HelenKay Dimon

I was reminded of a few things while watching an episode of the new Hawaii Five-0. The episode was about a foreign dictator type who massacred innocent civilians for years and then one day decides to change his ways and goes to Hawaii seeking political asylum.

There are so many things wrong with that sentence, but let’s move on…

What I like about the show:
1. Alex O’Loughlin – I probably don’t need to elaborate, but I will. Hadn’t really paid attention to this guy until now. It’s kind of hard to miss him on the show. He takes him shirt off every episode. That works for me. He also plays a former Navy SEAL who is always ready to jump into the water and rescue something or someone. Good times.

2. The buddy concept – The two males stars engage in much witty repartee. They are good together, play off each other well and have good timing. I know that sounds kind of dirty, but it’s not. It’s good family television.

3. Hawaii – The scenery on this show is like travel porn. The shots are gorgeous and my hubby and I play the “hey, that’s the XX!” game the whole time the show is on. He grew up in Oahu so he can pretty much tell where everything is shot. For some reason that tickles me.

What I don’t like: The plots. They border on ridiculous. Let’s go back to the dictator episode…

1. This very bad dictator guy who is likely wanted as a war criminal comes to Hawaii seeking asylum and the governor handles it. And the dictator doesn’t sneak into the state for this asylum, mind you. Oh, no. He makes a big production of it. There are protestors and everything. Basically, everyone knows he’s coming. That’s strange enough, but the governor part is my favorite. The bad dictator guy is being handled not by the federal agents or anyone in the federal government. The Hawaii governor is taking care of it. Um, no.

2. When said bad dictator guy comes to Hawaii and needs protection he is given…a team of exactly four people (the Five-0 team), one of whom is a brand new cop and another is a disgraced officer. Uh, really? See, I’m thinking he’d have a full contingent of federal agents protecting his ass. Not four people.

3. To be fair with regard to #2, a contingent of…uh, mercernaries of some sort, is also assigned to watch over the bad dictator guy. These guys were so obviously crooked that the Five-O folks need to go back for some training for not picking up on it.

4. After the Five-0 team is attacked by the obviously crooked mercernary team, what does the Five-0 team do? That’s right, they go back to Alex O’Loughlin’s house. Not to the police station or FBI headquarters, hell not even to DEA. The four-person team goes to the one guy’s house with the bad dictator guy and his family in tow. Lordy.

5. The head Five-0 guy does call the police to let them know he has the bad dictator guy and his family at the house. Then, for reasons that aren’t clear, they all wait at the house for hours (you can tell this because it gets dark outside) without realizing that even if the police walked there barefoot they should have been at the house at least three hours before. General thought: Oahu is an island. It’s shouldn’t take half a day for the police to go from one end to the other. Then there’s the part where Oahu has more than one police station. I’m thinking there’s one near his house and he should know that.

6. On the phone thing…turns out the mercernary dudes did some magic cell phone cloning and stopped that call from ever getting to the police. Not sure when this happened and don’t really care because the whole going-to-the-house-and-waiting-for-hours-for-the-police-without-noticing-there-was-a-problem thing overwhelmed everything else.

7. When the mercernary dudes come to the house to kill the bad dictator dude, there’s a shoot-out…and the head Five-0 guy goes outside in the middle of it. Of course he does. That is the logical thing to do, right? Again, no.

8. Then, since we needed a happy ending, the bad dictator guy had to realize the error of his ways thanks to his love for his son. This is romantic and all, but yowsa. Homicidal sociopaths do not just wake up and stop being bad guys because they have cute kids. Just no.

I will, of course, continue to watch [See previous comment about a shirtless Alex O'Loughlin] but, damn, this plotting needs to get better. I should not laugh while people are shot unless I’m watching a Police Academy movie. This is an hour drama…right?

Good actors. Good characters chemistry. Beautiful setting. Writers with great resumes. Now we need realitic suspense plots. Please…

I have survived another holiday. This one started out rough because I had a technical problem with my VICTORIA’S GOT A SECRET book. Stupid laptop. All is fine now and I can go to sleep before 3:00am again, which is nice.

A lovely reader emailed and asked what I was working on. Over the weekend, the answer was nothing. I took a three-day break. Didn’t even get on the internet for about 48 hours. I spent the time watching movies and tivo’d shows. It was bliss. The movie I was looking forward to seeing is called WHITEOUT. It was okay. The best thing about it was the setting – Antarctica. It was one of those times where the setting really mattered to the storyline. It played a role in the plot and was as much a character as the people. It should always be like that but often isn’t.

Today is back-to-work time. I’m working a project that isn’t under contract. It’s one of those because I’ve always wanted to try it projects. With a little bit of a deadline break, now is a good time to try it. Will keepyou posted…

I’m at awesome author Beth Kery’s website today. Take a holiday break and pop over for a giveaway…

When we lived on the East Coast we spent almost every Christmas in Hawaii. Now that we live on the West Coast, we go during other times of the year. This mostly has to do with the fact I work from home now and have a much more flexible schedule. Also has to do with finding someone to watch after the pets. That’s not so easy at the holidays.

Since it’s cold in San Diego at the moment – well, cold for here – I thought a warm weather photo would be a nice reminder. This is of me and the hubby in Princeville (Kauai) at Christmas. Note the tans, smiles and short sleeves:

Must. Go. Back.

