ALLIE PLEITER | A Little Bit of Real Life...

Sometimes our imaginations cook up the perfect story from scratch.

Other times, life hands us the spark of the story and our imaginations use it as a launching pad.

Such was the case with my first novella, Bluegrass Easter, released this March in Love Inspired’s Easter Promises. Sure, it’s the final story in my Kentucky Corners series, and it’s special for that, but there’s another reason it captures my heart: the real-life spark of the story. An avid knitter, I’d been getting regular updates from a yarn shop and sheep farm in my area. One email chronicled the story of a particularly...shall we say...romantic male sheep and the surprise population explosion he brought to the ewes at the farm.

I ask you, how could a romance novelist--let alone one who knits--pass up a courtship like that?

Any writer worth her salt (or in this case her fleece) wouldn’t leave it at just a bunch of surprise sheep pregnancies. I had to find ways for this "bumper crop" of lambs to take librarian Audrey Lupine to her emotional edge. It’s cruel, I know, to take a control freak and send her beyond her coping, but the payoff is so very sweet when she overcomes her challenges. That has a lot to do with the charm and compassion of veterinarian Paul Sycamore and his precocious little daughter. And like every good hero, he has a lot of growing to do himself. And so we get to watch them "stretch into each other" as I like to put it. Change and grow as a result of how life through them together. That’s the trick we authors must master--to take something everyday (or even just a little ordinary) and raise the stakes for maximum emotional impact. While most of us will never have to face more lambs than we were counting on, every one of has had life push us beyond our abilities. I know I’ve had more than my share in the past year.

Which is why I knit. It’s my stress release, my non-writing creative outlet (I believe every writer must have another creative outlet besides words). Simply put, knitting is my passion. If I found a $50 bill in a parking lot with a note attached saying "you have the next two hours free to spend this," I’d make a bee-line for the yarn store (okay, I might stop at Starbuck’s on the way). It’s why Bluegrass Easter was such fun for me--I got to combine my passion for storytelling with my obsession with yarn. I’d like to think that fun comes through in the story. Tell me, what are your passions? Do you read (or write) books about them, or are your fiction cravings drawn in other directions?

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Allie Pleiter | Balancing The Quirks And The Oddities

How do you give an old story a new twist? Holiday romances are time-honored favorites. Everyone likes to see the guy finally get the girl under the mistletoe. Not that the holidays don’t provide lots of material for those of us who tend to put humor in our stories, but it can be hard to achieve that "smile while you tear up" quality that most readers look for in romantic comedy.

For me, the balance is the difference between "quirky" and "odd." We love quirky characters, mostly because they represent parts of us we don’t want to the world to see. Character traits run amuk are funny, especially if they’re character traits we have ourselves. That’s what makes them recognizable; what makes them quirky.

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Allie Pleiter | Cry me a keeper...

So, why is it we love to see our characters go to the brink of misery? Follow them to the loss of their most treasured people, dreams, and possessions? The answer is because it makes for the best reading. Drama is the stuff of great books, and drama is built on loss, conflict, stress, and any number of other nasty elements. Let’s face it; make up kisses are always the sweetest. We cheer for the couple that falls scarred and wounded into each other’s arms because deep down, we know the redemptive power of love. When a romance restores a soul, it affirms our deeply held belief that love really can conquer all. That it transforms, redeems, and changes lives.

You could comb the Bible and find scores of verses that talk about love’s power. It’s the stories, though, that stick with us. The books where all seems lost and you can’t imagine how the hero and heroine are going to make it back to each other--those are the best ones. Because it means that anything can get better!

Cameron and Dinah go through their share of misery in Bluegrass Blessings. They learn things, down in that dark hole, that they can’t learn anywhere else. Things that push them to new strengths and new capacities. As a writer, I know a book is good when I cry writing it, just like you know the “keepers” on your shelf made you cry. I hope I made you laugh as much as cry, because I believe laughter has powers all its own.

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Allie Pleiter | BLUEGRASS COURTSHIP

My first crack at the "plane Jane" heroine took me by surprise. Given my love for larger-than-life characters, I wasn’t sure my muse was up to the challenge. Then I remembered that one of the best matches for a small-town-practical girl would be a big-city-dynamo of a guy. One Sunday night I was sniffling my way through yet another episode of Extreme Makeover Home Edition (come on…I dare you to watch that without crying at the end), thinking how any red-blooded American female would enjoy watching Ty Pennington rip up her hardwood flooring…and voila!—the idea for Bluegrass Courtship was born. Of course, I had to give this my own quirky twist, so I invented Missionnovation, the church-rehab version of home makeover a show. After all, how many church buildings could use a spruce-up to match the vitality of the congregations inside?

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Allie Pleiter | I think I have a writing disability.

Well, perhaps disability is too strong a word, except that I do truly feel “differently-abled.” I feel somewhat hampered by it, like I stand out more than I already do by being six feet tall. And at gatherings of writers and readers, like here at the Romance Writers of America conference in San Francisco this week, I feel my “freak flag” flying especially high.

I’m an extrovert. A raging, card-carrying, put-my-photo –in-the-dictionary-next-to-the-definition extrovert. And introverts—not extroverts--populate the writers world by a huge majority.

Why is that a disability? Well, it sets me at a disadvantage. All you thoughtful introverts are watching, observing cunning truths of human behavior, carefully selecting your contribution to the dialogue, and I’m…well I’m yakking away like that crazy uncle everyone tolerates at Thanksgiving. I’m on my ninth story, mistaking all your quiet for consent when I’m now rather sure you all were saying to yourselves (or maybe even each other) can’t someone rein this gal in? Take her volume and drama down a notch? I’m trying—perhaps too desperately—to pull you into conversations when you all would probably rather have a root canal than make small talk with the likes of me.

Really, I’m starting to think I’m coming off rather badly at these things. I’m missing a gene. Most of the writers I truly admire don’t have this psychotic impulse to go meet new people and make them talk to me. Perhaps I need to start counting to ten before I engage another person in conversation. Or find a support group. Perhaps I am the exception that proves the rule. Perhaps I serve some useful social function, saving introverts from having to create conversation—or…gulp…giving them an oddity they can all talk about like the bad boss that unites an office by giving all the workers a common enemy.

Pipe up! Chime in! The internet is the water cooler of introverts! Tell me what you think of the oddities of extroverted writers…or extraverted readers…or tell me to please hush up and go home….

Allie Pleiter
www.alliepleiter.com/