Blatant thievery

I read this post from Janet Reid's site.
(Don't get too excited.)

And it led me to this post from Susan Adrian's site.
(I told you not to get excited. It's closed now.)

I composed my short ditty. It was a good one too. It was also twice the required length.

Then I went and read a book and a half.

I came back the next day and edited my epic 100 word novel. It lost two characters, some humor and a whiff of backstory subtlety. I just hope it still makes sense I've cut so many words.

It's now the appropriate length, but, alas, it's too late to enter. So I'm putting my little entry here. And you're all welcome to compose and post your 50 word entries too.

***

Stephen was wearing a tiara. He hated losing bets.

"That thing sure is sparkly." He looked up at his boss.

"Yes sir. I'm testing it for Rhinestones International. Is your response positive or negative?"

"I don't care, princess, just get me one. Roleplaying night is coming up. I'm feeling frisky."

***





Just finished: A Not-So-Perfect Past
Currently reading: Wolf Tales V

I have very few close friends

... but the ones I hold dear are 24k solid gold.

Today I finally put in my notice to move out of my apartment. If you follow this blog at all, and not many of you do, you know that I've been hemming and hawing about getting out of this place for a while now.

Recently, in my life, there have been distractions, and travel, and emotional upheaval. Through all of that, there has been the desire to move on to the next plane of wherever The Great Spaghetti Monster In The Sky decides to take me. But, at the heart of that has also been fear, and procrastination and that awful paralysis suffered by people stuck in the crosshairs crossroads of life.

During the distraction my friends were nowhere to be found. For the most part I didn't tell them what was going on, and we're close enough that we can maintain a solid friendship without living in each others' pockets. During the travel, I was nowhere to be found, and even if you had been able to stick me to a map with a straight pin, I would have wiggled my way free to another destination within days anyway.

But during the emotional upheaval? They stuck to me like the best kind of glue. I could shout, cry, obsess, second-guess myself, challenge them, talk with them and then demand my privacy - and they were still there. And I love them for that.

One really good thing came out of the emotional upheaval however. It was decided that it was time to get off the pot and just fucking move already. So do you know what one friend did? She spent this entire week helping me pack up my life for a final farewell from this apartment and then she accompanied me to the office today to sign the official Notice To Vacate.

She's a moving champ. I'm a moving imbecile. (Apparently you don't put neatly boxed items into another box to move them, they just travel on their own. Who knew?) She stood over me and made me throw away papers. She sat on the bed and folded all of my clothes and then cheered me on when I grudgingly found a way to part with some of them and send them to charity. She did more runs to the garbage and Goodwill with bags full of my crap than I can count and she not only helped me find boxes, she spearheaded the search, then came back to my place with me and wrapped my goods and packed them into said boxes, which she then taped up and labeled and stacked in my living room.

I will admit she's not a total paragon. When faced with my lingerie collection* she might have killed me if she'd been able to get away with it, however by then her forensic evidence was all over the apartment. And she keeps telling me I'm not allowed to buy any more food. But a girl's gotta eat, right? Through it all though, she has maintained her good humor, and patience, and willingness to kick my ass help. She even sat on my computer one night and helped me search for a new place to live while I sat on my couch and shredded my little fingers off.

If I can't find the right place to be in my new city, coincidentally, her city, she and her boyfriend are even willing to put me up while I look. And I made sure she checked with him, and then spoke with him myself to make sure I wasn't treading on toes; he's totally on board. I know a big part of that is because, even when I'm not around, she speaks well of me to him - and really, can you ask for anything more from someone?

She plans to come back and do some more in the up-coming weeks, and my orders are to keep going, even when her eagle eyes are not upon me. With her considerable help, I am feeling less daunted by the whole project. It now seems like something that can be done instead of a feat of impossibility visited upon me by the gods. It's kind of scary, but I think this might be what normal people call "optimism." I am not familiar with the concept, so someone will have to enlighten me.

And she didn't just do this because I asked for her help, she volunteered because she knows me and loves me and wanted to help. She is a goddess among friends. She is a goddess among human beings, even. I cannot thank her enough for all the work that she has done. I offered her a choice between my first and second born child, she said she'll take the first.





Just finished: Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs
Just finished: Bet Me
Just finished: Finger Lickin' Fifteen


*I fully admit right here, right now, that I have an unhealthy fetish for pretty bras combined with matching panties. I know and love every one of my bras, and refuse to give any of them up. Last count hovered somewhere around 50 bras with at least 2 matching or near matching (in colour) panties for each bra.

Next

Now, I mentioned that the dryer died yesterday too. What I didn't mention is that it died in the middle of me washing my sheets, mattress pad and body pillow. Because of this, my mattress is nude, and remained so all night long.

Also, because of this, I elected to sleep on the couch last night. You'll be surprised to learn that I didn't sleep that well. First of all because I was on the couch. Secondly, because of the big ass cup of coffee I'd had earlier that day and thirdly because, hello? Squirrel.

So I woke up with the sun, not long after 6am. I resisted the urge to hop into the bathroom for my morning pee because I hadn't heard the trap snap shut at any point last night. I could, however, still hear the rhythmic squeal and screech of distressed squirrel emanating from the eastern side of my apartment. I turned my head and saw the cat doing that slow motion stalking thing that cats do when there's a bird or mouse-shaped toy nearby. Only she was facing in the wrong direction. When I went to bed last night, the squirrel was trapped in the bathroom, pulling at bits of carpet and knocking over my shampoo. When I got up this morning, apparently the state of the union had changed.

I put both feet on the ground and went to investigate what I feared was going to be a squirrel-led coup, starting with the bathroom and then slowly taking over my life, one room at a time. I was lucky. It wasn't sitting on my uncased pillows lording it over me and the cat with its beady eyes spelling out the terms and conditions of this new dictatorship. It was, however, out of the bathroom. WTF?

*sigh* I look at the bathroom, the door is still shut. I open it. There's the trap, sitting innocent as you please and unsprung on the bathrooom floor. You know what else is on the bathroom floor? The little rug I had left OUTSIDE the bathroom door last night (it usually lives on both sides of the door jamb, providing protection for the carpet there), as well as ample evidence of the squirrel chewing on both the rug and the apartment carpet on its route to escape.

My bathroom floor now is littered with carpet shavings, and the squirrel has won this round. I check the door clearance. When the door is open, there's maybe 2 inches free until it hits the linoleum floor. With the door closed, there's maybe 1 inch of airspace (without the extra rug) between the bottom of the door and the carpet, but apparently, one inch is all some squirrels need.

Now this thing is loose in my bedroom. My worst nightmare. I grab the trap and re-close the bathroom door, hopefully securing it from further invasion. I back myself into the bedroom and see a flash of tail as the squirrel takes refuge behind the desk in the corner of my room. I lay the trap at in front of the desk, knowing it's a useless action as I do so.

I slip into the bathroom, happy to be using it in peace and notice that it doesn't smell like it usually does. Could it really smell like this just from being closed up for 12 hours? That's not right. Then it occurs to me. I'm likely the olfactory victim of Eau de Squirrel Piss. Great. I retrieve a scented candle and put it to work, the cleaning will have to wait until my visitor is gone. Then I retreat to the couch to finish my book and take my mind off things.

I still hear the squirrel squeaking as I read, but I've gotten used to it by now and tune it out. I've also left the balcony door wide open, just in case the little bugger wants to move on to its next conquest. I know I'm not that lucky, but it's 6:30 in the morning and there's nothing left to do.

Maintenance knocks on my door at 8:30am. I thought I'd have to call him, but no, he swung by looking for the full trap I was supposed to leave on the stairs overnight for him to collect. I break the news to him. He takes it like a man.

He says he'll be back with a broom and squirrel-grabber-thingymawhatsit to get this thing out. He returns in minutes and beats the square foot behind the desk with his broom, trying to get some movement. Nothing. Then the poor man has to get down on his hands and knees in my messy bedroom and poke and prod at all the available crevices trying to roust this thing out.

