N is for Nick

Nick Jameson is the hero in Debra's New Year's Eve story.

I feel like I know Nick pretty well. In addition to starring in his own story, he has cameos in just about every other story of the main Corral series and the holiday spin offs. Sometimes by name. Sometimes by just 'the bartender'.

In writing his story, though, one comment my editor made was about not knowing him very well. I think that's an overall dilemma in a short story. Nick's clocks in at just over 8,000 words. With a narrative that short, there isn't a whole lot of time to really dig deep into a character's psyche. It's more of a 'what you see is what you get' kind of situation.

In fact, most of what we know about Nick comes from the heroine's POV. Here we're in her head on the opening page:

Nick would make someone a good husband. Not her of course. It wasn’t like that between them. Although she couldn’t deny the hint of attraction that simmered right beneath the surface, hooking up with Nick, as good as it probably would be, wasn’t worth risking their friendship over. Lovers came and went. Truly good friends were much rarer and harder to find.
Besides, she knew Nick. He wasn’t interested in settling down. He wasn’t a player in the strictest sense of the word, but happily ever after with one woman wasn’t on his radar anywhere in the near future.

I did have some fun throwing in some phrasing that went along with Nick's career of bartender, and hopefully put us deeper into his POV when we do get into his head.

His mouth went dry and his head buzzed like he’d had too many shots of Jager.

The idea burned through him like a sip of perfectly aged Tennessee whiskey. Smooth with a warmth that spread until it consumed him.

It was like someone poured one-hundred proof tequila on his already shriveled soul. And shoved the worm down his throat for good measure.

...with an intensity that built like a shot of liquid cocaine burning into his belly.

New Year's Eve at The Corral makes its debut on December 14.

In the meantime, Halloween at The Corral had its worldwide release yesterday!

Get your copy at:

The Wild Rose Press: (It's on sale there for $1.00!)
Amazon
Barnes and Noble

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

Names - an unusual family name

Paula shares a new discovery from her family history.

My grandmother Catalina is the youngest
child standing in front of her father.
This photo was taken in 1879/80, after the
death of her mother in February 1879, and
the death of her sister (the one on the right)
in December 1880  

My grandmother was born in 1875, and was given the first name of Catalina. An unusual name for a girl born to a Victorian working class family in a small mill town in the north of England, where the most common names were traditional ones like Mary, Sarah, or Jane.

Catalina is, of course, the Spanish version of Catherine, and at first I thought she must have been named after a family friend, or even some local dignitary. Then, about 15 years ago, when I starting working on my family history, I discovered that the name Catalina wasn’t unique. In fact, it appeared in every generation of her family as far back as the early eighteenth century.

Catalina’s grandmother, Grace Dalton nee Catlow, had a sister named Catalina and her brother Jonathan named one of his daughters Catalina. One feels quite sorry for these girls who rejoiced in the name of Catalina Catlow!

Going back 2 more generations, I found Jonathan Catlow (born 1703) who was the rector at the parish church in the town in the second quarter of the 18th century. He was the father of my ancestor, James Catlow - and yes, one of James' sisters was called Catalina.

Jonathan married Grace Smith in 1727 – and I must admit, when you get a ‘Smith’ in your family tree, you throw up your hands in despair, because it is such a common surname.

Having reached what I thought was a brick wall with Jonathan and Grace, I did a search in the parish records (which fortunately were all online at the time, therefore relatively easy to search) for anyone named Catalina who was baptised, married or died in the same town as my grandmother Catalina. Imagine my amazement when there were about two dozen of them in addition to those I’d found in my direct line.

Eventually I managed to compile a ‘tree’ of all these, which took me back to a Catalina Pickford, born in 1695. I remember thinking at one point, ‘Either there’s a link between these families and mine, or I’ve been compiling someone else’s family tree!’

To cut a long story short, I didn’t find the link for a couple of years. I made contact with an American descendant of the Catlow family, who gave me the information that ‘Grace Smith’ was a widow when she married Jonathan Catlow, and her birth name was Grace Pickford.

Eureka!

From there, it was easy to link Grace Smith nee Pickford (born 1701) to her sister Catalina Pickford (born 1695). They were both daughters of John Pickford of Macclesfield, Cheshire, who in 1692 married  – yes, you’ve guessed it – Catalina Brewster.

