The serialized publication/value price of Eden  actually relates to this post.  As I was working on edits yesterday, I clicked over to Google News – my home page for Internet Explorer.  I’ve customized my version to show certain types of stories, and yesterday up popped a Bloomberg Businessweek story of all things.  Naturally, I got distracted from my work and had to read the piece right away.  The romance genre meriting a piece on a prominant business site was worthy of notice, and its worthy of mention here.

The piece was titled:  Romance Fiction:  Getting Dirty In Dutch Country. It focused on how romance fiction is – even in this Friday the 13th of economies – on the rise.  The story mentioned the writer’s opinion that  the many and varied categories of romance, including Amish, knitting and paranormal specifically, helped keep romance climbing towards the top.  I don’t really disagree with the piece, I just don’t think the writer attributed the rise to all the right factors. 

  According to the article, publishers say that book sales declined by 1.9 percent in 2009 after a 3 percent drop the previous year and books appear to be “suffering a slow and rather boring death.”  The article doesn’t talk about ebooks, which have been undergoing dramatic growth. 

The piece notes that despite declining sales in books overall, one genre has been experiencing “steady and unusual growth.”  Yeah, that’s right, ROMANCE.  The Romance genre increased to $1.4 billion, up by $100 million, or 7.7% from the prior year.  In a down market and a down economy people are buying more romances than ever.  Well, duh.  When have we ever, ever needed to believe in happy endings more than today?

Mysteries can get your mind working on a puzzle instead of the Citibank bill.  Thrillers can tingle your spine and make you forget the debt collectors who keep jingling your phone.  Women’s fiction can remind you that you should spend more time hugging your friends and less worrying about the bank balance that won’t cover your bills.  Nonfiction can teach you to love yourself and to ignore the wolf at the door.  But only Romance can remind you that the heart matters more than the bottom line.  Only Romance guarantees that you’re plunking down those scarce dollars for a happy ending.  And more and more, if readers are going to spend money, they’re going to do it for work that lets them curl up and take a trip that’s going to end in a good way.  There won’t be a wierdo in a Freddy Kruger mask – unless the characters are into that sort of thing. 

It all reminds me of a conversation I had with a cousin who is a big used car dealer.  He had recently sold the new car dealership and was back to his real line of work.  I asked if he was worried about business in the current economy.  He tilted back in his chair and said, “Slick (that was his nickname for me), when the economy is good, the used car business is good.  And when the economy is bad, the used car business is great.” 

And just this week, my boss and I were talking to a Claims Rep for one of our insurance companies, who was worried about a hotel owner/insured.  His business had been going through some tough times but my boss had talked to him and things were going better.  That’s true all over the Grand Strand region of South Carolina this year.  The Myrtle Beach International Airport has said that just about each month this season has broken the record set the month before.  I can tell you that judging by traffic jams and lines at restaurants, business in Myrtle is booming. 

Our good fortune in Myrtle is partly due to the bad fortune of our brothers and sisters along the Gulf Coast.  And I see license tags of many, many other states were I’d bet the folks would normally be vacationing along the Gulf beaches.  And we sympathize for the owners in those states that were already suffering and are now suffering more.  But Myrtle’s growth is due to much more than just fortunate geography. 

Myrtle Beach has always been one of the cheapest family friendly places to vacation.  But even so, last year, business was down in Myrtle.  I think its that after such a long stretch of stress, people need a break.  They can’t afford Vegas or Atlantic City.  The pricey beaches of Florida and the Mouse that requires a golden budget or the rich folk areas of Florida are beyond too many budgets.  But a vacation in Myrtle?  It’s an affordable splurge. 

Used cars do good in good years and great in bad years.  Everyone has to have a car to get to work.  In good years, many folks will trade the three year old car they bought new for another new car.  In the present year, which is not just bad, but is the worst year I can ever, ever, recall, most people will drive their car until it just won’t go anymore.  Then, they’ll get the best deal they can on an older model in the best condition they can afford.

But we’ll all still look at the Mercedes, or the Ferrari or the restored to cherry condition Vette or Mustang.  And we’ll sometimes weave fantasies about the guy driving that car.  A writer might build a whole book around those fantasies.   In other genres, the car might be hot and police might be looking for the driver, who just killed his business partner.  It might be driven by a man whose identity was just stolen as part of an elaborate plot to overthrow the government or to control some imporant part of a big buisness.  It might be driven by a killer who washed away every trace of blood before he garbed himself in a designer suit to look for his next victim.

But if the reader is very, very, lucky, the writer who spotted the bad ride was a romance novelist.  Then the driver will be a bad boy billionaire who can buy everything he could possibly need and most of what he wants.  He believes he can buy everything but he’s about to be taught a lesson in love by……his secretary, or his ward, or his best friend’s little sister.  No matter what smart lady teaches the rogue that the one thing he can’t live without doesn’t have a price tag, the story WILL have a happy ending. 

And just like Myrtle Beach’s gain may be another resort’s loss, the romance writer’s gain is more and more another genre writer’s loss.  But that’s okay.  Romance writers are a friendly bunch and there’s always room for new converts.  The Bloomberg piece talked about suspense writer Kelly Irvin who’s new book is…………..yeah, you guessed it………..a Romance. 

In these bad times, the romance genre is the Myrtle Beach vacation that more and more readers are plunking down their hard earned dollars for and getting in their used car to drive to, but that’s okay……… a happy ending is just around the corner!!!

Most of the articles trying to “explain” women’s love of the romance genre make me want to throw something at my computer screen.   The other Mary Anne’s piece didn’t make me mad so much as it made me pity the author.  First of all, as a researcher, she should have known she couldn’t base an understanding of a vast and complex genre like romance on one atypical type of book of the genre.  It makes all her conclusions laughably wrong. For example, based on her study of Harlequins, Fisher decides that romance novels are too short and characters are therefore too underdeveloped.  Certain types of Harlequins are intended to be short fast reads that get the reader in and out fast.  But not all Harlequins are short – some of the publisher’s imprints are long, slow, luscious reads.  So Dr. Fisher bases her conclusions one type of one imprint from one publishing house.  I hope she does a better job with the psychological research she gets paid for.

Fisher concludes that romance novels are “candy for women’s brains.”   She concludes that they allow the reader to live vicariously through the heroine and fall in love with the hero but without any of the consequences.  Of course, she also thinks that the plots revolve around the woman trying to decide if the hero is “Mr. Right.” So, at least Fisher is consistently wrong.

Romance novels are, in fact, many different things and a reader will reach for a novel based on the experience she’s looking for.  Some may be brain candy but others are hot chocolate for the soul or salt and pepper, salsa or onions and peppers to season a slice of life.  And lets not forget the ones that are just dessert – a big old slice of strawberry cheesecake.  Romances are intimate experiences where a writer takes a reader on a journey that the reader will paint with the flavor of her life and her outlook. 

No, Dr. Fisher, not all romance novels provide skimpy descriptions of the heroine and detailed descriptions of the hero because the reader will imagine herself in the heroine’s place. Some romances, like mine, will provide a few general details about the descriptions of the hero and the heroine because we want the reader to draw the character in her mind the way she imagines him or her. 

