Susan Mallery | What do our characters wish for?

In the last hours before college graduation, I was saved from life as an accountant by a continuing education course titled "How to Write a Romance Novel." Not that there’s anything wrong with being an accountant. It’s just that, for me, the infinite realm of numbers couldn’t possibly compare to the infinite realm of characters.

Numbers can’t surprise you by making bad decisions. Numbers don’t have quirks that make you laugh. (Except for 43,770. For some reason, 43,770 cracks me up every time.)

But "infinite" can feel overwhelming to a writer facing a blank page, and I’m always on the lookout for a new tool to get to know my characters better. I think I found one in Debbie Macomber’s wonderful book, Twenty Wishes. Anne Marie, a young widow, is stuck in a rut of grief and decides to make a list of twenty wishes, hoping this will give her something to look forward to and will restore her positive outlook on life. The bubble wrap popping scene is a hoot! I want to have a party like that.

What would I learn, I wondered, if I did this exercise from the point of view of my characters? What new insights would I gain? I mean, we're talking twenty wishes here – that's going to dig pretty deep. And we’re not talking Miss America-style "world peace” kinds of wishes. No, these need to be things the character can impact and achieve. Come to think of it, "world peace" might work as a wish for one of my monarchs. A king can refuse to start a war, right? But not for the everyday folks.

Click here to read the rest of Susan's blog and to leave a comment.

Christy Reece | How a Wish Became a Series

People often ask writers where they get their ideas. Many can answer about how a particular incident or thought popped into their head and they were able to create an entire book from that. With the first three books I wrote, before I sold, the idea always started with a comment in my head. A character, usually my future heroine, would say something and I'd wonder why she said it. The conversation would expand and I would create the story from there. That's one of the wonderful things about imagination. Being able to take something so small and seemingly insignificant and create characters, a story and sometimes an entire world.

When I started writing RESCUE ME, my debut book, it wasn't because of some conversation I heard in my head. It was an event. I'm a self-confessed news junkie. Even when I'm writing, I often have the news playing in the background because I never know what might spur an idea. Something that always intrigues me are missing persons cases. Tragically most of these cases don't have happy endings. Many are found dead, some return on their own. But the few that never return, the ones who disappear without a trace--what could have happened to these people?

One high profile case touched me more than any other because it was a young girl who lived in my city. I watched the news, read articles, followed the case closely. The longer it took to find her, the likelihood of a good outcome seemed less and less. I began to wish that an organization existed that would do whatever it took, no matter the risks or cost, to find and rescue her. And that's how Last Chance Rescue was born.

Click here to read the rest of Christy's blog and to comment.

Linda Bilodeau | OH Those Intriguing Characters

I'm often asked about the characters who live in my stories. Are they based on someone I know? Is there a little of myself in these characters?

The answer to both questions is yes, and I believe the talent to create characters comes partly from creativity and partly from understanding human nature.

When I construct a story line, I think of who is going to live in that world and what their motives are or should be. Depending on plot, I decide if the women need to be tough, weak, courageous, deceitful or honest to a fault. What makes up their basic personality? In other words, stick that tea bag in a pot of boiling water and see how it holds up.

Curious? read the rest of Linda's blog!

Darlene Gardner | Secondary Romances

Jane Bennet and Mr. Bingley. Willow and Oz. Betty and Barney Rubble.

You've probably figured out by now what the couples from the book Pride and Prejudice, the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the cartoon The Flintstones have in common: They're involved in secondary romances.

Now here's my shameless confession: I adore secondary romances, often considerably more than the main event. In THE HERO'S SIN, my February release from Superromance that starts a new series, the secondary hero relentlessly -- and, I hope, charmingly -- pursues his ex-wife. Part of the reason their marriage broke up was because his favorite pasttime was getting drunk with his buddies. I wouldn't give the primary hero that flaw unless there was a deep, dark reason he was drinking.

Click here to read the rest...

