Tracey Sorel on the Casting Couch with Sheila Claydon

 Zinfandelity by Tracey Sorel

(March 2013)

What better way to think about a new book than over a glass of wine. And that's what Tracey did when she started to write Zinfandelity. At the time she lived in the lovely wine-infused area of Livermore where she quickly discovered what wine tasting and living in a wine region was all about...and from this came Zinfandelity. One look at the picture on the cover is enough to draw the reader into a story that's about women supporting one another while not forgetting that they need romance (and wine) in their lives.

I am so pleased you agreed to sit on my Casting Couch, Tracey. Now I want to hear all about your latest book.

* * *

What prompted the idea for this book?

I was standing in line at a Wine festival in Northern California, waiting for a bus to take my friends and me to the next winery for a tasting, when we began to pass the time by coming up with fun names for wine labels. One thing led to another and the Zinfandelity title became the jumping off point for the first book in my Wine Country Vixens series. And I just love the idea of writing about a group of friends who gather a few times a month to taste wine and chat about their lives. The tag line “Debbie Macomber meets Desperate Housewives in wine country” kept haunting me too! What could be better than combining those two elements into a series?

I absolutely love your jumping off point for Zinfandelity, Tracey. And I'm sure all the women I know would agree with me. Wine, chatting, girlfriends, and thinking about the next book...what's not to like! Did you work through the plot first and then cast the characters, or was it characters first?

The characters came first. I knew Zinfandelity was going to be about a woman in her early thirties faced with her husband’s infidelity. I also had an idea for a group of women by her side helping Beth survive her marriage breaking up.

Marriage break up and infidelity are not easy subjects to write about. Which characters were the hardest for you to develop and why?

I think the hardest thing for me was not creating the characters so much as coming out of my historical voice and developing a contemporary one. I’ve been published in historical romance for over a decade under my real name Tracey J Lyons. Having written with the mid-1800s as the setting for my books and then having to jump forward to the present day was a challenge for me because I had to think in the present. And believe it or not, every once in a while I’d find an historical phrase or two popping up in my contemporary work!

I could see how that would be a problem because I know I would have a real difficulty making a move in the opposite direction. How did you decide how your characters should look? Did pictures inspire you or did you just rely on an active imagination? Maybe you even based them on someone you know or someone you saw walking down the street. Do tell!

I think, as writers, there are certain characters we develop and right away we know how they will look. For me I do have a general idea of hair color, eye color, height etc., but to make a character stand out I might add a scar, or think about skin tones to set them apart from the other characters. And yes, sometimes I do use characteristics from people I know. Everyone has a family member who stands out from the rest and would make a great model character! I have also gone straight to magazines, particularly when developing my hero, Peter O’Malley. I do have issues of a certain magazine’s most beautiful people in my office right now!

That sounds a distracting magazine to have around. I won't ask how often you have to have another peep at it. How did you develop their character traits? I know some people use Tarot or Astrology. Others produce detailed life histories. One writer I interviewed is so organized she even uses a Goal, Motivation and Conflict chart. What about you?

I’ve tried charting and am not organized enough to keep it up to date! I do keep a note book for each book or series that I’m working on so all of the key elements are there, easy to find…when I can find the darned thing in the pile of stuff on my desk! Seriously, I think writers will always take traits from people they’ve met, or even live with, and use them in their work. And let’s face it, some of those traits we know very well and they don’t need to be kept track of because they just flow from our consciousness naturally.

I certainly agree with that. If we weren't interested in other people's characters then we wouldn't have chosen to be writers in the first place. Characteristics are one thing though. A character's goals are another entirely. Can you sum your characters’ goals Zinfandelity in a word or two, or are they multi-layered? Did they keep to their original goals or did things change as you wrote the book? If they did, then please give some examples.

Beth Chadwick has a clear goal from the get go; to flesh out her husband’s cheating ways. Then she sets out to prove to her family that she can stand on her own. She knows that once she proves her husband has been cheating on her that she won’t do what her mother and grandmother did, she will not “stand by her man”.

