What I learned from Super Mario Brothers
But there's one distinct difference in the new Mario. When multiple people play together, they literally play on the same screen. Mario and Luigi run side-by-side; Luigi can give Mario a boost or Mario can give Luigi a power-mushroom.
It's nice -- the better, more experienced players can assist the newer players. If you need help, there's someone to help you. And if you jump off a cliff or run face-first into a turtle, there's someone to rescue you and put you back in the game.
It's like having a community. You can see where I'm going with this analogy. Mario rescuing the Princess as Writers striving for that finished book. Maybe Mario should be a pirate too. How do you think an eye-patch would look with the mustache?
Anyway, we have a community when we write. Others who know what we're going through. Both those more experienced who can show us the path and offer us new resources, and those newer than us whom we can lend a hand to in return.
But Mario's foils with Luigi and his two toad helpers are the same pitfalls writers face in their communities. Mario is supposed to collect these big coins, right? Three per level. Most of the coins are easy to find and get, but some are hidden, some are booby-trapped, and some buried. Now and then, Mario finds a coin he can't get by himself. He has to have a helper, someone who can give him a boost, or help carry the load.
There are parts of writing and publishing that require the same thing -- a partner. Someone to read over your work or help encourage you through rejections or celebrate good news with you.
But there are some coins that Mario has to get alone. If he has to jump at a certain time, or squeeze through a spot, it's just to hard to keep someone else with you. He has to go it alone.
There are times in writing, too, when we have to go it alone. The long stretches of writing when we don't think we can pull another word from our tired brains. Debating over tiny points of characterization that no one else could possibly know.
In Mario, the key to getting all the star coins is knowing which ones you need a partner to get, and which ones you need to figure out on your own.
In case it wasn't obvious, I spent my break playing Super Mario Brothers and relaxing and reading. I'm ready to get back to writing. What about you? Have you been writing over this break, or are you coming back to it now? Are you facing the new year energized or discouraged? Anyone else obsessed with this game?
New Year, New Resolutions
Except he looks like he's a Taskmaster about that ab machine, and come Sunday morning, I'm more inclined to be hanging out with this fellow:
I like to delude myself that even if I was only getting a workout in bed, eventually all that exercise would be worthwhile. Maybe even enough to make me look like:
No?
I do love that corset though. Frederick's of Hollywood has a Dream Corset for $60 and it's a gorgeous looking thing...looks a lot like the one pictured above, except I would not look like that in it.
While I'm writing, I find it is important to have musical influences near me.
But no to Rob Pattinson singing though. I mean, sometimes it's okay, but a lot of the time he just sounds like a dying cat trapped in a burlap sack. Stick to the tried and trues for musical inspirations when writing. George Strait. Gary Allan. The Beatles. Bryan Adams. Green Day. Disturbed.
When planning New Year's Resolutions, pick overall goals you can break down into doable minigoals. Like you want to be healthier this year (see above pictures), but your minigoals are going to the gym X times a week and eating more vegetables. (We're so not eating enough veggies.) You want to get published or finish a manuscript--great, so your minigoal is to write so many pages a day or do so many hours of plotting/planning.
The most important thing about making a resolution is giving yourself a reward for sticking with it. For instance, for every month you stick to your writing goals, you can treat yourself to a movie. And you can spend two hours admiring this:
And wouldn't look at something as pretty as that for two hours be justful award for blood-sweat-and-tearing over your latest manuscript? Maybe not. Throw in an Icee too. You deserve it.
What resolutions have you made this year? What rewards will you be giving yourself to help you stick with your goals?
Back in the Driver's Seat
Right now my current crush is a TV show called Top Gear: America. You know how it is. The Brits do something awesome on TV and the Americans have to immediately copycat it. One of the guys on the show is a funny, dark-haired, handsome fellow who has a rebel soul. I decided this during the first episode I watched, when he eventually lost the challenge, but totally went out in style. You gotta give cred to a man who gives it a 100% even if he knows he's not going to come out of it.