Sandi Kahn Shelton | Finding Characters

One of the most fun things about writing a novel (or as my uncle put it, “telling lies for profit”) is coming up with characters. People are always asking writers where the characters come from — it’s the #1 question when you go for readings and signings — and I’m afraid they always seem disappointed by the truth, which is, “I have utterly no idea.”

With my new novel, Kissing Games of the World, the main character, Jamie McClintock, showed up one morning when I was taking a bath. I was lying there concentrating on keeping the tub filled to the top with hot water using only my big toe (a delicate balance of draining and refilling which practically requires a degree in engineering and physics to keep it just right), when I noticed somebody wafting around over by the shower head, explaining to me about how she was an artist and a single mom raising her 5-year-old boy, Arley, who had asthma. They lived in a farmhouse in Connecticut with Harris, an older man famous in town for his rascally womanizing, who was now redeeming himself by raising his 5-year-old grandson, Christopher, whose father had run away.

I really appreciate it when a character arrives with her trouble already spelled out; it’s much harder to work with somebody who insists that life is just fine. And Jamie had a whole bunch of trouble. Right at the beginning, Harris dropped dead unexpectedly, and his estranged, hated son (Christopher’s father, Nate) came back to claim the house and his little boy, and move him back to California. As Jamie explained the situation, Nate was a jet-setty, arrogant kind of guy, a salesman, and his plan was to drag his kid along on his business trips and educate him in hotel rooms. Jamie went hysterical over this. (I didn’t mind; I’ve learned finally that you have to put your most beloved characters in lots of trouble, or there’s no story.) I was having lots of fun writing about Jamie’s view of this guy when one day, while I was driving to work, I heard this voice in my head say to me, “Wait just a minute. Would you just hold on a bloody second? I’d like to tell my side of things, if you don’t mind.” It was Nate.

Buy Your Copy today

And — well, he proceeded to take over the whole book. (Kind of like when you let a man drive your sports car for a minute. You have to be careful or you won’t get the keys back.)

At first I thought I would just give him a chapter, let him explain a couple of things Jamie couldn’t possibly know about, but then his voice was so strong, and he had such an interesting story, that he and I just kept going together. He had things to tell me about his father, and about his mom and his wife, and why he played baseball as a kid, and who he slept with in high school, and why he thought traveling and sending money was the best thing he could do for his son. He told me about his fiancée and his charismatic boss, and even some of his favorite sales strategies.

And — this is a little embarrassing — but I kind of fell for the guy. In a good way, of course. Whenever I’d be writing his scenes, it was like taking dictation. I honestly could hear his sarcastic, take-no-prisoners tone of voice. He made me laugh.

“Let me just write this book,” he would whisper to me at night when I was falling asleep. “Come on. Let’s do this together!”

I went and looked at the contract from my publisher. It said I had a book due in the category of “women’s fiction.” My editor would freak out if I called and said a guy had hijacked the book, and I’d now be writing about HIM.

So we compromised. I limited him to every other chapter. One for Jamie, one for him.

And an interesting thing happened. While his chapters were exciting and funny as hell and practically came to me faster than I could type them, Jamie realized she was being outdone and had to step up and start making her story deeper and more dramatic, too. I mean, this woman had issues. Not just the kid with asthma either. Trust problems, ex-boyfriend troubles, a wish to use her art to hide from human beings. And when little Arley ended up adoring Nate, while Christopher would have nothing to do with him, Jamie found herself actually hoping that Nate, whom she loathed, would stick around.

He didn’t, of course. Not at first anyway. But I can’t tell you any more than that. Except that it was a real ride, being in these two different heads at all times. It was fun exploring love that comes out of nowhere and slams people right upside the head, as my mother would have put it. I hadn’t ever written a real love story before. I was afraid of being too Hallmark card-ish or sentimental. You know how that can be. And honestly, there were times when I was writing this book that I thought this love story was so unsentimental that it wasn’t going to work out at all, that everybody would go their separate ways and be better for it.

