Weekend Musings: IN NEED OF HEROES

FYI: I will be taking vacation days the first week of July. 

We can’t deny that our economic situation is precarious to say the least. There are so many things out of our power to control in today’s world. The truth of the matter is we don’t like the feeling of being powerless. 

My husband and I were discussing some of the movies we’ve watched over the past year. What drew us to those particular movies? Those who know me also know I love kick-ass movies. While I do watch some romantic comedies, or drama, I prefer action adventure. 

• Captain America, which was a blend of old fashion values of a bygone age and a hero who could beat the odds. Win the day. A hero you liked and could respect.

• Fast Five because while this crew was considered criminals they had heart and values. Plus they outsmarted a really nasty bad guy. That I loved. It highlighted the point that a family isn’t always blood but can be comrades. Plus Vin Diesel and the Rock weren’t bad to look at. I loved the precision driving, hot cars, and danger.

• Abduction, because sometimes ordinary people become heroes in extraordinary circumstances, especially when their life is on the line (there are several movies I could add here that I've seen and fit that description).

• Sherlock Holmes harks back to an older time, which is part of the appeal, but a time on the edge of so many new technological advancements. It’s the feeling of optimism and hope that draws me as well as intellect. Naturally there is plenty of action to satisfy me. And Jude Law and Robert Downey are fine specimens of manhood, lol!

• Tower Heist gave me something to laugh over while and rooting for the little guy, the ones without a lot of power and influence. But they did have brains and used them to win. 

• The feel good movies: We Bought a Zoo, Friends With Benefits, Bridesmaids, Real Steel, and War Horse. 

• The safety valve and laughter movies: Bad Bosses, Bad Teacher, and The Hangover (Hubs and son and they also love horror movies).

Art by Joe Jusko

I look down my list and see a lot of heroes. I think in tough times people need heroes to save the day. It’s not surprising to find out that Batman (gotta love a guy named after a Scottish hero and inspired by Sherlock Holmes and The Shadow) and Superman (superhuman abilities and a strong moral values) were born in the 1930’s in the middle of the depression. The Phantom (one of my all time favorites) is another hero that was born in the 1930’s no superhero abilities but like Batman, a strong sense of justice, the ability to use intellect and strength to accomplish victory in their battles. Captain America was born at the beginning of WWII.

Heroes give us hope and something to cheer on to victory. They accomplish things we can’t but heroes like Sherlock Holmes, Batman (the dark knight), The Phantom (the gray knight) are very human. They merely use their brains and strength to effect changes in their world and win the day and that offers hope to a very human population. 

It tells us that individuals can make a difference if we stand for what’s right. We can win if we act.

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A few things:

Over Coffee will be on vacation the first week in July. I'll be rerunning some articles and I will do a Insecure Writers article. Hubs is off for training for a month starting the second week of July.

A few of my favorite heroes:

1 Those wondering when Anita Clenny is coming out with a new book--later this fall and it will be a new series, Guardians of Stone (you can read a brief excerpt) yay! And she will be releasing the third in current series, Unleash The Highland Warrior (hope to have a date for you soon). I've been missing her books.

Amazon, B&N, 

Amazon, B&N

• DONNA GRANT has a new book released in her Dark Warrior Series. The cool thing is, they're back to back releases. 
• Last month it was Midnight's Master (Logan) excerpt and just released, Midnight's Lover (Ian) excerpt.
• AND if that wasn't enough to look forward to she is also starting a new series, Dark Kings which will be released as a special ebook novellas July, August,and September. These two series will have overlap stories, which I think will be very cool.  

  

Anita Clenney: Building Memorable Characters

A chance for two commenters (US and Canada) on today's blog to win a copy of Embrace The Highland Warrior.

My guest is paranormal romance author, Anita Clenney. She writes about some really yummy Scots. The ones I've *met* are the unforgettable types, and not just because they take up a lot of space in a room. None are the type to fade into the woodwork even when they're just sitting in the group. You get vibes of who and what they are--a bit at a time. I like Sorcha, but who I really want to get to know better in Anna. There's just something about her that draws me. 


