Good morning and welcome to week three of “What was I thinking?” In weeks one and two I shared my thoughts on scenes from Man Law and A Just Deception. This week, it’s Michael and Roxann’s turn with Risking Trust.

In this book, Michael Taylor walked out on Roxann Thorgesson twelve years ago without an explanation. Now he’s come back into her life and needs her help. His estranged wife has been murdered, he is the prime suspect and Roxann owns a newspaper large enough to help him clear his name.

During content edits for this book, my editor asked me to increase the romantic tension and awareness between Michael and Roxann. She wanted me to dig into what these two people had once meant to each other and how that would help them rekindle their relationship. They’d shared a ferocious love that was now only a memory, and I needed to convey the depth of that love. I wanted to show the stages of their relationship from twelve years ago without killing the pacing of the story. It’s one of the biggest challenges I’ve faced during the revision process. Reunion stories are tough! :) I found the best way to accomplish the task was to add a couple of flashbacks from both Michael and Roxann’s point of view.

The following scene was not in the original manuscript, but I wanted readers to experience Michael’s state of mind (twelve years earlier) the first time he met Roxann. In this scene, Michael is in his office discussing Roxann with his partner (and closest friend) and he thinks back on the first time he saw the woman who would become the love of his life.

Here’s the scene (in Michael’s point of view):

Still, the legs got him every time. The first time he’d spotted them, he’d been twenty-seven years old, sitting on a folding chair in the miniscule backyard of a friend of a friend at a fourth of July party he hadn’t wanted to go to. Four weeks fresh out of the army, he’d been dealing with undiagnosed PTSD that left him exhausted and supremely strung-out. Between the lack of sleep and the nightmares, when he did manage rest, he hadn’t had a lot firing in the mental agility category.

But he’d gone to that party because he felt like crap and needed to get laid. A piss poor motivating factor, but the physical release would clear his mind.

On that summer night, the sky was clear, the air cooler than normal and filled with a mix of music and chattering voices from the crowd packed into the tiny backyard. He sat alone nursing his beer when the long-legged blonde entered the yard. She wore khaki shorts and a sweater tank top that clung to her lean form. Her long hair, streaked with sun-drenched highlights, fell loose around her face and she tossed one side over her shoulder, exposing a softly sculpted cheek that he immediately wanted to run his fingers over.

Perfection.

Michael breathed in. She’s the one. What that meant, he wasn’t sure and didn’t necessarily care. He knew he had to have her.

A group of people huddled in front of him, blocking his view, and he shifted a little. The blonde stepped to the picnic table not ten feet from him and parked her trim ass next to five women.

Thirty minutes later he still sat there, watching and waiting, damn near mesmerized by her. She hadn’t so much as glanced his way, but she hadn’t glanced anyone else’s way either. He couldn’t call her aloof. Not with the way she laughed and yapped with her friends, but she had a quality to her he couldn’t define. Elegant maybe. He didn’t know, but it worked. Hard.

A few people stopped to say hello to him, but his attention stayed on the blonde. If she moved from that group, he’d be on her. No doubt.

The break came when the two women closest to her got up and left. She wasn’t alone, but the three remaining women were deep into their own conversation. Take the shot.

He made his way to her, squeezing through the crowd that had once again gathered in his path. He stepped up to the table and set his beer down. She glanced at the beer, then brought her gaze, a blue-green that nearly stopped his heart, to his face.

“Hi,” she said.

“How do you feel about love at first sight?”

The corner of her mouth quirked. “I’m not sure.”

“Well,” he said, “I’m suddenly a believer.”

She rolled those amazing eyes and laughed at him. For a few seconds, Michael let himself forget about being a miserable bastard and soaked up the sound of her soft laughter.

She gestured to the seat across from her. “It’s too soon to tell, but you can have a seat and maybe I’ll let you know in awhile.”

Score.

He dropped onto the bench and she propped her chin in her hand. “As opening lines go, I have to say, that one got my attention.”

He grinned. “It was a maiden voyage. And just so you know who it is that’s fallen in love with you, I’m Michael Taylor.”

“Hi, Michael Taylor, I’m Roxann.”

And damn those blue eyes glittered. So incredibly gorgeous. To Michael’s disappointment, Brian, the guy hosting the party, appeared. “Hey, Rox.”

Roxann-the-beautiful shifted to face him. “Hi, Brian. How are you?”

“Thanks for coming. Haven’t seen you since you got back from the Olympics.”

“You went to the Olympics?” Michael asked.

Brian snorted. “She was in the Olympics. Won a gold in the four-hundred relay. You grabbed a silver too, right?”

She smiled and the glow could have lit the darkened yard. “Yep. In the two-hundred.”

Beautiful, athletic and a competitor. God help him. Fried already and he hadn’t laid a hand on her.

Someone called Brian away—thank you—and he high-tailed it.

“The Olympics. That’s amazing. Do you still compete?”

She twisted her lips. “For fun. Now I have a big girl job.”

“What do you do?”

“I work at the Banner-Herald”

To Michael, who was working a laborer job while he figured out how to use the skills acquired as an Army Ranger, the newspaper gig sounded pretty cool. “Are you a reporter?”

“No.”

“What do you do?”

“Whatever my father tells me to.”

“Your dad is your boss?”

She laughed. “My dad is everyone’s boss. He owns the paper.”

Michael’s euphoric high plummeted. Gone. That fast. This girl was so far above him he might as well quit now. If that didn’t suck the mother lode he wasn’t sure what did. He laughed his derision, slapped his hands on the table and stood. “Enough said. I’m leaving. I’m glad we met though.”

He started to turn away, but she grabbed his arm. “This from the man who just proclaimed his love?”

Could he possibly have a shot with this girl? “Honey, I’m a kid from the neighborhood. You’re so far out of my league I’ve got no business being on your planet.”

“Why do you get to decide I’m out of your league? I’ll make my own decision. Why not stay and see what happens?”

It made enough sense that he sat again and spent the next two hours hearing about the Olympics, her doubling up on classes to graduate on time and taking the job at the newspaper. When the party began to fizzle, he and Roxann moved to a 24-hour coffee shop two blocks away where they talked until six in the morning.

He finally walked her to her apartment and, as much as he wanted to, didn’t try to worm his way in. After all night together, he’d hoped he’d get his shot another time. A fast lay wouldn’t suit. That he could get anywhere. He’d wait it out. The beautiful Roxann Thorgesson was not a girl to disrespect. On any level.

***

 RU Crew, thanks for stopping by!

Adrienne Giordano writes romantic suspense and women’s fiction.  She is a Jersey girl at heart, but now lives in the Midwest with her workaholic husband, sports obsessed son and Buddy the Wheaten Terrorist (Terrier). She is a co-founder of Romance University blog. For more information on Adrienne’s Private Protectors series please visit http://www.adriennegiordano.com/. Adrienne can also be found on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/AdrienneGiordanoAuthor and Twitter at http://twitter.com/AdriennGiordano.

Buy Links:

Carina Press

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Welcome back, Jeanne. 

Your Write Environment – Making your writing space WORK for you!

Hello Romance University Students!  Thanks for having me here today!

Do you love where you write?  Most of us love what we write – we have to, to live with it in our heads as much as we do! – but not many of us stop to consider WHERE we write.  Much less if it actually helps us, or suits us, or is even comfortable.  Most of us are just happy to have a square foot or two that we can say is “ours” to devote to this maniacal passion called writing.

But your space matters.  Studies show that when a person is truly comfortable in their working environment, they are dramatically more productive – gaining up to 30% more productive work time.  That’s a lot of pages my friends.  If you normally write 5 pages (1250 words) when you get sit down and write, a 30% increase means you’d get 6.5 pages (1500 words) in the same amount of time.  One more page and a half toward a completed manuscript – that’s a LOT!

I’m sure we’d all love to have a great-looking, private, separate, luscious office space just for writing (bookshelves, music, a comfy chair….) but few of us can afford that. So how do you make that improvement?  What works?  What doesn’t?  And what if you have little to no time or money for making the changes?

First, let’s talk style.  Most of us have a certain way we learn.  Learning styles aren’t news, most of us have heard about the modalities of learning – Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic.

