Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

Let your characters eat. I don't remember where I read it, but as I did, I congratulated myself on getting this piece of advice right. I love to eat, so it makes sense that my characters do too. Even while competing in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, when the dogs and their nutrition take precedence, Claire and Dillon find time to feed themselves, and feed themselves well. In fact, I think this story has more face-feeding scenes than my previous two romances combined!

The human brain is a notorious trickster when it doesn't get enough rest. Hallucinations abound during the Iditarod, from the hilarious to the harrowing. Dee Dee Jonrowe saw a grain silo on the Yukon River, Lance Mackey road by a girl sitting alongside the trail. "She laughed at me, waved, and I went by her and she was gone," Mackey said. Martin Buser tells of seeing villages and freight trains where there are none. Most common are mushers dodging tree limbs on open, treeless tundra (or non-existent powerlines neck high across the trail, as my heroin, Claire, experiences). Dillon's hallucinations take on a dark side when images from a past trauma weave their way into his sleep-deprived mind.

A concern some of my beta readers had with setting a romance in the middle of a race through the Alaskan bush is that my hero and heroine would be apart too long. Physically, yes. But mentally? I could work with that. Two days into the race and Dillon's growing exhaustion makes it difficult for him to resist thoughts of Claire, comparing her to an addiction from his past that nearly destroyed him. All addictions are a double-edged sword; the hero's growing addiction to the heroine is no exception.

I'm not a big sports fan, don't follow baseball of football, haven't been interested in basketball since Oregon's "Dream Team" Trailblazers in the '70s. But I will log into the Iditarod's official website on the first Saturday morning of March and watch live coverage of the ceremonial start of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. The excitement of the dogs and their handlers is infectious as each team of athletes passes under the starting banner and heads out of Anchorage, cheered on by well-wishers who are as addicted to the sport as I am. It's all about the dogs, the eager look in their eyes and the way their bodies tremble with a passion to run.

I grew up in a stable, loving home, my bond to my parents unwavering, even in death. Both of my main characters come from strong family ties, relationships that have been tested and, in some cases, ripped apart. Claire's ties pull her back to Oregon, while Dillon's bind him to Alaska. Neither person is talking about their deep-rooted convictions, yet their attraction to each other continues to grow.

Sexual tension between two characters who go out of their way to deny it, the telling looks, the words unsaid, becomes a slow dance where they end up stepping on each other's toes. Or in Claire and Dillon's case (Iditarod Nights), their snow boots. Writing outdoor scenes that maintained sexual tension through the layers of cold-weather gear they had to wear to survive meant I relied heavily on facial expressions. My critique readers noticed the number of times I referred to glacier blue eyes, whiskey amber eyes, and Claire's unrelenting habit of tucking her hair behind her ear. I slashed half or more out before declaring the manuscript ready for publication. Readers will still see these references in the story, but not nearly to the extreme they once were!

Finding the right balance of details when describing my characters is a challenge. I have an image in my head of what they look like as I write, but conveying that to the reader without creating cardboard cutouts? That's the tricky part. Say too much and I risk blowing the reader's preconceived image. Each reader brings their own background and tastes to the table. The heroes and heroines in my head will look different than the ones in my reader's head. That's the beauty of fiction.