Tomfoolery

Isn't that word AWESOME! Props to Christie for using it and props to me for stealing it for my own blog post.

I tried to upload an adorable image of an english sheepdog with so much POOF you couldn't see his eyes. Bless his heart. Now I know how Trinity feels about the uploading picture thing.

Okay, so to continue Christie's line of thought from last week, I'm going to talk about sorta the same thing. How amazingly easy it is to pen a novel and get it published and be in LOVE with the entire process!! I mean who doesn't love waiting for months upon months for that 'We really liked your work but..." letter that shatters all your hopes. Are you perched on the edge of your chairs? Don't be...that was completely tongue in cheek and I don't want you to be disappointed in the long run.

Now, let me apologize upfront to my friend who probably won't appreciate being the subject of this discussion but she is a perfect illustration of what Christie was so delicately pointing out.

There are very few people who know I live the secret life of a tortured writer. In a nutshell, I agree with Trinity - it's just easier than having to explain (or in our case - DEFEND) what we are trying to accomplish. Smirks, snide remarks, and basic school yard bullying is just not worth it. But when I'm published, I'll be wearing that badge for all the world to see and God help whoever decides to open their mouth because I have 32 years of pent up anger just waiting to be released.

My friend went to see a multi-published best selling author, one whose books are ALWAYS made into major motion pictures, speak when he was here in town recently. The next day she explained to me how disappointed she was in him. What? Come again. MULTI-PUBLISHED. BEST SELLING. MOVIES. I see nothing to be disappointed in.

She explains that she got the feeling that he just wrote books to have them made into movies. I tried to explain the writing is a business. Oh, sure it can be a hobby, but the truly dedicated souls that slave night after night while their family is off in fairy dream land know, they know, it's one of the most competitive businesses probably in the world.

For most, we write because it is what we are made to do. I wrote my first short story in the third grade. We were asked to write a paper on what would happen if the sun suddenly decided not to shine. I turned in a five page story. FIVE PAGES and I was EIGHT. Why do I remember this? Because later I would realize that was when I knew what I was supposed to do and that was write.

I am sure there are authors who don't give a rats ass about what they are doing, they were somehow blessed with a natural ability to plot and form sentences that make marketable manuscripts, but I bet they are fewer than we think in the fiction world. This particular author might well be one of those few but who cares? When it all comes down, it is still a business.

You write because you can. You publish because you either have a great agent that pushes your work endlessly or when a tired editor happens to read your manuscript while drunk and you sign the contract before she sobers up. I'm kidding, but I think you understand our chances are slim, slim, slim. Luck has to play a huge part.

After you publish, you hope for a movie deal (insert snicker) but you don't wait for that because you are already pounding away on another manuscript that you hope keeps the publisher interested enough to give you some heavy marketing or you end up at a bookstore with only your fellow spanksters alternating autograph requests with sympathy shining in their eyes.

And guess what? You write that next book with the same damn dogged determination that I had when I penned that short story when I was eight. Not because you can, but because you have to. At least for me. It's like OCD. Gotta write. Gotta write. Gotta write.

Sometimes I'm so sick of it I quit. Stop writing for months but I always go back. Because I have a story to tell. Because Muse Bob won't stop nagging about how much time we are wasting reading and blogging and youtubing when we could be producing. And then you go to meetings and hear things like "Five thousand dollar" advance for first time authors and I want to throw my laptop off the roof. Do they know how much time I spent on this thing? Anyone done the math? Is that kind of pay even legal?

It shouldn't be about the money, but how can it not be in the long run? It's a business. I don't live in a village where other people pay my mortgage because I need to finish my manuscript. I'll take that advance but you can damn well bet I'm gonna make sure my next work is worth a hell of a lot more. And more after that.

We can't work two jobs forever, and that's exactly what writing is for me. A second job. I love it (and hate it) but I spend hours a day plotting and planning and penning words that float around in my head all day long.

It all boils down to this for me: don't make a judgement call against a successful author because he has the talent to turn books into movies because then you are judging me.

I have six, seven if you count the trash I wrote in high school, manuscripts. Some complete. Others still in progress. I have a book of poetry I began in middle school. I have a notebook that I literally use rubber bands to hold together full of ideas I may never use.

Yet...

I have never won a contest. I have never been offered a publishing deal. I don't have agents beating down my door throwing Range Rovers in my face begging to represent me.

