MUST HAVE: 7 Smoke Signals of a Double Life!

Double life scandals are on the rise. Nobody thinks it could be happening to them!

So I wrote this quick and informative exclusive Kindle guide, 7 SMOKE SIGNALS YOUR MAN IS LIVING A DOUBLE LIFE!

It includes stories of real people I've met during book tour who've had this happen to them, and a sneak peek of THE GREAT PRETENDER!

The Great Pretender - Book Trailer

✷ Book Spotlights and Giveaway!

My good friend Darlene over at Peeking Between the Pages is spotlighting the $.99 Kindle sale of THE GREAT PRETENDER and THE GREAT BETRAYAL!

Visit her site to enter the giveaway! First prize = $25 Amazon Gift Certificate, and then two paperback copies of TGP and two of TGB to 4 lucky winners!

Deadline to enter is 4/2/11.

Good luck!

Update:

Darlene announced the winners on Sunday, April 3rd, and all prizes have been awarded/mailed!

Congratulations to the winner of the $25 Amazon gift card: Sarah E.

Winners of paperback copies of THE GREAT PRETENDER: Cheryl Kelley in Illinois, and Anita Yancey in Georgia

And of THE GREAT BETRAYAL: Debbie Penny in Michigan and Birgit Lehner in Austria, Europe.

The Great "Czech" Pretender

Reginald Brooks and family continue to demonstrate the universal nature of their story with their arrival in the Czech Republic! My first novel, THE GREAT PRETENDER, is "Zůstaň se mnou" in the Czech Republic. "Rolkesen" in Turkey. "Wielki Klamca" in Poland. Citizens of the world, right?

And in other news, check out this great post from author Bernice McFadden. She asks a great question! How are we going to get that very important memo to the publishing industry?

The Great "Turkish" Pretender

As most of you can imagine, I've been experiencing some very trying times, and just haven't had the energy to blog in the last few months. But I had to make a special effort to share the cover of the Turkish edition of THE GREAT PRETENDER (ROLKESEN) with my readers; as I've previously shared the Polish cover (WIELKI KLAMCA).

And it's worthwhile to note (though I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it before) that these foreign versions were garnered by the 2002 self-published, general fiction edition of TGP......

How often do self-published books sell foreign translation rights?

It's interesting how these covers reflect and illustrate the universal substance of the very same book.

THE GREAT "POLISH" PRETENDER

I just received copies of TGP from my publisher in Poland. They contacted me after seeing my self-published 2002 edition. I think WIELKI KLAMCA looks great, never mind that the only words I can actually read in it are the characters' names. :) It was released there this past June and I think it's great!

Oh yeah....and check out their neat cover. Quite different from that of the 2005 U.S. version, no?

A Character By Any Other Name.....

Writing about the title tug-a-war the other day got me thinking about the character name game. In chatting with book clubs I've found that most readers think authors just bestow names arbitrarily - pulling from hats or from baby books.....or just out of thick air. In actuality, the name game varies from author to author.

For me, the names of the main characters are absolutely crucial. I have to feel that the name fits that person's personality, and gels with their pulse in the story. If not....well, I'll give you an example with something that happened when I wrote THE GREAT PRETENDER.

Olivia Brooks, Reginald Brooks' 21-year-old daughter, started out as the meek and mild-mannered Avery Brooks. I actually wrote a good quarter of the story calling her Avery---but then something happened. I started losing interest in the character. So much so that I began to have trouble moving the plot along. Bad rut to be in. Trust me.

I couldn't understand what the problem was. Should I make her a boy - a son instead of a daughter? Should I say she's away on a pilgrimage to Tibet and pull her out of the main plot completely? Should I just ax her character altogether and make Valerie an only child? What was the problem? Avery was no longer inspiring me, and quite frankly, she was beginning to feel like dead weight.

Finally, one night while I was in the shower - and for the umpteenth time trying to figure out what the heck to do about Avery - I had an illumination....

It's her name!

See - to me, the name "Avery" represents what I mentioned before, a meek and mild-mannered person - which was the characterization this daughter started out with. The story began to dictate otherwise, however, and my energies shifted. She was no longer an "Avery-type". She was becoming far more integral to the plot in ways I hadn't seen coming. Alas, her name wasn't gelling with her pulse, and I lost her. Does that make sense? I hope so, because once I changed her name to Olivia - poof! - the muse was back with a vengeance.

What's in a name? A whole helluva lot if you ask me!

A Book By Any Other Name.....

