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Lately things have been crazy. Haven't had time to do a real post so this place looks like promo-central blew up and scattered its remains all over my blog. So, this is a slighted edited transcript of the craziness that goes down on my Facebook page.
I've edited the hell out of this so that it actually fits in one blog post. Maybe, one day, I'll show you the rest. So, this is where we are semi-focused on the task, but we're writers. All things devolve at some point.
The FB Status That Started It All:
Sidenote: I need blog material. Calling all writers to tell me Shit Your Characters Say. Jennifer McKenzie/Jennifer Leeland, and T. Sue VerSteeg report for duty. And by duty I mean trouble making.
T. Sue VerSteeg: To me or what I actually allow them to say in my books?
Melissa Blue: Oh, of course what they say to you. What ends up in the books are not trouble-making.
Melissa Blue: Unless, they're Jennifer Leeland characters. They have no filter.
T. Sue VerSteeg: Jennifer Leeland has no filter. It's one of the many reasons I lubs her so very much!
Jennifer McKenzie: LOL! What the hell is a filter?
Jennifer McKenzie: Okay okay. Shit my characters say. 1. But I want to have sex noooooooooooow!!!"
Melissa Blue: Believe it or not, she (Jennifer Mckenzie) does (have a filter.) Trust me, we have phone conversations.
Jennifer McKenzie: 2. No, it totally happened like that. All the other characters and the theory of relativity is full of shit.
Melissa Blue: 3. I know. I know. We just had a sex scene, but we haven't tried this yet.
Melissa Blue: 4. I don't have a deep, dark past. I'm peachy fucking keen.
Jennifer McKenzie: 5. Swearsies! This will work! You just have to rewrite the whole fucking book!!!
Jennifer McKenzie: 6. I'm a short story. Honest!
Melissa Blue: No. No. Jen. Number 5 happens when you find out the truth.
Melissa Blue: 7. Wrong heroine/hero.
Jennifer McKenzie: 8. What's wrong with her? She's boring! Don't you have anyone who's a little more.....damaged?
Melissa Blue: 9. We're going to have sex right now even though it's totally inconvenient and it might break my character. I'm sure you can make it work.
T. Sue VerSteeg: 10. I'll behave if you just write my story right now. Liars. All of them.
Jennifer McKenzie: 11. Of course we can have sex when we're in mortal danger! What do you mean?
Melissa Blue: 12. I'm just a secondary character. I won't want my own story. Swears.
Jennifer McKenzie: 13. I have a name but I'm not telling you.
Jennifer McKenzie: 14. I'm not a dirty story. Not at all.
Melissa Blue: 15. I'll never love again.
Melissa Blue: 16. This is the fourteenth scene with us around the kitchen just talking. That's not boring at all.
* To Be Continued...Maybe. One day. This is what writers talk about when readers aren't watching. Ìý
To find out more about T. Sue Versteeg you can . To find out more about Jennifer Leeland/The Real and First Jennifer Mckenzie you can .

First, wow. I may be overly excited about this sale, but, hey, you're here to find out more. This is a IR/MC March Madness Sale! Did it again. Anyway...Looking for a deal? Then check out this weekend's March Madness event. You can pick up these titles on discount from new to you or your favorite IR/MC authors until Sunday night:
$2.99 to $0.99Everything He Dreamed by Melissa Blue
$2.99 to $1.49Fifty Shades of Jungle Fever by LV Lewis
$1.99 to $0.99The Problem with Paddy (Shrew & Company No. 1) by Holley Trent
$3.99 to $1.99Wolf's Promise (Caedmon Wolves) Ambrielle Kirk
If you want to find out more about these authors and their books you can check out their website. And by no means are these the only authors in the IR/MC romance genre. :) I'm always looking for more to add to my TBR list. Tell me some of your favs?

Join my IR/MC March Madness Sale. I'm looking for authors who have IR/MC self-published titles to join this group promo on Amazon and B&N. It costs you nothing. All you have to do is discount your title on Amazon and B&N and list the promo in your blurb/editorial review section during the event. Of course, to get the word out you should tweet, blog and Facebook the event. For more information you can contact me at melissab dot author at gmail dot com or PM me.
Deadline to join: Wednesday, March 6th, 2013.
Event: March 8th, 2013- March 10th, 2013

It's out...technically. Will update links as they roll in....Phoenix Taylor takes one look at Tony Creed and knows she's in trouble. Everything inside her screams run. If she didn't need the finishing bonus from Everything You Need, she'd listen to her gut. The company has hired her as project manager to build cabins on Palmer Island and work with Creed Construction. Tony's the general contractor and there's no way to avoid him. Just when she has a plan to move on and close the door on a very dark chapter in her life...there he is. Falling for the contractor with the wicked smile and infectious charm doesn't fit into her plan. She's not ready for that captivating emerald gaze or the trouble Tony can surely cause her heart.
Tony Creed has forced his father to draw up a contract that explicitly states this will be his very last job before going on a much needed vacation from the family business. The pressure's getting to him, and he feels himself turning into his father, a hard and heartless man. He just needs a break, period. He doesn't have the time or energy to give this simmering attraction between him and the new project manager. All he wants to do is focus on building the cabins for the next six months and be a free man. After all, he's not looking for anything, but her vivacious personality has his mind wandering back to her much more than he wants to admit.
They just have to keep things light, which is hard at first, and then just impossible when something just a little supernatural intervenes on their well-laid plans.

