I guess that’s really a no-brainer. As much as I love a good spin cycle, starting off on the journey of discovery with a group of characters has to be one of the greatest thrills in life. Sure, there will be rough spots along the way as the story unfolds, but that’s just part of the process.

Right now I’m playing with that all important opening scene, trying to set the right tone in order to draw the reader into the story. I can see it all so clearly—the hero setting off on his journey, one that will bring him pain and hopefully joy. For now, the heroine remains blissfully unaware that change is coming her way that will turn her world upside down.

I’m also considering which secondary characters will be necessary for the story. I tend to write large ensemble casts, and I often bring back characters from earlier books in the series. Even so, each book has its own requirements. This one may have some feisty, little old ladies—just what a big, tough Paladin needs to keep him on his toes, right? But a few familiar faces will be crucial to the story development.

I love getting to know my characters through the unfolding of their story. I always know some things about them going in—like this hero drinks tea, not coffee—but I don’t really KNOW them until I’m well into the book. Sometimes that means taking a few unexpected left turns while writing the book. Luckily, I like surprises.

So, I’m off to start another load in my shiny, new washer. But while I’m adding detergent and pushing all those cool buttons, my mind will be elsewhere—following my hero and seeing where the adventure takes us both.

The effect of DJ blogging has been twofold. Fans of the series are enjoying the extra glimpse into the lives of their favorite Paladins during the long wait between books. But almost more importantly, it’s been an excercise in character development for me. I’ve had to learn to think of my characters beyond the pages of the books, reminding myself that their lives go on, they grow, they have experiences. Time passes between the inciting incidents that generate the books in the series, and my characters need to reflect those ongoing lives.

DJ has even interviewed characters from other peoples books–a demon, a vamp, and the ghost from a haunted bordello. Again, those interviews were great fun to do. But entertainment value aside, as my friends and I wrote those interviews, we all saw our characters through new eyes and gained new perspective.

The icing on the cake for me came this last week when the nice ladies over at Simply Romance Reviews invited DJ to guest blog. He and three of my other guys showed up bright and early last Friday and carried on very entertaining conversations with each other and the people who left comments for them. It was fun watching the boys hassle each other, again revealing new sides to their characters.

Am I recommending that everyone set up an official blog for their characters. No, I don’t think that’s necessary. However, putting on my reader hat here for a minute, I personally love the character interviews I’ve read done by such authors as Suzanne Brockmann, Sherrilyn Kenyon, and JR Ward. But whether or not you decide to publish such interviews to share with readers, I do think taking the time to write out conversations for continuing characters set in different environments can be a great learning tool.

The heroine was pretty, though not stunningly so.  She was sweet and kind and a tad awkward.  She was smart and funny (though at times not intentionally–the character that is, not the actress.)  She played the part of the average Jane (her name was actually Jane, now that I think about it).  It was easy to like her.

The hero was really good looking (James Marsden, sigh).  He was a little disheveled, a little scruffy and utterly charming.  He was creative (a writer), and sensitive, yet tried to hide that fact as any good hero will do.  He was smart and funny–and best of all wounded.  And he was utterly smitten with the heroine.

Like I said, a very enjoyable movie.  In fact, I will never hear the song, Bennie and The Jets and not smile.  These two characters had all the traits I like in my romantic leads.  (They had good chemistry onscreen, which always helps.)  And when I left the theater, I believed they were in love.  Really in love.

So what traits do you like in your romantic heroines and heroes?  What makes them seem real?  What do you relate to?  And what books and/or movies left you with the sense that the couple would really make it far past happily ever after?  That it was true love?

I ordered and received a copy of the fifth and final Dante Valentine book, To Hell And Back, from Amazon today. (Well, I ordered it two days ago, and it came today.) I’ve also received independent confirmation from other Readers that it’s shipping through Barnes & Noble as well.

I’m sure some Readers are going to be angry and others are going to be happy, but what I’m feeling right now is huge relief. Once a book goes live, it’s out of my hands. Of course a writer always wants to revise everything, even the printed version; there’s always some way you can make it better. Or so one thinks, as one keeps growing as a writer–which is, after all, the point.

But once the book is on the shelf, I feel a massive relief. The performance anxiety is over, it’s on stage, it’s put up or shut up time. It’s like stepping out under the lights, out from the wings, and having the audience’s attention. All the training in the world won’t stop the butterflies, but there’s nothing you can do now. You’re committed, for better or for worse. You have drawn your sword and made your move.