Until you've walked the world seven times over in my shoes don't tell me what writing should be about. Sometimes I hate the words I've written. Hate the characters I've created but if someone wants to buy something I hate, then heck yeah, I'm gonna be all over it. In less than a heartbeat.

everyone can run

i was glued to the olympics this year. my heart went out to lolo jones when she clipped that last hurdle. i totally understood how she felt in that moment when she fought to get across the finish line. she'd spent four years of her life preparing for a race that lasted 10 seconds. four years. ten seconds. her dream was crushed - just like that.

as i watched track event after track event, the runners made it look so easy because come on, how hard is it to run? most of us can - it's really just a faster version of walking, so how hard is it really to do the 100 meter dash - right? could i run the 100 meter dash? sure. could i run it in less than 30 seconds and without injuring a hamstring? doubtful. the point is yes, i could run it, but it is not my expertise and no coach would ever recruit me to be on the olympic team.

the same concept can be applied to writing romance. we all hear the flack about the genre we love and how "anyone" can whip out one of those little harlequins. ok, those of us on the inside of the romance genre know that is just tomfoolery coming out of their mouths because harlequin is a complicated beast. and if harlequin is complicated then getting published by a NY publisher is a combination of astrophysics and advanced calculus.

publishing a book is NOT easy. anyone can write a book, but not everyone can publish one.

this is what has been on my mind lately. it disturbs me that people think once you have written a book it should be a piece of cake to get it published. we all know that is not true. and, IMO, trying to get published in romance is more difficult than any other type of genre or type of writing. it's tremendously subjective and we are competing with thousands and thousands of writers for one of a few limited spots with a publisher. people who don't read romance - people who have some "false image" of romance don't get what we're trying to accomplish here. people say to me, "well, can't you just try to publish an article in some magazine," or "have you ever heard of something called self-publishing?"

yes, i believe i could publish an article in a magazine - if i switched gears to feature writing. publishing in a magazine requires a different type of writing style, a different type of marketing approach, and i am not interested in doing that at this time. and self-publishing - one of my favorite women's fiction authors started out that way, but that doesn't mean it's right for me. in fact, in our genre we are basically told self-publishing is career suicide. and that's why we're trying to publish a book - because we want a career in romance writing. writing is like any other profession - there are different types of writing. but romance writing is not like any other type of writing. i know most people just don't understand this because they aren't as intimately involved with it as we are, but it bugs me when they just think it should be as easy as pushing that big red EASY button at staples.

maybe romance writers do live in their own universe, but i'm happy where i live and i'll continue to pursue publishing in romance. when people start trying to give me advice about how to publish "faster," i'll listen, but in my head i'll know the truth. that it's not easy to publish, just like it is not easy to run the 100 meter dash. especially when there are lots of hurdles a long the way.

if you can feel me on this, holler.

Sex, Sealing the Deal and Closure

In this day and age modern women don’t have sex and immediately fall in love, right? Okay, I will allow that there are some boiling-rabbits-on-the-stove women still around that associate sex with L-O-V-E, but come on. The generation of today’s youth could give a hippie commune a run for its money.

‘Debbie Does Dallas’ was once a just porn flick I heard about in high school. Turns out Debbie, Ryder, Kendra – and any other name you can think of – not only does Dallas, but then moves on to Ft. Worth and when them pickens are lean…let’s not go there.

Sex in the City says it all. Women are strong. Financially stable. Self confident. And the word SLUT just doesn’t have the same connotation that it once carried. Unless you live in a small town, and like Miranda Lambert says: “everybody dies famous in a small town,” so you have to earn a rep somehow.

Here’s the deal. I’m reading through a work in progress and I’m struggling to write anything. Just staring at the blinking cursor and wishing like hell my enter key was missing and my shift button was stuck – because it would give me something to do. I’m reading a love scene. Wait, is that old fashioned? EEEK!!! I mean SEX, sex scene. And it occurs to me that perhaps this is why I pull my hair out, screech and moan when it comes to writing the end of a manuscript.

I know I’m not making sense but just hang in there a second. In the world of romance novels, once a woman has sex with a man she is either destined to be one of three things:

1. The horribly killed off ex-wife
2. The incredibly bitter ex-wife, girlfriend, etc…etc…
3. The heroine

It occurs to me as I’m moving my eyes over the text I have written that perhaps that’s why I am so incredibly horrid when it comes to closing a book. Because in my tiny little brain when the sex is happening – that’s it.

They’re together.