My basic problem with the other Mary Anne’s piece is that she imagines herself as being so very much smarter than the writers and the readers that she can profile all of them.  She can’t just acknowledge that much of the genre is so far beyond her understanding that she’ll never get it.  People who think they’re smarter than everyone else like to do that.  If they encounter something they don’t get, then they’ll pull out one tiny piece of it, label it, and pronounce that one size fits all.  Who among us doesn’t know that one size NEVER fits all? 

But Dr. Fisher’s piece got me to thinking about the flip side of her query.  I know that the reasons readers read romance are as varied as the way writers write the books.  No, based on an experience I’m having with a novel, I wonder – what makes us put the book down and close it without finishing? Perhaps that’s as varied as the reader and the writer too.

A while back I got a bad review for my book, Brotherly Love, on Amazon.  That reader found that there were few decent characters and felt the book was written so that it made her feel guilty for wanting the main characters to end up together.  She thought the book contained some “unnecessarily graphic” rape scenes and advised readers not to “bother” with the book.   Bad reviews are always tough for writers, including me, even though we should know better.  Mentally, I know that I’m not writing “pablum” so for some people my books won’t digest well. 

I wonder if that reader finished the book?  When a book doesn’t connect for me I know I can’t finish it.  And sometimes, it doesn’t connect for a particular reader even if the author is very talented and wrote a hell of a book.  That’s happened to me with one I’m reading now and have just decided to close and walk away from. And when I tell you about the book many of you will have read it, will have possibly read some of the author’s other work and enjoyed it all very much. 

The book I’m about to put away without finishing is by a fellow South Carolinian – Dorothea Benton Frank, who seems to be a fine writer.  It’s called Bulls Island and is about characters from Charleston, a community right down the road from my home in Myrtle Beach.  My family and I love Charleston, so I thought I’d love the book.  But the story is about a girl who’s been dating the scion of a rich Charleston family for many years.  When they finish college they decide to marry and bring her family to have dinner with his because historically, there’s been bad blood between the families. 

At the dinner the hero’s mother acts so vile and nasty that the heroine’s parents leave suddenly, in the middle of a pouring rain storm.  The mother dies in a car accident caused by the bad weather.  The heroine leaves the area and the hero and moves to New York because she can never marry into that woman’s family.  That woman killed the heroine’s mother, or so she thinks.  The heroine moves to New York without a word to the hero and has a baby she never tells the him about.  The hero lets his mama play puppetmaster and ends up diddling some female bait she waves in front of him and so marries the girl.  The hero and the bait have no children and the bait turns out to be a spineless alcoholic. 

The heroine rears her son in New York and doesn’t even tell her father or sister about the kid.  She tells her son that his father died in a car wreck with both of her parents.  I haven’t read what, if anything, she told the kid about his father’s parents.   Anyway, the heroine gets a big deal job involving real estate projects and financing and one day gets called into her boss’s office and told she’s going back to Charleston to manage a project developing “Bulls Island” with a local real estate family.  (Yes, the hero’s family). 

While that’s going on, back in Charleston, the hero’s wife is falling further into the bottle.  He learns that the heroine is coming back to work with him on the Bulls Island project. On the same night that  his daddy has a heart attack he finds out that his mama has been having an affair with his daddy’s business partner for years.  He wonders if that means he can have an affair with the heroine.  

While the heroine is dealing with having to go back to Charleston and face all of her lies, she also dealing with her son going away to college. She picks this time to start dating an Italian guy she describes like a mafia prince, considers to be a joke, and finds way, way beneath her socially and intellectually.  Yet the heroine ends up bedding Mr. Mafia who sends her 4 or 5 dozen roses after each mattress mambo and reaches the point where she intends to kiss him off.  After all, she was just playing. 

Okay.  That was the breaking point for me.  It was the stupidity that was just too much.  Got to put the book down, which is a shame.  I wanted to read the writer’s descriptions of Charleston but never got back there with the heroine.  These people are all too stupid and self centered for me to tolerate.

I had trouble right from the get go.  The dinner and death of the heroine’s mama was hard for me to take.  Why didn’t the hero stand up, tell mama she was being a prize bitch and she could stop right now and apologize or he’d walk away?  Even if the hero didn’t do that voluntarily, why didn’t the heroine put him to the test?  They’d been together for 8 years.  She should have stood up at the dinner table and told the hero to handle mama or he wouldn’t be handling her anymore. 

And the heroine flits off the New York without ever sitting down with the hero and telling him about her feelings, the whole situation and especially the baby.  Yeah, his family’s been in Charleston for years and he would be walking away from generations of legacy.  But if they were so much in love, she should have given him the choice.  The heroine never even tells her own family about the kid and she lies to her son about his family.  She walks away from her father and sister just when they lose her mama.  To top it all off, the heroine treats the Italian like the hero’s mama treated her family.  Enough is enough. 

But it’s only enough for me.  Like that reviewer who didn’t like Brotherly, my life and my experiences make it impossible for me to like – or even to finish - Bulls Island.   I find the hero to be a wiener, the heroine to be a self-centered bitch and all of them to be terminally stupid.  I could have even tolerated the dinner and death with something akin to mild indigestion and finished the book if the heroine had pushed the hero to choose and then he chose wrong.  I can tolerate the hero being a prick, but I can’t tolerate the heroine being a stupid, self-centered liar. 

Back to Ms. Fisher’s piece - maybe she did get some of it right.  Women generally expect men to behave like they’re motivated by their egos.  We get that.   But we expect more from our heroines because we expect more from ourselves. I can deal with the improbable — I adore the improbable – but I can’t deal with the pathetic. 

So yeah, Dr. Fisher, I’m fine with the hero being a cad as long as the heroine is woman enough to teach him a lesson.

Click for larger image

I feel soooooooooo dirty. I think I need to loofah my entire body with a Black & Decker belt sander now.

So I rarely hope anybody else has their tailhook at their desk over a weekend, especially a holiday weekend.  Rarely.  But this weekend is an exception.   This weekend every darned programmer and web guru in the Amazonian Kingdom best be chained to their desks – including the fathers in the group.   At least one of ‘em deserves to be chained, and with a big new system change-over coming at the end of June where the whole staff is most likely working on bits and pieces of the new system, someone supervising the chain-deserving code monkey didn’t do his or her job.  Somebody screwed up royally. 

Amazon’s DTP Platform publishes Kindle pieces from indie authors and includes a dashboard to monitor sales.  The numbers don’t go backwards unless there was a return or two OR unless a code monkey didn’t do his job right.  Early Thursday evening (June 17th) over about a two hour span, the DTP numbers of indie authors went backwards without any returns.  Sales disappeared. 

For many hours, nothing was heard but the weeping and gnashing of teeth of authors roaring their displeasure on the Kindle forum.    Oh – and the growling.  Don’t forget the growling.  Amongst the indie authors are many folks, like me, who’ve found the “hope”  hopeless and who’ve had enough ”change”  to destroy their world.  For us, every dollar counts and we don’t appreciate seeing them swallowed by the great Amazon giant. 

I sent Amazon an email.  As the hours stretched without a reply, I sent another.  Judging from the Kindle forums, I wasn’t alone.  Enough of us may have sent emails to fill up the big, bad, Amazon mailbox.  And all of us started to weave grand conspiracy theories.  Nobody can do conspiracy like a bunch of writers.   Finally, all the commotion got the Great One’s attention.  Either that or they wanted to get us to stop emailing.