The next episode I watched I was intrigued by the shorter good-looking guy. He was a bit too clean cut and serious for me, but then I saw him behind the wheel of the car. They gave him a sports car and had him drive it down a ski slope. With skiers on it. That's when I decided he was pretty crush worthy too. I do love boys who can drive.
So here are my Hotties for the Week. A New Year is upon us and it's going to go fast--so you might as well be with a rebel who will take the year out in style or a professional who will drive as fast as this year is going to fly. Cheers!
I'm adding this picture because we couldn't have a group of hotties without having one without his shirt. I hear he drives fast too, so he's cool.
And this is the ski slope driver: Tanner. So...we all know this year is going to go by fast. If you could have any driver in the driver seat, who would you have? Me...it'd probably have to be John Schneider (Bo Duke) or Ricky Bobby...at least it would be a hell of a good time. And what shows do you watch that are clearly guilty pleasures?
A Major Reason I Read Romance: Bad Boys
I grew up loving bad boys. I have this thing for tall, dark and handsome. Just ask my DH. He’ll agree. Because he’s like that. He’s not modest at all. lol.
The ultimate bad boy just makes me tingle all over. The swagger. The way he doesn’t care about what people think. The ability to throw caution to the wind and just do it. (And not just that “do it”. But still they do it well.) There hasn’t been a time in my life when I hadn’t thought about the bad boy and how I was gonna get my hands on him. It’s that initial rush when you’re in a bad boy’s arms, the way he makes you feel about yourself. The way everything is new and exciting. And it stays that way because he’s mysterious. He’d dark and edgy. And he knows how to light you on fire with one single look.
The bad boy is my favorite part of writing a novel. Creating the man who’s gonna make my heroine want to pull her hair out with his sarcasm. The man who is gonna knock her socks off with his looks and make the room feel two sizes too small when they are together. He’s the man, who at the end of the day, when she’s trying to sleep, all she can hear is his smart ass comments. And remember the way his eyes raked over her when she stepped into the room. The way he makes her temperature sky rocket when he brushes up against her. The man who invades her dreams, kisses her lips, touches her bare skin, makes her cry out his name.
He is her bad boy. He is her crutch. He’s everything she could want and more. If she was looking for someone.
When I started fleshing out my Romantic-Suspense WIP, I had this vision of a man. I could hear his voice in my head as I was driving to work one hot summer day. I was sitting in traffic, minding my own business (okay, so I was flipping off the person who had cut me off) and I could hear him laughing. It was this deep, gruff laugh, the kind that belongs to a man with dark intentions and even darker abilities. Then I heard this woman, very girly voice, yelling about him not sneaking up on her. They got into a very heated argument. And then I knew. I had my leads for my first original.
I wasn’t looking for them at the time. At the time I was in the middle of a very intense and detailed fic about a Colombian drug lord who had almost killed my heroine in the first fic and she was trying to stay alive long enough to solve the mystery. I was thoroughly involved with the story line. I wanted to give it life, watch it soar and remember it always. After all it was a part of the first time I’d ever written for pleasure. Writing 20 page papers on music theory and computer programming are not really up my alley. No matter how much I like to talk about computers. lol
But there are some times no one listens to you, the writer. Sometimes your characters dictate what you’re going to do and what you’re going to write. And so Double Vision was born. A novel created from the insanity that is my mind. A plot that I’ve consistently changed every three months for the past year and a half. My hero/heroine are very hard to please and every time I think it’s right it’s not.
But it is this time.
So this man keeps coming to me. He talks to me in the shower. He talks to me while I’m putting on my makeup. He scolds me when I let people in front of me while being stopped in traffic. And he laughs when I swear at the person I just let in front of me. He tells me I need to get a new job because I can't shoot anyone who pisses me off. And he follows me to the gym while I run on the treadmill, bitching that I don’t stay longer ( I think an hour is long enough, thankyouverymuch! ) and he follows me into my dreams. He shows me what he wants to do, how he wants to do it. Ash is a doer. He doesn’t follow. He blazes the way and he won’t rest until he gets his way from me. And Sadie. However he can get it.So I guess the question of the day is: Do you have a bad boy in your life? A favorite bad boy from a series or book? And if you have one in mind, does he play a major part in writing your own WIP bad boy?
