Meet My Characters: Gabriel

Gabriel Russo*: hero of SOUL SEDUCTION

Age: 26, going on 46
Height: Tall enough (6' 6")
Weight: Enough to throw around (225)
Hair: Black, windblown & fingercombed, unshaven
Eyes: Girly blue (aquamarine)
Occupation: Mechanic/shop owner
Location: None of your business (Arizona desert)
Father: Dominic, vampire & Hunter for the Dark Race
Mother: Angelica, healer angel & pediatric oncologist
Sister: Jenni, empathic oracle & major pain in the ass


Gabriel is the only son of Dominic and Angelica, the couple who set the Prophecy of Souls in motion 26 years ago with Gabriel's birth. As the Chosen One of the prophecy, he's destined to prevent the mass destruction of mankind's souls. But ever since he was kidnapped at the age of eleven and watched people sacrifice their lives to save his, Gabriel repressed his natural powers and disappeared to the Arizona desert in his early twenties to avoid bringing the Devil's army to his family's door.

With only a stray dog as company, Gabriel pretends to be content fixing cars at his shop in Bum-Fuck Nowhere and ignoring the human population as much as possible.

 

 

That is until a wildcat of a woman shows up with her pet puma and refuses to be cowed by his surly attitude and blatant brush-offs. Until he discovers that Ava could be the catalyst to bring about the final battle he's been avoiding, and no amount of denial will save him from his destiny, or her love.

So, what do you think of my current main man? Hunky, right?!

*Pictures are of model/actor Marco Dapper and courtesy of Google Images

I Prefer My Books Nice-n-Steamy

Now, that said, do I love the sex scenes? Hell, yes, I do! Done right, those scenes are absolutely smoking and full of emotion–yes, I said EMOTION. Sex scenes in a romance novel aren’t like reading the assembly instructions for furniture, for chrissakes! (Making sure there was an ample amount of lubrication, he lined up Bolt A with Hole B and inserted it completely until the Nuts at the other end were flush against the opening…)

The characters not only go through a myriad of physical sensations, but emotional ones as well: insecurity, fear, confidence, madness, frustration, elation, revelations, and so many more. And I’ve never read a sex scene that hasn’t altered—either for good or bad—the relationship in some way.

Let’s face it; a couple’s sexual relationship is a HUGE factor in their lives. You can be the Cleavers outside of the bedroom, but if you’re not compatible in the bedroom, you’ll soon turn into the Clintons. And, unless you’ve taken a vow of lifelong abstinence, EVERYONE has sex. So why pretend like it doesn’t happen? Why gloss over what happens between a couple sexually? There are certainly plenty of romances that are of a lighter variety and keep the heated moments “behind closed doors” so to speak. But I hate not knowing what happens in those moments. Was it hot and heavy? Slow and easy? Two minutes or two hours? Did one of them hold back or was it no holds barred?

I once read an interview with one of my all-time favorite authors, Gena Showalter. She told of an early experience she had at one of her book signings, where a woman walked up to the counter and commented with a look of disdain on her face that Gena’s books were those “trashy novels.” Gena’s great response was…

“What’s so trashy about love and monogamy?”

Indeed!  Why are the books categorized as ROMANCE considered by a large majority of the public to be “trashy”? For that matter, why is pornographic material considered to be so taboo? Go into an adult book store (which, for the record, I’m not sure why the word “book” is in there, because I don’t believe I’ve ever actually seen any books in those stores) and the wide variety of items is insane. You can get something as innocently cheeky as penis- or boob-shaped pasta to things you didn’t even have the imagination to conjure up as possibilities in the bedroom. But does that mean that any of it is wrong and shameful? No. It means that there’s a variety of things out there no matter what might float your boat. As long as it’s involving consenting adults there shouldn’t be anything considered wrong with it.

The same goes for what we write or read in our romance novels. Whether the sex is missionary and sweet or upside-down and nasty, it’s a vital part of a relationship.

Top 10 Things I Learned from Writing a Book: #8 Sometimes you must kill that which you love

So I’ve finished my first novel, Desires of the Soul, and it’s caused me to reflect on the things I’ve learned. Naturally, I want to share them with all of you. Maybe you’ve learned the same things; maybe you were lucky enough to already possess this wisdom. Either way, for the next couple of months, I’ll be posting a new lesson-learned every week (or so). I hope you’ll check back each week and weigh in with thoughts or lessons of your own. So without further ado, here is…

#8. Sometimes you must kill that which you love

It’s called “killing your darlings” in the literary world. You can write the most kickass chapter ever with clever phrases, amazing descriptions and phenomenal chemistry…but that doesn’t mean it belongs in your book.

After I finished one of my drafts, I sent it off to my three beta readers for some good ole crit-love. They all came back with a common theme:

The first three chapters are great (*puffs chest out in pride*), but not necessary for the story...(*dagger to the heart…*) Axe ‘em. (*…aaannd twist!*)

I did the whole, “Really? Huh. I’ll look it over and give that some serious thought.”

But what I was screaming in my head was, “Are you effing kidding me?!?! Do you have any idea how much I love those chapters? How will people know what their relationship was like before he was turned into a vampire? How are they supposed to see how viciously he struggled against them to spare the woman he loves the same fate? Not to mention how his turning actually helped his subsequent brilliant escape. It’s just not possible. So put. Down. The crack pipe.”

If All the World had a CP...

I know, I know...I've slacked on my Top 10 list. I promise I'll get back to that soon, but a thought occurred to me the other day that I'd like to share.  So here goes.

