I have a confession to make…

And it’s this; sometimes I will name characters after people in my family. I didn't even realize I was doing it until someone who knows me and my family pointed it out to me.

The only one who ever asked to be put in a book is my older brother’s wife.  I made her a secondary character in one of my books. A busy body detective who likes to talk. She likes to talk and ask questions but she’s not a detective and she was thrilled to be in the book.

I did name two characters in a book after two of my nieces. Of course they were much smarter than the characters I named after them and I said so in the dedication.

Anyone who knows me knows I have five brothers. I’m an only girl. Before you ask, whether or not I was spoiled depends on the day of the week or which brother you spoke to.

But I regress. After about five books, I got to wondering if any of them had read my books. I know my father had at least glanced through them. I had sent him copies of a couple of books. One brother told me he read one of my books. He answered enough questions correctly I could tell he wasn't lying. J However that still left four brothers. What to do…

Murder on Dark Fort Isle, was the book I would use to find out. I set the book in the neighborhood where we grew up. I thought they might be curious and read it. So I named three of the male characters after them. Did some nasty things to them. Published the book and waited, I’m still waiting. I know they haven’t read it because for sure one of them would have called me.

You would have thought that would break the habit, I sure did.  I recently published my first mystery, The Pink Lady. I received an email from a cousin asking if I had named the heroine after her mother. If I had it was a totally unconscious decision.

So I guess I hadn't overcome that habit. As long as no one complains then I think it will be all right.

Death and taxes

By Elaine Charton

Ben Franklin once said the only thing certain in  life is death and taxes.  Jeffrey Deaver said, "Trying to write books with a subject matter or in a genre or style you're not familiar with is the best way to find the Big Block looming "

What does one thing have to do with the other, nothing really other than they've gotten your attention?  Actually, a good genre writer can make you forget about death and taxes, even for a little while.

Some people look down at genre fiction, saying it's formulaic. I don't think so. As any writer can tell you there are a finite  number of plot lines. It's what the individual author does with it that makes it so unique However you know what you will get. 
 

If its a mystery genre, there is a crime that is solved at the end, sometimes more than one. If it's sci fi or fantasy there is lots of world building and maybe some fantastic inventions. If it's paranormal you may have Demons, or vampires, witches and shape shifters, even the occasional ghosts. There may or may not be a romance and may or may not be a Happily ever after (hea).

Then there is the romance genre in all it's incarnations. Over the years that hascome to include a little bit of every genre, Mystery/suspense, paranormal, historical, even contemporary romance. One thing you do know is that no matter what you will have a happy ever after. Maybe there is something consistent other than death and taxes after all.

A Fine Romance

Everyone has their favorites both in book and in movies.  From Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice and lets face it, the Colin Firth version is the best.  He is the one that comes to mind when I read the book.  To the hero in a book by your favorite author, to your own romance or that of someone you know, everyone has a favorite.

Growing up I watched a lot of shows and movies with cops and soldiers. Mainly because I was one against five and usually lost out when it came to TV or movies. However I got different things out of it than they did. I looked at the men and saw brave, hard working, loyal men true to their values and their country. Yes, it sounds like a boy scout, but it also sounds like a romance hero to me. I love Pride and Prejudice, Colin Firth and Hugh Jackman both make me drool. I've watched Casablanca so many times I can quote lines from it. However, one of my favorite romances is my own marriage of almost 30 years.

One of the things that attracted me to my husband was the fact that he was different from the other guys I knew. He was an old fashioned gentleman, still is.  We met on a blind date. We went for Chinese food and then drinks.

He was genuinely interested in what I had to say. He lived on one side of Boston and I lived on the other. Neither of us had a car. He took the subway with me to my apartment insisted on opening the door and making sure everything was ok and I think I started to fall in love when he got down on the floor and played with my cat. A cat that was afraid of most men.