Phoenix Taylor takes one look at Tony Creed and knows she's in trouble. Everything inside her screams run. If she didn't need the finishing bonus from Everything You Need, she'd listen to her gut. The company has hired her as project manager to build cabins on Palmer Island and work with Creed Construction. Tony's the general contractor and there's no way to avoid him. Just when she has a plan to move on and close the door on a very dark chapter in her life...there he is. Falling for the contractor with the wicked smile and infectious charm doesn't fit into her plan. She's not ready for that captivating emerald gaze or the trouble Tony can surely cause her heart.

Tony Creed has forced his father to draw up a contract that explicitly states this will be his very last job before going on a much needed vacation from the family business. The pressure's getting to him, and he feels himself turning into his father, a hard and heartless man. He just needs a break, period. He doesn't have the time or energy to give this simmering attraction between him and the new project manager. All he wants to do is focus on building the cabins for the next six months and be a free man. After all, he's not looking for anything, but her vivacious personality has his mind wandering back to her much more than he wants to admit.

They just have to keep things light, which is hard at first, and then just impossible when something just a little supernatural intervenes on their well-laid plans.ÌýÌýÌýYou can add it to your Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ shelves, etc, now:Ìýhttp://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17340479-everything-he-dreamed

So for all intents and purposes I've completed the Down With Cupid Shorts series. Even though Nicole and Sebastian still chatter in the back of my brain. I am willfully ignoring them. I'm still bitter that they turned a simple 5k story into a two novelettes that if smashed together is a 28k novella. I'm done so they’re done. So I'm looking to another short series to write for my 2013 publishing schedule. 4 shorts all surrounding that bad boy next door. Come on now, how can I say no? I love me some anti-hero.

But the problem I'm facing at the moment...what are the makings of a bad boy? He's more than the corrupter of innocents. More than a devil may care attitude about most things. I'm pondering this and I'm really, really drawing a blank, because what makes a bad boy is sort of indefinable. I know one when I see I one. Spike and Damon are the first that come to mind. Aiden from Jewels of the Sun, but he's a reformed bad boy. Both my Sebastian and Lord of Scoundrels Sebastian. Michael from Burn Notice. OMGSOPRETTY Nate from White Collar.(Let us pause for a Matt Bomer moment...Ok.)
Maybe the answer lies in looking at the good guy. When I think of the quintessential good guy the first image that pops into my head is a buff, blonde hair, blue eyed guy who helps the little old lady across the street before he tears the villain a new butt hole. At the core, the good guy does the right thing, no matter whatÌý is thrown at them, because it's the right thing to do. They get interesting when they visit the dark side, but in the end they will do the right thing. You can depend on that.
From the beginning they just have good guy DNA.Ìý There is never a question that they'll do the right thing, the good thing. They will lay everything they are and have upon the altar of martyrdom. These are the Superman's, Spiderman's, Angel's, Luke's from A Little Ray of Sunshine by Lani Diane Rich, Nathan Ford's from Leverage (until he embraced his dark side) of the fiction world. They will do the right thing because the wrong one shouldn't even be considered. The only time they do is when it still leads down to the Right Thing to do.
The anti-hero, the bad boy, has no such DNA. The right thing is a muscle that gets no use for most of their life so it becomes a learned skill, which quite frankly I just find much more interesting. Because, I sort of noticed, the good guy rarely has crunchy flaws. They have a weakness but not flaws. Spiderman's was totally Mary Jane, but again, she was a weakness the bad guys used over and over again. I've also noticed the way to spot the bad boy is if he does any of the following: drinks, smokes, has uninhibited sex, curses, doesn't have a polite society filter.
What I'm trying to suss out in this rambly post, what lies beneath all that?
Let's take Spike for example. Spike came on the scene with no good intentions. None. Yet, every single favorite episode I have Spike is featured in that sucker. Fool For Love. Once More With Feeling. Lies My Parents Told Me. (DB was also in that episode. The fine, chocolate, scrumptious principal who actually survived on Buffy...let's have a moment....ok.) Spike doesn't have a soul (which is the barometer for a good guy or a bad guy in Buffyverse) who is intent on killing Buffy. In one particular episode, he grabs his rifle. Goes to her house to blow her head off. When gets there, he sees her crying on the backyard porch. He's conflicted but chooses to put the rifle away, sits down, pats her on the shoulder and becomes a momentary support system.
There's just crunch to that and it appeals to me both as a viewer and a writer. Why does he do that? What is it about Buffy that brings out the good guy in him? Why does he appeal to so many people?
It's the flaws. It's the mistakes. It's that connection, that wispy belief that humanity is not perfect. Also, helps most bad boys have a built in redemption storyline. Who hasn't done something they regretted? Something that they feel they need to atone for. And there's a sort of freedom knowing you aren't perfect and don't have to be. Perfection is unattainable and you will always fall short of it. There's a total weight that can be lifted not just knowing but believing down in your bones your best IS good enough by itself.
Hell, I don't know. Maybe this is just a bigger question I must answer when I write these stories. I want to write four, but I'll settle for three. Now I just need to find out what occupations do bad boys usually have outside of hell raising.
Ìý

Yes, I finished a book last night. I know. It's insane, I should be resting. I will, but I needed to find my hero. I'll be writing an interracial romance. A first for me. I needed to see him in my head and on paper. Mainly, I needed to know why my character would stop and look at this man. *Heck, I need to know that for every story I write.* Consider him for more than a passiing glance. And you know have her ovaries sit up and pay attention.

I think I did good. What do you think of Brice Creed?