Amazon posted the following on the forums: 

Posted By: dtpadmin

Created in: System: Global Announcement

Posted: Jun 18, 2010 2:59 PM

Dear Publishers,

We are currently experiencing a reporting issue that is affecting the display of sales information on the “my reports” page of our site. While recent sales may not be displayed correctly, we have verified sales are being recorded. Our engineers are working to have this corrected as soon as possible.

We will post a follow up once we have confirmation this reporting issue has been remedied.

Note the date and time.  The FUBAR Monster ate sales about 6 pm on Thursday, June 17th.  Not a peep was heard from DTP until almost 3 pm on June 18th.  And we’ve been peepless since June 18th - Friday afternoon.  Today is Sunday, June 20th and the system has been down since early Thursday night.  For nearly three days it’s been broken and as I type, it remains broken. 

What do I want them to post?  First, I’d like an explanation that’s better (and more HONEST) than “glitch.”   If it had been a “glitch,” it would have been fixed by Thursday night.  A glitch is a little bump in the road that has to be either smoothed over or navigated around.  It doesn’t take 3 days to fix a glitch.  Somebody made a mammoth error – a FUBAR Gigantus.  So I’d like Amazon to respect the writers enough to realize that most of us are quite bright.  If they’ll give an honest explanation of what the Mammoth Error was and how it occurred we’ll understand the process.  If they’ll tell us what they were trying to do or achieve at the time, we might even be able to summon a little understanding and tolerance. 

I’d also like Amazon to post details about what they’re doing — exactly and not generally –  to fix the error.  We’ve got enough computer geeks on the forum that they might be able to contribute helpful ideas and suggestions.  I’ve got a geek in my house and if Amazon would post details, Mr. Quack could probably help them navigate around their Everest Error. 

Most helpful of all would be pictures or real time video SHOWING that the entire programming staff at Amazon is at their desks, working like the Dickens’ and won’t be allowed to leave until they get it right.  I want to know that when there is a crisis that the staff was not allowed to walk out on Friday afternoon and say they’d be right on top of it – first thing Monday.  Why?  Because I can’t do that and I expect you can’t do that either.  At my law firm, when there is a deadline or a problem we have to work until the job is done, regardless of whether it’s a Saturday or a Sunday. 

Finally, I’d like them to post something showing a little bit of a sense of humor.  Print a picture of Paul chained to his desk and sitting on a potty chair.  Say – this is Code Monkey Paul.  He had a small tweak to make to the system that he should have made in the test environment.  He should then have debugged it and run data through until it was right and he knew it was right.  ONLY THEN should it have been moved to the live environment.  But Paul had an important poker game with the boys on Thursday night and he wanted to get out.  It was already 6 o’clock so he said, screw it, and moved the code over without testing it properly.   Paul is paying for that choice now.  Paul will be here, on the job, around the clock until he gets it right. 

Don’t get me wrong – I LOVE CODE MONKEYS.  I’m married to a code monkey.  My hubby can make an IBM AS400 stand up and say ”Who’s Your Daddy?”  But these days he’s working hard at a part time job in a PC environment that doesn’t involve what he’s been trained to do.  His current part time gig does nothing to remind him of how damned good he is at what he does.  He’s one of the best RPG Code Monkeys in the jungle, but right now there are too many code monkeys chasing the jobs.  So he’s surviving.  He’s taking a certification course that in August will allow him to get out there and get the kind of good job he should have had all along.  He’s working hard for his family, trying to get skills that in a couple of months will get him a good job and take some of the stress off of me and that will hopefully help us get back on track.   Mr. Quack is a survivor and in today’s market, that’s what you damned well have to be.

What my hubby is going through, and what many other talented computer folks out there are going through is a mental image that never leaves my mind as I think about Amazon’s FUBAR.  All of the Code Monkeys like Mr. Quack are the reason that I want proof that Amazon’s pack of monkeys know how incredibly lucky they are to have their jobs and that they have been there every single second since 6 pm on Thursday working to get it right.

Yeah – throw Paul the Code Monkey a box of bananas every now and then, but keep him right there at his desk doing his job until it’s done.  Because on this Father’s Day there are too many Fathers who are older, experienced professionals who would be right there until they got it right.  Unfortunately, in this job market work ethic has become as lost as hiring the experienced professionals who’d have gotten it right the first time. 

So yeah, Amazon, you’d best be working around the clock to fix the FUBAR.  It best not “magically” adjust on Monday morning.  To the Senior Staff at the internet giant, I say, look very carefully at what happened, how it happened and how hard your team is working to fix it.  Because if we get a Monday morning miracle, Amazon’s HR folks should be posting “help wanted” notices saying they’re looking for seasoned, experienced professionals – not young, low cost wanna bes who have pretty pieces of paper. 

Happy Father’s day to my Code Monkey.  I hope he remembers that he’s the best monkey in the forest.  I’ll toss him a banana any time!!

Last night I decided that I wanted breakfast for supper.  Okay, maybe recalling that IHOP has those cheesecake stacker pancakes right now had something to do with it.  The other factor – if one needs more than the idea of cheesecake as an incentive – was that at suppertime we could get into IHOP.  You’ve got to remember that the family Graham resides in Myrtle Beach which is a tourist town. 

Tourists, God love ‘em, come down on vacation talking a good game.  You’ll hear them in line at the grocery store or passing by at the mall talking about how stupid folks are to travel to somewhere different and still eat at the chain restaurants.  Like I said, they talk a good game.  Anybody who lives in Myrtle and has tried to get into an Olive Garden for supper or an IHOP for breakfast knows that it’s all talk.  Locals will drive up to those places, see the throngs crowding around, and leave and go somewhere else.

So there was a stroke of genius in my madness last night.  It occurred to me that maybe breakfast for supper was a Southern thing and maybe IHOP wouldn’t be crowded.  And EUREKA!!  Once in a great while – I’m right.  It was so not crowded that my kids, seeing the nearly empty parking lot, wondered if it was open.  But it was and not only did I get my cheesecake stackers (strawberry), but we were seated in a nearly empty section that allowed the family to have a loud and raucous debate.  (Apologies to the one smart diner – a single man – who decided to leave and likely swore off the ideas of marriage and children for life.)

Mr. Quack brought up a debate we’d been having at home as he is in the throes of designing the man tittie cover for the serialization of my WIP, a regency historical.  He doesn’t get my reference to “Eden Without The Apple.”  He’s also convinced that readers wouldn’t get it either and would be confused by theological implications.  I replied that women drawn in by  man titties wouldn’t be thinking about the Bible at the time. 

Men are such linear people.  They seem to lack the ability to compartmentalize their thinking the way women do.  If women suffered from the same malady, they’d never be able to plan a grocery list while doing laundry, fielding calls from their boss and working on their new book.  But anyway, Mr. Quack asked the ducklings – what does the apple in Eden mean to them?   The eldest promptly replied – temptation.  Mr. Quack raised a brow at me and looked at his seedling approvingly.

I said, no, don’t just think about the apple.  Think about the whole phrase.  What would Eden have been if the apple hadn’t existed?  The eldest duckling – whose genius IQ made him a National Merit Finalist and won him a full ride at UCF (The University of Central Florida)- then said the following.  That without the apple Eden would have been a perfect place occupied by beings who had the intellect and sentience of animals.  Mr. Quack nearly burst with pride. 