Here was a man who understood my book store addiction, loved Chinese food and baseball as much as I did. He also was as fascinated by history as I was; we spend many a weekend walking around Boston. If we weren't in book stores we were walking the streets taking in the history.   And he is not afraid to do dishes or clean house, or do laundry. All of which I found to be extremely sexy.  When he asked me to marry him seven weeks later I said yes.

 My grandparents were married for 54 years and one day I teased my grandmother and asked her if she would ever get married again. She then told me what I have come to believe is the definition of a good marriage. "There were days he was wishing I was in hell and there was days I was wishing he was in hell. They were still the fifty four best years of my life. Definitely a definition of a fine romance.

Lucky 13

Yea it's a new year 2013. Those of you who are extremely superstitious of the number thirteen just take a deep breath. That's it, in and out, everything will be fine.

Two of my brothers were born on the thirteenth, even had the nerve to be born on a Friday! My husband moved to Boston on the 13th and we met a few months later.

So I have great hopes for the year 2013.  My husband and I have several projects we are hoping to get published this year,  We've had some success in self publishing, my romances, his historical fiction among other things. Toward the end of last year I published my first cozy mystery, "The Pink Lady." At the moment it is only available on Amazon but one of my goals is to publish it in other formats as well.  I'll have a short story published in a magazine and  have another romance novel in the works as well as another mystery.

The Tucson Festival of Books is coming in March, one of my favorite times of the year. The workshops are great, I always learn something. And of  course, a chance to spend the weekend talking books, both reading and writing, is not to be missed.

So don't let 2013 scare you, look it in the eye and smile. It's going to be a great year, a lucky year. 

Christmas memories

Every family has their memories, stories that they tell every year at the holidays.
I have had this picture for years and didn't know the entire story around it until just after I got married.  My father told the story to my husband  and and I that Christmas.  You can't see it in this picture but under that sweater I have on a gun and holster set.  A pink gun and holster set.
The year was 1956, I was two years old. Yes you can do the math to figure out my age. :) Anyway my mother wanted nothing more than to have a nice frilly little girl.  I wanted nothing more than to play with my brother.  And that year I wanted a gun and holster set, just like my older brother,
That was all I wanted from Santa Claus. My mother always made sure we got the one thing we wanted the most for Christmas. However, she was determined people would know it was a girl wearing that gun and holster.  She insisted on a pink one. What are the chances of finding a pink gun and holster set in 1956 on the east coast?  They had everyone looking everywhere for this and finally a few weeks before Christmas one was found in a tiny little store in the next state. :) I had my pink gun and holster set.
Fast forward to 2003, my husband and I moved to Arizona.  One weekend we drove down to Tombstone. We were wandering in the general store looking for gifts for our parents back east. I saw several little boys guns and holster sets on a shelf, Something caught my eye, I looked again. There at the bottom,,,was that,,,, YES a pink gun and holster set! I screamed for my husband who came running over thinking I had hurt myself or worse. Needless to say I bought the gun and holster set. I had no choice. It was the only one in the entire store, it had been waiting for me.
 When I got home I couldn't wait to call my father to tell him. He roared with laughter and wished my mother was still alive to see it.  
That set now hangs on the wall of my living room, which is basically my office.  It's there to remind me of Christmas past, to never forget them and most of all to never, ever give up on my dreams.