Will it be as sweet?

Fortunately, I chose the name of my first book, THE GREAT PRETENDER. It's the title I originally self-published with. When Penguin bought the book they liked and kept that title....thank God.

Alas, this was not to be the case with book #2.

I got to thinking about the title tug-a-war after reading Tess Gerritsen's entertaining yarn about how her most recent work got its name. Oddly enough, Barnes & Noble wound up choosing her title. Go figure.

On that note, here's a peek at the title maze of my second gem:

Doomed Title #1) A BLOSSOM FELL - this one lasted about a minute and a half because, although it had a special place in my heart being a Nat King Cole song and all, everyone agreed it sounded too "romancy".

This one was nixed very early on. Pre-1st draft. :-(

Doomed Title #2) RAINDROPS ON ROSES - I loved this one, too - started the book with it, but for obvious reasons, it didn't live any longer than its predecessor.

It, too, was nixed. Sniff.

Doomed Title #3) A LIFETIME OF LIES - Now this one I really loved! So did my agent. So did my editor. This doomed title survived the longest. I wrote a good chunk of the story under this one and it really changed the tone and the intended execution of the plot.

So there I am, plotting away when--wham!---publishing suits have their meeting, someone (art person I think) decides it doesn't have the same punch as THE GREAT PRETENDER and, just like that, we're back to square one. It was also nixed.

Alas, book #2, now nearly completed, was nameless once again. Sniff.

Doomed Title #4) A GRACEFUL DECEIT - Now this one was my favorite, because it has tremendous plot significance and would tie into the overall reading experience. I loved it. My agent loved it. Editor, etc. felt it lacked "oomph".

My agent did a survey of her own on it and she reported that, hands down, folks greatly preferred the winning title......

What is the winning title?

**THE GREAT BETRAYAL** Ding, ding, ding! This one won the gold. I picked it, liked it, but felt readers would think it a sequel to THE GREAT PRETENDER.

They did some kind of in-house "survey" (not sure how credible those can really be) and it was decided that 1) TGB is simply building on my first title, 2) it helped the branding effort, and 3) no one would think it was a sequel. Go figure.

So - which one do you prefer? Anybody agree that folks just may assume book #2 is a sequel to book #1?

Warning to my fellow authors - don't get any ideas about stealing any of my "bit the dust" titles - I have every intention of using them all! Stay tuned. ;-)

Novel Ideas....

Where do you get your ideas?

This is one of the most popular questions asked of authors. Is it divinity? Epiphany? Are they for sale at Wal-Mart?

I was on The Michael Dresser Show yesterday and, of course, the question of where I got the idea for The Great Pretender came up. While there are many, many books centered around cheating mates (gazillions actually), there aren't very many re: dual family double lives.

I guess this idea could fall under divinity for me. Nothing specific triggered it. It just seemed to be in my head and a short story was born. We always hear of wives finding out about mistresses---but what about a mistress finding out about a wife? Hmm......let's say, ten years after the fact? The idea was born.

As for my second novel, THE GREAT BETRAYAL, due out in the Fall, I remembered a tragic incident that happened to an elderly ex co-worker and friend of mine.........One night, her otherwise healthy husband woke up with a start, with chest pain. It's so bad, she has to drive him to the ER.

They wheel him away.

She sits in the waiting room, concerned but not overly alarmed. Her husband's never had health problems. Twenty minutes later a doctor comes out. Sorry. Your husband just died. Wham. Just like that. He was gone. That's it. Dead.

She was lost. So shocked she couldn't move. She told me how impossible it seemed that one minute he'd been in the car with her, talking to her, walked with her into the ER. Now a man was telling her he was dead - she would never see her husband again. She became a fish out of water. The world had suddenly become some foreign place that she now had to learn to live in. She told me that her husband had died some fifteen years before, but she was still not over the shock of those first few seconds.

We lost touch and I haven't seen her in nearly eight years, but I've never forgotten what she expressed to me and how much it resonated. I was about 19 at the time, but I remember feeling the anguish as she spoke. As if I had experienced it myself. I suppose that's why it stayed with me.............I added a "what if" to that scenerio and built a story around that supposition. So there you have it.

Another great source for plot ideas is talk shows! Just flip on Dr. Phil or Oprah....and if you're desperate - Jerry or Maury. They're all pure gold minds for sewing seeds of all sorts of plot possibilities and "what if" catalysts. And it's so amazing how a story can branch off from a single idea. A test of "what if".

Happy harvest!