Category: Guest Bloggers

By Wendy Roberts

I’m not great at setting New Year’s resolutions. Actually, it’s the keeping of the resolutions where I fail. I can always lose a few pounds (okay, more than a few) and exercise more (okay, start exercising), and be less of a control freak (okay, maybe I can’t be less controlling).

However, there is one resolution I’ve managed to keep year after year. I kill people. Sure, it’s only on paper but that anger has to start somewhere, right? So if you cut me off in traffic, annoy me in the check-out line, tackle my son during a football game, or give me a bad review…well, chances are good you’re going to die. I apologize. Really I do. But, in my world, that’s just the way it is.

Writing a series that involves crime scene cleanup means having to come up with dead people on a regular basis, and I have to admit that I enjoy this part of my job immensely. Even though the names have been changed to protect the guilty, I get real joy from releasing a little tension with a little murder.

Do you have any stress left over from the holidays? How do you work off the tension?

Thanks to Cindy for inviting me to blog. In addition to my latest release, DEAD AND KICKING, I’m pleased to offer the first in the series, REMAINS OF THE DEAD, to a winner who posts a comment.

Happy New Year!

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Leave a comment or question for Wendy to enter to win DEAD AND KICKING and REMAINS OF THE DEAD. If you’re reading Wendy’s post through a feed on Facebook, Goodreads, or another social network, please visit the comment trail at Muse Interrupted to be eligible for the draw.

To read Wendy’s bio and the back cover blurb for DEAD AND KICKING, please see yesterday’s post. To learn more about Wendy and her books, check out her website.

Mystery author Wendy Roberts visits the blog tomorrow with her own take on New Year’s resolutions…and it’s pretty murderous, let me tell you. Wendy is giving away a copy of DEAD AND KICKING, the third in her GhostDusters series. As a bonus, she’s also giving away the first in the series, REMAINS OF THE DEAD.

About DEAD AND KICKING:

Sadie Novak cleans up crime scenes for a living, and often finds herself face-to-face with the dead. Blessed – or cursed – with the gift of second sight, she can’t seem to finish a job without being visited by an earthbound spirit.

Sadie’s going through a tough time. When her dad passes away, she’s left to juggle her widowed mother, her lying boyfriend, Zack, her struggling business – and the fact that her father’s spirit is reluctant to move on. Now, on top of all that, Zack’s former flame hires Sadie to dig out the home of her hoarder mother … and that’s when things get messy.

Sadie finds some unexpected things in the cluttered house – including the mummified remains of an infant, along with a very angry ghost who seems determined to keep Sadie away. Then, aided by a team of her fellow psychics, she unearths something even more terrifying: a host of secrets that someone will kill to keep buried.

About Wendy:

Wendy Roberts is the author of Penguin’s Ghost Dusters series. She resides in the Pacific Northwest with her four children, a sluggish guinea pig and an adorable Yorkshire terrier. She happily writes about murder and is hard at work on her next novel.

You can visit Wendy’s website at www.wendyroberts.com.

IDEAS ARE ON EVERY STREET CORNER… (LIKE HOOKERS WAITING TO BE PICKED UP)

Thanks Cindy for inviting me here today! What fun! I’m thinking no one here knows how we met. Several years ago, I recall waiting anxiously to pitch story ideas at a conference. In the line up was a gorgeous woman with a great smile and beautiful eyes who looked as nervous as I felt. We discovered we were both pitching to an editor for Harlequin Temptation. We both loved the line and thought our stories would work there. (After all that was the hottest line we could find at the time.)

Guess what? Neither of us ever sold to Temptation. But over the years we kept in touch sporadically through email and in hallways at conference hotels. I sold elsewhere…then I heard she’d sold…and guess what? We both write erotic romance (Cindy under a pen name) and love it. I’ve decided the market finally caught up to us when longer, more erotic stories bloomed. And here we are today!

How cool is that?

Ever wonder where writers get their ideas? So do I. I get mine anywhere and everywhere. One time, I saw a young woman driving with tears streaming down her cheeks. Hm.

Had her parents just told her they hated the new man in her life? That he was a con artist? A nose-picker? A wanted fugitive?

Just the other day, I walked by a couple on a street corner in the middle of a no-holds-barred argument. I mean, it was cold, brutal, tell it like it is relationship-killing stuff. She was furious! Chin tilted, eyes defiant and wide to hold in angry tears. He was on the attack. (Verbally, of course…but my dh kept an eye on the guy just in case she needed help if things turned physical— my hero!)

The conversation revolved around her desire for him to spend huge bucks. Yes, it was that clear what they were arguing about.

Did I make a judgement on them with one flick down her well-dressed, perfectly coiffed and made up face and body? Yes, I did.

He liked trophies and she liked being one. What she didn’t like was being called on it. The body language from this pair was superb, though.

I wonder if they’re still together? I wonder if street arguments are part of the drama of their lives? I wonder if on some level they actually like them?

All fodder for the writer’s mind. The other night I celebrated with a dinner out at a real restaurant with linen placemats instead of paper. We watched a van pull over and park. No one got out. By the time dinner was over I’d decided the driver was tucking body parts into the rug he had rolled up in the back.

I’m sick and I know it.

Good thing I’m a writer or my family would be worried. Or afraid. Very afraid.

So, as readers, do you ever make up stories for things you see or conversations you overhear? Do you ever re-write the ends of novels to suit yourself?

I’m excited to offer BREATHLESS to one lucky person who comments…come on folks, spill your guts…you know you want to. (Just not on street corners please, it’s distracting to the other pedestrians.)

