Guest Blogger HelenKay Dimon

And the winner is...(I feel like Ryan Seacrest) Dina! Dina please send your address to me--darlene at darleneryan.com Change the "at" to @ of course. Thank you to everyone for your comments and to HelenKay for visiting this weekend. Keep stopping by. We have more giveaways planned.

HelenKay Dimon is the author of Viva Las Bad Boys, Your Mouth Drives Me Crazy, Right Here, Right Now and the upcoming Hard As Nails. Her writing has been called, “witty, romantic, sexy and just plain fun”. And it is. Visit HelenKay at www.helenkaydimon.com

Thank you all for having me here today. It's a special thrill because I stop by frequently both out of a love for the name of the blog and out of a love of reading mysteries, suspense and everything similar. In fact, I had a recent brush with ignorance thanks to the mystery genre. I wish I could say this brush with ignorance was a rare occurrence. Yeah, not so much. Occurs almost daily. This time it happened about 3,000 miles from home. At least it happened in a fun city...

See, I was in New York City for a wedding. In looking for a way to deduct the entire trip without ticking off the IRS, I combined the event with a visit with my editor at Kensington Publishing. This was a time for general sucking up, mixed with a concentrated effort not to do anything stupid. The next day I welcomed the opportunity to sit down and discuss my career (and my desire not to inadvertently destroy it) with my agent. Specifically, we talked about a proposal I'm writing for a romantic mystery series. Some of my books include suspense elements, but they have all been more romance than mystery. I've been looking at trying something new. Honestly, I want to break into a genre that is known for being a bit hard to crack - romantic suspense.

During this conversation, my agent asked a question that stumped me. It wasn't that I was unsure of my answer. If only. No, it really was a matter of not even understanding the question. I hate that. I was even more disgruntled at how, after selling eight novellas and seven single titles, I still am a hopeless novice in this business. I'll whine about that into my laptop and spare you. Back to the discussion with my agent...

His question: What kind of mystery is it?

My answer: Uh, what?

Impressive show on the knowledge of my profession, isn't it? What's worse is that the very first thing that popped into my head - the part I did not say out loud by some miracle - was something of the what the heck is he talking about variety. The uh, what? part was my fall back and slightly more intelligent position. After a few seconds of mindless nothing, a string of mental babble about cozy mysteries, cat mysteries and...well, that was about it...hit me. I somehow managed not to say any of it. Instead, I stayed quiet and nodded. I find the blank face nodding tends to get people explaining. And that's what happened here. My agent talked about women-in-peril stories and serial killer mysteries and a whole bunch of story types I had never even considered Or, to be more precise, had not really thought of as separate types.

So, I'm back to studying again. My respect for the mystery genre demands that I not try to leap in without knowing what I'm doing or what's out there.

Back to my proposal...

Want to see how HelenKay manages to mix suspense into her romance writing? Ask a question, share what type of mystery you're writing--or just say "Hello" in comments. We'll toss all the names in a hat and one person will win a copy of Right Here, Right Now, HelenKay's latest release. Check back here Sunday night to find out the winner.
**And don't forget, you still have time left to bid on the Poe's Deadly Daughter's mystery lover's tote bag in Brenda Novak's Diabetes auction. www.brendanovak.com