Before Pirates of the Caribbean...

Back in 1985, long before Disney produced "Pirates of the Caribbean," there was a not as famous or blockbusting pirate movie titled, "Nate and Hayes." Remember that one? I had it on VHS and my sister and I used to watch it over and over. Even though the critics pretty much panned it, there was something very appealing about it. When I went on the internet to find the movie poster for this post, I learned it has kind of a cult following. Go figure. But I guess my sister and I weren't the only two who loved this movie.

In "Nate and Hayes," a still youngish Tommy Lee Jones played the part of Bully Hayes, the rascally buccaneer, and Michael O'Keefe was Nathaniel Williamson, a mild-mannered minister whose fiancée is kidnapped by a dastardly pirate named Ben Pease. Through a twist of events, Nathaniel and Bully Hayes partner up and hit the high seas to rescue the fiancée. There's lots of swashbuckling and action, and plenty of attempted humor. Nate (Michael O'Keefe) becomes transformed into the adventurous, dashing hero and what ensues is a bit of a love triangle once the fiancée, played by Jenny Seagrove, is rescued and the three begin swashbuckling together.

Does this sound familiar at all?

Tonight, for some reason, I thought of "Nate and Hayes" and it suddenly dawned on me that it was the precursor of "Pirates of the Caribbean." The characters are pretty much interchangeable. Bully Hayes was Jack Sparrow. Nate was Will Turner, and Jenny Seagrove was Keira Knightley, the love interest kidnapped by that odious Captain Barbosa and taken aboard the Black Pearl.

By no stretch of the imagination is "Nate and Hayes" on par with "Pirates of the Caribbean," and I'll take Captain Jack Sparrow over Bully Hayes any day. But back in its day, "Nate and Hayes" was a darned good little movie and I was struck by the similarities. And once I had them side by side, I was surprised to see that even the movie posters are eerily similar. In fact, they're so very nearly the same, I wouldn't be surprised if they were designed by the same artist.

Now, if I could just figure out how "The Terminator" (the original) has the same plot as "Titanic" I'd be a happy camper. Both were written by James Cameron and I've heard, more than once, that he used the same basic plot for both. Would someone who knows what the heck everyone is talking about please spell it out for me, because I don't see it.

Devon

A New Direction

When I returned to writing back in January, I thought I could pick up where I left off. I had plenty of partials to work on and I tried picking them back up again. But, somehow, the spark was gone. Maybe it's just that I've been working at it for so long, I lost my enthusiasm for my favorite genre. Maybe it's because I've been published in my favorite genre and have seen the results. For whatever reason, I lacked direction and nothing I tried put me back on track.

Then something very strange happened. One day a story idea popped into my head that wasn't a western. In fact, the story was set in a time period and locale I've never before tried writing, even though I've read plenty of it over the years. So I started jotting down the basic story idea and my imagination took off! Suddenly, I felt excited about writing again. Genuinely excited and not just forced enthusiasm and wishful thinking. The idea was fresh, at least to me. It was something new. Not only was the genre completely different than my usual, so was the length. For the past week, I've been working on a novella. I know. Long-winded me is writing a shorter story, if you can believe it. And I'm loving it! Because of the shorter length, each day I can see measurable progress. Better yet, at the rate I'm currently writing, I should be finished within a couple of weeks.

I'm not quite ready yet to divulge all the details, but I'll let you know how it goes and what happens. I wasn't going to say anything at all for fear of jinxing myself, but I feel I'm far enough into it now and, hopefully, that won't happen. For several years, writing pals have advised me to try something different. But I'm stubborn. I had convinced myself I didn't want to write something different. Now that I have, my Muse has come out of a long sleep and she's clamoring in my ear constantly. My mood has improved. I have more energy. For the time being, all is right in my little world. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that nothing happens to dash my enthusiasm and I can keep it up. Wish me luck!

Devon

Blast From the Past

I must be out of my mind to post this, especially since I'm sporting a baby bulge, but here goes anyway. After all, it's just for fun. In response to Magdalena's post over at Magdalenaville celebrating the comeback of the maxi dress, I give you the granny dress and matching lace-up granny shoes, not to mention a pair of super fly sunglasses. Yowsa! The place: Oxnard, California. The year: 1971.

This was the time period when I developed a love affair with western novels. I zipped through all the Zane Grey and Louis Lamour at the Pt. Mugu library, then was forced to seek out other authors to fill my insatiable reading habit. About a year after this picture was taken, I started penning my first western novel. I actually finished it, plus a sequel, and still have the manuscripts stuck back in boxes in a cabinet here in my office. I've often thought about taking them out and looking at them, but I'm afraid to. So, thinking back, I guess I wrote my first full-blown novel around 1972. In what year did you write your first novel?

Peace, baby,

Devon

It's Getting Crowded Out There

As more and more romance novels are published, it gets tougher to come up with an original, easy to pronounce, heroic sounding character name. With my current work in progress, I’ve already been forced to ditch my first two name choices for my hero. When in doubt, Google, but be prepared for what a search turns up.

I found my first choice appeared in a Lisa Kleypas historical from several years ago. Even I had read the book, so I have to figure the name was stuck somewhere in my subconscious. So, I scrapped it. I immediately hit on a second choice and ran a search. Even worse, this one appears in a recent JR Ward novel—her famous BDB series—which I haven’t read. Go figure. I was under the impression that all her hero names are emotions—like rage and torment—with a superfluous “h” added to the spelling. I immediately scratched that one off my list, too. So now I find myself with a manuscript partially written and a hero with no name. The funny thing is, this never happens with heroines, only heroes. And it’s starting to be a real problem.

It’s the same with titles. When you come up with a title for your wonderfully unique novel, my advice to anyone would be to run a search. The easiest way is to go to Amazon and search there because if a book is for sell anywhere in the universe, it’s listed on Amazon. Type in your title and see how many books come up. If there are fifteen by various authors, I’d strongly suggest coming up with something else. While titles can’t be copyrighted, why would you want to compete with fifteen other romances out there by having yours coming up midway down, or even at the bottom of the list when someone does a search?

Read any good hero names lately? If so, don’t tell me about them or they might get stuck in my head. There are already too many great names floating around in there. Problem is, each of them already belongs to someone else’s character.

Devon

Paid Advertisements on Blogs

Lately, I've been noticing strange things happening when I go to some of my favorite blogs. My Windows goes nuts and starts opening tab after tab of the same blog page. I can't close them out quickly enough. By the time I close one, three or more tabs have popped onto the screen. A couple of days ago, I had to shut down my computer and restart just to escape someone's blog. On others, I get an "Operation Aborted" window from my virus program because the page has something potentially invasive embedded in it. There's also one blog I'm linked to that has as annoying survey pop up in front of my face and slide up and down the screen every time I go there. I'm forced to chase it down and click "no thanks" to make it go away. Has any of this been happening to anyone else?

I finally figured out that these things only happen on the blogs that have all the paid advertisements embedded in them. So it would seem that Google's AdSense and my Windows program do not co-exist peacefully. Just wanted to let you know. So if I've left you comments in the past and suddenly don't, it's nothing personal. It's just that I'd rather not have to restart my computer as the last resort of getting out of your blog.

Peace,

Devon