Title? Title? I don't need no stinking title!

How do you choose what title to use on your finished manuscript?  Does it suggest itself to you during the course of your writing/rewriting/editing?  Or do you sit and look at it, trying to think of a pithy selection of just a few words that will encapsulate your book neatly and entice readers to try it?

For most of my published books, the 6 Reyes Romances, and my 2 stand-alone contemporary romances, I chose the titles myself.  But for my 2 romantic suspense novels, I had to turn to my family.  Keep in mind that none of my in-their-early-twenties kids read romance novels except for occasionally checking out one of mine.  So they don't have any idea what the popular titles are any more than my husband, who also reads lots of other books, but only romances written by me.  So when I ask them, they listen to my short explanation of who the main characters are and the story arc, then they fire suggestions at me. 

Since they refer to what I write as "Mom's porn", though I prefer "smut", they often suggest titles that sound much more erotic than what I write!  I write romance novels with a bit of naughtiness.  I've read enough erotic romance and erotica to know that's not what I write! So I reject the titles that sound like a porn movie, lest I disappoint a randy reader.  Then I consider their other choices. 

This worked wonderfully, I thought, when I wrote Secret Love, about a female spy who breaks the rules by falling in love while on active duty.  Then I went onto Amazon, excited to see my new book there, and when I typed in the title in the search line, I found 4 other books by different authors, with the same title!  Surely this was an anomaly, I thought. 

Then I needed a title for my second spy novel, about a retired female spy who is drawn back into the world she thought she had left for good.   2 male spies are assigned to guard her 24/7 from the psycho-killer she thought she had put away forever when her testimony put him in jail. She falls in love with one of them, but they both pursue her.  I kept thinking of titles with the word "spy" in them, but my oldest son suggested Undercover Lovers.   I thought it was an excellent title!  But apparently so did 9 other authors, 8 of whom used the singular lover...but all of their titles pop up when you search Amazon for Undercover Lovers.  Heavy sigh.

That same oldest son just tried to explain to me about how savvy techies are able to game the search engines, and tag their items with zillions of words to ensure that no matter what you are looking for, their products will appear.  I just got off of work and that sounded too complicated for me to grasp!  Oh well...

My next book will be published November 1, and it's about the Mayan prophesy involving the end of the calendar in 2012.  It also has vampires and a 5,000 year old Mayan vampire mummy.  And a conspiracy to dull the intelligence of the human population for nefarious purposes.  I agonized over this title also, and even called it unnamed Mayan romance in my files.  But when I was offered a contract, they needed to have a title to put on it.  My quandary had to end quickly!  I chose  Prophesy of the Undead.  Ah, great!  Nothing pops up with that title on Amazon!  I guess I'm going to have to check there from now on before I choose my titles for my next books. 

How much do you feel a title grabs your attention or causes you to want to read a book?  Or are you more interested in the cover?  I think I've been extremely lucky with the cover artists I've been assigned.  I just wish there was such a thing as a title artist!  Don't you? 

Please visit www.fionamcgier.com and feel free to comment on the creativity (or lack thereof) involving my titles.  Hey, I truly enjoy writing the best books I can...everything else is much harder!

Why are the Blues white?

There is a blues event this Saturday at the local junior college that I won't be able to attend because I'll be at work. But husband and I did go to a festival last weekend and had an excellent time, hearing 2 local blues bands jamming. Looking around it was the same crowd that always seems to be at blues venues: older white people, some younger white people, and just a smattering of people with black or brown skins. The sole exception is Asian people, especially if they are only here visiting the U.S. They never seem to be able to get enough of the great American music style known as the blues.

Why have the blues fallen on hard times? My father crossed the pond from Scotland to move here to the Chicago area in the 40s, to be able to hear his favorite musicians play live music. He told me he used to sit in the many bars on the south side and be the only white boy in the place, but the musicians appreciated that he sat quietly and just soaked up their music. Back then all blues musicians were black...the race that had invented the music was the only one to play it, and their listeners were usually black as well. The Harlem Renaissance was the era of jazz and blues fusion, and white composers like Gershwin incorporated the blues into their music, but were looked down upon by both white people who didn't listen to "that kind of music", and black people who questioned whether a "white boy could do the blues". As if feeling the pain of living is limited by the color of your skin!