But first he has to move some things, like my oversized teddy bear, a hamper full of clothes and my big bag o' porn. (I thought he was gonna strain a bicep). It's a good thing he doesn't have allergies, or the dustbunnies and cat hair would have laid him out flat. I'm sitting on my naked mattress wondering how many dildoes I have left out in plain sight, he's on the floor searching for rodents. We finally decide it's probably under the bed and he shoves the thingymawhatsit under the bed while I bounce up and down on top of it.

The squirrel flees with a thump and a streak of gray fur.

We abandon the bedroom (I close that door behind me too) and start searching the living and dining room for signs of the intruder. After 5 minutes we decide it's all clear and congratulate ourselves for the well-run execution of our extermination campaign.

Then we remember the dryer, the likely point of entrance for my overnight visitor. Mr Maintenance man gives it a cursory inspection and says he'll be back, but in the meantime, can I clear away the extra clothes so he has full access? Not a problem I say, and start scooping up clothes as soon as he leaves.

It seems I'm not done with the squirrel just yet. I look at the newly cleared space and see my visitor has left behind a scatological calling card. A personal Fuck You for both me and my laundry room floor. Maybe the squirrel had some coffee yesterday too.





Currently reading absolutely nothing.

Irony

I complained about coffee today. Primarily I was irritated at the sudden energy low I was suffering, but one of the other side-effects that got to me was how it sped up my digestive system... forcing things to move that weren't quite ready to git goin' yet. (If you catch my none-too-subtle drift.)

Fast forward to two hours later. I'm sitting in my living room huddled in the comfy chair when I glance across the room where the litter-box sits. There's a squirrel sitting on the mat in front of the box.

I blink.

It's still there.

I blink again.

Yep. That's a squirrel all right.

I live on the second floor, there's a balcony, but I rarely get visitors of the wild kingdom persuasion. In fact, the last time I saw a squirrel on the balcony was about six years ago. It hung out for a minute or two, declared me boring, and then sauntered off. It certainly didn't come inside, help itself to a swathe of my carpet, and make itself at home.

This squirrel? It looked at me with a bored expression and then wandered into the bedroom.

I called apartment maintenance. Lord help us all if that thing gets lost in my bedroom. It could hide in there for weeks without me finding it. Neat I am not. I didn't know what maintenance could actually do about it, frankly I expected them to laugh at me, only to hear that this is the third squirrel invasion this week.

Seriously? It's getting positively Hitchcockian up in here.

So, even though it's about a minute before closing, maintenance agrees to send someone to help me remove the vermin from my apartment. I peeked into the bedroom, looking for a bushy gray tail, I didn't see one, but while I stood in the doorway, I heard a crash from the en suite bathroom. I reached through and quickly pulled the door closed. Then I called the cat. Her favourite place is the bathroom, so there's a chance I just trapped her in there too. But no, she comes running at my call. I roll my eyes. Isn't she supposed to be hunting this thing with whiskers a-twitter and butt a-wagging? Feh. Not my cat. She couldn't care less. In fact, she'd really like to know why I called as she was enjoying a peaceful nap in the closet.

I dismiss her.

Now I know without a doubt that the banging in the bathroom is the four-legged intruder, so at least when maintenance comes we'll know exactly where the squirrel is. As I chat with the office staff, who seem amazed that I actually saw the squirrel with my very own eyes, she mentions that they've been getting in through the dryer vents connected to the roof, and how the apartment complex has never had an infestation like this before. I've been here I long time, so I'm inclined to believe her. I ask her if they had someone working on the roof yesterday, and she says no.

Suddenly it all clicks. It was the squirrel I heard rummaging around up there yesterday. It was the squirrel I heard scratching in the walls yesterday afternoon (that I assumed was my neighbour drawing on the walls or something), and it was the squirrel I heard squeaking rhythmically yesterday morning when I assumed it was ceiling-fan motor dying. *le sigh* In fact, it's likely the squirrel is responsible for the death of the dryer I had reported to maintenance a mere hour before Squirrel Sighting '09.

Maintenance came and left a peanut-butter laced trap in my bathroom. That was at 6pm. It's after 9 now. In a 50 sq ft room, the trap has not yet sprung. Why? I suspect it's because this same squirrel has been caught twice before by the evil lure of peanut butter, and knows better now. Even more amusing? I have two bowls of water in there left out for my indifferent cat. So the squirrel can probably survive for quite a while.

What does any of this have to do with irony?
Because of the coffee I maligned so callously only a few hours before, I had taken care of all my ablutionary needs long before the squirrel hijacked my bathroom. I've had to pee only once since the door closed between us, and I braved the bathroom as any woman would - with my toes hovering in the air, and a wipe as fast as any gun in the west. The squirrel sat behind the toilet screeching and trilling at me, which I think is the squirrel equivalent of a snake's rattle or a dog's growl. I feared at any moment it would launch itself at my ass and hang on until I shook it off somewhere outside my front door. It did not.

Having survived that single incident unscathed, I won't be eating or drinking anything more tonight. God bless coffee.





Currently reading: The Graveyard Book

Why does coffee have a down side?

I love me some coffee.

I'm not an addict or anything. I don't have to have it every day, I don't need it to open my eyes in the morning, but when I do imbibe I love the rush it gives me. I love it smooth over my tongue, mellowed by half & half. I love it sugared enough to take the bitterness away and give my sweet tooth a tickle.

I love that it gets me off my backside and buzzing gently around the house taking care of things I've ignored for too long. I love that it props my brain up, knocking the internal switch into productive mode out of my normally contemplative neutral.

I like the way it smells and even though I'm 37 years old, this year is the first year I've invested in a coffee-maker of my own. In fact, this is the first time I've ever lived with such a machine. I've learned that I prefer the bold, smokey blends over the wimpy, medium roasts boasting of fruity undertones and summery notes. I enjoy all prep of measuring and grinding beans and flipping the switch to bring an instant perk of happiness to my nose and tongue.

And all of this is not even taking into account the coffeehouse coffees. I started with Mochas, the gateway drug of Starbucks. But I'm not one of those people who is menu monogamous where the staff knows your order as well as you do. Not me. I'm a caffeine slut. From day to day I don't know if I'll have a latte, or a cappuccino, if I'll add raspberry or vanilla or shake in the sugar packets myself. And lest you think it's just the coffee, I should mention that I have a long-standing affair with Earl Grey tea going back to my adolescence.

I'm the woman you hate. You're at the back of the line thinking, "just order your fucking coffee already and get out of my way." And I'm at the front of the line rubbing my hands with glee at the smorgasboard of caffeinated delights in front of me. The line behind me has faded into the background as I realize it's time to commit (if only for today) to a mighty taste sensation served up with a fake smile by a bored barrista.

I went for years without drinking the stuff. It's hell on your bones you know. As my sister says, "you might as well be pissing away your calcium." And I've always fully recognized that it's a drug, thus, my goody-two-shoes self used it as such. If I was in dire straits some grad school night and needed to finish a paper and prep a presentation for the next day, I'd turn to coffee to get me through. One cup would do the job for the entire evening. Yes, I was that much of a lightweight. The rest of the time I'd eschew caffeine in favour of a bright, happy Sprite or nice, earthy rootbeer.

But why does coffee have to have a down side? Why does it have to have such a ... ahem ... "stimulating" effect on my digestive system? Why does the high have to wear off so suddenly? Why is it that the sudden spike of energy drops away like a stone only hours after ingestion leaving me wrung out and blinking in whole notes, yet the half-life of the caffeine continues to keep me awake well into the wee hours of the night?

Why, coffee? Why???





