A Hero to Come Home To

Ta-da! The first book in the Tuesday Night Margarita Club/Tallgrass series is done!

Well, at least for me. The cover's still being finalized, and the production and sales people still have their stuff to do, but as of 10:20 last night, I've finished the page proofs and won't see the book again until it's been printed and bound and my author copies have arrived.

It was both sad and sweet reading the book. I still love the story, so that's good. But saying goodbye to Carly and Dane was kind of sad. Oh, they'll show up in the following books -- they get married in Book 3 -- but not as major characters. Their story is told. Therese and Keegan's story is already told, too, and Jessy and Dalton's is in the works. In fact, when I'm not writing, I'm working out story ideas for Lucy, Marti, Fia and Ilena. And when those are done, there's Bennie, Leah, Noah, Dillon and LoLo, and I'm sure more characters will pop up with their own romances.

That's one of many good things about a series: there's always someone else with a tale so you're never at a loss for ideas.

Quirky Names

I read somewhere recently that actor Rob Morrow named his kid Tu Morrow.

One of my cousins has a daughter named Harleigh Davidson.

My kid went to school with a girl whose name was pronounced "TOE-shane." Kind of pretty, isn't it? Unfortunately, it was spelled "Towchain." Did her mother see a wrecker on the way to the hospital to deliver?

But the quirky names I really want to talk about today are character names. I've had a few, usually by accident. Like Chance Reynard in A Little Bit Dangerous. I knew "chance" meant luck or fortune in French, but I used the last name of my friend, Monica. (The book was dedicated to her, too.) I didn't know until the book was done and my editor told me that "reynard" meant fox in French.

In the Tuesday Night Margarita Club/Tallgrass series, I've got twin brothers, Dalton and Dillon. I named Dalton first, knew that because of the family tradition, his brother's name also had to begin with a D, and chose Dillon. It wasn't until my editor mentioned Marshal Dillon and the Dalton gang that I recognized the significance. You'd think someone born and raised in Oklahoma would have caught on right away, but I didn't.

Not long ago I read a review of a book that takes place in Texas in which the three best friends are named Dallas, Austin and Houston. Now I'm reading a book in which the hero and his brothers are named Clay Rhodes, Stony Rhodes, and Tulane Rhodes.

So now I'm curious. What's your thought on quirky character names? Do they make you smile or roll your eyes, or do you just not care?

Disappearing Act

I know, I missed the last two blogs, haven't been on Facebook, and haven't tweeted in a while. I'm in the final pages of  A MAN TO HOLD ON TO, the second book in the Tuesday Night Margarita Club -- a couple thousand words past my target with still more story to tell. It almost always works that way. Thankfully, it almost always works, too, that I can write far more words every day at the end than I normally do. It's a good thing, since scenes keep expanding and story threads keep whispering, "Go ahead and tie me up" or "I'm not done until the next book; keep 'em hanging."

Anyway, I'll be back here -- and everywhere else -- within the next few days. In the meantime, y'all have fun in your lives without me!

Procrastination

A friend and I got new computers about the same time. Within forty-eight hours, she'd transferred everything from her old computer -- files, programs, documents, music, photos -- to her new computer.

I'm still operating with a minimal amount of date on mine. My iTunes library is on four different computers (one at least six years old). I still have photos on an old Gateway laptop with a 3 1/2" floppy drive. I have years worth of emails copied into folders on my third -- or is fourth? -- last laptop.

Writing-wise, on this new computer I have the work-in-progress for Forever Romance, A Man To Hold On To, and the first Tuesday Night Margarita Club book, A Hero to Come Home To. I also have the work-in-progress for Harlequin -- Charlotte's story! -- and a manuscript I'm critiquing for a friend. That's it. None of the ten million words of other manuscripts, notes, research that reside on various other computers.

One day I might surprise everyone, me most of all, and get every single piece of data on the same computer at the same time. In the meantime, though . . . I like to live dangerously.

Comments and Heroes

First: since I get emails from people asking, "How can I comment?", I turned the comment feature on. It's down there at the bottom by the time the post appeared. So feel free to use it.