I ground my teeth in frustration.  No, no, said I – you’re thinking too logically.  Just consider the image.  A man and woman in Eden without the apple would be perfectly happy forever.  The youngest duckling suggested that if the Mommy title was too confusing, Mommy should consider a different title.   The eldest, King of All Things Linear, suggested “Eden Forever” or “Eden Always.”  Ahm, yeah – it’s been done. 

Much fun ensued while the men of the family (everyone but yours truly) listened to me describe my vision for the book and what I’m trying to emphasize with the title.  Ideally, I’d like to get the concept across that my hero is a Duke or, more accurately, a Duke Regent – meaning, he’ll lose the title to the person who marries the heroine. And I’d like to communicate the whole Eden without the apple thing that’s based on a conversation between the hero and the heroine’s late father (the Duke).  I’ve even considered “The Duke’s Eden Without The Apple. ”

Mention of the latter title re-ignited the whole debate about imagery, biblical implications, sentient beings, etc.  Likely to shut everyone up so he could have the floor, my baby duck (a 12 year old destined for a career in talk radio if he doesn’t achieve his goal of being a history professor) came up with a brilliant suggestion.  Drum roll, please… “The Duke Of Eden.”  To me, that might get the message across.  It would convey that the hero would come to realize that his Eden isn’t the title.  Not bad.  It bears considering.

Since the evening had kindled my romance author side, I came home and watched “Kate and Leopold” on Starz on Demand.  That reminded me of a blog debate that ensued over on the Dear Author website when someone wrote a blog post that savaged Johanna Lindsey’s new Malory book – “That Perfect Someone.”  I, of course, had to chime in with a comment in defense of Lindsey, since all the earlier commenters had sided with the author.  After my comment, a few folks typed more favorable messages. 

I adore Ms. Lindsey and admire her creative genius with the Malory family saga.  My favorites were James’ and Warren’s tales.  Many of the commenter said it was “undeniable” that she’d lost her touch with writing the series.  Hogwash!  I’m currently reading one of the later tales – Boyd’s story – and am enjoying it greatly. 

What sort of got my goat about the blog piece and the comment trail was that several folks were irate about the books’ lack of “historical accuracy” in scenery, descriptions and dialogue.  Imagine – Ms. Lindsey throughout the series has DARED to employ a writer’s license to create the world she chose!!  What was she thinking?  Isn’t a writer locked into the historical reality? 

That brings me to my point about “Kate and Leopold.” As far as I can tell, it was a movie that wasn’t based on a romance novel, although I’d surely have enjoyed reading the book if it had existed.  The hero of the piece was the dashing and charming Duke of Albany and he’d invented the elevator, naming it after his butler, Otis.  Are these details historically accurate?  Well, no.  Not at all.  There was a Duke of Albany – and the first was Leopold who was the youngest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.  The real Leopold, being a  royal hatchling, never had money troubles and was never forced to sail to New York to marry an heiress.  The real Leopold sought a bride because he thought marriage would get him away from his mother.  In the end, he couldn’t secure his own bride and the Queen arranged a marriage.  The lad was a hemophiliac who died before his son was born.  Needless to say, he had nothing to do with inventing the elevator.  Did any of that interfere with my enjoyment of the movie?  Heck no.  I was in the writer’s world and the writer’s reality was my reality. 

So what if Ms. Lindsey’s characters don’t use titles “correctly” by regency standards?  So what if they don’t speak in the stilted verbiage typical of the time?  Those and other things bothered the author of the blog piece and many of the commenters.  They didn’t bother me and they don’t bother legions of Lindsey’s fans and they don’t interfere with the story — they advance it. 

When I open a book – whether it’s science fiction, fantasy or romance – I enter the writer’s world.  The writer can change the Regency or Victorian era – rules, tradition, dialogue and all - to suit her story.  I bought the book to experience the author’s vision and I don’t give a re-fried frog if that vision mirrors or twists history or reality.  If I’d wanted history, I’d have bought a history book.  I want ROMANCE and I want the story to take me somewhere different, somewhere better. 

So you see, IHOP Insanity causes a strange aftermath.  Eat breakfast for supper and pretty soon you think you can spend a meal creating a book title.  Then, you think you can go home and immerse yourself in a fictional world where reality is suspended and rules don’t exist. 

Humpf, what’s next?  People who think they can write books on their own terms, without crawling into a box and closing the lid?  Writers who think their story tells about their characters in their world? 

The next thing you know, the world may be full of writers like me who think that readers have enough imagination and creative prowess to open a book because they want to visit a place where love trounces rules, limitations and boundaries, a place as limitless as …Eden Without The Apple.

Pauline aside, a host of acclaimed books have been serialized. One of the first was One Thousand And One Nights which introduced famous characters like Sinbad the Sailor and Aladdin.  One of the most famous serial authors was Charles Dickens who published each chapter as a serialized piece.  That’s why most of his work is so long - more chapters equal more money.  Dickens’ left off each piece with a cliffhanger.  Famously, for his chase story The Old Curiosity Shop,  American fans waiting at the docks to meet the ships bringing in the next installment shouted at the ships’ crew demanding to be told whether Little Nell was dead.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created his Sherlock Holmes  tales as serial pieces for a magazine.  Thomas Hardy created many pieces via serialization, including Tess Of The D’Urbervilles.  More recent writers have also returned to the format.  Stephen King has dabbled in the genre.  King began offering “The Plant” in serial form on his website, charging $1.00 for each of the 6 chapters that he’d written.  However, in late 2000 he abruptly halted the project, leaving readers without an ending.  Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities was serialized by Rolling Stone magazine, and Douglas Clegg got a 5 figure advance for serialization of his novel, Nightmare House.

Some of the next entries to the long list of serial novels will be a couple of the new ones that I’m currently writing.  I’m planning to serialize my new historical (tentatively titled either The Duke Regent’s Dilemma, The Duke Regent’s Eden, or Eden Without The Apple — Hey, it’s a work in progress, people).  I’ll also be serializing my new contemporary – at the intersection of love and the law like E-mail Enticement and Griffin’s Law.  The contemporary is titled The Office Ink Spells Murder. 

Why serialize?  Well, it’s an experiment but it seems to serve a whole bunch of useful purposes.  First, let’s recognize the elephant in the room.  Yes, Virginia, serializing the books will add to the family coffers and that is always a good thing.  Hey, if Dickens didn’t sneeze at the money, I won’t either.  And while making money is always an important goal, it’s not the only one.

 Serializing the books will help in the writing/creative/editing process.  Readers’ comments can hurt, but they’re the ultimate judges.  Those comments are my Simon Cowell moments and, like the best of the American Idol contestants, I can use the comments to edit, revise and polish the book before it’s finished and published.  In that way my readers can participate in the creative process and become an important part of the work.  Heck, with the historical, I haven’t settled on the title yet and reader feedback would help with that as well.  I’ll have to work on growing a thicker skin but readers’ opinions are always to be valued – even the bad ones – because a reader took the time to review a book.  Like they say in Hollywood – any press beats no press. 

Getting serialized versions out there also keeps something new being published fairly often.  Writing a full book takes a while, so there is apt to be a long period when nothing new is added.  I think keeping readers who like my work having something new fairly often will keep them checking back more often.  Someone who’s read part 1 will hopefully stay on the look out for part 2 and 3 and 4….

Serializing a book and getting each piece out for 99 cents should also stir interest in the other work that’s out there.  So it will be a good marketing tool.  Maybe those buyers will come back and invest the $2.99 (a dirt cheap price IMHO) to buy one of the other books.  So getting my WIPs in the hands of readers for a price beyond dirt cheap should be a good investment in the health and well-being of all my books. 

