FREE FICTION FRIDAY

Chapter 4 of Code Name: WILLOW is up.

If you commented last week, be sure to check the comments section for a note about who wins the free books from last week's contest. (Little hint--all of you!). Just follow the directions in my last comment and your free book will be on the way.

This week, alas, I don't have a prize to give away, but I still love to hear your comments as you read. And if you made a comment last week, be sure to check the comments later today--I'll be addressing some of what y'all talked about.

Oh, Hey...There's the Other One...

Chickasaw County Captive is now listed on amazon.com. Along with Case File: Canyon Creek, Wyoming, that's two of my books you can now pre-order.

Too bad they won't be out in time for Christmas gift-giving...

Free Fic Friday - Chapter 3

You know the drill by now. But this week, I'm sweetening the pot with a little contest. Somewhere in Chapter 3 of Code Name: WILLOW, I reveal how long it's been since Maggie's seen her father. How long is it? The first person to post the correct answer here wins a free $20 amazon.com gift certificate.

Now go read! Then come back and comment!

Update: Because I still want y'all to have reason to revisit this thread even after the $20 Gift Certificate is gone, I'll sweeten the pot a little here. I'd like for those of you reading to comment on what you've liked, what you haven't liked, what themes you see, what characters intrigue you—because I'm a feedback addict. And by the end of this weekend—10 pm central time on Sunday evening—I'm going to draw two names randomly from the commenters on this thread. The winners get signed copies of any one of my backlist books I still have available. (I think Forbidden Territory may be out of stock, even here, though, just to warn you).

So, come on, folks. Show me a little comment love!

Well, Would You Look at That...

Case File: Canyon Creek, Wyoming is up on Amazon for pre-order. Order early, order often!

Here's a blurb to whet your appetite:

On the trail of the killer who murdered his wife, Wyoming cop Riley Patterson finally has the break he's been waiting for—a survivor. But while Hannah Cooper can't remember anything about her attacker, her attacker remembers her. After a second attempt on her life, Riley offers himself as Hannah's personal bodyguard. But will his growing attraction to Hannah put his case in jeopardy, especially if his best chance to catch a killer puts her directly in the crosshairs?

I actually read the whole novel, beginning to end, last week while doing my final edit of the book before it goes to press. I'm not one who enjoys re-reading my books once I've turned them in to the editor, but I have to say, I found myself sucked right into Case File: Canyon Creek, Wyoming again. I think it's the tormented, grieving hero who pulled me into the story. It was satisfying to see him come to life again over the course of the story as he found more to live for that just revenge and his wife's memory.

I hope y'all enjoy the story as much as I did!

Free Fiction Friday - Chapter Two

Chapter Two of Code Name: WILLOW is up on my website! Go read, then come back here to talk about it.

If you missed reading Chapter One, no fear. It's still up. Each chapter stays up once it goes up so that anybody coming to the story late can easily catch up.

Free Fiction Fridays are Here!

Visit my website to read the first chapter of CODE NAME: WILLOW, a full-length romantic suspense novel I'm offering, a chapter at a time, on my website every Friday through November.

Here's a little blurb to get you started:

When a former First Daughter's in trouble, there's only one man to go to for help. Too bad Maggie Stone swore she'd never turn to Secret Service Agent Jack Bennett again...

Yeah, kinda vague. But you'll figure out pretty quickly what's going on. Just go read the chapter.

Then come back here and talk about it! And you can be honest; I'm not sensitive. I love to hear feedback, good, bad or ugly.

Shout Out Time

Time for one of my favorite kinds of posts: the shout out! This time, it's a big shout-out to my Southern Magic chaptermate, Naima Simone, for her first sale to Ellora's Cave!

Her book, Sweet Ultimatum, is tentatively scheduled for publication later this year. Visit Naima's website: http://www.naimasimone.com/ for more information.

Way to go, Naima!

Oh, Yum

Davidoff's Cool Water cologne for men has inked a new deal with Josh Holloway of LOST, ensuring that we get a few more lovely shots of Josh and his pretty, pretty self gracing the pages of magazines in the foreseeable future.

Be sure to click the link because there are nice, big, oh-so-yummy pictures besides this one.

