Guest Blogger ~ Devon Gray

Today, our guest blogger is Devon Gray! Her newest release, Playing for Keeps, just released this last month at The Wild Rose Press-The Wilder Roses. Please join us here at The Menagerie in giving her a warm welcome!



Available Now from The Wild Rose Press- The Wilder Roses: Playing for Keeps by Devon Gray.

Here is a quick blurb:

Pasts are best left behind, hidden deep in your memory—that is where I buried mine. The feel of his hands and mouth on my body, the height of sensuality I reached beneath his touch. I'd fought so hard to forget—how could just the sight of him bring it all back, forcing me to become lost in him?

Again.

Years before I had watched him, craved him—a guitarist in a band riding the wave to stardom—my brother's best friend. On the verge of womanhood, I never dared to reveal how I yearned. Until a cold New Year's Eve when I offered myself as the woman I'd become, bringing to fruition the deepest of wants. As that night turned, so did my life. Devastatingly so.

I never dreamed I'd become another of his one night stands.

Can pasts be exorcised if they come back to haunt you? And when a notorious playboy who broke your heart offers you his…how do you know if he's playing for keeps?

What I learned from writing this book:

1. It is imperative to have a synopsis before you begin to write a book.

2. Recording studios sometimes keep their gold and platinum records in the bathroom.

3. A man would not describe a woman’s eyes as “lake” blue.

4. It is imperative to have a synopsis before you begin to write a book.

5. If you are over thirty and are trying to get a record deal you have a better shot of becoming president.

6. Jimmy Choos should not be italicized in a manuscript.

7. It is imperative to have a synopsis before you begin to write a book.

8. It is difficult to write a love scene from the male point of view…in first person.

9. If you are a teenaged recording artist performing in bars, you have to have your mom or dad with you at all times.

10. It is imperative to have a synopsis before you begin to write a book.

I cannot even remember how many false starts this book had. The problem? I bet you can hazard a guess. I embraced my pantser tendencies and was left with over a year of frustration as a result. I would work the plot one way, only to discover my conflict fell apart. I’d go in a different direction, just to find my characters fell flat. I put it in a drawer and wrote another book, Addicted, which released this past August. It wasn’t until I was asked to participate in an anthology based on Dan Fogelberg’s “Same Old Lang Syne” that the story finally came together in a way that made sense. Maybe it was the music connection, who knows. I have to say, though, that I have learned many valuable lessons from this experience. Like it is imperative to have a synopsis before you begin to write a book.

Please visit me at www.authordevongray.com