Margo’s post on Tuesday brought up an interesting subject for me and got me to thinking about just what sorts of heroes I like to see in movies, television shows, and most especially my romance novels. (I admit it’s alpha all the way, even though in real life I would be tempted to shoot a man like that if I had to put up with him for more than 24 hours! ) In turn, that led me to consider what types of heroines I tend to prefer. We’ve come a long way from the helpless, tied to the railroad tracks, Perils of Pauline-type heroines that we used to see once upon a time. Today’s romance novel heroines are just as likely to rescue themselves as wait for the hero to come along. And while I still like the occasional knight in shining armor sweeps damsel off her feet tale, I also like the new, more assertive heroine that we are finding more often in the pages of our favorite books.

The most recent trend, of course, is the take-no-prisoners, kick-butt heroines. Like Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider and Sarah Michelle Gellar in Buffy, these gals aren’t afraid to show a little muscle and can stake those vampires with the best of them. What hero? We don’t need no stinking heroes! At least, that’s what they think until they meet the guy who can stand toe to toe with them and give as good as they get.

Next, we have the feisty yet intellectual heroine, like Rachel Weisz’s Evelyn in The Mummy. These ladies use their quick minds to get themselves out of difficult situations and aren’t afraid to venture outside their comfort zone and into danger to get the job done. And if every once in a while they let those quick minds lead them into trouble…well, if your hero looked like Brendan Fraser, would you complain?

Then we have what I like to call the “anti-heroines.” Shallow, spoiled, and determined to have their own way, they tend to surprise you with their strength and resilience in times of crisis. They may have some maturing to do and lessons to learn (And usually it’s their hero who does the teaching!) but like Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind, they know what they want and won’t let anything stop them from getting it. You have to admire that sort of gumption.

Of course, there are more and I could go on listing them for quite some time. The variety of heroines is one of the best things about today’s romance novels. Books have grown and changed with the times, and today’s heroines more realistically reflect the modern and more confident woman.

If I had to choose a favorite type, I’d have to say I like my heroines to be a combination of the above. I enjoy it when they are smart and sassy and able to stand up to the villain–and their hero!–without sacrificing any of their femininity. Though I’m not too fond of the overly tough and aggressive heroine. (I have to draw the line at the ones who can kick their hero’s butt!) I’d say a good example of one of my favorite movie heroines would be Catherine Zeta Jones’s character in The Legend of Zorro. She’s beautiful, intelligent, and strong-willed, yet still feminine. And not afraid to take on Zorro in a sword fight!

So, what about you? What traits do you like to see in your romance novel heroines? Who is your favorite heroine? And what do you like about her?

A few weeks ago I shared my good news. And now, I’m afraid I must share the bad. I hate to take up blog space for this – blogs are supposed to be fun and entertaining, but since I told all of you, my jaunty friends, I feel you have a right to know. We lost the baby. At a time when the miscarriage rate had dropped to only 5%, as we were almost in the 2nd trimester and we’d heard the heartbeat 3 times. Last week, Anne was gracious enough to take over my blog day while I had surgery. Needless to say my husband and I are devastated, but we’re both strong people and we will survive this. If miscarriage hasn’t touched your life in some fashion at this point, it probably will at a later date. I think the most common misconception about it, is that it’s rare. But something that effects 20% of all pregnancies and ends right at 1 million of pregnancies in the US annually, isn’t so rare. So I know many of you will know what I’m feeling because you’ve been there yourself. Or perhaps your sister has struggled through it, or a best friend. It’s a sisterhood I did not want to join, but I’ve felt overwelmed with love and support since this happened. My husband and I will try again, we’re working with a fantastic fertility clinic here in Tennessee and I feel confident that the doctors there will do everything in their power to give us a healthy child. I hope someday I can post good news, news of a birth, a happy and most wanted welcome addition to our family. In the meantime, I will be grieving and healing and feeling all the love that all of you are sending my way. Many thanks.

Have you ever known a true alpha male?

