Don't pet me, I'm writing

Did I forget my pants?

2012-01-27T02:30:00.000-08:00

Do you ever have that dream where you show up to work and discover you've forgotten your pants?

I love that dream.

OK, truthfully, I've never had it. That's probably because running around naked in public doesn't crack the top 100 on my list of things I fear. Then again, my most common recurring dream is one where all my teeth fall out. Does that point to some deeply held dental phobia?

Now I'm thinking about running around with no pants and no teeth and wondering if this would be a really excellent concept for a sci-fi movie, and I've totally forgotten the point of this blog post.

Which was supposed to be that even though I don't live in fear of forgetting my pants, I do often jolt awake at midnight thinking, did I forget to blog?

I did. Sort of. It's not the middle of the night – it's actually only 5:20 p.m. – but I'm dashing off to book club for a late night of ~~drinking too much wine~~ discussing literary theology, and I just remembered I haven't scheduled a post for tomorrow. Since I have a longstanding policy of never blogging after ~~drinking too much wine~~ discussing literary theology, I'm coming up empty handed.

There's a filthy joke in there somewhere with that last line, so feel free to make it. Or feel free to share your weirdest recurring dream, particularly if it's about lost pants or missing teeth or maybe a gargoyle who eats a baloney sandwich before donning a purple tutu and winning the Portland Marathon.

Because that would be cool.

This might be the worst post ever.

It may not look hard, but it feels good

2012-01-26T02:30:00.000-08:00

I have the best day job on the planet.

I get paid to take journalists out for fancy lunches, or to escort people on beer-drinking adventures around the Bend Ale Trail. I've gone ice skating, snowshoeing, bloody mary tasting, camping, mac-n-cheese sampling, hiking, standup paddleboarding, and bar hopping – all required by my job in marketing/PR for my city's tourism bureau.

I love my job. But there are times I feel guilty.

There's been some PR chaos this week, and since I only work part-time, my attention has been spread thin. Tuesday evening, I checked my calendar and groaned (not in the fun way). My entire Wednesday was blocked off for a tour of local farms, ranches, and wineries specializing in organic and sustainable practices.

In other words, I'd be paid to spend the day petting animals, eating amazing food, and drinking wine. Not exactly a hardship.

But I worried about it. Could I spare a whole day with so much real work on my plate? Would my boss consider it a waste of time? Would my co-workers envy my day of play and band together to give me a wedgie in the break room?

I considered canceling, but since I'm already contracted to write a freelance article on the experience, I decided to go.

Good thing.

Yes, the day was fun. It felt great to get out of the office and suck down fresh air, good food, and great wine. I had fun petting the animals. On a scale of 1-10, my stress level was minus-3.

But it was also one of the best learning experiences I've had in a long time.

Hello, I'm an alpaca. Want some socks?

In seven hours, I packed my brain full of useful information about culinary tourism. I learned the differences between grain-fed and grass-fed beef, and which local restaurants are best suited to food critics who prefer one over the other. I visited one of the nation's largest alpaca breeding operations, and discovered the most amazing alpaca-fleece ski socks to suggest to winter sports enthusiasts. I saw rabbits and turkeys and pigs and goats in an enormous petting zoo I never knew existed, but I'll now recommend to tourists with young kids.

Sure, it seems like I spent the day eating and playing. In a way, I did. But you can be damn sure I'm more equipped to do my job than I would have been if I'd skipped the tour and written press releases until the dullness of my own prose rendered me unconscious and drooling on my keyboard.

This is something I need to remind myself constantly as a fiction writer. For the average debut author, there's a never-ending list of blog posts to write, email to answer, and manuscripts screaming for fresh words.

Still, I spent last Sunday afternoon snuggled under the covers with my gentleman friend eating pizza, skimming cookbooks, and talking.

That might be only a partial list of activities. Regardless, it was time spent connecting with another human being. A human being I'm quite fond of, as you might imagine.

Hard to argue that's not time well spent for someone who writes novels about love and laughter and the human experience.

It's taken me a long time to reach a point in life where I don't feel a constant need to be productive. Just because I'm not parked in front of my computer doesn't mean I'm not working. Just because I'm not cranking out media pitches or chapters in a novel doesn't mean I'm not supporting my career.

And just because it doesn't look like work doesn't mean it's not the most valuable thing I could possibly be doing with my time.

Now if you'll excuse me, there's a glass of wine with my name on it. What? It's research.

So who won the Kindle? (drumroll, please)

2012-01-25T02:30:00.000-08:00

I'm thrilled with all the fabulous participation from readers hoping to win a Kindle loaded with all four "active fiction" launch titles from Coliloquy!

Thanks so much to all of you who commented, tweeted, blogged, Facebook posted, sent photos, and tattooed the Coliloquy logo on your butt cheeks (though, alas, we had to disqualify several who placed the tattoo on the right cheek instead of the left).

I'm going to pretend at least some of your enthusiasm is for my book, Getting Dumped, as opposed to just the free Kindle.

Some of you opted to perform the photo task as part of your entry criteria, and I laughed myself silly over these entries:

Allie Sanders got into the spirit of Getting Dumped by borrowing her nephew's hardhat and dump truck. I'm assuming the lovely handbag is hers?

Caitlin Whitaker missed out on a contest I held several months ago inviting readers to reenact the cover for my debut novel, Making Waves. She decided to make up for it by creating a Making Waves-inspired parody for Getting Dumped. I'm just hoping that garbage can was clean. Oh, and that she knows the guy she's in there with.

Sprouting Acorn (aka Lynnanne) opted to reenact a bit of the actual cover for Getting Dumped (complete with a personal note pleading for the Kindle!)

Suzy Brown embraced the designer handbag theme in Getting Dumped. She assured us these were just the bags she happened to have with her at work. JJ and Lori (the handbag-adoring heroines from Getting Dumped) would be so impressed!

I decided to let the wonderful folks at Coliloquy choose a winner, since they're the ones providing the Kindle and all. They carefully reviewed all the entries and developed a technologically advanced selection method involving a Sun Netra E1 PCI System Expander, an ATI Radeon 7200, and a quart of mayonnaise.

Congratulations to Caitlin Whitaker! You're the proud owner of a brand new Kindle loaded with all four "active fiction" launch titles from Coliloquy. Email me at tawnafenske at yahoo dot com with your snail mail address and I'll have Coliloquy get your Kindle out to you ASAP.

In case you missed it, I posted the first chapter of Getting Dumped on the blog yesterday. If you want to keep reading, visit Amazon to pick up your own copy (and a Kindle, if you don't happen to have one.

Thanks, everyone, for playing! You guys rock!

Last chance for a free Kindle! (Plus an excerpt from GETTING DUMPED)

2012-01-24T02:30:00.000-08:00

It's been a week since Coliloquy launched its new line of "active fiction" titles, including my romantic caper, Getting Dumped.

We've been thrilled with all the buzz, and articles like this one calling these new choose-your-own-adventure stories, "the future of reading."

Not a bad thing to be part of as a writer, and kinda fun for readers, too.

You still have a few hours left to win the FREE KINDLE loaded with all four Coliloquy launch titles (Getting Dumped included, of course).

In case you missed last week's post that explained the contest details, here's the rundown:

There are several ways you can enter to win. Want more than one entry? Do more than one thing!

Tweet your heart out! If you're a Twitter user, compose a tweet stating why you want Getting Dumped. Be sure to include @coliloquy and/or @tawnafenske so you get credit.
About Face! Are you a Facebook fan? Put up a post explaining why you want a free Kindle, a copy of Getting Dumped, and maybe a pony.
Blog it, baby. Got a blog of your own? Write about us! Share what you think is cool about Coliloquy, why you want to read Getting Dumped, or how you share my not-so-secret fantasy of ditching the day job to crush garbage with heavy equipment.
Review me! Are you one of the folks who's already read Getting Dumped but want to win for a friend? Review the book on Amazon! Bonus points for positive reviews! (Kidding. Not really).
Share the love! Visit my fabulous agent's blog and leave a comment letting her know I sent you and that you desperately, urgently want to win the Kindle.
Capture the moment. Snap a funny photo with some Getting Dumped significance. Like maybe a picture of you beside a piece of heavy equipment. Or a picture of you with a great handbag. Or a picture of you holding the great handbag while driving a bulldozer over the top of a guy who just got busted for selling counterfeit handbags. Use your imagination and make us laugh! You can send pics to tawnafenske at yahoo dot com.

Your name will be entered in the drawing one time for each of those tasks. Do one, or do them all! It's a regular DO IT fest! (snicker)

Whatever you do, leave a comment on this blog alerting us exactly which entry tasks you've performed. We'll love you forever if you include links, user names, Twitter handles, or any info that makes it easy for us to see what you're saying.

The contest will be open through 5 p.m. PST on Tuesday, January 24. I'll choose a winner and post the pics the next day.

***

We've gotten lots of great entries, including some hilarious photos, but there's still plenty of time to enter. Be sure to visit the original post to leave your comment about which tasks you've performed. We'll announce the winner on tomorrow's blog.

And now, just to whet your appetite, here's a teaser of the first chapter from Getting Dumped...

When I was a little girl playing in my uncle’s sand and gravel lot, my life’s ambition was to drive a dump truck. Or maybe a front-end loader.

It began with the usual childhood fantasies about Tonka trucks, but morphed into a bit more when I spent my teenaged summers hauling dirt and digging trenches to earn money for college and designer handbags. While my peers nursed their teen angst with Seagram’s wine coolers, I relieved mine smashing boulders in a Magnum 30 Rock Crusher.

But none of the women in Cosmo wore hard hats with their designer suits, so I eventually decided I needed a real job. I was hazy on the specifics but knew a real job involved a framed college diploma on the wall, a comprehensive dental plan, and an excellent shoe collection.

It did not involve a hard hat.

I got myself a marketing degree and a great job in the public relations department for Albright County, thirty miles from Portland, Oregon. The position came with an excellent government benefits package and a chance to wear tailored skirts to important meetings. I wrote marketing plans and ad copy. I enjoyed a forbidden office romance with the director of accounting. I planned press conferences and sparred with county commissioners.

And after five years, I was so bored I wanted to set fire to my day planner.

“Do you have a pack of matches?” I asked the district attorney, handing her a copy of her retirement speech as I scanned the party crowd for any impending PR disasters.

She smiled and reached into her handbag – a fake Prada monstrosity that had me biting back my lecture about child sweatshops used in the production of counterfeit designer goods.

“Here you go,” she said, holding out a roach clip and a lighter.

I sighed, uncertain whether to be more concerned about the drug paraphernalia or the stolen silverware I’d spotted in her purse.

“Never mind,” I said, drawing back as I glanced around to make sure no media reps were near. “Thanks though. Looks like you’re all set to enjoy retirement.”

She smiled and ambled off to the other side of the ballroom.

“JJ! I’ve been looking all over for you.”

I spun on my Louboutin heels to see my handsome, forbidden boyfriend Daniel approaching, his tie slightly askew. His dark hair was adorably rumpled, and the dimples I’d grown fond of in the three months we’d secretly dated were nowhere to be seen.

“Here I am,” I said, giving him my best PR smile. “Just making sure the hors d'oeuvre trays stay filled and the HR director doesn’t grope the undersheriff.”

“Right. Can you get away for a minute? Or maybe we can talk privately as soon as this is over?”

I snatched six empty wine glasses off the table in front of the county clerk, who gave me a loopy smile as a camera flash went off. I handed the glasses to a passing busboy and went back to scanning the crowd. “I can’t do it after the event. I’m going out with my sister and Macy. And right now I’m kind of busy with work.”

I waited for Daniel to say something disapproving about Macy – my sister’s intern who was rumored to have family mob ties – but he just tugged his tie and frowned.
“Work,” he muttered. “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Oh?”

Daniel grabbed my arm and pulled me into a corner beside a fake ficus plant. “JJ – look,” he said, his voice low and conspiratorial. “Remember when we started dating and I said I’d never, ever abuse my role as director of accounting and finance to share privileged information unless it was a dire emergency?”

“Sure.”

“Well, it’s an emergency,” Daniel said, looking grim. “I just came out of a meeting, and we’re having some financial difficulties with a few of the county departments. I feel like it’s my duty to tell you that—”

“Aw, hell. Are they going to cut my job and make me write the press release announcing my own layoff?”

Daniel winced. “No.”

“Really?”

“There won’t be a press release.”

“Oh.”

“It’s just that your position has always fallen under the DA’s office, and with her retiring—”

“I’m retiring, too.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

I saw the county health director making a beeline toward the food and caught the arm of a passing secretary. “Mary, can you ask Ted not to hand out chlamydia pamphlets in the buffet line?”

Mary dashed away and I turned my attention back to Daniel.

“It’s not a layoff, exactly,” he continued. “They’re calling it a repositioning.”

“Repositioning? Like they do with cruise ships?”

“Nothing that pleasant,” he muttered. “I’m sorry JJ, I’m so mad about this, but I just made a call to my friend Sloan, and she thinks—”

“What’s a repositioning?”

Daniel sighed. “Whenever Albright County has to cut jobs, they first try to find comparable employment in an open position within another county department — allowing the employee to maintain government benefits, PTO, retirement—”

“What sort of comparable employment?”

“That’s the problem,” Daniel said, his voice growing more aggravated. “There’s nothing in public relations right now, or any other office jobs in the whole county system, and what they’re planning to offer is so utterly ridiculous that–”

“So nothing like my current job?” I asked, craning my neck to watch the county assessor showing her tattoo to a befuddled-looking reporter. “Nothing even close?”

“I’m sorry. I know how much you love your job, and you’re damn good at it too. That’s the really shitty thing here. Look, my friend Sloan owns this great PR firm downtown. I told her all about you and she wants you to come in for an interview next—”

“What’s the county job? The one I’d be repositioned to?”

Daniel sighed again. “They found out you have experience operating heavy equipment. There’s a vacancy in the Department of Solid Waste at the Albright County Landfill. They’re going to try to give you this crap about how the benefits and salary are the same as what you make now, but obviously—”
“The dump?”
Daniel closed his eyes. “I’m so sorry, JJ. Everyone knows you deserve a promotion, but you’ve got the least seniority right now and this is the only opening in the county system—”

“The dump.”

“Yes.”

I stared at him. “Would I drive a compactor?”

“A compactor?”

“The big thing with the spikes on the wheels to squash all the garbage.”

“Um, well— I have no idea. But that’s beside the point. You can’t possibly accept this. It’s an insult. It’s– it’s—”

“Who would I be working with?”

Daniel snorted. “The landfill’s best and brightest, I’m sure. Really, with your education and professional experience, Sloan said she could probably start you at—”

“Hey, Randy,” I said, catching the library manager by the elbow and lowering my voice. “Your fly is unzipped.”

Randy jerked unsteadily on his tie and winked at me. “Saves time for when I have to take a leak.”

I released his elbow and looked back up at Daniel. He was quivering with enough indignation for the two of us, which made me feel better about my own surprising lack of it.

“JJ, I’m telling you the county is eliminating your job. Why are you still doing it?”

I frowned, not sure I understood the question. “Because I like taking care of people. And because I take my work seriously, no matter what it happens to be. You know that about me, Daniel.”

“Right, sorry. I do admire your work ethic, which is one thing I told Sloan when I—”

“So would I wear a uniform?”

“What?”

“At the dump. A uniform.”

“Oh,” he said, frowning. “Well, I doubt you’d be enjoying haute couture at the dump. No more matching shoes and bags. Just dirty boots and coveralls and safety vests and—”

“So let me get this straight,” I said, taking a slow survey of the tipsy well-heeled masses. “I don’t have to iron blouses, dry-clean skirts, or suffer the shame of showing up to work in the same pair of Cole Haan sling-backs as Marti in payroll. I don’t have to listen to Sarah tell me every week how her BA from Stanford is superior to my MA from the University of Oregon. I don’t have to see you in the hall every day and pretend we haven’t been secretly dating for three months. And I get to run over refrigerators with a 150,000-pound machine.”

“JJ, you can’t seriously be considering accepting—”

“Why not?”

I forced a smile to take the edge off my voice. Then remembered the spanakopita I’d eaten five minutes earlier. Having spinach in my teeth probably won’t matter at the dump, I mused. The thought made me smile for real.

Daniel stared at me, perhaps wondering whether I’d gone completely off the deep end. I was kind of wondering the same thing. “JJ, this is an insult. It’s ridiculous. You can’t possibly—”

“Sure I can. I’ve been unhappy with my job for awhile. This could be a good thing.”
Daniel blinked. “You never said you were unhappy.”

I opened my mouth to insist I was perfectly happy with our relationship, that everything was just fine.

I shut my mouth when I realized my brain was the only one wandering down that path.

“You love your job,” he insisted.

“Not really. Having an office job isn’t really what I thought it would be. I kinda miss crushing things.”

“But I already told my friend Sloan that you’d—”

“Well I didn’t ask you to do that,” I snapped. “I mean thanks for trying to help, but I can handle my own career.”

“Career?” he snorted. “Like the dump is a career move.”

“Plenty of people do it,” I informed him. “Not all careers require a desk.”

“Come on, JJ. You’re the girliest girl I know. I’ve never seen you without high heels and lipstick.”

“Am I not allowed to wear lipstick at the dump?”

Daniel frowned. “What would people think?”

I folded my arms over my chest as my heart began to slam hard against my rib cage. “What people?”

“People,” he said, exasperated. “People here tonight. People who wouldn’t respect you anymore, or respect me for—”

“What are you talking about?” I sputtered. “Why would I care what shallow people think? Besides, no one knows we’re dating, remember? You’ve said a million times how strict HR is about that.”

Daniel’s face darkened. He glanced around, probably making sure no one had overheard me. “I just think you deserve better than this.”

“I do deserve the best,” I agreed, pretty sure we weren’t making the same point.
Daniel smiled. “Good. So you’ll talk to Sloan—”

“No,” I told him, plucking a glass of champagne off a passing tray. “I won’t talk to Sloan. And you know, I don’t think I want to talk to you right now, either. So when do I start my new job?”

***
The answer was, before you have to shell out fifty dollars for the pedicure required to wear those peep-toe Michael Kors sandals.

Which was fortunate, since designer footwear wasn’t required at the landfill.
Neither was showering.

“I’m Burt,” grunted a grizzled gentleman with a salt-and-pepper beard that evidently doubled as storage for breakfast leftovers. He stuck out a thick paw that appeared to have served without benefit of protective gloves for the better part of a century. I hesitated only a second before taking it.

“JJ Shultz, I’m the new heavy equipment operator.”

“No shit?”

“None whatsoever.”

“Huh.” Burt dropped my hand and scratched his crotch.

“So I’m really eager to get started,” I told him brightly. “I already went through the safety training and got my uniform.”

Burt stopped scratching and looked down at my feet. “That’s a nice touch.”

“Thanks,” I said, tipping my toe up to admire the purple laces I’d threaded through my work boots. “My sister is a handbag designer, so she made these with her scrap leather. I’ve got pink ones and a pair with blue polka dots so I can switch with the seasons.”

“Good idea,” Burt said, nodding. “The pink hard hat looks good with red hair.”

“Thanks. My sister again. Her intern’s family owns an import/export company in Portland, and they got a whole boatload of them last week. I think the color was some sort of screw-up.”

Burt nodded. “Looks nice. I got an anniversary coming up. Maybe I could get the name of the company so I can see about buying one for my lady friend?”

“Sure, it’s Sophronia Shipping. Let me talk to Macy and see if she can—”

“Sophronia?” Burt asked, frowning slightly.

I sighed. “Yes, that family. But it’s her uncle and they aren’t close and Macy is very opposed to—”

“No matter,” Burt said, apparently content to postpone a discussion of mob families until some other time. “So the boss says you’ve operated heavy equipment before. Which company you been working for?”

“Public relations.”

Burt frowned. “What?”

“Albright County Public Relations. I worked mostly under the district attorney for five years.”

Burt couldn’t have looked more confused if I’d told him my last job involved juggling flaming olives. “An office job? But—”

“Hey, it involves shoveling crap one way or another, right? Only here I get to crush televisions.”

At that, Burt looked a little sad. “Not anymore. Environmental protection and all that. They send TVs to hazardous materials now.”

“But you get to crush a lot of other cool stuff, right?”

His expression brightened. “Yeah. Bookshelves. Dead houseplants. Old carpet. Bags of rotten meat. Last week there was this piano—”

“Well let’s get to it,” I said, feeling giddy in my stiff new Carhartt coveralls and neon orange safety vest.

Burt nodded. “So you’re okay with this, um, job switch?”

I grinned. “If I’d had to spend one more day in an office, I would have strangled my boss with his necktie and fed the corpse to the vultures I worked with.”

“Fair enough. Still, isn’t it tough to go from a cushy office job to this?”

“Nope. I spent a lot of years thinking the cushy office job was what I was supposed to have. Now I finally get the chance to do the job I wanted to do in the first place.”

Burt seemed to consider this for a moment as he dug a finger in his ear, then inspected it. Flicking something over his shoulder, he gave me a warm smile.

“I like you.”

I grinned back. “I like you too. Can we crush some garbage?

Burt nodded. “Let’s introduce you to your compactor.”

He said the word compactor with the same reverence many men would use to say The Bible or The Superbowl or Playboy. I looked over at the hulking machine with spikes on the wheels.

“I’ve always wanted to operate one,” I admitted. “Of course, you don’t really ever see them outside a landfill.”

Burt started walking and I followed, sidestepping a plastic bag that oozed something orange. He stopped beside the yellow machine hunkered at the edge of the pit.

“Here she is,” he said, caressing the metal with undisguised fondness. “The Caterpillar 836H Landfill Compactor and Wheel Dozer. She’s got a C-18 engine and a semi-universal blade arrangement with the optional secondary steering system and a GPS unit for grid navigation.”

“Wow,” I said, understandably impressed. We both stood there for a moment in respectful silence. I was the first to speak.

“Does it have a name?”

“A name?”

“Sure. Like a racehorse or a pirate ship or a sports car.”

“A name,” Burt repeated, sounding thoughtful.

“Shirley,” I decided.

Burt smiled. I smiled back. He reached up and picked something black from between his teeth.
***
In my first hour on the compactor, I crushed a doghouse, an old dishwasher, a half ton of rotten lettuce, a bag of doll parts, a table with a broken leg, and a box from Nordstrom that turned out to contain a thousand tubes of fuchsia lipstick.

I was in heaven.

Climbing out of the cab for my lunch break, I grinned down at Burt and pocketed the keys.

“Whaddya think?” he asked.

“I love it!”

“You did good,” he said. “Nice job with that mattress.”

“The box springs were a little tricky.”

“You handled it like a pro. Didn’t even get the wires wrapped up around the bar.”
“Thanks! Should we go wash up for lunch?”

Burt frowned. “Wash up?”

The two of us began walking back to the office. I had gotten a tour of the facilities when I’d arrived at six a.m., but most of the office employees hadn’t arrived then and I was looking forward to meeting the rest of the team.

Burt and I pushed through the doors and stood there for a moment, eyes closed, breathing in the clean, odorless air conditioning. A sexy rumble pulled me out of my trance.