But then — well, a whole bunch of stuff happened. It always does, if you’re lucky. You’re at the mercy of these characters who show up in the bathtub with you, or sitting next to you in the passenger seat of your car, or chatting you up from your pillow in the middle of the night — and suddenly they take on a life of their own, and you’re just along for the fun of it. That’s the thing you can’t ever really explain to people who think the character is really you, or your best friend, or a guy you went to high school with.

They’re nobody you know, but for a little while, they move into your head and explain life to you — and then one day you finish the book, and you look around for them, but they’re gone. And soon, somebody else is lurking by the shower fixture, saying, “Pssst. I have something to tell you…”

Sandi Kahn Shelton
Visit Sandi's Web Site
Visit Sandi's Blog

Comment below or enter Sandi's special contest...win an autographed copy of WHAT COMES AFTER CRAZY and a Starbucks gift certificate for $20. A little something to use for a winter day! A perfect combination...a great book and cup of warm java (or chocolate or tea...)!

Candace Havens | Secrets and Siblings

I grew up an only child, and I really liked it. (Smile) Except for the fact that I love to play board games and cards, and I didn’t always have a playmate.

But I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of siblings.

That’s why there are four Caruthers sisters and one brother in my new book "The Demon King and I." I wanted to write about that interaction between siblings. I have first hand experience after watching my own children, but I also did some research by hanging around and learning to understand how my friends interact with their brothers and sisters.

Take my friend Shannon’s comment about how one of her brother’s dresses. We were Christmas shopping a few years ago and she talked about how she bought him some decent clothes so he would wear something besides a t-shirt and jeans. It was her subtle way of telling him to grow up. I didn’t realize it, until just this moment but that sort of ended up in The Demon King and I. (Please, don’t tell her.)

I watched as another friend interacted with her two sisters. That dynamic was very interesting because the middle sister, my friend, has become the peacekeeper in the family. There is this constant battle for her to keep everyone happy, though it seldom works out that way.

My two best friends, Shannon and Rosemary, have become like sisters to me. We even have our own little family dynamic, though I’m pretty sure we are much kinder to one another than most siblings. But we can talk about anything, which is something I love.

So I want to know about you and your siblings. Are you like my kids, who grump at each other constantly but when the chips are down they are there for one another? They both have this thing that they can give each other a hard time, but no one from the outside better say anything derogatory. So tell me. And do you share secrets with your siblings?

Candace Havens
www.candacehavens.com/

Sandra Ruttan | Imaginary Friends

I was staring at the wall, my hands still. My partner assumed I was taking a break and started talking to me.

"Be quiet! There are voices talking inside my head and I have to hear what they’re saying!"

He muttered something like, “Okay crazy person,” and left me to talk to my imaginary friends.

Writing a novel is an extremely personal venture. For months, these characters live inside your mind as you get to know them and try to reveal their character, intent and actions on the page. When you write a series it’s even more personal, because you develop a long-term relationship with your protagonists.

In THE FRAILTY OF FLESH, book two of the Nolan, Hart and Tain series, the storylines are very personal. In book one, events from the past are alluded to but not exploited. In book two, Nolan is confronted by some of his darkest fears, Tain struggles with a deep personal wound that will never heal, and Hart suffers a devastating loss.

Some of my friends have wondered how I could put these characters through hell. As a reader, and as someone who loves series books and gets very attached to characters, I can understand that this might bother some readers.

As a reader, I know I never want to read the same book over and over again. I never want readers to think I’m writing the same book over and over again either. Love it or loathe it, the one thing I hope everyone will agree on is that I didn’t just recycle the first book and slap a different title on it.

Confronting my characters with their personal demons was hard. Your characters live and breathe for you, and many authors I know view their protagonists as friends or children. Each of my protagonists has something of me in them, but putting them in tough situations gave me a chance to get to know them better, and it also allowed them to grow.

I have been asked if I’ll go a bit easier on them in the third book, LULLABY FOR THE NAMELESS. I take that as a real compliment, that readers care enough about the characters to want them to be happy, but for now all I can say for now is that you’ll have to wait until next fall to find out.