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Bo'sun!! Have a wild and crazy night!!
Rewind to our first time...
Everything We Know About Writin’ We Learned From Captain Jack Sparrow
Monday, October 1st, 2007
The crew members have pointed out perhaps we should give a bit of a brief statement about us and our ship. We are writing pirates on the ship, Romance Writer’s Revenge, which we all credit the naming of to Terrio, whom you’ll meet in a minute. Keep your britches on.
Our mission is to…well, be pirates. Okay, not like that. We’re different. We like to bathe. Not together. Get your minds out of the gutter.
We’ve banded together, rebels, who write because there is no greater freedom than that which can be found between the pages of… *tomato thrown at her by Boatswain Terrio* Hey! *glowering* We’re eating that later. Once we acquire a cook. Now mind yourself, or I’ll turn the Captain’s Daughter on you.
Please let me introduce Quartermaster Sin. *pointing to a leggy brunette who looks like she’d as soon kick your ass as look at you, dressed in black, all black* Nearly six-feet tall and enough to give the rest of us inferiority complexes if we thought about it too much. She writes like a hurricane, and this is without the bionic hand she wishes she could have.
*pointing to a shorter (who isn’t shorter than QM Sin?) auburn-haired pirate in blues and silvers, black knee boots looking particularly fetish-like* This is Boatswain Terrio, our chief petty officer (emphasis on petty) and here to boost our morale. *Terrio swishes cat-o-nine tails* Despite the accessories and pirate attire, Terrio writes contemporary romance without a single whip to be featured in it.
If you want whips, I suggest reading Sin’s stuff. I’d tell you what she writes, but on any given day, I doubt Sin could tell me. *grins*
Over here, *pointing to a young woman straddling a cannon, looking quite at home* is Powder Monkey Lisa. We’ve just acquired her to load the cannons–I hear she’s wonderful with big guns. She also writes contemporary romance, but I believe she prefers to call it “smut.” Poor gel, the only thing worth writing, really.
And I am Captain Hellion. I doubt any introductions are necessary.
Don your eye patch and brandish your sword, you’re about to learn to be a writer the pirate way.
1.)Establish your reputation. “But you have heard of me,” Jack says smugly, when Norrington comments that Jack’s the worst pirate he’s ever heard of. Network, network, network. The more people who know you in the business, the better chance you’ll have to show you mean to make writing your career. Jack established he was a pirate—and we all know he’s the best pirate there is. He said so. That being said….
2.)Believe in yourself. There isn’t anyone who believes more in Jack’s credentials as the world’s best pirate than Jack himself; and frankly, you, as a writer, need to do the same. Writing is a lonely business; and being left alone with your inner critic day in and day out can have you questioning your career path. Even when Jack is feeling a bit down, he knows deep down he is a great pirate—and you must do the same. Like Jack, perhaps a bit of rum will help. It’s certainly done a lot for my manuscript.
3.)Stop being a pirate…er…writer? Never! Jack didn’t have a ship, a crew, or even a bottle of rum; however, he was still a pirate. Think of yourself in similar terms: you’re a writer first. It’s not just a hobby; it’s not something to hide or do only when you’ve made everyone else happy. If you consider yourself as a writer first, people will also start to think of you that way—and it will be easier to carve out more time for writing because people will expect it.
4.)Have fun. Do you think Jack likes being a pirate? No, Jack loves being a pirate; he embraces it. He says, “Pirate.” So if people are staring at you oddly when you’re jotting down brilliant tidbits on napkins, laughing manically to yourself, and correcting the grammar on restaurant menus, just give them the Captain Jack look and say, ‘Writer.’”