“Welcome to the Department of Solid Waste. You must be the new heavy equipment operator.”

I opened my eyes and stared. Behind the front desk was the most beautiful man I had ever seen in my twenty-seven years. Dark hair, bedroom eyes, chiseled cheekbones, and pecs you could pound nails with. I didn’t realize my jaw had actually dropped until Burt discreetly nudged it shut with one filthy knuckle. I swallowed hard and blinked a few times to clear my vision.

“JJ, meet Pete,” Burt said. “Pete, meet JJ. Pete is the secretary for the Department of Solid Waste.”

“Oh,” I said, offering my hand for the sex god to shake. I looked down, belatedly realizing I still wore my work gloves. And that the right one was streaked with something gooey.

“Mayonnaise,” I told him, peeling it off. “I crushed a whole crate of it. Got all over the door of the cab.”

“Excellent,” Pete said, flashing me a smile that would have caused a lesser woman to swoon.

Okay, I was a lesser woman. I gripped the edge of the counter and held on tightly, reminding myself I still had a boyfriend. Technically. Things had cooled considerably with Daniel since I’d decided to take the landfill job, and I wasn’t quite sure where we stood.

Pete regarded me through eyelashes that were thick and dark, fringing eyes the color of the Heineken bottle I’d just extracted from Shirley’s belly pan.

“Pete’s new here, too,” Burt offered. “Just started a few weeks ago.”

“Really?” I said, wondering at the reason a man who could easily make millions modeling boxer-briefs was sitting behind a plaque that said SECRETARY.

“Yup,” Pete said, smiling into my eyes. “Until you got here, I was the new kid in class. Maybe we can share a cubby and take turns on the monkey bars at recess.”
I felt my face grow warm and fought to swallow the butterflies crawling up my throat. “Did you get repositioned, too?”

“Repositioned?”

“In your job. Not sexually, I mean. Or like a cruise ship. Repositioned—” I shut my mouth, realizing it was best to stop while he thought me tactless rather than insane. Pete just grinned at me.

“No, I applied for the job a couple months ago, and I had to go through a pretty rigorous interview process to get it. Typing tests, personality assessments... the county’s human resources department is very diligent.”

“Sure,” I agreed, eyeing him with interest. Gay? Had to be. Or was that a photo of his girlfriend framed on the desk behind him? I craned my neck for a better look.

“Anyway, welcome aboard,” Pete said. “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

“Coffee?”

“It’s a hot, brewed beverage made with beans. Very tasty.”

I felt my face flame again.

“She’d love coffee,” Burt said, clearly sensing a rescue was in order. “We’re just heading to the break room for lunch.”

Pete nodded. “Sugar?”

I swallowed. “What?”

“In your coffee. Do you want sugar?”

“Right. Yes. Please. Thank you. Amen.” I turned away and grabbed the nearest doorknob. Burt touched my shoulder.

“That’s a closet,” he murmured. “Break room’s over here.”

He propelled me through another door and deposited me beside a table. I stood there catching my breath while Burt opened a cupboard above the sink.

“Wow,” I said, dropping my voice to a hiss.

“I know,” Burt said, clearly delighted. “Pretty great, huh?”

I eyed Burt, impressed that he was secure enough in his masculinity to admire an attractive man.

“I hope I didn’t embarrass myself too much,” I said, scrubbing my hands at the sink before opening the fridge and taking out my leftover spinach lasagna.

“Nah, you were fine,” Burt said, grabbing a grungy paper bag and a bottle of murky liquid. “He’s already been asked for his autograph three or four times, so staring is no big deal.”

“Autograph?”

“Sure. I thought about it myself, but decided I’d wait until the movie comes out on Blu-ray so he can sign that.”

I stared for a few beats, wondering what I was missing. Burt sat down and unwrapped a wedge of yellow cheese. He held it in one hand, his fingers smearing dirt on the greasy surface.

“Movie?” I prompted.

Burt looked up at me. “That’s Pete Wilco — he played Colt McTrigger in Bionic Cyber Cops in Monster Trucks. Haven’t you seen it?”

“No.”

He frowned. “Then why were you staring?”

“Um, because he’s gorgeous.”

Burt laughed and finished his cheese before grabbing a hard-boiled egg. He cracked it on the edge of the table and extracted the squishy orb with his fingers, streaking it with grime.

“Damn fine movie,” he said, taking a bite of the egg. “There’s this cop who drives his monster truck with mind power, and these zombies with skin that glows when it rains and–”

“Geez. And people say I have an overactive imagination.” I dropped into the chair beside Burt and forked up a piece of lasagna, whining when I realized I’d forgotten to heat it. “I don’t understand. Why would a movie star work at the county landfill?”

Burt shrugged. “I guess not everyone liked the movie. They didn’t actually release it in any theaters.”

“Hard to imagine.”

“Anyway, Pete moved back here when his mom got sick. He said he wanted something with good benefits and a decent salary and no zombies chasing him with radioactive snow cones.”

“Huh.”

“He’s still got a girlfriend back in L.A. I think she might be moving up here, too.”

“Huh,” I said again, trying for the second time to infuse the syllable with nonchalance instead of disappointment.

I stuck my lasagna in the microwave and punched some buttons, feeling more than a little perplexed. “So Pete is the secretary. Gordy’s the director I met at orientation. There’s that blonde girl who wears the miniskirts and goes around to all the county offices doing the recycling—”

“Green Barbie. She’s the recycling coordinator for Albright County, but is based here at the landfill.”

“My boss in the PR department dislocated a vertebra the day Green Barbie dropped a bottle under his desk and tried to crawl after it.”

Burt nodded and chewed some egg. “She doesn’t much like underwear.”

“Right. So who else haven’t I met?”

“You meet Collin yet?”

“Who’s he?”

“Engineering technician. Came here from London seven or eight years ago. He’s the science guy. Manages all the methane gas wells and does the groundwater monitoring and writes the computer programs for all our GPS units. I think he’s a PhD or something.”

“Okay. Who else?”

Before Burt could even swallow the hunk of egg he’d shoved in his mouth, the door burst open and a tiny, forty-something blonde came bustling into the room. Her hair frizzed around her face like an electrified halo, and she wore strappy heels covered in big, floppy flowers. I felt the instant comfort that comes from meeting another woman with an appreciation for cute footwear.

“Oh my God, are you the new Harold?” the woman gasped as she grabbed my arm. “We’ve been waiting for you to get here! I told Burt there was no way they could find anyone to replace Harold on short notice, especially since he was such a good heavy equipment operator even if he was a chain smoker, but he made the best jalapeno jelly and always had clean fingernails and it was really such a shame he died so suddenly, though the doctor said he didn’t suffer at all, but still, his wife Mary was just so upset and their dog Muffin hasn’t had a proper bowel movement since the funeral and – oh where are my manners, I’m Ernie, like the man’s name, Ernie? It’s short for Ernestine, but everyone just calls me Ernie—”

She took a breath and I stood quickly, extending my hand. “JJ,” I said as she pumped my hand with a wild grin. “Nice to meet you, Ernie.”

“Aren’t you just the cutest little thing? All that long, red hair and that gorgeous complexion and such a lovely figure with those—”

“What is it you do here?” I interrupted as I felt my cheeks turn bright pink.

“Oh, well, I run Albright Alley, the little thrift store out front that sells all the odds and ends people bring to the dump that aren’t really trash but they don’t want them anymore, so sometimes people just drop things off at the store and other times we poke around through the pits and find things and clean them up and put them out on the shelves, so I just putter around the store and keep things running and—”

“Her shop made a quarter-million in revenue for the Department of Solid Waste last year,” Burt interjected, picking up a squishy-looking sandwich and leaving dirt dents in the bread. “She does a little more than putter.”

Ernie blushed prettily. “Well, I do what I can—”

“It’s nice to meet you, Ernie,” I said, really meaning it.

She beamed. “I’m just glad to have someone else to enjoy the male scenery, if you know what I mean – not that I’m doing anything inappropriate. I’m in a committed relationship, of course, and obviously he’s very secure and doesn’t mind if I admire attractive young men, and certainly I’ve been trained in sexual harassment protocol and I never grab anyone or send obscene email except that one time by accident with the picture of the naked cartoon bear, but I don’t think that counts because the bear was wearing a shirt and even if he didn’t have pants—”

“You’re talking about Pete?” I interrupted. “I mean, that’s the male scenery you’re admiring, right?”

She lowered her lashes and gave me a coy smile. “Have you met Collin?”

Just then the radio on Burt’s belt crackled to life.

“Bloody hell, Burt,” shouted a voice heavy with rage and a British accent. “Who is this sodding JJ Shultz and why is she trying to ruin my life?”

Shampoo shopping shouldn't be this fun

2012-01-23T02:30:00.000-08:00

If you've been reading this blog awhile, you already know I love finding humor at the grocery store or on the aisles of Home Depot. You'll find a complete collection of such posts if you search the tag "garage porn."

Friday afternoon, I was on a quest for some new shampoo and moisturizer. The mission took me down the health and beauty aisles at several stores, revealing the following giggle-worthy gems:

In case you're wondering, this tastes nothing like Kool-Aid.

I honestly don't know where to start with this one. Big Head for Men? Really? Power Play? Firm Finish Gel? I want to believe the manufacturers intended each of these innuendos. Or is it funnier if they didn't?

There's actually no innuendo here – just a lot of disturbing details. Like the helpful drawing and descriptive product name. Or the fact that this product is being sold at the Dollar Store. Or the non-specific instruction at the top about not using if torn. If what's torn?

The only thing better than instantaneous growth is the accompanying tingling.

Seen anything amusing during your recent shopping adventures? Please share!

Places you shouldn't wedge your rack

2012-01-20T02:30:00.000-08:00

My house has been for sale a few months now, so I've learned the realtors' showing schedule coincides with days it looks as though a herd of wildebeests has been mating in the living room.

Thursday morning, I was putting the finishing touches on tidying for a 10 a.m. showing. I wonder whether anyone even notices if I've scrubbed the shower or wiped down the kitchen counters, I mused. I wonder what sort of things people comment on as they walk through the house.

BOING!

That's the sound of me having an idea. A really good idea.

What if I pretended to vacate the premises as usual, but actually hid under the bed in the guest room? I could listen to the entire showing, and hear what people say about my house. That sort of feedback could be valuable, right?

Plus I'm nosy. There's always that.

I scuttled into the guest room to make sure my plan would work. I got down on the floor and stuck my head under the bed, testing to be certain my skull wasn't too big to fit.

All clear.

I'm a pretty small person, so I figured the rest of me would slide neatly beneath the bed without a hitch.

But I forgot about the one part of me that isn't so small.

My housemate walked in just in time to find me wedged halfway under the bed and stuck – totally, completely stuck – on my boobs.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Thinking about hiding under the bed," I replied with as much nonchalance as I could muster with my rack caught in a vice grip.

"How's that working out for you?"

"Not so well."

I struggled a little, then began to panic. What if I couldn't free myself? Would my housemate be able to help? Would I be stuck there until the fire department arrived or the realtors showed up with their house-hunting clients? I could imagine the conversation:

And here we have the spacious kitchen with cherry cabinets and lovely granite counters, and over here we have a romance author who's oblivious to the dimensions of her own body.

I squirmed again, more frantic this time.

"Need a hand?" My housemate asked.

"My boobs are stuck," I admitted.

"That's not something I hear every day."

"Pity," I yelped as I finally freed myself and crawled out from under the bed.

Thoroughly discouraged, I finished the last tidbits of tidying before I slunk to my car and left in disgrace.

I should probably be embarrassed about the whole thing, but mostly I'm just annoyed. I really did want to eavesdrop. Who would have guessed my boobs would be a barrier to my own nosiness?

Craving the stuff that's made with love

2012-01-19T02:30:00.000-08:00

Remember when you were a kid and a holiday approached and you desperately, urgently wanted to buy cool gifts for people?

"Just make a gift," your parents insisted. "It'll mean more."

Admit it. You thought they were full of crap.

The older I've gotten, the more I've realized my parents were right. Homemade gifts do mean a lot, particularly the ones that show the giver has been paying attention.

When Making Waves debuted last summer, my gentleman friend made me something special:
Admittedly, not all women would be thrilled at receiving a gift emblazoned with the word "bitches."

I am not most women.

In case you're new to this blog, you should know that every book I've ever written has a working title. Making Waves will always be Piratebitch in my mind. My March release, Believe it or Not, will never be anything but Psychicbitch to me. My new active fiction release with Coliloquy may be marketed as Getting Dumped, but I don't think my editor and I have ever called it anything but Dumpbitch.

If you can't tell from the photo, the bitches plaque is adorned with little metal knobs. Each knob represents a book that's either scheduled for publication or brewing in the back of my brain. In fact, he handpicked each knob to match the book's theme. The day that book is released, my gentleman friend commemorates the occasion by draping a new silk scarf on the designated knob.

You may notice I'm so touched by the whole thing that I didn't even make a knob joke or speculate whether he intends to use the scarves to tie me to the headboard.

Seriously, isn't that the sweetest, most creative gift ever? I wore my new Dumpbitch scarf to work yesterday and kept touching it and smiling.

Of course, my gentleman friend has a bit of competition in the creative gift-making category. I recently had a message from reader Toni Sinns asking about my favorite colors and whether I'd mind if she crocheted something for me. Naturally, I insisted she didn't have to do any such thing, but if she wanted to, I'd be delighted by anything with blues, greens, or purples.

Here's what showed up earlier this week:
Yes, it's my very own, customized, monogrammed, crocheted beer koozie. How many of you have your own customized, monogrammed, crocheted beer koozies?

Exactly.

Well, I guess if you want one, you can check out Toni's online store. I have it on good authority she can crochet more of these, or whatever else your little heart might desire.

What's the coolest homemade gift you've ever given or received? Please share!

And stop coveting my beer. And my koozie. And my scarves. And my bitches. And...

Celebrating launch day for GETTING DUMPED by giving away a free Kindle!

2012-01-18T02:30:00.000-08:00

You may have caught some of the media buzz yesterday, but in case you missed it, Coliloquy officially launched their new line of "active fiction" titles for Kindle.

My book, Getting Dumped, is one of the four launch books for what is essentially a grownup version of choose-your-own-adventure novels.

Can I pause here to squeal with joy?

There's been a lot of chatter about how this is the first interactive app ever released by Amazon, and how this is changing the face of publishing. You can read some snippets at Publishers Weekly or on techy sites like WebPro News.

I've heard from a handful of people who wish they could read the book, but don't have a Kindle. Others have shared that they loved the book and wish they could give it as a gift to a Kindle-less loved one.

Want to remedy that?

Coliloquy is giving away a free Kindle to one lucky reader of this blog. Not just a free Kindle, but a free Kindle loaded with the four launch titles.

How cool is that?!

There are several ways you can enter to win. Want more than one entry? Do more than one thing!

Tweet your heart out! If you're a Twitter user, compose a tweet stating why you want Getting Dumped. Be sure to include @coliloquy and/or @tawnafenske so you get credit.
About Face! Are you a Facebook fan? Put up a post explaining why you want a free Kindle, a copy of Getting Dumped, and maybe a pony.
Blog it, baby. Got a blog of your own? Write about us! Share what you think is cool about Coliloquy, why you want to read Getting Dumped, or how you share my not-so-secret fantasy of ditching the day job to crush garbage with heavy equipment.
Review me! Are you one of the folks who's already read Getting Dumped but want to win for a friend? Review the book on Amazon! Bonus points for positive reviews! (Kidding. Not really).
Share the love! Visit my fabulous agent's blog and leave a comment letting her know I sent you and that you desperately, urgently want to win the Kindle.
Capture the moment. Snap a funny photo with some Getting Dumped significance. Like maybe a picture of you beside a piece of heavy equipment. Or a picture of you with a great handbag. Or a picture of you holding the great handbag while driving a bulldozer over the top of a guy who just got busted for selling counterfeit handbags. Use your imagination and make us laugh! You can send pics to tawnafenske at yahoo dot com.

About Getting Dumped, now available on Kindle:
Getting Dumped is an "Active Fiction" title, a new type of e-book from Coliloquy. In this Active Fiction series, your input influences future books from this author. Specifically, in Getting Dumped, your choices influence what happens to JJ Shultz. Losing a cushy marketing job only to end up driving heavy equipment at the landfill would be a tough blow for most women, but JJ Schultz isn't most women. JJ gamely swaps office politics for a chance to crush garbage. The drama kicks into high gear when JJ and her sister, Lori, uncover a counterfeit handbag ring. JJ soon finds herself unraveling a sinister plot in the company of a tie-tugging accountant, a straight-to-video action hero/secretary, a suspicious but sneaky-hot engineer, and a host of other characters with questionable hygiene and morals. The author still isn't sure who JJ should end up with, so she's eager to see who her readers prefer. She sees the aggregate statistics on who gets picked the most, so the more you read, the more you influence what she writes. Please note: Getting Dumped contains content that may be inappropriate for children.

Fun with thumb rings and drunk people

2012-01-17T02:30:00.000-08:00

Some of my favorite people watching occurs in that window of time after I’ve walked into a bar but before I’ve had anything to drink. There’s something fascinating about being the only sober person in a room filled with tipsily cheerful strangers all steadfastly convinced I’m their very best friend.

Sunday afternoon, I meandered into a small bar at the base of a ski hill. Not only was I the only sober person, but also the only one dressed in street clothes. I’m not a skier, but was compelled by my day job to write about the resort’s new umbrella bar.

Before I’d even ordered a drink, the woman beside me leaned over and grabbed my hand.

“You’re wearing a thumb ring!” she shouted.

I actually wear three thumb rings, but decided it was easiest to agree with her.

“I wear a thumb ring, too,” she declared, then pointed at the bleary-eyed gentleman sitting beside her. “He always wants to know about the significance of a thumb ring. He thinks it’s a symbol or a code or something. I always tell him it doesn’t mean anything. Am I right?”

She slugged me in the shoulder, making me grateful I hadn’t yet gotten my drink.

“Actually,” I told her, “Mine does have some significance. I started wearing a thumb ring when I was maybe 10 and my kid brother bought me a ring at a garage sale. My thumb was the only finger it fit on, so I got used to having a ring there. It’s partly a sentimental thing, and partly that I’ve been doing it for so long I feel naked without one.”

Her eyes flickered a little at the word naked, but beyond that, I could tell I’d lost her.

Across the table, her gentleman friend frowned. “So you’re not going to tell us the real story?”

I felt bad for disappointing him. Like maybe I should have made up a secret thumb ring society, or explained the usefulness of the jewelry in giving hand jobs.

Finally, I leaned forward and lowered my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you.”

He nodded gravely, and the woman nodded along with him. “I figured.”

I’m still thinking I should have come up with a better story. Got one? Please share, it might come in handy someday! I’d also love to hear about your significant jewelry or favorite conversations with drunk people.

The importance of sucking for awhile

2012-01-16T02:30:00.000-08:00

I was making breakfast Saturday morning when one of the housemates stumbled blearily into the kitchen. I’ve learned to get out of the way fast and not make conversation until he’s downed at least six gallons of coffee.

“Morning,” I said at last.

“Morning,” he mumbled. “Got big plans today?”

“Writing. I’m working on a new book, so that’s going to occupy a lot of my time for awhile.”

“Mmmph,” he said into his coffee. “How many pages do you think you’ll write?”

I shrugged and stuffed a piece of bread into the toaster. “I’m aiming for 25, but we’ll see.”

“That’s all? Huh.”

I stared at him. “What do you mean that’s all?”

“I dunno. I just would have figured someone who writes as much as you would be faster than that.”

Two things kept me from beating him over the head with the toaster.

The first is that non-writers just don’t understand that creating a brand new book from scratch involves more than repeatedly typing the phrase, “he plunged his pork sword into the dewy cleft of her love wallet.” You’ve got characters to name, backstories to develop, emotional baggage to unpack, and clever dialogue to finesse.

Sometimes, my editor even expects me to come up with a plot.

All that to say, it takes a bit longer to write 25 pages than it does to read them.

But probably the biggest reason I didn’t brain my housemate with the toaster is that I was totally lying. There’s no way in hell I was going to write 25 pages over the weekend, and I knew it. Maybe later, maybe once I hit my stride in this middle of the book.

But now – when I’m in the ugly, early stages of a new story – I’m lucky to crank out four or five pages a day. And those four or five pages will be some of the most abysmal, unfunny, uncreative examples of fiction you might ever lay eyes on.

People often ask me to name the best part of being a published author. I usually make a smartass joke about my private jet or the sleepovers with George Clooney. Want to know the truth?

The best part about being published and about having written for as long as I have is that I know sucking is part of the process. I can spend a weekend slowly oozing out horrible drivel, and while I may be disgusted with the drivel, I understand it’s necessary to do that before I reach the point where I stop sucking and start writing decent prose.

It takes a crazy amount of patience to hang in there and keep going when you’re writing at the pace of a slug crawling through tar, and every other word you place on the page feels like the wrong one. I’ve seen plenty of writers get discouraged and give up before they ever know that glorious moment when it stops feeling like you’re polishing a turd and begins to feel like you might have a decent novel on your hands.

The trick to writing isn’t hammering out a lot of brilliant prose at a speedy pace. The trick is knowing that if you keep going, you eventually do stop sucking.

I didn’t say any of this to my housemate, of course. By then, he’d fallen asleep leaning against the refrigerator, and the dog was lapping up the puddle of coffee at his feet.

Have you learned the importance of sucking in writing or any other aspect of your life? Please share!

I’ve got some sucking to do. Wait, what?

The things I want to put in your mouth

2012-01-12T16:20:00.000-08:00

There's a mental disorder that runs in my family.

It's a chronic, urgent, desperate need to feed people.

Admittedly, most mental health professionals don't recognize this as a disorder. I've never read about it in a medical journal or seen a parade organized to benefit victims of this syndrome. In all honesty, it's not terribly crippling.

I wasn't fully aware of it until I was working on edits for Getting Dumped, my new project with Coliloquy. My heroine, JJ, is constantly whipping up meals for her sister and the various men in her life.

I never thought much of it until my editor started raising questions: Why is she always feeding people? Why does she cook when no one else in her family does? Why doesn't she do it for a living? Can I have the recipe for those White Chocolate Apricot Balls?

I was a little taken aback, and not just because I'd lost that recipe. I hadn't actually noticed JJ's habit because...well, it just seemed normal to me.

Not that I'm the best judge of normal.

The timing of these edits coincided with the early months of dating my new gentleman friend. As is my habit whether I'm feeding myself or ten others, I threw together elaborate dinners every night.

At first, he seemed nervous. He didn't want me to go to so much trouble on his account, and though he loved the meals, he fretted about the time and money I was spending.

"Trust me," I assured him. "This is just what I do. If I'm not feeding you, I'll be feeding the housemates, packaging Tupperware meals for my girlfriends, or summoning the dog to eat maple orange chicken dusted with rosemary."

I'm not sure he totally believed me until he met my mom. Then my cousin. Then my grandmother.

And I'm pretty sure every one of us offered him food.