Sure, you can throw in some twists and turns, stage the HUGE BLACK moment when they are ripped apart – but guess what? They get back together. Because that’s how it works in novels of the romantic nature.

Sex. Fight. Confess Love. The End.

And sometimes you get an epilogue that shows the reader how splendidly happy they are five years down the road with devishly handsome twin boys and a house with a white picket fence.

I feel so cynical. Like I’m taking something away from the hours we are slaves to the keyboard clicking out those intricate plots and character flaws. But I’m not trying to be. Just sharing a conflict that is becoming increasingly difficult for me to overcome.

I’ve been aware of it for a while, talked about it at some of our meetings but I don’t know what to do about it. I discovered tonight that it takes away from the emotional attachment I feel toward my characters. Oh great, they went and did it. FUBAR’d the whole shebang with the having of the sex.

Perhaps I’ll just go back to the days of “Insert Sex Scene Here” and move along knowing that they had sealed the deal but convincing myself that since I hadn’t really written the scene – it hadn’t actually happened.

Right. And Debbie decided she liked Dallas and didn’t have the energy to take on Fort Sill.

Sorry. I can’t keep the military references out…it’s an annoying new habit. Along with the thumbs up thing.

Where's Bigfoot when you need him?

Remember the movie ‘Predator’ with Arnold S.? He was chased through the jungle and swamps by an alien hell-bent on annihilating him or becoming his new best friend. One or the other.

That was me last week. Except I wasn’t being pursued by a 7 foot tall invisible alien. I was being hunted by a herd of 4 foot tall 11 year olds. Hunted might be too strong a word, except in my nightmares where they're chasing me through the woods looking for guidance and GoldFish Crackers.

We were at CAMP. One of the most hated words in the English language. Hated by me at least. I am not a camper. I’ve wanted to be a lot of things. Vanna White mostly. But I’ve never, ever wanted to be a camper.

Anyway, that’s what we did. The whole class at the kiddo’s school packed up and headed off to ‘Happy Cheerful Fun Camp’. We packed and packed and packed. Because even though we had to pay A LOT for camp they didn’t actually provide anything in the cabins. No towels, no sheets, no pillows, no paper towels, no refrigerator, no life size blow up George Clooney doll. If you wanted any of that stuff then you had to pack it yourself. When hubby saw the loaded down SUV he said, “How long will you be gone? A month? Did you leave any paper towels or toilet paper for me?” I don’t think that was actual panic in his voice, I’m sure it was concern for mine and the kiddo’s wellbeing.

After driving several hours to ‘Happy Freakin' Fun Camp’ we arrive and get to unload all the crap wedged into the SUV. The other moms and I drag the gallons of sunscreen and bug spray down the hill to our circa 1940’s cabin. Everything must be brought in and put somewhere. 20 sleeping bags, 25 duffle bags, several tote bags etc. Apparently none of us travel light.

When we first saw our tiny cabin the teacher said, “Look, you have a view of the lake.”
I don’t know what she was talking about because the windows facing the lake were 6 feet above our heads. We’d have to pole vault onto the ceiling fans to see anything out of those bug-caked windows. And the other windows were blocked by 16 bunk beds. View? Don’t think so.

The chaperones had to climb a LADDER to get to our sleeping loft. All of our stuff had to be hauled up and down the ‘Ladder of Death.’ The bathroom was on the first level so if you needed to go in the middle of the night, the process involved putting on flip-flops (the floor was filthy) and climbing down an 8 foot ladder in the dark while holding a flashlight. There were 8 rungs down to the floor. I tried to count them off: One…two…three…slip,thud, thud, thud, slam. Well, I made it down.

The schedule given to us by the camp counselors showed that 10:00 pm was ‘Lights Out.’ This sounded good to me. And if they hadn’t kept us out until 9:45 making the kids do some intricate clapping exercises then we might have made it to bed by 10:00.
Unless our kids grow up and join the circus or work with trained seals, I don’t know how that much clapping is going to help.

We had 20 people and 4 showers. Lights didn’t go ‘out’ until midnight, and that was after a lot of crying and whining ….some of the kids were upset too.

Some of the moms had really involved hair and beauty regimens that could NOT be skipped. At first I thought that was a waste of time but then I realized, if Bigfoot broke into the cabin, he’d take the primped and coiffed moms and leave the rest of us behind.