Another fascinating character, seems on the surface, to be a bad guy.  Let's just say there have been some suspicious actions on his part which make me wonder. I've read both books (definitely 5 star reads and stories I can read more than once--oh yeah, that's my keeper shelf) and his actions make me wonder if someone has some sort of hold over him, or if he's protecting someone dear to him. Just a feeling, and I could be totally off base with this. I do know he has an agenda which is beyond what he appears to be. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series to see if I'm right or wrong...  


And this is the thing I like about certain authors and Anita in particular. The characters are like icebergs. You see them clearly enough to identify who they are, but there's always a hint of what's below the surface.
  
Anita's topic is about building characters who aren't easy to forget.

It takes several elements to make a good book. A great plot, intriguing characters, strong writing. All of these are important, but I don’t think any surpass the need for compelling characters. If the reader doesn’t connect with your character, she won’t care if you have the most spectacular plot in the world, or if you can string phrase together a paragraph in a way that makes her sigh.  Think about some of your favorite books, those that have stuck with you throughout the years. I bet they had great characters.

How do we make memorable characters? Let’s start with something simple, but still important. The name. A name is like a first impression. It defines who you are until someone--the reader in this case--gets to know you. The name Reginald gives an entirely different feel than Zeke or Bart. How about Faelan, Ronan, and Cody? They’re all warriors in my Scottish paranormal series. Let’s meet some of them.

THE WARRIORS

There’s Faelan, the only warrior who’s ever been assigned two ancient demons. Born in the 19^th century, Faelan was most powerful warrior of his time. He was trapped in a time vault and slept for 150 years, waking to a strange world filled with modern technology and even stranger…modern females. Then there’s Ronan, 6’3 inches of raw, sexy warrior, better than Robin Hood with his bow, and equally at home with a sword or a bonny lass. Cody, the only other warrior who’s been assigned an ancient demon, might have pretended to be the tough boy next door, and he’s good at hiding secrets, but his world will never be the same after he finds out what’s been hidden from him. Shane is quiet but the fastest with a sword, and Niall is a one-man army, with legs like tree trunks. Tomas is a clan medic and Brodie’s the prankster of the bunch, always getting into trouble. Duncan is brooding and frustrated, and Sorcha likes flirting almost as much as killing demons. Anna, a stunning beauty, has chosen to remain a warrior forever, but destiny has some surprises in store. And my heroines Shay and Bree are more than just mates to these sexy warriors. They have talents that will shock even them.

I like my character’s names. They seem to fit their personalities. But sometimes the “final” name doesn’t come to you until you’ve gotten deeper into the character, seen his or her strengths and flaws. And if you have two protagonists, make sure their names work well together. They need good cadence just like the words in a book. Originally, Faelan and Bree were Faelan and Erin. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I can tell you that by the time I realized how horrible that sounded, she was Erin to me. I couldn’t think of her as anything else. But I forced myself to change her name to Bree. Faelan and Bree. Isn’t that much nicer? It took a while to get used it, and I had to do a “find and replace” (Erin with Bree) before I submitted it to my editor, but now I can’t imagine the character as anything but Bree.

But fleshing out a character goes way beyond their name. We need to feel these characters, see the way they dress, their stance, how they move. Little tics that give their emotions away. I always think of those guys who can take a corpse’s skull and use clay to recreate the face. Writers take a skeleton character and add on layers until we have a face, a body, a real flesh and blood person.  And that’s just the outside. What about the inside, where all that motivation is growing? Anger, pain, hope. That’s the really good stuff. What’s the character’s history? What was his family like? Did he have brothers? Get along or fight? Was he a bully or did he stand up for the underdog? Did lose his parents at a young age, get his heart broken by a girl? Maybe he lost a child, or lost part of himself in a war. Layer by layer, we build our characters, inside and out, filling them with hopes and dreams and fears, until we have someone the reader will hopefully fall in love with and never forget.

• My question for you is, can you think of a character whose name perfectly fits?
   

EMBRACE THE HIGHLAND WARRIOR

When the powerful demon that left Shay for dead discovers her empty grave, he comes seeking retribution, believing she possesses an ancient book he has sought for centuries. 

Knowing she can’t fight the demon alone, Shay returns to her clan and the Scottish Warrior who betrayed her…the only man she’s ever loved, where she discovers that betrayal isn’t always what it seems.