I blame it on genetics, though that's not the excuse I gave JJ in Getting Dumped. In her case, it's almost the opposite. She grew up in a family of people who didn't cook, but she happened to love food. Determined to be self-sufficient – and convinced she damn well deserved gourmet meals any time she wanted them – she became a ruthlessly proficient cook.

Because she loves cooking, she never wants to do it for a living. On that note, I can relate.

Do you have any quirky habits you weren't aware of until someone else pointed them out to you? Please share!

And let me know if you'll be stopping by tonight for lasagna. Say, 7ish? Bring wine. Lots of it.

Why I shouldn't be trusted to communicate this week

2012-01-12T02:30:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I sent a congratulatory note to a friend who landed an agent. I tried to type "yaaay!" but my phone decided I meant "yeast!"

So my friend either thinks I'm baking sourdough, or hoping to discuss infections. Either way, this is the sort of week I'm having.

Tuesday evening, I got a note from my real estate agent alerting me that a house I really, really like in a neighborhood I really, really love, just went up for sale at a price I might actually be able to afford without selling my nipples on the black market. I was still squealing with excitement when an email arrived from my literary agent (who, incidentally, shares a first name with my realtor. I know, right?)

She had some exciting news, too. News I decided to post to Twitter immediately, along with an Amazon link.

You see where this is going, don't you?

Yup, I tweeted the link to the house. After four-dozen replies from confused readers wondering why I wanted all 2,315 of my Twitter followers to see photos of a foreclosed home in Central Oregon, I figured out how to delete the tweet and post the right link.

Only it turns out I kinda wasn't supposed to post the link just yet because it's sorta still a secret. Sorta.

"Feel free to mention that it's up in broad strokes," came the note from my publisher, which sent me into giggles and fits. It's up? Broad strokes? Sometimes, I swear you guys are just feeding me the filthy jokes.

Oh, and here's what else I'm allowed to say: "Shh...still being tested, but guess what's up in the Amazon store?! Just a few days to launch and lots of details!"

So that's what I can tell you right now. In case you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, rest assured, this is the story of my life. I shared news about my new project with Coliloquy here, so that should give you another clue.

Stay tuned for more details next week. And feel free to share any embarrassing "you won't believe what I did" stories of your own. It'll make me feel better.

Oh, and if you get any texts, tweets, or email messages from me this week, I'd like to apologize in advance. For whatever.

The ugly thing I didn't buy

2012-01-11T02:30:00.000-08:00

There are few things in the world I love more than thrift store shopping, and most of those things are best enjoyed naked.

I was fully clothed and shopping with a friend recently when we came across a special piece of merchandise:
"I can't tell you how often I've wished for a lamp that doubles as a cheese grater," I told my friend.

She laughed. "Let's rub it and see if a genie comes out."

"I'm not touching anything that comes out of that lamp unless I get rubber gloves and a tetanus shot."

"I'm wondering about the drugs you'd need to take to make you look at this and think, 'that belongs in my living room.'" She poked a finger through the front. "Maybe that's it – they used this lamp as a place to stash drugs."

I peered at the price tag, a little dumbfounded. "$35? Are you kidding me?"

"That seems reasonable. It is art, after all."

I suppose so, now that I think about it. I can (and did) look at that lamp and laugh, but someone, somewhere, thought it was beautiful. Or at least a desirable component of one's household decor.

This is what people mean when they tell you feedback from editors, agents, and readers is largely subjective. One person's ugly lamp is another person's glorious treasure. One editor might tell you romantic comedy is dead, and the other might call your agent gushing that they've been desperate to find a hot new romantic comedy author.

That's pretty much how things unfolded when we landed this three-book deal two years ago, and I'm grateful for it every day.

Got an ugly lamp story of your own? Either a real ugly lamp, or something metaphorical wherein one person's trash was another person's treasure? Please share!

Is it wrong that I kinda regret not buying that lamp? I wonder if it's still there...

Who makes you howl?

2012-01-10T02:30:00.000-08:00

With a wide array of housemates, significant others, and random strangers cycling in and out of my house like perverts through a brothel, my dog is rarely alone these days.

Bindi sees this as the biggest plus of our current living arrangement.

Each household member plays an important role in Bindi's life. I'm the steadfast provider of dog kibble, regular walks, and trips to the vet. One housemate is her supplier for table scraps and lazy afternoons on the sofa watching ninja movies. My gentleman friend can be counted on to throw her ball until one of them collapses from exhaustion.

Then there's the housemate who isn't much of a dog person. He doesn't dislike dogs, and will even drag her out for the occasional run or hike. But their bonding has been a little more tepid.

Or so I thought.

Several weeks ago, he sent me a text message:

Bindi & I had a howlin' contest this morning.

Intrigued, I clicked the attached 24-second video. (Warning: there's a curse-word in this video. If you're offended by curse-words, I suggest you not click. I also suggest you not read this blog or my books. Why the hell are you here, anyway?)

Now here's the funny thing – I've owned Bindi for more than two years. We've gone for countless hikes, endured lengthy road trips, and snuggled for endless hours. Never once have I heard my dog howl. I didn't even know she could howl.

I asked my housemate about it later when all the other household occupants were present. No one else had heard Bindi howl, either, but the howl-inducing housemate just shrugged it off.

"It's sort of our thing," he said. "She only does it when no one else is home."

I'm fascinated by this. Not only by my dog's behavior, but by the notion of one creature triggering another to do something he or she doesn't do for anyone else.

For once, I'm not being filthy.

I was thinking about this in the context of the rewrite I just submitted for my third contracted romantic comedy. One element of my marching orders from the editor involved tightening the bond between my hero and heroine. What is it that makes their relationship unique? What are the little inside jokes only the two of them share? What separates her from every girl he's ever dated or him from her ex-husband?

I can't tell you the answers to those questions without giving away some plot twists, but rest assured, I figured it out.

Are there things you share only with one special friend or significant other? I'm not talking about playing Spear the Donut. I'm thinking more along the lines of little things you catch yourself doing around a certain person who's the only person in the world to see you behaving that way. Please share!

And please take a moment to enjoy this second video my housemate shot just to prove the first one wasn't a fluke. Aroooooooooooooo!

When love stories and hair removal go hand-in-hand

2012-01-09T09:56:00.000-08:00

I was blessed with naturally full, voluminous eyebrows.

This is a polite way of saying that if I didn't wax them, there's a good chance I'd have a stylish monobrow. I've tried tending them myself, but rarely with positive results. I once waxed off the entire middle of one eyebrow and then tried to draw it back with eyeliner.

Green eyeliner.

A detail I didn't catch until I got to work and a co-worker asked if I'd been drinking.

So you see, it's in everyone's best interest if I pay someone else to groom me. Since I'm a cheapskate, the someone else generally ends up being a student at my local beauty college.

Friday afternoon, I found myself being tended by a sweet young pupil who couldn't have been more than 19 or 20. Since she'd never used hard wax before, her teacher coached her on the process while I snickered like a middle-schooler over instructions like, "make sure it's nice and hard before you start tugging on it."

When that was over, I complimented the student on both her waxing skills and the lovely french braid in her hair.

She beamed at me. "I did it myself. I could do one for you, if you like."

There are few things I enjoy more than having someone fuss with my hair, so I agreed and we headed to another room where she got to work brushing and braiding. Feeling the need to make small talk now that she was no longer smearing hot wax near my eyeballs, the student began to chatter.

"So do you have a husband or boyfriend or anything?" she inquired.

I hesitated for a moment before answering. "I'm dating someone, yes, but the word boyfriend sort of annoys me, so I tend to refer to him as my gentleman friend, unless I'm drinking with close girlfriends, in which case I opt for something more risque like–"

I stopped myself, realizing a simple yes would have sufficed.

She anchored a bobby pin in place and continued her line of questioning. "So you guys have probably been together a long time, huh?"

I tried not to laugh at the unasked question, which was something like, Geez, lady, isn't 37 kind of old to be dating?

"We've been seeing each other for about nine months," I began, "but we actually worked together five or six years ago, though we hardly knew each other at all then, and probably would have lost all contact when we both moved on to other jobs, except that he became best friends with one of my girlfriends and then he went through a divorce a few years ago, so when I went through something similar last spring, I contacted him out of the blue to be my mentor and–"

I stopped myself again, realizing I'd missed another opportunity to stick with the simple answer.

But the student seemed unfazed. "Do you ever think he's the one?"

I couldn't keep from laughing this time, though I'm not entirely sure why. Was it the sweet simplicity of the question? The strange personal nature of it? The fact that this is what a 19-year-old's version of a love story boils down to? The fact that she likely asked it because I'd told her I'm a romance author, and isn't that what romance authors write about?

In the end, I opted for the simple answer. "Of course."

That seemed to satisfy her, and I managed to steer the conversation from my personal life to hers.

It gave me plenty to think about though. In my experience, love stories are seldom very simple. Thank God, or all my books would be five pages long.

I'm in the early stages of a brand new book, which means the questions are swirling in my head. What are her issues? What are his? How did she she develop her hangup about money in relationships, and how will his status as a millionaire cause problems? Does she like to be tied up in bed, and if so, will she be turned off when he can't find a silk scarf and settles for anchoring her to the bedpost with her dog's leash?

These are all things I'll be mulling over the course of the next few months, which is something I find quite exciting. Starting from "boy meets girl" and finding ways to complicate things from there is one of the most thrilling parts of writing romance.

Do you find yourself drawn to the complex details of romantic relationships? Are you intrigued by strangers' love stories? Please share!

Oh, and if you have any tips for learning to french braid my own hair, I'd sure love to know how to do this.

Everything you ever wanted to know (and aren't afraid to ask)

2012-01-06T02:30:00.000-08:00

In recent months, I've gotten lots of email from strangers.Sadly, many of them aren't offering discount pharmaceuticals or free internet porn.

They're asking for advice. From me.

Let's all pause and shudder together over how terrifying that is. Then let's spend a moment thinking about how our group shudder was a little like an orgy.

Where was I?

Advice. Right. Strangers have been contacting me via email, Twitter, Facebook, and in one terrifying instance, rabid courier pigeon, to seek advice on writing, querying, publishing, critiquing, and providing oral stimulation without messing up your lipstick.

I might have made up that last one.

I try to answer the questions as competently and patiently as I can, but it takes a big chunk of time. Time I should be spending on things like edits and blog posts and plotting my next book and googling for naked pictures of George Clooney.

Whenever possible, I refer people to existing articles and web links. If someone asks how to query, I tell them to call in sick to work, log on to agent Janet Reid's Query Shark, and read every single post in her archives before even considering querying. If someone's struggling to find beta readers or critique partners, I refer them to The Water Cooler at Absolute Write or suggest getting involved with their local chapter of Romance Writers of America or Mystery Writers of America or whatever group happens to represent their genre.

I might also refer them to blog posts I've written about certain subjects, because as I mentioned yesterday, I'm very lazy.

Still, I'm thinking I should get smarter about this. What if I assembled a collection of the most common questions I'm asked, and created a document or a page on my website offering up all the best links, tidbits of advice, and general suggestions? An FAQ of sorts, only with more penis jokes. Then when I get one of those messages, I could offer up the great big list of answers.

What do you guys think? If I do decide to assemble something like that, what would you like to see me address? Have there been any posts I've written here that you think should be included in a writer FAQ? Please share your thoughts!

Oh, and in the spirit of sharing, I wanted to pass along two of the best writer links I've seen in recent months. The first is a post written by my agency sistah, Kiersten White, offering a collection of Do This, Don't Do That tips for new authors. The second is an amazing post by author Chuck Wendig suggesting 25 Things Writers Should Stop Doing Right F**king Now. Both offer much smarter advice than I could ever give you, and I encourage writers at all career stages to check them out.

So what do you think of my questions? You've already forgotten them now, right? I probably should have put them at the bottom of this post instead of a couple paragraphs above. See, this is why you shouldn't ask me for advice.

Except that I can use copy/paste, so all hope isn't lost. Here you go again:

What do you guys think? If I do decide to assemble something like that, what would you most like to see me address? Have there been any posts I've written here that you think should be included in a writer FAQ? Please let me know what you think!

I’d lie down to write this post if I could

2012-01-05T02:30:00.000-08:00

I’m one of the laziest people I know.

I’m not ashamed to admit this, and have found it to be an asset more than a liability. A former boss once insisted I’m not lazy, but ruthlessly efficient and clever at finding ways to minimize the work involved in any task.

That probably does sound better, but it still boils down to laziness. The same boss also suggested I call myself “frugal” instead of “cheap,” which reminds me I should probably buy that guy a beer sometime. A cheap one.

I was reminded of both my laziness and my frugality the other day when I spotted a pair of $12 suede Coach sneakers at my favorite thrift store. While I didn’t necessarily need sneakers, I was smitten with the price and the designer label.

When I got them home, I lined them up with all my other shoes. I own 54 pairs, which is probably another blog-worthy personality fault. Guess what all my shoes have in common?

They slip on. The new sneakers are my only pair of shoes with laces. That’s right — I’m too lazy to actually lace up a pair of shoes.

I haven’t decided yet if I’ll keep the sneakers or sell them on eBay. Oh, who am I kidding? Selling them on eBay sounds like work.

It did make me stop and analyze other ways I’ve arranged my life to accommodate my own laziness. Among them:

I refuse to have a hairstyle that requires me to blow dry, curl, fluff, tease, spray, or do anything besides wash it a couple times a week and maybe brush it once a day if I feel ambitious. This was my chief concern when my hairdresser talked me into a new ‘do last week.
I refuse to exercise. I can talk myself into hiking regularly because that’s just walking and walking isn’t hard. I’ll sometimes convince myself to do yoga because that’s just rolling around on the floor in my pajamas. But I’d rather pull all the toes off my left foot with pliers than lift weights or run on a treadmill.
I won’t buy clothing that requires ironing. In the rare event that an article of my clothing appears wrinkled, I’ve been known to donate it to charity to avoid ironing it. If I put something on and really, really want to wear it but it’s too wrinkly, I will attempt to iron it while it’s on my body. It’s a special realm of “hot & steamy.”

Are there areas of your life where you tend to be lazy, or are you more of a go-getter? Please share!

And let me know if you enjoy ironing. Or brushing a stranger’s hair. Or tying someone else’s sneakers. Or…

The things you learn from butt bruises

2012-01-04T02:30:00.000-08:00

On New Year’s Eve, I went ice skating with my gentleman friend and his two offspring. It was the kids' first time gliding overa frozen surface with blades on their feet and a desperate urge to avoid braindamage.

We all escaped major injury, though there were a few bumpsand bruises and a possible case of butt frostbite. (I may have lied about thebutt frostbite. It’s an excellent way to solicit warm, soothing butt caresses).

When it was all over and everyone was settled down withsteaming mugs of cocoa, my gentleman friend checked with the two youngsters to see how they’denjoyed the experience.

“We loved it!” they chorused. “But falling isn’t very fun.”

No, he agreed. Falling isn’t very fun.

And yes, he probably could have caught them or spent theevening propping them up so their well-padded backsides never hit the ice.

“But sometimes, falling is how you learn best,” he said. “It’sthe way you figure out how to balance and stop and get back up and get movingagain.”

I’m not sure if the message resonated with the kids, whowere engrossed in determining whether gummy bears float in cocoa.

But it sure made sense to me.

My roadto publication was a bumpy one. There were harsh rejections from publishersand agents, a canceled book deal, an agent relationship that didn’t work out,and two long years during which my current agent probably wondered why the hellshe signed an author whose manuscripts prompted editors to say, “she’s funny,but there’s no market for this.”

I’m not vain enough to suggest we got the last laugh with ourthree-book deal for romantic comedies, and I’m also not delusional enough tosuggest I won’t fall on my butt a whole lot more in my writing career.

But I’m infinitely grateful for those butt bruises. They’rehow I’ve learned the most about writing and publishing and editing and queryingand the surprising depths of my own resilience.

They’re how I know that whether I become an internationalbestseller, or leave readers asking, “Tawna who?”I’m going to be just fine.

What have you learned from falling that you couldn’t havefigured out by gliding along in perfect form? Please share!

And feel free to rub my butt in a soothing manner. It’s whatfriends do for each other.

On dog puke, candy canes, and my new life

2012-01-03T02:30:00.000-08:00

At least once a week, I'm struck by how different my life is now than it was a year ago. I currently share my home with three grown men, five cats, and a dog.

It goes without saying the conversations taking place under this roof are a bit different than they were 12 months ago.

Like this one that occurred last night when my gentleman friend and I returned from grocery shopping to find the two 27-year-old housemates seated at the dining room table eating barbecue chicken:

HOUSEMATE 1: (to me) Your dog threw up.

HOUSEMATE 2: A lot. It was like something out of the exorcist. You wouldn't believe how much liquid came out of such a small animal.

ME: (scrambling to put down the groceries so I could inspect the dog. She was prancing around the kitchen with her tail wagging, in no apparent distress). Are you OK, baby? What's the matter? Is your tummy upset?

HOUSEMATE 1: It was a lot of puke. Like a lake.

HOUSEMATE 2: It took a whole roll of paper towels to clean it up.

ME: Was there blood in it? Has she been acting sick? Have you fed her anything unusual today?


In case you wondered what broiled candy cane looks like. No, I won't show you the puke.

HOUSEMATE 1: We made her eat a candy cane afterward. She had puke breath.

HOUSEMATE 2: Then we put a candy cane under the broiler to see if it would melt.

HOUSEMATE 1: It did.

GENTLEMAN FRIEND: (making an effort to be supportive) Was there anything in the puke or was it just liquid?

HOUSEMATE 1: Want to see a picture? It's on my camera upstairs.

HOUSEMATE 2: Wait, I've got one here on my phone.

ME: You both took pictures of the puke?

GENTLEMAN FRIEND: Is this why the snow shovel is on the porch? Did you try to shovel the puke?

HOUSEMATE 1: Check it out, look at this picture.

ME: Oh, geez. (To gentleman friend) Would you mind starting dinner? I think I need to write all this in a blog post right now and get it up fast.

GENTLEMAN FRIEND: You said "get it up fast."

HOUSEMATE 1: Knock on wood.

HOUSMATE 2: You said wood.

Yes, this is my life now.

I'm pretty damn happy about that.

Scenes from a smile-worthy holiday season

2012-01-02T02:30:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of easing slowly back into the post-holiday rhythm, I'm declaring today, "Wordless Monday."

Well, mostly.

Here are a few things that made me smile this holiday season:

A poster on the wall of a local brewery.

My dog looking suitably disgusted after one of the housemates outfitted her in a Santa hat and Christmas collar.

A box of chocolates sent to the day job office by someone whose sense of humor I can appreciate.

My holiday mani/pedi, courtesy of my gentleman friend's six-year-old.

At night, the dog sleeps in her kennel. During the daytime, it's the cat's favorite nap spot. When the entire household slept in on New Year's morning, the pets were annoyed at having their routine disrupted.

So what's been making you smile this holiday season? Please share!

And happy New Year, everyone!

A sale on beginnings, a post for the end

2011-12-30T02:30:00.000-08:00

Things are awfully quiet in the blogosphere this week, so I'm feeling very little pressure to be smart or amusing.

Wait – am I ever smart or amusing?

I should probably write an inspirational post about New Year's resolutions I'm making, but so far the only one I've come up with is clean the Tupperware cupboard.

Not very inspiring.

OK, how about this – I want to commit to reading more. I've always been a voracious reader, sometimes plowing through five or six books a week. But the whirlwind of going through divorce and promoting a debut novel and selling my house and falling in love again seemed to gobble up all my free time.

This year, I'll do better.

Here's one thing that's going to help: My fabulous publisher, Sourcebooks, is running a special promotion offering dozens of authors' first books for just $1.99 in eBook format. You can read on your Sony Reader, Nook, Kobo, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Kindle, or even your home computer. The promotion is called It All Started When, and you can browse participating titles at that link.

Making Waves is included in the promotion, as are more than 65 other titles ranging from young adult to non-fiction to romance to literary fiction. The sale runs through January 8, and offers a great chance to try an author's first book at a super low price.

So there you have it. Thanks to all of you for helping make 2011 one the most exhilarating, breathtaking, pee-my-pants crazy times in my life. I'll see you next year!

First fights and other excuses for groping

2011-12-29T02:30:00.000-08:00

Every now and then, a comment or conversation will send me running for my notepad. Maybe it’s a snippet of dialogue I think would be perfect for an upcoming scene, or maybe it’s just something that makes me laugh.

I thought of this yesterday when I had the following exchange with my gentleman friend:

ME: We’ve been hanging out together for awhile now. Do you think it’s weird we haven’t had our first fight?

HIM: (pausing to grope me) Are you suggesting we fight just to get it out of the way?

ME: We might as well. Here, I’ll kick things off— Stop touching me, you stupid jerk!

HIM: No way. I’ll touch you whenever and wherever I want.

ME: Thank God.

HIM: (still groping me) Is the fight over?

ME: I think so. That went well, didn’t it?

HIM: Absolutely. We should make out now.

I have no idea if I’ll ever use it in a scene, but it made me smile anyway. Do you ever make note of conversational snippets that amuse you? Heard anything good lately? Please share!

I think I need to go start another fight.

It's time for a change (and I only cried a little)

2011-12-28T02:30:00.000-08:00

I'm generally quite open to experimentation.

I swear that wasn't a reference to Monday's post about the Pure Romance Tickle & Whip.

There's one realm of my life though, where I seldom experiment. For much of my childhood, I had the classic haircut of a tomboy. My hair was short. Very short.

At age 12, I ceased finding it amusing to be mistaken for a boy. The fact that I sprouted boobs around this time went along with my decision to start growing my hair long.

There was a brief grow-out period during which I generously kept AquaNet hairspray in business with my oh-so-fashionable '80s bangs.

But once my hair grew out to one length, I left it alone. Aside from the occasional trim to keep split ends at bay, my hair has pretty much been the same for the last 25 years:

I didn't think much of it until earlier this summer when I went to see my hairdresser. She's been trimming my hair every 10 weeks for the better part of a decade, and I figured it would be business as usual. She sat me down in the chair and began to snip my split ends.

"Have you ever thought of doing anything a little different?" she asked.

"Like with peanut butter and nipple clamps?"

She sighed. "No. I mean layers."

"I don't think I know that position."

"Your hair," she insisted. "I'm talking about long, wavy layers. I think they'd really add body and texture and give you a bit of a different look."

It wasn't hard to read between the lines – some people actually change their hair every quarter-century, you dumbass.

So I agreed. Well, eventually.

"Would I have to start washing it more than once or twice a week?" I demanded.

"No."

"Blow drying it?"

"No."

"Curling it?"

"No."

"Using gel or spray or hair products of any kind?"

"No."

"Because you know I'm too lazy for that," I reminded her.

"I am fully aware that lifting a hairbrush is something you consider too strenuous to attempt more than once every couple days," she said. "Trust me – I think you'll like the layers."

So I agreed. And I only cried for a little while when six-inch swaths of my hair started hitting the floor:
Two minutes into the process, I decided the whole thing would be easier if I closed my eyes. That went well until my hairdresser started explaining the different tools.

