#MySexySaturday Hot Lines - Here Comes Sexy

If you've visiting from one of the other #MySexySaturday posts, welcome! I'm going to share seven lines from Playing with Fire, my story in the NOLA Naughty 9 anthology. Playing with Fire is a dragon/werewolf shifter romance set in contemporary New Orleans.

EXCERPT

He shifted in his seat and cleared his throat. “Whatever you’re thinking about, stop it.”

She shot a curious gaze his way. “Why?”

“Because it makes you smell good enough to eat.”

When he said the word eat he glanced at her, and the look in his eyes made it clear exactly how he meant to eat her. Of course, that only made her female parts clench harder in response. She bit back a tiny moan that threatened to escape. “You can smell me?”

“Fuck, yes. Your sex smell is filling the damn car. Stop it, already. Think about math, or Brussels sprouts, or open the fucking window." 

BLURB

When Vlad Golakov is sent to New Orleans by his boss at Komodo Security to find a missing woman, he plans to get the job done quickly, then enjoy the Big Easy. The woman’s trail is simple to follow, but what he finds at the end only complicates the job, and inflames his heart.


Angela Reeves is an investigative reporter on the trail of several missing women. Her leads all point to a local band called Cry Wolf. When she goes to a concert to search for clues, she doesn’t anticipate waking up as a werewolf, or being rescued by a hot dragon shifter.


Vlad tracks Angela to a rundown plantation outside New Orleans where Cry Wolf has been luring women to grow their werewolf pack. Angela is just another of their victims until Vlad rescues her, but he can’t just leave her to deal with her condition alone. As they navigate her symptoms, attraction ignites between them. Seeking a safe and remote location for her first shift, they end up back at the plantation where they battle Cry Wolf and teach them that when you play with fire, you’re going to get burned.

 

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Here's a link to all the #MySexySaturday posts! Check them out!!

 

And as long as you're here, check out the cover and blurb for my space opera on WATTPAD!  It's completely free, so here's a LINK to go read it! (and don't forget to vote for it while you're there!)

BLURB

Jaska Jennot is a thief between jobs. He takes his last few credits to the gaming tables on the resort planet of Nagovin and wins himself a shiny new ship. When he climbs aboard to inspect his prize, he finds Miklos—a stowaway with a huge secret and a desperate plea: help me put back the god I’ve stolen.


Aside from the fact that Miklos stole an actual cryofrozen god from the biggest religious temple on his home planet, the request is an affront to everything Jaska stands for. He steals stuff. He doesn’t give it back.


But law enforcement is on the trail and as they catch up, Miklos panics and bolts—stealing Jaska’s ship with Jaska on board, dragging him into the middle of someone else’s crime and implicating him along the way. The only means for Jaska to extricate himself is to help Miklos return the god to a planet inside the dreaded fortress-like Interplanetary Federation.

What follows is a caper-y anti-heist that has them traipsing all over the galaxy after the escaped defrosted god, dodging Federation law enforcement and a greedy mob boss, and trying not to kill each other in the process. Ultimately, when the chips are down and they’re on the brink of success, Jaska learns a valuable lesson—never trust a charming amateur because when things go bad he’ll stab you in the back to save his own skin.

THIEF OF GODS on Wattpad

 

 

Cast of Characters: Part Two

In Act II Scene II of Romeo and Juliet, Juliet famously asks:

What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd.


Today I want to talk about naming your characters.

What if his name had been John Smith? Not as fun, huh?

Juliet claims that if Romeo went by any other name, he'd still be the same guy, but somehow I just can't see a play called Bob and Juliet. Of course, she's lamenting the fact that he's the son of her family's greatest enemy and dang, if she didn't fall in love with the wrong guy. Really, it's not the name Romeo that's the problem, it's the name Montague. If he'd been the son of any other family (say, the Rossis) he really wouldn't be the same person. He was shaped by the Montagues and their beliefs and internal culture, making him the guy Juliet fell in love with. So poor Juliet is really screwed.

This won't end well.

But the idea of names and what to call your characters is an important one for an author. How carefully do you choose what to call your characters?

For me, main character names are important. I try to consider all of the important factors such as ethnicity, age, historical era, the genre of the story. I also want to consider what the name is supposed to convey about the character. Should it imply strength, economic class, personality?