Josh Holloway's character on LOST, James "Sawyer" Ford (more recently known as Jim LeFleur in his 1970s life), is an interesting, complex guy. A family tragedy (his parents' murder/suicide) turned into a boy's quest to find the con man who tempted his mother away and led to his father's homicidal act. But in the process, James became "Sawyer," the conman he wanted to destroy.

Manipulative, larcenous and driven by a thirst for revenge and his own self-loathing hidden behind the veneer of ruthless disdain for anyone else, the Sawyer who crashlanded with the others on the island was a sarcastic, selfish and disruptive force of nature. His schemes to preserve his own life and comfort at the expense of everybody else turned him into a villain early in the series. But as we learned more about his background through his flashbacks, and more about his inner life through his occasional moments of connections with the other survivors, we began to witness a gradual but significant change in the character. I would go so far as to say that in this past season, Sawyer became a true hero.

It'll be interesting to see if his heroism was purely a circumstance of the bizarre situation they were in or if maybe he can sustain the growth for the final season of LOST.

On a personal note, I used Josh Holloway as the inspiration for the character Maddox Heller in my third book, FORBIDDEN TOUCH. Clearly, as you can see from the book cover photo, the art department did not take my description of Maddox as having sandy blond shoulder-length hair into consideration at all.

Oh well, can't complain too much. The FORBIDDEN TOUCH cover is still one of my favorites. It's my first (and so far, only) cover with the heroine on it, and what's funny is, though they got the hero completely wrong, despite my detailed descriptions of him, they got the heroine, Iris Browning, perfectly right, even though I barely gave them anything to go on, since I hadn't really "cast" her with an actress or a model as I had with Maddox.

Don't forget, even though Forbidden Touch has been off most bookshelves for a while, you can still buy it as an ebook at Harlequin online.

A Little Love for the Troops from 3 Funny Guys

Carson Daly, Zachary Levi and Joel Moore discuss the their support for the troops. (minor language warning)

(h/t Big Hollywood)

Not Your Grandma's Bodice Ripper Anymore

Interesting article on the social stigma of reading/writing romance and how the genre is making breakthroughs in some surprising places. (h/t Wayne Jordan)

Accidental Potatoes

Have I mentioned that we have a small worm farm? My mother, my niece and I love to fish with live bait for shellcrackers and bluegills, among other things, and red worms are the go-to bait for these feisty little sunfish. However, we found that often, when we were done fishing, we had as much as a whole box of worms left over.

A box of worms can cost as much as a dollar or more, so it seemed a waste to just pour them out in the ground once we were finished fishing, and we knew they didn't thrive in the small cardboard boxes, so I decided to look up worm farming on the internet to see if it was something we could do at home.

Sure enough it's very easy to raise your own redworms. You just need good soil, a large container, a sunny but temperate area to put your container of soil and worms, and table scraps like potato peels, fruit peels and cores (don't use citrus--it makes the soil too acid), and other vegetable scraps like the woody ends of asparagus or the wilted outer leaves of lettuce or cabbage.

So we started our worm farm, adding new additions to the gene pool for a while when we'd have leftover worms from fishing. And now, we have a big flat plastic container full of worms and dirt.

You need to change out the dirt now and then, but that's also a plus, really, because the worm castings in the old dirt are a fantastic natural fertilizer for plants. We changed the dirt early in the spring and then used the discarded dirt to use in planting our vegetables for the summer. Yeah, there were a few red worms left in the old dirt; hard to get them all. But that's good, too, because redworms do the same thing in the plants that they do in soil naturally--eat the leaves that fall off and excrete a natural fertilizer.

What we found, to our surprise, however, was that there was something else in the soil besides the worms and their castings. There was apparently a piece of red potato with an eye still in it, because one of our planters that we hadn't planted anything in yet suddenly began sprouting a potato plant. It's big, lush and responding beautifully to nothing but occasional watering. A couple of weeks ago, it bloomed, and today, I harvested the first four baby red potatoes from the accidental potato plant. We're going to have them either for lunch or dinner.

We're thinking about planting potatoes on purpose next year. They seem to thrive in our climate and being in the container rather than the ground doesn't seem to faze them.