Just learning that she has to fight her mother and grandmother as well as her husband makes me want to read the book right away. No wonder Beth needs her friends. One of my usual questions is about motives because they drive a character, but I guess Beth's are fairly obvious. How did you deal with developing them as you wrote the book?

Beth’s motives are pretty clear cut from the beginning. In the revision stages of the book, however, I realized they needed to be more defined. I don’t want to give any spoiler alerts, but she does learn she has the strength to stand on her own two feet.

Seeing the heroine grow throughout a story is always good. See, I haven't read the book yet and I'm already rooting for Beth. So, on to the last question, do you like the characters in your book? Are they people you would want to spend time with and if so, which one is your favourite, and which one would you most like to meet and why? That might be the same person of course, but there again, it might not!

I love all the characters in Zinfandelity. Okay, maybe not the husband, Dirk, and sometimes not Beth’s mother. I really want Beth’s best friend, Madge, to be my best friend! She’s fun and pretty, but most important she’s loyal and nonjudgmental. If I weren’t so in love with my husband I’d like to meet the hero of this book, Peter O’Malley. Then again aren’t all of our heroes based on the men we love? So maybe I’ve already met him….

Thanks so much for sharing the back story to Zinfandelity, Tracey. And for letting us know that it is the first book in your Wine Country Vixens series. I hope another one will be out soon. A group of women supporting one another over wine and chat is something I can certainly relate to and I am sure others can too.  You had such a great idea when you wrote Zinfandelity. I hope it's on sale in the winery that started it all.

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An avid lover of books and wine, Tracey has been writing romances for almost thirty years.  She holds membership in Romance Writers of America, Novelists Inc. and Liberty States Fiction Writers.  Tracey and her husband live in downstate New York with two dogs and four chickens. When not busy writing, and wine tasting, she is busy making her husband crazy with renovations on their 1800’s farm house.  To learn more about the Wine Country Vixen series visit www.TraceySorel.com. 

Visit Tracey on Facebook at www.facebook.com/traceysorelauthor.

Tracey is also published in historical romance. You can learn more about these books by visiting www.traceylyons.com.

You can find my books at http://amzn.to/101Cg0E

Sarah Richmond on The Casting Couch

Sarah Richmond is sitting on my casting couch today so that I can ask her about her book  A Most Ineligible Suitor (Nov 2012) Published by Montlake Romance, it is available in paperback and as an ebook at http://amzn.to/15VFE0i

The story is a fascinating one. On a grand tour to Italy with her cousin, wealthy heiress Marjorie Mayweather is braced for the adventure of a lifetime. After all, this is her chance for one last fling before surrendering herself to Frederick Clive-Bickerton, the well-heeled bachelor intent on marrying her.

But Frederick is the last thing on Marjorie’s mind when she meets the dashing yet chilly Captain Edward Grainger, a fellow resident at the Pensione Ferretti. Vexed by his indifference and enchanted by his ice-blue gaze, she finds herself magnetically drawn to this strangely private gentleman.

Edward must keep his distance, no matter how alluring he finds Marjorie to be. For he’s not really a military captain at all—he’s an undercover agent in pursuit of a notorious jewel thief reported to be staying at the pensione. Can Edward maintain his ruse long enough to nab the criminal among them…or will the affections of a young debutante unravel his entire investigation?

Now I want to find out why Sarah wrote this book.

* * *

Hi Sarah. Thank you for agreeing to sit on my casting couch. I love the cover for A Most Ineligible Suitor. The heroine looks so elegant. What prompted the idea for this book?

While on a visit to Lucca in Italy, we visited Puccini’s home. I wanted to write about a heroine who lived in the same era. Puccini wrote in the ‘verisimo’ or realism style. His plays show brutality and violence, poverty and want. My heroine has been sheltered. She knows nothing of the world outside her small circle of wealth and privilege. Her trip to Italy is an eye-opener for her.

Another inspiration came from a painting by John Singer Sargent called ‘Group with Parasols’. The light he used reminded me of Italy. The ladies in the scene are dressed in white linen and are enjoying an outdoor picnic, something my heroine would love to do.

