{"id":3744,"date":"2013-09-19T12:25:45","date_gmt":"2013-09-19T16:25:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/?p=3744"},"modified":"2013-09-19T12:25:45","modified_gmt":"2013-09-19T16:25:45","slug":"boxing-and-romance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/2013\/09\/boxing-and-romance\/","title":{"rendered":"Boxing and Romance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Honored by her college for literary excellence, author Carol Malone<\/a> has played make-believe all her life and started writing romantic tales in high school. Raised with four older brothers, sports was the center of her family\u2019s life. To this day, she still bleeds Dodger Blue. Carol writes pulse-pounding, noir sports stories with a passionate twist, inviting fans to jump in a front row seat and cheer for the underdog.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Can a romance writer make it in the harboiled world of fight fiction?<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\"FC-LOGO-700\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Carol A. Malone<\/b><\/p>\n

I wrote Fight Card Romance:<\/i> Ladies Night<\/i> on a dare.<\/p>\n

A couple of years ago, my friend, Paul Bishop, along with his good friend, Mel Odom, created the Fight Card series \u2013 fast action boxing tales inspired by the fight pulps of the \u201840s and \u201850s. \u00a0Being part of a monthly writers group mentored by Paul, I was familiar with these novels and intrigued by their punchy style.\u00a0 When Paul offered my husband, Tim, the opportunity to write a Fight Card novella, I saw only one major problem \u2013 Tim, raised with four sisters, can\u2019t abide sports. He never played sports of any kind, nor does he like to sit and watch sports on TV He considers it wasting time<\/i>.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, I was raised with four older brothers.\u00a0 When I wasn\u2019t blowing up a Lionel train set with my brother\u2019s dart-shooting-tank-truck, I was outside shooting arrows into a bale of hay, riding my grandmother\u2019s horse, or zipping down sloping hills on my brothers\u2019 sled like my hair was on fire. I learned how to score a baseball game well before learning my ABC\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Sports was a way of life with four brothers \u2013 ice skating, skiing, hockey, water skiing, basketball, football, bowling, and baseball. Weekends in my family were spend watching Friday Night Fights<\/i> with my dad, attending my brother\u2019s baseball games on Saturday afternoons, and bowling with the whole family on Saturday evenings. I ran track, played tennis, and was on my college\u2019s volleyball team. I am a die-hard Dodger devotee \u2013 and, like Tommy Lasorda, if I get cut, I bleed Dodger Blue. My dream was to be a batgirl \u2013 not one who chased after Adam West, but the kind who takes care of the bats for all those hunky ballplayers.<\/p>\n

I read all the previous Fight Card novels and loved them.\u00a0 If Tim wasn\u2019t going to take a crack at a Fight Card story, then I wanted to get in the ring. The series to that point was essentially guy sports stories written for tough-minded, fight-loving male fans, so I was a little tenuous, wondering if I would be accepted into the brotherhood.<\/p>\n

I was determined to approach Paul about an assignment, but figured the best thing to do would be to start writing a Fight Card story and surprise him at our next writers group meeting.\u00a0 I was already writing romance with some form of suspense and action \u2013 I was hoping it wouldn\u2019t be much different.<\/p>\n

So, without Paul\u2019s knowledge, I started to write Ladies Night<\/i> in March, 2012, all the while working on other romantic manuscripts. For boxing research, I watched fights from the 50’s on YouTube, typing the descriptions of the punches into my computer while announcers describe the action. I rounded out the research with old LA city maps, period photos, boxing statistics, and scads of boxing technique videos.<\/p>\n

With trepidation, I brought the first chapters of Ladies Night<\/i> to the once a month writers group and was overwhelmed with the excited acceptance. Paul encouraged me to continue.\u00a0 He\u2019d had a notion in his head to expand the Fight Card brand \u2013 which he\u2019d already done by adding in a series of Fight Card MMA novels \u2013 to include Fight Card Romance novels, and Ladies Night<\/i> looked like it might fill the niche.<\/p>\n

Working with my book coach Beth Barany (http:\/\/bethbarany.com<\/a>) on my previous romantic fiction, I put aside the prosaic stuff and concentrated on my Fight Card book. Beth kept reviewing the manuscript, teaching me invaluable skills to make the process run smoothly.<\/p>\n

With his real world background in police interrogation, Paul knows how to make criminals sweat. I often felt the cold-cop experience of Paul\u2019s suspect-breaking<\/i> techniques when I wrote a couple of chapters he thought were a crime. Yet, under his tutelage, I experienced phenomenal growth. I went from writing very bad romance to creating a well-turned sports-romance novel. Paul is confident, but time will tell if it will be accepted by the die-hard fans of the great Fight Card stories.<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t have written Ladies Night<\/i> without Paul and Beth\u2019s expert influence and their uncompromising declarations, from time to time, that some of my writing did indeed \u2013 suck. But they also offered praise and reassurance, and forced me to keep at it until I got it right.\u00a0 Just like a heavyweight champion needs the right trainer and the right cornermen, so too does a writer.<\/p>\n

Find out more about Fight Card Romance and other Fight Card brands here:<\/i><\/b> www.fightcardbooks.com<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Honored by her college for literary excellence, author Carol Malone has played make-believe all her life and started writing romantic tales in high school. Raised with four older brothers, sports was the center of her family\u2019s life. To this day, she still bleeds Dodger Blue. Carol writes pulse-pounding, noir sports stories with a passionate twist, inviting fans to jump in a front row seat and cheer for the underdog. \u00a0 Can a romance writer make it in the harboiled world of fight fiction? Carol A. Malone I wrote Fight Card Romance: Ladies Night on a dare. A couple of years ago, my friend, Paul Bishop, along with his good friend, Mel Odom, created the Fight Card series \u2013 fast action boxing tales inspired by the fight pulps of the \u201840s and \u201850s. \u00a0Being part of a monthly writers group mentored by Paul, I was familiar with these novels and intrigued […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3744"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3744"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3754,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3744\/revisions\/3754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}