5.)Be on the lookout for new treasure. Jack never failed to find bits of treasure lying about—usually unwatched—which he could immediately pocket. Pay attention to your surroundings. Life is absurd and full of characters. You’ll never know when you find the perfect real life person to portray your quirky Lord Herrington. (Disclaimer: while Captain Jack does abscond, most roguishly, with unprotected treasure, he does not steal copyrighted treasure—and neither should you.)
6.)Speak and deliver. Jack is an Ace at one-liners (“Savvy?”), and he’s memorable in practically everything he says. Memorable writing keeps readers running to the store for your next book—so be loud, be proud, and be your own voice, not anyone else’s…and you’ll be as memorable and beloved as Jack.
7.)Get into character. There would not have been a Pirates of the Caribbean without Captain Jack Sparrow. He made that movie; no doubt about it. Plot is great; plot tells the story, but characters sell books and keep readers wanting more. Create great characters and you’ll have a great book, even if your virgin secretary is having a secret baby.
8.)Get into trouble. If there’s anything Jack does well, it’s get into trouble. Then he spends an inordinate amount of time trying to get out of it, only making it worse. And we love him for it. Do the same to your characters. Where there’s trouble, there’s conflict; where there’s conflict, there’s story. Give your characters a ship, then blow holes in it.
9.)Seize the “Opportune Moment.” Jack knows how to create his own luck and seize opportunity. He doesn’t wait for people to bring him treasure; he takes it. Therefore, don’t keep your finished manuscripts lurking under the bed because you don’t think they’re polished enough for an editor’s eagle eye. Query, query, query. Rejection is a part of the business, even pirate business. Jack might get slapped now and again, but he still thinks he’s quite the catch.
10.)Find a dependable crew. Did Jack face nasty Barbossa alone? No. He took some equally rum-soaked pirates with him. You should do the same. Find like-minded, rum-soaked writers and sail the treacherous waters of the Slush Pile and Critic’s Hell. Every once in a while you’ll hit upon treasure—and in the meantime, you’ll have a lot of fun doing it!
11.)Be daft (like Jack). People are going to think you’re daft for wanting to write a book, and even dafter for going through the crap shoot of getting it published. There will be plot twists that will even have you thinking, “They’ll think I’m a lunatic. I can’t have an alien abduction at a Regency tea party!” But as Jack says, when his madness is brought into question, “Well thank goodness for that, ’cause if I wasn’t this would probably never work.” If you over think your ideas and don’t allow your “madness” room to romp in your manuscript, you’ll end up with a book that is overdone, trite, and not at all in your original voice.
12.)Savvy that “they’re more like guidelines anyway.” Learn the rules of writing–then break them. Put a twist on them and make them your own. Except for that rule about spelling and grammar–that’s one you shouldn’t break. Nothing more annoying to the Grammar from Hell Editor than a misspelled manuscript. But most everything else is fair game, Jack says.
Whatever your writing genre, find your strengths, strengthen your weaknesses and walk that plank of being a writer. If you take the chance and follow Captain Jack’s advice, you might end up Captain yourself.
What has the fair and witty Jack taught you about writing (or living)?
***
Wow, we hadn't even kidnapped Marnee yet. Hells was just as cheeky then as she is now. Wench.
Seasons Change, People Change...
And without further ado, here's the Loader!
Seasons Change and So Do I
Welcome ta Fall, mates! Well, nearly there. I was thinkin’ a decoratin’ the ship with pumpkins and autumn leaves scattered about, hang up some flickerin’ lamps and invite some black cats aboard. After all, what is fall without the advent a’ Halloween!
But Hel said flickerin’ lamps be a fire hazard. And Terrio vetoed the leaves, sayin’ we’d have ta buy a rake. (Personally, I thought the romantically inspired pirates would like a rake or two aboard… *g) Sin were all fer the black cats, said the undead monkey was gettin’ hungry. Santa thought the pumpkins were a fine idea and muttered somethin’ about pies…
Marnee didn’t like me idea a fake spiderwebs, said they might attract the real sort. Hal vetoed me quoting Edgar Allen Poe or invitin’ ravens on board cause a’ the mess. Lisa felt the faked bloody bandages were too over the top.
