HelenKay Dimon's Blog, page 39

Look Into The Future

How about a really early look at my first Intrigue of 2012, WHEN SHE WASN'T LOOKING?

The book is written. It's on my mind because I had to fill out the Art Fact Sheet so the good folks at Harlequin can start working on a cover. One of the new things they ask is for us to provide links to folks who might look like our hero and heroine. Honestly, I never think in those terms. I create these people in my head and don't do the "this hero looks like Clive Owen" thing. Still, I was able to get people I thought, in these specific photos, had the essence of what I had in my head.

Hero: Jonas Porter – (actor Keanu Reeves from an awesome Details cover)

Heroine: Courtney Allen – (actress Rose Byrne from a photo service)

And here's the meet up from chapter one (unedited):

Jonas Porter yawned as he marched up the front porch steps to the craftsman-style bungalow in the middle of nowhere. At ten in the morning he'd been on shift for more than sixteen straight hours thanks to the Webber kid taking his neighbor's car for a joyride that ended with a big splash into the Siuslaw River.

When he took the law enforcement position, Jonas had been promised relative peace and quiet by the county sheriff and Jonas' long-time mentor, Walt Roberts. Since Jonas needed a break and crime didn't run rampant in Aberdeen, the small Oregon town where the river dumped into the Pacific Ocean, the job looked like the perfect solution. If a drunk pre-teen with a lack of common sense turned out to be the biggest problem, Jonas could live with that.

Agreeing to handle one small task on his way back to his place to pass out was probably not his brightest move. He needed sleep, but this should easy. In and out and then he could slip into bed for a few hours.

He knocked on the dark red door. The rock beat thumping inside and shaking the walls cut off. He double-checked the house number to make sure he was at the right place. He expected an older lady, a grandmother type. He guessed this one liked her music loud, which blew his older-woman stereotype apart.

In the resulting silence he waited for someone to open up. When no one did, he raised his hand to try again and nearly punched the woman who threw the door open.

"Sorry." He mumbled as he stared into big brown eyes filled with a wariness that appeared older than the rest of her.

"Yes?" What little smile she did have faded when her gaze traveled down his chest.

A guy could get a complex. "Ma'am, is this your house?"

"Of course."

The high cheekbones and slim figure didn't make any sense. Young and pretty with shoulder-length brown hair and not at all the lonely older woman he'd been told to check on. This one couldn't be more than in her mid-to-late twenties. She wore a slim long-sleeve red t-shirt, and if his guess was right, no bra.

He pretended not to notice the last part. "I'm Lieutenant Jonas Porter, the deputy police chief."

"I got that much from the uniform and nametag."

"Right. Sure." She had him stuttering like the Webber kid.

"Why are you here?" She wiped her hands on her olive cargo pants but didn't shift one inch to let him in.

Young or old, she hardly struck him as a woman who needed police assistance to make sure she took her medicine on time. This one could handle her business without any help from him. The flat line of her mouth and clenched fists suggested she wanted to kick him right off the porch.

Coming May 2012…

Rearranging

Mu hubby and I have had one huge problem since we got married…figuring out the best way to arrange the den/office. We've lived in three houses and only now, after almost thirteen years of marriage, did we finally get it right. We bought the perfect desk – this from Pottery Barn:

Then we got new bookshelves. These are streamlined in that they aren't very deep. The point being, much to my hubby's happiness, I can't just stack stuff everywhere. I actually have to put the books away. We have either standing bookselves or built-in bookshelves in four rooms of our house. This is the "keeper" romance collection:

I actually need one more shelf. The hubby thinks we're done, so we're negotiating the additional one right now.

And in case you're wondering, the bookshelf breakdown goes like this:

-romance novels in the office

-nonfiction in the living room

-the classics collection in the guest bedroom

-mysteries, thrillers and general fiction in the master bedroom

I have no idea how we came up with that division, but it works with the space we have.

Contest Winner!

We have a winner for the Blog Contest for August. It's Jane (Comment #2 on the August 9th blog entry) – congratulations! Email me so I can get your prize to you.

