Giving away my recipe for salmon chowder, a signed copy of Believe it or Not, and the secret behind page 99

If you've ever acquired a copy of Believe it or Not from me – either in a contest, at a book signing, or by breaking into my home and stealing one – there was a bookmark stuffed inside.

You probably didn't notice it, nor did you make note of what page it was on, but I did.

That's because every copy of my sophomore romantic comedy that passes through my hands gets a little extra love on page 99. It's the start of a scene that always makes me smile because of the story behind it.

Back in the spring of 2011, there was a lot happening in my life. I was preparing for the release of my first romantic comedy, Making Waves, while doing editorial revisions on the book slated for release six months after that,  Believe it or Not.

I was also spending time with a handsome, kind, smart, funny gentleman with whom I'd been acquainted for many years, but had never known particularly well until I asked him to mentor me through a difficult divorce.

While the divorce mentoring was helpful, I had an ulterior motive in spending time with him. I sincerely wished to jump his bones, so I hatched an evil plan to seduce him using the best tools in my arsenal: food, alcohol, and cleavage.

I invited him to join me on a beer-related outing for my day job, followed by dinner at my house. I wore a low-cut sweater and prepared my famous salmon chowder. As we sat on the sofa chatting afterward, I edged closer and closer, eventually tucking my bare feet under his leg under the pretense of warming them. With the touch barrier broken, he offered up a foot massage that evolved into a calf massage that evolved into . . . well, I'll stop the story there to preserve some semblance of mystery.

Simmering salmon chowder with aphrodisiac powers.

Of course, if I wanted to preserve the mystery, I wouldn't have used that experience as the basis for a romantic scene in Believe it or Not that begins on page 99. When my editor asked me to add a couple more sexy scenes to the book just a few weeks after that fateful evening on the couch, I decided to pay homage by having Drew and Violet engage in a little sofa leg massage flirtation of their own. I won't claim the scene is a blow-by-blow (ha!) account of what happened that evening, but things seem to have worked out nicely for all of us in the 32 months since then. I'm not sure when Drew and Violet's wedding will be, but ours is next September.

While I'd like to extoll the seductive powers of my legs and cleavage, I'm pretty sure the salmon chowder deserves most of the credit. In case you need to seduce someone (or, yanno, just put a nutritious and tasty meal on the table) here's my recipe:

Tawna's Salmon Chowder

• 4-5 slices of bacon
• 1 small onion, diced
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 1 cup milk (I use skim)
• 1 small can evaporated milk
• 2 cups frozen corn
• 4-5 small red potatoes, cubed
• 2-3 carrots, chopped
• 2 salmon filets 
• A small amount of milk for poaching salmon (maybe 1/3 cup)
• Dill to taste (I use tons)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Fry the bacon in your soup pot until crisp. Remove it and let it cool before crumbling it and setting it aside. In the bacon grease remaining in your soup pot, saute the onions until soft and golden brown. Add the carrots and saute a few more minutes to blend flavors. Add corn, potatoes, and chicken broth and simmer for about 30 minutes.

While the soup is simmering, sprinkle your salmon filets with salt and pepper and put them in a pot with a little milk. If you have some scraps of onion and carrot left over, sprinkle them on the salmon as well to lend a little flavor. Cover tightly with a lid and poach for a 3-5 minutes. Remove from heat and let sit for 5 more minutes before removing from the liquid, tossing the carrots/onion, and flaking the salmon with a fork. Set aside.

Dinner is served!

Return to your soup pot and give it a good stir. Add both the evaporated milk and the regular milk and bring to a simmer for 10-15 minutes more. Slowly add the salmon and bacon and simmer for 10-15 minutes more. Season with salt, pepper, and dill and serve hot with sourdough bread and a good white wine or rosé.

***

Since I'm in a giving sorta mood with the story and the recipe and all, how about I give away a signed copy of f Believe it or Not , too?

Leave a comment describing your best seduction meal. Recipes or links are helpful, but just a description of the dish will suffice. I'll pick a winner next Monday.

Cheers!

UPDATE: I've had several readers report they're unable to leave comments when they attempt it from a mobile device. I'm working to figure out a long-term solution, but in the meantime, you should be able to comment from a desktop computer or by selecting the web version of my blog (not the mobile version) from your mobile device. 

First the pork, now the balls

I’ve gotten a lot of lovely messages from readers who made the Cranberry Pork Roast recipe I shared from Getting Dumped and managed not to burn down their homes. Way to go!