Forbidden Territory

My first book, FORBIDDEN TERRITORY, is very hard to find new online, and y'all know how I feel about buying new if you can.

Powell's Books has one available. First come, first served!

What is Patience Smith Really Like?

The lovely folks at Pink Fuzzy Slippers Writers give you a chance to find out with their interview with the Silhouette Romantic Suspense senior editor.

I love my editor and writing for Intrigue, but this interview really tempts me to pitch a few things Patience's way, just so I could work with her.

There. Are. No. Words.

The Top Five Awful Disney Crossover Toys.

I'm an unapologetic capitalist, but...dude.

If you were stranded on a deserted island...

(Crossposted from the Intrigue Authors blog and the eHarlequin Intrigue Authors Blog)

We're doing our spring cleaning at home a little late in the season, in order to turn a basement den into a small apartment for my sister. Unfortunately for me, the basement den is where I've stored about half my books, so now I have to find room for them upstairs. Except, if there were room upstairs for the books, they'd have already been up here. So you know what that means: it's time to cull.

Culling out books is hard for me. I'm a collector by nature, and many of these books I've had since childhood. But as I go through the books, I'm finding that many books that once meant a lot to me I can now get rid of without much pain.

Writing books have been some of the more obvious casualties, now that I'm published and know more about what it takes to be a writer. The books that were once so valuable to me for their information and support are now headed to charity or the local library in hopes that they educate and inspire other aspiring writers still reaching for the brass ring of publication. Also gone are the piles of romances and other novels I bought over the years as I tried to find my niche as a writer. Not all of them, of course; the ones that spoke to me, that helped me find my genre and my voice, stay on my shelves in an honored place.

I have books I bought as reference material for a specific novel that I'm now getting rid of because the novel is written, or the reference book turned out to be useless. I have books that I'm getting rid of because they're literally falling apart at the seams or they duplicate, in some way, other books I have. (I have a large Shakespeare compendium I bought in college that's in wonderful shape; what's the point in holding onto those little paperback versions of specific plays?)

The classics stay, even if I didn't enjoy them, because I have nieces in grammar school who aren't too far from needing those books for their studies. I have books that I seldom read but keep for sentimental reasons, like the books written by a writer friend who passed away tragically early from cancer. I kept my college textbooks forever, but I'm finally letting some of them go--Algebra, Trigonometry--while I hold onto others--Zoology, Spanish, all my English textbooks--because I think they might be useful to me yet. Who knows when I might write about a hunky biologist and a sassy English professor who end up on the run in South America? (...jotting that idea down in the idea file...)

I've often played along with the old game, "If you were stranded on a deserted island, what's the one book you'd want to have with you?" It's fun to speculate. It's not so much fun, however, to have to reduce your book collection by nearly half. I can attest to that personally.

However, I do think I could probably come up with a list of five books I'd have to have with me: The Bible, Jane Austen's PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE, THE STAND by Stephen King and TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. (But I sure would miss ROBERT FROST'S POEMS, PERSUASION, JANE EYRE, the Harry Potter books and THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN).

So, what about you? If you had to trim your book collection drastically, what would go? What would stay? Or is this a subject too horrifying to contemplate?

Introducing...Cooper Justice

Coming from Harlequin Intrigue in 2010:

COOPER JUSTICE

The Coopers of Chickasaw County, Alabama believe in truth, justice and family. They also want to believe that love can last forever—but danger has a way of finding each of them at the worst possible moment...

CASE FILE: CANYON CREEK, WYOMING
January 2010

On the trail of the killer who murdered his wife, Wyoming cop Riley Patterson finally has the break in the case he's been waiting for—a real, live survivor. But while pretty tourist Hannah Cooper can't remember anything about her attacker, he remembers her. After a second attempt on Hannah's life, Rileyoffers himself as her personal bodyguard. But will his growing attraction to Hannah put his case in jeopardy, especially if his best chance to catch a killer puts Hannah directly in the crosshairs?

CHICKASAW COUNTY CAPTIVE
February 2010

Someone is targeting Jefferson County Assistant District Attorney Sam Cooper— and using his family to do it. After an attempted kidnapping leaves Sam's four-year-old daughter Maddy traumatized and his teenaged niece in a coma, Sam knows he needs help protecting his family and finding out who's behind the attack. But is a young, female police detective with a notoriously tragic past really the person for the job?