During the 70s, many white rock bands recorded blues songs, making them palatable to their white fans, many of whom then sought out the originals of songs covered by bands like the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, etc. Jimi Hendrix made screaming electric guitars his trademark, and pointed the way for many axe-men of today, like Kenny Wayne Shepard...young musicians who are usually white. As the older players die off, Buddy Guy keeps on making excellent music and touring, but even he admits that blues clubs all over the country are hurting from a lack of business. Most blues bands have to tour Europe or Japan in order to make any real money.

Why is this? Personally when Buddy or Kenny gets to shredding a guitar, I'm in nirvana! How about you?
*****
Oh, and I have a new book to talk about!
If you read my spy novel Secret Love, you will be interested in the sequel, Undercover Lovers. In this book, Ameena is haunted by memories of the torture she endured years ago at the hands of a serial killer that she helped to put behind bars forever. Or so she was led to believe. Now he has escaped, and her former life as a spy invades her current life as a choreographer for music videos when her ex-handler introduces her to the two men who will split the duty of guarding her 24/7 until the Executioner makes his move. Now her life has more excitement than she can handle, as two hot spies take turns guarding and pursuing her body! Which one will she choose? And will she live long enough to make a choice?
Sheena and Cory from Secret Love make an appearance, as does the handler, Malcolm. And for this book I wrote my first-ever menage scene, which was hard to do while staying true to the character of the hero.



Buy link:
http://www.whiskeycreekpress.com/torrid/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=8&products_id=608&zenid=db43fcd260d6ec9252529b60d34efb7a

Ball of Confusion=Planet Earth

Recently I was having a spirited discussion via e-mail with my sons and my husband, about the problems with the economy, and by extension, the world. One son said that it seemed to him that we all forget that all around us are confused people who don't know how to solve any of our problems...some seek answers in religion, but that's wrong because religion should be a quest, not an answer. Seeking to know God is the purpose of life, but there are no easy answers, and each answer is individual. Some seek answers from the government, but that is made up of people just as confused as the rest of us. Some seek answers in alcohol or drugs, in gambling, in just about anything that can be done to addiction-rates, because those provide what appear to be easy answers, or at least a temporary relief from the pain of asking questions. Some zealously hold onto all of their money because they don't know any other way to live, and the idea of giving some of it to help others, either via donations or enforced taxes, scares them too much. We are all scared and anxious and no one has the answers. We are living on a "Ball of Confusion".



Remember that song by the Temptations from 1970? Google it and there is an excellent u-tube video with images from our current time, shown along with the song being sung by the original Temptations. Remember these lyrics?



"Segregation, determination, demonstration,

Integration, aggravation,

Humiliation, obligation to our nation.

Ball of Confusion.

That's what the world is today." (Copyright 1970, Jobete Music Company, Inc.)



The words could have been written today. Yet each of us has no choice but to continue living our life as if these problems weren't so insurmountable. The rich/poor dichotomy has been with us since the first caveman had more meat to eat than the other one...one might have tried to kill the other for it, and you can bet there was a woman who was willing to sleep with the winner. The beginnings of romance?



We each try to find our own answers and hope fervently that we won't be judged too harshly in the afterlife for anything we might do wrong. Along the way we seek to find love, because to feel love and be loved is the only real security we can have. And love is available to even the least among us, as it is to those who have the most.



What was it the Beatles sang? "All You Need Is Love." More words as true today as the day they were written. And as authors, we seek solace in doing what John Lennon asked us to do: "Imagine".



In my latest book, I once again have an inter-racial romance. I guess I'm an eternal optimist, thinking that somehow if we can just remember that we are all humans, then color/race/nationality/religion will take a backseat to our essential shared humanity. The heroine is what euphemistically would be called "a free spirit", meaning that in college, she enjoyed the selection of eligible men so much that she joked she was trying to get the college to let her minor in sex! The hero is on a hardship scholarship that only gives him one chance to escape the ghetto he was born into, and he is determined not to waste it. A chance meeting brings them together, leading to a night of passion, which becomes a weekly affair. Just when they both acknowledge what they mean to each other, they graduate and she moves to another state. Years later, in the middle of a divorce, he decides he needs to find her again, to see if they can rekindle what they had in college.



http://www.whiskeycreekpress.com/torrid/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=589&zenid=21d5b183b8c0fcac4cfb49e0f2f2d4a3

For mini-reviews of books I've read recently, and movies I've seen, and more about my books, my blog is the first page of my website: www.fionamcgier.com

Burning From Within: Inside Kristal McKerrington, Takes Over Today

Hello All The Sweet and Sexy Diva's Readers,

Gosh its nice to be back on Sweet and Sexy Diva's today and boy do I have some news for you all. This past week we will saw the Release of my very own story, let loose on the world. I wrote it in the way that I hope will not make people feel sad for me, because all I wanted to do is inspire people. Show them how I got through the Rheumatoid Arthritics and Dyslexia, which is a common thing that I have to deal with on a day to day bases. I came out of the other side and have been able to deal with it.

