I’ve been out of the country and just got back to see that today is my blog day, that I owe taxes and the Yankee’s first game is in the fourth inning.
Enough said about taxes.
But baseball is a whole other nother. I managed to travel and turn in my next Brava manuscript on time. It’s tentatively called Who’s Playing the Field? And it’s about a baseball player. A pitcher who is retiring and a young female sports writer. Think Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy adapted for Brava’s sizzling love scenes. Now, I don’t love everything about baseball players, especially the scratching, spitting and chin hair thing. but I love that they’re loyal to family and the community and know the importance of teamwork.
So I decided to try one for a romantic hero. And I ended up loving him myself. I haven’t been a big sports fan since my college days, but I’m definitely getting into them again. So See ya! I’m going to watch the end of the game.

Anybody else think athletes are hot?

I just got back from Barcelona. It was a lovely city. The weather was great. The architecture was heavenly. There was nothing gaudy about Antoni Gaudi’s Casa Batllo or the Segrada Familia, his famous unfinished cathedral.

But down on the streets, I was surprised and even more pleased to see romance books at every newspaper kiosk. And not just any romance. The majority were books by American authors translated into Spanish.

Several of the newsstands had wire carousels filled with Harlequin-Silhouettes. Lisa Kleypas’s new book was face forward along with the important newspapers from around the world. Nora and several others were prominently displayed.

I’m not usually a big flag waver, but in this case I sent a heart felt thank-you to all the American romance writers who are spreading love and good will and the chance of happily ever after to people everywhere.

Hooray for Romance.

It’s the middle of February and we just had our first “snow” day last week. Schools were closed. No one was on the roads.
In the scheme of snow days, it was a bust. I live in New Jersey where six inches is a piece of cake. (I hear you chortling.) Twelve inches is a “Snow Day”. What we got last week was barely an inch with a freezing rain glaze.
Puny, but I’m always grateful for a snow day, especially one where you don’t have to shovel. I’d just finished correcting the galleys of my next mystery, and I’d finished the first draft of my next Brava book several days before. So far, It’s titled, Who’s Playing the Field? It’s about a baseball player and a sports journalist. Think Hepburn and Tracy but contemporary, young, hip and hot. I was tempted to get started on the edit, but I really need a few weeks off before I can approach an edit with a clear mind.
So I did the next best snow day thing. My daughter and I scraped the ice off the car windows and drove to the mall. No lines, no one in a hurry. The clerks were actually glad to see us. We had a blast. Then we took ourselves out to lunch.
Now this isn’t something that happens often, spending the day with your seventeen year old with lots of mutual oohs and ahs at the shoe selection without one argument.
Of course, as soon as we got home, she disappeared into her room to IM for the rest of the day. I picked up a romance and curled up on the couch. Another thing that doesn’t happen often these days. Seems with all the writing, it’s hard to schedule reading for pleasure.
I guess I’ll have to thank that puny snow day for the opportunity to kick back and enjoy. What do you do on those snowy winter days? What kinds of books make you feel warm and toasty?

Did anybody watch Angels Fall on Lifetime Monday night? They’re doing four Nora Roberts stories for the next few Mondays.

I thought it was a really good adaptation. I’ve worked in film and it’s a committee project. The last movie I worked on had 19 versions of the script. Everyone puts in their two cents worth and I always find it amazing that the director somehow meshes it into a story that works.

I’m amazed at how they can distill a book of hundreds of pages into two hours with commercials.

I’m glad more books are being made into television movies and feature films. I love the medium. But I have to admit, for me, nothing comes close to the long, drawn out, nail-biting suspense of page turning.

Because as effective as those collage-like fast edits are, they don’t have that slow, gut wrenching suspense that the written word creates. It’s a different kind of experience. One that speeds you through the story, not giving you time to breathe except during the commercials. Then before you know it, you’re watching Will and Grace.

(Could anybody read those credits at the end? They went by so fast, that I had to look up the actors on the internet.)

The camera can collapse action or flashback into a few seconds, while we slowly world build word after word, page after page.

Two different media, two different ways of expressing the same thing. Is one better than the other, or is it apples and oranges?

I’d just finished listening to Angels Fall on audio books, just for the flow of the language, something that you miss in the shorter, visual version. And yet it did capture the essence of the story. And there was some wonderful scenery.

But I’m still undecided. What do you think? Is a picture worth a thousand words?