Just finished: Dead As a Doornail
Currently reading: The Graveyard Book

A side-note on supporting characters

I've been reading a few category books lately. In terms of satisfaction, they tend to be hit and miss, especially as so many of them are series that I either unwittingly (and unwillingly) find myself in the middle of, or find myself at the beginning of with no desire to hunt down the rest.*

But that's a discussion for another day - April 11th to be precise. What I really want to talk about is the true role of a SUPPORTING character.

I'm reading a book right now that has six rather major supporting characters. I know them all by name. And I know them all by how they relate to the main characters. That is ALL I know about them. This is something that I really appreciate about this book. If we've been told anything about what they look like, it's only a sentence, maybe two. We know nothing of their hopes, dreams, aspirations, how they grew up, or what informs their personalities.

They are fully fleshed-out, 3D characters who clearly have more depth than we are shown on the page, but that depth is revealed in their interactions with the main characters, and only in those interactions. Not in long introductions about why they are who they are, not in sidebars told info-dump style about how the H or H met them or who their spouses are or even in meandering soliloquies out of the supporting characters' mouths themselves. No, we see exactly who these people are through the well-chosen words that leave their mouths and through how their actions (or lack thereof) affect the main characters.

I'm only halfway through this book, it could tank in the second half, but somehow I doubt that's going to happen. The author is clearly a gifted story-teller and her long list of publishing credits indicate that she's been at this for a while. In fact she just threw in a twist that was so beautifully set-up I am aching to know if she's a pantser or a plotter, and if she knew she was going to have to throw in a test like this, or if it came to her in a dream or she reverse engineered it because something in the characters was telling her to dig deeper. But I'm digressing again, back to the supporting characters.

Now, one of the things that may be helping this along is that I don't feel like I'm being set up for a sequel. Sometimes these things are inevitable, and oftentimes they're heavy-handed, but I have faith in the author that this book will have everything wrapped up in a nice, neat bow for me by the time I hit the HEA Epilogue, which means her supporting characters are just that. Supporting. They're not making their debut before they take the stage themselves. They don't have to steal a single scene to whet our appetite for their own stories.

These supporters of her main characters show up to reveal the strengths, weaknesses, flaws, and qualities in our H & H. Isn't that really what a supporting character is supposed to be about? Not a single one of them is "perfect," or "zany," or "sassy." They're just real-life people in our H & H's real-life world that make things better, and worse, and challenging, and fulfilling. And, even more than that, we get to see how Heroine reacts to Hero's supporting characters, and then challenges him on being a better person with them ... and then, vice versa. It's almost, like, I don't know, a real relationship or something.

I'm going to head back to my cozy bed and finish the book now. I hope the author didn't get sticken with a deathly case of The Tropes before she finished the book. Somehow, I have a feeling she'll retain her refreshing style 'til the end and once again I'll be properly schooled on That's How You Tell A Story!

Wish me luck.





Currently reading: No Rest For the Wicked
Currently reading: Mother In the Making
Currently reading: Practice Makes Perfect


*[See IRONY: The book I'm writing right now is the first of a two-book category-length series. Cross ref:- HYPOCRISY]

I took some advice today

From you - from all of you.

I hit up my local Barnes & Noble and wrote. Despite not "feeling like it," despite feeling poorly today, and despite the output from my pen stinking up the place like week-old carrion.

I have been treating my writing like a hobby lately. I've had a lot of things on my plate (who hasn't?) and allowed Novel #2 to limp along on its own steam. I've added a paragraph or two here and there. I've done some typing when the spirit moves me, but the cussedness and enthusiasm that got me through the first book and through 3/4s of this one is long gone.

Instead I've been paying fantastic lip service to my 'writing' and not doing any of the work involved. Oh, I've been reading the blogs from reviewers and editors and agents and other authors, but learning about the business doesn't equal being in the business. And not a single bit of all the things I've learned is going to help me if I don't finish the book.

So today, I sat down and got to work. And the writing wasn't good. It wasn't good at all. But I did it anyway, because every professional writer out there says sometimes you just gotta work through the crap, you have to give yourself permission to let the words flow regardless of how awful those words are.

Now, in revision, these words may get cut, or I may find a germ of an idea in them that begs to be explored, or it could just be the invisible emotional glue needed to bind one tense scene to another and I'll get to leave it alone, crap and all. But the point is, I put the words on the page. Finally.

I'm declaring a moratorium on emotional turmoil (as if I have control over these things), it just detracts from my goals. From now on, it's boring, hum-drum, everyday, work-a-day, finish the effing book for me. I'm also working on moving.

I'm a Cancer. I like my safe, comfortable hermit-like world. As a result I have been in my apartment for over nine years and have packed it full of things that make me feel like my life is full. And now I have to dismantle it all and pack up my life to shift it 100 miles north. I like being lazy better, but, turns out, lazy doesn't get the job done. Kind of like writing.





Just finished: Legend
Just finished: Dad in Disguise
Currently reading: No Rest For The Wicked

*Deeeeeeep breath*

That felt good.

I made a mistake last month. I put down my pen.

Now, admittedly, I was on vacation, and - as mentioned before - I find it really hard to work (at writing) while on vacation. I managed to scribble out a couple of pages during an hour spent alone up in the Redwood forests of Santa Cruz, but that was the last thing I did for over 30 days.

You see, I'd already been distracted before I left town. I had fallen off of my productivity wagon, but I still had enough gumption to get out there at least once a week and get some work done, whether it was typing, editing, or finishing this mother-effing book that despite my best efforts refuses to conform to category length.

Then, when I returned to town, a full two weeks later, my life fell apart. Not in any way I'm willing to share with the world (also known as the four people who occasionally read this blog), but in a real and measurable way anyway. Would that my life were a romance script. The knight on his white horse would have swooped in to the rescue a good two weeks ago. Alas, the real world ain't that pretty.

It's been a tough time and I've had to make some hard as hell decisions about who I am and what I expect of the people around me and life in general. It doesn't help that I've always been a cerebral type girl and can think myself into dizzying circles with very little assistance from the outside world. It also doesn't help that I'm unemployed and have nothing to distract me from my over-active brain. Basically I have all the time in the world to stew, and fret, and worry my pretty little head into a tizzy. And I have taken full advantage of it.

I've been so anxious that getting a full night's sleep has become a rarity. Four hours is the norm, then it's up and at 'em to fret some more. I've still been reading - though not as much. My Sudoku habit has become outrageous, but it's a great way to not think when you're awake anyway. And I've been reading about writing on a few blogs and such (I was 800 posts behind by the time I got back to my blogs, I'm down to 365 posts now). Still absorbing the "rules," still reading the publishing stories... but I haven't written a lick.

I could have. If I'd just sat down and done it, I would have found the words waiting for me, and I would have been happier for it. If nothing else it would have taken my mind off of my problems. More than that I would have taken refuge in the natural joy I find in the simple act of creation. But because I couldn't concentrate on anything else, I assumed I wouldn't be able to concentrate on my work either, so I didn't even try.

This morning, however, I woke up and was granted a small ray of hope that all this turmoil would soon be gone. That short moment was enough. I started thinking about other things again and then tried to remember the last time I left the house just for fun. I couldn't. I went out for a job interview on Thursday, but before that...? Ummmm...? Sad. Really sad.

So, me and my fresh new attitude grabbed my purse and keys and walked the hell out the door. I went to Chili's for ribs and took a book with me and my notebook too, just in case the writing bug was ready to bite me again. It did. Thank God. My characters were waiting for me, my pen was still speaking to me and I even stopped at Krispy Kreme on the way home. I got over 1000 words written this afternoon and damn it felt good.

I'm a writer, what the hell did I think I was doing putting down my pen for so long? I won't do that to myself again. It's back on the horse for me.





Just finished: The Bachelor's Stand-In Wife
Just finished: Agnes and The Hitman
Just finished: Smooth Talkin' Stranger
Currently reading: D is for Deadbeat
Currently Reading: Tempting The Beast

The Subject Matters

I read many blogs. I enjoy most of them, some of them I slog through because I feel like they're important for me to read, but there is one that has been on my mind a lot because I fear ever producing like this myself.