Here is the blurb from the book and I hope that you will enjoy the teaser about what we will be talking about today.

Burning From Within: Inside Kristal McKerrington
Out Now

Kristal McKerrington, is a young twenty-two year old author, who opens up her heart and her life for her readers in hope to inspire and give hope for Rheumatoid Arthritic and Dyslexia sufferers out there. To show them that there is such a thing of getting your dream. She hopes that by writing this book that she can help raise awareness to all of the sufferers out there and help to show them that determination along with dreaming is all you need sometimes. Learn about this woman, who's over come the odds to become a full time, multi time published author.

I tell all in hope that I can inspire and help people out there, to understand that there is life outside the condition and learning difficulty. My book seems to be coming out at a really important time since people, who are diagnosed with the condition, some of them are now looking to end there lives early. There isn't just that, which makes me feel like now is the right time to tell my story, its also the fact that mild cancer drug treatments seem to becoming the norm for the Autoimmune systems treatments and that is in itself worrying for someone like me.

The mild cancer drugs don't just suppress your problem, these drugs over large portion of time can become useless in your body or in some cases be a reason to why the patients may die younger than maybe they should. There is also a high risk that patients can become infertile and leave having a family out of the question. I want to inspire and give hope to the long term sufferers out there.

Its not just the RA that I talk about, I also discuss the Dyslexia at length. How Dyslexia had an impact on my life and why I didn't let it take over my life. How I have since learned that it can in fact be a gift rather an a curse to, which many people feel like it is? This has become something I want to change along with people thinking that just cause it takes you longer to pick things up that your not as smart as everyone else.

There is a lot to my new book. I talk about how Wrestling became my strength. How we all fell in love with it in the Ward? How my ideals did not just inspired me, but showed me that I was strong enough to over come hurdles?

We have all ready received on review on the book so far and I have copied the link into the blog so that you can check it out below. http://newandgoodreading.blogspot.com/2011/07/book-of-week-7411_04.html

Exclusively, I have an excerpt from the book itself. To give you a taste of what the book has instore for you.

I want to reach out to the RA suffers out there that are about my age or even younger. To help them see that we can still have a semi normal life. Achieve dreams through being strong within yourselves by fighting the condition and dreaming. I would love to go all over the world some day where they can talk to me and I can say to them the words that helped me more times than not. To show them dreams are alive and can be reality.

'Dreams are meant to be dreamt. They can only be achieved from within us and I want to help as many of you as I can achieve those dreams as I can.' Kristal McKerrington.

The RA Association aren't the only ones I want to help. There is the Dyslexia suffers out there too who are having their endless talents missed due to the fact that either teachers, bosses, lecturers, parents or anyone else, because they don't know how to spot the learning difficulty and are missing out on discovering the few talents that are floating about this world. I want to end the hate and fear in school of kids who are different or treated differently by either teachers or students. I want to reach out and help lead the way for that group as well.

I want to do all this, because I care and I don't know who else is willing to do this, but I am. I believe and that is all I need to be able to help those out there.

I hope that today that you have enjoyed the insight into my latest release and I hope that you will feel inspired by what you have read here today. Its been an honour to be here again. I would like to thank the Sweet and Sexy Diva's Blogs for having me. I can't wait to come back next month to see you all again.

The book is available on XoXo Publishing's Store and over at Amazon. So please go and check out the book if you like the sounds of it. Love and hugs to you all.

Kristal McKerrington 

Mothers in Romance novels

Since May is the month we celebrate all things maternal on Mother's Day, I got to wondering what readers think of Moms with children being in romance novels. Do you think it makes the woman less of a candidate for a new romance if she is already a mom?

The first book in my Reyes Family Romances series, Never Too Old For The Game Of Love, has Tegan, a 39-year old divorced mother of two children, ages 8 and 11, thinking that she has no time for love. Not only is she busy building a business with her best friend who is also a 39-year old divorced mother, but she is afraid to have her children possibly get attached to another man when that relationship might end also, forcing them to deal with another loss. So when the brother-in-law of Juanita, a neighbor, hires her party-planning business, she fights her attraction to him. He is, after all, a client. And on his part, he does not believe in mixing business with pleasure. Little do they know their instant and sizzling attraction to each other won't allow them to ignore it. When eventually Alexander befriends her daughter who baby-sits for his nieces and nephews, he learn things that her mother has not shared with him, since she is trying to keep her children separate from her secret relationship with him.

