Elle Martin's Blog - Posts Tagged "copies-from-blog-outside"
My Invisible Writing Partner: Confessions of a Romance Author Who Can't Control Her Own Characters
There's something about creativity that defies logic, that resists the careful planning and strategic thinking that serves us well in every other area of life. I spent years in brand strategy, building campaigns and managing projects with the kind of precision that comes from understanding exactly what outcome you're working toward. Then I found myself unemployed after eight years of loyalty, updating my resume for the hundredth time, when a voice I'd been ignoring for decades finally grew too persistent to dismiss.
Writers often talk about their muse as though she's a separate entity, and I've come to believe there's truth in that. Mine arrived not with gentle whispers but with fully formed characters who had stories they needed told. She didn't care that I had no experience writing fiction, that I'd never taken a creative writing class, that the most imaginative thing I'd written was marketing copy about nurse recruitment.
"What if there was an architect who had to return home to save his family's ranch?" she asked one Tuesday morning.
"What if he had siblings, each one carrying wounds that drove them away, and they all had to come home and face what they'd been running from?"
By the time I acknowledged she wasn't going away, I had notebooks filled with fragments of conversations between people I'd never met, scenes that played out like movies in my mind, entire worlds waiting to be written.
I approached writing the way I'd approached everything else in my professional life—with structure, planning, and determination to do it properly. I studied story arcs and character development. I created detailed outlines with carefully plotted chapter sequences. I researched Wyoming ranching with the thoroughness of someone building a marketing campaign.
My muse found this approach amusing.
Four complete rewrites into my meticulously planned story, Keagan Ellery decided he wasn't just coming home for his father's funeral—he was staying indefinitely to fight a corporate land grab that threatened everything his family had built. Shani Murrough refused to be a simple love interest; she emerged as a complex woman with her own business, her own fierce independence, and her own complicated relationship with loss and new beginnings.
The twins weren't supposed to exist at all. My outline called for "a child"—one generic presence to activate Keagan's protective instincts. Instead, my muse handed me Niall and Kirsten, two distinct personalities with their own wisdom about grief and family, their own ways of understanding the adults around them were healing too.
"But that's not the plan," I told my laptop at two in the morning, as though my characters might suddenly decide to cooperate with my outline.
They ignored me completely and kept living their own lives, making their own choices, falling in love in ways that were messier and more real than anything I'd plotted.
The Henderson Development storyline started as a neighbor looking to cash in on the father's death with all of his children estranged, and then POOF! Suddenly, my simple homecoming romance had become a story about community resistance, about the power of people who refuse to be intimidated, about the courage required to fight for what matters even when the odds seem impossible.
"This is why the twins needed to be older," my muse explained as I frantically rewrote scenes to accommodate this unexpected plot development. "Children understand justice in ways adults forget. They're going to be crucial for the emotional climax."
She was right. She's always right, which is both inspiring and occasionally infuriating.
This creative partnership means I never know when inspiration will arrive with demands that change everything. I'll be watching television, and suddenly I'm typing a conversation between Cameron and Caitlin that reveals the devastating secret at the heart of book two. I'll be falling asleep when she whispers the perfect ending for Rory's story, the environmental romance that will challenge everything he thinks he knows about protecting the land he loves.
Working on Caitlin's book has been particularly intense because my muse is deeply invested in second-chance romance. She had me awake at four in the morning, capturing the exact words Caitlin needs to say when she finally tells Cameron about the miscarriage that drove her away fifteen years ago.
"But I haven't written that scene yet," I mumbled into my pillow.
"You will," she replied. "And when you do, you'll understand why I needed you to dream her exact words first. Trust the process."
I've learned that "trust the process" is her favorite phrase, usually delivered when she's asking me to write something that terrifies me. The grief scenes that had me sobbing at my keyboard. The confrontation that will either heal or destroy. The family Christmas that shows all the Ellery siblings finally home and whole, choosing each other despite everything.
"Trust the process," she insists when I worry that readers won't connect with characters who make imperfect choices, when I second-guess emotional scenes that feel too raw, too much like my own heart on the page.
She's never steered me wrong, even when she's steered me away from careful plans and into territory I never expected to explore.