"I used the scissors for this section to create a little more definition, and now I'm using this blade to create wispier sections through here."

"Uh-huh," I said, keeping my eyes squeezed shut.

When it was all over, I looked in the mirror. As it turns out, I rather like my new 'do. It's subtle enough my gentleman friend still recognized me when I returned home, but different enough I don't feel like I just wasted an hour and a few bucks:
How often do you alter your hairstyle? Are you set in your ways like me, or do you tend to shake things up a bit more frequently? Please share!

Oh, and feel free to comment on my new 'do. Can you even tell a difference? If so, whaddya think? Keep in mind, it's too late now to paste the hair back in place if you happen to hate it. Then again, maybe I'd start a cool new trend with the pasted hair. Has anyone seen my glitter glue?

RERUN: believe you're a badass (even if no one else does)

2011-12-27T02:30:00.000-08:00

It's a quiet week in the blogosphere as people spend time with family, reflect on the meaning of the holidays, and ponder career futures in competitive eating.

It seems like a good week to trot out an old entry from my early days of blogging. The following post originally appeared in March 2010, just a few weeks after my agent landed me my three-book romantic comedy deal. Though my life has changed a bit since I wrote it, I still feel passionate about the importance of believing in yourself even without the validation of others.

For those who missed it on the first round, here's the post:

I've always been awesome, how about you?

I haven’t seen the movie Precious. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t pick Academy Award-nominated actress Gabourey Sidibe out of a police lineup.

But I recently read a quote that made me want to grab her by the face and lick her ear (or something equally affectionate):

“They [the press] try to paint the picture that I was this downtrodden, ugly girl who was unpopular in school and in life and then I got this role and now I'm awesome,” she said. “But the truth is that I've been awesome, and then I got this role."

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.

In recent weeks, casual acquaintances who’ve learned of my recent three-book deal with Sourcebooks have asked me how it feels.

What’s it like to know you’re finally good enough to sell a book?

Want to know the answer I can’t give them because I don’t want to sound like an egotistical bitch?

I was always good enough to sell a book. It just took awhile for the right editor to realize it.

Look, I’m not saying I didn’t have a lot to learn, and I’ve certainly written some craptastic stuff over the years. Even the book I originally sold to Harlequin/Silhouette’s Bombshell line back in 2005 is something I’m happy to leave tucked under my bed. I’ve grown a lot as a writer since then, and I’m much happier with the way I write now.

But if I hadn’t believed from the first moment I started writing fiction in 2002 that I was good enough to be published, I doubt I could have held on for the duration of my bumpy ride to publication.*

As an author, you have to believe that. Even on days you don’t believe it, you need to stand there in front of the mirror and say, “Dammit, I rule.”

Or some variation on that.

I’m lucky. My parents bestowed upon me a disturbingly high self-esteem, and my friends, family, and agent believed in me no matter how many rejections rolled in. That’s a big part of how I kept going despite all the setbacks along the way.

That, and a lot of Chianti.

Getting published isn’t about who you know, who you shag, or even how well you write. It’s about believing in yourself enough to keep going no matter how many times someone slaps you on the ass and says, “close, but no cigar.”

So let’s all say it together now, shall we?

I’m awesome. I’ve always been awesome. I’m awesome whether it takes me 12 days or 12 years to get published.

Repeat as often as necessary until you believe it.

*If you’re new to this blog and don’t know what I’m talking about, go here for the full story of my rather lengthy road to publication.

Lessons learned this holiday season

2011-12-26T02:30:00.000-08:00

Every holiday season offers a chance to learn, grow, and open yourself to new life experiences and important lessons. For example:

A kid brother who is proud of his puppy's testicles will firmly believe an image of said testicles makes a thoughtful and treasured Christmas card.
Never underestimate the importance of beer as a holiday gift for a 27-year-old male housemate.
There is a limit to the amount of leftover scrambled eggs a dog can eat for Christmas brunch. That limit is 1/4 cup less than you think it is.
It takes 4.5 hours to wrap presents for a houseful of people. It takes 11 seconds to unwrap them. The amount of time it takes to clean the gift wrap, ribbons, boxes, and glitter from the living room floor has yet to be determined.
It is possible to convince a 10-year-old the Pure Romance "Tickle and Whip" discovered under the bed while searching for the cat is actually a designer cat toy. It's also possible to convince the cat of this.
The phrase, "stuff my stocking" never stops being funny.

So what did YOU learn this holiday season? Please share!

Forgetting the balls you miss

2011-12-23T02:30:00.000-08:00

When I'm not toiling away as a romance author, I work part time as the marketing & communications manager for my city's tourism bureau.

That's a fancy way of saying I get paid to write blog posts about beer and take journalists snowshoeing.

A key element of my job involves wooing reporters so they write nice articles about Bend, Oregon. I like to believe I'm pretty decent at my job, and I continue believing that by never, ever looking at my own success rate on media pitches.

This came up in conversation with three co-workers the other night while we swilled holiday cocktails and recapped the year's successes. I told them about a media pitch I'd just done for a national publication.

"The reporter is listing the top ten places on earth you should be when the world ends in 2012," I explained. "I told him about the beer cooler at Good Life Brewery – how it's built to withstand a 10.0 earthquake and has enough beer to keep 100 people well-sauced for several weeks."

They all laughed and patted me on the back for my cleverness. I smiled and said a polite thank you. "I doubt anything will come of it."

I wasn't being modest. I was being realistic. Of the hundreds of pitches I do each year, only a small handful ever amount to much.

Surprisingly, that doesn't discourage me. It just means I need to keep my head down, keep my eyes peeled for opportunity, and keep pitching 'til I run out of balls.

Since there's no shortage of balls in my life, I seldom worry much.

Still, I hope no one ever makes me count how many media pitches I've done that never went anywhere. I'd much rather focus on the successes – the New York Times piece raving about a great new hotel in town, or the glossy magazine spread touting Bend as a top ski destination.

It's the same reason I cringe at author-related public speaking engagements when someone asks how many books I've written. Honestly? I can't remember. I could probably count, but I'm too lazy and frankly, the number would just be discouraging.

I'd rather focus on the three-book deal for romantic comedies, my upcoming interactive-fiction release with Coliloquy, and all the other successes I've had in my writing career.

The dead books are there collecting dust bunnies under my bed, but they don't keep me up at night.

I didn't go into all this detail with my co-workers, but one of them knew instantly what I meant about the media pitches.

"I saw a motivational speech where the guy talked about how many photographs are taken to get one, single, picture that appears in National Geographic," she said. "I don't remember the exact number, but it was hundreds of thousands."

Exactly.

But you can be damn sure the photographer who has a picture appear on those pages doesn't pout about shots he took that now sit rejected on his hard drive. He's too busy dancing around screaming, "I got a photo in @#$% National Geographic."

In the end, there's no sense wasting time or energy focusing on your failures. Keep playing, keep swinging, and keep your mind on the times you whack that damn ball out of the park.

Oh, and keep snickering about balls. That helps.

Incidentally, I heard from the reporter several days after my pitch about the beer cooler. They decided to include the brewery on their list of the top ten places to be when the world ends.

Don't you love it when balls go right where you want?

Contest winner! (Holy crap, you guys are observant)

2011-12-22T02:30:00.000-08:00

Wow.

When I asked you guys to itemize the differences between the earlier draft of my cover for Believe it or Not and the final version, I had no idea what sort of response I'd get.

I'm a little stunned.

Many of you caught stuff even I hadn't noticed, and wish I had an ARC to give each of you. You're startlingly observant, and I'll admit it makes me a bit self-conscious. Can you tell my underwear isn't precisely the same shade of red as my bra?

Alas, there can only be one winner. After conducting a scientific tabulation process that involved whining to my gentleman friend, "I hate numbers, can you help count?" that winner has been chosen.

Congratulations to Sprouting Acorn for a list so impressively long, it made other lists shift uncomfortably in their seats and google "enlargement products," after which they had to clear the cache on their computers and insist to the other lists that it's not the size of the boat, but the motion of the ocean.

Where was I?

Right. Sprouting Acorn and the amazing list. First, here's a refresher on the two different covers:

And now, here's the winning list:

The Sprouting Acorn wrote...
Okee dokee! I believe I've come up with 57 different things..... hell, I keep adding things. I give up. You'll want to count anyway. lol

Title:

Title font changed.
Title size changed to larger in final.
Title in caps (draft), lowercase (final)
No golden scroll below title in draft.
The "N" in "Not" touches the "I" in "IT" (earlier)
"Not" doesn't change in either version, except for being moved down a bit out of the top line.

Praise changed:

Draft: 5 lines; Final: 6 lines
Nominations mentioned in final
RT choice mentioned in final
Solo author mentioned in draft
Type is set lower (final)

Description blurb: ("The last thing she needs...")

Different line breaks
Bold in earlier draft; not bold in final

Author's byline:

Author name in pink (earlier)
Author name bold (earlier)
Author name different font (earlier)
Author line higher (earlier)
Author line not on male model jeans (earlier)
Author name color matches male's hair color (final)
Author name color matches scroll under title (final)

Photo:

Color saturation (earlier)
Models look tan (earlier)
Sunshine glare, top left corner (earlier)
Blue skies (earlier)
More island/land/trees/mountain? seen beyond the pier (earlier)
No pier post below pier (earlier)
Only one post/hand rail on pier (earlier)
Two handrail posts on pier (final)
One post below pier (final)
No water under pier (earlier)
Water under pier (final)
More water glare above pier (next to hands) (earlier)
Grass seen between arm/leg of female (final)
Models appear closer in earlier
Bottom of cover is blurred w/color of pier (earlier)
Different color pier
Less pier board detail (earlier)
Less amount of pier boardwalk (earlier)
Body tones of models go with the color of author's name color. Pinkish (earlier) yellowish (final)

Female:

Hair detail/ texture lost (earlier)
Nose outline lost (earlier)
More texture/detail (final)
Sun glare down to almost her forehead (final)

Male:

No jeans on male (earlier)
Face looks sunburned (final)
Face/cheek has sun glare (earlier)
"Happy trail" faint (earlier)
Chest hair faint (earlier)
Facial hair faint (earlier)
2 left hands of male (earlier) One looks as if it's holding her right hand, his other looks as if he's also holding the photo.
Arm rests upon her leg (earlier); no arm resting on her leg (final)
Does he HAVE a left arm? lol
There's a dark line (possibly left from jeans that shows in earlier.
Don't see as much of his hair curl on his left side (earlier)

***

Congratulations to Sprouting Acorn! Shoot me an email at tawnafenske at yahoo dot com with your snail mail address and I'll send out your ARC of Believe it or Not.

And thanks so much to all of you who participated!

Oh, and thanks to the more than dozen readers who emailed yesterday to alert me that my Wednesday blog failed to post, or to inquire if I had dropped dead following an all-night orgy involving Daniel Craig, George Clooney, and Lyle Lovett.

In reality, I just decided to give myself a day off and let the contest post stay on top for the full two days it was open.

But if it makes you feel better to believe the orgy thing, please do.

I know it makes me feel better.

CONTEST: What's different about the 2 covers?

2011-12-20T02:30:00.000-08:00

Last week, I shared news that the cover for my March release, Believe it or Not, had been posted to Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Though I'd reviewed drafts of the cover before that, seeing it on those sites was my first time glimpsing the final version.

Or was it the final version?

There was a little confusion, and ultimately, my editor assured me it wasn't. The cover posted on those sites was the cover for the Advance Reading Copies (ARCs). The final version would be a little different.

And yesterday, I got to see the final final version.

Here's a look at the two versions side by side:

If you want to see detail, click the image to make it bigger. You'll definitely want to do that if you'd like to enter my contest to win a signed copy of the ARC.

Here's how it works: study the two covers and make a list of the differences you see between them. Leave a blog comment naming all the differences. To keep things fair, I've turned on comment moderation and won't post any of your entries to the site until the contest closes at 5 p.m. PST on Wednesday, December 21. That way, you can't see each other's entries until the end.

The person who finds the most differences between the two covers will win a signed ARC of Believe it or Not. In the event of a tie, I'll draw a name at random among the finalists.

Sound fair?

OK, let the cover study commence!

I am cheap and easy

2011-12-19T02:30:00.000-08:00

I'm late getting home from a weekend road trip, and too brain dead to come up with a witty blog post.

What little energy I have left was spent doing a small happy-dance (complete with jeweled stilettos and nipple tassels) about the jump I noticed over the weekend for Kindle sales of Making Waves.

It's not like the general public was suddenly overwhelmed by the magnitude of my brilliance, or even spurred by the urge to read a good shower sex scene.

The spike came from the fact that Amazon picked Making Waves for a special "Big Deals" promotion. From December 17 through December 23, the Kindle version of the book is only 99-cents.

That means a whole lot of people who wouldn't ordinarily take a gamble on a new author thought to themselves, "I can either buy that pack of D-batteries at the Dollar Store, or I can spring for a cheap e-book."

I seem to be winning over the D-batteries, which makes me downright cheerful since I know what those batteries can be used for.

It's not just the Kindle users who benefit, since pretty much anyone with an iPhone or an iPad can download a Kindle app and read that version of the book.

It also makes a cheap and easy gift. With two simple clicks last night, I sent a copy to my dad's new Kindle. Probably not the best Christmas gift, since he already owns a copy, but it's the thought that counts.

Anyway, if you've been on the fence about buying the book for yourself or an e-book savvy loved one, now's the time to snag it.

But if you find yourself in an orgasm-induced coma for the next few days and wake to discover it's December 24 and the sale is over, don't fret.

Before we got word about Making Waves being chosen for the Amazon promotion, Sourcebooks had already made plans to include the Kindle version in a different promotion. That means even after the 99-cent deal ends Friday, you'll still be able to snag the Kindle version for $1.99 through January 8.

Lest you think I'm offended at being so cheap and easy, let me assure you this is one of the best things to happen for a debut author. Promotions like this are a great way to spike your rankings and visibility, and means more people will end up reading my book. Just the sort of buzz I want with two new books coming out within the next three months, no?

So if you're looking to score a cheap gift for a loved one, here's the link. Heck, give it to all your friends and family. I'm sure Aunt Mildred will enjoy the Strip Battleship scene.

Can you choose a book by its cover?

2011-12-16T02:30:00.000-08:00

I've been reading with the same book club for more than 11 years. That means we sometimes have to spice things up to keep the zing in our relationship.

While we don't handcuff each other before breaking out the feather dusters and spiked dog collars, we do like to try new things from time to time.

Last month, we conducted an experiment: Everyone had to go to a bookstore and choose a book based solely on the cover. We could read the title, but none of the back-cover copy or reviews. We weren't allowed to choose books we'd heard of before.

It was the ultimate "choose a book by its cover" experience.

Each of us had to read our chosen book, and return to the group the following month. We laid the books out on the kitchen counter, and took turns guessing who they belonged to.

It sparked some fascinating discussion – who did we think picked that book? Why did she pick it? How drunk was she when she went shopping?

Once we had it all figured out, we went around the room and talked about our books. We each revealed what made us choose our book, and what we expected it to be like.

Not surprisingly, a lot of us were...well, surprised.

Some discovered the books were nothing like they expected. Others found they guessed pretty accurately. Some hated their books. Some loved them so much they threatened to hold their breath until everyone in the room read their chosen selection.

The subject is something that's been weighing on my mind a lot lately. On Wednesday, I showed you the cover for my March romantic comedy, Believe it or Not. At the risk of sounding like captain obvious, it's pretty different from the cover for Making Waves.

My publisher has a very strategic reason for doing it, and since I don't happen to be an expert in book cover psychology, I defer to their wisdom. Any decision they make with the goal of selling more books is a good one in my mind.

To what degree do you judge a book by its cover? Have you ever conducted an experiment like the one my book club tried? Any thoughts on the psychology of book covers in general? Please share!

And yeah, feel free to guess which book in that pile above was the one I brought. My book club figured it out instantly.

The emails that make me cranky

2011-12-15T02:30:00.000-08:00

At the day-job yesterday, I got the sort of email I dread.

No, not the ones promising a discount mortgage with the purchase of internet porn (I actually kind of like those). This one was pointing out a typo in a brand new brochure we just got back from the printer in great big boxes stuffed with 10,0000 copies.

"Where it says ozyacetlyene," wrote a business associate, "is this supposed to be oxyacetlyene?

Um...probably?

It's a tiny word in a small block of copy describing the tool used to create a sculpture. I grabbed the description straight from the art organization's website, but I damn well should have double-checked the spelling and I know it.

I hate that.

On the grand scale of typos, it's not the worst I've ever seen. In my younger years as a journalist, I missed it when my spell checker corrected a university president's name from "Marilyn Wessel" to "Marlin Weasel" in an article about funding cuts.

She wasn't amused.

I've been writing for my supper in one form or another my entire adult life, so you'd think I'd be used to uncomfortable typos by now. Still, I have a crippling fear of looking at anything I've written after it's printed and published. You want to know how many times I've opened a copy of Making Waves?

Once.

And the only reason I did it was because I had to read a section of the book for a speaking engagement. I decided to read from the uncorrected proof so if I did find any typos, I could assure myself they'd been corrected in the actual, printed copies of the book.

But the first time I read from the proof, I stumbled over a typo right in the middle of the Newlywed Game scene. I recovered and kept reading, but for several days after that, I couldn't shake the horrible thought:

What if it actually went to print like that?

Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I looked in the actual, printed copy of Making Waves, and dammitalltohell, the typo is in there. It might not be apparent to everyone, but it's obvious when you read the scene aloud (so, uh...don't do that).

I went back to my uncorrected proof and scribbled a correction so I don't stumble anymore when I read the scene in public. Still, it bugs me.

I'm pretty sure that's the last time I'll look at a printed copy of one of my books. I'm keeping that in mind as I stare at the small pile of uncorrected proofs I just got in the mail for Believe it or Not. Do I look? I'm pretty sure the real book has already gone to print, so if I find a typo now, I might not be able to do anything about it.

I know there are more important things to stress about in life, but sometimes we have to fret about the little crap just to keep our minds off the big stuff (like the fact that I'm facing a really daunting edit on my third contracted romantic comedy, Mad Crush).

Do you get freaky about typos, or can you let them roll off your back? Did you happen to catch the typo in the Newlywed Game scene in Making Waves?

Wait. Crap. Why am I telling you about that? Now you're all going to go look, aren't you?

This is the worst blog post ever.

Do I have to sweep my floor for the naked men?

2011-12-14T02:30:00.000-08:00

Back when I was racking up rejection letters faster than a stripper collects sequined g-strings, my amazing agent gave some great pep talks (though sadly, no sequined g-strings, which is a bummer since I kind of wanted one).

One of the pep talks offered the up-side to the number of manuscripts I'd written and subsequently seen rejected. Someday, she assured me, one domino will fall and everything will sell and you'll suddenly have more book deals than you can handle.

I loved the pep talk, but had a hard time envisioning what that day might look like. I imagined a lot of half-naked men writhing on my office floor, but didn't get much further than that in my fantasies about an overabundance of authorial good fortune.

But I think I finally get it.

The great news is that I have a lot of...well, great news to share. The not-so-great news is that I haven't yet figured out how to clone myself to handle all the book stuff (not to mention the half-naked men on my floor).

But I'd rather focus on the great news.

First up, Publishers Marketplace just released the official announcement of my new book deal with Coliloquy:

You should be able to click that to make it readable, and in case you missed last week's announcement about the new deal, you can check out my posts here and here.

To sum it up in a nutshell, here's the official marketing lingo I'm allowed to share about what Coliloquy is and what my story is about:

"Active fiction" is a new type of e-reading experience that allows the reader and the author to interact with each other and the text in new and different ways.
In Getting Dumped, Tawna gives you one very simple choice point: Which guy should JJ call? Depending on your choice, you’ll get to know one of the guys a bit more intimately. Don’t be afraid to read all three versions–it’s for JJ’s own good, after all! And of course, feel free to re-read YOUR favorite over and over again. Tawna still isn't sure who JJ should end up with, so she's eager to see who her readers prefer. She sees the aggregate statistics on who gets picked the most, so the more you read, the more you influence what she writes.

So there's that. Super exciting, to be sure, and I promise I'll have more details very soon.

Then there's the news that Amazon and Barnes and Noble just posted the cover for Believe it or Not, my second romantic comedy that's slated for release with Sourcebooks in March 2012.

I'm actually not 100% sure if that's the final, OFFICIAL cover or just the cover for the advance reading copies, but I figure it's got to be pretty close since it's online, and obviously everything online is true and accurate.

Pretty, no?

Then there's the news that Making Waves has been picked for not one, but two online promotions through Amazon. The first kicks off December 17, and here's what the Sourcebooks publicist told me about it:

Amazon is running a great promotion the week prior to Christmas, another one of their “Big Deals.” They have chosen Making Waves to be a part of this promotion, and it will be priced at $0.99 from December 17-23.

This sort of thing is fabulous news for a no-name debut author like me, since budget-conscious Kindle owners are often willing to take a gamble on a new author when the price is right. It's a terrific way to get some exposure.

And of course, for those of you I've already exposed myself to (snicker) it's a terrific way for you to pick up a cheap e-book gift for a Kindle-toting loved one this holiday season.

So there you have it. Three chunks of good news related to three different books. Crazy times, to be sure!

Now where are those naked men?

Holiday films that jingle my bells

2011-12-13T02:30:00.000-08:00

It's the holiday season, which means it's time to snicker over phrases like "Santa's sack" and "stocking stuffer," and "low-hanging balls."

It's also time to trot out the holiday movies. Friends and family all have favorites, and we've built little rituals around the annual viewing.

My immediate family spends most of the year quoting lines from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, which means we don't actually need to watch the movie anymore.

But I'm fairly certain my father would disown us all if we weren't able to prove we'd watched It's a Wonderful Life at least once during each holiday season.

One of my best girlfriends and I love to watch White Christmas together each year. The details of the ritual are hazy, mostly because it involves large quantities of wine and a requisite drunken commentary throughout the film.

But my favorite holiday movie of all is Love, Actually.

It's one of those movies you can watch any time of year, but the holiday theme makes it perfect for the season. It's a 2003 British romantic comedy featuring ten separate love stories intertwined. In case you've never seen it (or if you need a refresher) here's the trailer:

And here's what I love about the movie, not just as a holiday staple, but as one of my favorite films of all times – it's not simple.

None of the stories are the straightforward "boy meets girl" variety. There's the shy couple conducting polite get-to-know-you conversations while serving as body doubles on the set of a porn film. There's the foul-mouthed, aging rock star who realizes his longtime manager is the platonic love of his life. There's the socially awkward young brit who heads to America and discovers a bevy of beautiful women find his accent irresistible.

There are happily-ever-afters, and not-so-happily-ever-afters. There are tears and laughter and awkward moments that make you want to cover your eyes and pretend you've never, ever been that girl who blurts out profanity at an inopportune moment.

For me, the core of the movie is summed up in the opening monologue delivered by Hugh Grant's character:

Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there – fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge – they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around.

People ask me constantly why I choose to write romance out of all the genres in the world. It's tempting to tell them I do it because I'm a sexual deviant who gets her thrills writing sex scenes, but more tempting to want to hand them a card with that monologue printed on it.

