So there we were. We had one Asian female character without a name or role in the upcoming saga. After a sip or two of eighteen-year-old McClellan scotch, we decided to use the names of people we know as characters. We began with the name of President McFarland from TAMU-Commerce? That character would be a constant reminder of why we were doing this in the first place.


A last name is insufficient, so we needed to decide if McFarland was a male or female. I liked the name Cloud, so we named a character Cloud McFarland. At that time, she had no role in the book.

We required a mate for Cloud. We also wanted a character that was in the oil trading business, since Dick had spent his career in that industry and had a plethora of expertise in the field. We named him Billy Ray. Now all we had to do was figure out a way to connect Cloud and Billy Ray to our Oriental lady. Therein lay the plot.



Dick and I were both from small towns in northeast Texas. In fact, the towns are about twenty miles apart, and his school plays my school in football. We have indulged in numerous high-level scientific discussions as to the prowess of our respective teams. For the purpose of grounding characters, we formulated a composite of the two towns and called it Piney Springs.


By this time, and after another few sips, we chose to turn our now Chinese woman into an assassin. This set off the first set of almost vicious discussions about who would do what. I wanted a dark, violence-ridden book. Dick wanted a semi-intellectual work of porn, so we had discussions on the subject with very little blood spilled. As it turned out, there are ample examples of brutality and steamy sex in the finished product.


Dick has an intense interest in fine wine and owns an extensive wine cellar. He wanted to interject the wine-growing region of France into the plot. In order to understand the region, he suggested that we visit Monte Carlo and take some notes. That was fine with me.


To create additional problems or opportunities, Dick had promised a female acquaintance that he would put her in the book. Her name was Maryanne. We made her French and placed her in the Rhone Valley of France.



Next: Building characters builds the plot.