I’m going to serialize them on Kindle first.   I’m not sure about Smashwords.  SW distributes to all the other channels – Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Sony, Apple, etc.  And I’m not sure whether or not the big e-tailers would be interested in a serial work.  It might work on the SW site, and I’ll probably put it up there come to think of it.  As to putting it out for distribution, I guess I’ll email SW Guru and the indie author’s best friend, Mark Coker, get his opinion and then go with that.  Going with Coker’s coaching has turned out to be a good thing all the way around.  Coker regularly gives out pointers on his web site and I recommend the SW blog to all indie readers and for sure to all indie authors.

How often the pieces will appear may vary, along with the length.  Dickens may have gone with one chapter at a time, but to give the readers a good value and a decent helping of the work at a time, I’m thinking of 2-3 chapters per piece.  I’m already upwards of Chapter 6 in each MS, so I’m a little ahead of the game with material.  I’ve had my lightbulb moment with each book, so I feel pretty certain I’ll finish both of them – not finishing would be unfair to readers and poor business on my part. 

The first to appear will be The Duke Regent’s Eden.  How soon it’ll appear depends largely on my graphics guru, Mr. Quack.  Hubby’s “blessed” with projects at the moment – his father wants him to do a political piece, I want him to do a book trailer for E-mail Enticement, and I want him to do the cover for the new serial historical.  However, because serials are time sensitive and because that project will add to the family coffers for the serial and for all the books, Mr. Quack will surely give the cover priority.  After all, his interest is as vested as mine in the coffers. 

Mr. Quack does face an interesting dilemma with the new cover, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the subject of his mid-week blog update.  I’m asking hubby to boldly go where men prefer never to tread.  As we speak, he’s looking for good stock photo material featuring…. MAN TITTIES.  Why?  Well, women like to look too and I’m interested in the marketing aspect of having a fine brawny speciman on the cover of the historical serial.  The contemporary, love-and- law murder mystery won’t provide such fodder for experimentation. 

So, keep a keen eye out on Kindle and (likely) the SW site for the first installment of the new serial.   I’ll blog more about the plot when we get closer to publication.  It’ll be interesting to see if the new serial format, AND THE MAN TITTIES, steer the good ship Quacking Alone to greener waters.      

I germinate ideas or script scenarios in my head all the time.  My imagination is where I go to escape when the job is too sad or demanding or when reality bites too hard.  But it’s not only stress or sadness that sends me to Mary Anne World.  Sometimes a great TV show will send me there.  I’ve written alternate scripts for many a Grey’s Anatomy episode, and I’ve made up whole romances that only lived in my head (Cristina and Webber, anyone? And I always thought Izzie belonged with Dr. Burke)  Like I said, my head is a strange place. 

Of course, it’s not just Grey’s that gives birth to ideas.  I’ve gotten romance ideas for Dr. House and Cuddy or Gordon Ramsey and a Hell’s Kitchen contestant.  So far, none of those has grown up to be a book, but in the future, you never know.  Griffin’s Law came to be after I imagined Grey’s in a law school. 

But its not just TV that brings ideas.  Sometimes they grow from reading an interesting legend on the Internet (the MacLeods of Skye and their famed faerie flag became my – so far – three part Forever Series).  The idea for E-mail Enticement came during a CLE seminar.  The first book I ever wrote , Brotherly Love, came from the most unique place.  Usually the characters create the story but with my first book, the message created the story.  I got to thinking about how big and broad love is and I wondered why we create boxes and rules to try to limit and define what we should only celebrate.  The characters in Brotherly are more “real” than in most romance novels, because they were intended to be more like us – flaws and all – and the story was written to make the reader think instead of just experience.

I hear that “famous” authors get emails all the time, suggesting story ideas.  I understand that most of them respond, if at all, with a reply stating that the author creates her own ideas.  In my daily life, whenever that’s happened to me, I usually suggest that the person sit down and write the story.  I say that because an idea will never grow up to be a book unless it sprang from the twisted mind of the author. 

I’ve had ideas without number and most of them never made it to my computer screen at all.  But a few have gotten that far.  I have, on my hard drive as we speak, 5 or 6 books, at least, that I’ve started but haven’t finished.  Why did those books sputter to a halt? 

In my creative process, the characters have to take over to tell the story.  I’ll start with a germ of an idea.  Basically, I’ll start in the place where my characters start.  In my current project, a Regency historical, I started with this idea:  what if a duke held the title only because of a betrothal made when a future duchess was just a wee infant and the duke grew into the title but never grew into the relationship. 

There comes a point where I know if I’m ready to tell the story I’ve started.  Those 5 or 6 unfinished projects on my hard drive?  I wasn’t ready to tell those stories yet.  Or rather, the characters weren’t ready for the story to be told.  Because at some point, the characters have to take over, and the germ of the idea has to grow into a story with conflict and drama and passion.  The idea has to grow into a book where the complications are created by the relationships.

For me, as I write, that means two things have to happen.  First, I find that the story is creating circles, plot points at the beginning that get connected and looped back at page 30 or 40 or 50.  Then those little circles start back along the track to become bigger circles and at the end, there’s a giant circle that connects back to the beginning. 

The second thing that has to happen is the light bulb moment.  That’s the “a-ha” time when out of my deviant brain, springing from my busy little fingers on the keyboard, emerges the glue that’s going to tie the story together.  It’s going to keep me interested in writing and a few months from now, will hopefully keep readers interested in reading. 

In those unfinished books on my hard drive, I’ve usually had the circles starting to draw themselves, but the light bulb hasn’t gone off yet.  I’ll go back to those stories from time to time, and see if the characters are ready to tell their tales yet.  Happiness happens, like it did in my current WIP, when it all comes together as it’s pouring from my mental pitcher. 

The glue is different for every story but it has to be there or the tale will wait on my hard drive, unfinished and occasionally knocking at my mind, waking me up at night.  In Faerie, the glue was the curse that provided a reason for the intervening interest and involvement of the wee folk in the lives of the characters.  That same glue held together for Sixth Sense, but also held echoes of the personal trauma of the heroes’ background continuing to haunt the way he lived his life – which was the glue from Golden.  The glue for Griffin’s was secrets and for E-mail it was perception, reputation and a duty to a family legacy and business.  For Brotherly the glue was always relationships and perceptions of morality.  But finding the glue – that light bulb moment – it has to happen or the tale won’t get told. 

My new one doesn’t have a firm title yet, and perhaps soon I’ll blog about that process.  Finding a title is a big deal, and it’s part of the process I may not have gotten right yet.  I know that the right title will help to sell the book, and in the world of big publishing, the author doesn’t get much say so at all in what title their work will have.  That seems wrong to me from a creative point of view, but I can see the benefits from a business standpoint.  In the long run, a title is a lot about marketing.  For my current WIP, I’m still playing with titles.  One possibility is Eden Without The Apple, which I like but I’m not sure it screams Regency or historical.  Another thought is The Duke Regent’s Do-Over, which speaks more to the period and the history.  Like I said, I’m still playing with that title.  But I’ve had my moments so I know this one’s gonna make it.  

After the circles start to draw themselves, and then one of those circles activates the light to show me the glue – that’s when I know that my precious little idea is going to grow up to be a book.