I’ve known a couple, and they make their families’ lives miserable. And so every time I read a novel with a true alpha hero, I can only think about the two women I know who are married to alpha guys. One is a fighter pilot who became an engineer. He thinks pretty highly of himself and knows that nobody can do … anything … better than him. He is rigid and demanding, insisting that pretty much everything be done his way. The other is a guy whose wife and family interfere with his interests. He is a former army ranger who’s into extreme sports, and if he doesn’t get his all his weekends and a few weeks to himself to pursue his games, he’s cranky and miserable. This is a guy who should never have had kids – they’re always in the way, because he needs his nights, too, to stay in training for all those weekends.

So no alpha heroes for me, either in reading or writing. I tend to write dark heroes with difficult pasts – deep, brooding guys who are alpha when it comes to taking action, but not too arrogant or self-centered. Some would call them ‘gamma’ heroes – guys who aren’t what you might consider the soft ‘beta,’ but more alpha with beta characteristics. This guy is strong and decisive, a confident leader who understands duty; he’s logical and just as intense as the alpha. But he can see beyond himself and his own personal wants and needs. He’s not too ‘touchy-feely’ but he’s able to consider another POV without seeming to wimp out. He’s unconsciously generous, can be a guardian or protector, and though he often doesn’t ‘get’ the heroine, he always respects her.

Guess whose dh is a gamma .

Continuing the hero theme, I was thinking about the heroes I used to love to watch on the Saturday night movies (or afternoons when I played hookey from school) and came up with Rod Taylor (Hitchcock’s The Birds), Rock Hudson in those Doris Day comedies, Gene Barry, Robert Stack, Cary Grant, Errol Flynn …

Now it’s all Hugh Jackman, Gerard Butler, Clive Owen …How come we never hear about Hugh Grant or Tom Cruise? And why doesn’t Brendon Frasier ever make the front page of People?

Warning: this is an off the wall post for an off the wall kind of day. I’ll try to go back to the warm and furry next time.

I like snakes, bats and mice. Seriously, I do! Many women and men find those critters distasteful or scream inducing, but I get that little cooing face when I see them. I think snakes are beautiful, especially when moving through water or sand. Their colors can be vibrant, their patterns awe inspiring, their movements sinuous. Beauty in motion. No, that doesn’t mean I want to shake tails with the deadly variety, but I can admire them from afar.

I think bats are adorable. Curious and peaceful, doing their own little bat thing without something that we too often take for granted – sight. Incredible little critters with their bat sonar senses. Whenever I see someone swishing a broom at one of the harmless little guys I look around for a broom of my own – one that’s human size. And mice…poor little rodents. Cute little whiskers and twitchy noses and ears. Another curious critter that is just trying to earn its way in this mouse-unfriendly world.

The caveat is that I do sympathize with people who have pest control problems. But looking at it from the other side, we are usually the real pests…

Something I’m not particularly fond of are insects. I think it’s the alien structure and the way they look completely different under a microscope. Like they have some hidden component that I can’t see, but that’s traveling over my skin anyway. Getting swarmed by ants twice as a child probably didn’t help any. But I know there are fans of insects too, and they definitely have their place in the circle of life.

What critter(s) do you like that make others run for the hills? Or if you want to call me crazy, feel free to do that too.

All this reminiscing about our favorite books from childhood shed some light on something that’s been puzzling me for months.

I really struggled with the manuscript I just finished. What was I thinking, plotting an intrigue element? I never intended to write one, so I’ve never attended the workshops or writing classes, or read the how-to books, that teach the subtle intricacies of writing suspense and intrigue. As I work on the proposal for my next book, I realize with growing horror that I’ve plotted another story with an intrigue element. Even worse, I really like this story and desperately want to write it. Nick, the hero, has been begging me to write it for over a year now, ever since he swaggered his way into Tony’s book.

Where is this darkness coming from? I write witty repartée. My books are warm and fuzzy, not edgy. I prefer to make people laugh, but I had to kill two characters in this most recent manuscript, and it really bothered me. It should have been easier to off two people this time, since I had little trouble killing two thugs in Kiss From a Rogue, my previous book. I fought and struggled, but in the end realized poor Cosette had to go. I suffered more than she did.