Sigh.
That’s all right by me. I can get along with jus’ the feelin’ in the air right now. Ever notice how the air changes as autumn slides inta the skin? It ain’t jus’ the anticipation a’ trick or treat and bags a’ candy. Or the spices of pumpkin pie floatin’ on the air outta Santa’s kitchen…or the knowledge that December be next on the calendar.
Autumn, fer me, is about longin’ ta rest and gathering the harvest a’ the year behind me. It be about harboring energy and preparin’ fer the long nights a’ tellin’ stories around the campfire while the winter roars outside. I love the way the light changes as the sun slides lower on the horizon. The smell a’ the first rain (granted, lots a’ ya known rain all year, but not here in California.) We don’t get hillsides full a bright fall leaves. We get a tree, here and there, that surprises up with a blast of orange or red.
I walk down ta the bluff and look out on the Pacific and it be all steel grey, pelicans keepin’ low…
There be a sense a’ anticipation in the autumn. I’m not a great fan a’ the major holidays a’ the year. They go ‘gainst me grain. We should be huddled before a fire, tellin’ tall tales and sharin’ brisk nights wit’ loved ones. Not runnin’ about tryin’ to find the perfect gift fer the new great niece/nephew who won’t even care about who I am or what I send.
So, seasons change and I find meself thinkin’ ahead ta the next year and behind ta the last year. Gatherin’ all the great things I learned and considerin’ how ta weave them inta me tales, told before the great fire. Tellin’ stories about where I been and where I be goin’. More than any other time a’ the year, this be the time a’ Sleepy Hollow and Headless Horseman, the closin’ of doors and the openin’ a the imagination. Ghost stories on cold nights. Tim Burton.
We be mammals, despite all our battles ta be more. And hibernation be buried in our DNA. Ta dream deep dreams and incorporate what got away, what we caught, what tasted best, what nearly killed us.
So, I went ta Nationals. I met Terrio, J Perry, Santa and others. I laughed, I stuck foot in mouth at least once. I went ta RT and pitched ta Tor, Kensington, Sourcebooks and Crescent Moon. I took a class at RT that made me angry and I wrote a letter ‘bout why…got me nowhere, but I had ta write it. I may pay fer it come next April.
I stayed away from home and took care a’ me Mum fer three weeks. My DH lost his job and got another one. I got a dog. I gained weight…(sigh.)
And were invited ta be a blogger on the Revenge…(yippee!)
So much stuff ta wind inta me winter tales. I anticipate fall more than I do spring. I plot and plan in the fall. I reflect and recall. And I write. More than any other season, this be mine. I even clean me house in the fall. And fix up the yard. Spring is not my active season…
*shrugs
Favorite Harry Potter movie? The one where the tree reflected the change of seasons and the passage a’ time. Evocative, loverly. Poignant. Love the bits in Practical Magic that show the seasons are changin’… They plant, they harvest, burning leaf pile… Sigh.
As fer me changing. I be in constant flux. I were inspired by several a’ our guests this year. I want ta get the fun back inta me writin’…stop strivin’ fer anything more than entertainment when I write. Ta tell me tales around the fire with a gleam in my eye, tossin’ in the occasional “Bwah ha ha!”
I’m not givin’ up on bein’ published, but I’m open ta what the wind might blow me way. Including some new ideas. Anyone heard a podcasting?
Do ya see change in yerself from this last year? Ya plant any seeds that are bearin’ fruit? Have ta fight off pests too much? (The Kraken is still behind the ship…he loves pests!) Any new discoveries that yer cradlin’ ta yer chest as the wheel a’ the year turns? Any favorite uses of seasonal changes ya see in the cinema or books?
More than spring, fer me, Fall is the season of anticipation. I have no idea why, but I swing with it.