I thought I would take this moment, having finished a very tight five-book arc, to talk about what it means to say goodbye to those characters.

It’s wrenching.

For five years I was always boiling with the next book, or in the revisions stage, or in the heat of creation. The characters were not only in my head, they were living with me, ordering Chinese food and putting out their cigarettes in my ashtrays. They were always there, a subsonic song under all the other daily noise in my head, and having their story finished and on the shelves is very much like seeing people you’ve lived with finally move all their stuff out. One is left looking at empty spaces and dust bunnies.

There is a grieving process, and I suspect that grieving process was made more intense by the fact that I was under tight deadline for the fifth and final book. It gave me no time to think about what would happen once the blade fell and the story was finished, gone, finito. I would not have traded the experience for anything–it was a tremendous rocketsled ride from beginning to finish, and I enjoyed every goddamn second of it.

I enjoyed the taste of dread and adrenaline, the wondering if anyone would like this crazy tale eating up my brain, the long walks playing music for the characters through my Ipod and plotting out scenes in my head. I enjoyed sleepless nights over revisions and the beat-your-brain-against-the-wall of tying together plot strands. I loved writing those books, dammit. If they have gone wrong, if I have faltered somehow in telling the tale, it was for no other reason than I am a flawed person, and of course the art’s going to be flawed, m’dear. The agony of being a creative is seeing so clearly what one wants to accomplish and failing, sometimes, to capture the details of perfection in one’s head.

That being said, I don’t think I did a half bad job. There’s some things in the books that I reread and I don’t remember writing, gifts the Muse dropped in my lap with her usual nonchalance, scenes that made me cry while I wrote them and still tear me up when I read them. Whatever errors were made, were made with love.

Publishing being what it is, no book is created in a vacuum. There were the people who kept me sane while writing, there was the agent who believed so strongly in the tale and in me, there was the editor who fought for me and cared for the books the way a dedicated gardener cares for a huge garden. There were the copyeditors who went over every word, the editorial assistant who took my frantic calls, the cover artists and art departments and the ever-faithful, unsung heroes of Production, who get the book from egg to quiche. There were the reassurances from friends and family, both blood and chosen, that kept me on the rails. There were gifts from strangers and Readers alike.

So for me it’s time to say goodbye to Dante Valentine. She wasn’t a comfortable person to hang around, but I think we taught each other a few things. I certainly learned a lot. Now I can only hope that the Reader likes it, that the tale will find a kind ear. Or two.

Once one finishes any massive undertaking, there’s a point where one has to sit back, look back at the slope of the mountain just climbed, and think some version of, holy %$#&, I did THAT? I must have been nuts! Which is, I suppose, where I’m at. I put all five of the books together earlier tonight and looked at them. Five books, all in a row. A story told as best as I knew how. Something I can point to and say, my God, I did that.

You know what?

It’s one of the best feelings in the world.

Thank you. Thank you all.

I’m just getting started on writing the synopses for a novella and two books for my two series that I’m doing for Pocket.  Thanks to an intense weekend spent in Vancouver, B.C., with my talented friend Bonnie Edwards, I have a pretty clear idea on how the three stories should go.   We holed up in an apartment for a couple of days and did nothing but brainstorm.  Well, that’s not quite true.  We watched some tv and went out for meals and hung out at an internet coffee shop, too.  But the bottom line was, we set out to brainstorm books for both of us and we definitely did that.

Now comes the hard part.  Putting all of those great ideas into some kind of coherent order that will both show my great editor what I have in mind for the stories and that will also serve as a blueprint for me when I actually sit down to write the books over the next year.   And to do that, I need to find names for my characters.  Sigh.  Sometimes the names just comes to me, like a gift from my elusive Muse.  Other times, I pour over my collection of name books, listening for the right combinations of sounds to help nail down who that character wants to be.

I learned the hard way how important it is to say the names out loud.  In one of my westerns, I named the heroine Lily—an appropriate name for the time period.  I named the hero Cal—short for California because he grew up in the Gold Rush, sifting through the dirt outside of gambling halls for enough gold dust to feed himself and his mother.   It wasn’t until the book was out and I was talking about the characters that I realized that if you said their names together—Cal and Lily—that it sounded like the flower “calla lily.”   No big deal, I know, but it still makes me cringe.