Although, by the third day we were all so exhausted from the freakishly happy clapping and overly cheerful counselors, that I would have thrown myself at Bigfoot’s mercy and begged him to drag me off into the woods, if I could just get some sleep. I guess he had the week off because there wasn’t one sighting of the big lazy lug.

We spent days and days (Well, 3 days, which felt like a month) applying buckets of sunscreen and enduring clouds of bug spray. FYI bug spray does not taste as good as you might think. There was a truck load of tears, lost contacts, hurt feelings, and several injuries.

On the last day, I was so tired I couldn’t even eat lunch so I just tried to get as much caffeine and sugar down to make the drive home. To sanctuary. And clean showers.

But something amazing happened as we drove out of the parking lot of “Happy @#$%^ Camp”. I had a renewal of energy. I felt positively giddy! I hadn’t been that happy since we made our great escape from Canada. I wanted to sing songs and share my euphoria, but since the other moms looked they were about to club me over the head I kept it to myself. Mostly.

P.S. The kids had a great time and everyone made it back safely.

The Monkey Dog Strikes Back

We have these two dogs that live with us. The first dog came here about four years ago. I was innocently dropping books off at the library one day and when I came home the kiddo had talked her dad into going to the SPCA to ‘look’ at the dogs. So we all piled into the SUV and headed to the shelter.

We’d been having this ‘get a dog – don’t get a dog’ discussion for quite a while. Hubby and I were in the camp of ‘don’t get a dog.’ (The previous dog had died of old age a couple of years earlier and we weren’t ready to take care of another one.)

At the shelter the kiddo picks out a little Chihuahua type dog and we take it into the ‘Get Acquainted Room’ to, you know, get acquainted. The little dog runs around the room once, comes straight over to me and I’m thinking ‘Oh how sweet! He likes me.’ and in the next instant the thing hikes his leg and pees on my purse. Little creep.

Out he goes and we start the process of looking in all the cages again. In one cage is the strangest looking dog I’ve ever seen. Its legs are 3 inches long and its body is about 2 feet long. It has the head of a wolf with huge Dorito chip ears. One of the dog’s eyes is ice blue and the other one is marbled blue and brown. Its coat is a mottled gray, black and brown and the tail is long and shaggy. It was the saddest looking dog ever. I’m a sucker for big sad eyes and I thought that if we didn’t adopt that dog nobody else would. (And he didn’t pee on my purse. That’s always a good sign.)

So we have that dog for a while and he’s a sweet dog. He’s got a few health issues and he’s gained some weight and he never really was a lapdog anyway. The kiddo has decided we need a lapdog. A dog we can hold and carry around in a purse. And hey, who doesn’t need a dog they can put in a purse and carry around? Apparently, purse dogs aren’t just for crazy people anymore.

We load up in the SUV again and head to the dog place. This time we see this rat like monkey looking dog thing. Uh oh. Another weird looking dog that needs a home. It’s small. Tiny really. So it meets the purse requirement. And it’s lively. It’ll play and chase toys which our other dog won’t do at all.

It was a little difficult in the beginning because dog no. 1 (We’ll call him Comet.) wasn’t thrilled with a new addition to the family. He was happy with the way things were and didn’t see the need to bring some rat/dog thing into the house.

But Comet doesn’t get to vote and evidently we’re suckers for rat-dogs. The only problem is this dog is not a dog at all. It’s a puppy! Comet was 2 years old when we got him. He has never done anything more than lie around and roll over to have his belly scratched.

The puppy has more energy than a case of Red Bull. She chews. On everything. The wood trim. The coffee table. My COMPUTER cord. :(

Thank goodness she’s cute. That’s the only thing that has saved her life on several occasions. (Just kidding. Sort of.)

We’ve had the puppy (We’ll call her Clara.) for about 4 months and we’re working on several issues with her. House breaking issues, chewing on everything issues and the waking me up in the middle of the night issues. She seems to have some sort of weird internal clock that goes off at 2:00 am and suddenly it’s ‘playtime.’

Last week she went to the vet and got spayed. The poor little thing looked traumatized when we brought her home. She had this look on her face that said, “You will NOT believe what happened to me today!”

But she got over that quickly and was back to terrorizing Comet by latching onto his jowls and making him drag her around. She had a couple of stitches from the surgery and was due to get those removed yesterday. So I let the dogs go outside then loaded Clara up for the trip to the vet.

