Dream, Dream, Dream…

Do you remember your dreams each night? Do you sometimes wonder if they REALLY were dreams, or perhaps something more ethereal? My husband claims he doesn't dream, I think he just doesn't remember them.

 

I know I've often dreamt of loved ones who have passed, those are often delightful dreams. It wonderful to have moments where I feel as if I've visited or been visited by people I love who are no longer earthbound. Most times I wake in the morning with a rather nice feeling, so many times I wish the dream had lasted longer. Many have said my dreams are only my memories or imagination and while they may be pleasant, they aren't real — I call these folks cynics.

 

When my sister and I were little girls we both had dreams of being told bedtime stories by our maternal grandfather, the man had died long before we were even born. Often in the mornings we would tell our mom about the "nice man who told us bedtime stories" (not always together, so we certainly weren't mimicking each other). Curiously she asked us about this "mystery man", we each described him and her eyes widened, and then we told her some of the stories he told us… seems he was telling us some of the same stories he would read to her as a little girl. We agreed, this wasn't any simple dream.

 

The other night I had a bittersweet and amusing dream. Since we were first married, we've always had multiple cats and since cats have a shorter life expectancy than most humans, we have unfortunately had to bury several. Each one has remained in our hearts. My dream seemed a little odd, my husband and I were both in it… we were visiting "someplace" which I didn't recognize, and we were surrounded by lots of talking and standing-tall cats and dogs, some of whom called us Mom and Dad. In my dream I remember being in awe and saying, "These are cats and they're talking!" Each was excited to talk to us and tell us they were having fun and they were okay.

 

Then, in my "dream" (shortly before I woke up) we had to leave. We went down a level and I looked up and they were there waving, I asked "Aren't you coming?" and whoever was guiding us towards an elevator said "They have to stay, but you'll see them again." I actually felt a bit happy when I woke, I felt as if I had been visiting them after a long time. Maybe it was a dream, but then again, maybe it was more.

 

During Friday evening services in our synagogue we sing a song Shalom Aleichem, basically we welcome new angels and say goodbye to others. Depending on the faith you believe in, angels can be messengers, and sometimes they can carry you to visit loved ones, or the other way around, while you sleep. Unfortunately, we can't simply order up a "trip", it just happens, I guess, when it is supposed to. It is a comforting feeling to know that occasionally we are permitted a glimpse of loved ones and perhaps a little conversation. Maybe our loved ones can become our own Guardian Angels.

 

Maybe it's the angels helping us, or maybe it is really just dreams — what do you think?

 

 

 

Can You Diagnose This Mole? — #MondayBlogs

Doctors are not the only ones at parties who are asked for “professional” opinions. Being a romance writer leaves the door open to a lot of rather embarrassing discussions.

I am often asked for relationship advice, after all my characters always celebrate a Happy Ever After; after listening to as little as possible, not because I don’t care about these people (even strangers), but because sometimes the info gets a little too personal for what I want to hear. I usually smile and tell the people talking to me that it’s certain that they care/love the other person so maybe they should be talking with their partner… bear in mind that I am not talking about book discussions or author appearances. Most people smile and say they’ll take my advice and “Thank you very much”.

I really love writing and reading romance novels. I think everyone should be in love. My favorite of all is combining suspense or mystery with a good and spicy romance. I also like thrilling edge-of-your-seat thrillers. Most of my novels have been categorized as contemporary romantic suspense.

Now to be honest some of my books are fairly explicit in sexual activities (no, NOT soft porn as my son often accuses me of) but there are definitely appropriate and monogamous sex scenes. The most embarrassing conversation I ever had was with the husband-part of a couple we were once very good friends with. After reading one of my books he stopped over one day and followed me around while I was gardening. After some regular innocuous conversation he started to complain how “uptight” his wife was in the bedroom and how he wished she would be… more like the heroine in my book.

