Hey everyone time to announce the winner of the free header or graphic of their choice contest!

And the



is

Amy

Congratulations hon!!! Please contact me here and tell me what kind of graphic or header you would like and I'll get started on that for you! :)

For those of you who didn't win this time I will be running this contest again in the near future so check back!!! And I did want to thank you all who entered and especially all you great ladies who are followers of my blog here! BIG HUGS I have so much fun chatting about books, authors movies, and well everything with you all! hehehehe

Tomorrow night Claudia Dain will be here!!!!! So don't forget to come back for her interview and she will be giving away a copy of one of her fabulous Courtesan novels as well!

I have been wanting to start up some new blog awards to give out to blogs that I love to visit and that are big romance supporters. So this one is for those outstanding blogs that keep me coming back day after day and that avidly and passionately support Romance Novels and are not afraid to show it!!!

There are no rules for this one I only ask that you would to post where the award originated and who gave it to you when you post it to your own blogs. :)

I wanted to leave plenty of room for others to share this award with their friends and fellow bloggers so I only started out with nominating 5 outstanding blogs, and now it's your turn! Share the love with others!!!

This award was started by Bookin With BINGO

and here are the rules:

This "B-I-N-G-O" BEAUTIFUL BLOG AWARD means that this blog is...

B: Beautiful - Anna

I: Informative - Book Soulmates

N: Neighborly - Barbara

G: Gorgeous - Book Junkie

O: Outstanding - Susi Sunshine

I wish I could give this one to everyone because there are some amazing blogs out there that I visit often. But I only chose one per person so others can spread the love as well!

I'm so behind on my reading this last week was crazy busy so I have been crashing at night instead of reading when I normally do. So I still am on A Highlander's Temptation by Sue Ellen Welfonder, but it's AWESOME so far you guy's are going to love this one!!!!!

I'll have some brand new Goodies tomorrow and a new contest so be sure to come back and check them out!!! Have a great one my friends! :)

My stories don't begin to unfold until I've named my characters and named them correctly. How do I know if a name is right? I can't explain it. If their name is right, I can see them. I can hear them talk. I can create scenes and situations for them. If a name is wrong, there is no story.

Whenever I get an idea for a character or a plot or theme, I grab my binder with my worksheets, a notebook and a few fun pens, a cup of India Spice Chai tea, and then make myself comfy on the sofa. I use a story grid to flesh out my characters' goals and motivations and the points of the story. But I use a stack of books and folders to find their names. I keep lists of everything, so of course I have lists of names I want to use.

Most important for me is that their name sound like a real person—and a real person I'd want to know. It must be a name that I won't mind typing 400 times. I just checked my last completed book, and I used the hero's name 403 times. Sometimes I fall in love with a name, but it's tough to type quickly, so what I do is create an auto correct for it in Word. For example, if the heroine's name is Elisabeth Ann or Eliza Jane, I create an auto correct so that each time I type in elsb+spacebar, it changes to the name I want.

Where do I get my lists of names? A lot of places. I'm an avid movie watcher and also check out the new season TV shows. If I sit with a notebook and a fun pen (notice how pens are required to be special?) I can call it work. So I watch every line of the credits and write down names I like. If I'm watching a movie, I'll take notes regarding what worked for me and what didn't. It's research. I save graduation programs and baby name books.

What else is important when choosing a name? Sometimes nationality. Sometimes connotation: I probably wouldn't name a nuclear physicist Tiffany. No offense to any nuclear physicists named Tiffany, but it just wouldn't work for most of us. Tiffany is a teenager's best friend. On the other hand, you can go against stereotype, for instance naming an enormous woman Daisy or a tiny dog Rambo.

It's confusing to the reader if two characters' names are similar or their names start with the same letter. Personally, I get lost if a writer does that. I catch that first letter and if there are two similar, my brain doesn't associate it quickly enough, so I constantly rethink and recheck to see who this person is, so I’m jerked out of the story. Here's how I prevent that confusion and others with names: I keep a 5x7 index card with all the characters' names on it. At the bottom I write the alphabet. Every time I use a letter in a first or last name I put a strike through a letter. Of course I often use a letter two or three times, but some are for last names and others for secondary characters that won't be confused.

I also create a style sheet for each book. This is a page or two that I turn in with the manuscript. It contains a list of all the character names and all the places, streets, businesses, proper nouns. This reference helps me in creation of the story and in turn helps the copy editor. And it sure comes in mighty handy when I do a sequel!

Once or twice I've gotten hung up in the creation of my story in the planning stages or first chapters. The person’s name was nagging at me, because I never was quite convinced about it. When I’m certain about a name, I know it. So I changed it and the story moved on.

Once when I had revised a story proposal, taking out the hero and replacing him, I was completely stumped for a name and couldn't develop the guy. I held a contest on my blog to name him. As soon as I saw the particular name, I knew it was the right one. With his name in place, the character sprang to life.