Your inspiration for this book really resonates with me Sarah because a few years ago I was lucky enough to visit Lucca myself. I was also a guest at the annual Puccini on the Lake festival in nearby Torre del Lago.  A moonlit evening spent listening to Puccini's Tosca at the outdoor theatre on the lake while bats swooped above the opera singers was a magical experience. I would imagine that Marjorie Mayweather would have enjoyed it too. What a wonderful setting you have chosen for your book.

Tell me, how did you develop the story? Did you work through the plot first and then cast the characters, or was it characters first?

I always decide on the story I want to tell and then pick the characters who best help show the elements of the story.

In A Most Ineligible Suitor, the heroine is on holiday with a distant cousin. She is very much a free spirit who has escaped to a country with fewer social restrictions than she is used to and with a decorum different from English society. She is having the time of her life.

The hero is an Englishman. He is in disguise and his purpose for being in Italy—to catch an international jewel thief--is complicated by her antics. He is not comfortable about being dishonest with her, and yet he has a duty to his profession to pretend to be someone he isn’t.

What she teaches him about life and love is the theme of the story.

Which characters were the hardest for you to develop and why? 

The male point of view is always more difficult for me. The challenge is to make the hero strong without being brutal, decisive without being unkind. The reader must understand his motivation, even sympathize with his flaws, but he can never be pitiful or weak.

How did you decide how your characters should look, especially Marjorie, who had to look true to her time?

There are many wonderful websites that show pictures of the ladies in the late Victorian era. I especially took note of the couture dresses and bridal dresses of the times, which are a delight.  www.Victoriana.com is one of my favorite websites to visit.

 Do you have a trick to help you develop your characters’ traits?

I rely on Heroes and Heroine by Tami D. Cowden, Caro LaFever, and Sue Viders. When I have a heroine in mind, I look through H and H and find the worst possible traits in a hero for her to fall in love with which leads to all kinds of delicious conflict.

I've not heard of that Sarah. It sound fascinating and I love that you search for the worst possible traits in your hero. You don't make it easy for the heroine do you? Are there other things you also do to develop their personalities?

I also use people I have met on my travels. Some characters are a combination of traits of the people I have known.

Marjorie is a misfit in some ways and doesn’t realize why until she comes to Italy.

Edward, having been raised in a strict household with no mother, doesn’t know how to express love. He may not even know, in the beginning, what love is.

All characters have goals. Can you sum your characters’ goals in A Most Ineligible Suitor in a word or two, or are they too multi-layered?

They have short term external goals: Edward is trying to catch a thief while Marjorie is on vacation and wants to see the sites. Overlaying those, however, are their long term internal goals: To love and find love.

Do you like the characters in this book? Are they people you would want to spend time with and if so, which one is your favorite, and which one would you most like to meet and why? 

Marjorie introduces herself this way: “My name is Marjorie Mayweather and people tell me I have a sunny disposition. Who wouldn’t with a name such as Mayweather?”

I like a heroine who can be at ease with people, probably because I have always been rather shy. She’s smart. She knows in her circle she must act totally defenseless so that the suitor will feel manly. This does not bother her until she meets the hero. He understands her better than she understands herself.

Meeting the right man makes all the difference!

As for who I’d like to meet, the villain of the story is my most favorite character of all. He is so much fun to read about and to try to figure out a motivation, or what possible reason there must be for such bad behavior. I could have such a good conversation with my villain, I think.

Wow! You really want to meet your villain! That makes you a very brave writer. I always want to consign my villains to the devil. It's been fun talking to you Sarah. Your book sounds a great read.

Thank you for this opportunity to talk about A Most Ineligible Suitor. I had so much fun writing the book.

* * *

Multi-published author Sarah Richmond is Winner of the Hearts Through History 'Romance Through the Ages' and an EPPIE finalist.

She loves to tell stories about women in historical settings,the unique challenges they faced and the men they loved.

Sarah lives in Southern California and is a member of RWA-San Diego and East Valley Authors.

