Twelve Pairs of Gloves

by Diana Mccollum

As I was perusing information on Leap Year, I came across some really interesting tidbits of information about this extra calendar day.

Leap Day is in February because February used to be the last month of the year.

According to an old 5th century Irish legend, St. Bridget petitioned St. Patrick to allow women to propose to men every four years. Thus balancing the traditional roles of men and women much like Leap Day balances the traditional calendar year.

In America we have Sadie Hawkins day dances where the girl asks the guy to be her date, and it is generally celebrated in Leap Year. 

In Scotland it is considered bad luck to be born on Leap Day. 1288 Scotland passed a law that allowed women to propose to men during Leap Year. Any man who declined had to pay a fine, which could be anything from a kiss to a new silk dress. 

In Denmark the old Leap Year tradition goes, if the woman proposes and the gent declines he owes her twelve pairs of gloves. One pair for each month to hide the fact she is not wearing an engagement ring.

Greece considers it unlucky to marry in a Leap Year, and especially on Leap Day.

The Honor Society of Leap Year Day Babies is an organization for persons born on Leap Day. 

According to the Guinness Book of Records, there is a family who produced three consecutive generations born on February 29 and there are different records of children in the same families all born on February 29th..

As a writer, I can see many, many story ideas embedded in these fun facts. I personally don’t know anyone born on February 29th. I have a friend whose husband and their first daughter were both born on Valentine's Day.

Do you know anyone with a birthday on February 29th?  Or a family whose birthdays fall on the same day?

WHY I WRITE ROMANTIC SUSPENSE

Hi, I'm Sue Ward Drake. 

I’ve been a writer all my life. A column for my high school paper. Travel journals. Poetry (published when newspapers published poetry). Advertising copy. I cut my reader’s teeth on Nancy Drew mysteries and early adventure stories that were in my school library. Eventually, I moved on to Helen MacInnes who held her own with the male post-WWII, Cold-War thriller writers—and she wrote romantic suspense.

After joining RWA and beginning to read the longer contemporaries with suspense elements, I wrote and rewrote a few manuscripts, selling the third one, I think. My first published romance follows both the mystery and the thriller genre models.

For someone who doesn’t like roller coasters and who used to give herself nightmares just by looking at paint spatters on her bedroom window, I’m surprised the suspense is actually easier to write than the romance, though I’m fascinated by what makes people tick, romantic couple-type people. For the suspense, I usually have to go over and over a scene to produce the proper edge-of-the-seat tension.

The most difficult aspect is getting the romance and the suspense to coalesce into a unit so one can’t be separated from the other.

I am currently working on more romantic suspense stories. My re-released first romantic suspense, HEAR NO EVIL, has plenty of suspense and a MacGuffin. And then of course, there is romance. I find having to juggle two or three elements fascinating and the most fun way to spend my writing time.

For Molly Light, painting is her path out of a silent, solitary world. Now her talent is awarded with a once-in-a-lifetime trip to paint under the blue skies of the Mediterranean. Her journey to Greece with the brooding, enigmatic stranger who awarded her the prize, plunges her into the terrifying world of international intrigue from which there seems no escape. Nor can she escape the suspicion in this man’s eyes whenever he looks at her—or the overpowering desire his every touch arouses.

Bent on revenge for the brutal torture he’d once endured, Stefanos Metadorakis believes Molly is sharing secret military plans with a U.S. enemy. His instructions are to accompany her to Greece, watch her every movement—and mood—not fall in lust with her. But he’s inexplicably drawn to Molly, and it’s not long before their passions explode. As distrust mixes with desire, dangerous forces are closing in, their sights set on Molly. Can the lovers forget the past and learn to trust each other enough to survive? 

With a childhood spent in a house full of dark windows in every room, Sue Ward Drake developed a vivid imagination for spooky happenings. Her sometimes undependable hearing gave her a chance to imagine the worst, and she grew fond of suspenseful tales. After a lifetime traveling the globe including a year in Spain, nearly that long on a Greek island, and over thirty-four years in New Orleans, she now happily resides in Nevada with her husband of thirty-nine years within minutes of the mountains and no more than three hours from the sea.

Sue will be speaking at Emerald City Writers Conference in Bellevue, WA October 25 - 28, 2018 on disabled characters and how to frame and write emotion. Please visit her at: www.SueWardDrake.com or on Twitter at @SueWardDrake.

A Swimmingly nice author from Nevada, Sue Ward Drake

By Diana McCollum

Author Sue Ward Drake lives in Reno, NV. I met her on an online loop through Rose City Romance Writers. She has a good sense of humor and is a dedicated writer. I'm delighted to introduce this talented lady to all of you. Let's give Sue a warm welcome.

Here are a few questions, that I wanted to know, and I thought you might too.

      1)  Is Romantic Suspense the only genre you write?

