My three kids are home for the summer. My two sons are still in college, and my daughter, the eldest, is planning on graduate school in the fall. So she moved home, along with her cat, Lou.

Now, we already have two cats. Bob and Mokie are the Serial Killers of the neighborhood. They don’t get along with each other, but they do hunt together. Birds, chipmunks, mice … bunnies … anything that moves is fair game. At least, according to Cat Rules. We’ve got two dogs, too: our 5 year-old black lab, Nick, and our 11 month-old yellow lab, Ranger.

There’s an uneasy truce on the main floor of our house. Our two cats are mostly outside, but when they come in, they tolerate the dogs’ presence – just barely. All four steer clear of each other, except for Ranger, who hasn’t quite caught onto the rules yet. So every now and then, there’s a major bout of hissing, barking, scratching, and more barking. Then the cats leave the house in a huff.

Poor Lou … he doesn’t quite know where he fits in all this. He’s a very friendly kitty, but he’s pretty much relegated to the second floor of the house. Mokie and Bob visit him every now and then … all right, they actually go up there to steal his food … And the dogs never go up there, not after the major hissing-growling-yeowling incident when Ranger ventured upstairs to check out the new guy. Every now and then, when things are quiet, Lou will venture downstairs to visit. He keeps his belly low to the ground, and he’s poised to make a dash back up the steps if anyone (i.e., a dog) makes a move. But if he can make it to where I’m working, he’ll climb up to the back of my chair and perch there until I leave.

Mokie is a climber. He gets up onto the roof of the house (we have several levels of roofs) and waits for blue jays to come after him. Little do the jays know that he’s got extra toes on his front paws which not only make them lethal weapons, but make him look like he’s wearing baseball mits. (It’s oh so easy to throw up a paw and catch a bird in that big mit!) Turns out that Lou likes the roof outside my daughter’s bedroom, too. He found a small tear in her window screen, turned it into a major passageway, and now spends a lot of his days out there, observing Mokie’s technique. Luckily, my handy husband bought him an actual cat door and installed it in the screen.

Now that I’ve gotten the pets’ antics out of the way, shall I start on the kids? Do you know how much milk two young men (ages 19 and 21) can go through in a day? Do you have any idea how much laundry three young people can generate? And clutter … I’ve begun a collection of shoes, shirts, pants, socks. Whatever I find lying around in inappropriate places, I keep. And there’s going to be some penalty to get that stuff out of hock. What do you think – is this fair?

Young love. There’s nothing quite like going to an amusement park or fair and seeing all of the young teens holding hands or waists while they walk around in their swimsuits, barefooted. Though it is hard not to cringe when those barefooted sweethearts walk into the restrooms, the floors of which are about as sanitary as a sewage pipe. Still, if you want to see the fresh spring of young love (replete with hands in pockets), you must visit your local park soon.

If you didn’t tune in last week, this all relates to my annual trip to Cedar Point, which I visited last Thursday. Cedar Point was great, per usual. We didn’t get in as many rides as we did last year due to a few extenuating circumstances, but we still got on all the ones we wanted, most with multiple rides. It rained from about 6-7:30, and the lightning shut down all the coasters, but they were back up and running a little after 7 and we hopped to it for the last rides of the day (leaving at 9:30). We had a 10-15 minute wait for the Millennium (Whoohoo!) after hotfooting it there after the rain started to clear. Now that’s when you do a little (very little!) rain dance.

So we weren’t quite the hard core coaster riders we were last year (30 rides on the big boys), but we didn’t do poorly at 20 big rides for the day, all things considered. And we still got in our three Millennium rides, thank goodness. The Dragster still delivered on its “take your breath away” promise as we were shot off at 120 mph in 4 seconds and then up 420 feet into the air. The ultimate slam, bam, thank you ma’am, ride. I still remember the first time I rode that coaster a few years ago and forgot to breathe. LOL.

And to top off the trip I got chased down (on a ride!) by one of the Cedar Point ride operators…but that’s a blog for next week when I can get the pictures up.

