Release Me

by J. Kenner

Release Me by J. Kenner (an excerpt)

INSOMNIA IS BAD FOR YOUR THIGHS … BUT GOOD FOR THE LOVE SCENES!

I have book-induced insomnia.  I’m 99.9% sure that’s a legitimate medical condition.  Okay, not really, but it should be.  And as an author, I have it particularly bad.  Because not only can reading someone else’s book keep me up all night, but so can writing my own book.

Because you get caught up with the characters.  You start thinking.  Mulling.  Pondering.  And then you can’t sleep because you have to go just one step farther in that scene.  Need to torment those characters just a little bit more … or reward them, depending on what kind of scene you’re writing!

For me, it starts when I settle in to write.  (With two kids, writing is often a post-bedtime affair).  Thus, my writing “day” begins the coffee.

Now, I pretty much live off of coffee, for better or for worse, so it doesn’t keep me up quite as much as it might someone else.  But still, you can’t deny the caffeinated goodness.

So I’ve got a kick and I’m working …

But then I hit a stumbling point in the book.  I could go to bed, but I really just need to move about and work out the story kinks.  It’s getting late, though, so I should have a healthy snack.  Like, say, blueberries.

Maybe a gigantic bowl of them.

Full of vitamin-y goodness, I go back to work, losing myself in the story until I hit another wall.  Writing is filled with a surprising number of walls.

Now it’s pushing midnight, and I’m wanting something creamy.  But it’s late, so I shouldn’t have anything too bad for me.  I go for the yogurt. (Not the namby-pamby lowfat stuff.  We eat the good stuff at my house!).  I snarf down a good 8 ounces and consider myself fueled.  I’m getting slightly sleepy, but I just ate, so I can’t go to bed now.  I head back to the computer for “just a bit more.”

After checking Facebook and Twitter and my Amazon rankings, I get back into the book, and it’s going great.  Really great.  In fact so great that I don’t notice it’s 1am until I stretch to get the kinks out.

Wow.  I should go to bed.  But this scene is going great and, well, I’m in the zone, and for that matter, so are the characters, and it seems unfair to make them stop when things are getting so steamy…

I head back into the kitchen.  After all, this scene requires fuel.  But now it’s so late that not eating seems silly.  It’s practically tomorrow.  And that leftover apple pie really does need to be finished off.  If I eat it now, it can’t tempt me tomorrow.

Down it goes.

Back to the computer I go.

Only getting up was a mistake because now I’ve lost my groove, and my amorous characters who were looking forward to a bit of a party between the sheets are just a tad irritated with me.  But going to bed and putting it off is out of the question because, hey, I just ate an apple pie.

I must stay up.  I must write.  I must get back into the scene.

I wander the house. (Writers are big on wandering.)  I think about the scene.  I think that something cold to drink would be good.  Something to loosen my muscles, make me sleepy, and get the scene jamming again.

Guess what I find?

Nothing like a little insomnia-induced Kahlua & Cream to move a scene along!  And my hips be damned. After all, it’s all for the good of the book!

How about you?  Got any insomnia stories? Do you eat your way through the night, or do you have the kind of discipline I envy?

J. Kenner is the pen name of USA Today bestselling author Julie Kenner (who also writes as J.K. Beck).  Release Me, an erotic romance, will be available in the U.S. and the U.K. on January 1, and in over a dozen other countries later in 2013.

You can hang out with J.K., learn more about Release Me and her other novels, or just poke around and see what catches your eye at her website, www.jkenner.com, and also at her J. Kenner Facebook page, www.facebook.com/jkennerbooks and on Twitter at www.twitter.com/juliekenner

 Giveaway Time!

Prize: ONE paperback copy of RELEASE ME

• Must be 18+ years old to enter
• Book will be mailed to winner directly from publisher
• Winner will be chosen using random.org on December 31st, 2012

To Enter: Leave a comment for Julie on this post!