Full out Visuals like color and neatness, things in their place, color, items filed by color or shape, attractive lamps, pretty rugs and curtains.  A visual treat.  They may have knickknacks, but they’re pretty.  And neat.  If there’s music, it’s good, but sometimes they won’t want it because it distracts from the work.  Visuals ask first, how does it look?

Full out Auditories like neat, but clear.  Crisp.  Effective and efficient.  Color is okay, but neutrals are better.  An auditory may like music on, but may not – they talk to themselves and working things out may require a lot of quiet. And above all, it has to be organized.  Auditories as first, how does it sound, or how clear is it?

Full out Kinesthetics don’t care what it looks like, or how its organized – or even if it IS organized – but it has to be comfortable.  It has to be warm, cozy and welcoming.  There has to be stuff to look at and mess with.  Color is good, but it can be a lot or a little; music is better, and the more stuff, the merrier. Kinesthetics ask first, how does it feel?

Now don’t pigeonhole yourself just yet into one or another.  We’re each a mix, usually more one than another, but often one with a strong secondary that influences our space needs. Writers often have trained themselves so well to see all modes, that they test as virtually even in all modes.  However, there ARE differences, so read on!

We’ve got two volunteers who’ve allowed me to show their spaces.  I’ve given them an assessment to determine their learning style. (If you’d like to take it, email me at Jeanne@JeanneAdams.com and I’ll send it to you)  So, based on that, I’m going to make some suggestions about how they can make their spaces work better based on their modality, they’re going to come on and tell me what they think of what I have to say!  Ready?! Let’s do it!

First, let’s talk about Kelsey.  Kelsey is primarily Kinesthetic with a strong secondary in the Visual mode.  Based on her comments, Kelsey is very influenced by that strong secondary.  Kinesthetics like comfort.  They like movement, as you can well imagine, and they like warmth.  Put a K in a cold, ugly, comfortless cubicle, and forbid them music and food, and they might as well be in Hell.

Now someone who’s strongly auditory could easily work in an environment like that because they wouldn’t see it as sterile.  They would see it as clean.  Streamlined.  Efficient and effective with no visual distractions.  I have a friend who’s an accountant who’s very auditory.  Clean, clear workspace.  Everything filed properly.  Nothing to distract you from the work on the desk.  If you’re A – Auditory – you’re probably nodding your head.  You don’t have knickknacks around, you don’t have those pesky distractions that other people seem to find necessary in their space.  That works for you.

Not for Kelsey!  So, what does work?  Kelsey has to share this space so alas, it isn’t “all about her” in this office.  The good things, and one of the most important is that she has a comfortable chair. (Kelsey’s taken my class and bought the chair to be comfy.  WTG, Kelsey!)  This is important for everyone, and is the first and best place to spend whatever dollars you have in making changes.  However it’s even MORE important for a Kinesthetic.  A Kinesthetic has GOT to be comfy or they’ll fidget their way right out of that uncomfortable chair and space and wonder why the novel never gets done.

Here’s Kelsey’s space:

So according to Kelsey, the pro’s are, the chair is comfy, the desk is “cool” and the storage is pretty darn good.  Great start!

The challenges are myriad though.

1. She has to share – to a K that’s going to feel cramped, even if it physically isn’t – this almost always bothers a Visual, btw, which tells me Kelsey has a pretty strong secondary here.
2. Sharing also means she has to deal with another person’s mode.  To a K, this isn’t AS problematical as it is with an Auditory (clean/clear/quiet) having to share with a K (messier/comfort driven), but it’s still a pain.  To a High Visual, sharing is torture because they can’t control what’s on the other person’s desk, or in their space.  Eek!
3. There’s no overhead light, which is a tough thing because light is radically important to comfort for all modes.
4. She’s renting so she can’t put color on the walls or put up permanent things.  Tough for that Visual secondary!
5. With that High Visual back-up, things being open – the bookshelves – and messy annoy and distract.

What to do!?!  I have some suggestions!  I’d start by arranging the room in a different way.  First, turn the desk toward the closet, so the window is to the right.  That gives her the warmth of the wall at her back.  Sound odd?  I know, but for a Kinesthetic, having walls behind them provides a feeling of safety and security.  For a K, it’s all about how a space FEELS.  Right now Kelsey’s back is to the window, not a bad thing, but often subconsciously a little unsettling.  It’s frequently something you don’t even notice until you change it.

Then, if there’s enough square footage (walking room) I’d ask her to move the rolling bookcase to the side of her son’s desk, blocking her view of his desk and his mess, effectively walling off his portion of the room.  She could also clip fabric or a curtain panel to the front of the rolling shelves, or get one of the canvas covers made for these types of shelving units so that it looks neat and tidy, while still keeping her rolling library of reference material handy.  This would have two advantages – it would add color to a bland room, and neaten up the open shelves appealing to the Visual part of Kelsey’s nature.

Did you notice the sticky notes up on Kelsey’s window?  Look closely behind the blind and you’ll see a neat row of colored Post-its.  This may work brilliantly for Kelsey, but for some of you, you won’t have a handy window!  I recommend a big corkboard, magnetic chalkboard or whiteboard.  In this space, I’d probably recommend a cork-board so that the brown cork adds color and warmth to the space as well.  Her notes can stay visually neat on a board, and add color on the walls by way of a useful hanging piece, doing double duty as organizer and art.

Kelsey said she wasn’t happy with the window topper she chose for the space, and I’d agree.  I would advise her to put long, full curtain panels on either side of the window.  Even if she only does one panel to each side, rather than enough to close over the window, it offers two bands of virtually floor to ceiling color, something she desperately needs.  If she coordinated that color block with fabric she puts on the rolling bookcase, she’d add a tremendous amount of color, movement and neatness to the room without spending very much.

The last picture is of Kelsey’s storage with her printer in the closet cubby.  Since she can close these doors for visual neatness, she’s probably fine with this space, but if she wanted to, she could frame some of the photos for visual effect and/or put up a colored fabric panel to warm up that space as well.

The biggest thing, however, which Kelsey needs to address and probably spend a little money on, is lighting.  She has six lamps in the room.  No overhead, remember?  And no way to add one.  Here’s where I’d make some changes.  First, once the desk was moved, I’d put a torchiere – an uplight – behind and to the right in the corner to which the chair won’t ever roll.  She has one in the room already, near the door (not pictured) That adds ambient light behind her.   Then, two desk lamps at either corner of the desk, with 75 to 100 watt bulbs in them.  Right now she has a focused light, like a flashlight, on her desk, it doesn’t give enough overall light to the space.  It’s meant to be task lighting, but it only illuminates the papers right under it.  That doesn’t do enough.  There’s another directed task light on the filing cabinets.  I’d put another punch of color here by getting a ginger jar lamp, or colored ceramic lamp – again with high-wattage bulbs – rather than the direct angle light.  It doesn’t give enough light, the right way, to be effective.  (The hanging light in the closet is fine, but she could, if she wanted, replace this with stick-on, tap-on halogens, used only when needed.)

So Kelsey, what do you think?

Our next vict…volunteer is Jamie.  Hi Jamie!  Jamie is a strong Kinesthetic.  Her backups are exactly equal in weight, but unlike Kelsey, they don’t seem to influence her style as much on the secondary level.  They’ll play in, but her K is more than 5 points higher than either V or A.  That makes her a pretty strong K!

I’m going to bet that Jamie actually works fairly well in her room.  First thing I notice is that the room is a warm, comforting color.  Love it or hate it, that color is cozy and enveloping.  Ever notice how often Starbucks or bookstores use that warm brown?  They want you to stay!  Buy!  Grins.

Another very interesting (and revealing) thing is that Jamie has a treadmill desk.  Even without the test I could have told you Jamie was Kinesthetic.  High K’s are about the only ones who can stand to be moving and working – multi-tasking! – at the same time.  In fact, they often work better if they DO move.  Sitting still is frequently torture to a High K.  (Think athletes, actors, singers)  You know these people, they move constantly, tap their pencils in meetings, jiggle their feet as they sit across from you.

