Feeling Lucky?

Anyone remember this guy?

This is Lucky Vanous, former Elite model and veteran of the Army's anti-terrorist and anti-guerrilla Black Beret Rangers turned actor who seems to be best known as "the Diet Coke" guy.

In 1994 a commerical came out that showed a bunch of office workers, all female, enjoying a Diet Coke break . . . err, enjoying watching a Diet Coke break by a sexy construction worker out the office window.

I remember loving this commerical and I'm not sure if because my first marriage was ending and I needed the distraction or I had started writing my own stories and was on the lookout for hero material.

Okay, it was the former.

I decided to take my romance writing seriously in 2001 but it wasn't until last year that I found a character to put this face to.

Enter a secondary character in a manuscript that is currently sitting with a senior editor at Silhouette, a town sheriff. The high school football star, son of the town's legendary sheriff, the golden boy who never thought he would one day hold the same job as his old man in the same small ranching community in Wyoming where he grew up. But his father was killed on the job and his mom and younger siblings needed him.

That's Gage Steele.

And since I am a visual writer and I need to 'see' my characters, I knew I had finally found the perfect match of image and imagination.

It wasn't easy to keep Gage (or the woman who makes his life crazy, Racy Dillon, another secondary character) from taking over every scene they were in. In fact, it was only after I promised them they would get they own chance at happily ever after in my next book, did they settle down and behave.

Of course, now that I am writing their book neither one of them are behaving, but that's okay. I get to look at this guy every day!

So what's Lucky doing now besides being the inspiration for my current hero? He opened a restaurant called "Lucky Devils" on Hollywood Blvd in Hollywood. If, nope--scratch that--when this book gets published I will definitely have to send him a copy!

Oh, and you can find the Lucky Diet Coke commerical on You Tube by clicking here!