SAVE THE DATE: Red's Hot Honky-Tonk Bar Book Club Meeting

YEA!  I'm very excited to be here on eHarlequin community.  Thanks so much for inviting me.  All the nice things you say, who wouldn't want to be here?   I went to the first autograph party for Red's Hot Honky-Tonk Bar last night.  It was great fun, a lot of friends and new people and local San Antonio readers who were excited by the story.  Kate, of KATE'S FROSTING and CUPCAKE CABIN showed up with cupcakes for the event.  She chose a "bar theme".  I didn't get to try all of them (I might have keeled over from sweet overload), but I did get one of the "margarita" ones, with frothy green icing on the top.  This gal is amazing. 

So Jayne, the cupcake place is totally real and I have become a fan.  I even have this cupcake tower table thing where you fill it up with cupcakes and it kind of looks like a tiered cake.  Very cool.  I thought I was making up all the weird dietary cupcakes.  That's the kind of thing we really need.  But I talked to Kate after she read the book and she told me that "yes, indeed," she does make special cupcakes with specific dietary restrictions.  So the truth is actually as strange as my fiction. 

Cupcake Cabin is a real place.  There are a lot of real places in this story.  Camy asked if I use any real people.  No, not exactly.  In some ways, I guess you could say that it's all autobiographical.  All the characters, men, women, grandmas and kids, they are all me.  But none of them are really me.  There are occasional hints of people I know.  And my husbands warns people to be careful what they say or it might end up in a book.  I guess that happens to him a lot. 

Jayne wanted to know if I imagined any Hollywood actresses in the role.  I actually don't do that.  But I think Red is an interesting character that a lot of good actresses would really do a bang up job with. 

Dream likes the name of the bar.  And that is totally of my imagination.  I wanted a bar with a woman's name on it.  Then I kind of went through the list of potential names for women bar owners and none felt quite right.  Then I thought about the nickname thing and how sometimes your name is so tied to a childhood or a past event that people begin to use their nicknames as kind of a fresh start.  That's how I came up with the name Red and if you say Red, well, that just cries out for "hot". 

Pam  

Ah Dream, that's a really tough question.  I love the cupcake scene, too.  Because it's so funny and I often feel that out of my depth place that she's in.  And when Sarah comes to the bar with baby Elliot.  Those are maybe the funniest scenes in the book.  But you know I'm a big schmuck.  The poignant scenes always get to me.  I love Bridge's homecoming.  I love Red's curling up in a ball like Daniel.  And I really love the scene where Red takes on the role of the villan in kid's anger about not being with their father.  I thought that showed the goodness in her that was unexpected.  I also think that's when Cam fell in love with her.  But hey, that's only my opinion. 

Truth is, I don't have a clue where stories are headed as I'm writing them.  I usually have a plan.  I think of it as a road map, but the end does not in any way resemble what I set out to do.  I wasn't really thinking about a big love story thing for Cam.  I kind of thought he was going to step out of her life (except for loaning her the house) and then he'd step back in at the end and we'd see them just kind of beginning a journey with Red as a more complete person.  I kept sending Cam off, but he just kept coming back.