Jamie says that when she gets stuck, she’ll switch from one area to the other.  From sitting to walking.  From walking to sitting.  High K.  Either moving or comfy and snuggly.  A sterotype, surely, but something to work with.

Now Jamie is also coordinating a conference so there are boxes around the room, but being a High K, that probably doesn’t distract her as much as it would a V or an A.  An A would have to have every book on the shelf (lined up and alphabetically arranged), all boxes closed, the blinds perfectly aligned, etc.

So what suggestions would I make here?  First I’d harp on light again.  Between those brown chairs, neatly tucked into that corner, there needs to be a table with a good lamp and a high-wattage bulb.  There’s an overhead light in this room and a torchiere for overall lighting, but there needs to be something closer to where Jamie is working, right next to that chair!

That table will also be handy for snacks or drinks, something she wouldn’t want spilling on her reference books, if she perched it on the shelf.  Kinesthetics like to have food and drink as they work, a small way to keep the body in motion while forcing themselves to focus and be still.  I’d also suggest a fan on the table for warmer months.  And maybe even in the winter.  Having the air moving, even if you’re not, can sometimes keep a High K in the chair and working!

I’d also suggest that she bring in a blanket or throw so that when she gets still and into a scene – and gets cold because she’s not in motion! – she has something handy to throw over her legs or around her shoulders so she can keep working without being distracted by being cold.  For a K, once you get too cold, or too hot, forget working.  You’ve lost the groove and have to get up and change your position, get warm, get cool, whatever.  That’s one way, as a K, that you lose time and productivity.  So better to have that blanket or fan handy!

I’d suggest curtains on the windows for one reason, and one reason only (for Jamie) – I’d bet she’s frequently distracted at night, by cars driving by and blinds closed and curtains closed will help her focus.   During the day, the light is more important than the distraction, but she may want to put them at an angle so the mere sound/sight of a passing car isn’t as distracting.

I’d also suggest that she lower the painting on the wall by about 6”, to “person-height” rather than have it be above the eye-level.  I’d recommend putting other things on the walls as well, including different frames, or a corkboard, or pinboard for keeping visual notes, and inspiration pieces.  An extra pillow or two, in case she wants to raise her feet or curl up and have cushion between her and the chair’s arm.

This is all about comfort.  For me, as a Visual/Kinesthetic, there are other things I would do if this were MY room  – baskets on the shelves to stack the papers in, more art on the walls, and curtains for sure! – but that’s MY style, not Jamie’s, so I won’t suggest that to her unless she wants that to satisfy those other, secondary modalities.

In her other space, with the treadmill (awesome treadmill desk, Jamie!), I’d suggest first that she cover the bare wood with a cloth or something cushy so she doesn’t scrape her hands as she works, and it’s attractive to her.  She should always keep a water bottle in the holder, and perhaps have another fan on a table in the corner where one of the chairs are now.  Moving and working get you hot – especially if you write romance! – and that fan may keep you working longer.  And you’ll be in awesome shape too!

There’s an overhead light behind the treadmill, which looks like a chandelier.  Chandelier bulbs don’t give off enough light for you to work in this room at night.  I’d suggest a torchiere in the far right corner behind you, and a big, bright lamp on the table you’re going to put in the corner by the window.  More light means more comfort and less eye-strain!

There appears to be a brick wall outside the window, for the view.  I’d like to ask Jamie to tell me what she sees through that window and I’ll make further suggestions, but off the bat, I’d say be sure to have something ON that brick wall – a metalwork piece, or a vine that goes up the wall.  Otherwise, as a K, you’ll find it cold and unwelcoming.  Again, the painting needs to come down to eye level, about 6” (below the window height) so that it is more comfortable for viewing.  That’s a “visual thing” but even a K will be tweaked by it, without even knowing why.

So that’s how I see it, ladies!  Let’s start the ball rolling with Kelsey and Jamie’s responses, but feel free to jump in anywhere and ask whatever you’d like!  I’ll answer as best as I can.

***

Okay, RU Crew, what do you think of Jeanne’s suggestions for Jamie and Kelsey? How do you tweak your own workspace to make it “write” for you?

Don’t miss Monday’s lecture when monthly columnist CJ Redwine returns with a critique of a reader submitted query letter. Join CJ as she celebrates the release of her query book and kicks off QUERY-palooza.

***

Bio:

Jeanne Adams lives in Washington, DC and along with being a consultant and mom, she writes Romantic Suspense for Kensington. Her 2010 book, Deadly Little Secrets, garnered 4 1/2 Stars and a TOP PICK rating from Romantic Times, won the Golden Leaf for Best in Romantic Suspense, and was featured in the April 2011 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine. The follow up book, Deadly Little Lies is also an RT TOP PICK, and is nominated for the Australian Romance Readers Award, and the Romantic Times Best Suspense of 2011.

Jeanne is also a multi-published non-fiction writer, writing for Llewellyn Publishing, and a marketing consultant with credits in magazines such as Forbes and Nature.

She works with writers and homeowners to make their offices work more efficiently and effectively using the principles of design, light and space planning. (As well as good organization!) She has a design degree as well as a landscaping certification and has worked in design in the Washington, DC area for nearly a decade.

You can find Jeanne at: www.JeanneAdams.com or www.RomanceBandits.blogspot.com.

Welcome back, Damon!

Depression, disaster, and disillusionment are the secret throbbing heart of romantic fantasy. As Hitchcock once pointed out, “The stronger the evil, the stronger the film.” While it may seem obvious to apply that rule to the crime genre or action-adventure, darkness is the mainspring of all stories: fear, anger, brutality, and deceit. Think I’m bonkers? Look to the personal suffering that drives your people and the bigger shadows cloaking their world. In a real sense, the thing that makes romance compelling is not the happiness of its ending but the gloom that make that ending possible and satisfying.

Every love story has a painful core that makes its pleasure possible.

Haven’t we made the McRomance mistake at some point? One of the most common traps for young romance writers is to invent two dazzling protagonists, concoct a saucy meet-cute and then let them have exactly what they want as they march in lockstep to their predetermined life as cheerful automatons…which is about as entertaining as watching oatmeal simmer. Without highs and lows, grist and grit, nothing can happen…no one can changes… Hell, without friction even SEX doesn’t feel good.

The thing is, for a romance to feel satisfying, protagonists need to change and develop, and in fiction (as in life) real growth is never a cakewalk. Who’s gonna take your hero’s epiphany seriously if it doesn’t come with a cost and a real impetus? Certainly no reader who has ever faced adversity, that is to say, anyone who has ever drawn breath. To get your characters out of their status quo you have to hit them where they live and hit hard. Destroy their old selves so that their new selves can emerge, together. The satisfaction in romance fiction is not that the ending is happy, but that it overcomes overwhelming odds by unlikely people.

To put it another way: love stories are unleashed not by license, but limitations.

Take a look at your work-in-progress. All catastrophes are not created equal and every story deserves its own distinct shading. It’s up to you to determine the lower limit you’re willing to broach: whether it’s cutting glances from trusted friends or madwomen in attics. The dark patches don’t have to be violent or event depressing, but they need to provide chiaroscuro for your fictional folks. Evil produces context and sets up the limits of the world you’re building. The personal voids within each character draws on the powerful forces shadowing the book and vice versa. What is the worst thing that could possibly happen to your characters and how soon can you make it happen? I’m only half-joking.

In the weakest romance fiction, perfect couples amble through a few mild complications before snicking into place like a greased lock. In essence these books telegraph their endings from page one, not because they end happily but because they start happily and stay that way for long stretches. A jog through the daisies, as some folks would have it…contentment but not joy. Most books that fail for me blow it by wrapping all their characters in cotton wool and completely skipping the kind of “Dark night of the Soul” that might transform the protagonists and their world.

Love hurts.

Think back over romance novels you’ve loved or the genre-defining books that drive our industry. The most unforgettable stories and characters spring from crushing opposition. What we remember about romance novels is the darkness that drives them. Three hundred pages of folks being happy together makes for a hefty sleeping pill, but three hundred pages of a couple finding a way to be happy in the face of impossible odds makes our hearts soar. In darkness, we are all alone.

