Tuesday, April 21, 2009

This Tuesday At The Tiki Hut - Renee Reeves

Today's special guest at the Tiki Hut is Renee Reeves.

Renee Reeves was born in Stuttgart, Germany but raised in the US. On her mother's side, she is Irish and English and on her father's side, she is German and Irish. Ever since she was a little girl she has loved to read. Her mother, always supportive, made it a point to take her to the library as often as she wished and to get her to each and every school book fair. She would come home with bags of books and would gobble them up in only a few days. She would sit against her pony’s stomach when she was lying down in the pasture and read a book while her pony napped.

Reading, along with horses, was and still is one of the great loves in her life and that love turned into a desire to write. Renee is now married and her husband told her if she wanted to write a book then do it. So she did and is now a published author.

Her first book, NIGHT ANGEL, was just recently released. It is a contemporary about an ex-con, Nick Evanoff, who has turned his life around and now owns a horse sanctuary. He meets Morgan, an abused widow, who has moved to Montana for seclusion and things go from there....;) Renee is now working on 2 paranormals.

Leave Renee a comment today and your name goes in the hat for a copy of NIGHT ANGEL!

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Motivation…Finding it and keeping it.

By Renee Reeves


I don’t know about anyone else but I can find story motivation just about anywhere. A walk out to the barn can spark scenes and images galore. A day trip can immerse me in my own imaginative world, or motivation can hit me when I’m doing nothing more than sitting in a chair gazing out of the window. Most of the time that motivation comes from me wondering, ‘what would I like to be doing now if I were someone else?’

A day trip to a SC church ruin (yes, I know Night Angel is set in Montana!) and staring at a boring hotel wall was how the characters in Night Angel came about. The scene in Night Angel when Nick first sees Morgan is very quiet and peaceful—straight from the SC church ruins. But after that scene I wondered, ‘what now? Now that he’s seen her and wants her, what should their story be?’ I decided both Nick and Morgan just had to have extremely traumatic and horrific previous lives in order to fit together and it took me a while to decide on what those lives should be.

So, finding motivation is simple for me, but keeping it is another matter entirely. I am one of those highly emotional people. My emotions dictate how I am going to feel every single day and right now my emotions are in an uproar because my mother is fighting advanced cervical cancer. Being her fulltime caregiver is physically and emotionally exhausting, not to mention extremely stressful, and really leaves no time for me to manage those characters and scenes bouncing around in my head. At times I am even too tired, or, if I really want to be honest, too depressed to get on the computer and type. During those times I find the storylines in my head to be an annoyance because I know I have to get them out and on paper, or the computer, before they disappear…and, at times, the motivation to do that is NOT there. But, if I ignore them and do nothing I give nasty ole guilt the ability to worm it’s way into me because I know I am wasting not only time, but also talent, scenes, imagery, and what may be a story and characters that some reader out there might really love.

So, how do I handle difficult writing/motivation times like those? I guess I can say at times I get mad and take it out on my characters, putting forth my own depth of emotions in their fictional lives. At times it works and at other times I read over what I wrote and think, ‘ugh…what in the world was I doing to them? They don’t deserve this!’ I also try to use writing as an escape and handle it little by little, maybe one word or one line at a time, and eventually, for a short period of time, I am able to lose myself in the lives of my characters, or at least use them for an emotional outlet.

So, my question to readers is, how do you handle stress or lack of motivation in your own life?

15 comments:

  1. Hi Renee!

    Good morning and welcome to the Tiki Hut!!

    Great post and thanks for offering up the first three chapters of your book.

    Have fun today and best of luck with your current book and future projects!

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  2. Hi Renee! Night Angel sounds like a really good read. I handle stress by picking up a book to read or going for a walk. Reading is my way of relaxing and it helps if I am stress out over a certain problem in my personal life. When I take a walk, the sounds of nature soothe my mind for me. I am still trying to figure something out for the lack of motivation in my life.

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  3. Stress? Chocolate helps :) and venting to a friend
    Cindy
    cholub1968@aol.com

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  4. Hi there Renee! First, great blog girl! I loved hearing all the places you find motivation. As for a stress reducer ..... I have three teen drama queens so my stress reducer has to be during the day while they are at school. I love listening to relaxing music and those hypnotic voices that tell you to breathe in through you nose and out through your mouth and I'm at a tropical island with the sun beating down on me .... record scratch ... I almost forgot where I was for a minute! I am a control freak so the smallest squabble with the girls has me picturing an all out brawl! They look at me and say, "hey mom, let's listen to your hypnotic guy!" LOL

    My girls are my motivation, my husband too but sometimes not for the right reasons. lol

    Congrats on your very first book, I am sure it is going to do wonderfully with all of us addicted readers!

    Have a great one!

    Val

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  5. Hi Renee!

    Congrats on your first book, it sounds really good.

    You're another new to me author and I'm excited to learn about you.

    So glad AuthorIsland brings us someone new each week. Gotta love it!

    Jerry B

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  6. Welcome to the Tiki Hut Renee.

    I also love horses. I had one as a child and I feel sorry for anyone who wasn't able to have that experience.

    Your book sounds very good and I will be checking out the free chapters..thanks for offering that to us today!

    Jenny

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  7. My stress reducer is a good book.
    Congratulations on the release of your first book!

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  8. Hi everyone, thanks for reading and posting to my blog today. It's always nice to meet fellow romance lovers and readers!

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  9. Welcome to the Tiki Hut...I read to allieviate stress!!! I love those men who turn their lives around and bond with animal in a good and caring way. If they can be good to animals, they can be good to the women in thier lives.
    Gram

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  10. First off, Best Wishes for you Mom in her fight. I'll keep your family in my thoughts.

    To answer your question - For me motivation and stress are usually two different issues. I'm not a creative sort so stress doesn't adversely effect my motivation. I'm not very good with motivation. If I have a deadline, I'm always finishing the project just in time. In a way, I guess you could say that I work best under the stress of time constraints.

    I find reading a great relaxer though. I especially love to re-read a favorite when I'm too keyed up by life.

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  11. Hi Gram, that is true about animals and men. You'd love Nick (the hero in my book), he owns a horse sanctuary.

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  12. Thank you Kytaira. Mom needs all the thoughts and prayers she can get!
    Just like you I also work best when put under pressure to finish.

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  13. Hi Renee!

    I have to say my stress reliever starts with chocolate and ends with escaping into a book or two. And for motivation, I promise myself the reward of a book-shopping trip if I get "insert hideaous task here" done. It's all about the books!

    Ann

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  14. The only thing that works for me as a stress reducer is to stay busy, all the projects I've been putting over.My thoughts and prays are with you and the family.
    Theresa N
    weceno(at)yahoo(dot)com

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  15. I just realized I hadn't posted the winner for this Tuesday's contest!

    Cindy, your name was drawn and the publisher is sending you out a copy of Renee's novel, NIGHT ANGEL. I already had your address on file.

    Enjoy the book and thanks for hanging out at the Tiki Hut!

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