New Contest up and running!

The 2006 From the Heart Winter Contest is up and running and this time it's a SURPRISE! I promise great prizes along with several of my autograph books! Be sure to enter today!

What better way to begin the NEW YEAR than with a contest win!

And coming in 2007:

Desire Continuity FORTUNE'S VENGEFUL GROOM coming in March
and BETWEEN THE CEO'S SHEETS coming in June

SIZZLE IN THE SANDS - SEXY BEACH READS FOR EVERY SEASON!!

Bodine's Bounty -- Back to writing!

I've been posting about fun stuff lately, not that writing isn't the most fun of all, but now it's time to talk about the "craft".

I'm 2/3 into my bounty hunter story and working hard to make my hero a dynamite Alpha man, but I can't help putting in some humor. The characters just scream out at me. "Let me say this ... oh please ... then I'll go back to my cool aloof facade."

So, though I'm tempted, I've been using humor only sporatically in this story. Bodine is really a hard man, hurt by life mostly. He's different than many of the other male heroes I've written, because he hadn't been betrayed by a woman. So for me, it's intriguing to write about a man who'd been close to only one other person in his life, his twin brother. And when that brother is mistaken for him and killed, Bodine finds and holds onto that hard edge, driven by guilt and revenge.

Enter my heroine - a spirited, runaway heiress that Bodine has been hired to protect. His job is to keep her safe - "unharmed and untouched" and Emma Marie Rourke truly makes him earn his money. She's out to find her outlaw father and live her dream of becoming a renowned entertainer. Emma sings like an angel, and when she lifts her voice in song, she touches Bodine in places no other ever has.

As my story progresses, I realize that I will write a sequel and the challenge for me is deciding how to shape and mold a secondary character to become my hero or heroine in the next story. But amazingly, these characters seem to jump out on the page, out of the blue. So now, I have Bodine's brother's widow to contend with and I've just learned that my villain has a sister. (Funny how that happens). So crafting a viable pre-conflict in this story for one of those ladies, will take some thought and ingenuity.

That's what I love about writing. It's never dull. There's always a challenge and best of all, when it's not working, there's always the delete key.

Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives

While I admit to buying into these cliche hot TV shows, there's more than one reason I do tune them in. I have to admit I'd watch them regardless because they are extremely entertaining. But for a writer, they also show a range of off-the-wall characters who say and do outrageous things completely outside the box.

One of the main reasons I enjoy Desperate Housewives, aside from watching Mike Delfino, the sexy plumber guy strut his stuff, is to see what the housewives and their counterparts will do next. They are often times, laugh out loud funny. And sometimes we laugh even though that little angel sitting on our shoulder tells us it's a sin to do so. But oh, it feels so good.

In last night's episode, after Lynette bribed the eight year old pitcher so her son could finally get a hit in the game, I felt a measure of guilty pleasure seeing that struck ball target the pitcher and smack him upside the head. The pitcher went down and my husband and I laughed like school kids. The show is a jumble of high and lows, and isn't slapstick funny. Not really. Most the humor comes from irony and smart dialogue.

Speaking of smart dialogue what woman could resist a show with characters nicknamed, McDreamy and McSexy? Okay, the men on Grey's Anatomy are HOT! We all know that, but lots of shows have hunky guys. This show stands about because it's themed. And us writers know the importance of theme ... a running thread and a flow to the show that leads us to one all important conclusion at the end. Often times, Grey's has parallel themes that are so brilliant that I truly hate to see the episode end.

Expert writing. Witty dialogue. Characters you care about.

Isn't that what we in the romance world strive for and always hope to achieve on every page in every book?

Halloween Treat

A man was walking home alone late one foggy night,
when behind him he hears:
BUMP...
BUMP...
BUMP...
Walking faster, he looks back and through the fog h e makes out the image of an upright casket banging its way down the middle of the street toward him.
BUMP...
BUMP...
BUMP...
Terrified, the man begins to run toward his home, the casket bouncing quickly behind him
FASTER...
FASTER...
BUMP...
BUMP...
BUMP...
He runs up to his door, fumbles with his keys, opens the door, rushes in, slams and locks the door behind him.

However, the casket crashes through his door, with the lid of the casket clapping
clappity-BUMP...
clappity-BUMP...
clappity-BUMP...
on his heels, the terrified man runs.
Rushing upstairs to the bathroom, the man locks himself in. His heart is pounding; his head is reeling; his breath is coming in sobbing gasps.
With a loud CRASH the casket breaks down the door.
Bumping and clapping toward him.
The man screams and reaches for something, anything,
but all he can find is a bottle of cough syrup!
Desperate, he throws the cough syrup at the casket...
and,
(hopefully you're ready for this!!!)

The coffin stops!

Okay, so I couldn't resist this one. A cute Halloween funny!




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