Literary Nightmare

Last night, I dreamed that my editor wanted me to write a short book (67 pages) with another author's hero (but Intrigue had the right to use the character). The hero's name was Dominic, and he'd appeared in two books by a now-deceased author. (Helpfully, she'd sent me the two books by that author in which Dominic had appeared). It seemed that Dominic was a time-traveling immortal who, at one point in his time-traveling history, had raped a woman. Oh, and in the first two books, he'd had a torrid affair with the same woman, so readers might expect him to end up with her or something.

You might think that part of the dream was the strangest. But no, for my editor showed up in person to discuss it with me, and turned out to be not a female, as I thought, but Adrian Paul dressed in a very natty suit. Which, I admit, might normally be seen as the best part of the dream, except in my dream, he was clearly batting for the other team.

(Only I would have a dream about Adrian Paul in which he was gay. Sigh).

Then I woke up.

Bigger Books

Having just turned in the second book of a two-book contract, I'm now contemplating what to do next. I do have two more book proposals under consideration with my editor, and I'm planning to write three more books in the Cooper Justice series so all the brothers have their own books. But given the rate I'm writing these days, I could easily be finished with all of the Cooper books by early 2010, even though the books themselves will be spread over 2010 and into 2011.

What that probably means is that I'll have time to contemplate a bigger book if I want to write one.

There are definite benefits to writing a bigger book. I'm not as limited by subject matter, type of hero/heroine, language, etc. as I am writing for category in general and Intrigue specifically. I can delve deeper into the areas of the story that aren't directly related to either the mystery plot or the romance, allowing me to explore other relationships for the hero and heroine--family, friends, etc.--as well as delve a little more into their own personal histories and issues. That's also quite tempting to me, as I sometimes have to leave things out of Intrigues that I might have liked to include in order to flesh out my characters a little more.

Plus, whether it's fair or not, single title authors get a little more respect from readers as a whole than category writers do, despite the fact that I believe some of the best writing happening today is happening in category, especially Intrigue--Dana Marton is hands down one of the best writers I know, and all the Intrigue authors out there flat out know how to tell a great story. I feel completely humbled to be included among them and it's a challenge to live up to their examples. The money for a single title author is hit and miss--but when it's a hit, it can be very good money. Who wouldn't want to be Norah, Jayne Ann, Suzanne or Susan Elizabeth?

On the other hand, there are also drawbacks to consider. First, I'd have to interest a whole new editor. And I'd almost certainly have to get an agent. I'm not sure how I feel about having yet another person to please, on top of a new editor, just to write a longer book. Pleasing the editor I have is hard enough! Also, there's a certain security in writing for Intrigue--you know there are going to be six monthly slots to fill, and if you're an established writer and you write a good book, you have a more than decent shot of landing in one of those slots. But becoming a debut single title author? It's like starting all over again.

I know several Intrigue authors who've either made the jump to single title or write single titles and category novels simultaneously. I know others who happily and successfully write only category books. I love writing category, and it's not a stretch to imagine myself writing Intrigues for the rest of my career.

So I guess I'll keep pondering this question until the Cooper Justice books are done, and then maybe I'll have an answer.

Deadlines...and World Building

I've just printed out and packaged not only the second book of my current contract (thus completing my obligation to my publisher) but I also printed and packaged the proposal (three chapters and a synopsis) for another book that my editor wants to pitch to the senior editor as the second of another two-book contract. So wish me luck!

I'm in a position where I don't want to continue forward with those two books without having agreed to a contract (when you start selling, you soon learn that you shouldn't waste too much time writing something that's not earning you money). So I'm thinking ahead to even proposals. The two contracted books are the first two books of a new series, Cooper Justice. The two proposals I just finished are also Cooper books, and the next three will be as well, to finish it out. So it's probably a good idea to get those last three proposals worked up to pitch a three-book contract next time so I'll know what I'll be doing with my next couple of years as a writer. ;)
After that, however, I haven't really decided what the next group of books will be about. I've created several fictional places within my story world that I can work with, however. And who knows? Before the Cooper Justice series, I may create even more.