One of the downsides of being an Air Force brat is a lack of connections. I know people who are still best buds with friends they’ve had since kindergarten. Until my dad retired, my only constants were change and my immediate blood relatives. Even my beloved Pekingese, Candy, had to be left behind when we transferred to England. She would’ve had to spend 90 days alone in quarantine, so Grandma and Grandpa got custody of her for the four years we were gone. Kids who were my best friends when I was five, eight or ten, I haven’t seen since I was five, eight or ten. They moved or we did, and back in the dinosaur days — before e-mail and text messaging — kids didn’t have the skills to stay in touch.

The farthest back I can track any friendships is to seventh grade, and there’s only a half dozen or so of those. Just before I started junior high, as civilians we settled in Myrtle Creek, a small town in southern Oregon. Population: 3,250. Number of stop lights: zero. Number of people who knew your business: everyone.

It was difficult at first for me to fit in. I was very much an introvert then, and certainly not used to staying in one place. Not only had many of my classmates known each other practically since the cradle, the friendships between various families often went back several generations. But eventually I carved a niche for myself, and was active in my church youth group and school activities like drama, band, and the school paper.

Yesterday I had the privilege of attending the wedding of one of my classmates, someone I hadn’t seen in almost 20 years. I found out about the ceremony through a mutual friend. He, his wife, and another couple were our church youth leaders — people who had acted as mentors and parental figures to us both. I hadn’t seen them in over a decade, though my mom has kept in closer touch with them. They’re a little grayer now, but still very much as I remember them. My friend’s sister was there, too, with her husband. Last time I saw her, she wasn’t yet old enough to drive. Now she has a teenage daughter who looks just like her mom did at that age.

We spent some time catching up, and I realized with a pang that the love and respect I had for these people hasn’t changed a whit over the years. After the grown-ups left for their three-hour drive home, my friend, his sister and I continued to chat, and our spouses got acquainted. I have a mortgage and carpet stains, but suddenly it was as if we were discussing a history test we hadn’t studied for, or the mysterious substances served up by the cafeteria. Talk about surreal. We got so carried away, giggling and reminiscing, a grown-up came over to remind us to use our indoor voices.

And here’s the kicker – the kid sister lives less than five miles from my house. Has since last August, though neither of us had a clue until yesterday. (Since we’re both over 30 now, do I have to stop calling her a kid?) And her brother the groom – the skinny kid with two left feet but the best of intentions – had a heart attack a few months ago. He’s a month younger than I am. Now there’s a jolt of reality I didn’t enjoy. But still … what a blessing to connect again with friends from my past. That doesn’t happen very often.

PS: Got the phone call yesterday afternoon – What An Earl Wants won the Holt Medallion for Best First Book.

When I wrote my first book for Avon–When She Was Bad–the one that will be out in July 2007–the names of the H&H fit perfectly. Jenny (aka Jasmine) and Robert. Jenny to me had a sweet sound and Robert sounded like a confident entrepreneur. Even the name of Jenny’s sexy best friend Marcee (spelled just a little differently) seemed perfect.

My first book for Silhouette Special Edition–Romancing the Nanny–scheduled for release in March 2007, has Dan (one of my favorite hero names) and Amy.

But those books and character names aren’t the problem. The issue is, I can’t figure out if I like the name of my hero in my second book for Avon–tentative title “When She Was Good.” Marcee is the heroine and the name absolutely fits her. The name of the hero is Sam McKelvey. I like his last name and the name of his daughter “Fern” but I’m not sure if I like the name “Sam.”

What do you think? He’s a 36-year-old widower, former detective turned small town sheriff, dark hair and hazel eyes. Does that sound like a Sam?? Or maybe a ???? (You fill in the blank)

So last week I was telling you about getting locked out of my house on Ultimate Sportsfan’s birthday, and I alluded to a cake incident.

If you’re like me, all the people you know have been born around the same time. There’s that time of year when you can’t take two steps without running into someone’s birthday, anniversary, baby shower, or wedding. May is one of those times for me. So, barely a week after USF’s 30th birthday, my sister turned 29 for the second time.