Want to win a signed copy of THE FRAILTY OF FLESH? Enter before November 1 via Maine Crime Writer or by November 5 at Bookspot Central

Sandra Ruttan

Lisa Jackson | The Real Dirt on LEFT TO DIE

People ask me why I decided to set a new series in Montana. After all, I've pretty much settled into New Orleans. Well, the truth of the matter was that I wanted a new, fresh extremely different locale for LEFT TO DIE and the books that follow in the series. I figured a small podunk fictional town like Grizzly Falls was nearly a one-eighty in atmosphere from the French Quarter or Garden District of the Crescent City. I wanted away from the southern bayous and into the mountains of the west.

What I didn't expect was the new characters and how I'd come to love them. I'm a small town girl at heart--born and raised in a tiny timber town in Oregon--and so the back-woodsy rural part was natural. But the characters, wow. First of all the heroine, Jillian Rivers is on the warpath, trying to find out if her first husband, the one whom she thought died in the jungles of South American, the jerk who left her holding the bag when he disappeared and owed tons of investors money, might be alive. Then there's the hero, Zane MacGregor, a loner's loner, sexy as hell and once charged with murder, who has no interest in any woman. My killer's a true psycho, the kind I love to write about, the kind of serial killer who leaves cryptic notes for the police. Finally there is a pair of female homicide detectives whom I adore.

My editor originally suggested two female cops and I resisted the idea; they just never came to mind. But when I started writing LEFT TO DIE, twice-married, wild single mother Regan Pescoli entered my head and she pulled her partner, tightly-wound, secretive Selena Alvarez with her. They are partners in the Pinewood County Sheriff's Department. Those two hard-headed women just wouldn't go of me. Together with the main characters of the story and the crazies that inhabit Grizzly Falls, Montana, I became lost in my story.

Currently, I'm creating myspace pages for Regan and Pescoli---I know, kinda weird--but I really do love them both and they are with some of the more interesting townspeople in a character gallery and map I'm putting up on my web site at lisajackson.com. Come and visit, see if they match your vision of the town. Let me tell you, Pinewood County is where it's happening!

I loved writing it. No kidding.

Lisa Jackson

Christina Meldrum | When a Plot and Its Characters Collide

How does a writer create a story with a compelling plot AND compelling characters? This was a question I asked myself throughout my writing of Madapple (Knopf), my debut novel. Released last month, Madapple is a crossover novel intended for older teens and adults. Part literary mystery, part psychological thriller, I knew the success of Madapple would depend at least in part on my ability to devise a page-turning plot acted out by well-developed characters. I expected this would be difficult, because often novels provide either an intricate plot or complex, richly developed characters. Rarely does a novel provide both. But why?

But why? As I was writing, I quickly realized why. An intricate plot makes demands on its characters, requiring them to act according to its mandates, which may well be inconsistent with what turns out to be any given character’s inclinations. I’m referring to characters as if they are alive, I know—as if they have inclinations separate from an author’s intent. Well, I think they do sometimes: the characters of Madapple certainly did.

As an author, I may have given birth to my characters but, like children, my characters seemed to have minds of their own. My plot may have demanded that my protagonist Aslaug behave in a certain way, only to have me realize Aslaug was behaving in an entirely different way. My plot may have required Madapple’s other main characters, Sanne, Rune, Sara and Rebekka, to say a certain something or do a certain something, only to have me discover the characters say or do something else altogether. Hence, there were times I had to rein my characters in—to force them to behave more consistently with my plot. Did this make my characters less rich, less real? Maybe. But there were also times when I altered my plot to appease my characters. Did this make the plot less intricate, less compelling? Maybe.