I currently have 4 acting CPs (Crit Partners) for my WIP, Soul Seduction.  I will fully admit that I'm probably making things a tad harder than I should by having 4 because the more diverse feedback you receive, the more confusing it can be as to what actions to take with their suggested changes.  However, there's no way I'd ever want to drop any of them because they all bring different talents to the table, and amazingly enough, their comments never conflict with one another.  I'm so grateful to each of them for their insight and unconditional support.

But, the specific incident that brought me to this topic is my one CP, Ella.  That's not really her name, by the way--it's Lea Ann (pronounced as Lee Ann)--but my fingers didn't like typing her full name, so I switched to LA, but saying those letters together sounded awkward, so then I changed the A to the short sound and when spoken (or thought), it becomes Ella.  But I digress...as usual. (sorry!)

So Ella is reading my first novel, Desires of the Soul.  I should also point out that she gets paid to edit fiction for publishing companies.  But when I gave her DotS, I thought, "Go ahead and read it, honey, and tell me if there are any slow parts or parts you think I could cut to get my word count down."  Because I have edited the CRAP out of that book, I figured she'd be more or less just reading for enjoyment with a comment here and there about repeated words or unnecessary sentences.

I certainly did NOT expect her to come back with comments like:

• Why is she acting this way?
• I don't understand his motivation.
• Why is she letting him get away with that?
• I feel like she's not reacting strongly enough here.

When I got the couple of chapters back that said all that, my first reaction was, "WHAT?!?!"

Then when I stopped hyperventilating and read my chapter with a fresh mind, I said, "Holy f&$%, she's right."

Wee-Bit Wednesday: Desert Walker Edition

One of my regular posts, uh, back when I posted regularly, was what I called Wee-Bit Wednesdays. This was my take on the Teaser Tuesdays that everyone in the blogosphere did at the time. Same premise, different day. [side note: now some people do WIP Wednesdays, like my phenomenally talented friend, Ruthie Knox - check her out too!]

Now that I once again have WIPs (two to be exact) I want to bring this back as an opportunity to show you guys what I'm working on and bring you along on my journey as I attempt my second and third books in the Prophecy of Souls trilogy.

(Also, I'm hoping to draw you into my web deep enough that you'll put on the velour sweat suits, drink the kool-aid and eventually purchase my books when they're published. But, you know, semantics.)

So, to kick off this awesome weekly (or bi-weekly, or bi-monthly...okay, really the only guarantee is that it will always be on a Wednesday...which Wednesdays will be a fun surprise, much like finding the center of a tootsie pop) here is a Wee-Bit from the final book of the trilogy, Soul Seduction.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gabriel took several long pulls of his cold beer, not even taking the time to enjoy the taste, just needing it to quench his thirst and give him the false sense of hydration. Looking out at the dusty highway and stretch of desert beyond, he wondered how his family was doing back in Chicago. How long had it been since he’d called? Six months? Nine? He reached down with one hand and absently scratched Czar’s head as he tried to remember. Well, however long it had been, it’d been a while ago. He should probably call. They didn’t have his number or his address. Their only regular proof of life was the unmarked package he had to ship them once a month. His mom was probably having fits and ranting about stress wrinkles, which was impossible, considering she’d stopped aging twenty-six years ago before he’d even been born.

Rejections are No BFD

Typically speaking, I don’t have a thick skin. Look at me the wrong way and I’ll instantly run through a gamut of offenses I might be guilty of to cause just such a glance. In all reality, the person might just have a piece of dust in their eye and the twitchy-narrowing-eye-thingy wasn’t a display of loathing, but simply an attempt to eradicate the microscopic dust bunny.

While writing my first book, I often worried about the inevitability of rejection. Not only are writers rejected 9 out of 10 times [note: not a real statistic; I’m just guessing], but also more often than not, they’re form rejections, so we don’t even know the reason behind it. This is the same as that “Wrong Look” I just mentioned. It tells us there’s a problem in the agent’s eyes (pun intended), but it doesn’t tell us what the problem is.

There are lots of posts and articles and probably carvings on bathroom stalls with advice on how to deal with rejection as a writer. After all, every writer–whether you’re Stephen King or the literary equivalent of William Hung–gets rejected.

And that, my friends, is the single most important lesson I want you to remember.

It happens to EVERYONE!

Top 10 Things I Learned from Writing a Book: #9 Trim the fat & get to the good stuff

So I’ve finished my first novel, Desires of the Soul, and it’s caused me to reflect on the things I’ve learned. Naturally, I want to share them with all of you. Maybe you’ve learned the same things; maybe you were lucky enough to already possess this wisdom. Either way, for the next couple of months, I’ll be posting a new lesson-learned every week (or so). I hope you’ll check back and weigh in with thoughts or lessons of your own. So without further ado, here is...

#9. Trim the fat & get to the good stuff

This is something I still have a hard time with.  For those who have read my previous post I wish I was an under-achiever, you know that I’m not the writer who fleshes out the book and then fills it in with details later.  I’m also not the writer who can be described as “succinct” in her writing.

Nope, I’m long-winded, an embellisher, a detailed digresser.  The practice of “short and sweet”
completely escapes me.

But if we wax poetic about what our main character had for breakfast and how it was prepared, we’re slowing our pace down and getting away from what’s truly important in the scene.  So unless those pancakes trigger a vital memory or are the cause of his food poisoning, skip it.  Take it out.  You don’t need it.

I’ll give you an example from my first chapter of how I trimmed the fat and changed an entire paragraph into one simple sentence…