Snippet Saturday

The topic today is weather and since I have a Christmas novella coming out in December from Carina, I thought this might be a good time for an early sneak peek. The anthology is called HOLIDAY KISSES and my story is It's Not Christmas Without You. Here's an unedited excerpt:

Carrie Anders loved Christmas. The lights, the cookies, the holiday spirit, the cookies, the carols…the cookies. She'd spent every holiday of the last twenty-six years in Holloway, West Virginia, the small town a few miles from the Maryland border where she grew up and her parents and brother still lived. She planned on breaking her streak by staying in Washington, D.C. this year.

No big family dinner. No week off. Just one day at home in her tiny apartment before heading back to her shift at the museum. Though she loved the job, the idea of working over the holidays made her grumpy to the point of sneering. But keeping busy meant keeping her mind off the man she missed more each day instead of less.



That whole absence makes the heart grow fonder thing? Yeah, that wasn't her experience. Not if the constant dull ache in her chest was an indication. After months away from home and him, she still felt the pull. She'd read all about eternal longing in books and thought it sounded dramatic. Now she lived it. She'd be in a meeting or even brushing her teeth and her mind would wander back to the man who grabbed her heart when he was still a long-haired boy driving a muscle car.

Good thing her mom had shipped two tins of sugar cookies for early holiday taste testing. They took her mind off everything else…for a second or two. Only broken edges remained, but Carrie kept eating. She may even have licked her finger then crunched it against the crumbs for a snack.

Rather than mope in a sea of cookie dust and dwell on that whole broken heart thing, she buttoned her pea coat and went downstairs for some fresh Sunday air. Standing in the lobby of her apartment building, she stared at the empty lot across the street. Make that the formerly empty lot.

The corner at the end of the Whitehurst Freeway that separated the Foggy Bottom area of Washington, D.C. from its wealthy neighbor Georgetown now housed what looked like a misplaced forest. A thousand soon-to-be Christmas trees lined the small strip of grass usually reserved for resident dog walking. Something about the combination of dog poo and Christmas trees fit with her feelings about the holiday this year.

A string of white lights clipped to beams outlined the space in a square. A building about the size of a shed sat at the end closest to the street. As she watched, a man grabbed the trees from the stacks one-by-one and staked them upright.

Despite the chill and last night's dusting of snow, he wore faded blue jeans and a half tucked-in flannel shirt. His only nod to the weather was the combination of work boots and gloves, and those likely had more to do with the way he was throwing six-foot trees around than the icy air.

It was the first week of December. She'd been counting down the days until the lot opened because, by God, she'd have a tree even if she had to move her couch into the hallway to fit the tree in her five-hundred square foot apartment.

But it looked like she'd have to wait a few more hours until the lot was up and running. Maybe she'd grab a coffee and…

Her gaze went back to the guy and an unexpected heat rolled through her. Broad shoulders and a waist trim enough to make the hem of his shirt hang away from his body. The rip in his decade-old jeans right under his left butt cheek. The slight flap to the pocket where the thread lost its battle with time.

Oh, yeah. She knew that ass. Knew all of him, actually. Brown hair that brushed against his eyebrows, bright blue eyes and a stubborn streak to rival two eighty year-old coal miners engaged in a political argument.

Austin Thomas. High school love, ex-boyfriend of six months who refused to stay ex, and the reason for the constant ache around her heart.

Her sneakers slipped against the slick sidewalk as she stumbled her way into a perfect furious stalk. Excitement and anger warred inside her with each breath. She tamped down on the white light of happiness that bloomed in her stomach just from seeing him and let the darker side of her emotions fuel her steps.

Five feet away, Austin spun around and shot her his best I've-been-waiting-for-you smile. The same one guaranteed to make her panties hit the floor and her common sense pack for vacation.

Oh, no. Not this time.