I’m lucky really. I work at home surrounded by my favorite books. Stacks of them. At least I’m sure they’ll be my favorites as soon as I get a chance to read them all. Somehow, my to-read stack has turned into three. They’re so tall now that they are in danger of toppling over, burying my desk, my lap top and maybe even me.
The titles are eclectic. Don’t seem to follow a pattern. I guess that makes me a smidgeon reader. A smidgeon of historical. A smidgeon of romantic suspense, a smidgeon of vampires, though I tend to like my vampires on the light side. Since I also write traditional mysteries under a different name, I like a little mystery with my romance, but it isn’t necessary.
My latest romance, Who Wants To Be A Sex Goddess came out a few weeks ago. It’s about a Hollywood stuntwoman and a government agent, sent on separate missions to a goddess retreat, one to find her missing aunt, the other to solve a murder. Lots of goofy stuff happens, (I mean she’s a stuntwoman) and the two of them really get it on. When the reviews came out, and thank goodness they were good, some reviewers categorized it as romantic comedy, some said romantic suspense, some contemporary. And I thought, hmmm. What is it?
I thought of it sort of like a fun, action-adventure-romantic comedy thing. But it made me started thinking about the books I’ve read lately, trying to figure why I liked them (or didn’t) and attempting to categorize them. With some it was easy, with others, not so.
I guess there are as many reasons to buy or borrow a book as there are readers. And different readers can get really different takes on the same book. Sounds pretty obvious right?
But I look at my towering to-read stacks and can’t remember why I bought some of them except they sounded interesting. Was it the cover, the author, the back cover blurb? Reviews I’d read? Recommendations, genre? Whim? I’m guessing it’s a little bit of everything with me. That smidgeon thing again.
So I’m wondering does anybody out there have a system for buying/borrowing/reading romances? Or do you just go to the store /on line/ library and pick up what’s interesting? How tall is your to-read stack?

I’m not good at making resolutions. I know how hard it is to keep them.

But when you’ve uncorked the champagne, watched the ball drop in Times Square, even if it is only on television, and herded everyone onto the porch to watch fireworks over the Hudson River, you think, Wow. I can do it. Start the new year with a clean slate. And while I’m at it, I’ll use fireworks in my next love scene.

But this year I decided to make a resolution I can keep. And in the tradition of KISS (Keep it simple stupid) I only made one. A very logical one that didn’t include not eating chocolate, or cleaning house when I’m on deadline.

Here’s my resolution. I will sit down to my computer and approach writing in a calm and professional way. I’ll still let myself drop tears over my heroine’s broken heart. I’ll laugh at my hero’s stupid jokes. But I will not—will not—FREAK OUT over the progress of my story. Will not PANIC over deadlines.

Anybody else already broken your New Year’s Resolution?

Here’s how I did. I love my new story and my new characters. J.T. is a young female sportswriter doing a human interest story on a minor league baseball team. Tommy’s a major league pitcher whose career is shorten by an injury. He’s come home to open a community sports center for low income kids.

I love them both. I even love the story. And that doesn’t always happen right away.
They’re both admirable, honest, lovable people. They find each other attractive. They’re interested in each other. I know they’re going to live happily ever after—eventually. But it’s page 94 and they haven’t even kissed.
I’ve been pushing them at each other for days, and yesterday, less than twenty four hours after my resolution, I lost it.

I yelled at them. “What’s wrong with you people? This is A Brava book. Kiss her already. I swear the two of them looked out of that computer screen and said, “Mind your own business, we’re getting to it.”

“But you are my business!”

I didn’t hear their answer to that because at that point my daughter stuck her head in my office door and said, “Are you calling me?”

Oops. I realized not only that J.T. and Tommy were right, but that I had made another resolution that was impossible to keep.

Life isn’t about always staying aloof and logical and trying to orchestrate events to suit yourself. Sometimes you have to jump in with both feet, embrace life with everything you’ve got, laugh and cry and even yell a little, maybe take that road less traveled.

So I have to say to J.T. and Tommy. Thanks guys. I’ll hang in there and see if you get to that kiss on your own or whether I might just have to give you a push.

Anybody else make a resolution that you couldn’t—maybe shouldn’t — keep. Better still, did anyone make a resolution they could keep?

Don’t you wish someone would figure out how to design a purse so that you could always find just what you needed when you needed it. Things would never get lost under the wallet, the check book, the makeup case, the Kleenex, the gum, the extra lipstick, the coupons . . . What we need is a purse that could read our minds. A telepathic purse. Yeah. You’d think Cell Phone and it would rise above all the other stuff and float into your hand.

It seems that no matter how many times I organize, whatever I’m looking for is always on the bottom, or has disappeared completely into that black hole known as “the bottom of the bag.”

The thing I can’t find most often is a pen, which is annoying enough, but when you’re a writer, it can really be a disaster. Take today for example. I’m standing in the aisle at Staples considering buying an extra ink cartridge when WHAM!!! I have a fantastic idea.

As we all know, fantastic ideas don’t last long before they disappear into mental region comparable to the bottom of the bag. I quickly reached into my purse for pen and paper to capture it before it got away. Now normally the first thing I do when I buy a new hand bag is sew a piece of elastic in it to clip all my pens and pencils to. That way I can always find them when a great idea strikes.

But hey, it’s the holidays and I saw this cute purse in between two crazy deadlines, not to mention all the parties and the soccer dinner and . . . I bought it. I didn’t get around to sewing in my pencil holder.

Big Mistake.

So there I am with probably the best idea ever, surrounded by shelves of pens and paper and I’m frantically pulling things out of my purse, looking for that elusive writing instrument.