Sometimes it’s far worse. Excerpt 

BUY: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books-A-Million, Red Room, iTunes

NY Times and USA Today bestselling author Anita Clenney writes paranormal romance and romantic suspense. Before giving herself over to the writing bug, she worked in a pickle factory and a preschool, booked shows for Aztec Fire Dancers, and has been a secretary, executive assistant, and a real estate agent. She lives with her husband and two children in suburban Virginia. 

To find out more information, please visit http://www.anitaclenney.com/, follow her on Twitter, or like her on Facebook

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The Tale Of Two Reading Hats

Over Coffee will take a break the holiday weekend and resume June 1st. 




My guest is debut author, Anita Clenny. Anita writes paranormal and suspense.  She's the author of a new paranormal romance series about Highland Warriors.  

Anita says when she's deep into the "middle of a heated battle with warriors and demons" she tends to forget "that people in the real world have to eat dinner and that dishes don't wash themselves."



I just read that the pink ribbon hat Princess Beatrice wore for the royal wedding sold on eBay for over $131,000. The only good thing I can say about that hat is that the proceeds of its sale raised money for charity. Quite a bizarre fashion statement, but it got me to thinking about hats; in this case, metaphorical hats. For most writers, our love of stories began as readers. When I was young, I was fascinated by the worlds I found between the pages of a book. I still am. It never occurred to me that I might write one myself until a few years ago. I had been on a reading jaunt that was about as insane as that hat the Princess wore, when it occurred to me that I could write a story. Or so I thought. I found out that writing a good story wasn’t as easy as I’d expected. But I learned and I persevered and here I am, with a Scottish paranormal series about Secret Warriors, Ancient Evil, and Destined Love.


When reading for pleasure, I can completely lose myself in a story. Nothing matters but those characters and that plot. I’m not picky about those little technicalities that drive writers and editors crazy. I’m there, living the characters’ joys and their woes. If I put on my author hat and read, it becomes an entirely different thing. I start seeing the creation of the story, the way the author strung the words together to build the plot, to create the characters, paint the setting. Are there too many adverbs, not enough sentence variation, too much telling – not enough showing? Is the writing just not engaging enough? Or did the author do something that was so brilliant it made me gasp in awe and feel the bite of envy?

But sometimes that author’s hat gets in the way. Instead of just enjoying a movie, I’m busy analyzing the plot, because as a writer I know where the story should go to get the most bang out of the plot. It can take away from the enjoyment of books or movies if you’re not careful. But if you’ve hit a wall, that hat can come in handy.

A few times as I was writing Awaken the Highland Warrior, either my warriors weren’t behaving, or my writing just seemed to dry up. I think I needed to step away and look at the story fresh. If I had that luxury, I took it, but if I was pushed for time, I grabbed a book, put on my author hat and read a few paragraphs, and I was back in the game. So I love both my hats, and I think there’s a time and place for each.

• If you’re a writer, do you have two hats?
• If you’re a reader, do you find yourself at times not enjoying the story because you’re analyzing it?

If so, there might be a writer lurking inside you.


AWAKEN THE HIGHLAND WARRIOR


A Man From Another Time…

Faelan is from an ancient clan of Scottish Highland warriors, charged with shielding humanity from demonic forces. Betrayed and locked in a time vault, he has been sleeping for nearly two centuries when spunky historian Bree Kirkland inadvertently wakes him. She’s more fearsome than the demon trying to kill him, and if he’s not careful, she’ll uncover the secrets his clan has bled and died to protect…

Could Be the Treasure She’s Been Seeking All her Life…

When Bree inherits an old treasure map, she discovers a warrior buried in her backyard. But the warrior isn’t dead. Bree shocks Faelan with her modern dress and her boldness, and he infuriates Bree every time he tries to protect her.

With demons suddenly on the move, Bree discovers that Faelan’s duty as protector is in his blood, and that her part in this fight was destined before she was born. But nothing is ever what it seems… Excerpt

Buy: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Borders, Books a Million

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Anita Clenney writes paranormal romance and romantic suspense. Before giving herself over to the writing bug, she worked in a pickle factory, at a preschool, booked shows for Aztec Fire Dancers, and was a secretary, executive assistant, and a realtor. She lives with her husband and two children in suburban Virginia where she is working on her next book, Embrace the Highland Warrior, which will be in stores in November 2011. For more information, please visit http://www.anitaclenney.com/ and http://www.sourcebookscasablanca.com./

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