To be honest I wanted to crawl under the bush! I tried ignoring and then changing the subject. It didn’t help. Finally I just blurted out, “Go home and speak to her, not me.” He gave a quick apology and finally changed the subject only to return to a similar conversation a few minutes later. This time I asked him, strongly suggested, that he go home. He did. For a long time I was never very comfortable in this couple’s company after that — I just couldn’t get the image out of my mind. I did tell my husband who agreed not to get involved unless it happened a second time. Thankfully her husband never brought it up again. We’ve since parted ways with this couple.

By the way, whenever I get the chance I have taken to wearing a T-shirt another friend had given me, across the front are the words “Be careful what you say, you might wind up in one of my books.” People do tend to clam up when they think about it.

An Interview With Chelle Cordero (courtesy of a few friends)

A short while ago while in a deliriously good mood about my husband and I reaching 38 romantic years of wedded bliss, I asked friends to send me questions for an interview. Thanks so much to both those who submitted questions and those who sent congratulations. So here goes, you asked…

1) Gladys asked, Should there always be a happy ending to a novel?

Some genres require happy ever after endings, like romance genres, but even if the chosen genre doesn’t require the HEA, I believe it should still be a fulfilling ending. Take a book like The Diary of Anne Frank, definitely not a happy ending, but by returning Anne’s diary to her father, the only survivor of the family, the story ending has something significant and the story itself has a “purpose”.

As a writer, whether I am writing a non-fiction article or a novel, it is my job to provide something for the reader to take away from my work – a thought, a value, inspiration… The average reader wants something final from a story, some type of solution. The solution doesn’t necessarily need to be outright happy, but no one should be left with haunting unanswered questions. Cliffhangers in a series will leave enough open to make the reader want to come back for more, but there have been answers and solutions along the way making the reader feel they’ve gained something along the way.

2) Cindy asked, How many of the settings in your books have you actually visited?

I really have to count this one out. I’ve never been to Vegas (used liberally in His Lucky Charm), Colorado (from Karma Visited), or Louisiana and Arkansas (from Hostage Heart). I think I’ve been every other place I’ve used as a backdrop, or at least to the general vicinity. I tend to soak up stories from others about places and experiences they’ve been through; I certainly live vicariously. It doesn’t matter whether I have been someplace myself or not though, I do extensive research on each location and try to include enough reality to make the place real – and yet not so much description that I get tripped up for “faking it”. 

Several of my stories have had NYC and Hudson Valley settings, places I am very familiar with, but how often have we heard stories of folks who grew up in NYC and yet never visited the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building? I like to check my facts instead of relying on simple memory. Amusingly I once had someone who has been to Las Vegas talk to me about where I had been and stuff – when I told her I never was she told me I “had to have been there” because I described something so well in my book. Travel guides and Chamber of Commerce or Tourism sites are so rich with knowledge and often include pictures, maps and even videos and allow for virtual visits.

3) Marshall asked, Do you think that your early education gave you "food for thought" in developing plots, concepts or characters for your novels?

Both my early education and experiences undeniably have provided me with a lot of fodder for my stories. I was extremely lucky to meet a lot of very interesting and colorful people. My parents were involved in the community which opened my eyes to different perspectives. 

Each school I attended from grade school through college allowed me to meet and socialize with people of varying backgrounds, faiths, economic status, and interests. I went to high school and college with artistic and creative types, and I worked a part-time job through college that allowed me to fulfill my sense of adventure (undercover retail investigation). All in all I grew up believing everything was possible and even the unexpected could happen.

4) Teresa asked, Where do you get inspiration for a story?

I people watch, I listen, I read EVERYTHING, and I play the game of “What if?” I love to exercise (writing) and I rewrite nursery rhymes, newspaper articles, TV shows and things that happened in my own life that I would do differently now with my vast experience, lol.

 My husband is part of a federal medical team; he spent six weeks in southern Louisiana after Katrina and Rita devastated New Orleans. When Mark came home he was filled with stories about the strength and resiliency of the people he helped treat, as well as tear-filled recollections of the destruction and loss in the area. The more he spoke the more I pictured a family who had to put their lives back together and Deanna Blair and her parents (Hostage Heart) were “born”. Tidbits from other stories (news items mostly) and memories of folks from my past filled in the rest.