But last night I stumbled across a website while looking for a name.  I went to Google (my favorite search engine) and typed in “Names that mean light” and hit enter.  Up popped a website called 20,000 Names with a list 8 pages long of names that mean light, labeled by gender and nationality.  How cool is that?   The URL is www.20000-names.com .   I have a feeling I’ll be playing around with that site quite often.    I found several possibilities for my heroine’s name—I like knowing what the name means because it helps me focus on what her role is in the hero’s life. 

If anyone has any other sites they’ve found useful, I’d sure love to add them to my “favorites list.”  Have a great week–

J.R. is incredible with world-building, setting, plot, story, and *voice.* Her characters stand out so real and so believable, that you can almost believe they’re in the room with you.

One thing that fascinates me is how every one of her heroes is wounded in one fashion or another.  In book one of the Black Dagger Brotherhood series, DARK LOVER, Wrath not only has a score to settle with those who murdered his parents, but he has a physical handicap–he’s blind. He wears dark wraparound glasses and just the image of this freaking big bad boy warrior is so hot, so bad-ass–you’ve got to read it. You’ve really got to read it.

I want a Wrath for my own.

Or in book 2 is LOVER ETERNAL and Rhage who’s cursed. He meets an amazing woman who happens to be dying of cancer. J.R. absolutely had me in tears at the end. The other brothers’ stories are just as intense, just as gripping. One brother is blind, one cursed, another with a past so tortured that you could think he’s unredeemable before you find out why he’s the way he is. Then there’s a brother who’s an alcoholic, one who’s a drug addict but shot off his leg to save his brother, and one who is heavily into the bondage scene because of his past. Another lost his bonded mate, and then one more is mute. But not only do they have vices, or physical imperfections, these guys have had the most horrific things happen to them and are damaged emotionally.

They deserve better. And they deserve love.

They have the love of the Brotherhood–you’ve never seen guys so tight. But they’re each missing something until they find their mate. And when they do, you’d better not be in their way.

And it’s the women they meet who heal them emotionally–except that damn Scribe Virgin likes to yank everyone’s chains.

J.R., I *really* don’t like the Scribe Virgin. ;-) She tortures these poor tortured heroes! 

I’m currently 2/3 through LOVER UNBOUND, the 5th book in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series, and what J.R. has done to poor V . . . and the way things are set up for him, and as bitchy as the Scribe Virgin is (sorry, J.R.) I wonder how the hero and heroine are going to get together. To get to stay together.

I normally don’t like books that bounce around too much, putting us in the heads of more than just the hero and the heroine and the antagonist. With this series, J.R. has me so enthralled with absolutely everything that’s going on with each thread that I have to read more. I can’t stop. I need to work today, and I just want to finish LOVER UNBOUND that about has me unglued.

Do you think my editor will give me an extension if I tell her I didn’t have time to write because I had to finish the latest BDB book?????

My topic is wounded heroes, with the BDB foremost in my mind because I’m so freaking addicted to the series, and that’s what I’m reading now.

Who are the wounded heroes you love the most in books that you’ve read? What makes these guys so attractive? I think it’s because it makes them real, touchable, believable.

And J.R.’s are so freaking hot that I want to take them home. One at at a time. At least a week each.

Once I finish LOVER UNBOUND I have to wait until June 2008 for book 6, LOVER ENSHRINED. That is so not fair.

                I also spent one morning hanging out with my friend Pat White, whose first Nocturne SAVING DESTINY just came out.  She’ll  be guest blogging next Thursday about her book, which got a TOP PICK! From RT.  But while we were talking about that, my Paladin D.J. interviewed her Ash Demon hero, Kade, for D.J.’s blog on my website.  The interview will post next Monday, but the two guys really hit it off—well, until they got to comparing super powers.  D.J.’s not happy with me right now. 

                But the real reason I haven’t done much since yesterday is that I’ve been indulging in one of my favorite vices:   binge reading.   I keep track of upcoming books by my favorite authors in a small spiral notebook, and yesterday saw a bumper crop of releases  that I simply had to have.  I bought four books and I’ve already finished all of one and half of another.  If I hold true to form, I won’t get much done on my own work until I finish them all.