Recipe For Love, my second book, has the best friend from the first book as the heroine. But her ex-husband is not an involved father unless he is looking to borrow money or use the kids as a way to get back into his ex-wife's good graces. So when Patti gets involved with a tall, bald, bearded, tattooed Gypsy biker, it is her kids who suggest that he move in with them. Her son has chosen a new role model, and her daughter wants to see her mother happy.

In Analysis of Love, Juanita is the mother of Catalina, the heroine who has been torn throughout the book between her loyalty to her boss, who has ordered her to write a smear article to destroy the career of the blind analyst he feels ruined his relationship with his oldest son, and her instant attraction to and growing love for the analyst. When the analyst finds out from her boss' son that a writer has been dispatched to dig up dirt on him, he realizes the only client he has who is a writer, is the woman he has fallen so deeply in love with that he has been counting the days until she is no longer a client and he can openly date her. He is astonished by the level of betrayal that he feels, and lashes out at her during her next visit. She runs out of the office in tears, and straight into the arms of the only person she knows loves her enough to listen: her mother.

Excerpt from Analysis of Love:

She shook her head and remembered that her death would mean escape for her, but never-ending pain for her mother. Her mother! That’s who she had to go see now, to stop herself from doing anything she wouldn’t be around to regret!
She didn’t see anything, or remember any of the drive out to her parents’ house. But after a while, she drove down the leafy street that she had grown up on, and been so happy on, and felt like it was another person, and not her. She parked in the driveway, left her car door open, and ran into the house through the never-locked front door.
“Mom! Mom! ¡Madre! ¿Donde estás?” she screamed as she ran in the door.
Juanita came at a run through the door from the basement.
“¡Mija! ¿Que pasa? ¿Estas bien?”
“Mom!” Catalina wailed as she threw herself on her mother, and broke down completely.
Juanita managed to both catch her, and to keep her balance, so they didn’t both topple backwards down the stairs. Instead, she sank down onto the kitchen floor, and Catalina sank down with her. Juanita held her daughter while her sobs wracked her body, causing her to shake and tremble as if she was suffering from a seizure of some sort.
Despite her years of experience as a parent, Juanita felt that nothing could have prepared her for this. Catalina had always been her happiest child: the baby that smiled for everyone, the toddler that charmed all of the neighbors. The girl who only had to smile, to brighten everyone’s day. She had been worried about Catalina for weeks now, as she watched her disposition grow steadily more depressed with each passing Sunday. But Miguel had assured her that there was a man involved... and this man was not like all of the others, he had said. Catalina had real feelings for this one, he had said. So she had held her tongue, and waited for her daughter to take her into her confidence. But not like this! ¡Dios mio! Not like this!
Juanita held her daughter and began to rock her. She smoothed her hair and murmured words of comfort in Spanish. She knew that Catalina, always the independent and different one, had resisted learning to speak much of her native tongue. But she usually understood what was said to her. And in her time of great need, she had called out to her mother in Spanish. So Juanita told her daughter how much she loved her and tried to ease her pain, in the language that came from her heart. And gradually, Catalina quieted; eventually, her crying stopped.
It was then that Juanita got really worried. Afraid that Catalina had gone catatonic, she started to ask her questions.
“Catalina... mijita. What’s wrong? Why do you cry so much? Who has hurt you so badly?” she asked.
There was a long silence, broken only by the occasional hiccups of Catalina taking deep breaths after her sobbing. Juanita waited.
Catalina took a very deep, staggered breath, and said, “He hates me, Mom! He never wants to see me again!”
“Who, hija? Who hates you?”
“The only man I will ever love!”
With that, Catalina was off on a fresh round of sobbing, but at least this time she wasn’t shaking as if she was having a seizure. Juanita was happy, at least, for that. And this, major heartache, was something that she could deal with... something that she had experience with talking other women through.
“Cata, my darling... no one can hate you. No man can resist you!”
For some strange reason, that seemed to set her off on a fresh round of loud sobbing. Juanita stopped talking for a while, and just held her daughter and let her cry.

Interested? Find out more at my website: www.fionamcgier.com. Each book has a page with a buy link and link to excerpts and reviews.