You see, this blog-writer touches on a variety of subjects, but everything she has to say about every one of them is a complaint. I feel obliged to read this blog, I shan't tell you why, but as the months go by, I find that time spent reading her a chore.

Now, don't get me wrong. This blog-writer has a wonderful voice. She is very witty, she uses metaphors and similes like a pro, she incorporates appropriate pictures that are usually visually stimulating. But I hate going there anyway. Why? Because she always brings me down.

If you were writing her into a novel she would be the well-meaning sister or best friend who looks at you wide-eyed with a smile on her face as she asks you if you really want to wear that skirt? Aren't you trying to make a good impression? Subtle enough to seem 'friendly' while still cutting you off at the knees.

It's like listening to a stereotypical Jewish mother all day long. If there is anything good or joyful to be found in the world, this blog-writer will spin it in a way that somehow chaps her hide. We all have our petty complaints, we all have reason enough for them, and some of us have some major reasons to be miserable and could drown the world in our (valid) sorrows. But most of us choose to count our blessings.

There is an importance in looking at the world with clear eyes, ripping the veil of Happy Happy Joy Joy off the patina of life, and facing the world in a realistic way. It's part of growing up. It's also an important part of life to recognize that the joys of childhood were primarily provided by our ignorance.

But maturity? That comes in letting go of the bad things you can't change and making peace with the few happinesses any of us are given ... then savouring them.





Just Finished: Vengeance In Death
Just Finished: This Pen For Hire
Currently Reading: Tempting The Beast
Currently Reading: Pleasure Unbound
Currently Reading: Burning Wild
Currently reading: The Watson Brothers

Did I fall off the face of the earth?

No.
I've been roaming it.

In the past two weeks I have been to six cities. Now, it may seem like less when you consider that one of them was me coming back home for three days, but it was only for three days. Enough time for me to rest, do my laundry and realize that there was no point in putting anything in the fridge because I was going to be gone again shortly.

It all culminated last night in an eleven plus hour, eyeball-searing drive back from Vegas to Tucson via Sedona. I stopped for about 45mins to change cars and then it was on the road again. 100+ temperatures were my constant road companion and thank God the MP3 player never failed me once. Sadly, the GPS did fail me once or twice, but we were back to being friends again by the end of the trip.

My family came to the States and in return for paying my way I was the chauffeur (plus, you know, they kinda love me). We hit San Jose, CA and Santa Cruz, CA, then back to SJ. Then it was off to San Francisco for a week - where I am SO pleased I didn't have to drive. That traffic! Also, we hired a car to take us from SJ to SF as we were warned that parking at our hotel was $53 / night. Beg pardon?!

Then it was on the plane, back home for three days. I know I left the house at least once, because there was no food here and I had to eat, but aside from that, I don't remember much of my return here except I exchanged the big suitcase for the small one.

After that, I joined a different family member in Sedona (3+ hour drive) for a night of fine dining, then we arose bright and shiny on Tuesday morning (all right, all right, it was 10am, but that still counts as morning) to eat a sensible breakfast, add me to the rental car agreement and drive to Vegas where we saw two shows on our 1 1/2 nights there.

Aside: Jersey Boys gets a big, fat HELL YEAH!, O was a spectacle of gymnastics, costuming, waterworks and optical distractions, but there was no emotional involvement - stunningly beautiful, yes, but I didn't leave the show raving and satisfied like I did with Jersey Boys.

A whirlwind stop in Vegas included very fine dining at Morels, shopping off-strip at The Galleria at Sunset (I was underwhelmed) and a two night stay at the incomparable Bellagio. None of that left me prepared to drive back for eleven plus hours yesterday though.

It was recommended that after the first 6 hours I stop in Sedona and stay at a motel. It's six hours because the first part of the driving experience that day was taking the fam. to the airport, and the second part of the driving experience involved getting lost.

Now, I mentioned earlier how my GPS and I were fighting on the trip, so when we got out of the airport, I didn't trust that she was telling me the truth. I blithely went on my way, ignoring her admonitions to turn around at every exit. I knew better.

I did not know better.

Fifteen minutes later, out of the hustle and bustle of the city I thought ... perhaps she has a point ... and decided to believe her. Wouldn't you know it? She stopped arguing with me and suddenly all the roadsigns made sense. I hate it when she's right. (Actually, I love it when she's right, I rely on her being right. I just hate it when she's righter than I.)

All that folderol added a stressful hour to my five hour drive back to return the rental car and pick up my vehicle. Most sane people would have put some value on their life, or at least limb, and stopped in Sedona to get a good rest, maybe even a meal, or sit off somewhere to revel in the joy of not driving. I, however, did a jig at the sight of my little, red car waiting for me in the parking lot of the Sedona Hilton and hopped in to fuel up and drive the 3 hours 49 minutes home.

At this point you're thinking, 'but she said it was an eleven hour drive?' To which I must add the 45 minutes it took to check in the vehicle and have the nice Hertz Rent A Car guy drive me back to my car. In addition, peeing and gas breaks must be totaled in to every long distance driving experience.

By the time I hit my apartment door my brain was mush. I could not form words, and every attempt at a coherent sentence was a joke. It didn't matter though. I was finally home. In MY own bed, with my own cat and even my own earplugs. Heaven.

I think I was asleep within 20 minutes of hitting the door. Within 30 minutes, I was receiving and (stupidly) replying to text messages. That was all it took to wake my brain back up. Four hours later I finally took a sleeping pill to coax my brain back into its blissful catatonic state. It only took another hour for my body to get the message and I slept 10 solid hours last night.

Today, I didn't drive at all.






Just Finished: Deeper
Just Finished: Gotcha!
Just Finished: A Weaver Wedding
Just Finished: The Family He Wanted
Just Finished: A Night At The Operation
Just Finished: Dead To The World
Just Finished: Wild Rain
Currently Reading: Pleasure Unbound
Currently reading: The Watson Brothers
Currently Reading: Gone With The Nerd
Currently Reading: Naughty Little Secret
Currently Reading: Burning Wild
Currently Reading: Undead and Unreturnable

Distractions, Distractions Everywhere...

(and not a drop to drink)

I'd like to blame my lack of writing progress on the last two weeks' worth of distractions - I really, really would, because it has been a humdinger of a time for distractions. Really. My reading has fallen off, my writing has fallen off and other things have taken precedence in my life. Sometimes that's just how the world works.

But I can't blame it all on outside forces. The biggest reason for my lack of progress has been a massive internal block. It's not writer's block. I refuse to succumb to that. I think of it more as character block.

I've said time and again that I am a pantser and thus rely on my characters to help me move my story forward. I have also mentioned, more than once, that the closer I get to the end of the book, the more difficult it is for me to finish. (I'm using the data from my vast experience of writing two books.) But this book is killing me.

You see, I'm also a fairly linear writer. I start at the beginning and write until the end. This time I started with what I thought was a prologue, but 120 pages in, I realized I could fit the same information into the story and inform both the reader and the hero about that awful night at the same time, so I moved that chunk of story back. Technically though, it still took place at the beginning of the story, and I did write it first, so no big deal.

But ending this book is kicking my ass. I hit the minor black moment and moved forward from that, thinking I knew where H&H were going to end up and how they were going to get there. But as I wrote the resolution from that minor moment, my hero was so distraught and so sincere that I realized, crap, he's writing the ending. I still have more things to work through and this sap is writing the ending!

So, I found a point a few hours before that, and took them on a detour, keeping my unplanned ending as is, but adding in other resolutions before that place in time. I thought I had it all planned out--a completely wrong epiphany, a big reveal, a shot of ugly jealousy and BAM, I'd get my major black moment.

