Maureen O’Connell asked me a few questions about romance and Valentine’s Day for an article in this Sunday’s Honolulu Advertiser. Yes, I write romantic comedy, but I don’t pretend to be an expert on romance. I may be a bit less confused than when I began writing about romantic entanglements, but, like most guys, I still feel somewhat clueless and clumsy when it comes to questions of romance.

One of the questions Maureen asked me was to name my most romantic character. Excellent question, and for this one I had the answer in about two seconds. Donna Cooper, the title character in my first novel, Queen of the Rodeo, seeks true love and romance for herself throughout that story. Then, in the prequel, Chasing Cowboys, she’s a 19-year old who plays a supporting role as one of the two narrators.

So here’s a situation for you …

Imagine you’re writing a novel and it’s starting out all right. You’ve written only the first three chapters, so you’re not bogged down in the middle yet. You have a character you call Charley Meyers narrating the story first person and he’s easy.

But … and it’s a very large but … there’s this other supporting character, a 19-year-old rodeo queen wannabe with big blonde hair and a bigger personality, and she’s just about bursting to take over the story. Do you stop her? Leave her on the sidelines in most of the chapters?

As I mentioned Friday, I was excited to work with local graphic designer Stephanie Chang on my new novel Chasing Cowboys.

Stephanie (Stephanie Chang Design Ink) designed both the cover and the interior pages. We spent over nine months on the book design (a friend called the book our “elephant baby”).

Stephanie and I will be signing this Wednesday, October 21, at Bestsellers in downtown Honolulu (Hotel and Bishop Streets), from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. Stop by and say howdy!

I asked Stephanie to talk about her Hawaii roots, her design work, and her creative choices on Chasing Cowboys.

Someone took a look at my new book, Chasing Cowboys (Aloha Romance Writers, 2009), and asked me an inviting question, “What was it like writing this?” Good question. Let me answer it this way.

As the storyteller in this novel, I had the big job of rounding up my two-legged characters and driving them down the trail. Naturally they kept running off in all directions. New critters joined the trail drive and I had to keep an eye on them.