Strong ,but unique creations

Every nationality has had it's share of strong women. Immigrants who traveled across the ocean and further on to start over in a new land. It was women who kept the families together, who worked at what ever they had to do to support their families. Many of them working in the garment industry or as servants,not only supporting families here but maybe sending money to families across the ocean as well.
Some packed their families up and moved west in covered wagons to farm new lands. Is there any wonder that strong women are the norm rather then the exception in romance fiction these days. We can look back and see generations of strong women to base our characters on. Not just in the past, but here and now as well.
I was blessed to have strong women all through my life who set examples for me. My mother raised 6 children. the youngest born three years before her death. Not bad considering she had been told she would never have children. My grandmother ran a houseful of men, until my aunt was born she was the only female in the house with her husband, four sons and a brother in law who came to live with them when his own wife kicked him out. Both these women taught me the gift of family. While telling me stories of family I never knew existed,they taught me the art of story telling.  I know I put a part of them in every mother or grandmother I create in my books.
A single mother of two who showed me how women can survive, even when they think they can't. The woman who defied her parents and not only graduated from high school but went on to attend college and gain not one but three degrees.
A woman who traveled from Russia to join her brother in the US and is stranded in England for six years due to a mistake made by the immigration doctor. All of their strength and their courage go into each of my female characters. Along with other characteristics which make them each strong, but still uniquely their own women.

Transition

     The dictionary describes Transition as a passage from one  stage, subject or place to another.

Transitions are a part of life, they change the world, and they change you and the people around you.

They can be as devastating as the death of someone, or as simple as starting school or moving to another part of town. Or in my case, across the country.

       Romance writers know all about goal, motivation and conflict. When you think about it most genre fiction, be it romance, mystery, or whatever starts because of some sort of transition.

Think about it, the stranger moving to town. The injured soldier, or the injured cowboy, each with a secret. What happens when that secret is revealed will change them. That is a transition. The person who moves to another town, hoping to hide something. Even a murder and the effect it has on family, friends, even the cops who are investigating it.

        That is a transition.

        

        I like to think of transitions when I am starting a story. I usually start with a situation.

In my current book, The Pink Lady, I started with the main character inheriting a house; what she decides to do with the house that is her transition. Everything that happens is part of the journey or passage to another place, be it physical or otherwise.

         That after all is the description of a transition

Labor Day and Transitions

I grew up on the east coast and back there, school started right after Labor Day. Since it was a holiday, Dad was home and that meant we got the grill fired up. It also meant one final day at the beach.  As long as the tide was in, we were at the beach. It helps that it was only two blocks away. We all trooped down to the beach safe in the knowledge that even if our mother wasn’t there, someone’s mother was always available to keep an eye on things.

September is viewed by many as a time of transitions.  It’s hard to talk about fall when it’s going to be 110 here in a few days. I’ll give it a shot.

One of my favorite things about fall was the leaves changing. Yes, we could take rides up to Vermont and New Hampshire for some fantastic views. But my favorite was tramping through the piles of red, yellow and green leaves that spilled onto the sidewalk from someone’s front yard.

 Here in Southern Arizona we do have season changes, just not as severe. It gets cold, it does snow, just usually up in the mountains. It can stay there as far as I’m concerned.  I still like the fall, the temperature goes down under 100. This makes me happy, even if there are no colorful piles of leaves to walk though.

What is your favorite thing about Labor day and how do you handle transitions?

Summer Armchair Travels

When you say summer reads or beach reading, I don’t think I’ve ever really understood the term.  I   read a book because I wanted to, not because it was a “summer “read.

In the house I grew up in, I had a beach chair under a tree in the back yard, If the tide was  not in, I usually found myself in that seat reading, anything and everything. We lived two blocks from the beach so in the summer, if the tide was in I was at the beach,

Summer was the time I read any and everything I could get my hands on. Just as I did the rest of the year. I just had more time to do it.  I didn’t have school to worry about and even if I had a summer job, it was usually part time.  I have wonderful memories of summers spent reading in my chair in the yard. From that chair I travelled many places.

I went to the wilds of Canada with Mrs. Mike, Nazi Amsterdam with the Diary of Anne Frank, I traveled back in time to colonial Boston, Victorian England  and  the Civil War of the south.

One of my favorite memories was the afternoon I spent reading Gone with the Wind. I took my lunch out to the yard and began reading didn’t stop until my mom called me in for dinner. She said every time she looked out the window I was reading.  I was engrossed in Ashley, Melanie, and of course Rhett. I thought Scarlett was a spoiled little brat. I felt as if I was in the middle of the siege of Atlanta and not in a back yard in Boston. I finished the book that night before going to bed.