What could be more universal than a love story? And what could be more fun than finding new and creative ways to capture that?

Well, besides acting out the love scenes you're creating. For research purposes, of course.

What holiday films are staples in your household? Got any favorites you've watched over and over again? Please share!

I need to go stop the dog from licking the cat's butt under the mistletoe. Love isn't always pretty, is it?

Household purging gone awry

2011-12-12T02:30:00.000-08:00

Before my house went up for sale last month, the realtors gave explicit directions for staging the place to look its best.

Most instructions began, "get rid of–"

I took countless loads of stuff to Goodwill and the dump, resisting the urge to forage at either place for more things to bring home. Decluttering is the name of the game, and I'm proud to say I'm pretty good at it.

My two 27-year-old male housemates aren't adapting as well.

During the first walk-through, the realtors pointed out a wheeled office chair that didn't appear to be in use. The seat was slightly torn, and I'd stuffed it in the guest room in case I needed an extra chair for dinner parties.

"Can you get rid of that?" they asked.

"Sure," I agreed. "It's in decent shape, so I'll just wheel it to the sidewalk and stick a free sign on it."

I did exactly that before piling another load of household clutter into the trunk of my car and heading to Goodwill. When I returned an hour later, the chair was gone from the sidewalk.

I was delighted for the thirty seconds it took to drive from the bottom of my driveway to the top. That's when I discovered the chair sitting in the front yard with the free sign gone.

"What the hell?" I asked as I walked through the front door.

My housemates ignored me, probably because they're accustomed to that as my normal greeting.

"Why is the chair in the yard?" I asked.

"It was free," replied one of the housemates. "I thought it would look good in my room."

"It was free because I put it there," I informed him. "And also because I'm trying to get rid of things."

He grinned. "You just did."

I gave up the chair battle and continued filling boxes and bags with castoff clothing, rarely-used appliances, and the overabundance of office supplies I swear have been procreating in my desk drawers. I stuck one of the boxes in the entryway, thinking I might inspire the boys to do some decluttering of their own.

"I'm taking that box to Goodwill later today," I told them Saturday morning. "If there's anything you want to get rid of, go ahead and toss it in there."

They both looked up at me. "That box is going to Goodwill?"

Before I could open my mouth to reply, they were both pawing through the box like a pair of mongrel dogs doing a dumpster dive outside the butcher shop.

"Hey, this is a good mug!" one of them declared.

"This hula girl hasn't even been opened," the other shouted. "I can put it on the dashboard of my car."

The other housemate took it from him. "Let's see if her skirt comes off. That would be better."

They continued digging as I stood speechless in the living room, not daring to interrupt what appeared to be the most fun either of them had enjoyed all week.

"Tape?" one housemate yelled. "Who gets rid of tape?"

"I had twelve unopened boxes of it in my desk," I informed him. "I don't need that much tape."

"Probably stole it from work," he muttered to the other housemate. "Hey, what's this thing that says Pirate Playmates?"

He pulled out a plastic baggie of action figures someone gave me as a gag gift. They both frowned. "That's not what I was hoping for."

I sighed. "Is there anything else I can get you boys?"

"Got any bulbs for this lamp?"

So much for decluttering. On the bright side, the housemates seem pleased with their new acquisitions. In hindsight, I probably should have wrapped up all my castoff stuff and offered it to them as holiday gifts.

How are your decluttering skills? Do you tend to be a pack-rat or a ruthless organizer? Please share!

And let me know if you want to pilfer through the housemates' rooms for any household goods you might need. I promise not to tell.

Out of order isn't code for "hangover," I swear

2011-12-09T02:30:00.000-08:00

I'm sure I'm not alone in having a nutty schedule as the holidays approach. The day job in marketing/PR requires me to attend a lot of social functions this time of year, which seems like a recipe for a month-long hangover.

Except that I just got hit with the head-cold from hell, so even expensive wine tastes like Nyquil now. I'm not in the mood to imbibe, and I'm sad to admit all the fancy appetizers people keep foisting on me taste like cardboard.

All that would be fine, except my realtor just called about showing the house this weekend, and I'm wondering if I can pass off cat fur and dirty dishes as the hot new decorator touches of the season. I don't have time to clean, because I just got my editor's revision notes for Mad Crush, plus there's work to be done for the any-minute-now release of my new interactive fiction title, Getting Dumped, and a book club meeting to attend and...

Wait. Why are you all playing those little violins?

No, I would not like cheese with my whine. I want to crawl into bed and hide there for a whole weekend. Maybe a week, if I can persuade someone naked to join me.

Sorry, guys. I've got nothing amusing for you today. Unless my brain actually does explode, in which case I promise to post pictures of the carnage.

For now, take care of yourselves, and promise you'll drink my share of the wine, OK?

Why you shouldn't date a romance author

2011-12-08T02:30:00.000-08:00

This time of year, I find myself making awkward conversationat a lot of events and dinner parties. Some are required for my career inmarketing/PR, and some are the result of people knowing they can lure me to anypublic outing with the promise of free wine and a shrimp puff.

It’s only possible to discuss shrimp puffs with strangersfor so long before conversations shift to the inevitable: “What do you do?”

Note: yourresponse to this question should contain some element of career information andnot details of what you ordered at your last PureRomance party and how you put it to use.

If I’m looking to escape the conversation, I throw out aline about managing communications for my city’s tourism bureau. But if I knowI’m going to be there awhile, I’ll mention my gig as a romance author.

That’s where the questions begin.

Some are industry related: Is it hard to get published? How did you get an agent? How many bookshave you written? Where can I find them?

Some make me giggle: Howdo you research your love scenes? Do you let your parents read them? Do youever plan to write a REAL book?

Lately – perhaps because I’ve been dragging him to speakingengagements and dinner functions – a number have been directed at my gentlemanfriend: What’s it like to date a romanceauthor? Do you worry you’ll end up in one of her scenes? Can she really put herankles behind her head?

He takes it all in stride, which I appreciate. A mutualfriend once described him as, “the least self-conscious person I’ve ever met,”which should probably be a requirement for anyone dating an author with afondness for genital euphemisms.

Still, I feel like I’m walking a funny line. I invite theprying questions with the very nature of what I write and how I’ve chosen toput myself in the public arena. But when he accepted my dinner invitation eightmonths ago, I doubt he pictured himself in front of an audience of 65 libraryfundraisers responding to the question, “how does she get inspiration for her lovescenes?”

(For the record, he handled it brilliantly, and didn’t batan eyelash when they thrust the mike in his face. Also for the record, he’dfind the phrase “thrust the mike in his face” as funny as I just did.)

How conscious do you have to be of the way your chosenoccupation impacts the people around you? Does your job ever make for awkwarddinner party conversations? Please share!

Oh, and to answer the aforementioned questions in randomorder, yes, no, all over the place, I’m not sure, yes, hard work, carefully,no, yes, interesting.

The art of the tease

2011-12-07T02:30:00.000-08:00

Raise your hand if you’ve ever been called a tease.

Raise your other hand if you’ve secretly considered it a compliment.

Crap, I can’t type with both hands in the air.

The art of the tease is something romance authors work long and hard (snicker) to perfect. Your characters might want to jump each other’s bones on page one, but you’ve got 350 pages to fill. Odds are good you’ll run out of sex positions by then, and sad as it is to say, even I’d be bored by 350 pages of playing spear the donut.

I heard an editor once say she prefers to have the couple in a romance novel swap their first kiss by page 50 and first sex by page 100. It’s a rule I’ve never followed, and so far, no one’s yelled at me for it. I far prefer the long, drawn-out tease. I want the couple to come close to burping the worm once, twice, maybe three times, building the tension and leaving the reader squirming in her chair.

There’s an art to the squirming, though. Interrupt too many hookups with a ringing telephone or some other clichéd contrivance and you’ll have your reader rolling her eyes instead of ~~diddling herself under the desk~~ turning the pages of your book.

I've heard people say the romance novels are all about how to get two people together, but I disagree. Getting them together is the easy part. Creating a long, slow, tease that keeps them from consummating their relationship for much of the book is the tough part.

With all this talk about teasing, I feel obligated to say I'm not quite done doing that with my new book deal for Coliloquy. I shared some of the details on Monday and Tuesday, but I can't give it all up just yet. Stay tuned here for more info, or sign up with Coliloquy to be first to hear about release information.

In the meantime, how do you feel about the fine art of the tease? Can you think of examples of authors or significant others who've done a particularly good job with it? Please share!

It's time for me to put my hands down and quit typing with my toes.

How you know your new publisher rocks

2011-12-06T02:30:00.000-08:00

In case you've ever wondered, here's how you know if your new publisher rocks so hard they'd make Popeye seasick.

You walk out to your mailbox on a gloomy Monday afternoon expecting the usual assortment of bills, pizza coupons, and ~~sex toy catalogs~~ church bulletins.

Instead, you find this:

Yes, Coliloquy – the folks publishing my new "active fiction" title later this week – sent me a new Kindle loaded with all their launch titles. Holymotherofcrap, isn't that cool?

As you know, I've had to be pretty secretive about the nature of this project. There are still a few things I'm not allowed to reveal until release day, but I asked permission to answer some of the questions you guys posed in the comments yesterday.

The Sprouting Acorn asked:
I'd still like to know what the cat photo had to do with the clues in Friday's post.

That's an easy one! When I sat down to write Getting Dumped, I decided JJ needed a pet. I looked to my own four-legged brood to assess who'd make the best character in a romantic caper. It didn't take long for me to settle on Blue Cat:

I acquired Blue Cat by accident several years ago when I wandered into Petco for aquarium plants. They had a section of cages filled with death row cats who'd been at the animal shelter for too long, and Blue Cat caught my eye because he was huge and mostly bald.

"Someone adopted him for a month and then brought him back so matted they had to shave him," the attendant explained.

His tag said he'd been at the shelter for more than a year and that he was 13 years old. "No one's going to adopt an elderly, bald, 300 pound cat who's probably crazy after being incarcerated for a year," I said. "I'll take him."

On his first visit to the vet, he threw such a snarling, howling conniption fit, the vet tech tried to send us home. But the vet came in and wrestled him to the ground so she could peer at his teeth. "This cat isn't 13 years old," she said. "He's maybe 3 or 4."

Despite his occasional surly disposition (usually tempered by spending an hour chasing the dog around the house) Blue Cat is the most loving of my three feline companions. The sheer size of him means he puts my legs to sleep when he sits on me, but whenever I feel glum, I can count on Blue Cat to magically appear and offer his lap-warming services. He chases large dogs out of the yard, and the neighbors have dubbed him "Battle Cat" for his tough-guy walk and fearless nature.

That's Blue Cat in a nutshell, and you'll be seeing quite a bit of him in Getting Dumped.

Now for the next blog reader comment:

Steph Schmidt wrote:
I signed up for Coliloquy but after reading that blurb I'm impatient as all hell for it to launch (never mind I lack an e-reader, mere details at this point).

Thanks for your eagerness! For the initial launch, Kindle will be the only format for Getting Dumped. There are super-techy reasons for that, but I'm not allowed to go into details just yet. Consider it a good reason to add a Kindle to your holiday wish list, or stay tuned for details about other formats and platforms.

Sierra Godfrey wrote:
Very interesting! I look forward to seeing how this works. Any chance you can outline what exactly actively interacting with you entails? Er...we ARE reading, right?

We're getting into top-secret territory here, but I promise I'll be able to share more details later this week. For now, here's the official marketing lingo I'm allowed to post:

"Active fiction" is a new type of e-reading experience that allows the reader and the author to interact with each other and the text in new and different ways.

In Getting Dumped, Tawna gives you one very simple choice point: Which guy should JJ call? Depending on your choice, you’ll get to know one of the guys a bit more intimately. Don’t be afraid to read all three versions–it’s for JJ’s own good, after all! And of course, feel free to re-read YOUR favorite over and over again. Tawna still isn't sure who JJ should end up with, so she's eager to see who her readers prefer. She sees the aggregate statistics on who gets picked the most, so the more you read, the more you influence what she writes.

If it sounds fun to read, I can tell you it's been 10-times as fun to write. The authors among you will all be familiar with how much second guessing goes into every decision you make when plotting a book. It's been amazing to be able to sit back and say, "here are a few ways this can go, let's have readers pick!"

I'll share more info as soon as I can, and I promise to post Amazon links and other goodies once I have the go-ahead.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go play with what came in the mail.

The Kindle, you perverts. The Kindle.

How I fulfilled my trashy fantasies

2011-12-05T02:30:00.000-08:00

When I was five, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt what I wanted to be when I grew up.

Waiting for the garbage truck with my kid brother.

Every Tuesday morning, I'd scramble to the big picture window at the front of the house and wait for that familiar rumble. I'd sit, mesmerized, as the garbage truck came lumbering down the street.

"Garbey-guck," my two-year-old brother would announce.

"Damn straight," I'd say (or something to that effect). "Someday, I'm going to drive one."

I'm 37 now, and I haven't entirely fulfilled my fantasy. But I've come close.

In the spring of 2008, I got laid off from a job as the director of marketing and franchise development for a chain of photo studios. I was thrilled.

Because it gave me the chance to combine my adult career fantasy of being a novelist, with my childhood career fantasy of working with trash. I remember the phone call I made shortly after my layoff. My words came out in an excited jumble, and the receptionist was so silent afterward that I thought she'd hung up on me.

"Let me get this straight," she said at last. "You want to come here to the Deschutes County Department of Solid Waste to do research for a mystery/romance novel."

"Yes!"

"Romance," she repeated. "And mystery. In a landfill?"

"Yes!"

There was another long pause, so I decided to press my luck. "Do you think there's any chance I could drive the compactor?"

I didn't get to drive the compactor, but I did get to sit in the cab and make growly noises, followed by the occasional beep-beep for backup effect. I can honestly say that doing research for Getting Dumped was some of the most fun I've ever had in my life.

And in case you haven't figured it out yet, Getting Dumped is the secret project I've been hinting about for awhile now. The book is set to release this week, and here's a blurb:

Losing a cushy marketing job only to end up driving heavy equipment at the landfill would be a tough blow for most women.

But JJ Schultz isn’t most women, so she gamely swaps office politics and dry cleaning bills for a chance to crush garbage with a 150,000 pound machine. As it turns out, she doesn’t miss her old life too much…though her love life was sure a lot simpler when she didn’t wear a hardhat every day. Between her hot new co-workers and her on-again-off-again boyfriend, JJ has her hands full.

But the drama kicks into high gear when JJ and her sister, Lori, find evidence of a counterfeit handbag operation – something local police deem only slightly more urgent than collecting fruit flies. JJ soon finds herself unraveling a sinister plot in the company of a tie-tugging accountant, a straight-to-video action hero turned secretary, a suspicious but sneaky-hot engineer, and a host of other characters with questionable hygiene and morals.

Now here's the kicker – the book is being released as an "active fiction" title. Er, what does that mean? Well, it's a brand new kind of e-reading experience that allows the reader and author to interact with each other and the text in new and different ways.

Think grown-up, modern version of those choose-your-own adventure novels from childhood.

Intrigued? So was I when my agent called early last summer positively shrieking with excitement over this hot new opportunity. Her enthusiasm was contagious, and soon I was almost as excited about being one of the launch authors for Coliloquy as I was about driving the garbage truck.

I'll be able to share more details over the next couple days, but you can click that Coliloquy link to sign up for an alert when the launch titles go live this week.

For now, I'd love to hear more about what you wanted to be when you were young. Did it change when you got older? Have you ever had the chance to fulfill any childhood career fantasies? Please share!

I'll be sitting in the backhoe at the construction site down the street making growly noises. If you see me, don't interrupt.

Photo Phriday, pheaturing hints about next week's book release

2011-12-02T02:30:00.000-08:00

As I shared yesterday, I have a top secret new book scheduled to release next week. I can't spill all the details yet, but I will tell you it's a totally new concept in publishing and storytelling, and I'm crazy excited about it.

Or maybe just crazy.

Since this is my second time around the book release block, I've come to the conclusion there's some mysterious, magical force that causes life to throw all manner of chaos at an author at the precise moment she's preparing for a book release.

If my brain weren't fried, I might try to write a post with a bunch of cleverly worded clues about the book and the publisher.

But clever wording is beyond my grasp right now, so how about a few clues in picture form?

Intrigued? Or just confused? Come back next week, and I promise that will all make sense.

Er, maybe.

Have a great weekend, guys!

On waking up naked and not complaining

2011-12-01T02:30:00.000-08:00

My day job requires me to do a lot of unusual things, including waking up naked at 2 a.m. on a floor that wasn’t mine.

OK, my job didn’t actually require me to do that. It was the unexpected side effect of attending a five-course wine dinner where the sommelier kept refilling my glass until I’d lost track of my consumption and possibly my shoes.

(For the record, I wasn’t driving. Also for the record, I do know the owner of the aforementioned floor, and my nude presence there wasn’t terribly disconcerting. Also for the record, my boss was highly amused when I shared this story).

My job in tourism marketing means I spend a lot of time wooing journalists with treks around the Bend Ale Trail or accepting invitations to swanky dinners so I can write about it.

In other words, I get paid to eat and drink.

Hardly something to complain about, but there are moments I want to. Like an hour ago when the boss walked in and handed me an invitation to a party he needs me to attend next week and I almost cried. Free food, free wine, and I swear I’d rather tear off my toenails with my teeth than spend another evening doing anything other than lounging on the sofa in my jammies.

It’s like that with writing sometimes, too. I hesitate to say much about struggles with deadlines or harsh editorial feedback because HOLYMOTHEROFCRAP I have a three-book deal. I pretty much forfeited my right to complain about anything the moment I signed my name to that contract.

So this is me, not complaining. About free food and wine, or about the fact that I’m feeling stressed over my new book that’s being released next week.

You like how I just slipped that in there?

Yeah, it’s a secret. I’ll tell you more as soon as I’m allowed, but trust me when I tell you it’s super exciting.

And scary.

But mostly exciting.

Got anything in your life you’re NOT complaining about (even if you might kinda want to sometimes?) Please share!

And if you’ve got a good “waking up naked” story, share that, too. It’ll make me feel better.

4 tips for researching a new manuscript

2011-11-30T02:30:00.000-08:00

Though you guys know my three contracted romantic comedies as Making Waves, Believe it or Not, and Mad Crush, those names have never stuck in my mind.

To me, the books will always be known by their working titles: Piratebich, Psychicbitch, and Winebitch.

In continuing with tradition, I’ve recently started Museumbitch.

I can’t tell you much about the plot. It’s not that I’m being secretive and stealthy, but rather that I’m clueless. What I can tell you is that the story is set at a Central Oregon museum specializing in wildlife exhibits and natural history. My fictional museum is a lot like Bend’s High Desert Museum, so I arranged to spend part of Monday interviewing staff there.

As a recovering journalist, I tend to bring my research-junkie habits when I write novels. In case it helps fellow writers (or for those of you curious about the process) here are a few tips for kicking off research for a new novel:

Reach out and touch someone

Since I’m a writer who prefers to minimize human contact, I generally make interview requests via email. I start with a simple note explaining who I am, what I’m working on, and what sort of questions I might like to ask someone in the organization. In the case of Museumbitch, I touched base with someone in the marketing department who already knows me from my day job. As is almost always the case, she seemed delighted with the idea of assisting with research for a novel – even though the novel isn’t even contracted for publication.

Write questions…then ignore them

Having a list of questions prepared in advance gives you a great way to fill any lulls in conversation, and also ensures you get all the information you’re seeking. Though I always make sure I go in with a few questions jotted on the first page of my notebook, I prefer to use the list as a crutch, rather than an agenda. Letting the conversation flow in unexpected directions is sometimes where the best ideas happen!

Get it on with a group

Interviewing a single person alone is fine, but if it’s at all possible, see if you can arrange to talk to two or three people at once. Having that sort of interplay between interviewees helps loosen people up a bit, and also gives you a better shot at getting those spontaneous bursts of info sharing where one person’s idea sparks another.

Don’t ignore the boring stuff

I didn’t go into Monday’s interview expecting one of my subjects to devote the first ten minutes to a recitation of job titles within the museum. As it turned out, this was some of the most valuable information I gathered. I knew beforehand that my heroine would be in charge of fundraising for the museum, but I had no idea how much manpower it actually takes – even in a fairly small, non-profit organization. I also got some great ideas for secondary characters and funny scenes – stuff I never would have gotten if I’d asked her to skip the employee roster and go straight to telling funny stories about taking the museum’s raptors to cocktail parties (no, I’m not kidding, and yes, I’ll definitely be writing about that).

So there you have it…my top tips for interview-based novel research. Got any of your own to share? Or any questions you want to throw out there about my process? Leave a comment!

I’m hoping that’ll cause you all to forget I don’t have a plot.

Why my cockles are warm

2011-11-29T02:30:00.000-08:00

I spent the past weekend helping a friend move. When I wasn't snickering about stuffing things in boxes or the merits of being on top, I was making myself surprisingly useful for a short chick devoid of upper body strength.

Around 8 p.m. Saturday night, we had most of the heavy furniture piled in the driveway behind the moving truck. I was considering faking a psychotic episode to avoid having my wimpy butt crushed beneath the queen-sized box spring, when all of a sudden, I heard the voice of an angel.

OK, it wasn't an angel. It was a tipsy guy en route to the bar down the street. Same thing, sometimes.

"Do you guys need a hand?" he called. He and his buddy stepped into the driveway and smiled at my friend. "Looks like your wife was about to try to lift that heavy dresser."

I looked around for the wife and realized they meant me. Concerned my friend might refuse assistance or clarify my marital status, I spoke up quickly.

"We'd love help," I gushed, shoving my hands in my pockets to hide my bare ring finger. "Thank you so much!"

And in five minutes, the guys had all the pain-in-the-ass heavy furniture loaded into the truck. I couldn't decide whether to weep with joy or follow them to the bar and buy them a beer. I was still considering it when they disappeared into the darkness.

While this isn't one of those touching tales of a stranger risking life and limb to save a toddler from a burning orphanage, it still warms the cockles of my heart.

(Incidentally, what is a cockle? Is it as filthy as it sounds? Because if so, my heart must have dozens of them).

Good Samaritan stories always serve as a good reminder to me that there are kind, generous people willing to do kind things for others even when there's nothing to be gained from it. It's enough to make me watch for ways I can pay it forward the next time I see someone in need of a helping hand.

Got any good heart-warming Good Samaritan stories of your own? Please share!

Let's all warm our cockles together.

Even moving day is filthy if you listen closely

2011-11-28T02:30:00.000-08:00

I spent the weekend helping a friend move, a process that’s approximately as enjoyable as sliding down a razor blade banister into a barrel of grapefruit juice.

On the bright side, there was no shortage of amusing innuendo. For example…

Disassembling furniture

We need to find a good place for all the screws
It should be loose enough now you can just use your fingers

Packing

Will this fit in that box?
That’s way too big to shove in there

Lugging furniture up and down stairs

Do you want to be on top or bottom?
Hold on, I need to get a better grip so I can slide it
Let’s switch so you're not behind me

Loading the moving truck

We need to put the smaller things in before we cram in all that big stuff
Push harder and you should be able to get it in
Why don’t I stick that in my trunk instead?