The Coming Home series exists because my muse understood something I didn't: the best love stories aren't just about two people finding each other. They're about entire families learning to love well, about communities that choose to support each other through impossible challenges, about the courage required to come home to yourself after years of trying to be someone else.
Each Ellery sibling's story will challenge me differently because my muse has different plans for each of them. Briar's artistic soul needs healing through creative partnership. Rory's environmental passion needs to be grounded in personal relationships. Croía's generous heart needs protection from those who would take advantage of her willingness to give everything.
I wonder sometimes if other creatives experience this—moments when ideas arrive fully formed, like gifts from some invisible source. When solutions appear not through logic but through surrender to something larger than our careful planning. The relationship between writer and muse is one of the most mysterious parts of this work, but it's also the most magical.
Keagan: Finding the Way Home has just been released, so grab your copy here or keep an eye out for it at your favorite retailer. It's everything my muse promised it would be—a story about coming home to love, family, and the courage to fight for what matters. Caitlin: Home is Where the Heart Is will follow in the new year, and I can promise my muse has plans for that book that will leave you breathless.
If you're curious about the midnight inspirations and behind-the-scenes moments when my muse decides to rearrange my entire writing schedule, follow me on social media. Sometimes the best stories are about the stories behind the stories—about the invisible partnerships that turn careful plans into something far more real than we could have imagined alone.
Writers often talk about their muse as though she's a separate entity, and I've come to believe there's truth in that. Mine arrived not with gentle whispers but with fully formed characters who had stories they needed told. She didn't care that I had no experience writing fiction, that I'd never taken a creative writing class, that the most imaginative thing I'd written was marketing copy about nurse recruitment.
"What if there was an architect who had to return home to save his family's ranch?" she asked one Tuesday morning.
"What if he had siblings, each one carrying wounds that drove them away, and they all had to come home and face what they'd been running from?"
By the time I acknowledged she wasn't going away, I had notebooks filled with fragments of conversations between people I'd never met, scenes that played out like movies in my mind, entire worlds waiting to be written.
I approached writing the way I'd approached everything else in my professional life—with structure, planning, and determination to do it properly. I studied story arcs and character development. I created detailed outlines with carefully plotted chapter sequences. I researched Wyoming ranching with the thoroughness of someone building a marketing campaign.
My muse found this approach amusing.
Four complete rewrites into my meticulously planned story, Keagan Ellery decided he wasn't just coming home for his father's funeral—he was staying indefinitely to fight a corporate land grab that threatened everything his family had built. Shani Murrough refused to be a simple love interest; she emerged as a complex woman with her own business, her own fierce independence, and her own complicated relationship with loss and new beginnings.
The twins weren't supposed to exist at all. My outline called for "a child"—one generic presence to activate Keagan's protective instincts. Instead, my muse handed me Niall and Kirsten, two distinct personalities with their own wisdom about grief and family, their own ways of understanding the adults around them were healing too.
"But that's not the plan," I told my laptop at two in the morning, as though my characters might suddenly decide to cooperate with my outline.
They ignored me completely and kept living their own lives, making their own choices, falling in love in ways that were messier and more real than anything I'd plotted.
The Henderson Development storyline started as a neighbor looking to cash in on the father's death with all of his children estranged, and then POOF! Suddenly, my simple homecoming romance had become a story about community resistance, about the power of people who refuse to be intimidated, about the courage required to fight for what matters even when the odds seem impossible.
"This is why the twins needed to be older," my muse explained as I frantically rewrote scenes to accommodate this unexpected plot development. "Children understand justice in ways adults forget. They're going to be crucial for the emotional climax."
She was right. She's always right, which is both inspiring and occasionally infuriating.
This creative partnership means I never know when inspiration will arrive with demands that change everything. I'll be watching television, and suddenly I'm typing a conversation between Cameron and Caitlin that reveals the devastating secret at the heart of book two. I'll be falling asleep when she whispers the perfect ending for Rory's story, the environmental romance that will challenge everything he thinks he knows about protecting the land he loves.
Working on Caitlin's book has been particularly intense because my muse is deeply invested in second-chance romance. She had me awake at four in the morning, capturing the exact words Caitlin needs to say when she finally tells Cameron about the miscarriage that drove her away fifteen years ago.