But as I'm writing in the big reveal, I realize that H&H need another love scene to bring their commitment and intimacy to a head. Crap. That was unplanned. Not that I really plan anything, but in my head, I know the high and low points they're going to hit on their way to the final destination. At no point did I foresee them making whoopee in her mom's house. Regardless of my plans, that's what the story needed, so I started writing it.

*sigh* Wouldn't you know it? It's my hero AGAIN. Jesus, he's a shit. I'm writing the love scene and he's just not in it. He's already consumed with jealousy before I've written the part where the true jealousy starts. He's not performing, he's just showing up. So now, this unplanned love scene gets pushed back to add in the completely planned moment of jealousy... that wasn't supposed to happen until the next day.

What ever happened to nice, orderly pantser writing? Whatever happened to starting a story and just finishing it? Noooo, these lot are killing me. It's supposed to be category length and by the time these two fools are done messing around in my brain it'll have another 50 pages added on because he can't get his shit together long enough to tell me what he needs until AFTER he needs it.

I'd love to blame my lack of progress on the world outside of me, but it's the world inside of me that's to blame. And that's the world I'm in charge of. Damnit.





Currently reading: The Watson Brothers
Currently reading: Gone With the Nerd
Currently reading: Nauti Dreams
Currently reading: A Hunger Like No Other
Currently reading: Family Blessings

Milk The Moment

An agent visited our RWA last year. It was my first agent talk and I soaked up everything she said, then promptly forgot about 75% of it. That's the way my brain works. One of the things that stuck though was the notion of letting your reader suffer along with your character.

Now, as romance readers, most of us don't like too much nasty graphic violence, but we love our angst. Sure we want to revel in the love felt between our H&H, but, as readers, we really don't like it when we get too much happy. No one wants to read perfect and no one wants to read happy. We want to read angst. That's what keeps us turning the pages.

For those of us struggling to get published, there's a worry about overwriting. A worry about repeating yourself. And sometimes this manifests in writing such "spare & precise" prose that the reader doesn't get the chance to truly sink into the depths of the feeling with the characters. Instead the author hits on the moment, shows the action and reaction and then moves straight into the next bit of plot that officially "advances the story."

Now I'm definitely not the one to sit here and advocate boring your reader, not by any stretch of the imagination, but I read three books recently that took my emotions and wrung them dry by hovering on the edge of hyperawareness without repeating themselves. Lucky you, I'm gonna tell you about them.

*WARNING - to talk about these moments I will have to reveal spoilers. Sorry.*

1. The first one, the one that inspired this post, was Morning Glory by LaVyrle Spencer.
In this book the hero gets called off to war - WWII to be specific. He does his duty, heads off to Marine bootcamp and then writes his heroine about what life is like there.

Ms Spencer spends eight (hardback) pages writing letters back and forth between our hero and heroine while he's in boot camp. They had just discovered their love for each other before he left, and we already ache that they've been pulled apart at this delicate stage of their relationship. So the letters start. The real brilliance in these letters is how self-sacrificing each is in regards to the others' feelings. They both pretend to be happy and adjusting to their separation. And as a reader, we see right through it and know they're suffering.

He ends almost every letter to her with some variation of don't worry about me at all, I'm doing just fine. A sure sign of how much he's missing her, and how bad it is there.

Then, Ms Spencer gets them together for a full chapter. And the reader rejoices along with them. But he's changed because he's a Marine now, and they have to readjust to each other all over again for the minute they have. Then it's back to the letters. Another ten pages, but this time he's headed off to war.

The reader is on a precipice. There's no male or female POV. It's just their fear and hesitation and hope and awkwardness laid out on the page in their falsely happy letters to one another. Brilliant.

2. The second one was C is For Corpse by Sue Grafton. This was so well done, I could barely stand to read it. But it's also something that maybe only works with a Dead Tree (as opposed to e) book.

In this instance, the book was nearing the end. There physically weren't many pages left to turn. But we don't know who the murderer is yet. And our heroine is going about life and exploration at the same pace as she always does, the same pace she's kept throughout the rest of the book. There's no hurrying up to the big finish.
Instead she checks something out, explores it, explains it to herself... spends some time wandering around, figuring things out... and this whole time the reader is on tenterhooks because we KNOW the Bad Guy is gonna get her.

She doesn't know. There's barely a hint of foreshadowing, but the book is ending, and he's gonna get her, and she's not paying attention. For pages and pages she did her thing, and as a reader it was the most mundane, tension-filled writing I've ever killed myself over. (I had a teacher once call this Dramatic Irony, but that was a screenwriting class and I don't know if it applies to novels.) By the time the Bad Guy attacked, it was a relief, but I can't fault the author for even a sentence of that mundane moseying the heroine did. I've never been so riveted to a scene.

3. The third book to milk the moment was Fire & Ice by Anne Stuart.
In this book, the heroine kills a bad guy, violently. She's never killed before, she sees the aftermath of her actions and shuts down. But the trick is, she doesn't just shut down for a paragraph or two.

We're taken into the hero's POV and we watch her walking catatonia as he experiences it. She becomes completely docile, does everything she's told without question or argument. But she doesn't connect and she doesn't speak. She goes inside herself to a place the hero can't reach and stays there all day. A day that we spend with her.

We see him go through sympathy, and worry and fear on her behalf. We watch him take care of her, protect her, feed her and finally get angry with her until the end of the day when things come to a head in an explosive love scene.

The love scene wouldn't have had nearly the same effect if she had killed, gone silent for a paragraph or two, then cried, and accepted it. Instead we had to suffer through it along with her and as a result rejoiced with her when it ended.


There are so many ways to let your reader experience it, and sometimes we edit ourselves right out of the good stuff. We can't be afraid to dig deep, and then maybe a bit deeper. Rushing the story is NOT the same as advancing the story.

I can only hope when I hit the emotional lows in my writing that I spend enough time wallowing in the mud.





Currently reading: The Watson Brothers
Just finished: Rescued by the Sheik
Just finished: Fire & Ice

[ETA, I felt free to name names in this post, because all the comments were complimentary. I would not have done so if I were structurally criticizing an author's work.]

Consider the source

I went to boarding school in Canada for two years. I learned a lot about myself. It could just be cause I was at the age to learn things about me (17-19) but I'm sure the atmosphere of boarding school had a lot to do with it as well.

I made a few good friends while I was there. One of whom, miraculously, has continued to speak to me all these years later. I came to boarding school with a widely misplaced sense of esteem. There are some things people just grow up knowing about themselves, and I was one of those rare kids who knew that I had a right to my own thoughts and choices, and didn't need to be ashamed of myself.

I'm not saying I was preternaturally confident, I had plenty angst to keep me crying in my teenage pillows, it's just that almost all of my self-hatred and lack of confidence came directly from within and wasn't delivered to me on the tongues of Mean Girl nemeses.

This means a few things when you're a teenager. Basically it means that nothing anyone says can hurt me more than I can hurt myself, and it also means that nothing anyone says can make me feel better about myself, because I wasn't really factoring in their opinion in the first place. My friend was not so lucky.

My friend lived on the edge of public opinion. "She hates me. You should have heard what she said about me. She's awful."
"What do you care?" I'd ask. "She's awful and you don't like her anyway. Why do you care if she hates you?"
This sort of reasoning was as clear to my teenage mind as it is to my adult one. I talked her off the ledge of Other People's Opinionitis more times than I can recall. It's probably because we grew up in different cultures, but also because I was a "sensible young woman" long before I was a woman at all. After all, I had many years of romance reading under my belt by the time boarding school hit.

But boarding school is also the place where I understood fully, for the first time, the phrase: Consider the source.

"Consider the source" got us through a lot of those teenaged chats, and has gotten me into a lot of trouble as an adult. I painstakingly took the time, every week, twice a week, daily if necessary, to remind her to consider the source.