For those who’ve been asking (or for those who prefer a culinary experiment that doesn’t involve turning on an oven), I’d like to share the no-bake White Chocolate Apricot Balls that are also featured in the story. Enjoy!

White Chocolate Apricot Balls

• 2/3 cup powdered sugar
• 1 cup blanched almonds
• 2 cups dried apricots
• 2 tablespoons rum
  
• Zest of 1 medium orange
• 1.5 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 4 ounces of white chocolate (look in the baking section, or just a regular old bar of white chocolate will do. You can even try white chocolate chips if you can't find anything else)
  

This is pretty much the easiest recipe on the planet if you have a food processor. Throw the almonds and powdered sugar in the processor and pulse until the almonds are finely ground. Don't go too crazy or you'll end up with almond butter. Once you've done the nuts, (snicker) throw in the dried apricots and pulse until they're chopped up nice and small. After that, dump in the rum, vanilla, orange zest, and white chocolate. Pulse again until everything's nice and blended.

Here comes the fun part...

Spray your hands with nonstick cooking spray. Then grab a handful of the goo in the food processor and make a ball. You should have enough to form 20-24 balls, so get rolling.

Spread them out on a baking sheet, but don't bake them. Chill them in the fridge for a couple hours (though if you're impatient like me, you can start gobbling them up right away – they just won't be firm at that point, and isn't it always best to wait 'til something's satisfactorily firm?)

So there you go – another recipe from Getting Dumped. Those of you who read the first episode may be interested to know episode #2 is right around the corner. Those who haven't read it yet can find it here on Kindle.

Happy eating! (And reading).

What makes me drool

If you’ve read Making Waves, you probably have an inkling I’m rather fond of food. I drooled every time I wrote about one of Cookie’s gourmet meals.

If you’ve read the first episode of my new “active fiction” title from Coliloquy, you know Getting Dumped seals the deal. It’s true, I am a food whore.

Many of the dishes described in Getting Dumped are real menu items from my personal repertoire. For those who’ve been asking, here’s one of my favorites described in the story:

Cranberry Pork Roast in the Crockpot

• 2-3 pound pork roast (I buy the three-packs at Costco and freeze ‘em)
• 1 16-ounce can of whole berry cranberry sauce
• 1 tsp stone ground mustard
• ¾ cup orange juice (I’ve also used cranberry or apple in a pinch)
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• ½ tsp ground cloves
• 1 pinch ground orange peel (optional)
• Salt & pepper to taste

Throw the roast in your Crockpot. Mix up all the other crap and dump it over the roast. Turn your Crockpot on low and retreat to the bedroom with someone naked to spend the next eight or nine hours doing something more fun than cooking.

Or go to work. Whatever.

Come home, stab the roast with a fork, and pull it out of the pot. Don’t be surprised if it shreds to pieces because it’s so tender. If the liquid left in your Crockpot is bubbling a bit, mix up about a tablespoon of cornstarch and a tablespoon of water until the cornstarch is all dissolved. You can use flour if you prefer, but mix it in a separate dish or you’ll make a gloppy mess. When the mixture is pasty, dump it in the bubbling liquid.

If your liquid wasn’t bubbling to start with, make it bubble. Like in a saucepan, not in your hot tub. That would be weird. Then add the cornstarch or flour mix. The object is to thicken it up so it’s a nice, tasty sauce.

When you’ve got that ready, shred your pork with a couple forks and throw it back in t he sauce. Serve. It’s terrific with rosemary garlic mashed potatoes and a nice salad.

Bon Appétit!

Oh, and the first episode of Getting Dumped is on sale at Amazon for $1.99 right now. Snag it while it’s cheap!

The things I want to put in your mouth

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.

Do you do it for love or for money?

Life's been a bit chaotic lately, as you might have guessed. One result of the divorce and my intent to hold on to this house without resorting to prostitution is that I've rented a room to a 20-year-old college kid.

It's not as inconvenient as you might imagine. The house is quite large, and most of the time I don't even know my young tenant is here. He stays in his room listening to music and doing whatever it is young males do behind closed doors.

I'd rather not dwell on that.

The other night, I wanted pork chops. Since I love to cook and it's not any tougher to prep a dinner for two people than for one, I invited my young tenant to join me. He seemed downright giddy at the prospect of a home-cooked meal, and chattered amicably with me as I prepared pork chops braised with shallots in a honey balsamic reduction, rosemary garlic mashed potatoes, and roasted asparagus.

Once he stopped being perplexed at the lack of a frozen pizza on the table, he dug right in.

"This is amazing," he gushed between bites. "Why didn't you become a chef?"

It was such a funny, typically 20-year-old question that I almost laughed.

