Colorful Characters

by Keli Gwyn (@KeliGwyn)

I love creating characters. Some could be classified as colorful, in the lively, interesting or exciting sense of the word, but that's not what I'm talking about today.

The colorful characters on my mind are those who love color--in some cases a particular color.

Men in the Victorian Era, the period my stories take place, had few color choices. They wore a lot of black and white, which can get pretty boring.

Women, on the other, enjoyed the expanding array of fabrics and colors available, enabling me to have fun clothing them.

Tess, the heroine of my first Love Inspired Historical, Family of Her Dreams, coming June 2015, loves blue. It's pretty much the only color she wears. I have a hunch that's the color she'll be wearing on the cover that's currently in the development stage.

Blue used to be my favorite color, too, but as you can see from this picture of my closet, purple has captivated me. I wear all shades, from a deep violet to a light lavender and from a bold fuchsia to a muted mauve. I throw in black as my base color.

How about you? Do you wear a variety of colors, or are you partial to a certain one?

Imagination by Merrillee Whren

This week I'm staying with my daughter in anticipation of my second grandchild's birth. While I'm here, I've been playing with my three-year-old granddaughter. She has a vivid imagination. So we are constantly playing with imaginary friends and imaginary animals. The writer in me wonders whether she will one day follow in my footsteps and put her imagination to work writing fiction. Long before I ever thought about writing stories to sell, I made up stories in my head. I played with imaginary friends and had imaginary conversations.

These days I still make up people who have conversations in my head. I count it a privilege to share these people with readers as I write books.

How do you use your imagination?

Surprises

This is the cover for my January book, Montana Match, which is on the shelves now. Even though I supply the art department with photos and descriptions of my characters and setting for the novel, I wait eagerly to see what the cover will look like. It is always a nice surprise to see the cover for the first time.



The photo above shows my hero, Parker and the dog that made it's way into the story just because of this picture. The photo below is Brittany, my heroine, who is a secondary character in one of my earlier novels, Love Walked In. When I saw this picture in a catalog, I immediately knew it was the perfect image of the character I had created in my mind.


I think they did an excellent job in capturing the characters and setting in my story on my book cover. Don't you?

Do you like surprises, or are you one of those people who doesn't like to be surprised for any reason? I like surprises. My husband gave me one of the best surprises of my life a few years ago when he took me to the Wimbledon Tennis Championships. Here I am at Centre Court.


I have been an avid tennis player and fan for years, so this was an especially wonderful surprise.
What kind of surprises do you like or not like?

Lorianne from Stalker in the Shadows

Camy here! I just got my author’s copies of my January 2012 Love Inspired Suspense, Stalker in the Shadows!

This means that those of you who belong to the Love Inspired Suspense book club will get your copies soon, too! I also intend to get an ebook copy of my book from the ebooks.eHarlequin.com website when it’s available on December 1st.

There’s a character named Lorianne in the book, who owns Lorianne’s Cafe in downtown Sonoma. The cafe is fictional, but Lorianne is based off of a friend of mine who loves to cook!

Lorianne is also a fantastic volleyball player, and I used to play co-ed volleyball with her in my recreational volleyball league, before I tore my ACL and had surgery. She’s one of the best setters I know.

For her day job, she teaches elementary school, and I’ve been with her at class--she’s a really great teacher, too. She’s patient and yet firm with her students, and they love her.

Lorianne is a huge foodie, and one of her favorite pasttimes is going to different restaurants around the Bay Area to try different cuisine and chef’s recipes. She also is a great cook and makes lots of really neat dishes, as well as chocolate chip cookies to die for.

Lorianne has said she’d love to be in one of my books, so I put her in Stalker in the Shadows as the owner of her own restaurant.

I also put a branch of her cafe in my December humorous romantic suspense, Protection for Hire! You don’t see Lorianne in that book, but the hero and heroine meet in her cafe in San Francisco.

For Stalker in the Shadows, I had Lorianne open up a branch of her cafe in Sonoma, California, and she’s also in a couple scenes in the book.

I can’t wait for my friend Lorianne to read Stalker in the Shadows! I think she’ll be thrilled!

Camy Tang writes romance with a kick of wasabi. Out now is the fourth book in her Sushi series, Weddings and Wasabi. She is a staff worker for her church youth group, and leads one of the worship teams for Sunday service. On her blog, she ponders frivolous things like knitting, running, dogs, and Asiana. Visit her website to sign up for her quarterly newsletter.

Click here to find out how you can join my Street Team—it’s free and there’s lots of chances to win prizes!

Camy and the Name Generator

Camy here! I will confess that I’m terrible at coming up with names for my characters. I’m currently working on a new proposal for Love Inspired Suspense, and I am imagining my hero looking a bit like Nathan Fillion:

So what do I name my hero?

Nathan!

But I gave him a last name of Fischer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know it’s similar but I have already confessed my uncreativity in the name department.

I also was clueless about my heroine’s name, and I hadn’t yet gotten a picture in my head of what she looks like, so I decided to pass the buck. I have a fantastic Street Team of “influencers” who pass out my bookmarks in exchange for Christian fiction. (Click here to find out how you can be part of my Street Team.) Occasionally I have challenges for bonus prizes, and I had been intending to have another challenge this week, so I had a drawing for the prize of naming my heroine!

Street Team members who managed to give away the last of their batch of bookmarks in a three-day time window got their names entered in a drawing. I pulled a name out of a hat and the winner got to pick my heroine’s name! (She’s currently deciding, and I’ll have my heroine’s name on Friday.)

Am I the Queen of Delegation or what???

I still have other names to come up with for my other minor characters. I might hit up my Street Team again. :)

So do you have any good name suggestions?

Camy Tang writes romance with a kick of wasabi. Out now is her humorous contemporary romance Sushi series and her romantic suspense, Formula for Danger. In her spare time, she is a staff worker for her church youth group, and she leads one of the worship teams for Sunday service. On her blog, she ponders dogs, knitting and spinning wool, running, Asiana, and other frivolous things. Sign up for her quarterly newsletter for giveaways!

Click here to find out how you can join my Street Team—it’s free and there’s lots of chances to win prizes!

Fan Mail

Merrillee here. One of the nicest things about being an author, for me at least, is getting fan mail. Readers often tell me how the story I wrote touched them or made them see one of God's truths more clearly. Others may say that the story related to their lives in some way or the story reminded them of a good time or sometimes even a difficult time in their lives that they got through with God's help. The story helped them remember how God works in our lives.

Recently, I received an e-mail from a soldier in Iraq. He told me he had read my February 2008 book, FOUR LITTLE BLESSINGS. How exciting to think that one of my books is halfway around the world and that the story brought a blessing to a soldier.



Since this book is the first in a series about three brothers, I decided that it would be nice if he could read the stories of the other two brothers, MOMMY'S HOMETOWN HERO and HOMECOMING BLESSINGS. When I e-mailed the soldier to tell him that I would be sending a package, he was excited. So I went to the post office and picked up one of those priority boxes. I've put in several other Love Inspired books as well as my own and some other goodies as well. I was really tempted to eat the Twizzlers myself, but I didn't. Here's the box almost ready for a trip to the post office.



What kind of goodies would you include in a care package for a soldier?