.Mary is a spoiled rich kid who has hated you for years, and you've hated her too. If she is the one saying that Dan thinks you're ugly, do you really think her opinion can be trusted? Consider the source here.
.Mrs Hollister is a new teacher who has only seen you get bad grades because you hate calculus and calculus hates you. Her suggestion that you take tutoring doesn't mean she thinks you're a moron, it just means that she hasn't seen you shine in different arenas. Consider the source.
.Liz picked you last for the softball team. But you hate softball, and Liz loves it. Plus she tried to steal your boyfriend last month. Why would you care if she doesn't want you on her team? Consider the source.

As an adult, "Consider the source" gets me into trouble with employers. Once the respect is gone, I have a hard time believing a word you say, much less wanting to work hard for you. But that's not the point of this post.

The actual point of this post is Writing Workshops. My local RWA forwards about twenty opportunities for workshops to my e-mail per week. I have never signed up for one. I'm often curious, and sometimes I'm all the way over into intrigued . . . but I never sign up. You know why? Because I consider the source.

There are so many How to Write workshops and books and seminars and opportunities to separate you from your money. I've read a few of the books, I'm sure I'll read a few more (I have one in my library TBR right now) but as I age, I am much more conscious of who is providing this material.

Do I want to read the How Tos of someone who never actually has? Sparkling Dialogue in Ten Easy Steps written by someone who's never published and whose writing bores me. How To Write a Kick Ass Query presented by someone who published one book ten years ago. Marketing for Writers sold to me by someone I've never heard of.

Since entering the blogosphere I have come across fantastic gems on writing by sources that actually hold credence for me. Published authors, the ones who are making a living at it, will share what they have learned. They usually just don't have time to sit down and organize seminars and take in and grade the unfocused meanderings of twenty students every month while working on their own craft. They also, usually, don't have time to sit down, deconstruct their own brains and put together a book on how to write. But they'll still share what they can when they can. I appreciate those table scraps more than they'll ever know.

In the meantime, I pick up most of my tips on writing from reading. Reading published books, reading what authors have to say about their process, reading what reactions other readers have to good and bad books alike and reading how reviewers approach both praise and criticism. But no matter what, I always, ALWAYS consider the source.





Currently reading: The Watson Brothers
Currently reading: Wild Rain
Just finished: Club Dead

What an unexpectedly crazy busy week!

I haven't kept up with any of my usual things.

My Google Reader is overflowing with unread posts. My blog has dust and leaves blowing through it, and all of my good house-cleaning intentions have gone the way of the Dodo. Most telling of all is that fact that for two days there, I wasn't reading anything! I usually read a few books at a time, and suddenly didn't have the space in my life to even pick up one.

On the other hand, I have been having fun and being productive in other parts of my life. I really am not designed to do it all. Something always gets the short shrift.

This week I met up with an old friend who was in town for an evening, and made new friends with his buddies as well as five dogs and six horses, one of which tried to eat my boob. I have been sick, again, but only mildly. The amateur diagnoses range from Kennel Cough to Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis. It got to the point where I even pulled out my immunization card ... but I knew if the conversation stayed on me any longer, I'd be diagnosed with SARS or swine-flu in a heartbeat. (really, it's just a cough)

I also made considerable time in my schedule to go to one of the worst job fairs ever. There were somewhere between 15 and 20 booths in a conference room. Half the attendees weren't accepting resumes. I mean, really? At a job fair? And half the attendees who were accepting resumes, but you could tell they were going to be filed under G, because they told you to go to the web site and apply there.

Then there was a strong showing my Army, Naval Reserves, Fire Department and the Dept of Corrections. Great if you're a strapping 18 year old wondering what to do with your brains and brawn. Not so great for a 36 year old "well-padded" woman who has limited tolerance for being told what to do.

It was not a good job fair.

I did get complimented by my husband on how good I looked in my monkey suit. I think he's just shocked whenever I wear make-up and clothes that have been tailored.

And the book thing resolved itself too - last night at 4:00am - I couldn't get to sleep and finally picked up a book and read until 5, when the sun started to come up and my lashes started to go down.

Today was a bust. I spent almost 6 hours trying to get to sleep last night so I could be up and attentive for a 9am meeting. A meeting I wasn't even sure I wanted to attend because I wasn't being paid for my time and the company sounds like a sham. But I made it to the meeting, and after half an hour I knew this wasn't the place for me to be. A few polite exchanges later I was "excused" from the event and rushed back home to reclaim that sleep, but by then, the caffeine that I'd ingested to make it through said meeting had already hit my system.

Ugh. So I was exhausted, irritated, caffeinated, and grudgingly awake.
My minor illness came to my rescue (the swine flu I don't have) and I took a small hit off a bottle of generic Nyquil while I finished the novella I started last night. 7 blissful hours later I'm awake and functioning again - but the day? It was a total bust.

Oh, and another reason I've fallen behind? So You Think You Can Dance has started for 2009. I am a total and unapologetic addict. So a lot of my time has been devoted to that as well.





Currently reading: The Watson Brothers
Just finished: Talk Me Down

My house is filled with toxic waste sludge

Ok, not really. But some days it seems like it.

I'm not a cleaner. I never have been. It's not something I grew up doing, it's not something I aspire to and it's not something I ever really practiced as a kid. Instead my mother took the reins of cleaning the house and then yelled at us in inconsistent spurts when it wasn't clean. We didn't do maintenance in my house. We didn't have a regular Saturday Morning Clean-up, instead the family waited until my mother blew her top, then we all grudgingly pitched in until she stopped spewing. Afterwards we relaxed back into our messy inertia until Mt Vesuvius threatened to kill us again.

Let me reiterate. I am not a cleaner.

As a result, my adult house is not so much filled with toxic sludge as it is with dust and cat hair and corners that haven't seen a dishrag for years. I truly need to hire a maid because the things that other people notice are messy in a house, I don't even see. I can't afford a maid though, and even if I could, he or she wouldn't know where to start and I wouldn't let her touch the thousands of papers that perch on any horizontal surface because some need to be shredded and some need to be kept and some need to be filed and no, I don't know which ones are which until I sit down and actually look at them.

I also have asthma, which means the dust and cat hair really do act like toxic sludge to me. They compromise my ability to breathe, they get in my eyes and make them itch while my nose starts leaking in sympathy. So whenever I get a brilliant flash of thinking I really should tackle this place the good intentions last about 10 minutes until the dust bunnies lay me out flat and wheezing on the bed for a couple of hours.

Seriously. It's not just an allergy attack--though that factors in as well--it's a flat out respiratory assault that usually lasts until I crawl into bed doped with medicine or deluding myself into thinking if I just go to sleep it'll all go away. You can see how this might interfere with my willingness to clean.

Now, the dust bunnies cannot be blamed for the dirty dishes in the sink, nor the mounds of laundry mockingly waiting to be folded. Nor can they be blamed for the soap scum in my bathtub, but they are a contributing factor, I swear. [Here come the excuses] You see, I'm the sort of person who likes to get the worst of it over with first, deal with it, get it done and walk away. It's not enough for me to spend the day picking up if I can't vacuum at the end of it. I don't like to clean twice (or even once).

Just let me do it, get it done and not have to look at again. (Come to think of it, this might be how I approach writing too. What do you mean I have to edit? I already wrote it, isn't that good enough?) So I find myself hesitant to start what I know I won't be able to finish.

Things they are a changin' though. Not too long ago, my husband, after a vacuuming incident that shall not be mentioned, bought me face masks. You know those kinds you see construction workers and people afraid of swine flu wearing? For the longest time I resisted. Some mental part of me was resistent to re-breathing my own expired air. It just sounds kind of gross. Then one day I knew I needed to tackle something in the house guaranteed to stir up the peacefully settled hair and dust, so I dragged out the face masks, strapped one on and get down to business.