The trail ran cold again. Catalina Brewster (born 1673 in Kent) was the daughter of Edward Brewster, but I couldn’t get any further back than that.

Until last week, when I happened to be sorting through my family history files, and decided to do a quick online search for Catalina Brewster.

I found a family history of the Brewster family, which showed that Catalina’s father, Edward Brewster married Dorothy Neesham. Dorothy’s parents were Thomas Neesham and – wait for it! - Catalina Cole (born about 1599). From there it was an easy jump to Catalina Cole’s father Roger Cole, and then to his father, William Cole, who married in 1525 in Devon. His wife’s name? Catalina de Gallegos - born in Spain about 1497.

At long last I had found a definite Spanish connection for the name which persisted through several generations and many branches of the family until the late 19th century.

When and why my Spanish ancestor Catalina de Gallegos came to England in the early 16th century is impossible to determine. However, Henry VIII had a Spanish queen from 1509 to 1531 (Catherine of Aragon) so was Catalina’s father, Ferdinando de Gallegos, part of her entourage? It’s interesting to speculate, although we’ll never know for certain!

N Is For Nathaniel

Jennifer talks about one of her heroes...

Nathaniel is the hero of The Seduction of Esther. He's a single dad, concerned with his reputation, and he falls for the clumsy, yet beautiful, choir director at his new temple. Dating a member of the clergy brings with it a lot of attention, which is precisely what he's trying to avoid. But his daughter loves Samara and he gets to know her better when he stars in the Purim play with her.

I loved writing this book, as it let me explore Jewish characters in contemporary romance, and it let me write a fun kid as a big part of the story. Seeing how characters react to children gives readers a hint at the inner working of those characters and enables the writer to show traits that might be difficult to otherwise describe.

Amazon

Here's the blurb:

Samara Goldberg has a problem even the most beautiful singing voice can’t fix. She’s a walking disaster, especially when she’s around handsome men. To make matters worse, she’s in desperate need of someone to play the character of Mordecai for the Purim spiel she’s producing and the new congregant, Nathaniel Abramson, is a perfect fit. Nathaniel is a divorced dad who’s recovering from the biggest public scandal of his life. The last thing he needs is a relationship with the choir director at his new synagogue, who also happens to be playing the lead female role of Esther in the very play he’s been coerced into joining. Woven around the Jewish holiday of Purim, The Seduction of Esther is a story of two people whose lives mirror the plot of the Purim story. Like Esther, who had to hide her Jewish identity from the King of Persia, Samara and Nathaniel are hiding key pieces of themselves. Evil Haman wanted to destroy the Jews, and the nasty Josh will do anything to keep Samara and Nathaniel apart. Will their love survive, like the Jewish people in Shushan, Persia, or will their fear keep them apart?

My side job as a writer

Ana muses about the benefits of a vivid vocabulary and editing skills.

My son builds fine furniture. He's building a business website and tapped me to edit his marketing  information and image descriptions.

Decorative cabinet

Like writer and editor, we go back and forth. He sends a draft. I revise. He corrects. I check.
It helps that I sometimes find one word to replace four. Also that I've learned to spy when narrative in not in cause-and-effect order:  This has to happen before this can happen. 

The skill set of a novelist helps with promotional writing.
The wordsmithing is fun,
Doing it with motherly love is wonderful.

M is for Marine

Debra always wanted to write a story with a military hero.

I knew a bit of how I wanted the story to go. I even wrote the opening scene in which we meet our Marine hero. And then it kind of languished. I didn't do much else with it.

Then the idea to do a series of holiday stories came to me. When I got to the Fourth of July one, my Marine was the perfect fit. There's not much of anything that's more patriotic than someone who has chosen to serve his (or her) country.

I wanted to do Tyler right. Make him the epitome of a Marine: the few, the proud. With a set of values and commitment that matched. Honorable. Strong. Brave. A warrior. A fighter. On the other hand, I didn't want him to be too alpha. Most of my heroes are an alpha/beta hybrid.

I've known a few Marines in my time, and I like to think that Tyler is a mix of all the very best of those men.

