Sourcebooks Casablanca Romance Authors

Well, it is January after all, so it seems a time to make new starts. And, no, I'm not talking resolutions. I'm talking action. It's been an interesting time lately. (And yes, I know the old curse, "May you live in interesting times.") My position as a Project Manager was ended last September. Oddly, I was having a terrible time finding the next job. I'd done everything right. I've spent 25 years as a professional project manager. I'm a certified member and prominent volunteer in the local chapter of Project Management International. I teach project management classes and have spoken on the subject for writers. I've built a large network in a strong PM community. I've had solid interviews for which I was well qualified, and it still wasn't coming together. I wasn't getting that final offer. I finally noticed something else along the way. Every time I sat down to an interview, and finally, every time I sat down to apply for a job, my...

For some reason I've received a lot of questions this week asking do I use people from my day job in my books? Do I kill off former bosses? My staff kept asking if some day they'd get to be heroes or perhaps victims? And would they recognize themselves? No. No. No. And another no just to be sure. Then they ask again. So I reply that my books start with a character's voice and often with a season. The voice probably comes from years of running the high school theater and then later working several years in live theater and six more in the opera (where I was a computer tech, but I heard a lot of magnificent voices). I'm also a movie buff which doesn't hurt. Voice tells you me so much about a character. Beyond accent, there is region, and beyond region there is pacing. My characters tend to think quickly and speak abruptly... Of course, I'm currently writing military romantic suspense so that makes some sense. But also season. Book two of my Night Stalkers,...

So here I sit with a couple of my favoritest books. In this photo I spot science fiction, thrillers, romance, Alice in Wonderland, and Winnie the Pooh all mixed into a bunch along with classics and The Phantom Toll Booth because everybody has to have read that one. (You haven't?! Go forth now. Fetch. Read aloud to kid, spouse, yourself. Repeat often.) Over my other shoulder lies much more romance, research, and travel. ML with books and a parrot Sometimes I just stand in front of the shelves and marvel at all of the wonderful words I get to choose from. I also get quite humbled that I would dare put my words on the shelf beside these. It took me a while to get up the guts, but sometimes you just have to prove that you belong. The top shelf of the center book case is all my books. (Okay, padded with some multiple copies to fill the space.) But there's a whole shelf that's just me and my work. And guess what, those are my favorite books. Sure Ayn Rand, Tolkien, and...

There's a phrase I read years ago about hiking through a marshland. The author said that you finally just give in and become one with the mud. Heat is like that. I wilt and I melt and I whimper, and then I take a half dozen friends hiking up Breakneck Ridge overlooking the Hudson on a 105-degree day. Okay, I was also much younger and stupider then, but weren't we all. And it was an amazing hike! (And I got a great girlfriend out of it too. ) I often think about that day as I now live in the temperate Pacific NW where going out of doors on those few rare 90-degree days of the year is unimaginable. Of course, on the hottest day so far this year, my wife and I did decide to voyage forth on a 4-mile hill walk through one of Portland's oldest neighborhoods. It was a great hike! Of course any time spent with my wife is. (Yes, there's a reason I'm a guy writing romance.) Well, this summer I get to double the heat. Book 2 of my Night Stalkers series is launching from So...

I love writing, even on the bad days. The things that keep me from writing are what make me truly crazy! A friend calls them Life Rolls. LRs come in all sizes, big and small, trivial and overwhelming. This spring has had its full share and variety of same. Some LRs are pretty easy, just distracting. I just finished reading all of Jane Austen’s books at the same time my wife plugged the last hole in our Jane Austen movie collection. We now have every version of every one. We’re dying to curl up on the couch together and have a filmfest that lasts near enough a month of evenings. Okay, so life gets busy and those get sidelined, for now. After all, I do have a novel deadline and a dream of writing for a living. The only way that happens is spending time in the chair practicing my story-telling craft. Other LRs are a little more challenging. A huge project hit my desk in March. High profile, high hours, short timeline. There’s a reason these are given to me, I’m good at them...

This was always my favorite song from Guys and Dolls. I'd wait and wait through the movie for Marlon Brando to stand in the sewer, a pair of dice in his hands, betting his life on a single roll, and call on Lady Luck to help him win the girl of his dreams. I have been an incredibly lucky person of late, for, you know, the last few decades. I can point to easy job promotions, I can point to a solo bicycle trip around the world, I can point to published novels, and I can point to my greatest luck, my wife and kid. No man ever won such a roll before. And every bit of that luck was made... By me! Sounds arrogant? Well, not really. It is a matter of attitude and action and which way I face. Do I look at all the fine people I worked with and all I learned or do I look at the hard work and pain I invested in some jobs only to be laid off due to the recession? Do I look at the adventure of the bike trip or the fact that I lost my business, my career, and my house finally arriving at the po...

“The Night is Mine” – Book #1, February 2012 from Sourcebooks/Casablanca Vampires? No! Serial Killers? Nuh-uh! The Night Stalkers is their own name for the real-life U.S. Army’s 160 th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, SOAR. They fly the nastiest helicopters ever to cross the night sky. Their mission, to transport and protect Rangers, SEALs, and Delta Force operators while they’re fighting in some of the worst places you can imagine. We rarely hear of their successes (Grenada, Panama, bin Laden) because of their secrecy, and only rarely of their failures (Takur Ghar in Robert Redford’s “Lions for Lambs”, Mogadishu “Black Hawk Down”), partly because they have so few failures and partly because even during those two disasters, they achieved incredible tasks under impossible conditions. A romance series? Oh yeah! Once I’d discovered these guys I just had to write about them. And what better way to stir things up than to drop a strong woman in their midst and watch them twitch. Of...