Biography Of A Story
Jan
17
2008

I was chatting with Megan about theme songs for books earlier yesterday and she was telling me she’d found the one for her newest WIP and I was telling her that Dave Matthews Band – Crash was the theme song for Dirty/Bad/Wrong – my half of our jointly written novel – Taking Care of Business.

For those who’ve never heard the song, the video is a few blog entries below this one. The line “I’m bareboned and crazy is like a touchpoint of how Dix feels for her.

See, we started off pitching it as a dual author anthology with two side by side category novels taking place at the same event. Our heroines are best friends and there’d be some interweaving of storylines, dialog, etc. But a few editors mentioned wanting to make it one novel with alternating chapters and hey, well okay then.

So anyway, my part of the book was originally entitled Dirty/Bad/Wrong and it’s about Katherine Edwards, a contracts attorney who’s having a secret scorching hot affair with the in house counsel for a corporation she’s doing work for. The two are both at a conference and sure yes, hot sexin ensues but she’s now living in the same state he is and he wants more from her than just hanging out and having sex whenever it suits them. They get to each other in different ways but he’s surer of it, of himself. She lives a very bifurcated life – her private life is not something she lives during the day but he challenges that.

So as I began to plot the book I thought about who my hero was.

Oh Dr. Troy. He’s got some of Christian Troy from Nip/Tuck in him. But he’s not as selfish, not as wounded. But he’s still just naughty. I love that about him.

As for Kate, she lives in my head. I don’t see her face as clearly as I see Dix’s face. But I know her heart, I know her mind and I understand her. She doesn’t hate sex or men, she’s just careful. She makes the RIGHT CHOICES. And the right choices are very important to her. The right choices keep her safe. But Dix is sooo the wrong choice, but you know what? Sometimes you have to make the wrong choice just to know you’re alive. And sometimes making the wrong choice is actually the right one. But it’s going to take her a while to figure it out.

Anyway – that’s a little bit about my process, about my part in Taking Care of Business – it’s been really fun to work with Megan on this project. It’s a hoot to write about friends with your friend and the jointly written scenes with their back and forth dialog always makes me laugh. I hope people like it when it comes out late this year.

One comment to “Biography Of A Story”

  1. JSL
    January 17th, 2008 at 3:49 pm · Link

    Hi Lauren,
    It’s been a long day. I scrolled up and down this post a few times and was like “crazyy déjà vu! … no… this was on BB … no… déjà vu … no, I’ve seen this. Gaaah” – just thought I’d share that. 😛