I like men who swagger. When a man with an attitude enters a room, everyone knows it. Men of lesser confidence back down, and women look twice.  Out of my own books, my two favorite heroes are John Leaf in Abbie’s Outlaw and J.T. Quinn in The Outlaw’s Return.  Both of these men have outlaw pasts, but they also have hearts for love, truth and justice.

So what makes a bad boy so appealing?  The swagger is part of it; so is the rebellion and the sex appeal. But what most appeals to me is the back story.  Why is he the way he is?  What happened to him?  Who hurt him?  My bad boys heroes are rogues, but they’re also willing to die for people they love.

I thought it would be fun to take a look at the research that goes into a bad boy hero.  It’s not exactly research in the academic sense. It’s more like daydreaming, but these characters have to start somewhere.  Here’s my list of favorite bad boys from real life, fiction, movies and television.

No. 1 on my list is Johnny Cash. The man in black had a bad-to-the-bone swagger, and Walk the Line is one of my favorite movies. Later in life, he made a u-turn. The story of Nickajack Cave is legendary. It’s the place where he decided to give up some bad habits and become a new man. He did . . . but he didn’t stop swaggering.

No. 2 is Rhett Butler. I haven’t seen Gone With the Wind in years, but I can still recall the scene where he and Scarlett are fleeing Atlanta and he kisses her. Talk about confidence!  It’s got to be one of the most romantic scenes ever. Even in the end, after he loses his little girl and is mellowed by grief, Rhett still has an inner strength. 

The No. 3 slot goes to Bruce Springsteen for his music. His “Born to Run” CD is one of my favorites. The title track is a legend, and so is “Thunder Road.” Bruce grabs life by the shoulders and shakes it. I love that! It’s the same energy that settled the American West, the same boldness that gave us heroes and outlaws and Wild West legends.

No. 4 on my list is Daniel Craig in the James  Bond movies. He took one of the longest running franchise roles of all  time and made it fresh and original.   Humor, courage, intelligence and a big dash of arrogance make the new James Bond a pleasure to watch

No. 5 . . . Johnny Cain in Penelope Williamson’s The Outsider has been at the top of my list of favorite western bad boys ever since I read the book back in the 1999. It’s the book that made me to tell stories of my own, and I love it more than ever.

Real or imaginary . . . Who are some of your favorite bad boy heroes?

Drum roll, please!

My winner for today’s drawing is….

SUSAN P. !!!!

Thanks so much for coming by and commenting and congratulations on your win! I will be contacting you soon!

Cheryl

As sometimes happens, I pulled 2 names out of the hat — and that has happened this time, also.

The winners of a free book are:  Kaylea P and Gladys MP.

Congratulations to you both!

Please email me separately at karenkay(dot)author(at)earthlink(dot)net and we’ll go over what book and in what format you would like it.

Many thanks to all those who came here today and left a comment.  I really enjoyed all your comments today!

Have a wonderful evening!

Hello!!!

Forgive this late notification…

The winner of Renee’s book, THE OUTLAW’S REDEMPTION is

Heidi

The winner of all six books in Renee’s CHARITY HOUSE series is

Maxie Anderson

Email your snail mail address to Renee at

renee@reneeryan.com

Funny you should ask. Whatever it is that we do has left me totally exhausted. Thanks to some weather-related flight delays, I arrived back in Houston in the wee hours of the morning today. I had just spent 4 days at the beautiful Marriott Marque in Atlanta attending the Romance Writers of America National Conference. Imagine the noise level in the hotel with approximately two thousand women roaming the halls. My ears are still ringing though I must admit that some of that was due to the dance music at the Harlequin Party on Friday night.

If you’re curious about what that many writers do when we get together, keep reading and I’ll share some of the highlights of my conference with you.

On the night I arrived, there was a giant booksigning with the books donated by authors and publishers and the profits going to the literacy campaign. There were hundreds of authors, several from our group here at Petticoats and Pistols in attendance. Eager readers began lining up long before the doors opened at 5:30 on Wednesday night.  I couldn’t tell who was having more fun, the readers or the authors who always love a chance to meet with their fans. There were other booksignings throughout the week sponsored by the publishers. In these the authors get to give away their books to conference attendees who stop by and chat. That is always fun.

And then there are the workshops on every topic you can imagine related to writing. My favorite are the research workshops where we get the opportunity to hear from the experts, the men and women who help us stay on our toes with our research.

It’s also a chance to get together with writer friends from all across the country. It’s amazing how close you can become to people who share your love for writing even though you only see them once a year. And it’s a chance to meet with editors and agents. I’m one of the fortunate people who have been with the same editor for over 55 books. Visiting with her is one of my favorite parts of the conference.

And then there are the publishers’ parties. Since I write for Harlequin Intrigue, I always attend the Harlequin Party on Friday night. This year we had the most fabulous array of chocolates I have ever seen. They looked far too good to eat, but eat them we did. I gobbled down quite a few myself. And then we danced. And danced. And danced. Who needs a dancing partner when you have a ballroom full of women?

There’s much more, but I’ll leave that for another day. Now it’s time to go back to writing. The next deadline is fast approaching! And, after all, I am a writer.

Hi from Atlanta (Never mind about the word TEXAS on that steam engine!)

I am attending Romance Writer’s of America National Conference.

Because I’m ME I always want to learn about the history of any area I’m in so we went to a place called Cyclorama.

It was about the Battle of Atlanta.

There was a cool show about the battle and also some

Exhibits. Because we couldn’t take a picture of the show.