‘Tis said that one of the real deal couples on the show will be calling it quits this season.  The cause of the breakup is “a very serious issue” that they can’t get past.  ‘Tis also said that there’s gonna be a new hook up on the show.  And the new hook-up allegedly involves McSteamy reconnecting with his man whore roots. People are speculating that the break up will not involve the dream team (Mer/Der).  But the grist for everyone’s mill has been the same as the grist churning around in mine – Sunshine says the finale will be a game changer for every single character; see links above and this one. 

So, Grey’s fans, this Thursday’s episode – “Hook Line & Sinner” – will be the first new one in several weeks and it will begin the march to the finale.  Now’s the time for all Grey’s fans to strap on the swami hat and commence speculating.  I’ve got mine on and I’m reaching under the sofa for my crystal ball – man that thing is dusty.  

Reading all of the links above and recalling all the other swami prognostications I’ve read, I think the most likely scenario is pretty clear.  But Shonda Sunshine rarely does the predictable, so there’s also room to explore other possibilities, including some grim ones people think she’s ruled out.  I don’t think Sunshine likes boxes, so even if it looks like she’s crawled into one and pulled the lid down, I recommend you check the sides for an escape hatch.  I’m a lawyer by trade (trying to be a professional author, but we’ve all got dreams) and people in my field know that phrasing is critical.  And if you examine what Sunshine actually said, you might find it looks like she meant one thing, but she left herself some wiggle room to mean something else entirely – or nothing at all. 

It looks to me like the most likely break up is Arizona and Callie calling it quits over the baby issue.  McSteamy’s daughter – Sloane – showed up at the end of last episode in the midst of labor.  Promos for this week’s epi show that the baby arrives and the new Mama Sloane, who’s been tossed out of all other free housing, latches back on the the softest touch in town.  And instead of telling his daughter to take responsibility for herself – and her baby if she’s keeping the wee one – and to get a job, Daddy Dearest tells her she and the Sloaneling can move in with him.  So, it could be that Mark getting a baby stirs up all kind of trouble for Calzona.  It sure looks from the promo like Arizona is not happy about the prospect of their friend and neighbor having a permanent reminder for Callie of her maternal dreams.  So, maybe it is Calzona who’s a goner. 

But, maybe not.  Sunshine’s been talking a lot about Meredith going all mother hen.  Mer’s one of the world’s foremost experts in hot and longing looks and she’s seen the ones Owen’s been giving Teddy.  She already gave Owen a talking to, but she hasn’t yet broached the subject to Cristina. And Cristina sure caught enough of those Mer/Der looks to know a whole lot about them herself.  Once she hears from Mer about it, she’s gonna start looking for them.  It’s like looking for a Hardees or a Steak & Shake on a road trip.  First you look, then you give up and eat at Burger King.  Starting with the very next exit, you’re gonna see Hardees everywhere.  So Owen’s been told not to give Teddy those looks.  Having been told not to do it, he’s gonna try hard not to, but soon, it’ll be all he can think of and he won’t be able to stop himself.  Then Cristina is apt to grab Owen and shake his steak so good that he’ll see that the front line has moved to Seattle.  So yeah, Otina is another possibility. 

The NIGHTMARE would be if the dream team went down for the count.  And if McSteamy is the male party to the grubbing to come, can we imagine Mer being the female factor?  This one links the sleeping around to the break up.  One of the commentators who knows what the break up is and involves, says he doesn’t see how the couple in question could get over it.  Well, if the  same lightning bolt struck him a second time, it’d be mighty hard to image Derek being able to get past it.  But how would this happen? 

If Little Grey were to whisper in Mer’s ear about April’s fascination with Derek, then she’d be like Cristina looking for a Hardee’s.  Soon, she’d start seeing them whether they were there or not.  And knowing her own history with Derek, it’d be mighty easy for her to imagine him taking a new protege under his wing.  So Mer might do it to get back for what she imagines is being done to her.  And Mark?  He always wants what Derek has and he already tried to recruit Mer once…  But, hopefully this version of the hook up and break up is actually the least likely. 

Some of the swami hints have said that McSteamy hooks up with one of the new kids on the block.  That scenario could still feed into McSteamy wanting to follow in Derek’s shoes.  Mark might see April as his own little Meredith. Given her crush on Derek, getting April to sleep with Der’s best friend would be a pretty easy sell.    

The other NIGHTMARE scenario would have Derek seeing Meredith in April and having him cheat.  I can’t see Mer forgiving him for that and she might even respond by placing a booty call to Mark.  It’s easy to see the appeal to Der’s ego and the lure of the link to an easier time.  I refuse to see this one as likely at all.

If Mark’s having an affair with one of the new kids, then it could potentially be Arizona.  It’s hard to see that one as especially likely, but the presence of a McSteamy on the prowl is a boon to the writers – from his end, they could make anything work.  Who wouldn’t McSteamy drop his pants for – that’s the better question.

Cristina is not a new character but Teddy is – and what if the swami’s got it a little bit wrong?  What if the new character caused the break up and McSteamy’s fling was with a member of the broken romance?  The characters are  polar opposites but that can sometime make for steamy sex.  How about it, Grey’s fans?  Can anybody see Cristina doing the dirty with Mark? 

The biggest betrayal of all would be if Sunshine brought McDreamy full circle and he did to Mer what got done to him.  Imagine the shock waves to every single character – the fundamental game changing nature – of a Cristina/Derek hook up.  I know, the mind does not want to go there, but Sunshine does like going full circle.  We weren’t involved with the characters when Mark and Addison betrayed Derek.  But we’d sure enough see some flashbacks and be way involved if Derek and Christina betrayed Meredith.  Along the same vein, while we’re mentioning things that make you nauseous, the possibility of a Derek/Lexie hook up would have a similar bombshell effect and Derek was initially attracted to Lexie in the bar where we’ve never really seen sparks with Cristina. But Cristina would be the full circle choice and that would be the bigger betrayal.   Next season would be like the fall out after a nuclear war.  One of the persons affected most would be Derek, who’d have to examine how he grew into a person who could do such a thing.  Giving the Chief’s job back would be a natural response.   

There are other new characters, of course, but none of them has been too involved with any main story lines.  Mercy Wester, Reed, could hook up with McSteamy sure enough, but I can’t see that causing anyone too much trauma.  There are a couple of male doctors and McSteamy on the down low would be interesting, but it’d be a mighty tough sell even for the Grey’s writers.  Mind you, I don’t rule out their trying to toss a curve ball like that one.  There are other issues to consider that no one has focused on – like what about the Chief?  What will be happening with him?  And Bailey, what will she be getting up to?  A link up between those two would also, in its own way, recall the early days of Mer/Der, and whatever Sunshine has on the plate for the Chief and Bailey may be focused elsewhere. But who knows?

Let’s ponder the game changer and see what clues we pick up in the next couple of epi’s.  And if all the tension and drama leaves you with a Grey’s flavored appetite that an hour a week can’t fill, check out Griffin’s Law.  Pick it up and see if you find in Griffin’s the spirit of Grey’s that inspired the story.  The characters are different, the complications are different and the setting is nothing like Seattle Grace, unless you imagine the hospital as a law school.  The world of Griffin’s is mine rather than Sunshine’s but I did try to channel her karma while I wrote the story!