So don’t just make love, make anguish for your characters. As you structure a story, don’t satisfy your hero’s desires, thwart them. Make sure your solutions create new problems. Nurture your characters doubts and despair. Make them earn the happy ending they want, even better…make them deserve it. Delay and disappointment charge situations and validate character growth.  Misery accompanies love. It’s no accident that many of the stories we think of as timeless romances in Western Literature are fiercely tragic: Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, Cupid and Psyche… the pain in them drags us back again and again, hoping that this time we’ll find a way out of the dark.

Only if you let your characters get lost will we get lost in them. And that, more than anything else, is what romance can and should do for its protagonists and its readers: lead us through the labyrinth, skirt the monstrous despair roaming its halls, and find our way into daylight.

***

RU Crew, how do you create anguish for your characters so they really deserve that HEA at the end of the story?

Join us Friday for Extreme Makeover, Writer’s Office Edition with Jeanne Adams.

***

Bio: Damon Suede grew up out-n-proud deep in the anus of right-wing America, and escaped as soon as it was legal. Though new to M/M, Damon has been writing for print, stage, and screen for two decades. He’s won some awards, but counts his blessings more often: his amazing friends, his demented family, his beautiful husband, his loyal fans, and his silly, stern, seductive Muse who keeps whispering in his ear, year after year. Get in touch with him at DamonSuede.com.

Have you ever experienced that moment every writer dreams of? That moment when “the call” from a publisher comes because they want to buy your book?

Only, the call is not for you. It’s for your critique partner. Suddenly, the moment you dreamed of is happening for someone else and, as thrilled as you are for your friend, there’s a bit of a pity party going on inside you. Tracey, Kelsey and I thought it was time to share our own experiences with professional jealousy.

Kelsey: I won’t BS you. Being the last of your group of critique partners to be offered a contract is hard. As many of you know, I still haven’t been offered a contract, but in all honestly, I haven’t submitted much over the past couple of years. Life and relocation have interfered some. However, rightly or not, I take pride in the role I’ve played in Adrienne’s and Tracey’s success. I’m sure they’d still be published without me, but I love that I’ve been along for the journey. There’s nothing better than sharing in the success of someone who truly deserves it!

I’ve also learned a ton by watching my two buddies ride the often choppy waves of edits, reviews, and publicity. Who do you think I’ll run to for advice when I’m facing the same issues? You got it: the gals in the know.

I’ve also had to come to the realization that no two writers walk the same path to publication. It’s a unique journey for each person and only s/he can determine the map to use. I’m still trying to unfold mine (you know maps never fold up neatly again either), but I know when I get it wrangled into shape, Tracey and Adrienne will be right there helping me navigate my way!

Tracey: On the flip side, being the first to sign a contract was both exhilarating and heart-breaking. Never in a million years did I think I would be first–and I’m not just saying that. The difficult part was knowing how my good news affected Kelsey and Adrienne. I knew they were genuinely happy for me, but I also understood they would be struggling with the news as well. I knew this, because I would have fought all the same emotions had our roles been reversed.

But being the clever girls that we are, we had also prepared ourselves for “The Call” moment. We knew it was only a matter of time before one of us sold. It would be awesome, but it would hurt. So how did we handle the moment we were all dreading and anticipating? We had a conference call. LOL Yes, that’s how we always work through our issues, whatever they may be. We turned this exhilarating/heart-breaking moment into an RU-style lecture, a private educational session just for the three of us. With all the awareness provided by RU, I still experienced many surprises through the process. I shared these with my CPs. We gasped, we oooh’d, we chuckled. And most importantly, we learned.

Will I share that level of detail with them after signing my next contract? Probably not, unless I believe my experience can help either Kelsey or Adrienne with something they’re going through. But this time it felt right. It was in keeping with our strong belief in educating writers–at all levels–about writing craft and the business of publishing.

Interestingly enough, the first to contract did not mean the first to publish. Two years ago, I had the great pleasure of sharing my successes and challenges with Adrienne and Kelsey. Today, I’m picking Adrienne’s brain (first to publish) about reviews, marketing, book tours, etc.

So take heart, if you’re not the first to sell. You never know what your first will be. Contract? Published novel? New York Times bestseller? RITA winner? Next Nora?

Adrienne: I think it’s natural to feel a bit of envy when a critique partner experiences a measure of success that hasn’t yet come our way. The day I got the call from Tracey telling me that she’d sold I was sitting on a baseball field watching my son’s team get crushed. We cried together (in this moment there was indeed crying in baseball! ) and I had a feeling of exhilaration for her that overwhelmed me. She’d done it! She’d sold. That fact told me that, yes, it could happen. It gave me hope that hard work paid off in publishing.

Over the next few hours, I experienced a range of emotions that quite literally knocked me on my butt. I was thrilled for Tracey. My heart soared because she had worked so incredibly hard, but at the same time I began to wonder what I’d done wrong that the rejections kept coming in for me. I felt like a horrible person. She was my friend and I adored her. How could I be feeling this way?

And then my husband convinced me it was okay to feel great for her and feel like crap for myself. I thought long and hard about it. I realized the jealousy really had nothing to do with Tracey. It was about me and what I hadn’t achieved. I decided the best way for me to deal with it was to recognize the envy, give it a voice for a brief period of time and then use all that emotion to motivate myself. Which is exactly what I did.

I did not tell Tracey about it until a few months later. I didn’t think it would be fair to her. It was a life changing moment for her and I didn’t want to make it about me. I’m actually grateful for the experience (as horrible as I felt about it) because I think my friendships with Tracey and Kelsey became stronger. We now know how to talk about these things without it being something that will destroy our relationships.

So now that you know the good, bad and ugly about our critique relationship, feel free to ask us questions!

***

What challenges have you faced with being offered a contract or representation at different times from your critique partners? How did you cope?

Join us Wednesday when Damon Suede returns to discuss how the dark moment in a romance can make the HEA even sweeter!

***

Adrienne Giordano writes romantic suspense, contemporary romance and women’s fiction.

She is a Jersey girl at heart, but now lives in the Midwest with her work-a-holic husband, sports obsessed son and Buddy the Wheaten Terrorist (Terrier). She is a co-founder of Romance University blog, is a member of Romance Writers of America, Windy City RWA, Kiss of Death, and RWA’s Women’s Fiction chapter.

Tracey Devlyn writes historical romantic thrillers (translation: a slightly more grievous journey toward the heroine’s happy ending). She’s a member of Romance Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, and the Women’s Fiction, Beau Monde and Windy City Romance Writers of America chapters.

Tracey accepted a three-book deal from editor Deb Werksman of Sourcebooks, Inc. in April 2010. Her first release, A Lady’s Revenge, will hit the bookstores in April 2012. Tracey is represented by Donald Maass of the Donald Maass Literary Agency.

Tracey lives in the Midwest with her once-in-a-lifetime husband.

Kelsey Browning writes contemporary and paranormal romance with a hint of southern sizzle. In her former life, she worked at one of the ten largest universities in the U.S., raising money and teaching students how to land their dream jobs. These days she pursues her dream job of freelance and fiction writing, which provides excellent benefits such as unlimited coffee and an office dress code that permits flip flops.

Originally from Texas and after four years in the Middle East, she now lives in Southern California with her IT-savvy husband, baseball-obsessed son and seriously spoiled dog. She’s currently at work on a paranormal novella.

Mon, 1/30 - Get the inside scoop on how the three RU co-founders have handled their careers progressing at different paces.

Wed, 2/1 – Join Damon Suede as he explores the role of the dark moment in romances in making your happy endings even more satisfying to your reader.

Fri, 2/3  – Join Jeanne Adams for her before and after Extreme Maker Over, Writer’s Office Edition.

All RomanceUniversitylectures are generously provided by our Visiting Professors. RU is a tuition-free zone!

Best regards,

Carrie Spencer, Kelsey Browning, Adrienne Giordano, Tracey Devlyn, Jennifer Tanner, Robin Covington and Becke Martin Davis.

You’ve won your pick of one of Jo’s books. Please contact Jo at: jo.lewisrobertson@yahoo.com. 

Thanks to everyone for stopping by and commenting!