We also asked permission to climb on the train and stage shots like we were stoking the engine and firing off the whistle. NOPE!

We had to behave.

Union Soldier

Because my current series is full of heroes who fought in the Civil War I feel like now I have a better idea of what they looked like. I hope in a later post to write more, but things are crazy at the conference. So that’s all for today.

http://www.maryconnrealy.com

I’m going to talk about subtext in stories today and will have a giveaway to tell you about later.

I first started thinking about subtext when I was critiquing a friend’s manuscript. She asked me to take a look at her final manuscript. Although an incredibly hardworking woman, this particular writer was one of the most negative people I had ever met. As I started reading her manuscript—a supposedly light-hearted short contemporary romance—something felt “off” about the story. Why did I keep putting down the manuscript with a sense of nausea in my stomach? About halfway through the story it hit me. Her negativity was coming through the pages. Not in the story, itself, but in the subtext. As I read page after page I kept getting a sense that the heroine would never find happiness no matter how the writer wrote the ending. That manuscript never sold.

Fast forward several years after the above incident. Another friend. Another manuscript. Another problem with subtext. Again, I was reading a manuscript that left me feeling…ick. Again, I couldn’t put my finger on the problem. All I knew was that this friend was in the middle of a nasty divorce. Her anger and misery were coming out on the pages, even though her characters were neither angry nor miserable. In fact, her characters were noble with equally noble goals, motivation and conflict. They should have been sympathetic. They weren’t.

Knowing the problem had to be somewhere on the page, I plucked my favorite highlighter from my desk and quickly highlighted her verbs and nouns. Aha! I discovered the problem. There was nothing wrong with her writing. The problem was in her word choice. She chose hard, hateful, over-the-top nouns and verbs to evoke emotions that weren’t anywhere near that dramatic. To show frustration, she was using venomous verbs that indicated hatred. To show impatience, she chose hard-sounding, angry verbs. To show confusion, she chose words that evoked bitterness.

Movies have subtext, too, especially the better movies. Here’s a fun game/exercise for you to try. Watch a scene of a movie with the sound off. Write down all the emotions and/or moods you think you’re seeing in that scene. What does the body language say? What mood are you picking up on? What emotions are you seeing portrayed? Now, review that scene again, only this time with the sound on. Do your original impressions match up with what you saw when the sound was off? Did you catch things when the sound was off that you might have missed when it was on?

Two movies that handle subtext with expert precision are Atonement (the scene at the fountain, particularly) and The Man in the Iron Mask (especially the scene after the Musketeers have rescued the king’s twin brother from prison). Watch either movie and see what I mean. If you’re a writer, you’ll be inspired. If you’re a reader, you’ll have a better insight into why a well-told story is so well-told.

Now, about the giveaway.

Leave a comment and you’ll be included in a drawing for my current release, THE OUTLAW’S REDEMPTION. One lucky winner will receive all six books in my Charity House series.

What do you think of when you picture range animals in a Western setting?  Buffalo?  Deer and antelope?  Horses, sheep and cattle?  Probably all of these.  But llamas??  They probably didn’t come to mind.  But if you take a drive through Western ranch and farm country, you’ll can’t help but notice these strangely elegant creatures in the fields.

Llamas (not to be confused with lamas, a name for Buddhist priests) are a recent import from South America—specifically mountainous countries like Chile, Peru and Bolivia.  Their name can be pronounced “lama” or the Spanish way, which sounds like “yama”.   New World relatives of the camel, they come in two domestic varieties.  Both stand between five and six feet tall, have long, straight necks, thick wool, and snooty expressions.  Llamas, sturdy and strong with coarser wool are raised as pack and guard animals as well as for their wool and hides and sometimes their meat.

Their close cousins, the alpacas, are raised for their luxurious wool (if you’ve ever shopped for an alpaca sweater or coat, you know just how luxurious it is).   The animals are shorn every two years.  Alpaca wool is superior to llama wool, but llamas are more useful in other ways.

Here in the United States and in Canada, llamas have enjoyed a surge in popularity for several reasons.   Llamas are adaptable, intelligent and easily trained.  For outdoor hikers and trekkers, they make good pack animals.  They can’t be ridden, but they can carry 25 to 30 percent of their weight for 5 to 8 miles.  Overload them or push them too far, however, and they can become temperamental, refusing to move and spitting to show their displeasure.

Llamas kept with sheep and other livestock become very protective of their charges.  Most predators, like coyotes, are no match for a full-grown llama, which can weigh up to 450 pounds.

Some people keep llamas just because they make delightful pets.

Llamas can live 20-30 years with good care.  They are social animals, happiest in herds.  Their young, called crias, weigh between 20 and 30 pounds at birth.

Fossil records indicate that llamas originated on the plains of North America about 40 million years ago.  By the end of the last ice age they were found only in South America.  But now they’re back, big time and here to stay.  These days the population of llamas and alpacas in the U.S. and Canada is somewhere close to 300,000.

My July Desire, THE SANTANA HEIR is set in Peru, where lots of llamas live.   You can read an excerpt and find a purchase link on my web site:

www.elizabethlaneauthor.com.

Do you know anyone who raises these animals?  Have you had any experience with them?  Would you like to have one for a pet?

(Pack llama photo by Richard Masoner)

VALRI WESTERN … Congrats!   And please email me at charlenesands@hotmail.com for your prize.  It will be sent via Email once you verify your email address.

Thanks to everyone for sharing their fav vacation destinations with me. Hope you enjoyed the Chukchansi Indians info as well!