I don’t think I ever read a single Trixie Belden book, or Cherry Ames, or Peggy Lane. But I did read Encyclopedia Brown, moved on to Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys (am I the only one who wishes a cable channel would rerun the shows with Shaun Cassidy and Parker Stevenson?), and had graduated to Alistair MacLean by the tender age of 9. (I wasn’t bloodthirsty — I read Judy Blume, too. Consumed pretty much the entire contents of my school’s meager fiction collection.) Ice Station Zebra, Where Eagles Dare, Night Without End, The Guns of Navarrone… all brimming with intrigue, espionage, suspense, and high body counts. I still have most of my MacLean collection, dog-eared paperbacks shelved beside The Cat Who… mysteries.

Just below them is the shelf filled with Asterix and Obelix comic books (now I think they’d be called graphic novels) I started collecting as a kid in England. A tiny village of Gauls fending off the expanding Roman empire doesn’t sound like a funny situation, but it is. I love how these stories are saturated with subversive and sardonic humor, starting with character names. Chief Vitalstatistix, the bard Cacofonix, the druid Getafix… you get the idea.

Hmm. Maybe there’s a connection here. Maybe I simply forgot what constituted the bulk of my reading before I discovered the joys of romance with its promise of a happy ending, and all that mayhem has just been waiting in my subconscious, dying to be let out. Maybe I’ve been struggling with the birth of a new sub genre — the humorous intrigue.

I’ve enjoyed reading all the posts about Trixie Belden. I’m almost embarrassed to admit I hadn’t read ANY of those books. But, everyone’s posts did make me want to go back and pick up a Trixie book or two.

When I was young I read Nancy Drew…and Cherry Ames, Student Nurse books. Anyone remember Cherry with her dark black curls and red lips???

I also read Peggy Lane theater stories. Like Trixie, Nancy and Cherry, Peggy was young and attempting to build a career…in her case as an actress in New York City.

I actually have the complete set of Peggy Lane books (purchased off ebay):

Peggy Finds the Theater
Peggy Plays Off-Broadway
Peggy Goes Straw Hat
Peggy on the Road
Peggy Goes Hollywoood
Peggy’s London Debut
Peggy Plays Paris
Peggy’s Roman Holiday

Actually, I’m now in the mood to re-read these….so if you’ll excuse me…

I’m working on a new book. Actually, I’ve been reworking it up until this point. I just started chapter four.

One thing I’m trying to do is to make the book funny. I’ve always been a witty writer (not witty at all in real life), and I’ve been thinking a lot this week about what makes a book — or my books — funny.

1. Voice.
Some writers will never be able to write funny because their voice is too serious or emotional or…unfunny. Some writers will never write serious books because their voices are too humorous. The lucky writers are able to develop a well-rounded voice and can do both.

2. The humor comes from the characters.
Someone once asked me how she could make her book funnier. I immediately asked about her characters. Did they have any quirks? Likes? Dislikes?

You can easily pair a serious hero with a bumbling heroine and invent many funny interactions.

You can also take essentially unfunny characters and put them in funny situations. Think about Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. He’s afraid of snakes, right? We learn early in the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark that he hates them. So what happens before the end of that film? He has to face a whole pit full of snakes. Indy looks into the pit, sees the snakes, and groans, “Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes.” Funny line. Why? We know our character, and we know he hates snakes.

3. Universality
The above example shows something else about humor. People often laugh at what they can relate to. Most of us probably haven’t had to face a pit of snakes, but who among us hasn’t had one of those days where the exact thing we didn’t want to happen, did? You hate spiders and one falls on your head or you hate dogs and you meet a cute guy who has three. “Dogs,” you think, “why does he have to love dogs?”