"But I haven't written that scene yet," I mumbled into my pillow.
"You will," she replied. "And when you do, you'll understand why I needed you to dream her exact words first. Trust the process."
I've learned that "trust the process" is her favorite phrase, usually delivered when she's asking me to write something that terrifies me. The grief scenes that had me sobbing at my keyboard. The confrontation that will either heal or destroy. The family Christmas that shows all the Ellery siblings finally home and whole, choosing each other despite everything.
"Trust the process," she insists when I worry that readers won't connect with characters who make imperfect choices, when I second-guess emotional scenes that feel too raw, too much like my own heart on the page.
She's never steered me wrong, even when she's steered me away from careful plans and into territory I never expected to explore.
The Coming Home series exists because my muse understood something I didn't: the best love stories aren't just about two people finding each other. They're about entire families learning to love well, about communities that choose to support each other through impossible challenges, about the courage required to come home to yourself after years of trying to be someone else.
Each Ellery sibling's story will challenge me differently because my muse has different plans for each of them. Briar's artistic soul needs healing through creative partnership. Rory's environmental passion needs to be grounded in personal relationships. Croía's generous heart needs protection from those who would take advantage of her willingness to give everything.
I wonder sometimes if other creatives experience this—moments when ideas arrive fully formed, like gifts from some invisible source. When solutions appear not through logic but through surrender to something larger than our careful planning. The relationship between writer and muse is one of the most mysterious parts of this work, but it's also the most magical.
Keagan: Finding the Way Home has just been released, so grab your copy here or keep an eye out for it at your favorite retailer. It's everything my muse promised it would be—a story about coming home to love, family, and the courage to fight for what matters. Caitlin: Home is Where the Heart Is will follow in the new year, and I can promise my muse has plans for that book that will leave you breathless.
If you're curious about the midnight inspirations and behind-the-scenes moments when my muse decides to rearrange my entire writing schedule, follow me on social media. Sometimes the best stories are about the stories behind the stories—about the invisible partnerships that turn careful plans into something far more real than we could have imagined alone.
It's Here: Keagan's Journey Home Begins Today!
After months of living with these characters, walking beside them through grief and healing, watching them face threats that could destroy everything they love, and discovering that the courage to come home is stronger than the fear of what it might cost—I'm thrilled to share that Keagan: Finding the Way Home is now available as an ebook on Amazon Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.
This story has been a journey for me as much as for the Ellery siblings. What started as whispers from my muse became a story about family legacy, second chances, and the kind of love worth fighting for. About an architect who built monuments to his independence only to discover that success without connection is just another word for exile. About a widow and her children who teach him that hearts are elastic enough to hold multiple truths—that honoring the past doesn't mean closing the door on the future.
But coming home isn't simple when corporate developers threaten to destroy the ranch that's been in your family for generations. When the woman you're falling for and her children become targets. When you have to decide whether protecting the people you love means walking away—or standing your ground no matter the cost.
If you've been waiting to walk the Wyoming landscape with Keagan and Shani, to meet Niall and Kirsten, to discover whether love and community can stand against powerful enemies determined to take what isn't theirs—today is the day.
The ebook is available now on My Website.
Amazon, Amazon Kindle and Kindle Unlimited!
This story has been a journey for me as much as for the Ellery siblings. What started as whispers from my muse became a story about family legacy, second chances, and the kind of love worth fighting for. About an architect who built monuments to his independence only to discover that success without connection is just another word for exile. About a widow and her children who teach him that hearts are elastic enough to hold multiple truths—that honoring the past doesn't mean closing the door on the future.
But coming home isn't simple when corporate developers threaten to destroy the ranch that's been in your family for generations. When the woman you're falling for and her children become targets. When you have to decide whether protecting the people you love means walking away—or standing your ground no matter the cost.
If you've been waiting to walk the Wyoming landscape with Keagan and Shani, to meet Niall and Kirsten, to discover whether love and community can stand against powerful enemies determined to take what isn't theirs—today is the day.
The ebook is available now on My Website.
Amazon, Amazon Kindle and Kindle Unlimited!