5) Vicki asked, How did you start writing?

I volunteered with the NYC Auxiliary Police Department and worked under the auspices of our precinct’s public relations officer. Hank (the detective in charge) asked me to do a favor for him – a young man from our community was killed while trying to help a mugging victim and the weekly newspaper editor asked for an article about the incident. Hank knew I had taken creative writing in school and assigned the task to me. A week later, at the age of 18, I had my first professional byline.

Nine years later, married and pregnant with our daughter, I decided to build a business that I could work from home and I returned to writing professionally. I got a few assignments with local magazines and newspapers. Several years later I realized that I wanted to write fiction, something I had always dabbled with privately, and I kept writing until I found a publisher.

6) Daisy asked, What started you into writing? I know that it is just a matter of time before your books turns into a screen movie.

My parents always encouraged self-expression; however I was always very private with anything I wrote. I was shy and worried about exposing myself to ridicule or worse, vulnerability. No joke, putting something as personal as your written thoughts out there is tantamount to stripping naked and inviting a critique on every body flaw.

In high school I had a class in creative writing taught by the renowned poet Daisy Aldan. Ms. Aldan encouraged me to write and deal with the vulnerabilities. I will never forget one writing assignment, we had to write a serious love letter to an inanimate object – I wrote a Love Letter to a Guitar which later appeared in my school’s yearbook – we all chuckled under our breath when the assignment was given, but the exercise proved to be life-altering. I learned to write with much more than pen and paper, I learned to write with my heart and all of my senses.

Thanks for the kind words, I would absolutely love to see some of my stories on the screen and I often play around with casting the characters. Alex O'Loughlin would definitely have to play Jake in Final Sin! (Yum)

7) Jayne asked, How do you envision your hero in each book?

My heroes tend to be a compilation of people I know, have heard about, or dream of. I’ve been asked several times if the hero in a book is really my husband, there are qualities that each one shares with Mark, but they aren’t him. While I admit to falling in love with each and every one of them, they are all different and each one has a bit of “bad boy” in him. I think my heroes fit the stories that they are in.

One thing that I do in every story is gift each hero with a habit or trait that has my husband, Mark, all over it, even a few frustrating habits. In Courage of the Heart there is a humorous scene where Davie files Adam’s computer disks on his desk – only NONE of the disks are labeled and it winds up irritating him because he has to now go through them to make sense of the information. Back when we had diskettes Mark never, ever labeled them and it totally perplexed me.

8) From my publisher Kimberlee, Does your significant other read your stuff?

No, not at all. Mark likes action adventure books; his favorite books are probably Ludlum and that sort. He “claims” he doesn’t like reading romance – even suspense.

But a few years ago I heard another author talk about her husband not reading her books – she asked him if he felt self-conscious about reading the love scenes and that he might fear seeing himself on the pages. His answer to her was surprising, he was afraid he WOULDN’T see himself. I stopped trying to guilt Mark into reading my books after I heard that.

He is very supportive of my writing endeavors though and cheers me on with each accomplishment.

9) From my publisher Kimberlee, What is the hardest part of writing your books?

Writing “The End” and saying goodbye. I’ve created the characters and raised them to function and after all the time I’ve invested on them I now have to let them go off on their own. It really is an empty nest feeling.

10) From my publisher Kimberlee, Tell us about your recent release.

I love my novel Karma Visited – it was really a stretch for me to write, it was different from the others. 

Karma Visited is a Paranormal Suspense with a strong romantic edge. Annie Furman died on the operating table after an accident that took her parents’ lives – the doctors revive her but she has an unexpected ability to travel in her sleep to disasters and people in need. No one believes that her nightmares are real and her guardians put her into therapy, she eventually learns to pretend that she is “normal”. She gets married only to find that her husband, Scott, isn’t the man she thought he was. When she makes the mistake of confiding in him he uses the information to control her and threatens to commit her if she rebels. Annie meets Dave Turner in one of her dreams; surprisingly he can see and hear her. Dave and Annie grow closer and… 

Well, you’ll have to read the book to find out the rest.

http://ChelleCordero.com