A lot of times the heroes in our stories are larger than life. In this case, there wasn't a whole lot of stretching to do. Real world military personnel do seem larger than life to me. People to honor and commend and to stand in awe of what they do and what they sacrifice. Real life heroes.

Did I get Tyler absolutely perfect? In my eyes...yes. (Then again, I do tend to think all of my heroes are pretty darn perfect...flaws and all.) Would a real life Marine agree? Maybe. Maybe not. After all, it's still a work of fiction, and some things have to be a certain way to make the story work, even if those things are 'off' a bit from reality. Tyler does come home injured, but he's probably a bit too well adjusted after having served three overseas tours of active duty in Afghanistan.

But it was an honor to write a story about a United States Marine. And everything he stands for.

Semper Fi.

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

Memos to Myself

Paula reminds herself of what she should and should not be doing.  

Memo 1: Must stop being diverted by my inner editor and learn to write a first draft without agonising over every little detail. I can fix those in the first big edit of the story once it’s all written. So (a) if I can’t think of the exact word I need, I should put something similar, then highlight it so I can come back to it later

(b) if I know I’m using a word or phrase too many times, I should ignore it in the first draft (and again highlight it for future editing)

Memo 2: Must also stop being diverted by research, however interesting it might be. For example, why did I stop writing for ages to look for a surname for a minor character? I definitely need to differentiate between research that’s important to the story, and insignificant details I can sort out later.

Memo 3: Must stop procrastinating e.g. 

(a) kidding myself that playing online Solitaire (etc) is my ‘thinking time’ 

(b) checking Facebook every five minutes and then realising an hour has gone by.

(c) being diverted by Google street view because I want to see what is around the next corner.

Memo 4: Must keep going even when I feel like I am wading through treacle.

Memo 5: Must remember that, with every story I’ve written, I’ve gone through the phase of ‘This story is rubbish, it’s going nowhere, no-one will ever want to read it.’ But I’ve carried on and eventually found myself thinking “Hmm, maybe it isn’t too bad after all” and even “Yeah, it’s turned out to be quite a good story after all.” It’s happened before, and it will happen again with the current WIP (I hope!).

There are countless more messages I could give myself but that’s enough for now. What messages do you think you ought to give yourself? 

M Is For Miriam’s Surrender

Jennifer provides an excerpt...

Miriam’s Surrender is book two in my Women of Valor series. It was one of my favorite books to write, because I was able to redeem the villain from book one and turn him into the hero of book two. Here’s the blurb:

Josh Lowenstein is a successful architect, hired to redesign the alumni club of a posh, private school in New York. He is strong, capable and knows the best way to do everything. Except let another woman in.

Miriam Goldberg is the Assistant Director of Outreach, and is Josh’s day-to-day contact for the redesign. She’s taken care of everyone around her, and forgotten how to let someone else take care of her.

With a tumultuous history, neither one is prepared to work together. As they get to know each other, the animosity disappears, but Josh is hiding something from Miriam and its discovery has the possibility of destroying their relationship. Only when they are both able to let the other in, and release some of the control they exert over everything, will they be able to see if their love can survive.

Amazon

And here’s a brief excerpt:

Josh sat in the cab and looked out the window. Lights and people and cars and buildings rushed by in a blur. His eyes glazed over and in their place Miriam appeared. Miriam touching his arm and reassuring him, Miriam smiling, Miriam’s hair shining, Miriam looking at him as he bent to kiss her.

Whatever made him do it? When they’d stood outside her apartment in the cold night air, her cheeks had turned pink from the cold. He smiled. She controlled so many of her outward reactions to things, but she couldn’t control that one.

From his height and angle, he’d watched the light from the street lamps shine on her hair, making it appear to glow. Their breath, a white fog, had intermingled as they stood facing each other.

Her lips were soft and plump. He’d spent the evening watching them mold words, stretch into a smile, surround her food as she chewed. He couldn’t help himself; he’d wanted to kiss her. It was the briefest wish. He’d made the slightest move toward her. But in the one too-brief second, he’d glimpsed much more. Her pupils had dilated, she’d raised her face to his and she’d parted her lips. He’d discovered Miriam’s desire.

And now he knew she wanted him, it would take all of his control not to give in to his own need.