That’s me.  Evil Overlord of my characters.

Evil Overlord:  Plans to interfere with his targets’ lives.

Me:  Plan to interfere with my characters’ lives.

Evil Overlord:  Is constantly thinking, “What can I do to cause trouble for these people?”

Me:  “What can I do next to cause trouble for these characters?

Evil Overlord:  “In fact, what can I do to tear them to shreds?”

Me:  In fact, what can I do to make things as difficult as possible?

Evil Overlord:  “HOW SHALL I KILL THEM?”

Me:  HOW SHALL I–

No, no no.  Wait a minute.  Here’s where we part ways.

For me, it’s How will they get out of it?

What new depths of themselves will they plumb to climb out of this personal disaster I’ve created, possibly while also saving the world?

(Possibly.)

Because the thing is, as the author, I don’t usually have any idea how they’re going to get out of what I put them into.  I’m so focused on getting them to the point of ultimate internal and external disaster (because, you know, that’s just the way I am) that when I reach it, I often go…

Me:  Uh, durrrr… NOW what are they gonna do?

The fun thing is how well it often works out.  If you read Storm of Reckoning, you’ll reach a point shortly before the end where…well, where things happen.  Go on, read it.  You’ll know where I mean.  Well, confession:  I didn’t know that was coming until about two pages before I reached it.  It was all, “Ahhhh!  What’s Garrie gonna do?!  How’s Trevarr going to get out of this one?!”  Complete with melodramatic punctuation.

And yet oddly, looking back on it…I don’t know how that scene could have turned out any other way.  Or that I would have wanted it to.

(The very end?  Well, I knew THAT was coming.)

It’s not all just a random power trip, by the way.  It’s not doing unto for the sake of doing unto–

Evil Overlord:  What are you talking about?  Of course it is!  And what a power trip it is!  Mwah ha ha!

*stuffs Evil Overlord into a gunnysack*

It’s NOT.  By pushing my characters to the limit, I’m exploring who they really are…and in a way, I’m showing myself what can be done.  Paving the way for that mindset, so when I reach my own roadblocks in life (an overly-profound phrase if I ever heard one), I don’t buckle or fold.  I don’t exactly think, “What would Garrie/Trevarr do?”–that would maybe be kinda creepy.  But I do fall back into the awareness that how I deal with difficulties–what I envision for myself–has a huge impact on the resolution of those difficulties.

Muffled Evil Overlord:  You are full of crap!  It’s all about the POWER!

Yeah, yeah.  Move over.  My people have a world to save.  Just don’t ask me how.

*wrote this one for my agent’s blog this spring; saved it up for a day that needed a good snicker

(Was that convincing?)

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about the Reckoners a lot lately, as I begin the preliminary work for the third Reckoners book.  (The first two were THE RECKONERS and STORM OF RECKONING, in case anyone’s lost track, along with partner story, “Deep River Reckoning.”  So I’m taking another look at those books–at the things I did in those books.

And I realize it was bound to happen–that I’ve finally set a book in Sedona.  I mean, take one writer of things fantastical living only an hour away from the red rocks, canyons, and vortexes.  Give her a decade of exposure.

The inevitability of it is clear.

Seriously!  Only an hour away from the woo-woo!

Not that my characters were as enthused.

Lucia Reyes:  Shopping?  In tourist Trap World?  I don’t think so.
Lisa McGarrity:  Reckoning?  In Faux Woo-Woo World?  I don’t think so.
Trevarr: [    ]

Oh, right.  Trevarr.  He’s like that.

Sklayne:  Me.  You forgot about me.

Sklayne.  He’s like that, too.

Sedona has to be both the most over-appreciated and under-appreciated place in the world.  Think SEDONA and you get crystals and vortexes, mantras and spiritual retreats.  Because, sure… there’s a lot of that going around.

But drive to Sedona from Flagstaff, and you end up winding through a canyon with dizzying hairpin turns, dropping a couple thousand feet in short order.  Ponderosa pines and scrub oak cling thickly along the red rocks in a stark green and bluff-red contrast, and rushing creek and riparian water habitat thrives below.  It’s alive and it’s stunning and it’s unlike anywhere else you’ve ever been.  Suddenly you look at it all much differently.  You look beyond the woo.