____________

Remember to check out the other authors' snippets:

Lacey Savage

TJ Michaels

Shiloh Walker

Denise A. Agnew

Shelli Stevens

Alison Kent

Leah Braemel

Jody Wallace

Eliza Gayle

Mari Carr

McKenna Jeffries

Anne Rainey/a>

Myla Jackson

Selena Blake

Taige Crenshaw

Writing A Series: Bad Guys

Here's Part III of what my How a Pantser Writes A Series Proposal And Somehow Sells It Without Having Any Idea What She's Doing series.

When you write a four-book miniseries you need more than one bad guy. I realized this about halfway through the first book GUNS AND THE GIRL NEXT DOOR. I figured out quickly if I resolved everything then the suspense aspects of the next three books would be a bit light…as in non-existent. That's when a "problem" within WitSec (witness protection) became a conspiracy within WitSec. Once I came to this conclusion the pieces fell into place. I read a book about Witsec, did some research and learned a lot about how the whole thing works (well, to the extent that information is known). From there I could lay out the conspiracy in my head.

After all that, there were two things that suprised me:



1. How big Trevor's role became in the series.

2. The final bad guy in THE BIG GUNS.

In an effort to avoid spoilers, I'll focus on #1. When it comes to #2, I went back and forth on that until I decided on the right answer. Cryptic? Yeah, sorry about that. You'll see when the book comes out in a week.

Trevor…yeah, I didn't even know there was a Trevor until I wrote this scene in GUNS AND THE GIRL NEXT DOOR (unedited):

"Listen to the man, Bram." Trevor Walters shoved open the door to the back room of the small medical clinic, shouting orders and texting as he walked.

It was almost three in the morning and no one was around except the people Trevor required to be there. Bram was the congressman but Trevor ran the show. Typical older, powerful brother with a god complex.

"About time you showed up." Leave it to Trevor to appear after the fighting ended. Just one more reason for Bram to question who was taking the biggest risk in this deal.

Trevor stared down the doctor. "Leave us alone for a minute."

Bram waited until they were alone to express his concern. "Can he be trusted?"

"The doctor is on my payroll."

"Is there anyone who isn't?" Only someone who worked for Trevor would be unimpressed with a member of congress showing up on his doorstep in the middle of the night needing medical attention.

"Mia Landers."

"What about her?"

Trevor shoved his phone into his coat pocket. "What made you think you should handle that loose end on your own?"

"She was my employee. I was driving her out there to ask questions and flush out her partner. You didn't need to interfere."

"A poorly thought out plan."

Trevor took a difficult situation and blew it out of control, but Bram knew his brother would never admit it. "Only because you sent the commandos after me. What were you thinking?"

"That I needed to clean up your mess.

From there I realized Trevor could be the nemesis of the Recovery Project, that he was the perfect foil for Luke. I wanted Trevor to be more than a powerful guy who used his connections to get his way. I wanted something deeper, a guy with clear motivations and murky values, yet not a guy who was bad just for the sake of being bad. He changes a bit over time. Several readers have written and talked about Trevor's evolution, especially in LOCKED AND LOADED. I'm thrilled to hear that because it was totally on purpose.

And now you've seen a peek behind the curtain. Hope you enjoy the series!

Writing A Series: Heroines

Here's Part II of what I affectionately call How a Pantser Writes A Series Proposal And Somehow Sells It Without Having Any Idea What She's Doing.

You will quickly see that while putting together a proposal for the Mystery Men minsieries I had no idea who the heroines of books #3 and #4 would be. Oh, the proposal included potential heroines for each story, along with plots and backstories. Those potential heroines just didn't end up being the actual heroines in either book. As yesterday's post showed, neither did the plots.

The heroine in LOCKED AND LOADED (Book #3) is Maddie. In Book #4, THE BIG GUNS, the heroine is Sela. Maddie is a WitSec participant whose identity and whereabouts have been leaked by someone within WitSec and she's now in danger. Sela is the assistant to the Recovery Project's nemesis, Trevor.