Visit Sarah online to read more about her books at www.sarahrichmond.com

You can find my books at http://amzn.to/ZSyLpf 

Free cozy mystery set in Florence

This novel will always remain in my memory because we discussed during breakfast how likely it is that you can strangle someone with a pair of pantyhose. My husband declared it was impossible because the material stretches so much, but I was not so sure. We finally decided to test it on a teddy bear and started out with much gusto - but in the end, we couldn't go through. The teddy bear looked at us with his sad eyes, so we simply had to pat his head, placed him back where he belonged, and did our test with a cushion. The result? It's possible, but you have to be prepared for the stretching! Research done, I was able to finish this cozy mystery . . .

Here's the blurb for Charmer's Death:

What do you do when your best customer seduces your beautiful cousin? You try to save the situation, but it becomes a little harder than planned when he's found strangled with a pair of brand new pantyhose that come straight from your own store Temptation - the most luxurious lingerie store in Florence, Italy.

Next, a disturbing diary crops up that lists the former lovers of the dead man, creating chaos in more than one home. Carlina has her hands full with managing her store at its peak season, preparing the Christmas fair, and dodging her mother, who has discovered fortune telling as the next big thing. Her feelings for the attractive Inspector Garini don't help at all as she desperately tries to find the murderer before it's too late.

Charmer's Death is the second in the series Temptation in Florence, and it's free from May 15 to May 19, 2013!

You can download it now from Amazon: http://amzn.to/Y63T2q

Gina Ardito on The Casting Couch

Two  characters are sitting on my Casting Couch today because author Gina Ardito is talking about Nia and Paige, the identical twins who feature in her latest book Duet in September (available at http://amzn.com/B00CNKB0XG)

Gina is a terrific writer and, as one of her fans, I always look forward in pleasurable anticipation to a new Gina Ardito book. Consequently I consider it a great treat to be given a preview of Duet in September as it goes to publication.

For those of you who have yet to meet her, a visit to her blog at http://ginaardito.blogspot.co.uk will tell you a great deal about her. On it she not only shares her laughter but also offers invaluable advice to writers of all ages and stages. It is an exhilarating blog which certainly achieves what she says is her main goal, which is to connect with her readers, whoever they are.

* * *

Gina, I love the title. What prompted the idea for Duet in September?

A while back, for some reason, I kept picking up books about twin sisters—always identical in looks, but polar opposites in personality. It started to drive me crazy. I know a lot of twins, some identical, some fraternal. They run in my family and I’ve dated more than one guy who had a twin sibling. While twins do have different personalities, they’re not polar opposites. One might be more right-brained and the other more left-brained, but if they grew up in the same house, with the same circumstances and were taught the same set of values, they’re going to have quite a lot of similarities as well, so I decided to write a story that featured more realistic twin sisters.

At the same time, my daughter announced she planned to do a Thirty Day Experiment, wherein for thirty days, she planned to do one thing differently each day to see if it would incite changes in her life. I melded the two ideas and Duet in September was the result.

What a great idea. It is so easy to miss out on the realism of a situation when writing a book, so I'm glad you're putting the reader right about twins. I love the fact that you are using your daughter's idea too. Once you had the framework did you work through the plot first and then cast the characters, or was it characters first?

Both at the same time. I’m a pantser so I never plot. I generally start with a brief sketch of my characters and an even briefer idea for a story. Both characterization and plot develop as I write.

Which character was the hardest for you to develop and why?

Probably Nia, one of the twin heroines. She’s artistic, which I’m not. I can’t draw, paint, decorate, or even trace. I’m a total failure with crayons, paints, yarn, and icing. So I really had to dig into that kind of mindset to figure out how she’d react to different scenarios. I spent a lot of time learning about glass-blowing (Nia’s chosen art medium) and realized that it was a perfect metaphor for Nia, herself: strength and adaptability under fire.

I love that but I guess you're never going to be an expert glass-blower, however much you know in theory, given you self denigration of your artistic talents. How did you decide how your characters should look? Did pictures inspire you or did you just rely on an active imagination? Maybe you even based them on someone you know or someone you saw walking down the street. Do tell!