For instance, in my historical western series, I have to take into consideration that it's set in the 1870s, so names like Brittany and Jace probably won't work (in book one the heroine is Beth, the hero is Isaac. Book two is Lydia and Wyatt. Book three will be Daisy and Sam). In book two, part of the story takes place in a Cheyenne village, so I had to do a lot of research on Native American names. It was important to me to be authentic and respectful. In book four, the heroine is a Paiute woman. I'm nervous about writing that because I'm not a Paiute woman, so I want to be sure I get it right.

Cheyenne village

On the other hand, in my space opera, I didn't have the same kind of worries. Mostly, I wanted names that were different enough that they sounded "alien" but not so different as to be unpronounceable (alien names in the space opera include Jaska, Miklos, Otho). There's nothing I hate more when reading scifi and fantasy than when the names are loaded with vowels or consonants and apostrophes so I can't wrap my tongue around them (Rit'ux'kxlr or Aeix'eoel'i).

Guardians of the Galaxy - Space Opera

Things get even more complicated when you consider nicknames. You've already named your character, but maybe other characters wish to call them by a nickname or a pet name. There's nothing worse than men and women calling each other "babe" or "baby," unless it's meant to show how completely shallow the character is that they can't be bothered to remember the other person's name, or come up with an original nickname.

In my space opera, one of the main characters picks up the nickname "Dog" when he's stuck on a ship full of pirates, and the name sticks with him through the book, much to his chagrin. In the MMA-based romance series Merissa and I are writing, all the guys on the team have fighter nicknames (Juggernaut, Golden Boy, etc).





Names for things other than characters are important, too. Place names (planets, cities, realms, cultures, high school, buildings, etc), animal names, names of things (bands, cars, boats, airplanes, mascots, works of art), names of beings (fantasy or alien creatures, dieties), etc. The list can be daunting.

So if names are so important, how do you go about choosing them? I try not to spend too much time falling down the naming rabbit hole, because if you let it, it can become overwhelming. I have one favorite site I start with:  Seventh Sanctum. The site is mostly all about scifi, fantasy, and anime, but they have a truck load of name generators including a "quick name generator" which is a good source for general names.

Of course, there are a zillion baby name sites all over the interwebs, and you can search your favorite search engine for any kind of generator you want (fantasy name generator, historical name generator, high school name generator...the possibilities are endless--hence the rabbit hole reference).

Some of the fun generators I've found, other than Seventh Sanctum, include:

donjon (RPG tools, fantasy and scifi. I found it good for planet and star system names)
Regency Name Generator
Mithril Mages (there are a lot of fantasy, D&D and RPG type tools here, but also a lot of general name generators that are really useful)
Chaotic Shiny (again, this is mostly focused on fantasy and gaming, but there are some other useful generators on the site).

I could go on forever, but I won't. If you're looking for a specific kind of name generator, just type what you want in the search box of your search engine. Whether it's a band name generator, historical name generator, boat name generator, or planet name generator, I guarantee you'll find something that will work for you.

How do you name your characters? If you have a favorite generator you use, post it in the comments section. If you have other ideas, please share!

~Margaret

Blog: Revisited

It's my birthday today, so what better day to rebirth our poor neglected blog?

What have I been up to for the last couple of years, you ask?

Well, I've been teaching college freshman composition.

My alter ego is a literary agent (shhhh...she works under another name), and she's a busy girl.

And, of course, I've been writing. Lots and lots of writing.

I've written a space opera, which is out on submission.

I've written a historical romance series, Nevada Bounty, which I sold to Entangled Publishing. Book one, Gambling on the Outlaw, is scheduled for release in June 2015. Book two is scheduled to release in October 2015. I'm pretty stoked about that (and I'll keep you updated on details as we get closer).

I'm working on a contemporary second-chance-at-romance right now, which is loads of fun and a nice break from the westerns (though I'm excited to get back to work on book three of Nevada Bounty).

And Merissa and I are working on book two of the Tales From Beyond the End series (a retelling of the Robin Hood story set in the same post-apocalyptic world as Hero for Hire), and a contemporary romance based in the world of MMA fighting.

So, clearly, I've been busy, but I'm ready to reconnect with the blogging world and learn what all of you have been doing. Tell me, what have I missed in your world?

~Margaret