Welcome to week two of “What was I thinking?” Last week I posted an excerpt from Man Law and shared what inspired me to write that scene. This time I’ve chosen a scene from my romantic suspense A Just Deception. Isabelle, the story’s heroine, is undoubtedly my most damaged character (so far!). She’s a survivor of childhood abuse and is a lawyer who thrives on her independence. Due to her emotional issues, sex to her is simply a function. She has forced herself to resist emotional attachments that might disappoint her or break her heart. At least until Peter “Monk” Jessup, a man with his own emotional burdens shows up.

 With Peter, Isabelle finds someone who is patient and respectful of her issues and the reasons she has built her emotional barricades. He’s also determined to destroy those barricades.

When I wrote this book, I knew I was pushing some boundaries, but I’m lucky to have an editor who doesn’t mind when I want to break a few “rules”. She, in fact, encourages me to take risks. In the revision letter for the book I just submitted she suggested that if I was going to give someone baggage, I might as well make the best use of it. So, what I’ve learned through the editing process is that if I’m going to go there (wherever “there” may be), I’d better really go there. 

As I reached the mid-point of A Just Deception, I realized I needed something to happen that would emotionally rock Izzy. Up to that point, she’d been cautious about sharing her feelings with Peter but had been growing more confused by the connection she felt with him.

With this scene, given it was the midpoint of the book (and things would have to shift) I thought it might be a good time for Izzy to take a risk and share a secret with Peter. Unfortunately, she doesn’t give Peter enough information and (typical man! J) he misses the point. This agitates her even more and she tries to escape to the bathroom for some privacy.

Here is where the scene wound up:

She couldn’t stand the way Peter was now watching her. Men. They always stared at her for one reason or another.

Time alone with no one analyzing her. That’s the way her world worked best and maybe, for once, Peter would leave her be. She hurried to the bathroom, and shut and locked the door. If the bathroom had a window she’d probably climb out.

What had she just done? He probably thought her a whore and Peter had standards in that area. He wouldn’t want to even touch her after that little admission.

Maybe that’s what she wanted.

She breathed deep craving the sensation of air filling her lungs.

Taking off her clothes, she tossed them on the cracked tile floor. The bathroom, with its brown vanity and drab green sink, was an extension of the rest of the motel and she hated every bit of it. Or maybe it was simply being there she hated.

After turning the shower on full blast, she stuck her hand into the stream and waited for the hot water.

The door flew open and crashed against the wall with a bang that rocked her. She clutched the shower curtain for balance and turned as Peter stepped into the bathroom.

“What the hell, Peter? You scared me!”

He slammed what looked like a metal pick on the sink and got within an inch of her. His blue eyes locked on hers and the steel there could have broken cement. Hard, hard eyes.

“I’m naked here,” she shrieked.

But the sickening vulnerability had nothing to do with being naked.

“You don’t say something like that and walk away,” he yelled. “If you’re pissed, you need to tell me why. I’m not a mind reader.”

Isabelle shoved the curtain back and twisted the shower knob. The faucet wasn’t providing the only steam in the tiny bathroom. She turned, gave Peter a shove and reached for the towel hanging on the rack.

“And I deserve some privacy.” She wrapped herself in the stingy towel.

Peter, to his credit, kept his eyes focused on her face. He must really be mad. Most men would have at least snuck a peek by now. Or maybe he was trying not to piss her off any further. That theory made much more sense.

She angled around him, stormed out of the bathroom and shut the adjoining room door. All they needed was Billy wandering in with her wrapped in a swatch of cotton barely bigger than a hand towel.

Peter followed her. “What’s this about?”

Damn him.

They needed a distraction here. She spun to face him and the towel came loose. She should reach to tighten it, but maybe…if she just let it sink to the ground…his mind would move elsewhere.

Sex she could handle.

Even if she didn’t want their first time together to be manufactured because she was too terrified to admit she was losing herself. Was she that pathetic? Obviously so.

“Don’t even,” he said, somehow knowing exactly where her mind had gone. “You’re not going to get out of talking to me.” He huffed out a breath, and bit down hard enough that the muscle in his jaw flexed. “I know you’re intentionally doing this. I can see it in your eyes. Creepy Izzy is barking at you and I’m trying to stay cool, but dealing with you on an emotional level can be a nightmare.”

Oh, my God. Give up already. How could he still be standing here after all she’d subjected him to? Crazy. That’s what he was.

She scoffed. “That’s not it.”

He stuck his hands on his hips and puckered. The silence hung between them, daring her to say something, but she’d wait it out. Part of good lawyering meant knowing when to keep quiet.

Peter slowly shook his head. “You’re trying to frustrate me so I’ll give up on you. Classic move, Izzy, but you’re busted.”

Her breath caught, backed up into her throat and she gasped. No air. No air. Breathe. But she couldn’t. Not with her nerves chewed raw. He wouldn’t go away. Wouldn’t leave her to this agony of being stuck between two worlds.

“Shut up,” she said.

“Talk to me.”

“Shut. Up.”

The pressure behind her eyes intensified and she jammed the heels of her palms into them. The pounding wouldn’t stop, so she dropped her hands and looked him square in the eye.

Back him off.

“I hate you,” she said.

He didn’t flinch.

“No you don’t. You’re scared. Big difference.”

*** 

RU Crew, join me next week when I revisit another scene. Thanks for stopping by!

Adrienne Giordano writes romantic suspense and women’s fiction.  She is a Jersey girl at heart, but now lives in the Midwest with her workaholic husband, sports obsessed son and Buddy the Wheaten Terrorist (Terrier). She is a co-founder of Romance University blog. For more information on Adrienne’s Private Protectors series please visit http://www.adriennegiordano.com/. Adrienne can also be found on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/AdrienneGiordanoAuthor and Twitter at http://twitter.com/AdriennGiordano.

Buy Links:

Carina Press

 Amazon

 Barnes and Noble

One of the most common comments I received on She Can Run was praise for my hero’s dog. Henry didn’t start out as a hero. The dog started out as a vehicle to show that my hero, Jack, wasn’t as irresponsible as he claimed. And to add some lightness to a plot that was very deep and dark. But partly by the magic of writing (luck) and party through by love of dogs, Henry evolved. Boy, did he evolve.

Here’s some background. Henry is a police dog reject adopted by my out-on-disability cop, Jack. Henry has been being passed around the police department and declared useless in every division. Henry is a goof. He’s lazy. He doesn’t obey a single one of Jack’s commands. In the beginning of She Can Run, his goals in life are to dig inconvenient holes, steal food, and sleep.

Here’s an excerpt of Henry in the beginning of the book when the dog first meets the heroine, Beth, and her children. The set up for this scene: Beth is on the run from an abusive and powerful husband. She is supposed to be starting a new job as caretaker on a secluded estate, but when she shows up, the old man who hired her has died. In fact, his nephew and heir, Jack, is in the middle of a private wake.

Behind Jack, nails scrambled on hardwood. He lunged for the door just as one hundred pounds of barking German Shepherd leaped over the threshold, knocking him backward. He grabbed a patio chair to recover his balance.

Shit! He’d forgotten he’d locked Henry in the den after he’d tried to jump into the casket. Henry had liked Uncle Danny. A lot.

“Henry, heel! Sit!” The enormous blur of tan and black fur streaked across the patio onto the back lawn and made a beeline for the trio walking up the path. “Get back here!”

Jack hobbled after the dog. Fifty feet ahead, Beth’s eyes widened with alarm when she saw Henry barreling toward her like a freight train. She stepped in front of the children.

“He’s friendly,” Jack yelled. “Really friendly. Brace yourself.”

Beth held her right hand in front of her body in a crossing guard stance and commanded, “Sit!” in a firm voice. Stunned, Jack watched Henry slide to a stop, haunches tucked under his body like a champion barrel racer. The huge dog’s butt bounced on the grass in barely contained excitement as she reached down and scratched him behind his enormous ears.

Son-of-a-bitch. Damned dog did know a command.

Panting, Jack hobbled over and stopped just short of them. “I’m sorry about that. Henry has no manners. I hope he didn’t frighten you.”