Fantasy and Science Fiction authors are the ones best known for world-building, but a lot of writers build their own fictional worlds to play in. For me, I needed to create places where I had control of the terrain, the political structures, the histories and the current affairs of the places involved so that they would meet the needs of my particular stories. But once those places exist in my story world, I've enjoyed using them to give depth to my other stories.

In my book FORBIDDEN TERRITORY, I created the Alabama city of Borland, Alabama. Though I haven't revisited Borland, outside of mentions in the two books that completed the Forbidden trilogy, It's a place I can certainly go back to now if I want to. In the third Forbidden book, FORBIDDEN TOUCH, I introduced the Caribbean island of Mariposa, a tourist mecca with a seedy side, and the Central Asian republic of Kaziristan, a former Soviet satellite with a history of tribal unrest, Islamist terrorism and constant political volatility.

In COWBOY ALIBI, I created Trinity, Idaho and Canyon Creek, Wyoming. I revisit Canyon Creek in my January 2010 book, CASE FILE: CANYON CREEK, WYOMING. I may go back to Canyon Creek before all is said and done. Who knows?

In my upcoming February release, which is currently without a title but will probably be called CHICKASAW COUNTY...something, I introduce Sanselmo, a South American nation on the Caribbean coast that combines the oil resources and volatile political history of Venezuela with the terrorist threat of Columbia. A nascent democracy with a history of both right wing dictatorships and Marxist juntas that have nearly destroyed the country over the past fifty years, Sanselmo's elected government is in a deadly power struggle with a leftist rebel group called El Cambio, which once espoused democratic ideals when it was trying to overturn a brutal dictatorship but now has shown its own totalitarian instincts by opposing honest statesmen trying to build their country into a true liberal democracy. I also revisit Kaziristan as part of Sam Cooper's backstory.

Kaziristan also has a role in the backstory of former Marine officer Luke Cooper, the hero of the recently proposed third book in the Cooper Justice series. And Sanselmo and Kaziristan feature prominently in the proposed fourth book (and the island of Mariposa gets a mention as well).

Here are some things I've discovered about world building in contemporary, earth-bound fiction such as romantic suspense:

1) It's easier to create fictional countries in areas where national borders are constantly in flux.
Thus, Kaziristan is in the Central Asia, where many countries were part of the Soviet Union as recently as the 1980s, and where borders are constantly in dispute (see also Kashmir).

2) It's easier to create fictional countries in areas that are not immediately familiar to most readers.
Can you really be sure there's not an island in the Caribbean named Mariposa?

3) If you're going to create a nation in a more familiar areas, make it plausible.
I couldn't have made Sanselmo an oil-producing nation on the Caribbean coast of South America if a country like that (Venezuela) didn't exist already. And I couldn't have created a quasi-Marxist rebel group like El Cambio if terrorist groups like FARC (Columbia) and Shining Path (the Maoist rebel group in Peru) didn't make such a thing plausible for that part of the globe.

4) A corollary to #3: If you're going to create a city or town in a state that people have visited, make it plausible.
Trinity, Idaho is plausible, because I based it largely on a real town, Stanley, Idaho. I used real landmarks like the Sawtooth Mountains and Boise to ground it more in reality. Canyon Creek doesn't exist, either, but I placed it in the ranch country just east of Jackson Hole, where similar towns do exist. Likewise, Gossamer Ridge, Alabama, the setting of my February 2010 book, may be fictional, but it takes on characteristics of two towns in northeast Alabama that do exist: Guntersville, Alabama (which is the inspiration for Gossamer Lake) and Ft. Payne, Alabama (which supplies a lot of the geographical features for Gossamer Ridge, including its beautiful mountainous terrain. As I did with both Trinity and Canyon Creek, I grounded Gossamer Ridge in real places like Birmingham (where Sam Cooper commutes to work and parts of the story take place).

So, how about you? If you're a writer, how have you handled world-building? And if you're a reader, which fictional worlds (and their writer/creators) have had the most impact on you?

Squeeeeee!

Chuck has been renewed!

I can live with the budget cuts, if they can.

Folks, if you've never given Chuck a try, please do it this coming season. The show is funny, touching, romantic and exciting—a smorgasbord of 1-hour dramedy delight.