THOSE DELICIOUS NEW WORDS

First roses from my garden collage

Is there anything more precious than new words? We love new roses from our gardens, new little starts that stick up from the warm brown soil in the Spring. We love new love, and what it feels like. We love meeting a new friend, or rekindling with an exciting old friend. Other new things I love: a new quilt pattern, new dress, colorful scarf, new haircut. I love new fabric or a great colorful fabric discounted! New bright red in my hair. New car! New jewelry, or a new candle scent or perfume. New shower gel! I love meeting a new reader who loves my books, or getting a great new review!

All these lush things are wonderful, and the most exciting of them all for me are New Words.

With new words, a new character develops. Like a chess game, the hunter and hunted meet, the warriors clash over a battle of wills. The Beast becomes the gentleman, and the Beauty becomes strong and supportive on her own. It's a classic tale of falling and having love burn so brightly in your chest that you just have to tell every stranger.

It's what makes a book something nice into something I gotta have!

It happens when I become the pro writer and not the amateur writer. It bashes through all obstacles and walls, limitations of funds, time, age, distance. I turned from being a reader who loved to read compelling books to wanting to create them. That creative process stimulates and excites everything in my world. It no longer is work. I ask my brain to be patient with the thoughts so I have the time to get everything down on paper. When I feel this way, I have to stop whatever else I'm doing and submit to that great spirit.

My beautiful music is even more beautiful. The colors are brighter. Scenes are more stunning. I wear loneliness like a badge and let the emotional energy spur me on to bring about a closure and connection that wasn't there before. My perceived lacks of the physical world I live in disappear in the fantasy life I create. My characters are my best friends and lovers. They don't leave. They love as fiercely as they play, with as much passion as I can imagine. I know there's even more off the screen of what I can hold at one time.

Bought this in Sao Paolo, Brazil

Today I give myself to new words. After all, it is World Book Day.  #LovetoRead

Of course, you could always watch Cinderella with someone you love, too.

So, here are some FIRST WORDS for you of a book called Paradise - The Search For Love (unedited):

I remember well the day John Gage stepped into my office. He had a whale of a tale about an island no one knew about, a white sandy beach with no telephones or internet, and a little thatched-roof bar tended by the most beautiful girl in the world.

            He called it Paradise.

            I hadn’t even looked at his paperwork, or how much money he had to invest. I didn’t look at what he did for a living. I just listened to him talk. His blue eyes and tanned skin, relaxed mode of operation, with his kaki pants and canvas slip-on shoes, two or three day’s stubble all painted a picture of a guy who was enjoying life. Way more than I was.

            Only remnant of his former life was the fact that he wore button down shirts, expensive ones too, with his initials on the sleeve, if you were ever to see them. He wore them wrinkled, right out of the dryer, or maybe off a clothesline somewhere, and rolled up to his elbows. He buttoned them one button too low, revealing a tanned and muscled torso. The guy was ten years older than I, but he looked ten years younger.

            I was helplessly hooked.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pzc_3arId8s
#LovetoRead

On Being Super Human

Long before I was a romance writer, I was fascinated with what made people do things. It's why I was a Psychology major in college. I loved reading about what made people do things. Originally, I thought I'd like to study lands and cultures - what made a whole country or group of people do things. The career choices were limited (or appeared limited) back then. My love of travel and foreign lands spurred me on to thinking being an International Affairs major would get me where I wanted to be.

But no, I took a detour into Sociology, and then wound up finally in Psychology, bringing it all back to the individual. I was looking outside myself for reasons, and found them inside myself instead.

Now that I write romance, the study of character and calling is more important than just about anything else. That's why I enjoy writing about the Brotherhood, specifically the SEAL Brotherhood. These are men who put aside their fears (have them, but set them on the back burner) to do the things others cannot or will not do. I'm not naive to think that that makes them perfect. It makes them the ones who do not quit.

Navy SEALs go through the grueling BUD/S training not to find the strongest and most well qualified, but to find the ones who will not quit. People who don't understand this don't understand SEALs. Men who have passed the SEAL training look on those who have washed out or DOR (Drop On Request) in a different light than others do, perhaps. They don't see them as failures. They see them as men who discovered where their limits were. The real SEAL training makes them a SEAL. The BUD/S portion of it is just to see who is qualified TO START the training.

Everyone wants to be rich. Everyone wants to be handsome and beautiful. Everyone wants to be successful, to be well liked. To raise a family that leave their mark. Everyone wants to be a good friend, someone to be counted on. Not everyone is willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice to do so.

I listen to blogs and read about heroes every chance I get. One of the men I study I will not mention here, but he has given me so much wisdom about what it takes to be a true hero, a real man, a warrior of the first caliber. And although he speaks in terms of being a man, it also works for those who are not men, but those who wish to be a warrior at whatever they are passionate about. Writing? Love? Family? Being the best person I can be? Whatever the driving force inside of us, one thing is clear: it is the best part of all of us.

He defines Brotherhood in this way:  "Mutually held feelings of love, possessiveness, and respect that improves the current or future situation(s) of each member. True brotherhood is created by shared experience and defined by feelings. The experiences must be:  1) Difficult  2) Tied to ones survival."

We live in an age and time when "getting along" is the norm. When getting pampered is mistaken for care. When right thinking or silence is preferable to conflict. We are taught to avoid battle in all it's forms: battle of wills, battle of negotiation, taking risks, being unrelenting and unstoppable. Being unbeatable becomes fiction in such a world. Striving to go beyond our own limits something of fiction and fantasy and not real.

I write about the heroes who transcend all this, who are not perfect men by any stretch of the imagination, but who are blessed with the singleness of purpose: to serve and protect at all costs.

And to never quit.

Wonder what kind of a world we would have if everyone felt the same way.

Amazon Spellcheck - Do You Make Up New Words?

Amazon always gives me little notifications when they think my spelling isn't up to par. I'm a creative speller. Oh yes, I know the difference. A creative speller makes up words that fit the moment, like some of my SEAL characters nicknames: Fredo becomes Frodo, Kyle Lansdowne becomes Lannie or Landmine. Armando Guzman becomes Armani. And of course they also get creative - very creative - with swear words.

If I had to clean up my prose and take out that certain word that begins with the letter "F", my manuscripts would lose about 10,000 words, I'm sure.

So here are a couple I found today. I love Spellcheck Days!

Minidrone - I actually think that's a word I've read somewhere. Amazon doesn't recognize it.
Microwinery - well, they have microbreweries, why not microwineries. I really think I did make this one up.
Sexploits - I think that's a valid description of some of the "in search of" capers my SEALs go on until they come smack up against someone who snags their attention.
F**kbunny - I love that word and use it all I can. My editors usually limit me to a diet of 2 per book.

How about you? Do you like to use favorite words, make up words? Find words you've read or heard and loved them into existence?