Maddie: When I originally wrote GUNS AND THE GIRL NEXT DOOR (Book #1), I had talked about three WitSec ladies whose identities were leaked and said they were all dead. Then I went back and killed off two and didn't mention the third. It was while I was writing GUNNING FOR TROUBLE (Book #2) that I realized a the perfect heroine for Adam for Book #3 would be a tough, had-to-fight-to-survive woman on the run from her past and from a person who thought getting money for her information was more improtant than keeping her alive. The is-Maddie-dead-or-not a thread throughout GUNNING FOR TROUBLE. By the time I got to the halfway point of writing the book, I knew who Maddie was, how perfect she would be for Adam, her background and issues, and the entire plot of LOCKED AND LOADED…but I didn't really have a clue before then.

SELA: She was an even bigger surprise. I never intended to have an assistant for Trevor who played any sort of role in the series. I had completely written GUNNING FOR TROUBLE when I realized an assitant for Trevor might work well in the final book and edited the book to add Sela here:

Trevor didn't bother with sitting at his desk because Russell wouldn't be staying long. If he harassed Sela again, he wouldn't even be allowed in the building. Good executive assistants were hard to find and Sela Andrews was exceptional. Trevor wasn't about to start a new employee search and waste his investment in training her simply because Russell couldn't control his temper.

That is the only role Sela plays in the series until she pops up again in LOCKED AND LOADED. That time I knew she was the perfect heroine for THE BIG GUNS and for Zach. She also plays an important role in making Trevor, a guy who is not so nice, seem human. Or at least I hope she does. But she didn't start out as any of those things. When I wrote the initial proposal, I had this in the proposal for THE BIG GUNS:

On the run and in trouble, Sela has many secrets, including the one she can't disclose to Zach no matter how much she grows to care for him – her participation in the Witness Security Program.

This is the only mention in the entire proposal of WitSec. As you know by now, the entire series turned out to be about a WitSec conspiracy but this is the only thought I had about WitSec when I wrote the original proposal and, honestly, I had no idea where this backstory was going to fit in with the series. I then started writing the first book and decided WitSec was the key plot point. I didn't give Sela a thought until the moment after GUNNING FOR TROUBLE (Book #2) was done and realized I wasn't sure how the series was going to end. Then Sela-the-corporate-assistant appeared and Sela-the-WitSec-participant was gone from my mind, and I added that one paragraph (above) mentioning her.

I always knew who the heroines for Holden and Caleb would be. Some aspects of the stories changed as I wrote, but Mia and Avery were clear in my head, especially the former-lovers aspect of Avery and Caleb's relationship and the collision course feel of Holden and Mia's. I'd like to pretend the heroines for Zach and Adam were as clear from the start, but they weren't. Part of me thinks I had to "get to know" the guys before I could figure out who would work best for them as heroines. Despite the delay and all the changes, I do think Sela and Maddie are the right ladies for these men. I just took the long way getting there.

Writing a Series: Plot

I'm going to call the posts this week: How a Pantser Writes A Series Proposal And Somehow Sells It Without Having Any Idea What She's Doing.

Ready?

I've said before, but it's worth repeating, I don't plot out a book from beginning to end, chapter by chapter, before I start. Actually, I should say that I did it one time – for IT'S HOTTER IN HAWAII – and it was the hardest book I've ever written. Like, the book made me go back and forth between wanting to cry and wanting to throw my laptop out the window.

I'm one of those folks who if I write a super detailed synopsis for a book then in my mind the book is done and there's nothing left to write. Instead of all that super pre-plotting, I need to think about the book, take some notes and, frankly, start writing. I revise the book every single day as I write. In fact, for most of the book, I start each day by reading from page 1 – not kidding – to where I stopped writing the night before. That means, by the time I finish the book, it has been polished and revised about a billion times. It's a convoluted process but when I tried to change it (the IT'S HOTTER IN HAWAII plotting disaster), I was miserable and every writing day was painful.