She stood maybe an inch over five-foot, somewhat elfish, with a slim body and long black hair that seemed unnaturally dark for her complexion. Even in her current travel-worn state, there was no denying her beauty: large eyes, smooth skin, delicate features. Still scratching the dog behind his ear, she straightened her shoulders and looked up at Jack. Her face softened with the hint of a smile, and Jack felt an unsettling pull deep in his loins. “I’m not afraid of dogs.”

No shit. Henry’s lips parted in a goofy smile as he listed to one side, his back paw twitching in circles.

“Henry’s a police dog reject. Officially, his file’s stamped retired, but he’s only four.” Jack grinned, remembering an embarrassing incident involving a high school drug raid, a locker, and a hoagie. His buddy, Mitch, in narcotics, hadn’t thought it was so funny. “I’m pretty sure he has ADD.”

It turned out that Henry, like every other character, needed motivation. Enter my heroine and her two children. Without human emotional baggage, Henry fell in love with the small family faster than Jack. Henry helped the children adjust and heal. And, just like Jack, love changed Henry.

I won’t give away the end of the book, but Henry was da bomb. He just needed the proper motivation.

I leave you with a short scene toward the end of the book in which Henry sensed something was terribly wrong and showed he’s not just a pretty, furry face. (Ben is the heroine’s son)

Hysterical barking woke Ben. He rose from his bed and padded barefoot into the hall to listen. Downstairs, Henry was going ballistic about something. He glanced in his mom’s room. Empty. After looking in Katie’s room and making sure she was still sleeping, Ben quickly trotted down the steps.

“Mom?” He ducked his head in the living room, then the study. His mother wasn’t in either room. Henry began to whine. Ben followed the noise to the kitchen where the big dog was digging frantically at the bottom of the French door.

His mom wasn’t in the kitchen either. Where was she?

The hackles on the back of the dog’s neck were raised. “What is it, Henry?”

At the sound of Ben’s voice, the dog grew more agitated, looking from Ben to the door. He began to growl and snarl at the closed door.
The note on the counter drew his attention. Mom was down at the barn. Ben was suddenly certain something bad was happening. The hair on his neck rose to mimic the dog’s.

He called his mom one more time. No answer. He picked up the phone and dialed Jack’s cell, but Henry was making such a racket, he could hardly hear the ringing on the other end of the line. Scanning the yard quickly, he looked down at the insistent dog. After turning off the alarm the way Jack had showed him, Ben opened the door. Henry raced through the opening and headed across the back lawn toward the path that led to the barn.

***

Have you ever featured an animal as a primary character in one of your stories?

On Monday, RU founders Tracey Devlyn Kelsey Browning and Adrienne Giordano tackle the delicate topic of critique partners. Don’t miss it!

***

Bio:

Melinda Leigh is a fully recovered banker. She started writing when her youngest child entered first grade as a way to preserve her sanity. She Can Run, her debut romantic suspense novel with Montlake Romance, released in November 2011 and became a Kindle bestselling romantic suspense. A second romantic suspense, Midnight Exposure, is scheduled to release in April 2012. She is also the co-author of paranormal romance novella, Amazon Heat, just out from Carina Press.

Melinda is also an avid martial artist. She holds a 2nd degree belt in Kenpo Karate, studies Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and teaches women’s self-defense. She lives in a messy house in the suburbs with her husband, two teenagers, a couple of dogs and one neurotic cat with an inexplicable fear of ceiling fans. With such a pleasant life, she has no explanation for the sometimes dark and disturbing nature of her imagination.

You can find out more about Melinda and her books at her website, melindaleighauthor.com and at Attacking the Page: A Blog on Martial Arts & Writing Action.

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/melindaleighauthorpage
Twitter: https://twitter.com//MelindaLeigh1

Shannon lives in Italy – her internet connection can be spotty, but she’s going to try to join us today.

“I Get By With A Little Help From My (very unusual) Friends”

Let me start with a little confession. I really am a rather shy, almost pathologically non-confrontational person. I pick up spiders on a piece of paper and put them gently out the window while praying they won’t scuttle up onto my hand. I hate hurting anybody’s feelings. I literally lose sleep over it.

It has been pointed out to me that this is ironic, considering the nature of my books. My heroes are always ready to kick ass, whipping out big guns and notched knives and grenades and claymores and God knows what all. My heroines usually start out rather timid (with one notable exception, in Tam Steele, ULTIMATE WEAPON) but by the end of the book, they always get their chance to strike a crucial blow for the cause, sometimes more than one. And my villains are unhinged psychotic head cases, slashing and hacking on their ruthless swathe towards world domination.

Do I detect the whiff of overcompensation here? Gee . . . ya think?

Maybe, but it works for me. I strongly believe in badding up the bad guys to the utmost. The badder the bad guy, the more studly, righteous and pure-hearted the hero and heroine have to be to stand up to him. Or her, I suppose I should say, since BLOOD AND FIRE does feature a couple of pretty scary villainesses.

But the choreography of violence is a hell of a job. It’s so hard to dream ones way through a violent scene. Things are supposed to happen so damn fast and hard. I keep hitting walls, stopping dead, perplexed and thrown out of the story. Sex scenes are so much easier. Whether it’s hand to hand, gunfights, knife fights, explosives, it’s all hard. I don’t do any of that guns and ammo and kung fu stuff myself. I just, ahem, fantasize about it. I’m more the yoga type.

But you need to be concrete about the details in a romantic thriller. Fortunately for me, I have a secret weapon–my good buddy, Adam. I met him at Yale University, which I attended some gazillion years ago. Freshman year, I met this guy from Brooklyn, an ROTC scholarship student who walked around dressed in olive drab. We had absolutely nothing in common—I had grown up in the deep backwoods of the Northwest, raised by hippies, and was a foo-foo musician singer literary type, all music and Chaucer and Shakespeare. He studied poli sci, a quintessential “guy” major (my apologies to all females who studied poli sci, but I never met any of them.) He would disappear on weekends periodically to do field training exercises to fulfill his ROTC obligations. And he knew absolutely everything about guns. We became good friends, and remain so to this day.

Some years ago, as I was beginning to write these romantic thrillers, and as they got more and more violent, it occurred to me that Adam could be a valuable resource. For instance, there’s this scene in BLOOD AND FIRE where Bruno, the hero, and Sean McCloud, one of the intrepid commando McCloud brothers, are trapped up a dead-end mountain road and have to singlehandedly come up with a plan to defeat a big SUV full of almost robotically enhanced super-soldier bad guys, bristling with cutting edge weaponry. Big problem.

In my initial draft, Bruno and Sean hid under the bridge over a dry creekbed that the baddies were forced by terrain to drive over. The vehicle is stopped by a heavy chain, and my first idea was, a car door opens for one of the baddies to get out and deal with the chain, and Bruno or Sean leap up and lob a tear gas grenade into the vehicle. I can justify them having one of those just lying around because Sean is a McCloud. If you ever read a McCloud book, you’ll know what I mean.

But then I watched some televised riot on CNN, and police were throwing tear gas, and I watched it trickling out oh, so slowly, uncurling dreamily into the air . . . far too slowly to incapacitate a bunch of super-soldiers. They’d zip right out of there, ready to overwhelm my hero and his pal. I could probably write it so that my guys prevail by sheer luck and bravura, because hey, it’s fiction, right?

But it was a stupid idea from the start. No way would a McCloud or any McKenna hero sign off on a bad plan. They had to think of something smarter. But damn. My heroes can’t be any smarter than I am myself. And if an SUV of baddies was rolling up a narrow mountain road towards my cabin, I would be toast. Cowering under a bush. Pink nose twitching, bunny tail trembling.

So I skype Adam, whose day job includes designing Tomahawk missile systems, when he’s not writing and lecturing about arcane historical firearms, and I throw my problem in his lap. He promptly nixed the whole scenario, and without even hurting my feelings. Solution: move the guys way back from the road, give one of them a good sniper rifle with a powerful scope that will magnify ambient light.