And then I’ll want to head right back to the bookstore to buy the ones I very reluctantly left on the shelf.   There were definitely at least three others that were still screaming “BUY ME, TOO!” as I dragged myself out of the store, having done sufficient damage to my bank balance for one day.  I take comfort in knowing that the one of the bookseller’s stack of books was at least twice as high as mine.  We read a lot of the same authors and spent a few minutes commiserating over the size of the checks we were going to have to write to support our reading habit. 

Do you have months or weeks like that, where all of your favorite writers gang up on you and release their books at one time?  I mean really.  What are the chances of Sherrilyn Kenyon, Anne Stuart, Christine Warren, C.L. Wilson, and Suzanne Brockmann all accidently have the exact same release date?????  Hmmmm?  I don’t normally see conspiracies lurking everywhere, but  . . .

However, I have found out over the years, that ideas come when they  want to come.   And they can be pretty darned insistent on grabbing your attention away from whatever your current project is.  The only way I can deal with this situation is sit down and write down the idea, basically creating a synopsis that I may or may not actually use.  Once I have recorded the story or as much of it as my muse chooses to reveal to me, I file it away in my idea file and then I can let it go for now. 

Does this happen to anyone else?  Since I’m under contract (not that I’m complaining—I’m not), I don’t have the luxury right now  to set aside my WIP just because another character’s story seems more interesting at the moment.  And I’m not talking about the occasion when you hear something on the news or see an article in the paper and say, “Hmmmm, there could be a story in there.”  No, I mean when the hero or heroine shoves their way to the front of your mind, shouts their name in your ear, and announces they want to be heard right then and there.

I’m curious about how others handle this situation.   Or maybe I’m the only one whose muse pushes her around occasionally.  It wouldn’t surprise me.  :-D

                This time, however, when the subject of memorable characters came up, I found out that Bonnie and I shared a common favorite.  Sure, we discussed  our excitement over the upcoming release of Lover Unbound by J.R. Ward (picture me at the bookstore at opening time with my nose pressed up against the glass waiting for a chance to spend hours with Vishous), the Stephenie Meyer books I just read, and others.   But the one Bonnie and I talked about at length was Grant Sullivan from Linda Howard’s Midnight Rainbow.  The book has been reissued along the way, but I think the original pub date was 1986.

                Grant Sullivan.  Sigh.  I’ve always said that it is the archetype combination of lost soul and warrior that gets me every time.  And , oh boy, does he fit that category!  He’d fought the good fight for too many years and all he wants is a chance for some peace on a small farm.  Then he gets called to rescue the heroine from the bad guys, however, the best part of the story is how they rescue each other emotionally. Even now,  twenty years after first reading this story, I can still picture scenes in my head as clearly as if they’d been on last night’s news.  Amazing, simply amazing. 

                As I’ve said before, I’m a goal setter when it comes to my writing.  Sometimes you can see the immediate effects of reaching a goal.  For others, you have to wait to see how it all turns out.  But right now, I’m thinking one of my goals should always be to create a hero that twenty years from now, someone somewhere will think back to when she first read  his story and sigh as she smiles at the memory.

All three books came in within a week of each other.  The third book actually came first, and it was hard to wait for the other two to arrive.  As I said, it took me three days to read the first book.  The second, New Moon, is over 500 pages long—I picked it up at the library at 3:30 in the afternoon and finished it over breakfast the next morning.  Now, I admit to being a fast reader, but that’s a little compulsive even for me!. 

I’m now on page 408 in Eclipse.  I started it yesterday, but now that I’m only a little over 200 pages from the end, I’m slowing down.  I checked on line and Stephenie’s next book isn’t due out until May 2008.  Do I really want to finish this one and have nothing new of hers to enjoy for months?   Decisions, decisions.  Actually, I know I’m weak and will charge through the rest of the story today, maybe leaving a little to savor over breakfast tomorrow.  But maybe not. 

Either way, I have so much enjoyed getting to know her characters—Bella, Edward, and Jacob.  I still don’t know what’s going to happen to Bella and who she’ll choose to spend her life with.  But I’m definitely enjoying the ride. 

Once I turn that last page, I’ll miss them all.  Gotta love books that grab your heart and won’t let go.  There are other authors whose work has that effect on me—JR Ward (and lucky us, Lover Unbound is coming soon), Suzanne Brockmann, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Jayne Krentz (especially her Jayne Castle books—who doesn’t love dust bunnies?) . . . the list goes on.

And to those people who occasionally ask, How do you find time to read?  I have only one answer:  I don’t find time to read.  I make time to read.