My current hero and heroine for my work in progress are Nathan Landry and Gabrielle Frost aka Rachel Morgan. Nathan Landry is a city attorney in 1870 Wyoming Territory. He’s a self-made man who got a law degree, ad brought a railcar full of lumbar west to sell and make enough to establish a couple of businesses. A young wife traveled west with him, but she died and he has three small children and aspirations for political office. His name sounds like him, doesn’t it?

I can’t tell you about Rachel yet, sorry. But she has a vivid past as Gabrielle Frost—a fake French name and a fake French accent. I don’t even have a title for this story yet. Names and a title come first. I’ve never thought about how many characters I’ve named over my career to date, but it’s got to be a lot of them in thirty-five books now.

My upcoming December book has Wesley Burrows and Mariah Spangler. Wes has been delivering mail in the Yukon for the past several years, but an accident laid him up and a mailbox full of letters brings him to the states. Mariah is an achiever and single mother in a huge German family that runs a brewery. All of her sisters and brothers have German names—and there are a lot of them. I had to name dogs, too. Yuri and Felix are Alaskan sled dogs.

I don't like frivolous names or names that are difficult to pronounce. Even if I'm not reading aloud, I want to be able to know how to think it correctly. How about you? Is there anything you find distracting about a particular name or spelling of a name? Do you like plain names or exotic?

Did you ever think about how much work goes into naming an entire cast of characters?

So tell me what are some of your favorite supernatural reads? I would love to hear some feedback from you all and I always love finding new authors that rock! What do they feature vamps, weres, ghosts, or some other supernatural beings? And I have put up a new poll on the right sidebar to see who is the ultimate favorite supe!

I'm sorry I haven't posted here in the last few days school has just started back for my son and it's been that much more busy around here. I home school him so I'm the teacher along with all the other household stuff and working on my graphics biz as well. So it's been a wee crazy around here. I love homeschooling him though its very rewarding. I know it's the best for him because he's always been kind of hyper and I can split his lessons up so he doesn't have to sit so still for long periods of time, and can focus on his problem areas for as long as we need to till he gets it instead of just skipping on to something else. Plus the big things like I know he's safe and he's not exposed to so many bad influences until he's older and knows better than to let himself be pressured into things etc.

There are still so many things I want to get done here on the blog I still want to get the interviews page set up like the reviews with a nice neat menu. (I hope to get that done this week) As well as get the blog awards done and ready to go. (hopefully this week as well) I got good news there will be interviews with authors Cheryl St. John, Cindy Miles and Claudia Dain all in the next few weeks. I also heard back from Jennifer Ashley who also wants to do an interview and giveaway here as well in Sept! YAY I'm so happy and thankful that these wonderful authors want to do interviews here. I can't thank them enough because I know the are very busy ladies creating the books we love! OH and I haven't forgotten about the Vampires, Werewolves, and ghosts blog I wanted to do as well!

I did however get enough time to make up three little buttons or banners whatever you prefer to call them, to link to the blog here if you want too. If you are a follower and you link to me, be sure to let me know so I can link your blog on here as well. :)





I want to say also that I just got my fortieth follower! WOOHOOO! I have met so many wonderful and talented people in the short time that I have had this blog. I thank all of you for your support and for making this such a fun ride so far! You guys are the best!!!

Hello my friends! I hope everyone has had a great week! It's TGIF thank the good Lord! LOL

Ok I finally got the menu bar up and running thanks to that brilliant & very sweet lady Barbara at Happily Forever After! HUGE HUGS dear I sure do appreciate it! I was starting to bang my head on the desk in frustration lol.

I hope the icons look ok. I'm still not sure if they look ok or goofy. What do you all think? I tried several different things but my more elaborate ideas I had ended up looking to busy, so I settled on the ones you see above for now.

I also spent about two hours tonight linking up all my past reviews that I have done on Night Owl Romance onto the reviews page as well. Yes I cheated *hangs head in shame* - in that I didn't make new posts for them for here I just linked them LOL! It was far easier than me copying and pasting all of them over. But I promise they are all ones by me. All in all with those and the 3 I have done here on the blog there are now 80 reviews listed there now. I hadn't realized I had actually done that many reviews!!! I have been very fortunate in the 2 and a half years I have been with Night Owl to review some really wonderful book and meet many wonderful people. :)

UPDATED

**I just got my rating system complete and up on the reviews page as well. The ratings are 1 sapphire heart - 5 sapphire hearts. With 4.5 - 5 being a Top Pick and winning the Sapphire Quill Award.**

Spread the Love Award

And I would like to share this and pass this on to these wonderful ladies...
(Trying to keep it simple so I chose only four this time.)

Leontine at Leontine's book Realm
Amy C. at Romance Book Wyrm
Cindy at I ♥ Book Gossip
Caffey at Caffey Reads

And also she awarded me The Lovely Blog Award