Fellow Harlequin Intrigue author B.J. Daniels is a USA Today bestseller. I read one of her Intrigues a few years ago after having not read Intrigue for awhile and fell in love with the line all over again. One day I told my agent how much I enjoyed the book and all the Intrigues I bought as a result of loving B.J.’s book, and my agent said: “Why aren’t you trying to write one?” If you follow along here, you know what happened next. I sent a proposal and have since sold six Intrigues to my terrific editor, Denise Zaza.

I had a chance to meet B.J. in Orlando this year at a writing conference. It was one of those great moments because she is absolutely lovely in person. She was so warm and welcoming to this Intrgiue newbie. It’s always nice to meet an author and find out they’re as cool as you’d hoped they’d be. B.J. is that type of author. She is also an excellent writer. Her November release, HIGH-CALIBER CHRISTMAS, was given the RT Seal of Excellence for November 2010. That basically means the RT reviewers thought it was the best book of all the books reviewed in the November issue. Let me put it this way, B.J.’s book beat out the new Dennis Lehane book. That’s pretty impressive.

If you haven’t checked out an Intrigue in a few years – and if this is true, I will cry since I have two out – go buy B.J.’s book.

As you may remember, I mentored Alannah Lynne in the Brava Writing With The Stars Contest. Well, Alannah made it through the first round. Yay Alannah!!!! Looking at the judge’s comments – agent Miriam Kriss – on Alannah’s hero and heroine descriptions, she kicked butt on the second round, too. Alannah’s critique is really positive and, must say, the best one. She clearly impressed the judge. See:

HERO: Gavin McLeod has spent the past 12 years climbing the corporate ladder of Holden Enterprises, positioning himself to become the next CEO. While the climb has netted him financial wealth, allowing him to provide for the grandfather who raised him, Gavin realizes it’s also left him on the brink of ethical bankruptcy. He’s torn between family obligations, a boss he views as a father-figure, salvaging his self-respect and the woman who’s starting to mean everything.

HEROINE: Sunny Black is a hard-working woman whose inner light and capacity to love touches everyone. She was forced to adopt a never-give-up attitude at 10 when her mother took off and Sunny took on the care-taking of her 1-year-old brother. Once again, she’s forced to dig deep and find that inner strength as she fights to save her business and falls in love with a man she’s not sure she can trust.

Mentor HelenKay Dimon’s comments: She worked really hard revising these descriptions to emphasize the characters’ internal and external struggles and focus on who they are rather than just the plot points. She wanted them to be multifaceted and did a good job of portraying that. Fitting the important information in such few words was a challenge, but she kept editing until she got it!

Miriam’s comments: These descriptions are very clear and I like the way they are put into a natural state of conflict. The only thing we could get a little bit more of is what actually attracts them to each other, but it’s a minor quibble, this is a very solid description.

I can attest that Alannah worked really hard on the descriptions. She polished them to perfection and it shows!!

And now we come to the audience participation part of the program….It’s time to vote again. So, head over to the Romantic Times’ website and read through the great descriptions. All of the contestants worked so hard and should be so proud of their accomplishments. While you’re on the site, go ahead and vote for your favorite [subliminal message: for Alannah]. Vote here.

I have the cover for my February 2011 Intrigue, GUNNING FOR TROUBLE. Check it out:

This is the second book in a miniseries called Mystery Men. The first, GUNS AND THE GIRL NEXT DOOR, comes out in January. Four alpha guys. Four tough women. A conspiracy in WitSec and many, many bad guys.

I am blogging at the Borders True Romance blog today and talking about – what else – my new release, IMPULSIVE.

Isn’t release time fun? It’s all-promo-and-book-chit-chat-all-the-time. I apologize to those who hate that, but do come over to Borders and say hi…and there’s a giveaway.

There’s an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about John Grisham’s newest release, THE CONFESSION. His hardcover sales were down from his last hardcover release. However, he also sold about 70,000 ebooks in the first week of sale, which accounted for about 1/3 of the copies sold of the book. Also, the Kindle ebook outsold the hardcover edition at Amazon during the first week of sale. With the help of ebook sales, his sales for this book are higher than his last book.

For those wondering how Grisham feels about ebook sales:

The e-book sales are astonishing,” said Mr. Grisham in an interview. “Would anybody have thought that a year ago? The future has arrived, and we’re looking at it.

There’s also been a lot of talk recently about how authors aren’t doing enough to make sure digital copies are available to readers. In general, I think that’s incorrect and misses the point about how these decisions are made (ie, not by the author). I don’t know many authors who want to sell fewer copies or tick off readers. Most want to get as many copies out there as possible and do so in a way that makes everyone – author, publisher, bookseller and reader – happy.

It would appear that big-time authors who have more pull with their publishing houses than the rest of us are getting the ebook message:

Mr. Grisham said he initially opposed selling his books digitally because he worried it would cripple his book sales at the independent bookstores that were among his earliest supporters. However, the author said he received numerous unhappy emails from readers who were upset that they couldn’t buy his book digitally. “As an author, that hits pretty close to home,” he said.

I give Grisham credit for listening to his readers and making an adjustment. After selling 250 million book worldwide, he’s willing to try something new. Very cool.