This is the challenge: sometimes a plot and its characters collide. The challenge for any writer, it seems to me, is not that different from the challenge of any parent: to give progeny the freedom to grow beyond expectations, while still setting some necessary limitations. I don’t know whether or not I accomplished this in Madapple. I hope I did. So far the reviews of Madapple have been encouraging. Madapple received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist and Kirkus Reviews and was spotlighted by Kirkus in its special edition: “Fresh Fiction: 35 Promising Debuts.” Vanity Fair described Madapple as “mesmerizing” and featured it in its June 2008 issue as one of its “Hot Type” selections. The Chicago Tribune called Madapple “exquisite” and listed it among its “Hot Summer Reads.” The San Francisco Chronicle said Madapple is "an ambitious, often haunting debut, a unique meditation on language, rationality and faith” and the Marin Independent Journal described Madapple as “a gripping mystery.” Now, I can only hope Madapple will reach those for whom it would be meaningful.

Christina Meldrum

www.christinameldrum.com/.

Patti O'Shea | Risky Business

One of the things that satisfies me most about writing is exploring the characters’ fears, their hopes, and dreams. Each book has had something new for me and I’ve enjoyed stretching myself—and I’ve especially enjoyed torturing—um, I mean pushing—the hero and heroine. It isn’t always deliberate, but if I have a heroine who’s afraid she’s going to fall to the dark side in her magical world, you can bet she’s going to end up in a situation where that’s tested.

IN TWILIGHT’S SHADOW (Jun 3, 2008) gave me something different to think about—risk.

I’d explored the idea of courage in an earlier book, but I never thought about risk until Maia and Creed’s story. Maia was a troubleshooter for a society of magic users and she gambled her job, her standing, even her life by playing with black magic.

She lost.

Certain that her sister, Ryne, would be sent to hunt her, Maia gave up her magic, but she also gave up the only world she’s ever known. Considered an outsider among her people, she lives a human life. She has a job she hates, a mortgage, and bills. And she’s playing it safe now, afraid to take a chance again, afraid to lose more than she already has. So she stays in the job and endures it.

Of course, that’s a guarantee that she was going to find herself in a situation where she couldn’t play it safe. If Maia doesn’t take the risk, her sister could be killed. Since she would do anything to protect her, Maia wasn’t about to stand back when Ryne was in danger.

But Maia threw a twist at me—she wasn’t all that worried about the physical risk. She didn’t want to die, of course, but she’d been a troubleshooter and had lived with that threat for years. She was used to it.

What scared her was emotional risk.

Not just fear of getting involved with Creed, her hero, but fear of pursuing her dreams. Maia loves art, she knows a lot about it, and she’d always wanted to work in a museum, but instead she became a troubleshooter and never bothered to attend college. Now that she’s no longer a player, there’s no reason why she can’t explore that dream. But she doesn’t.

This immediately intrigued me. Why doesn’t she go after something she’s always wanted now that she has a chance? Fear of the risk. What if she fails? My job was to get her to see things a little differently—what if she succeeds?

IN TWILIGHT’S SHADOW is focused on the action/adventure, the paranormal aspects, and the romance, of course, but the underlying story is about something riskier—taking a chance on a dream.

Patti O’Shea



Patti’s website: http://www.pattioshea.com/
To find out more about In Twilight’s Shadow: http://www.pattioshea.com/twilight.shtml

Patti on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/patti_oshea

Patti on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Patti_OShea

Karen Harrington | When a man loves a woman…who murders

When a central character is still deeply in love with someone you and I would judge harshly, for, say, murder, that presents a challenge for the writer. How can readers be sympathetic to a misguided, love-struck protagonist? And does a writer necessarily have to sympathize with him?
I know all about this challenge.

In my debut novel JANEOLOGY, Tom Nelson is still in love with the woman who has destroyed his life. He misses her. He craves her. He wants to touch her. He wants to talk to her over a cup of coffee the way they used to as friends. But this is never going to happen.