4. Quirky secondary characters.
Often the hero and heroine in a book aren’t funny. They’re too busy being heroic. That’s when you have the opportunity to bring in amusing secondary characters. A mother who doesn’t know Italian but who insists on speaking it all the time (WHEN DASHING MET DANGER), a stodgy British valet with a flair for drama (PRIDE AND PETTICOATS), a kleptomaniac brother (that’s my current work in progress).

5. Fish out of water
Often different plots lend themselves to humor. It’s almost always funny to take a character who’s comfortable in one place, uproot them, and drop them into another. A lot of the humor in PRIDE AND PETTICOATS came from the fact that Charlotte was an American who doesn’t know anything about how things are supposed to be done in the upper echelons of British society. She makes a lot of mistakes, and some of them are funny.

But if the fish out of water makes too many mistakes we just feel sorry for him or her, that’s why I had to play up Freddie’s reactions to Charlotte’s mistakes. Never underestimate the importance of the straight man (or woman) in humor. Often his or her reactions are what takes something from amusing to laugh out loud funny.

These are just five techniques I use to create humor. There are so many more (but I can’t give away all my secrets, now can I?).

I gave one example of a funny scene in a movie, what’s your favorite? Any idea what makes it funny?

P.S. Don’t forget to enter our Scavenger Hunt. We have prizes! Click on the link above or to the left.

Isn’t it funny, how the characters in some of our favorite novels can come to seem so real and mean so much to us? I suppose that’s only natural. If an author has made his or her characters come to life, they can sometimes seem like another member of our family by the time we reach the end of the book. For 300-plus pages, we’ve gotten to know them. We’ve gone on that adventure and lived their lives right alongside them. We’ve laughed and cried with the heroines and fallen in love with the heroes.

But while I have several romance novel heroes and heroines I consider memorable, I have found that nowhere is that sense of identifying with a character more prevalent than in the treasured novels of our youth. These are the characters who are truly unforgettable for us. Characters that we remember fondly and with a smile. Would exploring Injun Joe’s Cave been nearly as scary and exciting with anyone besides Tom and Becky? Would the March sisters’ travails been quite as touching if related by anyone but the indomitable Jo? And who didn’t cry right along with Anne and Marilla when gentle, soft-spoken Matthew died in Anne of Green Gables?

So, it is with a tip of the hat that I write about the character that made the biggest impression on me as a girl. The character who filled me with a love of reading and writing that led me down the road to my future profession. On my seventh birthday in 1979, I met Trixie Belden for the very first time, and from that point on my fate was sealed.

Thirteen when the series started out, Trixie was a tomboy with a love of mysteries and a nose for trouble that was constantly leading her into danger. From the very beginning, I was enthralled by her. Strong, determined, and brave, Trixie ventured where most young girls would fear to tread. Counterfeiters? No problem! Jewel thieves? Piece of cake! Trixie and her best friend, Honey, always got their man. The police had nothing on her! And the things we had in common astonished me. She was terrible at Math. (Hey, so was I!) She loved horses and dogs. (What do you know? So did I!) She had a sibling who drove her crazy. (I had two, but the principle was the same.) She got to travel to places I had always dreamed of going and I got to experience it all through her. I climbed to the top of the Empire State Building in New York City, explored a cave in the Ozarks, and visited Westminster Abbey in England, just to name a few. I can honestly say that if I could have changed my name to Trixie, I probably would have.

I wound up collecting all 39 of the books in the Trixie Belden series, and I have them to this day. Trixie will always be near and dear to my heart, and I am almost guaranteed to launch into a lengthy discussion with anyone who volunteers that they are a fellow fan. (Quick, Jim or Dan? Inquiring minds want to know!) It was Trixie who inspired me to pick up my pencil and write my very first short story, just a few days after that fateful birthday. So, I suppose it’s thanks to her (And my mother for getting that first book!) that I am a published author today.

So, what about you? Do you have any childhood characters who made an impression, who have stuck with you through the years? Did any of them ever inspire you to do or try something you might not have otherwise? Who are the most memorable for you?