You think, “This is a place where I’d like to sit.  I’d like to spend time.  I’d like to write about.  I’d like to help preserve.”

Sklayne:  Vortexes.  Tasty.

Right.  That’s the thing, isn’t it?  So alluring, the temptation of the woo-woo.   Sometimes I think it shadows the amazing nature of what’s already there.  Because right there in Sedona, the world changes.

Sedona sits at the Mogollon Rim, the profound natural dividing line between the Colorado Plateau and the lower Basin & Range country.  Spend a few winters in the higher northlands, and you know right where the snow line lays:  Above Sedona, it’s chains and closed roads.  Below it, the fog clears out and suddenly you’re driving clear and free.

Above Sedona, the land is all silent volcanoes and cinder fields supporting skiing and ponderosa pines growing thick and deep; the amazing San Francisco Peaks were formed by your classic hot-n-heavy volcano, topped by the classic dome explosion.

Below Sedona, it’s a quick descent through juniper scrub desert to the broad sloping valley bowl of classic hot, hot desert.  Saguaro, prickly pear, cholla spring up, while grasses grow sparser by the moment.  Picture your cowboy hero, crawling along the ground with his tongue hanging out, a rattler coiled up not far away.

And there in Sedona, you have it all, both above and below.  North Sedona is full of canyons, swirling wind-formed rocks, Vultee Arch, and a plethora of stunning trails and views.  As if I could resist taking the reckoning action out into those settings!

Lucia:  I’m pretty sure you could have.  Or warned me to pack hiking shoes.  And, the way things turned out, a bulk pack of sanitary wipes.
Garrie:  Bring it on!  I’ve got ghostie vibes to hike out.
Sklayne:  Squirrels!  Tasteee!
Trevarr: [   ]

South of Sedona’s main road, the land plunges down into the red rocks–striking red bluffs in formations so distinctive they all have names (Snoopy, Lucy, Chimney Rock, The Mittens, The Cow Pies, the Rabbit Ears….).  It looks like someone turned the Earth’s crust upside down and left us all gazing at the roots of the rock.

Truth is, I enjoy the woo-woo.  The vortexes, both male and female in essence; the crammed, tight little shops along Highway 89.  There you can get crystals, furs, a plethora of T-shirts bearing eagles, wolves, and largely misrepresented Indians, and–if you look in the right place–maybe a badger skull to add to the collection at home.  (Ask me how I know.)   Geodes, vortex tours,  and any little thing with a whiff of New Age magic…this is the place!  It’s all worth a little wallow.

Sklayne:  Tingles!

But for me, the rich treasure of the area comes in the land, which carries a woo-woo all of its own–just because it is.  And in the end, even if it was crystals and vortexes that tickled my idea generator, it was the land that drew me, and which helped drive this story.  What the land and its creatures deserve.

Lucia:  Let’s just sit on Sterling Ridge and look down on the pass for a while.
Garrie:  Non-ethereal woo-woo.  Want me some of this.
Trevarr:  *just happens to be standing close to Garrie*

…Sklayne:  When can I eat it?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

first appeared more or less in this form, in the Tor newsletter

Heaving bosoms! Throbbing tumescences (tumesci?)! Sensitive nubs!

Hmm.

Okay, that stuff is fun. But not the sum and total of passion.

PASSION: n. A strong liking or desire for or devotion to some activity, object, or concept

PASSIONATE: adj. capable of, affected by, or expressing intense feeling

For characters–for people– to come alive, they must have passion.
I’m passionate about our environment. Respecting it, living in it, knowing it. I want to know the birds at a glance, the wildflowers by family and name, the formation of the earth beneath me. I’m passionate about my animals. I want that connection of knowing them inside and out, of training to a point of fun and subtle communication–and of being able to discern and fill their needs at a glance.