Party arrangements were made and anticipated, and I took it upon myself to order her a fabulous cake. It was expensive, but hey, it’s her 29th birthday. She’s only going to have 10 of them!

So USF and I went to this restaurant near where we live, I won’t give you the name to protect the innocent, but it has awesome cakes and coffee. We ordered the cake, paid, and went on our way. Friday night, I rushed in to pick up the cake. I was right on time but needed to hurry a bit so I could make it to the restaurant a few minutes early, stow the cake, and set out the place cards.

Of course, the cake restaurant was incredibly slow. It took forever to get to the front of the line and then the server had to check the book, find the order, and go back and find the cake.

I waited and waited. The minutes were ticking away. Finally, she emerged with a white cake box. She pulled away the wrap, opened the box and Voila! “Welcome, Patrick!”

I don’t think I have to tell you that my sister’s name is not Patrick.

I explained this to the girl, and she, though puzzled, got out the book again and soon realized her mistake. She headed to the back to find my cake. Again.

I waited and waited. The minutes were ticking away. I was not going to be early at this point. In fact, if she didn’t shake a tail feather, I was going to be late.

But, miracle of miracles, she emerged with yet another cake box. We repeated the ritual, and she opened the box and, Voila! “Congratulations, Chelsea!”

My sister’s name is not Chelsea.

I told the server this, but she seemed to kind of doubt me. I mean, I’d already told her I didn’t know Patrick. Now I didn’t know Chelsea either? She was certain this cake was mine. Was I sure my sister wasn’t Chelsea?

So I was faced with two options.

One, argue, refer back to the original order, make her search the black hole of the cake room again, and arrive even later to my sister’s birthday party.

Or

Two, take the cake.

I chose option number 2. And so when the waitress at Farrago World Cuisine brought out the birthday cake, alight with candles, my sister gave me a strange look. But, unflustered, we all sang, “Happy Birthday, Dear Chelsea!”

So thanks, Chelsea, wherever you are. The cake was delicious.

Next week (June 11th-17th) I will be guest blogging at the wonderfully informative blog for readers and aspiring authors, Romantically Inclined. (And to all you RI ladies, I’m looking forward to it!) I hope our regular JQ visitors will stop by over there and check things out. And please don’t hesitate to join in the conversation or to comment and ask questions. The more the merrier, after all!

I thought this might be a good time to open the floor to comments and suggestions from our JQ visitors and to get a few ideas as to what some of you like to see as far as blog topics. We’ve never taken any sort of survey here at SOTJQ, so here’s our chance. What do you think? Do you enjoy personal anecdotes? Would you like to hear about the journey to publication or does it inspire you to hear authors’ tales about the day they received The Call? Or do you prefer craft related topics? Want to know how we handle those sagging middles or synopsis writing? Let me know! I’d love to incorporate some of these topics at RI if I can. And you never know. Some of them might turn up here at the JQ blog.

And please don’t forget to stop by here on Thursday, June 15th. As a special treat while I am away, Jaunty will be interviewing Avon author Julianne MacLean! So, I hope you’ll be here to welcome her to the Sisterhood and have your questions ready for her!

It’s been said that voice is that author’s unique perspective put into word choice and sentence structure and rhythm. But I think voice is a lot more than those elements. It’s so many aspects of our writing, yes, word choice and whatnot are a big part, but so are ideas, characters, setting, and most of all tone.

Voice comes into to play before we put one word on the paper – or the screen. I was once in a writing workshop and the instructor gave the following sentence and we were supposed to continue the story from there:

He wrapped his hands around her neck…

Now, I think a lot of writers would have gone for the thriller/romantic suspense route, or perhaps the super sensual. For me, though, I went in another direction.

“What a beautiful little chicken you are,” he whispered in a thick French accent. Then he placed the bird onto the cutting board and WHACK! cut the head off.
I’m happy to say I’ve never actually put that into any of my books, but that was my voice at work. Not so much the writing because, let’s face it, that’s not brilliant. But my ideas, my concepts came out of the instructor’s assignment and took me in an unexpected direction.