The story begins with Tom’s horrific discovery that his wife Jane drowned their toddler son. An act he feels is so out of character that it defies logic. Now, he judges himself harshly for still loving the woman he thought he knew. The world quickly vilifies Jane and urges him to join in their group hate. If that weren’t enough, prosecutors charge him with ‘failure to protect’ believing he should have known Jane was ill and shielded his child from her. This legal charge only makes Tom delve deeper into questioning his love for Jane. Was it misplaced, he wonders throughout his own trial? Is he, in fact, partially responsible as the prosecutor alleges? And what does he make of his attorney’s bold defense: that Jane’s nature and nurture conspired to make her ill-equipped to be a loving parent?

I began writing this story with the central question: what causes a mother to kill her own child? I could not ignore this question. It didn’t seem to add up that a mother could be pouring Cheerios one minute and be altered the next. Someone in her family, I reasoned, had to have witnessed the decline. It had to have taken place over a period of days, weeks and months – not overnight. While the horrible murder sets JANEOLOGY in motion, the novel is really a story of a man desperate to for understanding.

The idea that we sometimes miss changes in loved ones precisely because we love them began to take shape. I realized, at least in the fictional world of JANEOLOGY, that a spouse like Tom could indeed still love the person he originally knew without acknowledging the person she had become. We are all guilty of this at times. Time stands still in the face of love. And that is what happens to Tom Nelson to his profound detriment.

I invite you to read an excerpt of the novel by visiting my website http://www.karenharringtonbooks.com/

You can also view the video trailer for JANEOLOGY below, which so hauntingly couples water imagery with hints of dark family secrets trickling down among the generations of Jane’s troubled family. The unrelenting tribal drumbeat of the music ratchets-up the tension until you feel like the hairs on your neck stand at attention and you have to know what happens. (Fortunate author that I am, this trailer was created by THE inventor of the novel trailer art form, Kam Wai Yu, who has been developing this art since the 1980s.)



Thanks to FreshFiction for inviting me to blog here today among so many great authors.

See you on the bookshelves!

Karen Harrington

Linda Wisdom | Are you like the character you write and read?

I’ve been told that Jazz, the witchy heroine in 50 Ways to Hex Your Lover and I are very much alike. So let’s look at the similarities.

Jazz and I both speak our minds at times, but she can says what I’d love to say and have magic if she needs it.

She’s snarky. I’m snarky. She has red hair. I have red hair. She’s tall. I’m short. She’s gorgeous. I’m short.

I think many of us would say we echo at least one of our characters. I know that’s happened to me, but never more than with Jazz. She’s lived with me for quite awhile as I worked on the book and then had no choice but to work on the second book, Hex Appeal, which comes out this November.

She also gives me the chance to stick bits of history in the book. After all, she and her witch friends have been around for 700 years.

She’s lived history, had passionate ups and downs with Nikolai Gregorivich, a vampire enforcer from The Protectorate who’s now a private investigator. She’s dealing with a cranky ghost haunting her beloved 1956 T-Bird convertible and having to keep a tight rein on Fluff and Puff, the bunny slippers from hell and considering their background, it’s not far from the truth.

I like to say that I try to make the unbelievable believable. I hope my imagination allows you to consider that it’s possible to have a vampire living down the block. Just don’t expect him to mow the lawn midday. Or run into a witch at Starbucks or Victoria’s Secret. And just maybe some of those after-hour clubs have a pretty diverse clientele. And those Midways at the fairs? Maybe the Weres handle that.

So allow your own imagination to go a little wild. What would you see?

Enter and be one of three winners in my One Day Only blog contest.

Linda

www.myspace.com/lindawisdombooks
www.myspace.com/magickbunnyslippers

Susan Whitfield | Tangled in seaweed and Testicles?

Genesis Beach, my first novel (published in 2007) tells the story of an investigative intern on North Carolina’s Crystal Coast, who is trying to solve the murder of a millionaire. Imagine her surprise when she discovers he was beaten to death with a sock! She pursues a prime suspect who is a slippery rascal (to borrow a phrase from the movie, Pretty Woman). While in pursuit, Logan Hunter must deal with a hurricane that wipes out most of her worldly possessions. At the same time she is having recurring sleep terrors that threaten to derail her when she realizes she may have been molested as a toddler. Her strength and determination keep her in the hunt, and she nails the killer even though she trusted the wrong person.