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Please leave a comment for Bonnie to enter to win BREATHLESS. If you’re reading Bonnie’s post on Facebook or another social network, please note that you need to leave your comment at http://www.museinterrupted.com in order to be eligible for the draw.

To read Bonnie’s bio and the back cover blurb for BREATHLESS, refer to yesterday’s post. To learn more about Bonnie and her books, visit her website.

To learn if Cindy bribed Bonnie for the nice compliments…well, let’s just get it over with and state that yes, Cindy did.

Tomorrow erotic romance author Bonnie Edwards drops by as my last guest blogger of the year. Thank you, Bonnie! Bonnie’s blogging about from where writers get their ideas and is giving away a copy of her December 2009 Kensington Aphrodisia novella anthology, BREATHLESS. Yes, she is. Would I lie?

About BREATHLESS:

“Let go. Let go for me…” It was a house of sizzling seduction, and satisfaction guaranteed. Now the notorious bordello Perdition House bares all its secrets—and ignites your wildest fantasies…

Blue McCann longs to feel desired…needed…wanted. Now, thanks to a mysterious corset, she’s a lush-bodied beauty back in 1913. And she’s going to reward the caring, oh-so-capable hands of Dr. Colt Stephens with all the pleasure he can take…

Tawny James has legs—and secrets—that won’t quit. And since she likes her men big and bad, private investigator Stack Hamilton is uncovering all her luscious desires…

And when Mariel Gibson needs artistic inspiration, she calls hard-bodied carpenter Danny Glenn to work his masterpiece—over and over again. Because you can never, ever reveal too much…

About Bonnie:

Bonnie Edwards has worked at a variety of jobs but loves storytelling best. Raised in Toronto, Canada, she now lives on an island within view of the Coastal Mountains and the City of Vancouver. In 2006, she helped launch the Kensington Aphrodisia erotic romance line. December 2009 brings BREATHLESS, a single author anthology from Aphrodisia. Look for her Harlequin Blaze, Possessing Morgan, in March 2010.

To learn more about Bonnie and her books, please visit her website.

ROMANCING THE LIBRARIAN

Cindy, thanks so much for inviting me to visit Muse Interrupted.

Recently I attended a great workshop presented by Susan Wiggs, one of my favorite authors. She illustrated her presentation with examples from her current release, Lakeshore Christmas (which I highly recommend). I’d just finished the book and had noticed a similarity between her heroine, Maureen the librarian, and the heroine of my December release, SEX DRIVE, Theresa the sociology professor.

I knew exactly where my character had come from and I’d wondered about Susan’s, so I was very interested when she said that her Maureen was a librarian archetype. Yes! That’s exactly how I see Theresa.

What’s an archetype? There are certain characters who immediately resonate with readers (or viewers) because we recognize and understand them. They’re often “larger than life,” yet we feel that we know them. These characters, in numerous incarnations and variations, appear over and over again in myths, fairy tales, books, and movies, and we never get tired of them. They’re not stereotypes – e.g., each librarian character is unique – but they share some common features. For example, the following are all librarians: Katharine Hepburn in The African Queen, Kathleen Turner in Romancing the Stone, and of course Marian the librarian in The Music Man. Get the picture? (And can’t you just imagine a dashing hero ripping off her glasses, pulling the pins out of her hair, and releasing all the passion that’s hidden inside that buttoned-up exterior?)

Do you know the movie, The Big Easy? It’s one of my favorites. Ellen Barkin plays Anne Osbourne, a repressed rule-bound lawyer who has a hidden sensual side just waiting for the right man to bring it out. The man is Dennis Quaid, playing Remy McSwain, a sexy, charming cop who isn’t much for respecting any rules. She’s a librarian and he’s a charmer archetype.

That’s the same heroine/hero mix I used in SEX DRIVE.

Prof. Theresa Fallon was a child genius who aced her schoolwork and flunked Boys 101. When, on the flight from Sydney to Vancouver, BC, she’s seated beside Damien Black, one of Australia’s ten sexiest bachelors, she’s about to get a crash course in flirting, fooling around, and maybe even love. As typically happens when you put a librarian and a charmer together, she learns how to lighten up and have fun, and discovers her own sensuality and sexuality, and he learns that while games are fun, life’s even more rewarding when you find something – or someone – to get serious about.

There are many different kinds of archetype schemes: e.g., zodiac signs, Jungian archetypes, enneagrams, Myers-Briggs personality types. The one that really clicks for me is the one developed by Tami D. Cowden, Caro LaFever, and Sue Viders, in The Complete Writer’s Guide to Heroes & Heroines: Sixteen Master Archetypes. This is a fascinating book to read, with examples from classic movies, TV shows, and books. (And of course you have to do your homework by rereading the books and renting the DVDs. Such a tough life, doing all that research.)

If you’d like to see an example of archetypes in action, I hope you’ll check out SEX DRIVE. It’s the first in my four-book Wild Ride to Love series (planes, trains, automobiles and a cruise ship) starring the four Fallon sisters.

Now, how about you? Who are some of the heroines and heroes who stand out in your mind, and what makes them so memorable? If you had to describe them in a word or phrase, what would it be? Let’s come up with more titles of books and movies so we’ll have lots of enjoyable homework to do over our winter holidays!

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Please leave a comment or question for Susan to enter to win a copy of SEX DRIVE. If you’re reading Susan’s post from a feed at Facebook, Goodreads, or another social network, please note that in order to enter the draw to win Susan’s book, you need to leave your comment on her blog at Muse Interrupted.

To read Susan’s bio and the back cover blurb for SEX DRIVE, please visit yesterday’s post. To learn more about Susan and her books, check out her website.