So ideas are definitely part of voice, but so are characters. Think about Shirley’s post earlier this week about smugglers and spies. Those types of characters are in her voice. Many blogs ago, I wrote about archetypes and I mentioned that while there are several options, I tend to stick with a certain group of archetypes for my heroes and heroines. This is because those specific archetypes are in my voice, in my writers’ toolkit and I access them with authenticity and truth. Think about some actors that are often given flack about playing the same characters over and over again (Meg Ryan or Matthew Perry), but the fact remains they play those characters well, they do play them with authenticity and truth and it rings true for the audience every time. The same goes for our writing. That doesn’t mean we don’t stretch ourselves and it doesn’t mean that we don’t change. Life happens and when it does, it often changes us and therefore can alter our world view and the elements of our voice.

So what about tone? Ever had a craving for a certain author’s books because you want whatever feelings come from those books? Chances are, that’s because of tone. We all have one and sometimes it can take longer to find your tone than to find any other element of your voice. It’s what makes my books feel like Robyn DeHart books. Think of it in terms of visual arts. Van Gogh, one of my favorite painters – I love the passion and the fervor in his work. If you’ve ever seen them in person you know that the paint is put on so thick you could reach out and touch it (although you might get arrested if you tried). You can readily identify a Van Gogh from another artist’s work – his work has the same tone. Same thing with Monet or Pollock or any number of other artists you can think of. Their work feels the same. Here’s another example. Ever seen a movie that Robert Redford directed? They all have sweeping, panoramic camera views of the lovely landscape. The stories are all different, but visually they feel the same. This is tone.

So when you hear those editors talk about that elusive sparkling voice and wonder if you’ve got one. Trust that you do. It might take a few books to cultivate it, but it’s there, it’s in you.

We saw X-Men last weekend. It was ok, but I think the first two were better – more characterization, fewer special effects. Not that special effects are bad, it’s just that when they take over the movie, then what’s left? Not much.

Has anyone seen The Break-Up yet? The trailers look cute, and I like Vince and Jennifer anyway. The problem with some trailers is that they often show the only good scenes of the film, and the rest are mediocre. We’ll probably see this one, anyway – my husband likes romantic comedies (Yes! he does!)

The trailers for Superman look great – Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor! Unfortunately, my impression (just from the trailers, mind you) is that Superman is gay. He’s just a little too pretty, does a bit too much posturing, but that could be just the trailer. We’ll see this one, but I’m going to run in the opposite direction of the new Fast and Furious. It looks absolutely awful, unless you like watching fast cars slipping around tight curves and crashing into each other. And insipid characters. I’m withholding judgment on Adam Sandler’s newest – Click. He’s not a favorite of mine, but I loved Fifty First Dates, and Spanglish, so this one might fly, too. I’ll wait and see what my kids have to say about it (hmmm…. maybe not. They laughed their heads off at Napoleon Dynamite)

How about The Lake House with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reaves? That looks fascinating. And Scoop – Hugh Jackman in a romance again! (It’ll be nice to see him without that wacko Wolverine hair-do). Of course we’re waiting for the next Pirates, and … Something Else. What am I forgetting? Isn’t there another summer blockbuster that we’re waiting for? Maybe I’m thinking of The DaVinci Code – which was a bit of a disappointment. It was ok, but not spectacular (nor was the book, in my estimation, although the story was fascinating). What’s the other biggie that’s supposed to be released soon?

I love summer (especially in Michigan, sorry, Margo!). We have a summer cottage on a lake, and it is easily the best place in the world to me. Boating, tubing, swimming, playing…I love summer on the water. I rub my hands together for summer sports (or beach sports) like bocce, paddle ball, badminton, grass basketball and volleyball.

Another good thing about summer….Cedar Point! We are headed there this week, and I’ll give an update next Monday as to how many rides we make.

So what do you *like* about the summer? I couldn’t chime in last week because I was away, so this is a second voting opportunity. Potato salad, water sports, volleyball, family picnics, barbecues, no snow…

And are there any summer activities that you adore?