Knowing I'm not good at pre-plotting a book, imagine my panic when my Intrigue editor asked me to do a proposal for a four-book miniseries. That meant having a plan and writing four synopses. It also meant having some idea what was going to happen in the series. I actually had no idea what was going to happen which will become obvious in a second.

The first book in the Mystery Men miniseries (not counting UNDER THE GUN which introduced the Recovery Project group) is GUNS AND THE GIRL NEXT DOOR. The miniseries is about a conspiracy within WitSec, witness protection, where a group of powerful people are selling out the whereabouts of witness protection participants for big money. The conspiracy is set up in GUNS AND THE GIRL NEXT DOOR, but you'd never know that from the original synopsis I wrote:

Holden Price is bored with hanging out in secluded cabin waiting for a call to come that tells him to get back to work at the Recovery Project. Until a beautiful blonde drives a car right until his living room. Worse, Mia Landers insists that destroying his house is not her only crime. She knows she hit someone. Not just any someone, a controversial congressman. But there isn't a body and Mia can't seem to remember exactly what happened or what made her use Holden's house as a parking lot.

Holden finds blood on the front of Mia's car. He also finds Mia's desire to do the right thing compelling. Since she refuses to believe she fell asleep at the wheel, Holden calls on his old Recovery Project team to help him check the story out. It will give them all an opportunity to use their skills and stay fresh, especially since the police aren't interested in what they think is simple accident. When the congressman shows up on television very much alive two days later, Holden wonders if the woman he finds so attractive is really little crazy. Then her apartment catches a fire and her car disappears. And the supposedly legitimate men who come to Holden's house to review the crime scene don't appear to exist when Holden goes digging in their backgrounds.

Clearly someone is going to great lengths to wipe out any evidence of the accident and the congressman is changing his votes on major legislation. It's up to Holden and Mia to unravel the clues about the accident that never happened without becoming victims or losing each other.

Let's just go with the obvious problems:

1. This synopsis is super short and says NOTHING about the plot of the book.

2. WitSec isn't even mentioned here. Know why? Because I had no idea the miniseries was about a conspriacy in WitSec until I started writing this book.

Can you tell the one thing I knew about this book before I started writing? The opening scene. Mia does drive her car right through the front door of Holden's cabin. That much I knew. That opening scene was in my head. What happened next? Yeah, I had no clue until I started writing.

But it gets worse. Here's a paragraph from my proposal for Book #2, which became GUNNING FOR TROUBLE:

A Homeland Security official asks a favor of the Project team. This one is private, but the official's promise of putting in a good word for the reestablishment of the group is hard to ignore. He wants the group to check into rumors of wrongdoing by one of Homeland's top administrators. A child is missing. His mother had always insisted the child was kidnapped as part of a government conspiracy. The mother is now dead, which raises even more questions about what happened to the child. The group agrees to help with Adam Wright leading the covert investigation.

Obvious problems here:

1. Adam is not the hero in this book. Caleb is. Clearly I changed that before I started.

2. Again, do you see any mention of WitSec? Nope.

3. This paragraph has absolutely nothing to do with what happens in the book, which is a former-lovers-must-work-together hook. I ditched this plot once I knew the miniseries was about a conspiracy in WitSec.

At this point I will admit I can't even find the original proposed synopsis for Book #3, which became LOCKED AND LOADED. I have no idea why there's a blank in the proposal copy I have saved. I figure I filled in something before submitting it to my editor, but I have no idea what I said. I do know I didn't use whatever was originally on there since LOCKED AND LOADED follows Adam and a woman in WitSec whose identity has been compromised. I know the proposal didn't say that because Caleb was the original hero here and I switched that after selling the proposal. Also, when I finally did decide to write about a WitSec conspiracy, I wrote the entire Book #1 (GUNS AND THE GIRL NEXT DOOR) saying all of the participants who had been compromised were now dead. It wasn't until I finished the book and was about to turn it in that I realized I wanted at least one alive and had to go back and revise. So, poor Maddie (the LOCKED AND LOADED heroine) wasn't even alive when I wrote the original proposal. Poor Maddie.

