HelenKay Dimon

Jaci tagged me to write seven random facts about myself. I’m not that interesting, but I still think I can come up with seven…

1. My grandfather (mom’s dad) was a coal miner.

2. I’ve worked for an Immigration Judge, a Member of the European Parliament and a U.S. Congressman. And by work I mean work. No euphemisms there.

3. In the early 90s I attended President George Bush’s (No. 41, not the current) birthday party and a State of the Union Address as the (completely non-romantic) guest of said Congressman referenced in #2. Got to sit right behind Barbara at the latter. Not bad for a girl who grew up in farm country Pennsylvania.

4. I have not been divorced. Neither have my parents, my in-laws, my grandparents nor my siblings. In today’s world that is nothing short of a miracle.

5. In the early days of Glasnost when Russia was still called Russia, I spent a very odd evening on a train from Moscow to Leningrad (now called Saint Petersburg) with a bunch of drunken British diplomats. Part of the night’s events included preventing one high-ranking diplomat from breaking the car’s window and trying to jump out (due to his intake of Vodka, not me). He was about 65 and I was 20 and still he almost got away from me. Those wacky Brits.

6. I have had more than one conversation with Mike Tyson.

7. In my attempt at time travel, I once stood in Fiji at the International Date Line and jumped back and forth. Today, yesterday. Today, yesterday.

There’s a story about Swedish backpackers and a night in Amsterdam, but Jaci said seven things…

I will refrain from tagging anyone, but feel free to give it a try if you want.

My RITA books arrived. These are the books I read and judge for the RWA contest. It’s a big deal and I take it seriously. I’m actually excited to dig in. I have seven category romance books and a novella. In other words, I have some work to do.

While I do that, check out my guest blog at Bam’s blog today. The topic is strippers. Despite how it might sound, it’s not sordid. Go check it out. NOTE: It’s not up yet. I’ll let you know when it is.

UPDATE: While we wait for the guest blog to appear… All About Romance is doing its annual Reader’s Poll. And, as of the January 13th interim results (and this is sure to change, so go look now and scroll down to the most recent results) YOUR MOUTH DRIVES ME CRAZY is on the Best Contemporary Romance list. Wahoo!! Since I did not nominate myself and since it’s not also on the Most Disappointing Romance list, this is pretty cool.

Seems to me we all need a short break from talk of plagiarism and copyrights and all related topics. This should do it…

Esquire – yeah, I read the magazine now and then – has a monthly feature called 10 Things You Don’t Know About Women. Models, actresses and a host of other well known beautiful women provide the list. This month, Jennifer Love Hewitt gives her insight into this subject. My three favorites from her list go like this:

#7 We want to raise children. We just don’t want you to be one of them.

#8 Women are meant to talk and men to listen. We don’t want to be fixed; we want to be heard.

#10 When we ask you how we look, it’s okay to lie; when we ask you how she looks, you better lie.

Anything to add?

A few people have emailed and asked if I was going to chime in on the Cassie Edwards’ fiasco. Honestly, I wasn’t. Other sites covered the situation far better than I could have, so I refrained. The situation made me sad and frustrated. Every single time I see allegations like this, in or out of the romance community, I get sad and frustrated. Since I could not say anything nice or helpful, I decided only to leave a comment at Dear Author about my general feelings about plagiarism (don’t do it!) and leave it at that. I thought that would be sufficient since I naively believed there would not be much disagreement on this topic and Edwards’ conduct. After all, Edwards said that she used sources without attribution because she did not think she had to give credit, and the passages comparing her work to the nonfiction sources she used showed that her version of “using sources” was actually a verbatim cut-and-paste. Frankly, with all of that, this did not seem like a hard issue to me. She did something wrong, or at the very least questionable. You don’t borrow, take or whatever other people’s work and co-opt it as your own.