Just North of Luck evolved out of my need to carry on with Logan Hunter’s character. (Reader feedback indicated that she was likable and, perhaps, worthy of a few more adventures.) Logan is assigned to corral some bootleggers in the remote mountains of North Carolina when two murders occur. Once the SBI (State Bureau of Investigation) is called in, Logan takes the lead and teams up with hunky Chase Railey, a local detective. Together they pursue the killer but not before more victims are added to the list. The serial killer is targeting school employees and using a diversity of means to off them, causing some of the murders to be classified as accidents. Over the months of investigation, Chase introduces Logan to Appalachian festivals, including The Testicle Festival. Yes, that’s what I said. Now, I must explain that there really is NO festival like this in North Carolina, as far as I know. However, I thought it would be fun to add such an event to an intense setting. It adds humor, I hope, (Logan is coerced into eating the delicacies), shock, and a much-needed break from the gruesome murders. Logan gets her first taste of love when Chase takes her to his cabin, and together they zero in on the killer. So, this book offers killing folks, eating testicles, and making love.

When I’m not writing, I’m reading. I keep a basket of books by my sunroom rocking chair at all times. I read all genres. At one time in my life I read only best selling authors, but the more I visit book and writings sites, the more unknown authors I read. I have found many writers who have become cyber friends of mine, “talking” through email and blogs, offering advice and encouragement, and reading each other’s work. Isn’t that great? Ah, the wide world! I’ve collected reviews as well as blurbs from some of these awesomely nice folks, and have reciprocated when asked to do so.

I’m often asked where the ideas come from. My answer? Reading, television shows, comedy acts, billboards, phone books, editorials, eavesdropping (just kidding). You get the idea. I have more ideas than I will ever be able to use! I’m also fortunate to live in a beautiful state where I can travel from the mountains to the sea in one day. There are many gorgeous regions here for inspiration.

My first video trailer (for Just North of Luck) is posted on my website, www.swhitfield.com/

I welcome feedback for this blog, my site, and the trailer.

Special thanks to FreshFiction for having me as a guest blogger. Keep reading! Susan Whitfield

Nancy Haddock | Invisible Friends: A Play Day with Characters

As a reader, don’t you just love finding characters you’d like to have as friends? Or for back up if life got down right dangerous? Or, oo-la-la, as a secret admirer if not a lover?

I adore it when I become attached to the characters in books. Those I meet in only one book, I’ll revisit by rereading over and over. Those I meet in a series, I get to revisit with each new book. And, yes, I have been known to reread every book in a series before I read the newest one, if only to touch base and catch up.

As a writer, I’ve grown attached to my own characters. So much so, that they are no longer merely “imaginary” friends – they’re full-scale invisible ones!

In my debut from Berkley, LA VIDA VAMPIRE, my heroine Cesca is a born and bred native of St. Augustine, FL, the city I now call home. When I go down to the Old Town – with friends or by myself – it’s all too easy to view the sites from Cesca’s point of view. In fact, it’s a struggle not to see through her eyes because she’s that real to me.

When Cesca and I go out for a play day in town, I’m fascinated by what she sees as “new” from her perspective. What is her perspective? Cesca was buried in silver-chained coffin in 1803, and doesn’t see the light of day until 2007. The oldest drug store, for instance, was in a different location in her time. The Huguenot Cemetery didn’t exist until at least 1812, if not later. The Castillo de San Marcos is no longer painted the distinctive white and red that marked it as a Spanish fortress. It’s interesting to feel both Cesca’s excitement about the changes in her hometown, and the sadness that she missed all those years of seeing things change firsthand.