And Book #4. Wow. I can't even show you the proposal because I'd give too much away of THE BIG GUNS. Note: the book comes out in about a week, so you don't have to wait long to read it. What I describe as the plot in the proposal ended up being one scene near the end of the book. At least I got the hero right. It was always Zach.

There you have it. The awful truth – I stink at writing proposals. The good news is that I think the books I actually wrote were much better than the ones I proposed. The even better news is my editor didn't scream when I turned in each book and they didn't resemble what she was expecting one bit. Or if she did scream, she did it quietly, because I never heard it.

Next up: How the heroines changed from proposal to books.

Stay Safe!

I haven't lived on the east coast for a few years, but I spent most of my life there and sure remember hurricanes. I have friends, family and readers who still live in the danger zone and I hope they are all safe.

We used to rent a house every summer in Corolla, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Here's my favorite photo from the area:

Let's hope the damage is minimal and that the area looks like this again soon.

The Proposal Stage

I've had a bunch of questions about how to write a series when you're not a plotter. I can't speak for everyone, but I can say this was an issue for me when I wrote the Mystery Men for Intrigue. When my editor asked if I would consider writing a four-book series with an overarching mystery, I did what I always do in these circumstances, I said "sure" and then later tried to figure out how the heck to write it. To get the deal I had to write a proposal. If you read the proposal now after reading the books you'd be confused because they do not match.

Next week I'll give you a behind-the-scenes look at what the series looked like when I proposed it versus what it looks like now that it's done. You may be surprised at how much the series changed while I wrote it. Trevor being the Recovery Project's nemesis throughout all four books? A total surprise to me. The heroines in the last two books? Totally changed from the proposal. Vince? No idea where he came from. What happened to Rod? Even I didn't know until about midway through the second book, GUNNING FOR TROUBLE.

In the meantime, here is Adam's reaction (the hero in LOCKED AND LAODED, book #3) when he met Sela (the heroine in THE BIG GUNS, book#4) the first time. They didn't exactly like each other, which is a problem when Adam's best friend falls for Sela later:

Adam ripped open the door to the outer office of the suite and spied Sela's desk. Small room, big desk. It was a nice set-up for a boss who wanted to enjoy some quiet time with his assistant.

She slid in front of Adam as he reached for the door to Trevor's inner office. "You can't go in there."

"But I am." He wore a t-shirt and carried a gun. A smart woman would know he wasn't all that concerned with rules and statements about the hours of operation.

She frowned at him. "You need an appointment."

Adam looked her over. He couldn't figure out if she was brave or stupid. She certainly seemed prepared to sacrifice her life for Trevor. That meant one thing: this was not the usual boss-secretary relationship. Not the kind human resources bragged about in the sexual harassment seminars.

Finding a hot blonde in Trevor's outer office wasn't a surprise. Adam assumed pretty women with big breasts went with the wealth and power routine. This one looked a bit young, but it wasn't his business.

He put his hand on Sela's arm and shifted her to the side and away from the doorknob. "You should leave."

"I can't let you-" Her gaze found the gun.

Adam knew then she hadn't seen it before. That explained the show of strange bravado.

"Don't hurt him." She whispered the plea.

"Your boyfriend will be fine."

"He's my boss."

"Call him whatever you want, I'm going in."

Sad News

There's a lot of sad news in the romance community lately. Harlequin Desire author Sandra Hyatt died while attending the New Zealand romance conference over the weekend. It sounds as if she had an unknown aneurysm and it ruptured. Debbie Mcomber's son committed suicide. And Jude Deveraux was swindled out of a supposed $20 million by a woman Jude thought was a friend. This grifter used Deveraux's grief over her son, who died in an accident when he was eight, to get the money.

That is a lot of devastation. The type that shifts life back into perspective and makes me forget something as small and unimportant as a broken laptop. My heart goes out to these women and their families. I don't know any of them personally, but the romance community is a small one and it's hard not to be moved by the grief. If you ahve a spare moment today, maybe send some good thoughts their way