Straightforward, no? Apparently not everywhere. The discussion on this in the newspapers and outside of the romance blog world recognizes that this is a topic worthy of discussion and that the allegations require further review. It’s the conversation within the romance community that has me concerned. There are excuses about Edwards’ age, a great deal of blaming-the-messenger (ie, Smart Bitches) and on one writing loop there’s a ridiculous amount of discourse about how awful the Smart Bitches are for speaking ill of Edwards all while the speakers say awful things about the Smart Bitches.

Unfortunately, this confirms my belief that the romance community has a serious problem with introspection and self-monitoring. My only solace in this mess is that Nora Roberts stepped forward and said her view in a straightforward manner, stating that Edwards’ actions were not okay. Roberts did this even though she and Edwards share a publisher. It was a gutsy move. If only we could all be so dignified in expressing our remarks and positions.

We are nearing the end of the Sweat Challenge. Head on over and report your progress, thoughts…whatever. While there, read through some of the comments. The progress is amazing!

Inspiration comes in many forms. You can check out my blog at the Sweat Challenge today for some attempted words of encouragement. Or, if you’re the more visual sort, you can take a peek at the absolute best Christmas holiday antho cover ever!!

Now all you have to do is wait until October ‘08…

A few days ago I picked up on a meme started by Zaza and passed around by several authors called Top Tens Signs A Book Is Written By Me. I enjoyed it so much, I thought I’d do a different kind of list today. This one is: Top Ten Things You Won’t See In My 2008 Releases. Long title, I know. I’m too lazy to shorten it. So, here we go:

1. No secret babies. In fact, no children at all. Two single titles and four novellas and not a kid anywhere. Believe it or not, I like kids. Just haven’t really written about them yet. But I am obsessed with the idea of writing a secret baby book. It’s coming. [Did everyone hear that sound? It was the sound of my editor screaming in horror.]

2. No exotic locales. Yeah, I know people are waiting for the next Kauai book. Sorry about that. I swapped the order of releases so I could put two Kauai books in 2009. I know that seems far away, but it just made more sense to have the next two come out back-to-back since Josh (DEA agent from YOUR MOUTH DRIVES ME CRAZY) plays a big role in one and is the hero in the other. So instead of Hawaii, you’ll see Washington, D.C. and Southern Utah.

3. No cowboys. What I know about cowboys is…nothing. I wouldn’t even try. Instead you get a government agent, lawyers, an architect, a construction worker and a security expert.

4. No heroine names that could be confused for hero names. The heroines of 2008 are: Gabby, Aubrey*, Becky, Erin, Natalie and Alexa (Lexy). You won’t need to check the back cover to figure out which one is the hero and which is the heroine.

5. No menage-a-trios or group sexual activities. One man/one woman romance. That’s me.

6. No scene in which a heroine makes a life-altering decision about her romantic life just to please her difficult parents. Oh, there are some interesting family dynamics in these books, but the grown-up women here make decisions – good ones and bad ones – all on their own.

7. No hero who shuns marriage and commitment just because that’s what heroes do.

8. No marriage or relationship based on the fact the heroine is pregnant. My characters are all being responsible and wisely using birth control as responsible adults should. However, I do think there’s a pregnant heroine in my future writing. I can feel it.

9. No pets. I have pets. Love pets. For some reason little critters have not gotten a role in my books yet. I’m sure that will happen soon as well.

10. Still no non-human heroes and heroines. Everyone is human.

*Yeah, okay, that one can be male or female. It just sounds female to me.

Following up on yesterday’s post… For me, the fastest way to break my concentration when I’m reading a romance novel is to have a hero not act or sound the way I want him to act or sound. By that I don’t mean that all romance heroes should be the same. Quite the opposite is true. Here is the scenario I see over and over and it’s one that drives me a bit nutty: the hero is anti-commitment for no reason other than he is, then the most perfect and beautiful woman in the world walks in front of him and he falls in love, all of his alpha characteristics disappear and he turns into a pining 13 year-old girl.