For the sake of the narrative, I needed at least one of the bad guys to live to fight another day, so no bombing the road a priori. New plan: chain stops vehicle. Bad guy gets out. Sean takes driver, bam. Bruno sets of flash-bangs (stun grenades) feverishly rigged at the last minute, with a cell phone. They go off all around the vehicle. Confused and disoriented bad guys boil out onto the narrow bridge . . .

Well, I won’t say anymore, don’t want to spoil the scene. Let me share with you a snippet of our skype conversation about the flashbangs . . . slightly edited to remove some of my more clueless remarks. Gotta safeguard my mystique, after all. (snort)

Check this out:

Shannon: How do you make the stun grenades all go off at once?

Adam: Let’s talk cell phones. You know how the phones have a vibrator? It’s really a slightly off balance spinning device.

Shannon: Um . . . ok . . .

Adam: If you were to cut a hole in the phone body near the vibrator (candy bar shaped phones work best) you could see the little metal spinner. Now imaging two wires were placed inside the hole you cut.

Shannon: I’m imagining.

Adam: When the spinner spins . . . the circuit would be completed.

Shannon: So these two wires are put inside, and they don’t touch until the vibrator starts to vibrate? How could the wires not touch?

Adam: On the other end, the wires lead to batteries, and then to electric blasting caps that are used in place of the regular grenade fuse. Grenade image coming your way.

The entire top assembly (with the long lever) unscrews, allowing access to the explosive content of the grenade. I’ll draw you a diagram. Give me a minute.

Shannon: So it’s a two phone thing. One phone is physically connected to a battery that will send the electronic impulse to the blasting caps once the hero calls from another phone, causing the connected phone’s vibrator to connect the wires. Or am I off?

Adam: Exactly. Diagram almost done. Sent. . .

And so on and so forth. I wish I could put the whole (very loooonnnngggg) conversation in, because I love this kind of thing, and I think he’s brilliant, but I’m over word count already! Over word count is my middle name, after all.

For the record, Adam consults for writers. Contact him at adam.firestone@gmail.com. He’s a treasure trove.

And a big shout out to all the experts that I and all other writers consult to make our stories more real and therefore, more ultimately satisfying. Hurray and thanks to you all, for being the real deal.

***

Do you feel comfortable writing action scenes? What sort of problems have you run into?

Be sure to stop by tomorrow when author MELINDA LEIGH joins us!

***

Bio:

I started writing my first romance novel in secret. I was working a temp job in an insurance office in Manhattan at the time, and the office manager had made it clear that even if there was nothing to do, I still had to look busy– never one of my big talents. I felt bad about the wasted time, though, and I needed something to round out my other chosen career, which was singing. Yeah, that’s right. Most artists choose a more practical Plan B to back up their improbable Plan A. Me? No way. “Long Shot” is my middle name.

So I sneakily set up a Document 1 and a Document 2 with a spreadsheet on it. If my Boss du Jour walked by I could quick-like-a-bunny switch screens, and whenever the coast was clear, I went back to my story. Not that I was slacking, mind you. If there was work to be done, I did it. The sneakiness felt familiar, though, because I’ve been teased about reading romances since I was a kid. I think the day I finally grew up was the day I stopped trying to cover up what I was reading on the bus, train or subway. Let people think whatever they like.

It wasn’t until I moved to Italy that I got serious about writing, though. I found myself with many long, quiet days alone with nothing to do, so I slogged my way bravely to the end of the manuscript and sent it out. Everybody rejected it-except for Kensington. I wrote for them for a few years, and then made a bid for an erotic novella for the new Brava imprint, and oh joy, they accepted it. Then I wrote BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. And so on, and so forth.

That’s how I started. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do. I never knew it would be so scary, and so hard . . . all that solitude and silence, a blank computer screen, and no one to blame. But still. It’s worth it. It’s great.

Shannon’s books, publishing by Kensington Publishing Corp., include BLOOD AND FIRE, TASTING FEAR, FADE TO MIDNIGHT, ULTIMATE WEAPON, EXTREME DANGER, EDGE OF MIDNIGHT, HOT NIGHT, STANDING IN THE SHADOWS, BEHIND CLOSED DOORS, RETURN TO ME and more.

Find out more about Shannon here: http://www.shannonmckenna.com/

Q&A with Weapons Expert ADAM FIRESTONE

Adam Firestone: *grin* “Weapons Expert” makes me sound a bit like a candidate for Executive Outcomes or the artist formerly known as Blackwater. While it’s not an inaccurate description, I think of myself more as a weapon systems engineer and instructor.

On the other hand, it *is* tempting to have some business cards made up that say something to the effect of “Adam Firestone, Mayhem Subject Matter Expert, Wile E. Coyote School of Pandemonium (WECSOP)” *grin*

Courtesy Krebs Custom, Inc.

RU: Hard to top that, Adam! How long have you been working in the field of weapons and ammunition?

AF: My dad brought home his first pistol, a Mauser Model 1914, when I was about eight. For me, it was love at first sight. I was absolutely fascinated by the intricate mating of the moving parts, the engineering, and the attention to detail. I taught myself to detail strip and reassemble the pistol in about an hour. From that point, I think I read everything I could get about weapons and munitions, even building 1:1 scale models of rifles and pistols. It’s been downhill ever since.

Professionally, I’ve been involved with weapon systems ranging from pistols and rifles to cannons and missile systems since the mid-1980s. I went to school on an Army scholarship, and my first formal introduction to firearms was a ROTC cadet at Yale. Those were limited to the standard Army fare of the time, M1911A1 .45 and M9 9x19mm pistols, M16A1 and M16A2 rifles, hand grenades, and M60 General Purpose Machine Guns.

Courtesy Krebs Custom, Inc.

When I graduated, I became a commissioned Army officer, and that opened up entirely new vistas for me. I was trained, and literally lived, ate and slept heavy weapons including M60A3 and M1A1 main battle tanks, M2 and M85 .50 caliber machine guns, and M240 7.62mm NATO machine guns. I was also became proficient with recoilless rifles, surface to surface and surface to air missile systems as well as landmines, demolition charges and other explosives and improvised weapons and countermobility systems. As you can imagine, this was pretty heady stuff for a kid in his mid-twenties.

I continued my education in the field outside the Army, gaining instructor certifications in rifle, pistol and shotgun, among others. I’ve taught many hundreds of people not only how to shoot, but how to make educated decisions about what sort of firearm to buy based on their unique needs, whether they be hunting, personal defense or sport shooting. I’ve held instructor certifications for about twenty years, and have continued my own education, being trained on foreign military firearms including those of Russian (Soviet), British, German, Japanese, Italian, French, Chinese and other origins.

Courtesy of RGUNS, Inc.

Since the mid-1990s, I’ve been designing military command and control and planning systems for warfare areas including naval mine warfare, combat engineering and amphibious maneuver warfare. For the last four years, I’ve been responsible for the complete re-engineering of the systems that plan, initiate, control and evaluate one of the nation’s most important long-range precision strike and power projection weapon systems. This work requires me to have ongoing expertise in arms export control regulations such as the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and the Export Administration Regulations (EAR).

Additionally, a book I co-wrote on Allied rifle contracts with American factories during the First World War was recently published, and I expect to soon begin work on a volume exploring the impact of the US Army pistol trials of 1910 – 1911 on the Allied handgun armament during the war. I don’t advise anyone to purchase these books unless you have a sincere interest in the subject matter, or have trouble sleeping.

Probably more than you wanted to know, huh? I suppose the short answer to the question is that I’ve been working in the field for about twenty-five years.

RU: The long answer works for me! You’ve known Shannon McKenna since you were at Yale together. Back then, did the two of you plan on pursuing your current career paths?

AF: Hah! Not on a bet. Army scholarship, remember? I was going to be an Airborne-Ranger-Snake-Eating-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Shannon was going to single handedly reinvent the medieval music for the modern age. As you can see, it didn’t quite work out that way. Looking back, I don’t think either of us would complain about the way things worked out.

RU: Was Shannon the first author you advised about the accurate use of weapons and action choreography?

AF: Yes. It was completely serendipitous. Shannon had begun to write, and knew that I had a bit of knowledge about firearms, weapons and their employment. In the course of a “Hi, how’ve you been” conversation, she asked a few general questions, and the nature of those discussions evolved into our current professional relationship. Since then I’ve had the opportunity to work with other authors, providing similar insights and advice.