So when I hear summer reads I don’t think of lying on the beach but of traveling, even if it’s from my arm chair, Traveling to all the exciting worlds contained in a book.

Family Weddings-Ain't they fun...

The year that we were married was sort of unusual in our family. We had three weddings in one year.
Luckily we managed to schedule them a few months apart. My cousin Kevin's wedding was a nice, fun, loud Irish wedding. no problems, at least none that we knew of other than a few hangovers the next day.

Then came my family, my brother #4 of 5 got married but for some reason almost half the people invited didn't show. When asked, they said they thought it was a joke. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he got married on April 1st and the RSVP was due on February 30th?

Then, there was our wedding, I am the only daughter and I think my father called in every favor owed him for the reception. We wanted a small wedding and I asked  him to help pay for it. Within a month he had a florist, caterer, and limo all lined up. The ceremony, performed by a justice of the peace who had done several mixed marriages, was short and simple. My husband is Jewish and I was raised Catholic. I was 29 almost 30 when we got married. I think at that time Dad was so glad I was getting married he didn't care where. The day of the wedding was gorgeous, everything went fine. The party went well. Until...

My uncle, father to the groom from the first wedding earlier that year, fortified by many bottles of beer decided he wanted to dance.  While he was  up there, he thought it would be fun to entertain everyone with a striptease. I was mortified. I grabbed his wife and my father and told them to stop him or I was leaving. Luckily they stopped him.

My father does know how to throw a party and it continued long after we left. It was only when we returned from our honeymoon that we found my brothers had tried one last trick. They called every hotel in the city of Boston looking for us. Everyone but the one we stayed in, thank god.  Family weddings, you gotta love them.

Go ahead, take a Leap....

It's been bought to my attention that 2012 is a leap year. Which got me thinking. Yes, those who know me can stop laughing, you know who you are!

When you say it's leap year most people will think that is the day women can ask men to marry them. At least that is what I was bought up to think.

These days I think of someone taking a leap in faith and trusting that the powers that be, whichever you may worship, will help and protect you.

My husband used to be a librarian, he lost his job and was working as a temp in different libraries in the state we lived at the time. Then 9-11 happened. Unfortunately, when people start cutting back for some insane reason libraries are the place they cut first. He ended up working in Barnes and Noble but the salary was not great. I had a good job but you can't live in New Jersey on a salary and a half. Not when your rent is $1000/month.

A friend and her husband had moved to Arizona and had been trying to convince us to join them. They had retreated with their campaign for a while but started again when my husband lost his job. I kept saying I would think about it. Then winter settled in with all it's glory. It was one of the worst winters up to that time. We had to shovel snow it seemed like every day. I fell twice and ended up with cortisone shots in my knees and elbow. One day, when a usually 20 minute drive took 90 minutes because of the snow and ice, I had enough. I said to my husband, "Lets do this!"

Now you have to understand that we were not spring chickens. I was 49 and my husband 47.

Needless to say our family and some of our friends thought we were insane. All I know is once we made the decision to move, everything fell into place. The only thing I requested was to wait until the birth of my youngest brother's first child. We left mid-May and took our time driving cross country. I saw whole areas of the country I thought I would never see. We stopped to see friends along the way. Memorial day weekend we arrived at our destination. We had planned to stay in a motel one more night but at that point I was tired of driving and just wanted to get there.

I remember as we drove into New Mexico and I looked at those wonderful mountains I turned to my husband and said, "I'm home". That feeling lasted into the next state and on to our destination. It remains that way even today eight years later. Oh yea, after writing and submitting for 12 years, I sold my first book in 2003. Six months after arriving here. We took a leap of faith and we are both so glad we did.

Do you mix it up?