I have dabbled a bit in contemporary romance, or more specifically romantic comedy. I have 1-1/2 stories done on a “Three Scots in Search of True Love” trilogy which definitely uses my personal experiences visiting different areas of Scotland. The first story of this series needs some modification, though, before I can submit it to any publishers.

If you find some extra hours in the day, please let me know and I can get this done.

2) Have you traveled to a lot of different locations and do any of them play a part in your writing?

I love to travel and have visited some places in this country specifically for research. I’m always curious about what’s over the hill and studied languages in college.

I have visited Greece several times. The first time was for a month purely to see the ancient sites while on vacation from studying in Spain for a year. Three years later a friend from college and I took advantage of an airlines fare sale to go to Italy, Yugoslavia (Croatia, now), and Greece.

That summer/fall was probably the closest to a “gap” year since I had no job to come back to. Someone told me about an art school on one of the islands in the Cycladic group. I investigated that and wound up living in a little farmhouse outside of town. Many of my experiences there found their way into HEAR NO EVIL.

2    3)    What gave you the idea for "Hear No Evil"?

To be honest at the time I was looking for something unique that might snag an editor’s eye. I had already written and submitted two stories to Harlequin.  I was lucky the editors at Silhouette books (which later became part of Harlequin) agreed to buy my hearing-impaired heroine.

It was fun to use some of my own experiences adapting to a loss of hearing in that story. A story with a disabled heroine would make it easy for the villain to put something over on her, and I loved writing woman-in-jeopardy suspense, anyway. As a teen I read Helen MacInnis (Decision at Delphi, Ride a Pale Horse, etc.), who wrote these types of stories.

When I came back to the States from Greece and subsequently Germany, I was interested in doing any writing I could. I remember reading an article in the local paper about Janet Dailey who wrote for Harlequin, but I couldn’t figure out who I would contact about that. There was no Internet then. It wasn’t until a few years and a couple of failed efforts at a detective story later that I found the address for Romance Writers of America in the back of a book on writing and selling popular fiction. There was a local chapter and I joined.

4) What is your favorite genre to read?

Adventure/suspense. And if there’s humor, that’s an extra bonus. I love the movie Romancing the Stone.

5) Can you share with us a typical writing day for you? From Dawn to Dusk?

I can give you a typical Tues/Thurs/Sunday because those are the days I have better control over my mornings.

I get up and go to the health club to swim for an hour, come home and eat breakfast. I am so not a coffee and toast person. I need fuel. Then I come into my office and start work on my latest story.

My dad used to read the newspaper at breakfast and sometimes lunch. I’ve followed in his footsteps and now I’ve got a book or my iPad with downloaded books always at hand.

If I’m lucky and have no shopping to do, I come back into the office and work another 3-4 hours in the afternoon.

I find I have to really focus on the story and get it down, once I spend hours figuring out the plot. I hate the plotting/suspense part because it takes so many days. I’m always looking for ways to focus and sharpen my ideas. I try to write a logline and a synopsis to jell the story before I start, or at least after the first 3 chapters.

The drafting process is a lot like that of a potter throwing clay on a wheel. Then the real writing (revising) begins.

If I’m lucky, the other days of the week follow this scenario with some other type of exercise. I’m a happy camper if I get my blood moving early.

6) What are you working on now?

Thanks for asking, Diana. I am on the second draft of what I thought was going to be a novella, but the story may work out to be about 55K words. It’s a companion story to Stefanos and Molly’s story (HEAR NO EVIL) in which the child Nikos is all grown up. Though I did not make up the Greek settings in HEAR NO EVIL, Nikos goes back to his home island and I’m doing a bit of imaginaneering to adapt the setting to the needs of the story.

A short story with Stefanos and Molly set in the years following HEAR NO EVIL is on the backburner (thinking/wondering stage).

But I like to enter contests. If I get a story in front of one of finalists judges, this may change the what-to-write-when schedule. Nothing is poured in concrete.

        Thanks for having me, Diana. I like nothing better than discussing writing. Feel free to come chat with me at @SueWardDrake on Twitter or SueWardDrake Books on Facebook. You can find out about my new releases onSueWardDrake.com.

For Molly Light, painting is her path out of a silent, solitary world. Awarded a once-in-a-lifetime trip to paint under the blue Grecian skies, she must accompany the handsome, enigmatic stranger who granted the prize. Sensual sparks fly, but when their journey plunges her into a chilling conspiracy, she suspects he’s not the man he pretends to be.

Bent on revenge for the brutal torture he’d once endured, guilt-ridden loner Stefanos Metadorakis believes Molly is sharing top-secret military plans with the enemy. His instructions are to escort her, watch her every move and mood—not fall in lust with her. But he’s inexplicably drawn to this beautiful, damaged woman and before long their passions explode. 

As distrust mixes with desire, dangerous enemy forces are closing in, their sights set on Molly. With their lives in the balance, can the lovers trust each other enough to foil a deadly espionage plot?

Thanks for the interview, Sue. I really enjoyed interviewing you. Best of luck on sales! "Hear No Evil" is available at Amazon.