Since I had two heroes and two heroines for this story, I really needed images to keep everyone straight. I went into a few databases for models and came up with the perfect combinations, then taped them to the wall behind my desk for easy reference.

What a terrific idea. I've always kept mine in a folder but in future they will pinned to the wall. How did you develop their character traits? I know some people use Tarot or Astrology. Others produce detailed life histories. One writer I interviewed is so organized she even uses a Goal, Motivation and Conflict chart. What about you?

I have a secret weapon: a book I use for every story I write called, “The Secret Universe of Names.” It lists every name imaginable based on significant letters and gives me a full-page breakdown of how those letters influence a person’s childhood, career choices, love life, etc. Once I’ve chosen a character’s name, I read the summary in the book and take notes that will help me write my heroes and heroines out of all the problems I toss their way.

What a fascinating insight into how you work with your characters. And The Secret Universe of Names sounds more like a book of spells than anything else. No wonder you write such magical books. Given that all characters have goals, can you sum your characters’ goals in a word or two, or are they multi-layered? Did they keep to their original goals or did things change as you wrote the book? If they did, then please give some examples.

For Duet in September, my goal was originally that “Do Something Different Every Day for Thirty Days” idea. But with each day that unfolded, new problems and awareness cropped up, based on those “something differents.”

It sounds complicated, and then of course you had to deal with motives because they drive a character. How did you discover your characters’ specific motives? Were they based on back-story or did they develop as you wrote the book?

Both! Nia and Paige, my twin sisters, are unique individuals with some differences in personality, but they’re linked by blood, the sins of their mother, and the small town where they grew up. It’s their differences that force them to react the way they do, but their similarities that help them solve their conflicts together.

I'm really looking forward to reading Duet in September. Your answers are so tantalising that there is already a lot more I want to know about Nia and Paige. There's one other thing I want to know as well. Do you like the characters in Duet in September? Are they people you would want to spend time with and if so, which one is your favourite, and which one would you most like to meet and why? That might be the same person of course, but there again, it might not!

I always fall in love with my characters. If I don’t want to spend time with them, I can’t write their stories. For Duet in September, if I had to choose a favorite, I’d probably say Paige—only because there’s more of me in her than in Nia. Paige is the “smart” one, with my sarcastic edge. Her lifetime nemesis is now the town’s chief of police, Sam Dillon. And it seems that no matter where she goes in their tiny seaside town, Sam is always there to see her at her worst. Oddly enough, I’d love to meet Nia. Paige is more me and, quite frankly, the world could not handle two of me. But Nia’s got qualities I admire and will probably never acquire, making her someone I’d love to spend time with.

Thank you for sitting on The Casting Couch Gina. I've really enjoyed talking about your latest book and we didn't even touch on the heroes. I guess I'll have to buy the book for that:-)

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Gina Ardito is a multi-faceted author who writes lighthearted contemporary, paranormal, and sweeping historical romances. She is also a freelance editor for fiction writers so if you need some help editing your manuscript then contact Gina at Excellence in Editing at http://excellenceinediting.blogspot.co.uk  


You can also visit the site to  take advantage of her helpful tips on how to perfect your work.

You can find Duet in September at http://amzn.com/B00CNKB0XG




My own books are available at http://amzn.to/ZSyLpf and if you follow my blog at http://sheilaclaydon.com you will find a lot more information about talented fellow writers as well snippets about my own work.

Pirates, poems, six-year-olds and fried cackle fruit!

This is not about books or about my own genre, contemporary romance. Instead it's about six-year-olds, pirates and poetry because I've been busy working with some of the young people who will, hopefully, becomes the writers of the future.