Death by Chocolate - with commentary
I adore this blog. Especially right now, at the holiday seasons. Fer one thing, I feel like I may be committin’ suicide by chocolate. Granted, I been really good fer months and so once that floodgate were open, well…it be hard ta stop. But the second thing? How many people did ya fantasize ‘bout killin’ these last few weeks? Have ya lost count?
In honor a’ bein’ in the mood ta kill… I present…. Death by Chocolate.
In my defense today- I ain’t right. Seriously.
The death of villains is a necessary evil in fiction. (Or the guy who stole your parking place, the co-workers who interrupted you twelve times on the day before Christmas, or the students who handed everything late… Shall I go on?)This is old news for regulars of the blog, but I’m the resident character killer. I don’t reserve killing just for the villains. When I feel like I need a change, I axe a character. (I stage an alien abduction. Different strokes for different writers!) Anyway that I can find and a few inventive ways depends how I’m feeling at the moment and where my characters are in their growth arc. My general policy is while I’m writing, "whatever works".
My thought process behind killing characters is simple. If the story is stalling, you need sex or a murder. (And no one wants to actually have sex with that parking place thief. I hope.)You can’t always manage sex (or want it) (well, okay, I can always manage some sex but if you have sex every 5 pages, my paranormal suspense is going to have a lot of purple prose in it after the first 10 sex scenes and I can only think of a few different ways to describe splinters in your back from the door), but you can always manage a murder or two without killing the story as a whole. There is a little perverted part of my brain that extracts a little joy each time a character dies knowing that it’s going to going into the trickle effect of emotional drama. I can’t figure out why. (Not enough hugs growing up.)
Not that I put a lot of thought into why. Because I’m sure if I did, I would find something extremely wrong with that. Fictional or not. See the beginning of the blog- I ain’t right. It’s why I’m a writer.
Even before Hellion gifted me with the most wonderful of books, "Cause of Death- A writer’s guide to death, murder and forensic medicine." (by Keith D. Wilson, M.D.), I was thinking up ways a character could die. I have quite a few favorites in my repertoire. Once I killed an informant by throwing him into a shark tank. (A James Bond villain did this.) I rather enjoyed that one. Drowning. Suffocating. Bleeding out slowly. Mallet to the temple. Pit bulls. (Hey! That’s not fair to the dogs.) Car explosions. But really in the comments the other day, I got to thinking about all the weird things you could do with killing off a character. All the accidental, quirky, random deaths that happen in the fictional world. I think my favorite part about the fictional world is that I may not know every gruesome detail that goes into writing a death, but I can use my imagination enough to get close. So close that if I put enough detail into it, you can look past my little indiscretions. (Work in some aliens and a whole new avenue opens regarding ways to kill…)
So, death by chocolate frosting? A total possibility if you get a little kinky in the sack and someone accidentally chokes (or maybe not so accidentally). (Saw that in a CSI, with a baby octopus… Really!) Crushed glass pieces in his mashed potatoes? Could happen. I mean, those damned neighbor kids are always bouncing their basketball into your kitchen window and breaking it- you can’t help that some of it landed in your bowl as you were mashing them. Loose board on the top step leading into the basement? I swear, I’ve been bitching at him for two months to fix it.
It’s so unfortunate that vehicles have gotten so technically smart. Siphoning out the brake fluid would’ve been a wonderful option as well. Can’t cut the brake line either. Or loosen the lug nuts. It’s a shame. Really. Taking a gun and killing a villain is so uninspired. Watching his car drive off a cliff could make my character’s night.
Let’s think about it.
Well, you don’t have to think about it. I’ll think about it for you.
Say your character needs a method to get rid of someone, maybe of the opposite sex. If you want it to look accidental, well you gotta think of something very creative. I’ll use Kiki as my example of a villainous heroine. (She’s a professional problem solver. Not a professional killer. I assure you, there is a difference.) (Sorta like The Equalizer? But willing to kill? Anyone remember that show? Edward Woodward was so cool.)