What’s also a kick is to shop with Cesca. She is a far more intense shopper than I ever want to be, and I nearly feel her scan everything at once when she walks in to a store. She was “with” me in a Tuesday Morning once when I was looking for the special coffee makers advertised. I found what I wanted, but I also bought a retro wall clock that Cesca wanted. That’s right, I said I bought the clock my character wanted. Am I nuts? Not entirely. The clock was a reasonable price, and, though it’s not what I would’ve bought, it grew on me. It’s in my office, and even has a separate “egg” timer that I set to keep myself from spending too much time on e-mail.

The very coolest thing about going out for a play day with my characters is that I come back to the story refreshed and with a new depth of understanding what they’re like as people. That’s the energy I want to pour onto the pages. That’s the energy I hope readers will resonate with so that my invisible friends will become theirs, too!

And, hey, so long as I don’t buy that surfboard Cesca has her eye on, I haven’t gone too far ‘round the bend, right?

Nancy Haddock’s debut book La Vida Vampire is an April release from Berkley Trade. You can visit her website and play the Where’s Cesca contest at: http://www.nancyhaddock.com/

Dianne Castell | North or South... Which one are You?

One of the reasons I wrote Hot and Bothered (Kensington BRAVA April 08) was to set a book in the South and not just geographically but in characters and language and food! Characters in NY are way different than characters in Savannah. You won’t hear the doorman at the NY Hilton say Y’all come back now, ya’ hear. And food? Just try getting a cream egg in Savannah or sweet tea in Manhattan.

I’m more Savannah then Manhattan. Not that I don’t looove NY City, I do. But I live in Cincinnati and feel connected to the South. I fry chicken and make cream gravy and make my own pumpkin pie. I don’t have a hidden tiara in my panty drawer but I do subscribe to Southern Living, think Paula Deen is the cutest thing on earth and have actually waited in line for two hours to eat at Lady and Sons. Yep, it’s worth the wait! And I can twirl a baton!

I have a pair of white gloves in my drawer and use cloth tablecloth and napkins and set the table proper with flowers for Sunday dinner. If my kids don’t mind their manners they get “the look of death” from their mama and I buy hair spray two bottles at a time and wouldn’t dream of leaving the house without putting on my face.

I love the South. My heart is there...except for those Palmetto bugs. I’m sure they are what keep me from moving south of the Ohio River. Sweet mother, are those things ugly as sin!

So, who are you? North or South? Even if you’re Midwest you probably lean more one way or the other and I’m willing to bet you have a little Southern in you just begging to get out. Let me know by entering my ONE DAY ONLY BLOG CONTEST and I’ll give away two Hot and Bothered T-shirts from the answers.

Thanks for chatting.

Hugs,

Dianne Castell
http://diannecastell.com/

Diana Holquist | What Makes You Mad?

Some writers start their books with a character they love. Others start with plot. Then there are the folks who look to the market to see what’s hot: a vampire lesbian spy thriller shape-shifter historical—count me in!

And then there’s me.

Me, I get mad.

Here’s something that made me mad: reading a twenty-something’s blog about her search for the “perfect” husband. He had to be tall, rich, successful, etc. I wanted to smack that woman. I wanted a mysterious Gypsy psychic to swoop in and rock her world by telling her that her one soul mate on this earth was a penniless single father, down on his luck.

Hey, wait…that would make a good book. (My first book, Make Me a Match.)

But I was still mad. Which was good, because I had another book due.

This time, I was mad about reading my 7,436th kick-ass heroine romance novel. Enough already with the spy/killer/half-beast/vamp woman who does it all in heels. Not that I don’t love those books; but I needed a change. I wanted to read about a heroine like me, an overweight mother of two…

...um. Okay, so I didn’t want to read that. But what about a shy heroine who kicks ass in her own quiet, low-heeled way? So I wrote my next book, Sexiest Man Alive; the shyest woman alive finds out her soul mate is People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive.

What makes you mad? Hey, you never know, maybe some author here will read your idea here and write it. Maybe it’ll even be me, since I’ve got another book due soon...

Diana Holquist

http://www.dianaholquist.com/