As to Grey’s and attempts to channel Sunshine, I just hope the Game Changer finale remembers how much Grey’s owes to its viewers.  After the season that ended with Cristina’s failed wedding, and Meredith and Derek’s failed relationship, I think a lot of Grey’s viewers spent the summer in a funk.  This time, no matter how the game changes, I hope Shonda doesn’t forget to sprinkle it with hope.

If I get a yen to read a particular book, the search through the stacks will first send books flying around a couple of different parts of the family room. Then it’ll send them headed out the door of my youngest son’s walk-in closet.  Finally, in desperation, it’ll even cover the macho floor of the male holy land – our garage.   I haven’t touched one of the paper books since Christmas – but I haven’t replaced them all (yet) with digital versions, so one day it’ll happen again, I’m sure.  But it’ll happen a lot less often.

My very first ebook purchase was of a single title.  It helped me try out the device.  I have a Sony Pocket Reader which is an excellent way to enter the market.  It doesn’t have wi-fi or a 3G wireless function so I can’t surf the web or check my email.  All it does is display ebooks but it does that very well.  One thing I adore is that it is sized so that it fits right in my purse.  One day, I may upgrade to a wi-fi or 3G enabled device, but that market is shaking out so much now that it constantly reminds me of how smart my hubby is.  My computer guy spouse says never adopt a new platform or technology (or software) until the kinks have been worked out and the price settles down.

The SECOND purchase I made for by ereader was of the Linda Howard, McKenzie’s Mountain bundle.  And a new love was born.  I discovered a deep and profound love for bundles.  How do I love them?  Let me count the ways. 

I love the convenience.   I can carry a 5 book series right in my purse and have it with me whenever I’m in line or have to wait around for something.  Portable entertainment may be the hallmark of the 21st century.

I love that I can pick up a whole series with one click.  In my paperback days, I’d often miss one of the volumes of a series.  Or I’d start reading at book 3 only to find out later that books 1 and 2 are out of print.  The bundle means that I don’t have to spend my free time searching used book stores and yard sales for that first or second volume. 

I love getting the whole story in one click.  This is related to the above point, but a little different.  Most series, like the ones I write, do stand alone, so I can enter at book 3 and not miss the earlier story.  But if I miss the earlier books then I do miss seeing the whole portrait of the prior hero and heroine.  I miss their meeting and their courtship and their falling in love.  I don’t get to fall in love with them – I meet them as a happy couple in  someone else’s story.

I love getting a real introduction to a new author.  One book can be deceiving.  I may read one book by a new author and not like it and assume I won’t like anything else she writes.  That author will have lost me as a customer forever.  I may read that one book and love it and go out and shell big bucks to buy 2 more paperbacks – at a cost of around $16 bucks or so – only to find that I don’t like her at all.  Then I’ve wasted money.  A bundle gives me a good introduction to a new author by giving me her vision for these characters in one purchase. 

Most of all, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE THE VALUE OF EBOOK BUNDLES.  Like I mentioned above, it would cost about 16 bucks for me to pick up 2 books by an author.  In today’s economy, I’m not doing that often, if at all, and I’d never shell out the money to buy 3 or more in one sitting.  I got the 5 book McKenzie’s Mountainseries for around $15 at the Sony Store.   A bundle decreases the cost of an ebook to between $3-$5, and that’s a good deal.  Etailers who give readers value and quality content for their money will build devoted customers.

My Sony Reader supports a couple of different formats, but it does Epub best and Epub is the new, up and coming, open industry standard.  Sooner or later, I’m convinced that Apple, B&N and Amazon will realize how many sales they are missing because of their ill-conceived proprietary formats.  Then the big three will stop trying to sell a 21st century product with 20th century limitations.  Hurrah for Sony’s vision of the future!!

I’m getting ready to make a new bundle book purchase and I did a Google search for ebook bundles to find what etailers sold them in Epub for the best prices.  And guess what I discovered?  Sony wins again!!  Right in the Sony reader store, you’ll find the best value and variety of ebook bundles.  I’m currently eyeing Brenda Joyce’s Master’s of Time Highlander series.  I can pick up 3 of the books in that series in the Sony store for about $11 – a great deal for a Brenda Joyce purchase because her books are nice and thick and I’ll get a lot for my money.  I’m also looking at a couple of ebook bundles by new to me authors and I’m thinking of exploring something else I’ve just found at the Sony store -  BOGO.  Who doesn’t adore buy one, get one free deals? 

As an indie author, I don’t get the chance to do real bundles, but I’m currently trying an experiment in the Kindle store.  If it works, I’ll follow through at Smashwords which will feed it out to Apple, B&N, Kobo and even – my beloved Sony.  HOW I’D LOVE FOR SONY TO DO AN EBOOK BUNDLE OF MY STUFF FOR SALE IN THE SONY STORE……sigh.    But, like I said, I’m trying to do one on my own in the Kindle store. 

Right now, Kindle owners can buy my FOREVER SERIES – A Faerie Fated Forever, A Golden Forever, and A Sixth Sense Of Forever – in the Kindle store FOR LESS THAN $9.  To accomplish that, I lowered the price for Golden to 99 cents.  I think it’s a good deal – if I do say so myself.  And I do. 

So I, who deeply and sincerely adore ebook bundles, have created one of my own for Kindle owners and if it goes well, I’ll do the same via Smashwords for all the other etailers.  Go and check it out – pick up the series and let me know what you think.

I’m working on a new book. Actually, I’m juggling two – a historical and a contemporary. I was working on the historical yesterday when it struck me that the hero was pretty damned tarnished.  My mind flipped over to the contemporary and realized that yep, sho ’nuff, the hero has potholes in his character big enough to drive an 18-wheeler through.  

My personal creative process starts with the characters and builds from there.  From the characters flows the story.  When its going well, one of them will often lead me down a path I never intended to travel, he or she will change the direction of the whole bloomin’ book in a way that’s gonna cause me no end of re-writes.  Those characters, the ones whose tale I’m telling?  They’re never the good guys in the white hats from stable backgrounds earnestly seeking only a permanent committed relationship. 

Invariably, my hero will be the spoiled rascal who’s always lived life on his terms, by his rules.  And those rules, like everything else in his world, tend to favor allowances rather than limits.  His background may have been more or less stable, but it’ll have enough instability, enough challenges, that it’s made him tough, wily, and smart.  My heroes are always smart.  But he won’t be looking to right the world’s wrongs.  Heck, he won’t even be looking to right his own. 

My hero will never walk into the story as the guy avoiding the tawdry, temporary pleasure of sex without strings.  He surely won’t be seeking a committed relationship.  My hero will embrace the tawdry and wallow in the sex whilst avoiding good girls like they were one of those diseases he might pick up in his favorite brothel. 

Yes, you guessed it.  My heroes have always been varmits. 

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I said varmits, not villains.  Varmits are tarnished.  Villains are evil.  A few cracks and blemishes in the character of the varmit blur the sunlight.  The character of the villain is a portrait in black too dark for the sun to penetrate.  My heroes aren’t evil because evil is beyond healing and beyond even the possibility of a happy ending.  In my books the one thing I can promise, each and every time, without fail – Amen – is that there WILL be a happy ending.

So each of my heroes starts his story as a varmit or a rascal, if you will.  In each man are things the reader should see as admirable, things the reader should see that make him redeemable. 

