Raya Showed Up First

In my last post, I talked about hearing voices again after a long silence. About the magic coming back. I promised I'd tell you about the who and the how.

So let's start with the who.

Her name is Raya Baptiste. She's Creole, from New Orleans. She's a close-protection specialist (which is the fancy term for bodyguard, except Raya would correct you on that, because there's a difference, and she will explain it to you whether you want her to or not).

She carries a go-bag that's always packed. Always. Not because she travels a lot (although she does), but because somewhere deep in her bones, she believes good things don't last and you'd better be ready to move when they end.

She smells like lavender and gun oil, which shouldn't work together but absolutely does.

And she was the first character who showed up when the voices came back.

Now, here's what's funny about that. I'm writing a series called Broke to Billionaires. Book 1 features a billionaire hero. Gorgeous, powerful, emotionally wrecked in all the best ways, single dad to a seven-year-old who will steal your entire heart. The kind of hero romance readers eat with a spoon.

You'd think he would have shown up first. You'd think the guy with the empire and the penthouse and the devastating backstory would be the one banging on the door of my imagination.

Nope.

Raya walked in, assessed every threat and exit in my head, and said, "Here's what's happening." She didn't ask. She told me.

If you've been reading me for any length of time, this probably won't surprise you. I have a history with strong women. My very first heroine had a motto: Success is the best revenge. She showed up when I was half-asleep one morning and told me she was in jail. (If you missed that story, go read the last post. It's a good one.)

Raya didn't tell me she was in jail. Raya told me who she was. A woman who'd been trained to protect other people's families, other people's children, other people's lives. A woman who was brilliant at keeping everyone else safe and absolutely terrible at letting anyone keep her safe. A woman with scars she didn't hide and walls she didn't acknowledge and a packed bag by the door because leaving was the one thing she'd never failed at.

And then she told me the thing that blew the whole story wide open. She said, "Good things don't last."

That's when I knew I had a book. Because in romance, when a character tells you what they believe down to their bones? That's the belief the story is going to shatter. That's the whole game. You take a woman who's built her entire life around the certainty that good things end, and you put her in a situation where the good thing gets better and she finally starts to hope…and then you yank the rug out from underneath her like the savage writer you are. (Because otherwise, there's no story. They have to EARN their HEA.)

You give her a little girl with serious dark eyes and slightly undone braids and a praying mantis named Martha. You give her a man who looks at her like she's the most complicated problem he's ever wanted to solve. And you wait to see what happens when the woman who's always ready to leave finds something worth staying for.

And then, if you're doing it right, she makes you cry.

My ex-husband used to catch me crying at the keyboard and just shake his head. But it was important. I've always believed that if a story doesn't move me, it has no chance of moving my readers. Crying at your own work doesn't mean you're weird. (Okay, it does mean you're weird. Writers are weird. But that's okay.) It means something is working. It means the character is real enough and the stakes are high enough that even the person who built the whole thing from scratch can't stay dry-eyed through it.

Raya's darkest moment in this book wrecked me. Five in the morning, been awake for hours, revising on my phone, tears rolling down my face. And I was so excited about it that I posted on Facebook, "That's how I know the book's working."

After years of silence? After years of the voices being gone? Crying over a character at 5 AM felt like a gift. Because it is one.

Raya showed up first because she had the most to say. She'd been waiting. Somewhere out there in the creative ether, this woman had been pacing and assessing and keeping watch, and when I was finally ready to listen again, she walked in like she'd been casing the joint for years.

The billionaire showed up later. The brotherhood showed up after that. The little girl showed up and stole the whole damn show. But Raya was first.

Raya's always first through the door.

That's kind of her thing.

Next time: the seven-year-old with the praying mantis. Fair warning. She's going to wreck you.