So that pretty much covers the excitement of my weekend. How was yours?

Why I’m thankful to be wrong

2011-11-23T02:30:00.000-08:00

Not long ago, a friend shared that during bouts of insomnia, she counts her blessings until she either falls asleep or wakes her husband to indulge in naked blessings.

I like both ideas a lot, and I’ve been thinking about them more as Thanksgiving approaches. It’s easy to be thankful for the things we wished for that turned out exactly the way we wanted.

But sometimes, the things I’m most grateful for are the ones that didn’t go my way – those instances where I hoped with all my might for life to unfold a certain way, and the great puppet-master of the universe shook her head and said, “bitch, you don’t have a clue.”

For instance:

I’m so glad the first book I sold in 2005 wasn’t released after the line was canceled a month before my scheduled debut (go here if you don’t know the story). I couldn’t have known then, but the romantic comedies I wrote in the following years were much stronger books, and more true to my natural voice. As a result, Making Waves got to sit on the shelves in August as my real debut.
I’m thankful that when faced with a choice between four amazing agents in 2006, I chose wrong. Had I not spent a year represented by an agent who wasn’t the right fit, I’m not sure I would have recognized how amazing Michelle Wolfson is, or how lucky I am to have spent the last four years as her client.
I’m so grateful that my many months of pleading, cajoling, hoping, wishing, threatening, crying, and couples counseling didn’t save my 13-year marriage. How else could I have discovered this whole new realm of happiness and fulfillment?
I’m thankful that in the weeks after my ex moved out, friends and family ignored my stoic declarations that I was fine on my own. Their constant hovering took many forms, from ladies’ nights to dinner invitations to impromptu phone calls to heartfelt emails and blog comments. The support I didn’t realize I craved turned out to be exactly what I needed to pull me through that dark time.
I’m thankful that when I sent a “hi, remember me?” email to a long-ago coworker who’d gone through a similar divorce, he did remember. And he not only agreed to share the wisdom of his own divorce experience, but refrained from questioning my sanity when I proposed a businesslike friends-with-benefits arrangement. But most of all, I’m grateful we both discovered quickly there’s a whole lot more to our connection. If not for the unexpected detours in both of our lives, we would never have ended up right here, right now.

And right here, right now, is a place I’m damn glad to be.

Has your life taken any unexpected, unwanted turns that turned out to be exactly what you needed? Please share!

And please forgive the brief blog break I’m about to take. I’ll be traveling Thursday and Friday to be with family for Thanksgiving, but I promise to be back here bright and early Monday morning. Happy holidays, guys! I’m eternally thankful for YOU!

Is it the singer or the song?

2011-11-22T02:30:00.000-08:00

I’ve been thinking a lot about music lately ~~because it’s aterrific way to procrastinate~~ becausecreating a musical setlist is a crucial part of my professional writing process when startinga new book.

My latest musical fixation kicked off last week when author Trisha Leigh – who shares my great passionfor singer/songwriter Matt Nathanson– tweeted me a link to his newest release.

After I finished ~~swooning~~ ~~panting~~ ~~touching myself inappropriately~~ ~~taking a cold shower~~ listening to the song, I downloaded the whole album and skimmedonline for information about the story behind it. Modern Love has a decidedlydifferent vibe than his previous albums, and I was curious.

I soon found an explanation on his website:

from http://mattnathanson.com/about/

Um, yeah. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out whyan album with that theme might appeal to a romance author beginning a new book.At heart, aren’t most romance novels about struggle and transition and the urge to love and find love?

Of course, this raises the question of how much attention Ishould pay to the literal meaning behind songs when it was simply the tonethat piqued my interest in the first place.

I’ve grappled with this a lot when it comes to connectingthe songs I listen to when writing with the scenes they end up inspiring.

When I wrote my March 2012 release, Believe it or Not, I spent a lot of time listening to the album BreakUp, which is described thusly on the website:

A truly one-of-a-kindalbum, Break Up bringstogether critically acclaimed singer/songwriter Pete Yorn and themulti-talented Scarlett Johansson. In this deeply emotive yet hook-filled songcycle, Yorn and Johansson reenact the tempestuous course of a love affair onthe rocks.

The tempestuous course of a love affair? That’s Believe it or Not in a nutshell. Ofcourse, as the album title suggests, Pete and Scarlett's story doesn’t have quite the happyending Drew and Violet's does in Believe it or Not.

When I wrote the final love scene for Mad Crush (my September 2012 release) my brain latched on to Patty Griffin’s song “Change”and wouldn’t let go. It’s a dark, gritty song about abuse and the unhealthyurge to alter yourself to fit someone else’s notion of what you should be.

Change (Album Version)
I listened to the song several dozen times while writingwhat turned out to be a rather aggressive love scene, and I remember reassuringmyself the song’s message and lyrics had nothing to do with the story I waswriting – I just liked the vibe.

It wasn’t until months later when I took several steps backfrom the manuscript that I realized the song’s theme actually did fit what I’d written – in fact, boththe hero and heroine grapple throughout the book with whether or not to shape their lives to please or emulate other people.

Did my brain gravitate toward the song because Isubconsciously realized that's the direction the story was headed, or did the song influence the story somehow?

Or – more likely – is it all a dumb coincidence?

How much attention do you pay to the literal meaning of songlyrics? Are you intrigued by the songwriter’s behind-the-scenes story, or doyou prefer to just listen without the baggage? Please share!

I need a few minutes alone in a quiet room with a glass of wine and that Matt Nathanson song.

My dog has two daddies

2011-11-21T02:30:00.000-08:00

I'm fighting a cold right now, which means what little energy I have is being channeled into the final round of copy edits before Believe it or Not goes to print.

In case you're wondering, I've now read the manuscript 74,389 times.

Since many of you show up here expecting a laugh, I feel like I should at least share something that made me giggle recently.

I've told you before how my two 27-year-old housemates have plotted to use my dog as a chick magnet. Late last week, the two boys took my dog out for a hike in the snow. They returned home soggy and exhausted, but gushing excitedly about the newspaper photographer who snapped their picture.

"We're going to be famous," one of them deadpanned. "You'll be asking for our autograph on Saturday."

"Chicks love famous guys," the other agreed.

"Don't worry," the first housemate assured me. "We made sure to give the photographer the correct spelling of the dog's name."

Saturday morning, I heard them both up rustling around much earlier than usual. I came downstairs to find them frowning at the front page of the Local News section.

In case you can't read that, here's what it says:

A stroll through fresh snow
Bend residents [Tawna's housemate], 27, left, and [Tawna's housemate], 27, along with their dog Bindi, return to their car after a hike to Tumalo Falls west of Bend on Friday afternoon. Snow was about a half a foot deep along the trail. Look for the Well, shoot! field trip to Tumalo Falls on Page C1 in Tuesday's edition of The Bulletin.

The housemates watched me as I read it. "What do you think?"

"You mean besides the fact that it makes you sound like life partners?"

They both scowled. My gentleman friend picked up the paper and studied it. "What a nice young gay couple out for a walk with their dog," he said.

"Not that there's anything wrong with that," I added. "So much for using the dog as a chick magnet."

So that was the highlight of my weekend (albeit, perhaps not theirs). How about you?

What do you choose?

2011-11-18T02:30:00.000-08:00

You know how it is when you buy a new car and suddenly notice every other car on the road is the same make, model, and color as yours?

I have no idea why I used that analogy, since the last time I bought a new car was almost 14 years ago. It was just a few weeks after I got married.

Which is probably exactly why I used that analogy. Being a new author going through divorce makes me keenly aware of how many other authors are in my shoes. There was an article several months ago in Romance Writers Report magazine offering one author's tips on keeping the muse alive through divorce. At RWA Nationals last spring, several authors gave a panel discussion on the same topic.

But it was this recent blog post by author Jessica Corra that really touched me.

Not in the way I most enjoy being touched, but pretty close.

She does a beautiful job capturing the numb feeling of holding your first advance check and realizing how different your life was when the whole crazy ride began.

I posted a link to the blog on Twitter, and my amazing agent read it, retweeted it, and followed up with this:

It's one of the things I love best about my agent – the fact that she cares so deeply about her authors beyond how fast we can crank out manuscripts.

The morning my ex informed me he wanted a divorce, the first person I contacted wasn't my best friend or my mother.

It was my agent.

So you know I'm serious when I tell you she's been more than just a business partner through this ordeal. I'm not sure I could have endured some of the darkest days of the divorce process without her unwavering support and levelheaded "here's what we're going to do now" approach.

Still, our perception has been fascinatingly different. More than once, she's tried to comfort me for having my debut year tainted by such an awful life event.

While I appreciate the sympathy, that's not how I see things at all. By my way of thinking, the marriage was destined to crumble at some point. What a tremendous, amazing gift to have this three-book deal happen at a time I urgently needed all the joy, excitement, and reader support to buoy me through the worst of it.

Blame it on my perpetual glass-is-half-full attitude, but that's the way I see it. Never once have I lamented that my debut year was ruined by my ex's decision. Never once have I fumed that I'd be enjoying my book deal more if things had gone differently with the marriage.

For me, it's all about focusing on the positive aspects of life's changes. I can choose to be perpetually angry that the presence of my two twenty-something housemates means I can no longer stroll naked through my own living room.

Or I can choose to be grateful their presence keeps me laughing and keeps the mortgage paid.

I can choose to be hurt someone didn't want to be with me foreverandever, or I can choose to be grateful I was set free to find someone else who does.

It's always a choice.

In the end, that's what everything comes down to.

I know what I choose. How about you?

My realtor talks dirty to me

2011-11-17T02:30:00.000-08:00

Selling my house wasn’t my first choice, but I’m rollingwith the process and enjoying the little pleasures where I can find them.

Like the fact that my realtor talks dirty to me. She knows I’ma romance author, though I’m pretty sure she has no idea how fond I am ofnaughty innuendo. Here are just a few things she’s said in recent weeks that seriouslyhad me biting my tongue to keep from laughing:

The sign will be there Friday, and he’ll call if he has a hard time sticking it in.
We had a little trouble getting it up, but the listing islive!
Is it OK if we come through the back door?
We’ll bring them by tonight, but they can’t get offuntil five.
The flyers are done, but we need someone to swing by andstuff them in the box.
We’re planning an event with all the other agents, but youwouldn’t believe how hard it is to get a dozen realtors to come at the sametime.

That last one she said on the phone Tuesday night, and Iswear she paused afterward like she was waiting for me to laugh.

You’ll be proud to know I didn’t. Much.

So have you heard any good innuendos lately? Please share!

I have to go trim the bush. What? She said it would makethings look tidier in front.

The power of critique partner feedback (plus an excerpt from Believe it or Not!)

2011-11-16T02:30:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's blog post about the value of gaining a fresh perspective on your manuscript or your life prompted a lot of great comments, including this one from Suz Korb:

I don't have my work critiqued any more. Every time I did, the "problems" that readers would pick out were subjective. What kind of "problems" get picked out from your stories? Are they definitely "problems?" I'm curious, because maybe I'm missing out and should be using critique partners.

A lot of writers want critique partners to offer a checklist of factual errors and plot issues that can easily be quantified and solved. While that would be lovely, the truth is that you also want those subjective "just my opinion" tidbits. In fact, those are some of the most valuable things you can gain from the critique process.

Why?

If you're writing with the goal of publication, it's safe to assume you hope to have readers someday. It's also safe to assume those readers will have varying backgrounds, sensitivities, and life experiences. While it's impossible to predict the reaction of every potential reader, you want a pretty good idea if something you've written is going to annoy, irritate, offend, confuse, or bore someone.

I have three regular critique partners and three beta readers. Unsurprisingly, they're six very different human beings.

My upcoming March release, Believe it or Not, contains a scene I wrote with the goal of showing a connection between my hero and heroine while also showing a lack of connection with their respective dates.

I loved the scene just the way I wrote it. So did most of my critique partners and beta readers.

But there was one voice of dissent. One critique partner found Drew and Violet condescending and rude. The whole scene rubbed her the wrong way.

I'll confess, the feedback annoyed me at first. My other readers hadn't responded that way. They were perfectly amused, and laughed in all the right places.

But that's the crux of the issue – the idea that there's a "right" or "wrong" way to read a scene.

If I were writing only for myself, I could give an indignant sniff and insist my critique partner is a moron who just doesn't get it.

But I'm writing for public consumption, and if one out of six readers gets a bad vibe from a scene, I have to consider the likelihood she won't be the only one.

So I edited. I tweaked. I massaged. I noodled.

And in the end, the scene left a much better impression on my critique partner. Does this mean she was "right" and I was "wrong?" Nope.

Does it mean my other readers were "wrong" for liking it the way it was to start? Again, nope.

But at least now, I can feel assured that the scene is less likely to irritate readers with the same sensibilities as that critique partner. And let's face it – when you're writing for commercial publication, it's important to annoy as few people as possible.

So now that I've talked it up so much, I'm going to include the scene here. Believe it or Not won't be released until March, and I'm not entirely sure my editor would be pleased to have me posting excerpts. Don't tell, OK? But if you want to, you can pre-order the book on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or Powell's Books.

Here's the scene:

Drew was focusing very hard on trying to remember his date’s name. Did it rhyme with a fruit? No, that was the girl he’d gone out with last week.
It started with a G, he was pretty sure about that. Gilligan?

It didn’t matter at the moment, since she hadn’t paused for breath in over an hour.

“…and so then we broke up, but we had like five more months on our lease, and he couldn’t find another place to live and I was like, ‘Dude, I’m not leaving, this place is like four blocks from where I work,’ so I told him he could crash on the couch as long as he stopped borrowing my underwear, and so…”

Drew frowned. Maybe her name didn’t start with a G. It definitely sounded Middle Eastern. Or maybe it rhymed with a spice. Or was it something that sounded like a cleaning product?

“…so, you know, I like totally threw him out when he climbed into my bed when he was drunk, but he was all, ‘Babe, it’s totally not my fault,’ and I was like…”

Drew swirled the cherry Coke in his glass and tried hard to remember her name. He could almost picture it on the slip of paper at the bar with her name and number scrawled in bubbly writing. How many of those scraps had he collected since his divorce? Too many to count. Too many to remember names.

God, you’re a jerk, his brain told him.

Rhonda? No, that wasn’t it. Persimmon? Bambi? Dammit. It was much too late to ask, since they’d been on this abysmal date for more than an hour now, and he’d been the one to invite her out anyway.

What a dumb idea.

But it had been his habit in the years since his divorce. Call up one of the dozens of girls who’d slipped him their number at the bar—a disturbingly frequent occurrence, in Drew’s opinion. They’d meet for drinks at the Portland City Grill, and if the conversation sucked, at least the food was fabulous and there was always the beautiful view of the city.

He looked out the window and wondered if Violet had ever been here. Would she enjoy the view of the river or seize the opportunity to recite statistics about water pollution and Portland’s freakishly high number of bridges? He wasn’t sure he’d mind either way.

Stop thinking about Violet.

Bad idea on so many levels. He sure as hell didn’t need another high-strung woman in his life. Not even if she had amazing eyes and beautiful hair and breasts that—

“Are you listening to me?”

Drew snapped back to attention. “What? Yes. Definitely.”

“Because it seems like you’re just looking out the window.”

“I was listening,” Drew insisted. “I was just enjoying the view.”

The girl gave him a skeptical look. Mindy? Sarah? Was there any way he could bluff his way through the rest of this date without knowing her name? He felt like peeling the sole off the bottom of his shoe and beating himself on the forehead until he passed out.

“Hey!” his date squealed. Drew looked up to see she was waving at someone over his shoulder.

“That guy over there,” she said. “He did my knee surgery last year, after I injured it in pole-dancing class.”

Drew picked up his drink and scanned the crowd, noticing how packed the place was for a Monday.

He froze with his glass halfway to his lips. Violet?

She saw him at the same moment, and the shock registered plainly on her face. Drew watched in horror as Violet’s companion followed the direction of her gaze right to their table.

“Hey!” called Drew’s date again, waving madly as she sloshed her drink across the table. “Hello, Dr. Abbott! You want to come and sit with us?”

Drew shook his head. “I’m sure he doesn’t want to sit with us. He’s on a date.”

Something in his heart twisted at the word date, and he looked at Violet again. She was smiling at the doctor, her beautiful eyes fixed on his face. Drew’s heart twisted again, so he looked back at his own date.

She slugged him in the shoulder. “I think I hurt my wrist bowling the other night. I want Dr. Abbott to take a look at it.”

Drew sighed, not sure whether to be annoyed with her or with himself for asking her out in the first place. Normally he wasn’t so easily annoyed, especially by a beautiful woman, but there was something different lately. Something he couldn’t put his finger on.

It didn’t matter, since Violet and Dr. Abbott were making their way toward the table. Drew tried not to stare, not to notice the luscious sway of her hips, the way her hand fluttered up to smooth her hair behind her ear.

God, she’s beautiful.

“Wow, it’s really packed in here,” Violet said, clutching her little purse against her stomach. “You guys got lucky nabbing a window seat with these sofas.”

“I come here every Monday night,” Drew said. “Arriving early is the trick to getting good seats.”

He saw something flash across Violet’s face. Surprise? Irritation? He wasn’t sure. She recovered quickly though, and placed her hand on the annoyingly broad shoulder of the man beside her. “Drew, this is Chris Abbott, my mother’s orthopedic surgeon. Chris, this is Drew Watson. He owns the business next to Moonbeam’s shop.”

“Great to meet you,” said the surgeon, giving Drew’s hand a firm but friendly shake.

“It’s so great to see you again, Dr. Abbott,” piped up Drew’s date, scooting over to make room on the sofa beside her.

“You too,” said Dr. Abbott, no help at all with the name.

Violet looked at Drew, then at the girl, clearly awaiting an introduction. Drew opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again. He was completely, utterly blank.

Violet’s eyes held his for a moment, intense and gorgeous and utterly spellbinding. He was pretty sure if he had known his date’s name, he would have forgotten it right then.

God, those eyes.

“Drew, come sit over here by me so these two can have the other sofa to themselves,” his date chirped.

He tore his eyes from Violet’s and offered a weak smile. “Sure, good idea.”

He grabbed his drink and stood up, relieved to realize he’d somehow gotten away with failing to introduce her. He gestured to the vacant sofa in an invitation to Violet. She moved past him, her hair brushing against his shoulder as she slid by. Drew breathed deeply, inhaling the scent of lavender and vanilla. He felt his hand start to rise, intent on stroking her hair.

Are you out of your fucking mind?

He dropped his hand. “Tight quarters.”

She looked up quizzically, her big, violet eyes studying him with an unasked question. Drew lost his breath.

Then she cut her glance back at the other sofa and raised one eyebrow.

Shit. She’d noticed the skipped introduction. Drew raised one shoulder in a helpless shrug and moved around the table to sit beside his date.

Now she thinks you’re a cad.

Okay, maybe he was. Since his divorce, anyway. Funny how it had never bothered him before.

He watched Violet settle onto the sofa and cross her legs primly. She folded her hands over her knees and Drew tried not to stare at her long, perfect fingers and rounded nails, bright with clear polish. He wondered what those nails would feel like dragging down his back and then gave himself another mental kick.

“So how long have you two known each other?” Violet asked as she signaled a passing waitress.

“Oh, this is our third date,” chirped Drew’s seatmate.

Really?

Drew took another sip of his drink and wondered if it might be wise pretend to go to the restroom and slip out the back door. He could just avoid this whole uncomfortable scene—the nameless date, the awkward conversation, the sight of Violet with another guy.

Then Violet recrossed her legs, her skirt riding up a little above her knee. Drew sat back in his seat, suddenly interested in sticking around awhile longer.

To his right, Drew’s date had begun to chatter to Dr. Abbott about the pain in her wrist. Drew had to give Violet credit, she’d picked a nice guy. Most doctors he knew would have told the girl to book an appointment by now.

Something hit Drew in the foot. He looked down to see a fork lying beside his shoe. He glanced across the table at Violet, who shot him a look. They bent down to retrieve the fork at the same time.

Apparently, that was Violet’s plan.

“You don’t know your date’s name?” she hissed in his ear.

Her hair tickled his nose, and Drew fought the urge to drag her down on the carpet and grope her under the table.

Classy, dude. Really classy.

“Help me out,” he whispered back.

“Me?”

“I just need a clue.”

“No kidding.”

“Her name’s been on the tip of my tongue all night, but I can’t remember.”

“Maybe you should be more selective in how you use the tip of your tongue.”

He grinned. “Are you talking dirty to me under the table?”

“Merely pointing out that if you dated with your brain instead of your—” She bit her lip. “You wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“Please help?”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know… aren’t you the psychic here?”

She smacked him on the arm and sat back on the sofa. Drew sighed and sat back, too. Okay, so the “psychic” jab probably wasn’t smart. He was feeling desperate.

Drew looked over to see their dining companions were still chatting away like old friends. The waitress showed up at their table with glasses of water, and Violet ordered a complicated-sounding Chardonnay. The doctor ordered a gin martini, and Drew’s date requested something fruity and neon colored.

“Cherry Coke,” Drew said, lifting his empty glass.

Dr. Abbott raised an eyebrow. “Not a drinker, Drew?”

“On occasion. I just tend to prefer cherry Coke.”

“Hmmm,” said the doctor in a tone that suggested either disinterest or a belief that Drew had the maturity of a third grader.

Probably right, there.

As soon as the waitress had gone, Violet cleared her throat. “So what is it you do?” she asked Drew’s date.

Excellent, Drew thought, shooting her a grateful look. They can exchange business cards.

Violet took a sip of her water and folded her hands again.

“Oh, I’m a cocktail waitress.”

Drew sighed. No business cards.

“Actually,” the girl chirped, patting her left boob, “I came straight here from work and almost forgot to take off my name tag. Can you believe it?”

A name tag, Drew lamented quietly. So close.

“So Drew,” said Dr. Abbott. “What sort of business is it you own?

He looked at the guy and tried not to be pissed that the good doctor had scooted so close to Violet, he was practically in her lap. “A bar,” Drew said. “Voted ‘Best in Portland’ two years running.”

“They have the most amazing male strippers on Friday and Saturday nights,” his date added. “Super hot.”

“Thank you,” Drew replied, feeling oddly proud.

“Male strippers,” Dr. Abbot repeated, looking bemused. “That’s… interesting.”

Violet cleared her throat and jumped in. “Chris and I were just talking on the way over here and he mentioned that he was named after Christopher Latham Sholes—the guy who invented the typewriter in 1867. Isn’t that interesting?”

Drew reached for the lifeline she’d thrown him—lame as it was—reminding himself to show his gratitude in some way that didn’t involve getting her naked.

“That is interesting,” Drew said. “And you’re named for the color of your eyes, right?”

Violet blinked at him. Drew lost his breath again.

“Should we order?” asked Drew’s date, frowning at the menu. “Happy hour is almost over.”