Yuck.

I want my romance novel heroes to act against type now and then – ie, not all hate the idea of commitment just because. I want them to be smart and sexy…and flawed. To show you what I mean, let me tell you about Reed Larkin, the hero in my upcoming book, RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW (March ‘08).

The idea of this book is: can two people who lie for a living figure out how to tell each the truth about how they feel about each other…and will they believe each other if they do? In it, hero Reed Larkin is a good guy at heart but makes every dumb move a guy can make. He lies for a living, breaks up with the heroine in the first scene of the book, tries to woo her back but keeps lying to her at the same time and then is surprised when she finds out and is pissed, protects her after she tells him she’s a grown-up and does not want to be protected, and gets used by his employer even though he’s smart enough to know better.

There’s nothing typical about this guy. He is tough, smart, sexy and lovable. Showing all of those characteristics was the challenge. He’s not a jerk but he does typical jerky guy stuff. There is a scene early on, after the break-up, where he finds out he has to win Gabby Pearson (the heroine) back. She’s ticked off and sitting on his car. Is he trying to charm her? No. He’s most worried about her scuffing his paint job with her high heels…and he’s dumb enough to tell her that.

There were times I wanted to smack him. And that’s exactly the kind of feeling I expect – and want – readers to get. That frustration of “please have him not mess this up” as you read. I’m hoping readers will connect and cheer for Reed even as they see bits and pieces of men they know (and want to shake) in him.

Alison Kent posted her Top Ten List (see yesterday’s blog). She said this:

My heroes will sound like men, including having foul mouths when it’s in character. They can talk cooking as well as sports, but they will not be girls in men suits.

Yes. God, yes.

This is a biggie for me too. I try very hard to make sure my guys are guys and not me trying to sound like a guy. It’s a concentrated effort. For example, here’s a brief back-and-forth from the novella I just wrote where the hero (Spence, a lawyer) and heroine (Natalie, a probation officer) are arguing about a case and Nat’s belief that Spence is too emotionally detached from his work. This one comes out in October 2008 in the antho TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT.

“See, I knew it. You care even though you pretend you don’t.” She clapped her hands in triumph. “You know what that makes you?”

“A girl?”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that sexist remark.”

“I can talk louder,” he said.

“It makes you a decent guy.”

“That’s a shitty thing to say.”

Seems like a typical guy reaction to me.

Are we alone? Do you notice times when a guy sound like something other than a guy in a romance novel?

This is not the usual end of the year list. Nope. This one is the Top Ten Signs A Book Is Written By Me list. I can’t claim an originality in the idea. Jill Monroe, Jaci Burton and Gena Showalter all posted theirs. I thought it was cool, so here’s mine:

1. The hero, heroine, their families and their friends will all be human. No werewolves, vampires, angels, ghosts or creatures of the night.

2. At least one of the characters will come from a highly dysfunctional family. This is not a reflection on my family, of course. It’s a reflection on my years as a divorce attorney and the corresponding realization that there is a lot of craziness out there.

3. No animal will ever get a point of view. I love animals, but I prefer to guess what they’re thinking rather than pretend I know what they’re thinking.

4. The book will take place in modern times. I am far to lazy to go out and research historical details to write a book. All-contemporary-all-the-time for me.

5. The hero and heroine will have some sort of trust or identity issues. After turning in eight novellas and four novels, I noticed a trend. My folks struggle with who they really are and whether or not, on some level, they can trust each other and themselves.

6. The sex will be one man/one woman. I know the idea of multiple partners is “in” but it’s not for me as an author.

7. The books will always be dialog heavy. I enjoy dialog and creating entertaining banter. Makes me happy.

8. There will be some amount of humor. Maybe not laugh-out-loud stuff, but somewhere in those pages will be something that makes you smile or possibly chuckle.

9. No hero will shun commitment just because.

10. Every book will include a “thank you” to my hubby James.