
other wonderful individual who was willing to talk with us about his life. His nightmares are mostly real. His personality is mostly real. Why did so many readers love him? Because he’s real.
Maria was harder to write. I don’t (thank God!) have experience with
what she went through, but there was no way on earth I was going to let myself
do a disservice to people who have gone through what she has. It was time for
research. I found support groups, websites dedicated to her particular type of
trauma, and victims who were willing to talk with me about it. She is made up
of the stories and lives of several different people, and I don’t even need to
say “mostly real” about her nightmares. They’re real.
There must be more to a pair of characters
than just trauma. People may let that define their lives, but there’s always
more to them than that. The last step to the character design was to give each
of them a little more than just their nightmares.
Personally, I’m very proud of these two
characters. How can I not be? One of them is basically my husband. I’m very
happy that so many readers have liked both of them. Some didn’t, of course, but
that’s par for the course with any book.
Second step to writing Lost: Bring the characters together. Where are they, and how did
they meet each other? I wanted to write it as a college romance, mainly because
that’s when things turned around for my husband and me. We hadn’t met each
other yet, but we were finally coming into our own so to speak. Owen and Maria
meet in college, and from there it’s just trying to write realistic
interactions. I understood one side of the relationships coming into it and had
plenty of memories to work with for my time in college, and thanks to the
people willing to talk to me about Maria’s side of the picture, I was able to
put together realistic actions for her as well. At least, I hope I did. I
certainly tried.
Third step to writing Lost: Hurting myself until it worked. Not a step that you usually
see in a writer’s development process, is it? In short, if what I was writing
didn’t bother me, I wasn’t doing a good enough job. If you want to know what I
mean, go read the first chapter and get back to me after that. That
is what I was going for. Some people
might argue that trying to hurt your readers isn’t the best business decision,
but I didn’t agree. Lost may be a contemporary romance, but it is a dark romance built
from real people’s lives. If I made it
easier for people—if I didn’t let them see the full extent of the stories
behind the characters—I would be doing the original Owens and Marias a horrible
disservice.
If it didn’t hurt me to read a chapter when
I was done with that, I went back into my own memories and into those of the
wonderful people who are willing to open up to me, and I tried my best to both understand
and feel them until I could do them
justice.
Thanks for taking the time to read my guest
post. I certainly hope that you give Lost
a shot. It’s not an easy read by any means, but I think you just might like it.
-Nadia Simonenko
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~
About
the Author:
Nadia Simonenko is a scientist and author
currently living in Indianapolis with her husband, two cats and a dog. When she
isn't writing, she develops new oncolytic compounds and dreams about someday
getting to take a vacation.
Want to connect with her? E-mail her or contact her at any of the sites below!
E-mail: Nadia@Nadiaromance.com
Website |
Twitter | Facebook
Sign up for her mailing list to get all sorts of freebies, coupons and previews
of all her latest books. Her mailing list is awesome and smells like roses, you
know. It may not come with a free puppy, but it certainly has adorable puppy-dog
eyes and a pink nose.
Want to sign up? Head over to http://list.nadiaromance.com to get started!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