A clerk walks up and says, “Can I help you?” And poof! Simultaneously, I find my pen and lose my idea.

The first thing I did when I got home was sew in my elastic.

Now I’m ready in case my great idea comes back. Maybe someday if I’m really lucky, I’ll find it on the bottom of my purse.

Anybody have some purse organization tips?

I was at my aerobics class yesterday, doing that last minute burst of Make-room-for-the-pumpkin-pie shuffle, and wishing there was a machine you could plug yourself into to get in shape. You know, like you step out of the shower and while you’re drying your hair with one hand, you could stick the index finger of your other hand into a socket and ten minutes later you’d come out of the bathroom coifed and buff.

Alas.

The instructor booted up the music. She’s always really perky, which is good when you’ve just sat for three hours at a computer and feel like your bod’s stuck in the H position. Yesterday, she played a mix of jazzed up show tunes, starting with “A Few Of My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music. That’s another thing I like about my aerobics class. They don’t play those loud, make it burn cds. And everybody wears sweats or spandex warm ups and not those little leopard print thong leotards. Those leotards are another good reason for inventing an instant exercise machine.

So I’m stepping, hopping, kicking along to the music and singing along with as many words as I can remember, and my mind starts wandering into my own favorite things. Mind wandering is also good for keeping your attention off the number of knee lifts you have to do before the end of the song.

I have to admit that aerobics is one of my favorite things. Especially when it’s over and I feel like I can now have lunch and sit down at the computer in better shape than when I left it an hour or so before.

But it isn’t just physically. Sometimes my thoughts and ideas get stuck and just need shaking up a bit. Literally. And shaking it up with music makes it fun.

I have a lot of favorite things and most of them are people and places. Even my favorite things are simple and free. Which is good. And since tomorrow is Thanksgiving, it seems like a perfect time to think about my favorite things and be thankful.

So before I run off to my last aerobics class, (Actually, today is Total Toning, an optimistic name if ever there was one.) I want to wish us all a happy and safe Thanksgiving!

What are some of your favorite things?

Why do villains come out at holidays?

This past week in my neighborhood, the Halloween decorations came down and the Thanksgiving or Christmas/Hanukah decorations went up.
And so it seems did a few bad attitudes.

At the soccer game, the coach yelled at his team, (I mean really yelled) the father sitting a bleacher down from me kept yelling at the referee, and two others were yelling at each other. Hardly festive or good sportsmanship.

The man at the gas station was so nasty when I asked him to change a fuse in my dashboard, that I told him to forget it and drove down the street to another station where I’ll be buying gas from now on.

The guy at the car dealership didn’t return my call because he knew he was going to have to replace a part.

Now this isn’t really about people who were mean last week, but got me to wondering why they converged just as I was feeling all turkey and mistletoe.

I have two handy ways of dealing with real life villains. 1. I write them down on an index card and file them away for later use. Or 2. (And I love this one.) I pull up a new document, type “Nasty man at the gas station” then push the delete button. (Very satisfying and it isn’t illegal.)

So as soon as I finished deleting the gas station attendant, I got to thinking about holiday villains and how unlike real life villains our story villains can be, thank goodness. In fiction we can imagine them however we want. From the worst to the most lovable and redeemable. Especially when they’re holiday villains.

Take the Grinch. What a great character. And don’t you love the song? “You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch.”?

And my favorite, Ebenezer Scrooge a la Dickens. I read the story every year. And watch the Alistair Sim movie every Christmas Eve when everyone else has gone to bed and I’m wrapping presents. And the Muppet version? Can’t get enough of it.

And think of all the spin off scrooge type films and television specials.

I guess the nice thing about lovable villains is that they were miscast as villains in the first place and really only need understanding, a miracle, love or a ghost or two to make them what they should really be.

I like a villain to have at least a seed of goodness and I like to read and write stories where the bad guy might someday become the good guy if he ever gets his own book.

Does anyone else have a favorite villain?

Yesterday, I ran out to a local fabric and crafts store to buy some Halloween decorations for an event this coming weekend. I walked in the front door to Poinsettias, Angels, and lots of red ribbon. People were lined up at the cashier with artificial wreaths, Santa fabric, and cinnamon potpourri.
I waited my turn and asked the clerk, “Where are the Halloween things?”
Oh,” she said. “Back in the sale section.” She pointed toward the back of the store. I made my way through aisles of calico, polyester and acetate and finally found the orange and black stuff.
And “Voila,” Everything was 40-70% off. And they had everything I needed. And it was still a week before Halloween.
Now I’m an outliner when it comes to writing books. I know the importance of getting my plot points in order. But I do life by the seat of my pants. This is one of the few times I’ve felt like I was being rewarded for being disorganized.
Even so, I found myself wandering through the Christmas section. I didn’t buy anything. I’ll be the one running out a week before Christmas looking for lights.
I wonder what they’ll be getting ready for then?
Do you ever feel like it’s all going too fast? Wouldn’t you like to have time to stop and smell the pumpkins?