Consolation Prize

Life does not always come with a consolation prize.

My dear grandmother who is turning 93 in two weeks was recently playing 50/50 at the "Seniors" complex. They called out the number and she looked at her ticket with a delighted grin. Grabbing her cane and ambling up to the front of the room (Grandma moves quickly when it comes to winning money), she noticed that a woman was already standing at the table. She ignored the woman and handed over her ticket with the air of one who is about to become a milllionaire (the prize was $15.00).  The man behind the table took her ticket and looked at the number and politely said, "I'm sorry, the winning number is 5535, you have 5536."

Grandma looked at the ticket and then glanced at the woman next to her that was claiming the $15.00 pot.  Grandma looked at her ticket again in disbelief and turned around, moving very slowly back to the table. She later called me and cried, "I felt so bad."

I know, I know. What a terrible tale I am sharing, but I did have a point to make. Life doesn't always hand out consolation prizes....but I do!   On May 17th I will be giving away a copy of ENDLESS NIGHT on Carina Press's blog in celebration of my release day. If you are not lucky enough to win that copy, you have a second opportunity here to win one. On May 17th I will select a random commenter from this blog to win an ePub or PDF version of my romantic suspense novel, ENDLESS NIGHT.

Grandma is excluded from this contest. She already has a copy. :)

Romulan Escapes

In my "April Fool's" blog on Not Your Usual Suspects, I introduced a genre called Romulan, "Romance under land". Though the genre is fictitious, I was surprised to find that there is a market in this strange world of ours for romance at the center of the earth.

In Sweden, the Sala Silvermine offers a romantic suite nestled 155 meters underground. It takes a 4 minute elevator ride to get down to the mine.Tucked away in a cavern that offers a banquet hall, this underground suite is warmed up to 18 degrees from its default temperature of 2!

No folks, this one isn't an April Fool's joke. This is a true resort, and it does manage to post a disclaimer, "Not recommended if you suffer from claustrophobia."

Romulan is making it's mark on the world. :)

Hero or villain?

We all love the hero, but it's just us here now...admit it...isn't the villain a little more fascinating sometimes?

For example, in Gladiator. Yes, Russell Crowe was an incredible hero and he earned an Oscar for his efforts. Yet, how could you not help but to be riveted by the evil and deranged performance of Joaquin Phoenix? Perhaps Gladiator is a poor example because the hero's character carries with him enough pain and trauma to flesh him out as significantly as the villain. But many times we can cheer on a hero, only to find that he is nowhere near as intriguing as whatever makes the 'bad guy' tick.

In Heat, two masters of the art face off. Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro. Is there a hero and villain in that duo? Yes, the characters reflected that, but as a viewer you just strapped yourself into the roller coaster and watched these actors execute a dance of talent that you never wanted to end.

Can we not make the argument that Darth Vader far exceeded the attraction of Luke Skywalker? Was Heath Ledger's Joker not more fascinating than Batman himself?

I am a romance author. I love my heroes, and I always want them to win, but the villain will continue to fascinate me. The villain will make my mind work extra hard to analyze his motivations. Without the villain, my hero ceases to exist.

Meteor Strategy

When I used to train people how to use the software our company wrote, my example in crisis recovery was always, "What if a meteor crashed through the roof and landed on your computer...?"

The meteor strategy works for me in writing as well. If I'm standing at the crossroads, a gaping intersection with street signs that say, "WRITER'S BLOCK" in each direction...I have no choice but to resort to the meteor strategy. What if a meteor were to fall down from the sky and crash onto my current scene? What would my characters do? How would they react to this crisis? How would they recover?

An example. My characters are trapped in a remote outpost with a jeep stuck in the mud, and a steady rainfall thwarting all their efforts. To make matters worse, they have run out of things to say to each other, and honestly, I don't know where they will go if the jeep gets out of the mud. I have no clue, and sadly, I don't particularly care.

BOOM! A meteor falls from the sky and crashes just a few short feet from the immobile jeep.

What are they going to do?
How are they going to recover?


The meteor has caused a gaping crater in the earth into which all the water is now pooling, reducing the viscous substance that is locking the jeep in place. Across this crater my characters look at each other in disbelief. "My God," they say, "a meteor has just crashed at our feet." In that moment the man notices that the rainfall has made the woman's white shirt a diaphanous sheet of silk, and he charges the circumference of the crater and takes her into his arms and kisses her passionately.

Yes, this is all completely absurd, but what have I done here? I have taken a meteor and hurled it into the scene, which has allowed me to step outside the box and look at what is happening between my characters and their environment.

Apply the meteor strategy at home. The kids are yelling. Your husband is on the cellphone because his work place misses him desperately in the half hour it has been since he left there. The dog just coughed up the remnants of a can of Play-Doh, and you realize you never started the timer on the stove.

Stop and yell out, "What would you all do if a meteor crashed on the table right now?"

I guarantee you they will all stop and look at you, and yes for once...for one unbelievably powerful second, you will command their attention. Seize the moment! Form the next scene!