*an ironic pause in the typing while I run out to the barn in single digits because it’s time for bedtime hay*

And, as it happens, I’m passionate about writing. I want to feel as I write my stories, and I want readers to feel as they experience them.

Layers of intensity and feeling.

For characters to be real to any of us–in the reading or the writing–they need those same layers.

In my paranormal romance series, Lisa McGarrity (Garrie to everyone but the IRS) has a passion for reckoning;  she knows responsibility comes with her unique gift of manipulating ethereal breezes. She has a passion for cleaning up her world–of ethereal creatures from the dark side, and now–somewhat to her surprise–of entities she considers demons, although Trevarr might call them something else.

She has a passion for seeing that her friends are well in their lives; she takes responsibility for them.

And yes, she has a passion for Trevarr – a fiercely driven demon hunter from a different dimension.

Trevarr (not even known to the IRS) has a passion for protecting his people. He lives a hard and gritty life and he lives it at full bore, and aside from the aforementioned need to protect those who took him in as a young outcast, he doesn’t much admit to emotions at all.

This would be why it surprises him so very much when he turns out to have them. And that, too, is a layer with which to work.

Without these passions–without an ability to experience life deeply on their own terms, for their own reasons, the characters not only don’t come alive, they don’t have the foundation to experience the depth of emotion we want to see between them. Without the layering, the relationships–no matter what their bodies might be doing–are unfulfilling.

Without the passions, we kinda don’t care about the bosoms, tumesci, and nubs.

No, really–we don’t! At least, not if we’re the passionate ones, too–about our reading, about our writing…about what’s important to us in both fiction and life. Excellent plots nonetheless fall short; sparkling dialogue just sits there on the page.

So–as reader, as writer…as a person: go ye forth and grab the passion…right out there in public! After you do, the rest of it will come along, too.

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Allbookstores.com

(first published in The Knight Agency newsletter in February!)

I need to get out more.

At a recent conference, where I was on the spot being an Author on a Panel, I mistakenly referred to the romance book expectation of “Happily Ever After” as “the Happy Ending.”

Oh yes I did.

More’s the pity, I had no idea why the audience burst into laughter.

Well, I suppose in some books, it IS the same thing…

Anyway, a kind soul enlightened me, and I turned beet red, and that was that. For the panel, anyway. But it got me to thinking about Happily Ever After, and how…well, I don’t tend to do that.

The thing is, in real life, there is no Happily Ever After–and I mean that in the best possible way. Those lovers who find their perfect match (against all odds, natch!) don’t stop being.

They face new challenges, and overcome those together, too. They continue together.

My characters are real enough to me so their lives go on, too. There are consequences to what they do in their grand adventures, both personal and practical. The things they’ve been through affect them; they grow, and need to understand what they mean to each other in these new circumstances. There’s always a next thing.

In Garrie’s case, her reckoner team needs to come to terms with an otherworldly half-blood they never truly trusted in the first place…but they do trust Garrie. Garrie needs to come to terms with the changes wrought within her, thanks to the new energies she’s faced. Trevarr faces both the mundane (Arizona rest stops) and the unexpected (how can this world not have the right food?). And irrepressible, unpredictable Sklayne…

Well. Sklayne wants to go home. And he wants to taste new things. Sometimes in that order, sometimes not. And just maybe, if he was to admit it, he wants his half-human partner to be happy.

Not that I’m going to make it easy for any of them…

But that’s how it is for me. Just because the book reaches the last page doesn’t mean the story doesn’t go on.

And I like it that way.

It's a BOOK!

Can’t you just feel taxes creeping up on you?  Can’t you, huh, huh?

Well, wuh.  I find that, organizationally, I’m still digging out from the two years of domicile in transition.  This year, I find myself in the middle of two things–scraping together facts and figures from a system that no longer works, and creating a new system that does work.

My brain hurts.

Where is my chocolate?

How many different pieces of software can one person learn at one time?

Is “without” supposed to be capitalized in that title up there, or not?

Wait!  I know, I know!

FORTY-TWO!

That is all.