Years ago, when I worked for UK's National Poetry Society on an ad hoc basis,  I used to run poetry workshops in schools. It was often terrific fun and frequently chaotic. I remember one school where the Principal misunderstood the briefing he'd received from the Poetry Society and instead of introducing me to a class of twenty children, he ushered me into the hall to work with the entire school! How did I manage that one? Well after encouraging the children and their teachers to write poetry, I made a large red mail box and invited them to post their poems for a whole-school competition.  It did the trick and soon that mail box was full to over-flowing.  The only problem then was finding the time to read every entry and select out the winners. As any mother would, I conscripted my own children to help, and between us we managed to identify winners for all the different age groups. But the thing that  stands out in my mind from that little experience…well I don't remember the full poem but I do know it was about a Bear called Keith who wore false teeth, and my abiding memory is of my own children rolling about the floor and laughing when they read it.

And that is an example of the main problem when children first start to write poems. Their enthusiasm for rhyming words frequently overtakes their sense of poetry. I'd like to be able to tell you that Keith the bear was part of a splendid comic poem but it wasn't. It was a small boy's desperate attempt to find rhyming words without truly understanding what he needed for the poem he actually wanted to write.

Rhyming for poetry is one of the most difficult things to explain to very young children and they need to understand this before they move onto prose poetry. They understand the rhythm and the word endings quite quickly but  thinking about the meaning of the words they have chosen is often one step too far. This can lead to hilarious consequences or, in some cases, to all the children in a class hijacking the rhyming words the teacher has used in his/her own example poem so that every piece of work is similar. The trick is to open up the children's creativity and in the case of my recent workshop, the teacher had already done this by working with the whole class on rhyming words about pirates. The list they'd compiled was truly amazing given that these were five and six year olds. Do you know, for example, that fried cackle fruit is a fried egg? I didn't and I loved having it explained to me by a small boy who knew that the pirates of old kept hens on board ship. I loved, too, that everyone's favourite word was smelly. Apparently pirates are smelly!

So what else happened in my recent and unexpected workshop? As I only had a day to prepare  I went in with fingers crossed and a new poem of my own to read to them. My first rule is that if I am going to ask children to write poetry then I have to show them I'm prepared to do it myself. My poem, The Forgetful Pirate, did the trick. The epic of Captain Jack as he searched for the treasure he'd buried many years before captured their imagination. They listened, rapt, not realising as they did so that they were learning about couplets and metre and how words work together. By the time they went to their work tables all of them were in a creative mood, chattering about rhyming words, debating the swashbuckling lifestyle of the pirates they were to write about.  Some struggled, a lot were good, but to my mind, this one was the best.

Pirates sail the Caribbean

Pirates steal the king's ships

Pirates fight with cutlasses

They wear in scabbards on their hips

Not bad for a six-year-old!

And my poem? It's not much more than doggerel really and was written quickly and to amuse; to tell the children a story that would trigger their enthusiasm, but if you're interested, here it is…

         THE FORGETFUL PIRATE

         Pirate Jack thought it best

         to hide his treasure in a chest.

        He covered it with stone and rock

        and used an X to mark the spot

        so he could find it when he came

        to dig his treasure up again.

        Gold and silver, jewels and rings,

        heaps and piles of sparkly things

        were buried in the pirate’s box,

        underneath his smelly socks.

        He left a message in it too

        that said ‘this treasure’s not for you,’

        just in case another ship

       of wicked pirates made the trip

       to the island, where he’d left

       all the loot he’d gained by theft. 

       Years went by and Jack grew old.

       ‘It’s time I fetched my pirate gold’

       he told himself as he set sail,

       not thinking he was going to fail

       to find the chest he’d hid with rock,

       and used an X to mark the spot.

      He sailed out on the evening tide

      to search the seas both far and wide.

      But he never found that buried box

      full of gold and smelly socks,

       'cos there was something Jack forgot

      when he used an X to mark the spot

      He forgot to make a map that showed

      where the sparkly things were stowed.

      So if you ever find a box

      of treasure, and some smelly socks,

      you’ll know it’s Jack’s, so you be sure

      to cover it with rocks once more.

     Then do the thing that Jack forgot

     when he used an X to mark the spot

                       MAKE A MAP

     So if you meet him one fine day

     when you’re sailing far away,

     you can show him how to find

     the treasure that he left behind,

     by giving him what he forgot,

     a map, with X to mark the spot