Much to my amazement, I was able to work for a full 30 mins to an hour before succumbing to the usual asthma attack. There might be something to this face mask thing after all! Who knew? Then, I caught myself some piddling little cough that messed with my throat's ability to stay nice and moist. In Arizona a dry throat is not easily conquered by a bedroom humidifier or a hot shower. It sticks around being aggravated by every 8% humidity breath you take. So guess what I did? I strapped on that mask again and took advantage of all that damp air I was expelling. Heaven. Symptoms last half the time when you're smart about combating them.

Last night I combined the cough and cleaning and face mask together. It's funny to whip off a face mask to sneeze into a tissue, then settle it snuggly against your face while you go back to aggravating the very thing that made you sneeze in the first place. When I was done another 2 square feet of the carpet were free of debris and I had sucked down three cough drops, two puffs of the inhaler and a zyrtec.

Slowly but surely I'm winning the war against the toxic sludge. Next thing you know I'll be scrubbing the tub!





Currently reading: Wolf Tales IV
Currently reading: C is for Corpse

The paranormal is dead. Long live the paranormal!

If you read romance blogs for more than a week, you will come across this sentence:
I am SO over paranormal romances.

The reviewers mean it, some of the editors do too. They have had their fill, they never want to read about another pulsing fang or short-haired wolven fur coat. No more demons. No fallen angels, and for Godssake, live in the century you were born in!

The readers though? Not so much. The readers are still sucking down paranormals with glee.* There was a time when you couldn't find a paranormal if you sliced your wrist open and stood, waiting, at midnight on a busy city street. No one was willing to believe, no one was willing to buy (from agent to editor to reader). So despite the unheard minority clamoring for 'something different', there were nothing on the shelf for them to find.

The clamoring minority is now looking for contemporaries that go beyond the bounds of erotica, back to that crazy thing called "story." Interestingly enough, it's already on the shelves, and it's better than it used to be - you know why? Paranormals.

When the PNR wave hit the industry, heroes got bigger, and badder, and more heroically flawed. (The disfiguring scar being the most common.) Plots got tighter, moral ambiguity hit an all-time low and emotional development was ratcheted up to an excruciating level of life (love) or death.

Heroines had to develop too. No more TSTL ... for Godssake, in a paranormal, TSTL really means something. Heroines had to be mentally stronger to handle the lives their heroes chose and the traumas they'd been through. They were also allowed to be even more emotionally broken to match the level of fuckedupedness in their hero. They had to be physically stronger and learn to save themselves, because their hero was off fighting someone bigger and badder and more deadly than the threat facing her. You can't sit around twiddling your thumbs waiting to be rescued as a PNR heroine.

Action also plays a greater role in the PNR, and this is where the contemporary distinguishes itself. In a PNR they fight through character development, in a contemporary, they talk, misunderstand and plot through that same development. But the action still has to be there. The reader is now accustomed to hitting the ground running--not much down time for introspection and long odes to the quality of green in the grass outside the window. The physical battles lost and won in a PNR are the emotional battles the contemporary writer now delivers.

The rules have changed as a result of the Paranormal romance, and no matter your personal feelings on the sub-genre, it's not going anywhere--even if you don't recognize its newest incarnation.






Currently reading: Wolf Tales IV



* I will concede that new paranormal authors probably aren't seeing those gleeful sales because reader dollars are already spent keeping up with the multiple paranormal authors they're already following. I'm personally following at least seven series, but I'm not unwilling to start more.

No matter where you go, there you are.

I have people in my life who are moving, more than a few. A couple of them across country, one just moved across the state, one is thinking of moving back from out of state, one just wants to move across the damn street. I want to join the masses.

My apartment--this hermitage of a life I've created, even demanded, for myself--it's not working anymore. So I've been evaluating the things in my world; what I want to keep, what I am willing to give up, definite changes I need to effect, etc. The lists are fluid and, depending on the day, full of objects, actions, or self-hatred.

One day, about a month ago, I came home, and sat in the parking lot looking up at my home of almost nine years. It's a nice place on the outside. Sturdy, welcoming, well-maintained. On the inside it's less well-maintained and feels not so much welcoming anymore as overcrowded and cloying.

The fantasy of the perfect move popped into my head... you know the one. You come home from a day of shopping and a light lunch and find everything packed, and cleaned. Stuff you don't need has been thrown away, Goodwill worthy donations have all been picked up and you even got a tax receipt, furniture is being lovingly handled by a professional company who does the work for nothing but a smile of gratitude and a glass of cold iced-tea (a glass which they will wash and pack once said libations have been swallowed), and every box has been neatly labeled and packed in reverse order of usefulness so when I get to my destination (and they unpack for me) the stuff I need right away comes out the truck first. Hell, I'll even make them another pitcher of ice-tea.

Oh yeah, it was a good fantasy. But then, like a voice of doom, this thought occurred to me: no matter where you go, it's still going to be the same old you on the inside. Yikes.

ME is what I'm trying to get away from. My habits, my world, my life, all the stuff that's not working for me... it's still going to be there when I land. Will a move to Colorado really cure me of procrastination and inspire me to vacuum once a week? Not bloody likely. This rut I'm in is all of my own making and I'm still going to be me when I get there.

Cue: Depression.
Cue a yearning to turn the car back on, turn it around and drive anywhere else until I run out of gas and have left it all behind.
Cue: Deep sigh.

Then, a whisper from some heretofore willfully ignored part of my brain.
Could I maybe...? No. What about if...? No. How about...

Wait, wait... set up the inspirational music, I think she's about to get it. Do we have a shot of clouds parting? Right, in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . I can change starting now!

Whaaaaaaaaaat? The old psyche shouts.

Yessir, ladies and gentlemen. It's true. Step right up and see the Amazing Changing Lady in action! You never know what kind of show you're going to get from her, sometimes she changes at a glacial pace, grinding and rewriting the very landscape underneath her. Sometimes she succumbs to the erosive and sudden floodwaters of desire and influence, creating unexpected structures out of newly uncovered depths. Pay your bits and takes your chances.

A change is coming to town and it's starting right here!






Currently reading: Wolf Tales IV
Currently reading: Morning Glory
Currently reading: High Energy

Here I go being a hypocrite again...

...but Ms Lamb is long dead, the book was published 30 years ago, and I just can't help myself!

I read Pagan Encounter the other night. OMG, it was soooooo good.

I picked it up for free from the library's Give Away pile. I don't know why. A couple of days later I saw this post, which led me to this post. And then, a week after that, I read this post while Pagan Encounter was sitting an arm's length from me.

I snagged the book, opened it and there went the rest of my night.

Now, this book was published in 1978. There are a lot of things that authors did in '78 that authors cannot do now-at least not without being thrown against a wall. I will confess that my mouth fell open in horror at some of the things I was reading. So there might have been a whole, "I can't believe she did that, what the hell is she going to try and get away with next" vibe to my reading experience. But it was more than that.

The truth of the matter is, the writing was just damn good. I tried to distance myself from it so I could absorb it better, but I didn't do that good a job of it. The story was too compelling. The characterizations were spot-on as well. She created a cold-fish heroine and an asshat hero, and neither of them really changed through the story. They simply found, in each other, someone who loved and appreciated that side of them.

Interesting things:

In that book they called "making out" "making love." So it caused a few eyebrow wrinkling moments when the heroine talked about her previous guy, and called it "making love." Yet, it was left ambiguous as to whether or not they truly did the big dirty.

The first time the hero kisses the heroine he has trapped her in the elevator against her will and forces his attentions upon her, even as she's shrinking back and saying no, and promising to scream the place down. Nowadays we call that sexual assault. In '78, apparently, they called that Sexy (with a capital S). Of course, she winds up enjoying the kiss, and there's no screaming - but any character who behaved like that nowadays would be characterized as Evil Creepy Stalker Dude with Severe Boundary Issues, not cast as the object of her affections.