Drew slumped in his chair, defeated. He’d probably never know his date’s name. The only thing mildly cheering was the knowledge that Violet and her date had nothing better to talk about than who invented the typewriter.

Then again, it’s not like he was wowing her with scintillating conversation. Toilet paper? Juggling? The superiority of the term butt rock over glam rock?

Drew slumped deeper in his chair and took another sip of his drink. Maybe he could make it through the rest of the night calling his date “pumpkin” or “love chicken.”

The waitress appeared again, and Drew waited until the others had made their selections before placing his order, not bothering to consult the menu. Violet quirked an eyebrow at him.

“I always order the same thing,” Drew said as he handed his menu back to the waitress. “I come here a lot.”

“You mentioned that,” Violet said dryly. “My mother, on the other hand, did not.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Violet reached for her wineglass and took a sip, apparently drinking more cautiously than she had the previous night. He studied the way she held the glass, her exquisite fingers curved around the stem. He wondered if she’d learned the precise way to hold a piece of stemware or if it just came naturally.

As if sensing his eyes on her, Violet turned back to Drew. “So, do you have some sort of low-grade hearing loss?”

“What?”

“You were blasting the music so loud, the mice woke up and started running in their wheel to the beat of ‘Eye of the Tiger.’”

“Sorry about that. Moonbeam never seems to notice, but I’ll try to keep it down.”

“You weren’t kidding about the eighties music.”

Drew grinned. “We’re actually doing this whole eighties theme next week. We were trying to find the right song for Jamie’s routine.”

“Sounded like you found the right one. Either that, or you just wanted to play that stupid ‘867-5309’ song over and over and over—”

“‘Jenny,’” he said, lifting a glass to the most famous—albeit the only—hit Tommy Tutone had ever recorded.

“Hey!” squeaked Drew’s date. “That’s how I got my name. My mom totally loved that song, and my dad was like, ‘Whatever,’ so that’s what they named me, even though the song had been out for like five years by the time I was born.“

Drew stared for a few beats, certain he couldn’t possibly have gotten so lucky. “Jenny?” he asked. “That’s your name? Jenny?”

She scowled at him. “What the hell did you think it was?”

“Jenny, of course,” he backpedaled. “I knew it was Jenny. I just…” Drew picked up his drink and downed it in one gulp.

Jenny was glaring at him in earnest, and Drew wondered if she planned to throw her neon-pink drink in his face. He probably deserved it. Maybe he should save her the trouble and just pour it over his head and call it a night.

Across the table, Violet cleared her throat. “Didn’t that song come out in 1982?” She shot Drew a look that said exactly what she thought of him dating a woman barely over the legal drinking age.

Jenny turned toward Violet, her drink-tossing plans momentarily forgotten. “Something like that, why?”

“No reason,” Violet said. “Actually, 1982 was the year a brutal cold snap swept in from Canada and plunged temperatures in the Midwest to all-time record lows. Even Portland recorded a record low temperature for September, which was forty-one degrees Fahrenheit. Statistically speaking, a meteorological event like that—”

Drew sat back in his seat and let Violet carry the conversation away to safer, albeit weirder, territory. He was grateful. He was relieved.

He was also ridiculously, stupidly certain he was falling for her.

Idiot.

Why you need extra eyes

2011-11-15T02:30:00.000-08:00

Prepping my home for sale has been as enjoyable as giving myself a wedgie with a piece of barbed wire.

The upside is that my house is now cleaner than it's been since I moved in six years ago. Closets have been organized, floors have been scrubbed, and the fur balls under the sofa have been surgically reattached to the cats.

The realtors have been great about pointing out little things that might annoy potential homebuyers – personal photos, desktop clutter, lingerie hanging from the ceiling fan – things I've grown so accustomed to seeing that I don't even notice they're there.

But the realtors missed something. It took one of the housemates to point it out the other morning as I scrambled around prepping for a showing.

"I'm surprised the realtors haven't said anything about the stairs," he said.

"What's wrong with the stairs?"

"Unless the potential buyers have the same first and last name as your ex husband, they might not appreciate having his name written in bright yellow letters on the bottom step."

And damned if he wasn't right. Obviously, I knew it was there. When the home was built six years ago, we opted for sort of a modern industrial look. The stair rails are done with custom-finished wood and wire cables, while the stairs themselves are tile with steel corner pieces.

Word of advice – you don't want to fall in my home unless you enjoy brain injury.

The steel caps on the edge of each stair came from a local supplier that thoughtfully marked the buyer's name on one of the pieces in the supply yard. For the first few months after the house was finished, it was a running joke. After that, I remember asking my then-husband if the words could be removed. He told me he'd tried and failed, so I pretty much stopped noticing the name was there.

When I told this to my housemate, he laughed. "Ten bucks says we can get it off in thirty seconds with nail polish remover and steel wool."

"Thirty seconds sounds a little fast for getting off, and doesn't the steel wool hurt?"

He wisely ignored me and went to retrieve the steel wool from under the sink. I headed upstairs and came back down with a bottle of nail polish remover.

Two minutes later, all traces of the name were gone.

"This is why every writer needs good critique partners," I told him.

He frowned. "To scrub their ex-husbands' names off their stairs?"

"No. To help them fix the things they've stopped noticing or decided aren't fixable."

"Right," he said. "With steel wool and dirty jokes."

Hey, whatever works. It's true that the greatest value a critique partner or beta reader brings to the table is the benefit of a fresh pair of eyes. Even if that person isn't a grammar expert or a writing whiz, he or she can still offer a new perspective. I can't tell you how many times one of my critique partners has picked up on an error more glaringly obvious than a bright yellow name on a staircase, and I've found myself dumbfounded. How did I not notice that?

Easy. There's a sort of blindness that sets in when you're too close to something, whether it's a manuscript, a relationship, or anything else in your life.

If you're a writer, have you ever had a critique partner point out something so ridiculously obvious you couldn't believe your own ignorance? For non-writers, tell me about a "captain obvious" moment elsewhere in your life!

I'll be spending some quality alone-time with the steel wool and nail polish remover.

The not-hot boys who make me want to get naked

2011-11-14T02:30:00.000-08:00

I was drinking wine with a girlfriend the other night when a Tom Petty song started playing.

"Ohmygod," she panted, setting her wine down so hard it sloshed on the table. "I love him."

"It's a good song," I agreed tepidly.

"No, I mean I really love him. The song, the voice, the man – I really want to throw my panties when I hear Tom Petty."

Since I was in her line of fire, I scooted back a little. Then I considered her words more carefully.

Oh, Lyle...

"I feel the same way about Lyle Lovett," I confessed.

"Yeah?"

"I hear him sing The Ballad of the Snow Leopard and the Tanquery Cowboy and I feel warm and tingly in my swimsuit areas."

She stared at me. "That's the weirdest sentence I've ever heard anyone utter."

It's true though. I can admit Lyle Lovett isn't conventionally attractive, and neither is Tom Petty. Yet both men spark the same reaction in two reasonably sane women. I've had similar conversations with other pals who feel urgently smitten with people who fall pretty far outside the stereotype of traditional human beauty. One friend is madly in love with actor Steve Buscemi, while another swoons over Ernest Hemmingway and a third desperately wishes to get naked with singer Bruce Cockburn (it's pronounced "co-burn," perverts).

It's an interesting phenomenon, but my Tom Petty loving friend had a quick explanation. "They're the boys who speak to your soul."

That made sense to me even after the wine wore off. There's this intangible, magical chemistry that draws one person to another, and it often defies easy explanation. I've read sloppily written romance novels where the author tries to convince the the reader two people are meant to be together simply because they find each other attractive and feel the urge to ride the baloney pony together.

Certainly that's part of creating a compelling romance, but it's not all there is to it. Capturing the inexplicable, magnetic thing that pulls one person toward another is a whole lot tougher for an author to do. It's not easy to show one person speaking to the soul of another, but it's something I strive for in any love story I write.

Do you have any inexplicable crushes on a famous person who doesn't fit the traditional mold of attractiveness? Can you name examples in books or movies of great outside-the-box chemistry? Please share!

I need a moment or two alone with Lyle.

Please pet me, I'm writing

2011-11-11T02:30:00.000-08:00

Note to self: the next time daylight savings time rolls around, consider the fact that your brain will begin waking at 2 a.m. with the urgent need to tap-dance around the bedroom. Given the resultant state of sleep deprivation, it is perhaps not the best time to plan things like the sale of your home, the final read-through for two contracted novels, or a blog post for the day job that requires you to sample mac-n-cheese at every local restaurant until you find yourself in a perpetual food coma.

I'll admit it, I'm fried. I've got no words left, so this seems like a good time for pictures. Pet pictures, to be precise. It's no secret I adore my pets, and that they're a constant presence in my life and my workspace. One look at my Facebook page or my Twitter stream confirms that.

So for today, I give you a handful of my favorite pet photos from recent months...

Bindi is a three-year-old Australian Kelpie, which is a fancy way of saying "small herding dog on crack." One of the best things about my two 27-year-old housemates is that they assist me in wearing her out with regular hikes and games of fetch. This is a shot one of the houemates took using an underwater camera.

The other housemate relies on a motorcycle for most of his transportation. This doesn't stop him from taking Bindi with him when he goes out for hikes. She seems to love it.

Bindi is surprisingly tolerant of the fact that she shares her home with three (yes, THREE) cats. One of the cats doesn't exactly count. Ivy is a crazy feral cat I trapped 13 years ago. She's spent most of her life hiding in closets and under beds. I recently bought Bindi a fluffy new dog bed, and Ivy decided she loves this bed with every fiber of her being. Suffice it to say, Bindi hasn't gotten to use it.

Ivy abhors being held. She also terrifies the hell out of my housemates, both of whom refer to her as "ninja kitty" and have spotted her only a handful of times.

You know how parents aren't allowed to have favorite children? The great thing about pets is that you can have favorites, and Matt the Cat is mine. He's a polydactyl cat, which means he has extra toes on his front paws. I like to think this has something to do with his kleptomaniac tendencies. Matt steals constantly from around the neighborhood. Gloves, stuffed animals, puppets, mouse pads, rolls of toilet paper, leaves, homework assignments, goggles, flip-flops, darts, socks...these are all things Matt has dragged through the cat door.

Oversized paws make an excellent sleep mask when you don't want to wake up in the morning.

Matt likes to assist while I'm writing. Here he is anchoring the printer so it doesn't fly away,

And here's Matt helping me write a blog post.

Then, there's Blue Cat.


When the cleaning crew showed up the other day to prep my house for sale, I eavesdropped as they made the rounds. I had to laugh when I heard one of them shriek (in Spanish), "That is the biggest cat I've ever seen in my life." I didn't have to look to know which cat they'd spotted.


Blue Cat has a shoe fetish. Anyone who leaves shoes lying around pretty much guarantees those shoes will be used as a feline pillow.

Though I'm not allowed to tell you much about the new secret project I've been hinting at in recent weeks, I can tell you that Blue Cat is a character in the story. He plays himself. Very crafty of him.

So there you have it....my brain dead post of the week. What do you think of my furry babies? Lie if you must and tell me you love them.

Otherwise, I'll sic ninja kitty on you.

Being sneaky got the pokey thingy out of my hole

2011-11-10T02:30:00.000-08:00

Prepping your house for sale isn’t easy under the best of circumstances.

Doing it while lodging two 27-year-old male housemates whose idea of home décor is a futon mattress on the floor can be a bit more challenging.

On Monday, the place was scoured spotless by a terrifyingly efficient housekeeping crew hired by the realtors. Within 24 hours, my housemates had thoughtfully redecorated the kitchen counters with an ornamental assortment of empty cans, coffee grounds, corn chips, and two deep fryers.

It’s not that they’re inconsiderate. It’s just that their version of tidy differs markedly from that of the average home buyer looking to hand over their life savings for a four bedroom, three bath dream home with breathtaking mountain views and a kick-ass writing office.

The boys are doing their best to help, but they aren’t quite sure how to accomplish that.

Tuesday morning found me teetering on a step-stool at the top of a staircase attempting to extricate twelve pounds of dead bugs from a glass light fixture 30 minutes before an open house event.

“Don’t fall,” one of the housemates called helpfully from his station on the sofa. “The cleaning crew will be mad if you mess up the clean floor with brains.”

I shot him a scowl before aiming one in the direction of the other housemate sipping coffee and lounging against the kitchen counter. “You guys aren’t being very supportive,” I snapped.

The coffee sipper set his mug down and walked to the bottom of the stairs. “Sorry about that.”

He grinned and clapped his hands together cheerleader style. “Go, Tawna! Nice job! Way to clean those lights! You’re doing great! Don’t swallow any dead bugs!”

Laughing with your hand on a light bulb is not a good idea.The next thing I knew, I’d snapped it off in the socket.

“Damn,” I said. “The pokey thingy broke off in the hole. Do either of you have a pair of those pinchy things?”

Now here’s the deal. I know damn well that the pokey thingy is called a bi-pin on a G8 lamp base, and I also know exactly where the pliers are in my garage.

But my feigned incompetence – coupled with my housemates' fear that my electrocution might preclude them from watching television – was all it took to spur them into action.

“Get down from there,” ordered the handiest of the two, springing off the couch. “I’ve got it.”

He took the stairs two at a time as he pulled a Leatherman tool out of his pocket. “Go flip the circuit breaker in the garage,” he ordered the other housemate.

I stood back and smiled sweetly as the two of them took charge, wielding tools and offering up the occasional manly grunt.

Do I feel guilty for taking advantage of their macho urge to rescue me with superior tool handling and home improvement knowledge? Hardly.

No more guilty than they feel about the corn flakes glued to the edge of the sink.

One way or another, we’re all making this work for us.

Like notches on a bedpost

2011-11-09T02:30:00.000-08:00

One of the most common questions I get from newer writers is how many manuscripts I had to write before I landed my three-book deal.

There aren't many questions that make me cringe, but that one does. The answer has so much potential to discourage writers battling their way through their first manuscript, and I always want to point them to this blog post I wrote on the subject nearly 17 months ago.

Of course, recommending a link doesn't work so well in a public speaking engagement or a casual conversation over coffee, but it does work here. So that's what I'm doing now. Here you go:

Friday, June 11, 2010

The number you don't want to know

It sucks when they come in waves like this.

No, for once I’m not making a dirty joke. I’m talking about rejections, and the fact that two author pals just got hit with them. The sort of rejections that take the wind out of your sails and the gin out of the cupboard because you’re hoping a stiff one (nope, still not dirty) might take the sting out.

But the gin doesn’t help, because let’s face it – rejection sucks. Even the positive rejections, the ones cushioned by praise and flattery and “almost there” cheerleading.

I hate the idea of standing here with an amazing agent and a recent book deal trying to say something wise and comforting. Frankly, I might’ve thrown rocks at someone like that a year ago. Or four years ago. Or six years ago.

And that’s when I start thinking about the numbers. About the fact that somewhere in the great unknown is a list of every author and the number of books he or she must write before getting a big break. For some, it’s one. For others, it’s 20.

When I first started writing fiction in 2002, I heard the average is seven. Six books that don’t sell. I remember hearing that and laughing. That won’t be me. That could never be me.

I was wrong.

The counting gets tricky since my sixth and eighth full manuscripts sold as part of my three-book deal, but that doesn’t count partials, and then there’s the mess with my third manuscript selling and getting canceled (go here if you don’t know the story).

But my point is, this: I am eternally grateful I didn’t know my number beforehand. If someone had offered me a crystal ball and given me a peek, you can bet your sweet assignat I would have looked.

And that would have changed everything. Maybe I would have been discouraged by all the dead book corpses. Maybe those earlier stories would have been infused with the hopelessness of knowing they would never be published. Maybe I would’ve missed the important lessons I learned in writing them.

I honestly don’t know.

I know rejection is hard on everyone (nope, still not dirty). But the thing you have to cling to is the belief that THIS BOOK MIGHT BE THE ONE.

Maybe it won’t be, but that’s not the point. Hope should be the thing driving you every time you open a new Word document and type “once upon a time.”

Not knowing how many tries it will take allows you to get everything you possibly can from the experience of writing each book. It lets you savor that thrill, to truly keep your eye on the ball in front of you.

And for every writer, that is the only ball that matters.

(OK, I kinda meant the last one).

If you see me without pants, I'm procrastinating

2011-11-08T02:30:00.000-08:00

I recently told a friend I don't like to wear pants.

I meant I have a strong preference for skirts, as opposed to implying I like to browse the hardware store wearing nothing but a thong and snow boots.

"My husband has the same issue," my friend replied. For a moment I was still hung up on the thong and snow boots, and I may have thrown up a little in my mouth.

"Actually," she continued, "he's learned to use pants as an excuse not to do things he doesn't want to do."

Intrigued, I asked her to elaborate.

"Like if I ask him to take out the trash, he'll run and take off his pants," she explained. "Then he tells me he can't possibly take out the trash because he's not wearing pants."

I can't argue with that.

I also have to confess, I find the strategy brilliant. How can I use it to my advantage?

It probably won't get me out of undesirable author tasks. I write romance, so my editor probably assumes I do most of my work without pants.

I'm also not sure it will work for speaking engagements and book signing events. An announcement that the author isn't wearing pants would likely prompt event organizers to breathe a sigh of relief. "Thank God, at least this won't be as boring as we expected."

So I guess I'll have to look for other reasons not to wear pants. Like the fact that it's Tuesday.

What's the best excuse you've ever heard for not doing something? Can you top the no-pants plan? Please share!

I'll be getting dressed for the day job. Or undressed, as the case may be.

On startling smacks, inappropiate licking, and uses for excess lotion

2011-11-07T02:30:00.000-08:00

Earlier this summer, the staff at my day job moved into a brand new building. I was instantly smitten with my office, which boasts floor-to-ceiling windows along one entire wall.

I hadn't been in the space more than three hours when a pedestrian walked by, met my eye, and smiled. Friendly fellow, I thought as I raised my hand to wave.

SMACK!

He whacked the window with his rolled up newspaper, laughed, and kept walking.

I stared after him, dumbfounded. What was that about?

I was still mulling it a few hours later when it happened again. The second time was less jarring, as the passerby settled for lightly drumming his fingers on the glass. Still, what the hell?

It's still happening more than three months later. Sometimes, it's a friendly little tap-tap. Other times, the glass smacking is augmented by a thumbs-up, or on one particularly special occasion, a tongue pressed against the filthy glass. I've considered going to the pet store and borrowing one of the signs off the gerbil cages that says please don't tap on cage.

I still haven't figured out this strange phenomenon, but I've noticed several other oddities of having a ground-floor office with a large bank of windows. Depending on the time of day and the angle of light, the window appears more reflective than see-through. This makes it an excellent makeshift mirror for passersby to check makeup, pick their teeth, and adjust their cleavage.

It's an endless source of amusement for me, but I hadn't considered the flip-side until my boss walked in after an off-site meeting last week and leaned against my door frame. "Word of advice," he said. "When your whole wall is made up of windows facing the street, don't pick your nose."

He laughed as he walked away, and I tried hard to remember what I'd just been doing. For the record, I'm pretty sure it wasn't nose-picking. I do have the bad habit of pulling at dead skin on my chapped lips this time of year, which is likely what he saw. Then again, I can be a little oblivious when I get into the writing zone at work. It's entirely possible people have walked past to see me hiking up my skirt and scratching my butt cheek.

Still, the boss's joke made me conscious of my actions for the remainder of the day. I tried hard not to do anything that might appear obscene to pedestrians walking by.

It's a bigger challenge than you might imagine.

Near the end of the workday, I pulled out my hand lotion and poured a generous amount in my palm. As is often the case, I got too much. During bare-legged summer months, I simply smear an over-abundance of lotion on my shins, but that wasn't an option with thick winter tights covering my legs. My arms, too, were encased in woolly sweater sleeves that couldn't easily be rolled up.

Out of Kleenex and other options, I hiked up the hem of my sweater and smeared the excess lotion on my bare belly.

That's when the boss walked past on the sidewalk, en route to another meeting. He looked at me. I looked at him. I lowered my shirt and waved.

He was still laughing as he crossed the street. Somehow, I suspect I'll be hearing about this the next time I report for duty.

By the way, thanks to everyone who offered suggestions last Thursday on how I should celebrate the fact that Making Waves has been nominated for "best contemporary romance" in the RT Book Reviews 2011 Reviewers' Choice Awards. I loved all your ideas, particularly the ones that involved reenacting the Cheese Doodle scene from the book. But since I could only pick one, I went with Delia, whose suggestion included a stripper pole and a butt tattoo. Wise ideas, to be sure. Delia, shoot me a message at tawnafenske at yahoo dot com and let me know where I should send your signed copy of Making Waves. Thanks to everyone for playing, and for your kind congratulatory words!

Varying degrees of hardness

2011-11-04T02:30:00.000-07:00

I’m in the middle of a three-day author chat over at Goodreads, where I’ve been answering reader questions, giving away free copies of Making Waves, and generally trying not to annoy people.

Many of the readers participating in the chat have never heard of me, so they don’t realize the landmine they’ve stepped on when they ask questions like:

Which book would you say was the hardest to write and why?

You’ll be impressed to know I resisted the urge to make a hardest joke. Even though I really wanted to. Even though I thought of at least six hard-on jokes before I finished logging in.

I said logging in.

OK, that’s out of my system now. All jokes aside, it’s a very good question. Did she mean hardest in the technical sense, hardest in the emotional sense, or hardest in the bone-daddy sense?

Sadly, I suspected the latter was not the case. But I couldn’t decide between the other two options.

Technically speaking, Making Waves was a tough book to write. There was a lot of research involved in figuring out the geographic logistics of the journey and the nitty-gritty boating details.

Then there’s the challenge of trying to keep a story interesting when the characters are all stuck in the confines of a fairly small boat. By the time I’d reached the halfway point of the story, I was ready to gouge my eyes out with a popsicle stick. This is actually one benefit to the seat-of-my-pants approach I take with writing. Since I didn’t have the story plotted out ahead of time, I could shake things up by adding a new twist that got them off the boat.

Well, and got them off in other ways. The beauty of writing romance is that sex can always spice things up.

But going back to the original question, perhaps she meant hardest emotionally. Without question,that honor goes to Mad Crush.

(Er, did I forget to mention that the third book in my contract – the one I’ve tentatively referred to as Let it Breathe – has officially been retitled Mad Crush? I like Mad Crush a whole big bunch, so I’m thrilled with the new title. Wait. Was this one of those details I’m supposed to keep secret for now? I forget. Well, let that be a lesson – never tell me any secrets).

Anyway, I started writing Mad Crush within a couple months of signing my three-book deal with Sourcebooks. Within a couple months of that, my marriage of 13+ years began to unravel.

As you might imagine, writing romantic comedy is rather difficult when you’re feeling neither romantic nor comedic.

Under normal circumstances, I can write a book in about 3.5months. Mad Crush took ten months. That doesn’t count editing time, which is still ongoing even now. True, there were several months where I wasn’t writing a word on the manuscript, but even when I was writing, I wasn’t doing it quickly. Most days, it was all I could do just to write a blog post and get it up.

(Should we pause here and make note of the fact that I just used the phrases doing it quickly and get it up without snickering once?)