(Oh, I lie–because I’m still rushing around the Internets, celebrating the release of Storm of Reckoning.  You can find me:

(previously)
Terry Odell’s Place — The Vicarious Wallow
Tor Newsletter — Beyond the Woo
NovelThoughts – The Happily Ever After
The Knight Agency Interview — Twenty Questions
Daily Cheap Reads
Rom Con — Storm of Reckoning: On the Road
The Knight Agency Free Friday!
Fresh Fiction — On Being the Evil Overlord

Now:
Authorial, Agently and Personal Ramblings — For I am the Corn Plant

Soon!
Thursday, February 24: Dazed & Confused: Pet Peeve!
Monday, February 28: Night Owl Romance Blog — On Having Adventures

Whew!)

If you have a Kindle, Daily Cheap Reads is a great place to find inexpensive books of all kinds–indie, sales, and repubs.  This month features many of our Backlist eBooks writers, so…way cool!

And I’m still blogging around, all excited about the release of Storm of Reckoning.  You can find me:

(previously)

Terry Odell’s Place — The Vicarious Wallow
Tor Newsletter — Beyond the Woo
NovelThoughts – The Happily Ever After
The Knight Agency Interview — Twenty Questions

(now!)
Daily Cheap Reads

(next!)
Thursday 17th: Rom Con — Storm of Reckoning: On the Road
Friday 18th: The Knight Agency Free Friday!
Saturday 19th: Fresh Fiction — On Being the Evil Overlord

And in the meantime, I offer this recently unearthed little ode, penned while I was grooming.  You’ll figure out the tune, which fully reveals my sophisticated music muse:

Me:

I’m a Cocker Spaniel
Short and stout
Here is my piddle
Here is my snout
If you try to brush me,
Watch out–OUCH!
Big eyelashes
I’m cute, no doubt

ConneryBeagle: BAWHSOME, mymom!  Do it again!

(I am happy, because I just realized that since I now listen to my music via computer, I can now download the amazing song for this video!  Go, me!)

It's a BOOK!

Well, this month I’m doing my own little tour…across the internet, as it happens.  Writer blogs, Book site blogs, agent blogs, publisher blogs…

So from the recent past:

Terry Odell’s Place — The Vicarious Wallow
Tor Newsletter — Beyond the Woo
NovelThoughts – The Happily Ever After
The Knight Agency Interview — Twenty Questions

Dancing badly across the Internet!

Yesterday we had thundersnow. Big, cracking lightning, booming thunder muffled by the wall snow.  It struck something nearby, but all the backups kicked in pretty quickly.

For which I’m grateful, because that wall of thundersnow was only the leading edge of the Big Storm that’s hitting so many states this week, and which has now buried us.

Why I'm not practicing agility before the weekend trial...

It's a BOOK!

But the storm crosses the line from reality to conceptual!  Because STORM OF RECKONING is out this week!  Yes!  It’s on the shelves!  Being pretty!  And handsome!

I hope, if you read it, that you enjoy it.  8)  It meant a lot to me to be able to write it.

And also, TOTAL BONUS, I’m guesting over at Terry Odell’s Blog Place this week, and I got to write about Vicarious Wallowing.

Oh, go on.  Go look. You know you want to!

Just sayin’.

Short and sweet–here’s the cover; down below is the trailer!

If you want to enter the bookmark sign-up contest for the complete Farscape series, you have just under a week–head to that form under the cover thumbnails that says Gimme! (If you just want a bookmark, sign up any time! )  The bookmarks will start going out after the contest is over.

Book book book book!

Ha!  Bet that one made you stop and go “whoa!”

The book baby, that’s what!  Storm of Reckoning is only a couple weeks away from the big b/i/r/t/h/ release date!

*does the dance*

I’m getting ready!

• Bookmarks: check
• Cool Contest under way: check
• Reviews trickling in: check and YAY!
• Author copies on the way: check
• Bloggie activities lined up: check
• A smattering of blogs already written!: check (and Go, Me!)
• Party Hat: check!

So what are we missing? Why…yes!  It’s the snippet!
==============
Sklayne sulked.

Hunted.