We’re about a ½ mile down the street and Clara’s in the back of the SUV jumping on the seat then in the floorboard over and over. Next she’s standing on her back legs and clawing the heck out of the console, wanting in the front. I’m driving and can’t pick her up so I’m ignoring her pleas. Suddenly, a terrible smell crawls out from the back area and almost knocks me out. Oh no! Please let her just have gas. She’s frantic to get into the front and I know why. She’s made the rest of the car uninhabitable. Uuuugh. At the next red light I twist around, look behind my seat, and sure enough. She’s left an unwanted present on the floorboard. Yuck.

Dogs may be a man’s best friend, but this ‘friendship’ may kill me.

Anyone want to buy a slightly used SUV? How about a rat/monkey/dog?

here's some positive media attention-FACE!

what man wouldn't adore a small-town girl

who can bait her own hook and catch a winner like this?

i love it. ammo shots instead of glamour shots!

bikers for palin.

good-looking hero. hot, smart, trailblazing, assertive, multitasking heroine.

and, palin's got a degree in journalism, which means she's got dang good grammar skills.

WOMEN REPRESENT

this is NOT an official endorsement of The Spanksters. the comments listed above reflect the opinion of the author only.

Gasp, wheeze, gasp....Is that an inhaler in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?

If you read my blog about escaping from Canada then you know that we were vacationing in Montana. I think it’s called Big Sky Country. Or maybe that’s another state, I’m not sure. But it is very beautiful.

We saw tons of wildlife. Mountain goats, rams, moose, grizzly bears, chipmunks, ground squirrels and some sort of animal that looks similar to a beaver but I can’t remember it’s name.

And even though Montana is beautiful, the accommodations in the National park were less comfortable than how I would imagine a prison cell to be.

The overhead light sported a bulb in the 3 watt range and had the dim, dingy yellow cast one would expect in an insane asylum built at the turn of the century. It was designed to turn the merely insane into the criminally insane.

If you’ve ever stretched out on a sidewalk then you know what the beds felt like. And they were covered with sheets in the luxurious thread count range of 30 or 40. If the wind and sun hadn’t already exfoliated the top 3 layers of your skin off, the sheets certainly would.

The shower was smaller than an average coffin on end and had two water temps. Freezing and boiling. Take your pick because you can’t have both.

I nearly died the first day we were there. Hubby wanted to hike up the side of a mountain. A very STEEP mountain. The path was about 20 inches wide with a sheer drop. I’m not a hiker and have never dreamed of being one. But anyway, up the side of the mountain we all go. I’m gasping and wheezing, sucking on my inhaler every few steps. I have a walking stick, which sounds helpful, except that it’s one of those expandable/retractable kind and it keeps trying to retract into its 2 foot length.

Hubby, who is ever so helpful, keeps reminding us to ‘make noise so that the Grizzly bears will be scared off.’ I’m beginning to wonder if we’re scaring them off or just making it easier for them to locate their lunch.

Hubby also keeps pointing out how beautiful everything is, the flowers, the waterfalls, the trees.

Hubby -- “Look! See that waterfall over there? And that one 5 feet to left of that one and the one 3 feet to the left of that one? And that one right above us and that one over there? Aren’t they beautiful?”

Me -- gasp, wheeze, “Uh—uhhhh.”

Hubby -- “Hey, look! There’s another one! And see those 3 over there?!”

Me -- gasp, wheeze, gasp.

Hubby -- “Did you see that waterfall down there?!”

Me -- gasp, “Uh—uhhh,” gasp.

I can barely breathe. There’s no air up in those mountains. My vision is turning black from the lack of oxygen. I’m sure that my body is starting to shut down from oxygen deprivation and my darling hubby is going on and on about the waterfalls. If I had enough breath left to actually speak I’d say, “Yes! I see the *^$# waterfall! You can’t swing a dead cat around here without hitting a freakin’ beautiful waterfall!!!!!”

We FINALLY get to the top. Although it’s not really the top because the trail is closed off part way up due to avalanches. (Thank goodness.) So we get as far up as we can and sit down on some rocks to eat the snacks we’d brought. (FYI: There’s no Starbuck’s up there. Anywhere.)

And the ground squirrels around there are BRAVE! Not afraid of humans (or partially dead humans in my case) at all. They run right up to anyone with food. I nearly had to wrestle my cheese puffs away from one of the little buggers.

And as we’re sitting there and hubby is euphoric with the scenery and the wildlife and the *&^%* waterfalls, I realized something.

We have to walk ALL THE WAY BACK DOWN that stupid MOUNTAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!