Kiki is only an example. She’s the closest thing in my character list that I can use without pulling her too far from her characterization.
Kiki has a target that needs professional quieting but it needs to look like an accident. (Oh, I like that. Quieting! Sin, you kill me!) She can think about it. Make her plans, watch her mark, learn his routine. She can walk up to him at happy hour at his usual spot, short black dress barely covering her ass as she leans over the bar and asks for a vodka on the rocks. She can look at him playfully over her shoulder and flash him her devastatingly fake smile like she’s really interested and turn him onto her. He could be charmed easily by her easy demeanor, the way she playfully chews her bottom lip and fiddles with his silk tie. She could score a night with him by just whispering in his ear. Once they got back to his house, she could make it look like he had a drug overdose. Wouldn’t be hard. He has a possession charge from three years prior that was swept under the rug since daddy is in politics. She watched him acquire two eight balls and a sack of pills at lunch. Kiki would be willing to do some lines in order to get the job done.
But that would be too easy for my Kiki. She’s sneaky like a ninja. All business. No fun. She doesn’t really like to get dressed up and wear a wig out into public. She complains that wigs are itchy and cramp her style. Sadie is more mischievous. In a few years, she would be ripe for this sort of job. Even enjoy it.
Kiki would wait in her car outside the bar, follow him to his house, wait until he goes to sleep and break into his house. Easy to do when you can disable an alarm with a gadget. Easy to do when you can pick a lock like you’re magic. Easy to do when there is no guard animal to sound a wake up call. Easy to do when your target has no neighbors close by and a house shaded almost completely in trees. I can almost hear Kiki tsking.
In fact, Kiki thinks to herself, "It’s truly a pity he hasn’t taken the time to make sure the batteries in his carbon monoxide detectors are good. Even more a pity when this scum sucker doesn’t wake up in the morning." And once the plan is set, get out and go about business as usual.
Clean. Efficient. Quiet.
Kiki will be sitting at her breakfast bar with a cup of coffee and reading the paper while the guy’s alarm is blaring. By the time his office calls, she’s already in the shower getting ready for her routine day. When his secretary drops by and finds him non-responsive, Kiki’s driving across town to her office building. Just a few minutes inside the house has the secretary feeling nauseous. She calls 911 but it was too late before she even walked through the door. The ambulance speeds past Kiki’s car on it’s way to the emergency. And Kiki graciously pulls over to let them past and continues on her way like nothing happened.
You might think this is difficult to think up but think about this from a writer’s standpoint. Is there anything your hero or heroine might be allergic to? Did you know that certain wines to people with severe sulfate allergies can kill in just a few minutes without interference of an EpiPen? (Truly one of my biggest fears. And that is not for future reference, MM. (Moi? Sounds like a quality wine and since I don’t have the budget fer quality wine…yer safe, Sinster.) I’ve got my eyes on you, you sneaky pirate.) Fears? You know, if your heroine is claustrophobic and gets trapped in an elevator with no one there to buffer her panic, she could send herself into a monstrous panic attack and have cardiac arrest. Someone who is afraid of the water and can’t swim could accidentally be flipped into the water while you’re speeding around on the boat. Accidental deaths are waiting just around the corner everywhere for your expendable characters. You just have to tap into them in the fictional world. (I saw this done on Criminal Minds, btw.)
I know most of you are in the business of writing (or reading!) the HEA or HFN (I prefer HFN) but what is the most unusual murder scene you’ve read? Saw on one of those crime shows? Imagined up to write in your WIP? And pretty pretty please can someone gift me the wonderful "Armed and Dangerous" book for my birthday? Or Christmas? I’ve been a good girl all year. I swear- cross my heart. (I have my doubts…but even the naughty deserve presents.)
No takers? C’mon, it’s not like I’m going to practice on you. (I’m startin’ a ‘What Santa Missed Fer Sin’ fund…)
Dang, I guess I could hit up Santa for the book. It’s never too early for a Christmas list...
Books by the Crew