Today I have heroes on my mind. I'm getting ready to write a proposal for a new Harlequin Copper Lake book -- an outlne and a chapter -- and then I'll jump back into Book 2 of the Tuesday Night Margarita Club. I know who both heroes (actually all three, since there's a secondary romance in TNMC 2)

They used to say that for a successful romance novel, the reader needs to relate to the heroine and fall in love with the hero. Since I've got a fair number of male readers, I don't like to limit myself. :-)

My rules for a hero: He's got to be strong even if he doesn't want to be and brave when needs to be. He has to love puppers or other small critters and children have to melt their hearts. He has to be decent, fair, willing to admit his mistakes and weaknesses and have true sense of justice. And one other thing: he doesn't wear his machoness on his shoulder like a chip.

That's just me. There are a lot of popular heroes out there who are totally alpha: bossy, forceful, in your face, rude and crude -- just like real guys. I've got tons of friends who love those kind of heroes. But you won't find them in my books. You know, we live with reality. I don't want that much of it in my heroes. I want them to be guys you can take home to Mom, guys who have a sense of when "being a guy" is appropriate and when it's better to act somewhat civilized. I don't want them to be perfect -- God forbid! -- but almost real, with a hint of fantasy, is perfect for me.

Editors

I occasionally read indie-publishing blogs, and one thing's caught my attention. Among the more avid indie-publishing authors, "editor" seems to have become a bad word. "I don't need no stinkin' editor," some of them say. (Well, what they tend to say is, "I can edit myself as good as any NY editor or I can hire someone to do it for me.")

In my never-humble opinion, after the story and the writing, editors are the most important part of the biz. A good editor will make your work shine like the diamond you're convinced it is. (A bad one will make you want to slit wrists -- yours or hers; at that point, it makes no difference.)

I disagree that anyone can edit themselves as well as a professional editor. We're too close to the story. We've worked too hard to write those words, describe those settings, come up with that witty dialogue. What we see as clever and cute and endearing, editors can see for the annoyance it becomes to the reader. They can spot the plot holes and the inconsistencies and the clumsy repetitions.

Editors can make a so-so book into one well worth reading (to say nothing of buying).

I've been blessed to work with wonderful editors. Leslie Wainger, who bought my very first book and taught me so much. Jeanne Tiedge, Claire Zion (who said an editor's job is to make the book better, not different), Beth DeGuzman, Melissa Jeglinski (who's now my wonderful agent). Wendy McCurdy, Patience Smith, Shana Smith (my current Harlequin editor) and Selina McLemore (who's editing the Tuesday Night Margarita Club books). I've been published for more than 25 years, and most of the responsibility goes to them.

Major thanks, guys!

Titles

You can't have a book without one, right? So you'd think after 25+ years in the business, I would have developed at least a tad bit of talent for them. Uh, no. It's pretty much just courtesy when my editors ask for my input. I'll think until I strain my brain, send them the pathetic few I've come up with, and they say, "Yeah, thanks, but no."

We're at the title-selection phase on the Tuesday Night Margarita Club. I, of course, don't have a clue. On the rare occasion I do think of a title, I don't get attached to it. Except one. The working title for Season for Miracles was Miracle on 3rd or 4th Street. It came from Noelle the cafe angel not being able to remember where the empty house was, so she told Emily it was . . . you get the idea. Loved that title. So did some of the publishing staff. The rest hated it wth a vengeance.

Ah, well . . . sometimes you come up with a winner, and sometimes you don't.

Background

Because the margarita series is set in the fictional Tallgrass, Oklahoma, not far from the Tallgrass Prairie, I wanted to have a prairie shot for the background of this site. My husband searched for hours and found the absolute perfect shot. He sent me the website, and I filled out the form to license the photo . . . which came out to about a thousand bucks a year!! Ouch. Instead I went out before the temp hit triple digits and took some pictures of our own "prairie" -- the field on the way to our pond and (ahem) our front yard. This one is the field, with our road curving around on the right. I'll post the front-yard prairie on the photos page. Um, maybe.