The last few months have been a time of change and reflection for me, and this blog has been a form of therapy. After much contemplation, angst, and navel-gazing, I have made a breakthrough and even made peace with this realization. Here it is: The type of quiet, sweet story I wrote for my first published novel was the aberration, not the norm.

My second book had smugglers, the third has spies, and the fourth — still in the pre-writing stage — features a high seas race for hidden treasure. It seems that what my muse really wants to do is write adventure. Hang out with smugglers, spies and other scalawags rather than polite, well-behaved, upstanding members of society.

I resisted. For years, I read every traditional Regency romance novel I could get my hands on. I loved the gentle charm and humor, the subtle level of sensuality. It’s what I read. It’s what I wanted to write. But that market was shrinking, and I couldn’t write a beginning, middle, and end in only 75,000 words if my life depended on it. So I wrote a sweet traditional Regency that just happened to be 115,000 words. The draft that my editor agreed to buy had no love scene whatsoever. (That morning in the shepherd’s hut? Originally, all Sinclair got was hot and bothered watching Quincy roll on her stockings.) Yes, I bumped up the sensuality level in the revision stage. In the next book, Tony is in hot pursuit of Sylvia from the moment he sets eyes on her, heedless of the fact that his pursuit entails breaking the law with her. My third hero, Alistair, agrees to lie to all of London Society and aids the heroine with a bit of breaking and entering.

Then there’s my fascination with Tall Ships and the people who sail them. The first time I went for a three-hour cruise on the Lady Washington, it was just a historical writer’s general interest in seeing history brought to life. The Lady is a faithful recreation of her namesake which was originally built in the 1780s, first as a sloop and then re-rigged as a brig, engaged in trading furs between the Pacific Northwest and China (a three-year round trip). Now operated by the Gray’s Harbor Historical Society in Washington, she sails up and down the West Coast providing educational opportunities and takes on the occasional movie role. Her mostly-volunteer crew wears traditional sailor’s garb from the turn of the 19th century. My second cruise was a reward for turning in a manuscript on time last June, and to double-check my research since I based Nick’s Wind Dancer on the Lady.

Friday, I had the opportunity to go aboard again because the Lady is in town for our Rose Festival. I spent a few minutes touring her sister ship, the Hawaiian Chieftain, a ketch built in 1985. Based on an 1850′s design, she was interesting but too modern for my tastes, and I quickly went back to interrogating, er, interviewing the crew of the Lady.

Regular readers of this blog know that I have a *ahem* fondness for a certain actor who created one of my all time favorite characters — Captain Jack Sparrow, who happens to be a pirate. On Friday, I was regaled with stories of Johnny’s time on board the Lady, how he asked the crew to teach him since he was “going to be pretending to be one of them,” and learned more behind-the-scenes stuff like where the crew hid while cameras were rolling so it looks like Jack and Will are alone on the ship. I also managed to soak up more sailing information, like the fact that a tiller is a much more efficient method of steering a ship than a wheel. And I didn’t know until Friday that the Lady, at only 112 feet long, is bigger than the Mayflower. (Our ancestors must have really wanted out of England.)

In the reflections of the last few months, I dredged up long forgotten memories. While my contemporaries were reading the likes of Trixie Belden and Nurse Cherry Ames, I was immersed in the adventures of Robin Hood, Brer Rabbit, and The Pirate of Hitchfield by Edward Easton. See, my love of pirates goes back at least as far as this tale of a modern American who switches places with his 17th century British ancestor. I still have a dog-eared copy of this novel, which apparently warped my little 13-year-old mind. Permanently. And the chance to sail aboard the same kind of ships as my beloved pirates? Priceless.

So… I have come to the conclusion that Mom really was right. Ye be warned: You marry the kind of people you date, and you write the kind of books you read. I take consolation in the fact that all those sweet Regencies have softened the edges and tamed — just a wee bit — the smugglers, spies, and other scalawags who populate the pages of my imagination.