SquawkRadio

February 2 is the twentieth anniversary of the day I got The Call that my first book, CANDLE IN THE WINDOW, had been bought by a very astute editor. (The time was 3:30 pm, not that I noticed.) On September 1, 2009 my fortieth full-length book, STORM OF VISIONS, was published. I’m not bragging (well, only a little), just giving you a framework for my story.

Because a couple of years ago, I wrote a scene in INTO THE FLAME where the hero sees the heroine for the first time in two and a half years, and startles her. The line I wrote was, “She didn’t jump, he’d give her that. But Firebird Wilder had always had balls of steel, and she showed them now as she coolly turned to face him.”

I am a professional. Don’t try this at home.

In INTO THE SHADOW, my heroine stumbles onto the hero sitting in the Japanese garden. He jumps to his feet and says, “Is this your private place? Should I leave?” and she says, “No, it’s okay, my private place is big enough for the both of us.”

Unless I’m writing erotica (and I’m not), that’s just embarrassing.

I don’t even want to discuss the infamous, “He pinned his eyes to her chest,” or the time during the passionate kissing scene when I described the hero as “big-boned” and said the heroine “stained against him.” Euw. Just … euw.

I’m not the only writer who does this stuff. At one of my first Romance Writers of America conferences, one of the award winners got up and thanked her critique group. Before she joined them, she wrote sentences like, “Angrily, he thrust his hands into his pockets and tried to get a hold of himself.”

Susan Mallery, author of HOT ON HER HEELS, is the queen of great typos. Instead of, “He dropped the wrench and swore loudly,” she wrote, “He dropped the wench and sweat loudly.” (Please note, that was a double typo.) Her personal fav (and mine,) “She stood like a deer caught in the headlines.”

Connie Brockway, author of THE GOLDEN SEASON, gave me her own favorite faux pas, “He eyed her with relish.” Pickle relish, with a touch of mustard, she adds.

Teresa Medeiros, author of SOME LIKE IT WILD, said once her spell-check changed the line, “Touche, Lucy!” to “Douche, Lucy!”

Lisa Kleypas, author of BLUE EYED DEVIL, composed this gem, “Held in his gaze, she felt shaken and stirred.” It seems her hero had the eyes of James Bond’s bartender.

My nightmare is that one of these lines will slip through all the editing and make it onto the printed page.

Oh, wait. That’s happened, too. My husband was reading CANDLE IN THE WINDOW, a medieval, and came to me with a question. After the hero and heroine were married, I wrote, “They stood on the battlements and waved until the wedding guests were out of sight.” Scott wondered, since the heroine was blind, how long she had waved.

STORM OF VISIONS is on the shelves now. Buy a copy for your chance to find the faux pas that will haunt me for the rest of my life. No, I don’t know for sure there is one. But the chances are pretty good. In the meantime, here’s an exclusive excerpt:

“> Caleb leaned, shirtless, against the kitchen counter and watched as Jacqueline cleaned the cut she’d put into his ribs with her scissors. It was jagged, it hurt like hell — and he felt a solid sense of pride in her accomplishment. He’d taught her to fight like that, and no man alive had ever done a better job of spitting him.

Of course, no man alive distracted him like a half-naked Jacqueline. After the sex on the bathroom floor and the sex on the lumpy mattress, she had showered — no sex in the shower, she had locked the bathroom door and wedged the towel cabinet behind it — and donned ugly faded plaid pajama bottoms and a clean, baggy, short sleeved t-shirt. He supposed that was her naïve way of saying Hands off. Instead she looked sweet and clean, and smelled of soap and Jacqueline.

“You need stitches,” she said for the dozenth time.

And for the dozenth time, he replied, “The scissors are new and clean, my tetanus shot is up to date, and I can get antibiotics in New York City. Just put a butterfly bandage on it. Then start packing.”

She dabbed the paper towels into the basin of warm water, then wiped the area around the wound. She didn’t look up, didn’t respond.

His gaze shifted to fingerless leather gloves she wore. They were well-made, almost the color of her skin, and supple enough to move as she moved. “You didn’t used to wear gloves all the time. Why wear them at all?”

“You heard me today at the winery. It’s a combination of style and protection.”

“Protection?” He mocked her openly. “From the corkscrew, you mean.”

This Jacqueline was wiser than the teenager he’d known, less likely to rise to the bait, more inclined to take her time in answering him — or not answer him at all. “How did you find me?” she asked.

He laughed sharply, and winced at the pain. “We never lost you.” He had tracked her for the two years of her exile.

She picked up the scissors.

Although perhaps he could have been more tactful about saying so. He tensed, prepared to fend off another attack.

She glanced up and saw him watching warily. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to stab you again.”

To read another excerpt of STORM OF VISIONS, read how I got the idea for the Chosen Ones, and view the series video, visit my website. While you’re there, please join my mailing list and become part of the Christina Dodd family.

To report mistakes, go to ICan’tHearYou.com, and don’t forget, the second in the Chosen Ones series, STORM OF SHADOWS, is out now, and on July 3, the third book, CHAINS OF ICE, will be published to great acclaim (from my family!)

Warmly,
Christina Dodd
http://www.christinadodd.com

If I had to live my life again, I’d make the same mistakes, only sooner.-Tallulah Bankhead