The hero doesn't listen to "no" a chapter later either, and isn't too much concerned with consent, because, you know, he knows what's best for her. So they make out like little 70s bunnies (lots of kissing and a slipped towel, no oral sex) where she gets the benefit of all the good physical feelings, but none of the guilt because she did, after all, say no. However, when the heroine tells the hero that she confessed all to her ex in private, he is furious that she put herself in a position (blame the victim) where the ex might over-react and take her by force.

The hero slaps the heroine!! No, really. Seriously. My mouth hung open for a full minute. You just CAN'T DO THAT! But, we forgive him. You know why? Because she had already slapped him. Twice. And, she also made two other attempts to slap him, where he caught her hand and told her in no uncertain terms, "If you hit me, I'll hit you back." Go egalitarianism! (But seriously, he slapped her. On purpose. And I didn't hate him.)

At one point, she's being harassed by the hero and finds a cop. She tells the cop that the guy is harassing her. The hero tightens his hold against her shoulder, and tells the same cop that the little woman is just nervous about the impending wedding night. Then the cop and the hero exchange a wink and a nod and the cop goes off whistling. Any cop who did that now needs to have his badge revoked.

Ultimately though, the hero redeems himself in a few ways. He shows surprising tenderness when we least expect it, and because he's so wrong in so many other ways, we love him for those moments all the more. I'm telling you, this book was delicious. He was a complete asshat, but he was the perfect asshat for her.




Currently reading: Wolf Tales IV

I encourage you to do the same

I hit up the bookstore today. Oy vey! Like I need anymore books in my life (I also hit up the library and picked up five books on hold).

Not too long ago, I read this post, and it reminded me of something important--if we don't support each other, no one will be there to support us. So today I went to Border's (they're not doing as well as B&N or Amazon, and I wanted to throw my money their way) and I bought three brand-spankin' new books.

I don't have a lot of money, like most of you. This expenditure comes straight out of grocery money, but a book a month in exchange for skipping lunch is a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

I wanted to buy new from an author I haven't heard of before. Last time I did that was a month ago. The author I hadn't heard of then was Jacquelyn Frank. *rolls eyes* I'm not the most clued in chicklet some days, but that's okay. She had a few books on the shelf and the covers looked good so I thought I'd give her a whirl. I haven't read the book yet, but it's in my TBR and will gets its turn eventually.

In all of my Internetting and blog reading and Amazon.comming Ms. Frank's name has never made an impression, she wasn't on my radar. But clearly she's on someone's radar because she had four books on the shelf when I picked her up. Great! I thought, I get to start a new series (if I like the first book) and read someone who the publisher believes in enough to keep buying her books.

But ultimately, supporting someone with a built-in following wasn't what I felt like I needed to do. After all, 'new to me' isn't necessarily 'new kid on the block.' Today, however, I thought about it a bit more deeply. An author who I have never heard of who has multiple books on the shelf isn't a new author. And, it turns out, it's damned hard to find a book by a brand-new author on Border's romance shelves.

I probably spent ten minutes looking for a book I thought I'd enjoy by an author who didn't already have a long row of books under her name or who I hadn't heard of through some online buzz. I didn't want a historical or a romantic suspense, so that limited me even further. I found maybe three books that met my criteria.
1. I haven't heard the author's name.
2. The author doesn't have a row of books on the shelf.
3. It's actually a first book by a new author.
4. It's not a historical or RS - both of which I have limited patience for in my reading.

I think I hit the jackpot. I wound up with A Perfect Darkness by Jamie Rush. This is not an endorsement. I haven't read it yet, and even if it knocks my socks off, I'm highly unlikely to review it here. But I did my part today. I bought a brand-new book, retail, by a brand-new author. I encourage you all to do the same.

(For the reader who is paying attention, you'll notice I actually purchased three books. The other two are Too Hot To Handle and No Limits, both of which are books by established authors that I didn't feel like waiting on the library to read and have essentially cost me three more lunches.)





Just finished: Pagan Encounter
Currently reading: Wolf Tales IV
Currently reading: Midnight Rising

I don't name names

I read a lot of books.
I try to read a lot of authors.

Somewhere in the mists of time, I seem to remember starting to read romances when I was about eleven years old... the timing may be as late as when I was thirteen, but I think it was earlier than that. I'm a couple of months shy of 37 now. That's twenty-five solid years of reading romance.

I've read categories, Bantam Books, historicals, Mills & Boon, pirate books, Loveswepts, westerns, Zebras, rape fantasies and scottish lords. I've read secret babies and time travel aliens and marriages of convenience and firemen, cops, and a thousand different versions of the rescue fantasy. Kidnappings and Cinderellas and more deflowerings than any sane woman should have in her head have all passed over my eyes and through my brain. I don't recall ever getting through a Regency--but maybe I just didn't know what they were filed under at the time.

My point is, when I talk about romance, I come to it with a fairly significant background in the genre and reading history. I know what I'm talking about.

I have also read books on How To Write (Plot, Character, Sex Scenes, etc.) in order to help me figure out how to write better for myself. Initially, after reading those books, it ruined my pleasure reading for me. I couldn't pick up a book without deconstructing it, watching how the author built problem / solution puzzles, noting the deliberate inclusion of a time-lock, seeing where the author included a flaw in characters to make them more appealing, or reading sex scenes for the emotional development instead of the hawt sexxoring.

As you can imagine, this had the effect of pulling me out of the story, so much so that I could no longer enjoy it for the escapist fiction I desire. Combine that with the demands of grad school, and I went off romance reading for about five years.

When I came back, I still had all of that technical knowledge in my back pocket, but I was able to bury it long enough to enjoy the story. This understanding has helped me tremendously in my writing, but more than that, it has really helped me identify why a story I'm reading isn't working for me. (To my chagrin, it doesn't necessarily help me know why a story is working for me, but I'll take what I can get.)

On this blog, I try very hard to respect the efforts of other authors by not naming names when something doesn't work for me. I mean, first of all, I'm going to be published myself*, so I don't need to invite that kind of negative karma, but more than that I don't see a flaw in a story as authorial failing so much as I see it in terms of story failure. It's something the editor (or agent) should have caught before letting the story go to press because it's her job to make the book as good as possible before putting it out in the world.

If I, an amateur, with nothing but a big brain and a love of stories can see how and why a book isn't working, surely an editor who is paid to address these things can see it. No, it's not the editor's job to write or re-write the story, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that it's the editor's job to tighten the story and address obvious flaws so that I, the amateur, can't point directly to the problem in a story and say, "this is why it didn't work."

There is no perfect story. There are no perfect authors. We're all just doing the best we can with what we have--be it time, knowledge or resources. It benefits no one for me to stand on my rickety high horse and point to another author and say, "You suck! And let me tell you why..." But I can stand on my reader high horse and say, "When someone (anyone) does that in a story it doesn't work, and let me tell you why..."

Hopefully, the latter approach, given in general terms, can help anyone who reads my tiny little slice of the web see what may or may not be missing in the book they're reading or writing. Thus far I've written about the Character Dump, the Perfect Hero (twice), the Hero Who Isn't Ready**, the Cast of Characters, the Multi-Author Series, Doing Right by Your Character (twice), and Inconsistent World Building (twice), as well as a dozen other little things related to building a good story.

I try to focus my critiques on things that can be avoided and fixed with a bit of attention to detail. I don't get hung up on character names, author names (I still can't believe anyone cares), plot bashing or even cover art. None of these things are about the quality of the story. The thing that I care about is execution. Did they do it right? If they didn't, it's to everyone's benefit to say why.





Currently reading: Wolf Tales IV
Currently reading: Breathing Room
Currently reading: The Reluctant Cinderella
Just about to start: A Hunger Like No Other



*No, I don't know when. I don't have a contract. But I am confident and I'm OWNING it, dammit!
**I broke my rule about not naming names there, but I hope Ms Ward will forgive me as I doubt anything I say will influence her book sales or ever come to her attention.