About Us
We are the authors Sierra Wolfe, Tierney O'Malley, Wendy Ely, Alisha Paige, Mark Alders, Kate Davison, and Gracen Miller. Welcome to our blog. We hope to entertain and inform you. This is where we will share our writing journeys and life experiences, and maybe, share a bit of wisdom we pick up along the way. We hope you enjoy it!
About Gracen
Gracen is a hopeless daydreamer masquerading as a "normal" person in southern society. When not writing, she's a full-time basketball/football/guitar mom for her two sons and a devoted wife to her real-life hero-husband. She's addicted to writing, paranormal romance novels and movies, Alabama football and coffee…addictions are not necessarily in order of priority. She is convinced coffee is nectar from the gods and blending coffee and writing together generates the perfect creative merger. Many of her creative worlds are spawned from coffee highs. To learn more about Gracen or to leave her a comment, visit her website at www.gracenmiller.com.
Gracen's Books
About Kate
I like to read and write just about anything. But I am a sucker for a Happily-Ever-After. I need to know characters ride off into the sunset and all is right in their world. That's why I chose romance instead of another category. HEA's aren't always promised in other genres, though I do read them too.
Most of the time you'll find me at the keyboard, moving between the 5 projects I tackle at a time.
Most of the time you'll find me at the keyboard, moving between the 5 projects I tackle at a time.
About Alisha
I write paranormal, magic realism, fantasy, erotic and vintage romance. I live in a haunted house built in the 50s and love to drink red wine and eat dark chocolate while sitting in the swing out back. I love to watch my children play in the sandbox while my dogs wrestle on the grass. Does life get any better? It's the simple things in life I cherish.
Alisha's Books
About Wendy
Writing is an adventure I started at a young age but never took it serious until last year. My focus is on contemporary romance and have two books coming out later this year. Besides writing, I run a childcare, attend college, and am a single mom. Life isn't boring for me!
Wendy's Books
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Sunday, April 26, 2009
Seeing is Believing
Do you see your characters in vivid color and detail? If you met them on the street or saw them on tv, would you know them?
I'm pretty damn anal when it comes to deciding what my characters look like. I fill out long sheets that sketch not just their physical attributes, but also their emotional, social, spiritual and political. Only once in all the time I've been writing have I seen a real-life embodiment of one of my characters. A hero!!! I was standing in Au Bon Pain getting a coffee and turned around and there he was right behind me. I looked, up and up -(the guy was well over six feet and I'm a mere five and some change.) I went directly to a phone where I called my critique partner. "You're never going to believe this, but I just ran into Rafe Santini!"
The announcement lost some of it's punch since I had to leave it on her voice mail - *sigh* - but I did get a return call a few days later wanting to know the entire story. I told her the entirity of the minute and a half incident, including the part where I stared at the poor guy like a carp on dock, complete with mouth flapping open and closed. (Oh, yeah, that was a real attractive sight, I'm sure)- Critique partner laughed at me and called me a lucky bitch. Why was I lucky? I'd just ran into a male of the species I'd conjured from the very depths of my heart and soul and did nothing but turn into an igit.
But I digress.
The point I want to make is that I've never been one to "cast" my books. I know some authors who decide what actor their characters look like and then go from there. I'm not condemning this or even saying it's wrong - because it's not. Anything that helps an author visualize or motivate them to write the story and get it on the page is definately doing the right thing. I'm just saying I don't do it that way. I don't know if for me it feels as if the confines of Hollywood and the modeling world make it seem to limited on looks for my characters, or if it's simply my imgination is so damn fertile it doesn't need the extra stimulation. But that's only the physical aspects of a character- which are almost secondary to who I feel the character is.
I'm a firm believer in showing who your character is through action, dialogue and mannerisms, quirks, traits and pets they own. Yes, I do physically describe them at some point (for me eyes are the most important - being the window of the soul and all) - but I try not to make the physcial into a laundry list all lumped into one paragraph. Showing the hero walking through a crowded restaurant like cock-of-the-walk tells more about him as a hero than all the broad shoulders and six-pack abs ever could. How does the man wear a suit? His worn-out Levi's? Does he brush a hand through his hair when he's nervous, or when he's skirting the truth?
Heroines are no different. Strong, certainly. Feminine, you bet. But I want them to show the reader their personality by what they say or what they hold back than to know they have bodacious ta-tas and skin without flaw. Again, I get around to that stuff eventually, but not in the first few seconds of a meeting.
Relying heavily on the body language during characters' conversations will reveal more of their inner turmoil or angst than the words will - sometimes. Just recently I wrote a scene in one of my contemporary romantic suspenses. I have the heroine lying straight to the hero's face - the words are in direct contridiction to her body language. And it's nothing overt - but very telling if you're the one talking to the character.
How do you like to introduce and showcase your characters? Do you like to give the reader a full description from soup to nuts, or dole it out slowly like a miser hoarding gold?
-Kate
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About Tierney
Hi! My name is Tierney O'Malley, contemporary and paranormal romance author from the beautiful Pacific Northwest. My publishers are Cobblestone Press, Museitup Publishing, eXtasy Books, and Silver Publishing. I'm excited to join this blog and hope to share you fun and meaningful posts. :D Click here or go to my website http://tierneyomalley.com to learn more about my books or contact me. I would love to hear from you.
About Mark
My name is Mark Alders. I live in a house. This house has a street in front of it which is a good thing because if it didn't I wouldn't be able to drive down to the shop and purchase the chocolate I need on a daily basis *giggle* Seriously, I am a mild mannered post office worker by day and an erotic romance writer (mainly male/male) at night. Not much else to say other than, like everyone else, I have bills to pay, a mortgage and family that I love and drive me crazy all at the same time. Oh, and I have a dog, too! See? Average Joe...execpet when I get down and write...then I let my imagination go to places I never knew existed and my characters invade my mind.
About Sierra
I have an Associates Degree in Nursing and work as a traveling nurse. Although, I miss my family and friends back in Missouri, I enjoy meeting new people and love to travel. Of course, I wouldn’t go anywhere without my wonderful daughter and two rotten dogs. Writing has always been a part of my life, but for many years, I thought it was only a hobby. Finally learning that I couldn’t live without writing my beloved stories, I decided to see where it would take me. Who knows where my next adventure will be? Either in nursing or writing, I will continue to look for new and fun places to explore.
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2 comments:
I've done it both ways, finding a picture first and then creating my characters, and not finding pictures at all. I usually don't find pictures to match what my characters look like in my head, so I just write them. It is hard trying to find someone who looks like my characters. Especially when I've already got a picture of them in my head.
I never find a picture of my characters. They are made up in my head, and for some reason I always pick some attribute that is difficult to find in a picture. Hair down to her thighs, Exotic and blue eyed, dimple in one cheek...and the list goes on.
I think I would totally freak if I ran into a real person one day that looked like one of my characters, lol.
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