I’m actually making my final pass through Mad Crush this weekend, and looking forward to making tweaks based on the mindset of someone feeling hopeful and giddily in love instead of like someone who wants to fill her pockets with rocks and walk off the end of a pier.

What’s one of the hardest things you’ve ever done? It can be writing-related or not, either one. Or bone-daddy related, I guess. Far be it from me to discriminate against perverts.

Great news + get a signed copy of Making Waves!

2011-11-03T02:30:00.000-07:00

I mentioned yesterday that I have some big news I'm not allowed to share for another couple weeks.

Someone let the cat out of the bag early, so I figure since the news is already floating around, I might as well share it here. I haven't been given the official OK or anything, but it's always better to seek forgiveness later than ask permission now, right?

So here's the news: Making Waves has been nominated for "best contemporary romance" in the RT Book Reviews 2011 Reviewers' Choice Awards.

What does that mean? Well, as you might guess from the name, RT Book Reviews is a publication featuring mutation research and genetic toxicology.

Kidding.

Obviously they review books. About 3,000 books a year, or 250 a month. And one of those books happened to be Making Waves, in 4.5 star review that declared, "This delightfully witty debut will have readers laughing out loud."

Getting that review back in July totally made my month, but the news that I've now been nominated for best contemporary romance among ALL THOSE FREAKIN' BOOKS?!?! Totally made my year. In her letter to the Sourcebooks publicist, the publisher of RT Book Reviews explained, "Our ace reviewers and editors have scoured 12 months’ worth of reviews to compile the best of the best for the annual RT Book Reviews Career Achievement and Reviewers’ Choice Awards. For the Reviewers’ Choice nominees, our star team selected only those novels that deeply resonated with them."

I'm a big fan of anything resonating deeply. Like really, REALLY deeply. Wait, what?

Anyway, I'm thrilled to be nominated. I'll find out in April whether I won, and there's a big awards presentation at the RT Booklovers Convention that I'm kinda hoping someone offers to fly me to because my only experience in Chicago is getting stuck at the O'Hare airport and eating a lot of really bad pizza, and I'd kind of like to eat some good pizza and maybe even see where Sourcebooks is located, since their headquarters is somewhere near Chicago and I'm pretty sure I should celebrate this nomination by dancing naked on my editor's desk.

Or not.

Wait, how should I celebrate? Tell me! Leave a comment with your best celebratory suggestion, and I'll choose one winner to receive a signed copy of Making Waves.

I'm not promising to actually celebrate in the manner you suggest, but I'll give it some serious thought. Deep thought. Really, REALLY deep thought.

Tell me what you want & I'll do it (er, mostly)

2011-11-02T02:30:00.000-07:00

I try hard to be an accommodating person. I'm generally willing to do almost anything if someone asks nicely and there are no laws prohibiting it in that state.

There are a few things blog readers have requested in recent months, and I finally got a chance to take care of them:

Gimme an easy way to get signed copies of Making Waves. Done! I've been doing this lame-ass thing where I have readers mail me the book with a postage-paid envelope and I'd sign and send it back. I knew there had to be a better way, and finally discovered it on author Susan Elizabeth Phillips' website. She has her local indie bookstore stock a pile of signed copies of her books, so readers can order directly through them. Brilliant! The wonderful owner of Between the Covers Bookstore here in Bend, Oregon was more than happy to offer the same. Er, for my books, not for Susan's. Even better, she offered me the option of personalizing the inscription for the person ordering the book. You can start the process right here and add your signing instructions in the comments during checkout.
Gimme a way to subscribe to the blog via email! I can't believe this one took me so long, especially since I've had at least fifty people ask for it. You'll now see the field over there in the right hand column just under my author bio. I mentioned it on Twitter and Facebook the other day, and have already had several dozen people tell me they've signed up. Keep me posted on how it works!
Gimme a mobile version of the blog! This one was actually a whole lot easier than I expected. If you pull up the blog on your smartphone now, you should have a much easier time reading it. Blog reader Steph Schmidt made the suggestion, and kindly tested it out to ensure it works well.
Gimme some gossip! I actually have two pieces I'm absolutely DYING to share with you. One involves some pretty terrific news about Making Waves, and I'll be allowed to dish in about two weeks. The other has to do with the new secret project I've been hinting at for awhile now. I'll be permitted to talk about that sometime in the next couple weeks. For now, I have to sit here squealing quietly with excitement as I bite my tongue. Not an uncommon way to spend the evening.

So I think that's it for fulfilled requests. Got anything else you want me to do? Juggle flaming kiwi fruit? Dance naked on my editor's desk with a rubber glove on my head pretending to be a giant squid? Done and done.

Next?

The appliance that gives me pleasure

2011-11-01T02:30:00.000-07:00

I’m not ashamed to admit I have a favorite household appliance.

I am ashamed toadmit it’s not what you think it is (but only because I’m easily annoyed by theconstant need to replace batteries).

My favorite appliance is one I received as a gift from aco-worker more than a decade ago. I was whining in the break room about howinferior microwave popcorn is to the air popped variety. Before I knew it, shewas handing me a gift-wrapped box with a red bow on it and a shiny new airpopper inside.

Let that be a lesson to us all – whining will get you whatyou want.

I use my air popper constantly, and it never fails to bringme pleasure. My passion for air popped popcorn is only slightly exceeded by mypassion for…well, passion. I love thestuff. I can eat it by bucket-load with a spritz of butter and a sprinkle ofsea salt. I lick the bowl when I’m done so I don’t miss even one crunchy littlekernel.

It’s true my lust for my air popper can be all-consuming,but it’s nothing compared to my housemate’s affection for his deep fryer.Technically, he has three of them. Each has a different function, and I’mpretty sure he’s named them all.

It doesn’t matter what other household occupants are cookingfor any given meal – my housemate’s response is always the same.

We should fry that.

“Anyone want quiche?” I offered Saturday evening.

“We should fry that.”

“Do you even know what quiche is?”

“Isn’t it something with eggs?” he asked. “Eggs are goodfried.”

But the quiche frying had to wait, because he was in themiddle of deep frying the baby green tomatoes a friend just brought from hergarden.

I’ve also watched him attempt to deep fry bananas, candybars, and a biscuit for my dog.

I’m pretty sure this passion for appliances isn’t a limitedthing. Our other housemate seems unnaturally fond of his coffee grinder, and ifmy gentleman friend were forced to choose between saving me or his milkshakeblender in a house fire, my only hope would be to douse myself in vanilla icecream and peanut butter while hoping for the best.

Come to think of it, that sounds fun.

Do you have any household appliance you favor over all theothers? Any long-term love affairs with devices that run on batteries orelectrical power? Please share!

Er, unless it’s one of thosedevices. Some kinds of sharing isn’t so hygienic.

Showing my box a good time

2011-10-31T02:30:00.000-07:00

My friend, Larie, owns a handbag boutique several blocksfrom my day-job office, which gives me an excellent excuse to spend my lunch hour shopping and gossiping.

I was doing just that on Thursday afternoon when the owner of a neighboring shop walked in with a big cardboard box.

"Hey, Larie, do you need this for any shipments?" she asked.

"Nope, I'm good."

"I'll take it!" I announced as I reached for the box. "I need lots of these right now with all the cleaning and organizing and decluttering I have to do to get the house ready to sell."

She kindly handed over the box, and I said my farewells and headed out the door. I hadn't gone more than twenty feet when I noticed something odd – people seemed fascinated by the box. Or rather, by the sight of a reasonably well-dressed female with a nice handbag slung over one shoulder and a big cardboard box in her arms.

Several strangers stared openly. One woman gave me a quizzical look and raised her eyebrows with an unasked question.

"It's my new dressing room," I informed her. "I live in a refrigerator box, so this is the perfect size for a nice walk-in closet."

She laughed uncomfortably and crossed the street.

En route to my office, I decided to stop in an upscale jewelry shop to ask about consigning my old wedding ring. I felt weird marching in with my cardboard box, so I set it outside the door and hoped no one peed in it.

I'd been inside about five minutes when one of the owners walked in. "What's with this box outside?"

"Mine!" I shouted a little too loudly. "I didn't want to bring it in the shop, but I'll take it with me when I go."

"I had to look inside," he admitted. "I thought maybe someone dropped off a litter of kittens."

Unfortunately, there were no kittens in the box when I reclaimed it, but that did remind me of a couple things. For one, I had cat sitting duties to attend to after work. For another, I didn't have my car because Larie and I had decided in advance we'd carpool to book club that night.

So after I stored the box in the corner of my office for the afternoon, I carted it with me as I walked to my friend's apartment to take care of his cats. They had a fine time crawling in and out of the box, and I briefly considered taking them with me just so there'd be something interesting in the box. Well, something besides my unwashed Tupperware from lunch and the bottle of wine I planned to bring to book club.

As I was walking back to Larie's shop, a stranger stopped me. "I've gotta ask – what's in the box?"

"Brains," I informed him. "I just killed four zombies in my backyard and the brains will come in handy for Halloween."

"Right on."

When I arrived back at Larie's shop, she eyed me warily. "You're still carrying that box around?"

"I'm kind of enjoying it."

She didn't seem surprised. "We're too early for book club. Want to grab a drink at the D before we head over?"

"As long as I can bring the box."

So we marched into our favorite dive bar and found a table for three. The box got its own chair, Larie ordered a vodka cranberry, and I asked for a gin and tonic.

"Nothing for the box," I told our waitress. "That's our designated driver."

"Uh-huh," she said, trying discretely to peer inside.

"Actually," I said, "would you mind taking a picture of us with the box?"

She cheerfully snapped the photo, probably hoping crazy people make better tippers. Larie and I immediately texted the picture to our friend, Lindsay, who moved away to Omaha last spring.

We wish you were the box.

An extraordinarily long amount of time passed, during which I imagined Lindsay phoning the police to inform them we'd finally gone off the deep end and required psychiatric intervention. At last, Lindsay wrote back.

I wish I was the box, too. I've always wanted to be a box. Does that make me sound like a whore?

We paid our tab and got up to leave. "You ladies have fun with your box," the waitress yelled.

"I always do," I called back, wondering if she'd meant to make a naughty joke.

I stuffed the box in the back of Larie's car and buckled it in for the drive to book club. I toyed with the idea of taking it inside, but decided the box had already had enough fun for the evening.

At the end of the night, Larie dropped me in front of my house. "After all that, you'd damn well better not forget that box in my backseat."

"I've got it, I've got it," I assured her. "Thanks for showing my box a good time."

I hesitated, balancing the box on my hip.

Larie sighed. "You're waiting for me to say 'that's what she said,' aren't you?"

"It would be nice."

Please pee so I'll know if you're sexy

2011-10-28T02:30:00.000-07:00

I'm cat-sitting for a friend this week, a task you may be surprised to learn does not involve sitting on any cats.

Once I'd extracted the claws from my butt cheeks, I ~~snooped through drawers for porn~~ had a look around the house to ensure a safe environment for my feline wards. After awhile, one of the cats alerted me that he had a book recommendation to share:

Right at that moment, I'm pretty sure the cat was thinking, "I'm going to chew off your eyelids if you don't fill my food dish right now, bitch."

Intrigued, I picked up the book and began to skim. Before long, I came upon a fascinating passage:

So let me get this straight – female cats sniff a male cat's urine to figure out what he ate, and knowing what he ate alerts them whether he'd be good candidate for playing hide the salami? (Or maybe "hide the Vienna sausage – they're cats, after all).

This is brilliant. So brilliant, I think I need to incorporate it somehow into the "meet cute" in my next romantic comedy. Why don't humans have something like this?

On second thought, maybe we do. Certainly I've found myself drawn to someone for reasons that might seem odd on the surface. I'm a sucker for great hands. BIG hands. Let's not dwell too long on the reasons I've developed this particular fetish, but suffice it to say, it's probably more than a desire to watch someone palm a basketball.

I once developed a mad crush on a boy in grade school based solely on the intricate doodles he created on the cover of his notebook. Never mind that we never spoke a word to each other – surely those doodles signified we were meant to be together forever and ever (or at least until recess).

What's the oddest reason you've ever found yourself feeling smitten with another person? How did it turn out in the end? Please share!

Unless it involves sniffing pee to determine what someone ate for dinner. I think I'm OK without knowing the details of that.

I don't do it as often as you'd think

2011-10-27T02:30:00.000-07:00

A television news crew spent yesterday morning filming thestaff at my day job for a feature on our city’s tourism bureau. We were toldbeforehand to think of a good answer to the question, “what do you do here?”

Something besides, “surf porn at my desk while suckingcookie crumbs out of my keyboard.”

I did pretty well summing up my role as the marketing andpublic relations manager for Visit Bend.My job is to plant hundreds of little fishing lures designed to reel visitorsto the outdoor playground of the West with blog posts, brochure copy, webcontent, Facebook updates, Twitter feeds, and wooing journalists to write aboutus.

Not a bad gig, really.

The process of summing up what I do 24 hours a week at theday job got me wondering how I’d describe the remaining 168 hours I wear myauthor hat. It’s a question I get at nearly every public speaking engagement – what does your writing routine look like?

Delete the word routineand writing, and you’re on the righttrack.

People are often surprised to learn how little of apublished author’s time is spent writingbooks. Sure, I write blog posts and promotional copy. I write theoccasional new scene in contracted books as I move through the editingchannels. I write emails to my agent, editor, critique partners, ~~courtmandated psychiatrist~~, publicist, and various readers and bloggers whowrite to me.

But new materialdesigned to go in a brand new bookwritten from scratch?

The last time I did that was in early January. Almost ninemonths ago.

Is that scary to anyone besides me?

I don’t know if that’s unusual for an author in her debutyear, but I suspect it isn’t. True, my debut year has been packed with majorlife events like divorceand adapting to new housemates and asurprising new relationship and a top secret new project I promise I’llbe allowed to announce any day now.

But still, what author doesn’thave a personal life? We all struggle to balance everything, and it’s a sadfact that actual writing often gets shortchanged.

I’m comforted to realize I’m literally salivating with eagerness to start writing something new. The droolpooling in the keyboard makes those cookie crumbs very difficult to remove. Thefact that I haven’t lost my passion for it bodes well for my continued love ofwriting, even if I haven’t had the chance to pour myself into it for awhile.

If you’re a writer, how much time do you devote per week to craftingbrand new scenes for brand new books? If you aren’t a writer, are you surprisedto learn how little of an author’s time is spent doing that? Please share!

And seriously, let me know if you’ve got a hint for thosecrumbs in the keyboard. I don’t think my tongue is long enough.

On comfort food and machine gun fire

2011-10-26T02:30:00.000-07:00

When I set out to acquire housemates last spring, I decided up front that I’d prefer to live with men.

It wasn’t so much a desire to build a small harem of twenty-something males under my roof (though certainly that held some appeal). It was partly that I didn’t want pals. I wanted quiet residents content to nuke the occasional frozen pizza and then get the hell out of my kitchen without asking to bake scones together while braiding each other’s hair and dishing about boys.

I’ll admit it was a sexist notion. I’ll also admit I might have misjudged.

I knew up front that one of the housemates enjoyed cooking, but didn’t grasp the magnitude of it until the day he moved in. He spent several hours unloading an arsenal of kitchenware before whipping up a batch of brownies from scratch. Then he unpacked a giant television in the living room, a space I’d previously reserved for quiet reading and snuggling with the dog.

That was five months ago. I honestly can’t remember the last time my kitchen counter was visible beneath trays of baked goods, barbecue accessories, and three (yes, three) deep fryers. If I ever walk in and find my couch isn’t occupied by a barefoot southern boy watching war movies, I consider calling the police to report he’s been kidnapped.

There are times I mourn the loss of my clutter-free counters. There are times I miss my privacy. There are times I want to take a baseball bat to the constantly blaring television.

Monday night was such an occasion. I was tucked in my office trying hard to write, but having trouble concentrating over the blast of televised machine gun fire and the clatter of cookware.

I was on the brink of snapping when someone knocked on my office door.

“Yes?” I called through gritted teeth.

“Dinner’s ready.”

“What?”

“Dinner. I made chicken fried steak.”

I emerged from my cave, bleary-eyed and a little dumbfounded. The counter held approximately six tons of chicken fried steak, along with homemade gravy and mashed potatoes.

Comfort food I didn’t know I needed.

“I’ll make salad,” I offered, feeling bad that only three minutes earlier, I’d been plotting to grind his television remote in the garbage disposal.

I poured a glass of wine for myself. My tee totaling housemate filled his water glass. Then we sat down and watched an episode of Scrubs on Netflix. We didn’t braid each other’s hair, but we did laugh a lot.

We also licked our plates when we were done eating.

Was it how I planned to spend my evening? Not really. Is this how I envisioned my life a year ago? Definitely not. Are there moments I want to stomp into the living room and scream that if he drops another piece of fried chicken on the couch or downloads another noisy slasher movie, I’ll superglue him to the sofa and set fire to the living room?

I’d better not answer that.

But I will say this – there’s something satisfying about knowing I can adapt to almost any situation. There’s something rewarding about learning to adjust to personalities and habits I never imagined I’d be living with in such close proximity.

And there’s something enjoyable about sitting back with a plate of artery-clogging, southern fried goodness and saying, “damn, this made my night.”

When’s the last time you had to adjust to something you never expected in your life or your household routine? How did you cope?

If it’s a struggle, allow me to suggest that gravy and chicken fried steak have a remarkable way of making everything all better.

Why you don't want to grocery shop with me

2011-10-25T02:30:00.000-07:00

Dirty innuendos are everywhere if you look hard enough.

I said "hard enough."

See how the game is played? We've done it a few times here on the blog under the tagline garage porn, though it's safe to say you can do it in department stores or bathroom cupboards just about anywhere the mood strikes.

I said "do it."

On that note, I'll share a few gems from a recent trip to the grocery store...

Nut crunch? Ouch. I actually stood on this aisle for awhile to see if any men walking past would grimace. No one did. Clearly, people should pay more attention when grocery shopping.

There were several things on the pet food aisle with significant ick-factor, but Moist & Meaty was my favorite. I'm pretty sure there's an email in my spam folder advertising a video by that same name.

You would think the aisle with all the baby products would be relatively innocent. You would be mistaken. The idea of orthodontic nipples makes me wonder if those braces I had in middle school might have performed better if they'd been applied someplace other than my teeth.

Somehow, we always circle back to the home improvement aisle, don't we? That's where all the good three-ways are.

Unsurprisingly, the large screws aren't terribly far from the three-way. I should also note that the small nails were located nearby.

I'm going to go ahead and leave it up to you guys to speculate whether this product is a male invention, since the solution for a quick start is labeled "thrust" instead of "mood music" or "gentle foreplay."

Seen anything at the grocery store lately that tickled your fancy? Please share! I'm going to go stand by the Nut Crunch again to see if some at least cracks a smile. It can't just be me, can it?

The sisterhood of the crappy grass

2011-10-24T02:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday evening, I mowed my lawn for the last time.

It's definitely the last seasonal mow, and depending on how the impending home sale unfolds, perhaps the last time I'll ever mow it.

I'm not ashamed to tell you I have one of the ugliest lawns on the block. There are brown patches and uneven spots and more dandelions than I can count. If you held a contest for the crappiest grass, I would first question your soundness of judgment and inquire why you didn't hold a contest for the most wine bottles in the recycle bin, because I would totally rock that contest.

Then I'd have to admit that in a contest for the worst lawn, it would come down to a tie between my yard and the neighbor's.

And that's when I'd pull another bottle of wine out of the rack, walk next door to her house, and knock on her door. And when she answered, I would hand her the wine and say thank you.

Thank you for being a single, female homeowner who's somehow making it work. Thank you for wheeling your mower out time and again and coaxing it to life in the driveway. Thank you for mowing your ugly excuse for a lawn all by yourself, week after week, and inspiring me to do the same. Our yards might not be the nicest on the block, but they've been lovingly tended.

Then I would shake her hand and wish her a good evening.

OK, that's a lie. Secretly, I'd kinda hope she might invite me in to share the wine and maybe tell me that she's been inspired by my ugly excuse for a lawn and my steadfast determination to maintain it. Then we'd have a pillow fight in our underwear and make a bunch of risque jokes about "keeping the grass trimmed" and "getting a guy to help mow the lawn."

But since lawn mowing season has ended, I doubt that'll happen. For now, we'll stick with smiling and nodding when we pass each other at the mailbox.

Or maybe I'll throw in one butt pat, just for the sake of the sisterhood.

Have you ever found yourself inspired, moved, or encouraged by a random stranger? Ever felt camaraderie with someone you hardly know? Please share!

Or feel free to toss out a good lawn mowing or grass joke. That's good, too.

On having the balls to mark the wood

2011-10-21T02:30:00.000-07:00

Moments of supreme clarity sometimes arrive when you’re sopping wet.

At least, that’s how it is for me.

I spent much of last weekend hanging out at Summer Lake Hot Springs. Though the motive for the trip was my speaking engagement at a nearby library charity event, my real reason for going was a fervent desire to soak my bones in the hot springs.

(Insert “bone” joke here. Go ahead, I’ll wait).

The outdoor rock pools were heavenly, but I was particularly charmed by the rustic bathhouse with its large, spring-fed pool. The structure was built in 1928, and a four-inch pipe feeds water from the springs into the indoor pool.

(Anyone want to make the pipe joke?)

The water feels heavenly, and light streaming through the skylights give the place a dreamy, ethereal feel. It’s romantic not only for the steamy heat, but for what adorns the walls of the structure.

Names. Hundreds of them. Joe loves Julie. Raven-n-Mark. Peter & Jenna 4ever. And somewhat curiously, Tooter & Hank.

I swirled around in the water with my gentleman friend, tracing my fingers over the letters.

“Don’t you wonder how many of these people are still together?” I asked. “Like Rod and Tiff – how do you think they’re doing?”

“Or Nick and Kyle,” he added. “I hope those crazy kids made it.”

I sighed. “Once upon a time, all these people were so giddy with love, they carved their names in the wood. Now – how many of them even speak to each other? There’s something sad about it.”

“There’s something hopeful about it,” he countered. “About having the balls to do it in the first place – to make your mark and lay claim to each other knowing it might not last.”

The words socked me in the gut. Not because I’m a romance author. Not even because he had his hands on my bare back when he said it.

But also because he knows. We both know.

Both of us were married before, and both divorced under startlingly similar circumstances. Neither of us wanted or expected our splits, but we both emerged on the other side feeling happy and whole and remarkably stronger.

Under the circumstances, you might expect us to be jaded. We’re cautious, to be sure, but somehow, neither of us lost heart.

I’m sure that eternal optimism is part of what kept me writing romantic comedy even when I wasn’t feeling particularly romantic or comedic. I do believe in forever – even now, knowing what I know about those names on the wall or my own happily ever after that turned out not to be.

It's always true things might not work out the way you hope.

But it's also true they might.

That's enough for me. That's what I choose to focus on, both in my writing career and in my life.

So here’s to anyone who’s had the balls to put yourself out there despite the odds it might not last. Here’s to enduring faith, love, and the hopeful handling of wood.