When I began my writing career I was going to write romances --- end of story. At that time, back in the late middle ages, there were historical romances, contemporary romances and series romances.
Nowadays, you go into the bookstore or look on line and the genres and sub genres are crossing over and blending.

Here's my genre-blending story.

At first I tried to write sweet contemporary romances but dead bodies kept showing up. I switched to writing romantic suspense. Still romance but different. The first book I sold? A romantic suspense. I was a writer of romantic suspense --- end of story. I should have known better.

My first publisher asked if I would be one of the authors to write a paranormal series. I had no desire to write paranormal but I was a new writer and this was my first publisher. I didn't want to rock the boat. I was looking at the Bible and one of the stories grabbed me. (One of only two times that a story basically sprang out of my brain and on to paper. The other time was also a paranormal romance.)

But I wasn't done yet.

I was out shopping with my sister-in-law and we found this absolutely amazing hand-carved bed. This was an exclusive furniture store and the bed was far too expensive for either of us. But for some reason I couldn't get this damn bed out of my mind. A few days later I had the beginning of what would be a cozy mystery with ghosts. The bed doesn't have a big part in the book, it was more the catalyst that introduced me to those characters. So now I'm writing paranormal, romantic mystery. Talk about mixing it up! The only thing I do know is they all have a happy ending and I'll keep writing them that way.

Do you blend your genres? Sub Genres? Or are you a Purist?

What Makes a Writer?

One of the first things I heard when I began my writing career was to “write what you know” If I did that I would have a short career. My life and what I have learned from it however does affect my writing in small ways. Ways I've only just begun to realize.

My first three books were set in Boston. This is were I was born and raised. I set it in the Boston that I knew, even though I haven't lived there in about twenty five years.. However times change and the city changes, but I called one of my brothers who helped verify such things as streets and buildings and their current locations. I am a visual person, I have to be able to see in my mind what I am writing.

That comes in handy when I travel, ten years ago we took a trip to Eastern Europe and took the overnight train from Prague to Warsaw. Nothing like riding a train straight out of an Agatha Christie mystery to spark your imagination. On a recent trip to Paris I was able to get some ideas for a follow up to my recent book THE MAN IN THE MIRROR. Now available on Kindle, the Nook and at Smashwords.com.

Back to writing what you know-I don't believe in it. I do believe that the things you experience in every day life, no matter how small, can spark an authors imagination in countless ways. What do you think?

The Chicken or the Egg

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? For writers, at least for me, it's which comes first, the story or the character? Nine times out of ten, at least for me, it is the character.

My first book, EZ Lovin', actually had a main character named Ezekial Zachariah McAllister. He stood against a wall, ten gallon hat in hand, looking like a young Sam Elliott. He smiled in that slow lazy smile that cowboys have and said, "Evening Ma'am."

I could not get him out of my mind. I sat down with my critique group and we played what if?

You know you’re a romantic suspense writer when dead bodies show up in your romance. I know this one from experience. I started out wanting to write a good old fashion romance, along the lines of Harlequin Presents. All those years of watching, cops and soldiers and cowboys with my brothers reared it's not so ugly head and dead bodies kept showing up. It took a while but I finally listened to my muse and began writing romantic suspense.

RWA defines romantic suspense as "Romance novels in which suspense, mystery, or thriller elements constitute an integral part of the plot." What I call, crime interfering with the romance as opposed to romance interfering with the crime.

The operative word there is elements. Yes, you have suspense, mysteries or thrillers with romantic elements. Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series comes to mind. Another one is Joanne Fluke's Hannah Swensen series. They both have a romantic element, or two that runs throughout all the books. But the main emphasis is not on the romance. There in lies the difference

In a romance the lovers who risk and struggle for each other and their relationship are rewarded with emotional justice and unconditional love, the happily ever after. In the books I mentioned earlier, along with others, there may be a happily ever after but it takes longer, sometimes books longer, to get there.
However that makes it no less satisfying.
So what are some of your favorite Romantic Suspense books?