In Brotherly Love Jake was a young man who should’ve just been learning his way in the world when his father died.  Jake stepped up to raise not only his brother, but Jessi, the daughter of his late father’s fiancee, the little girl who would’ve been his step-sister, except for a train crash.  Jake’s a strong man who raises his family to go to church on Sunday and to work hard at building their ranch the rest of the week.  Oh, don’t get me wrong, he’s a varmit and he has issues.  Any family that grew up without a mother or father and had to emotionally assign roles without rules or structure would have a boatload of issues.  It’s how the family reacts when a sudden change in the feelings Jake and Jessi have for each other that makes the story.  Every reader will see the story differently, but I hope most will conclude that love among consenting adults should always be celebrated rather than discouraged, defined, limited or labeled.

In A Faerie Fated Forever,  Nial is the handsome, famous, sensual prey of hordes of women who chase him mercilessly.  He must avoid the good girls in that group while he tries to fulfil a faerie curse.  His issues come from being spoiled with women and from being the child of a father who didn’t marry his faerie fated love and a mother who knew she wasn’t the woman her husband needed.  Nial always had it all on his terms and when his wicked behavior creates a situation where he should wed the neighborhood’s dowdy lass whose crush on Nial is infamous, he creates a solution designed to hurt her enough to let him have what he always has – his own way.  Varmit he might be, but Nial is also a good man, a strong laird who guards his clan and adores his homeland.  His story lies in how he searches for his fated love blinded by his belief that she’ll be what he expects.  When he has feelings for a dowdy lass regarded as a joke rather than a dream, his flaws and failings make him sure that Heather should only be his friend.

And flaws?  Colt of A Golden Forever should’ve coined the term. He was a half-breed bastard raised by a mother who died too young, leaving him to sell his body to the squaws of the tribe in exchange for food and shelter.  His father, an English Earl, comes looking for him too late to save him, and he makes his way among the ton and earns a place in the only way he knows how – by selling his body in exchange for social acceptance.  He grows up to be a man who’ll never again give any part of himself to another person.  He makes his living by running saloons and gambling halls, where his strong appetites makes him cut a swath through the soiled doves.  He’s stubborn and he’s judgmental and he’s willing to take what he wants from Viv, the English lady who sails into his life.  He’ll take, but he won’t give anything beyond the pleasure they can make together in bed.  She’s a virgin, but he’s far from a gentleman so he sends her on her way back to England, the land of his father, the soil he’ll never enter again.  His flaws give rise to his story – how he gives more than he meant to and why he must punish her for taking more than he could safely allow.

In A Sixth Sense of Forever we find Boz, Nial’s cousin who appeared in both of the first two stories.  Boz spoke often of Nial and Colt’s idiocy and vowed he’d never be a fool for love.  He said it in good fun, but the reader always felt he meant it, really meant it.  And he did.  We find that Boz can’t risk love because he suffers from a secret curse, the dark side of the faerie curse under which his cousin Nial labors. Boz was raised by a dutiful but abusive father.  And Boz grows up to be a man willing to listen to his sixth sense to save others, but refusing to examine it to save himself.  He’s the suave jokester who appears to be open, but is actually more closed and secretive than Colt.  He’s an engaged man who is still willing to grant his friends’ request to teach their little sister about sex.  Boz just plans to take the lessons further than his friends’ ever intended.  He has to have Lily and plans to take her even if it means jerking her away from the station she was born to and making her a social pariah.  His story lies in that secret curse, in what it is and in how he tries and fails to avoid it. And it lies in the lessons the man must learn about pride and tradition.  It’s about how he makes the journey to become the only duke in the history of his line who’d break a betrothal.  

In E-mail Enticement  Alix Angelis is a Greek Billionaire who rebels against a family legacy of falling in love at first sight by marrying a Myrtle Beach lady he knows he’ll never love in a quickie Vegas ceremony.  Alix has a pretty stable family, although his mother expects to have her way always.  But he’s spoiled by life, born into a rich family as the only son and heir, the world is his oyster.  He gets what he wants in business and in the bedroom and he expects he’ll always be in control.  The dictatorial man isn’t expecting fate to take a twisted path, but when it does, he ends up falling in love at first sight with his Belle Bitch of a wife’s little half-sister.  He stays in his unhappy marriage longer than he would have otherwise, just to be near Rachel, the love he’s never touched or kissed.  But even for Rachel, he can’t tolerate the Belle Bitch for too long, and he ends his marriage with a plan to try to slowly let Rachel know of his interest.  He’ll court her gently until she’s old enough to be courted fully.  But Rachel is a Southern girl who grew up early, and when she demands a full relationship, Alix’s lust joins his fear of losing her and he gives in.  But he knows his business colleagues wouldn’t approve of the relationship so he tries to keep it in the closet where Rachel has no intention of staying.  How he courts Rachel, how he fights his tendency to rule and control, and what he does to get her and keep her are part of the story.  The rest of it is what happens when Rachel disappears and the old Alix the dictator emerges, only to be confronted with a trial televised across the world on television after he’s charged with enticing Rachel by e-mail – a serious felony in South Carolina that could land him in prison for years.  Email is the story of what happens when a man used to running the world, can’t even run his own life.  It’s a story of a divorce, a courtship, a criminal trial, a mysterious disappearance and of a man learning that losing means winning.             

Grey Griffin, the hero of Griffin’s Law, wears his flaws like a calling card for the world to see but he holds his secrets close to his heart.  He’s a law school professor so by nature he’s egotistical and sure that he’s a little smarter than the rest of the world.  He keeps an ever-changing list of ladies’ numbers in his Blackberry and they all know he promises a good time and wild sex and nothing else.  He’s a half-breed who has learned to pass and he’s abandoned the tribe because he was sure it had abandoned him first.  He’s crafted a world where vows mean nothing more than his ticket to freedom forever.  The only law Griffin lives by is the rule that he’ll never get involved with a student.  When the twelfth of never arrives in the person of Shea Ramsey, he plans to break his law in a way that might break Shea.  His story, too is in his oh-so-interesting blemishes.  It’s in how his character defects lead him to the place where he comes full circle.

Part of my interest in my leading rascals lies in their transformation.  I write  stories where there’s a guy at the beginning that the reader won’t think very much of – until she gets to know him.  The reader will have to realize what there is about this guy that makes him someone to be admired, despite all his baggage.  And the reader gets to be a part of the love that transforms him, that changes him into the man the reader suspected all along that he could be.  Masterminding that transformation requires strong, wily, and determined women who won’t give up even when it looks like surrender is the only possible solution.  Perhaps that’s at the heart of all of my stories – that it takes a strong woman to help a man become more than he planned, more than he wanted, more – even –  than he ever thought possible. 

To paraphrase Willie Nelson:

My heroes have always been varmits. 

And they still are, it seems. 

Sadly, in search of, but one step in back of, 

Themselves and their slow movin' dreams. 

Varmits are special, with their own brand of misery

From being alone too long...

A varmit or a rascal isn’t evil. He’s just a man who hasn’t met the right woman yet. In my stories, he’ll meet her and the reader will get to see how much fun it is to watch a varmit become a dreamboat. 

Varmit watching may not be every reader’s cup of tea, but give it a try.  I hope that most of you will find that watching a rascal get turned right is much more interesting than watching that guy in the white hat meet the girl in the white hat and raise little white-hatted offspring.  Varmits and rascals are a little dirty –  and who wants to read a romance that’s not?