When listening to music, I’m one of those weirdos that pays more attention to the melodies, tones, changes and emotions in the music, rather than the lyrics. I like deep, emotional music – the more soul ripping the better. I often have no idea what the lyrics are, even if I can sing along I may have no idea what I’m singing, thinking of the words as just another piece of the instrumental. People who are into lyrics think I’m nuts, but I know I’m not the only nutso out there. I think it’s probably because I’ve played the violin since I was six, and in a symphony you create emotion in a different way. So take my “For me’s” below with that in mind. If there is something on there that makes you say, “Wha??” that’s probably why.

Do you have any songs/artists/albums that just spoke to you at some point in your life when things were down and the world around you hurt? Songs that let you absorb the hurt and release the knots in your chest? Or just songs that leave you mellow or angsty?

For me:
Pink Floyd
Garden State soundtrack
You See Me Crying – Aerosmith
Gollum’s Song – LOTR Two Towers
Hallelujah – Jeff Buckley
When She Loved Me – Sarah McLachlan
Why – Annie Lennox
Here Comes The Flood – Peter Gabriel
Fix You – Coldplay
The Man in the Bed – Dave Alvin
Downeaster Alexa – Billy Joel
Captain Jack – Billy Joel
Kiss The Rain – Billie Myers
Of Course – Jane’s Addiction
Space Odyssey – David Bowie
Fiona Apple
Andrea Bocelli

What songs/artists/albums are an instant pick-me-up? What gets you moving again and feeling like maybe, just maybe things will work out? Or what songs/artists/albums are the ones that make you want to roll down your window, embrace the sun and sing your lungs out?

For me:
Pink Floyd – how’s that for ass-backward logic?
Don’t Give Up – The New Radicals – there’s just something about this song that makes me want to bounce and smile.
Do You Realize? – The Flaming Lips
Hans Zimmer soundtracks – strange but true.
Theme song from Rudy – Jerry Goldsmith
Charging Fort Wagner from Glory – Jerry G.
Isengard Unleashed from Two Towers – Howard Shore – for that perfect moment when the Ents go to war.
A Knife in the Dark from Fellowship of the Rings – Howard S. – for that perfect moment at the top of Orthanc and the drop change to the Uruk-Hai.
Live at the Acropolis album – Yanni
How Soon Is Now – The Smiths
Ice Cream – Sarah McLachlan
Dream a Little Dream – Ella & Louie or The Mamas and Papas
Tyrone – Erykah Badu
Bette Davis Eyes – Kim Carnes
The Way It Is – Bruce Hornsby and the Range
Up Where We Belong – Joe Cocker and Jennifer Jones
The Brazilian – Genesis
Somewhere in My Memory – John Williams
Kingdom Come – Coldplay
A Day in the Life – The Beatles

I know I’ve left a bunch off and this is a somewhat random sampling from me looking through my music. So feel no pressure, just give a song/artist/album or two. Your song might be the one that helps someone else through a rough time or gives them a new song for a sunny day!

Moving on is sometimes a good thing. Even if it’s painful. My few regrets in life are the instances when I didn’t grab hold of a major change and just jump. For example: when my dh and I first got together, he was finishing his PhD in physiology. He was going to be a medical researcher and I had just completed my nursing degree. I could have practiced nursing anywhere and he could have lined up a post-doc someplace exotic and interesting. Like Italy. Or Japan. I could have joined the Red Cross and left the country for a foreign stint … but we didn’t. One of his siblings had just died, and his parents were getting older. My dad had had a heart attack and was not getting better, so we thought it would be best to stick closer to home.

Not to complain – I can’t imagine having a better life. My dh became a researcher and made a number of discoveries (so esoteric, you wouldn’t have a clue ). Then he moved to industry and became the VP of research and development in a huge corporation. I was a contented ICU nurse for 20ish years and our kids turned out great, and all attended or are attending the college of their choice (the same one for all three kids, about 80 miles from home).

As I said, I have very few regrets. But sometimes I wonder what might have happened, had we taken up some of the more drastic possibilities. So don’t agonize too much about change – staying still can be just as bad!