Courtesy Krebs Custom, Inc.

RU: What are the top five weapon-related mistakes (or misconceptions) you’ve come across?

AF: Wow. Where to begin? Let’s stipulate up front that I’m a stickler for nomenclature and technical terminology. Words mean things. If one is going to make a living communicating ideas – and that includes writers, engineers, educators and people in the media, to name a few – then there is an implied responsibility to use language effectively and appropriately.

“Well, you know what I meant” is not a proper or effective excuse for ineffective or imprecise professional communication. If you don’t know, learn. If you don’t understand, ask – but for pete’s sake, don’t make it up; that just entrenches ignorance. Ok, stepping off the soapbox. Top five mistakes, right?

1. That spring-loaded thing that holds the ammunition for a pistol, the one that fits into the grip? That’s a MAGAZINE, not a clip! Magazines contain mechanisms not only for storage, but for delivery of ammunition as well. A clip is just something to hold cartridges together (think of a paper clip vice the paper tray on a high end printer).

2. The vast majority of modern revolvers, and a large number of modern semi-automatic pistols do NOT have a manually operated safety mechanism (although there are internal mechanisms that ensure the firearm’s safety). Every time someone writes or talks about “flipping the safety off on his Glock,” I involuntarily shudder.

3. Despite frequent use (misuse?) of this term by the media, there is no such thing as a “semi-automatic assault weapon.” “Assault rifle” is a technical term that refers to a rifle that can be fired fully automatically (like a machine gun) at the operator’s choice and that uses a cartridge whose power is between a pistol cartridge and full power rifle cartridge. A rifle that looks like an assault rifle but that that cannot be fired fully automatically, is, well, just a rifle. Put another way, plopping a Porsche 911 body onto a Volkswagen Jetta chassis doesn’t create a Porsche 911. It creates something that looks and feels like a Porsche but still performs like a Volkswagen.

4. Shooting someone with a pistol, even the vaunted .44 Magnum, will NOT cause them to be flung back across the room or knocked down. It’s simple physics – action and reaction. If the cartridge can expel a projectile from the gun with enough force to knock someone down, the reaction would be strong enough to knock the shooter down.

5. One cannot fire magazine after magazine of ammunition through a light automatic weapon, like an AK-47, as fast as they can be swapped out. Why? Because putting a bullet down a barrel creates friction. Friction creates heat. Barrels get hot. After two or three thirty-round magazines fired automatically, the barrel on an AK is hot enough to give someone silly enough to touch it a second degree burn. Fire six to ten magazines, and the heat is enough to char or ignite wooden handguards and possibly to cook off rounds coming in contact with the chamber walls. It’s not an accident that most machine guns come with quick change barrels, or that early machine guns had water filled jackets around their barrels.

Courtesy RGUNS, Inc.

RU: I hear that TV and movies often feature information related to weapons, ammunition, forensics, etc. that is incorrect, but that the public perceives as true. How should authors respond to this misinformation?

AF: Sort of a chicken and egg question. If the author doesn’t know that the information is incorrect, how can she or he react to it? I’d like to believe that authors who do know better do all they can not to perpetuate the ignorance. I suppose that the best thing to do is to vet action scenes and technical data with a “reasonably knowledgeable individual” (RKI). If no RKI is available, I guess the author can settle for, well, me.

RU: Sorry about the chicken/egg thing! All kinds of fiction features action scenes, including romance. What are the key things to remember when choreographing a written action scene?

AF: Every action scene is a system that effects a transformation. There are one or more inputs, operating constraints (physical or otherwise), control mechanisms, and an output. The scene takes place in four dimensions – space times three (height, width, depth) and time. Of these, the most important for the writer is time; the reader will fill in a lot of the space with his or her imagination. As a result the sequence of events, their timelines and the linkages and/or physical interfaces between the events are the key things that the author has to get right, if the scene is to be believable.

Put another way, the rifle can’t be fired until a round has been chambered, and the round can’t be chambered unless it is in the magazine. And if it takes thirty seconds to load the magazine and chamber a round, but the bad guy on the motorcycle is visible for fourteen seconds, then the scene doesn’t work.

Courtesy RGUNS, Inc.

RU: You also deal with cyber security. What are some cyber security issues authors might consider?

AF: Oh gosh, where to begin? Phishing, denial of service attacks, hacking, social engineering – the list can go on and on. If I had to focus on one issue that makes for a useful plot tool, it might be the inherent insecurity of public WiFi access. When you’re at an airport, a coffee shop or a hotel and you connect to the net through an available access point, in many cases, the connection is unencrypted and your data is being transferred to the access point “in the clear.” While this makes it easier to connect, it also makes it easy for a nearby hacker, using a laptop and sniffer tools readily available on the Net, to monitor and archive all your data, including usernames, passwords and even message traffic, such as the contents of an email.

RU: I’m sensing we could do a whole separate interview on the topic of cyber crime! You offer your services as an editor/advisor to both fiction and non-fiction authors. What does this involve?

AF: In a nutshell, it depends. *grin*

My non-fiction clients are usually interested in language editing – grammar, syntax, diction, sentence and paragraph construction and ensuring that ideas are communicated effectively with an economy of words. It’s astounding how many brilliant subject matter experts have difficulty stringing words together. Given my literary and technical background, I’m in a unique position to help them. We usually come to a compensation arrangement covering the scope of the book or article being written.

Fiction authors are more interested in scene construction and technical advisory services. What kind of gun should my hero use? Can this type of missile fly that sort of mission? How do I ensure that the bad guys are taken out but not killed? Is there a less than lethal alternative? How would that scene play out in space and time? While I’m happy to work on a full-scope compensation arrangement, it often makes sense for these authors to work on an retainer/hourly billing basis.

I’m happy to discuss these services offline with interested parties; I can be contacted at adam.firestone@gmail.com.

Courtesy RGUNS, Inc.

Note: Adam Firestone presents a full day workshop sponsored by the Ohio Valley chapter of RWA on Saturday, April 14 at the Kings Island Conference Center in Cincinnati, OH. The conference is free to members of OVRWA, $25 for non-members (including a box lunch). The conference is open to all. Contact Becke Martin Davis to register or for further details.

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Have you ever personally handled guns or other weapons? Do you feature weapons in your books?

Author Shannon McKenna joins us tomorrow to explain how Adam helps with her action scenes. You won’t want to miss it!

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Bio:

Adam Firestone brings more than 25 years of experience with weapon systems including small arms, artillery, armor, area denial systems and precision guided munitions to Romance University. Additionally, Adam is an accomplished small arms instructor, editor, literary consultant and co-author of a recently published work on the production of rifles in the United States for Allied forces during the First World War.

Growing up in New York City, Adam attended Yale University on an Army ROTC scholarship, and upon graduation, became a commissioned officer in the Army’s armor branch, and was assigned to a cavalry squadron. After active duty he transferred to the National Guard and attended Brooklyn Law School. Completing his legal education, Adam was admitted to a number of state and federal bars and practiced law in New York. During this time, Adam pursued his interest in firearms and firearms education, attaining instructor certifications in rifle, pistol and shotgun, among others. Additionally, he began what was to be a seventeen year tenure as a licensed firearms dealer.

In the mid-1990s, Adam left the practice of law and began designing military command and control and planning systems for warfare areas including naval mine warfare, combat engineering and amphibious maneuver warfare. For the last four years he has been responsible for the complete re-engineering of the systems that plan, initiate, control and evaluate one of the nation’s most important long-range precision strike and power projection weapon systems. As a result of this work, Adam developed an expertise in arms export control regulations such as the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and the Export Administration Regulations (EAR).

Adam has been providing general and technical editing services to authors and publishing houses specializing in firearms books since the early 2000s. Additionally, Adam provides literary consulting services to fiction authors including action scene choreography, technical vetting and technical editing. In this line of experience, Adam has had the fortune to work with well known authors including Shannon McKenna and Elizabeth Jennings.

Check out Adam’s blog here: http://adamfirestoneconsultant.blogspot.com/