"Because I like to cook," I told him. "If I had to do it for a job, I might not like it anymore."

It was such a foreign concept to him that he stopped chewing and stared at me. "You mean you want a job you don't like?"

"Not exactly. It's just that loving to do something doesn't necessarily mean it's a good career choice."

I refrained from adding that if I set out to pick a career based on what I love most, the prostitution thing might not be such a bad idea after all.

It did get me thinking though. Not about prostitution, but the fine line between loving to do something and making a living at it. In a roundabout way, I've been writing for my supper my whole adult life. The bulk of my career has been in marketing and public relations, so the writing portion of it taps a different part of my mind than romantic comedy does.

Still, there have been times when the day job sucks the creative writing center of my brain to the point that it resembles a deflated udder. To say that makes it tough to come home and crank out chapters in a novel is a bigger understatement than if I told you I have a mild fondness for being groped.

My urge to protect my creative energy is the main reason I avoid accepting freelance writing projects on the side unless I'm bribed with large amounts of free food and cash. I know my well can run dry, so I'd prefer to save the water for a sexy bubble bath rather than a load of laundry.

I didn't say any of this to my young tenant, of course. By then he'd grown bored with the conversation and was busy texting someone with one hand as he shoveled up the last of the mashed potatoes with the other.

"You're a very good cook," he said politely.

"Thank you," I replied. "You're not going to eat the asparagus?"

He frowned. "It's green."

"I can't argue with that."

How do you find the balance between having a job you love and one that pays the bills? If you're a writer, do you ever reach a saturation point where you fear you might kill your own desire to do it?

Speaking of doing it . . . oh, never mind. Writing is pretty much like prostitution anyway, right?

Wherever you go, there you are

I mentioned last week how orgasmic it was to sample unique cuisine throughout my Southern travels.

I made it my mission to find the most unfamiliar item on each menu and order it. The very first restaurant I visited in Savannah, Georgia boasted hoards of authentic Southern dishes, but a closer look revealed something all too familiar:
For those of you not from the Pacific Northwest, Tillamook is in Oregon. My family would visit the Tillamook cheese factory every summer on vacation (which sounds weirder than it is. Never mind, it’s exactly as weird as it sounds).

Looking at that menu in Savannah, I couldn’t help but think I should have hitched a ride with the cheese. Does cheese get frequent flyer miles? Does it get sleepy traveling all day with nothing but a tepid ginger ale and some stale peanuts?

My brushes with the familiar didn’t stop there. During my first day out on the town with Harley May in Florida, we went for a stroll. We hadn’t been walking more than 20 minutes when I looked up to see this sign:
Even during my lunch with Linda Grimes in Virginia, we discovered several Oregon offerings on the wine list. What gives? Is my home state really that cool?

I doubt that’s it (though for the record, it is pretty cool). More likely though, my brain is wired to seek the familiar. No matter how hard I tried to find experiences that were new and different and exciting, I still wound up drawn to things that reminded me of what I already knew.

It’s something I’ve caught myself doing in writing. I’ve been bouncing between all three manuscripts in my contract lately, doing copy edits on MAKING WAVES before jumping back to put the final touches on LET IT BREATHE. Though one takes place on a ship in the middle of the Caribbean and the other is set at a winery in Oregon, I realized the other day that I used precisely the same language in both books to describe my heroine taking off her shirt.

Not that stripping should be performed differently depending on your geographic locale, but still. The exact same wording? Not what I meant to do.

I suppose it’s just human nature to fall into well-worn patterns. We use the same route to drive to work every day, order the same thing at a favorite restaurant, put our underwear on starting with the same leg each time. Even if we try to shake it up, maybe we're just destined to gravitate toward the familiar.

What do you think?

I think I want some cheese.

Snarfing my way through the South

The thing I love best about traveling is the chance to stuff my face with new and interesting food.

I’m in the middle of a week-long trip exploring Georgia, Florida, and Washington DC with various writing pals while pestering them to introduce me to their favorite regional cuisine. They’ve all been willing, and to the best of my knowledge, haven’t tried to poison me yet.

Some of the culinary highlights so far:

• She-crab soup and jicama slaw at the Boor’s Head Tavern in Savannah, Ga. This was my first Georgia meal, enjoyed in the company of the lovely and talented Elizbeth Flora Ross. As if that weren’t fabulous enough, I paired it with a delicious Captain’s Porter from Moon River Brewing Company in Savannah. I think I left drool marks on the table.
• I’d be filthy rich (as opposed to just filthy) if I had a nickel for each time critique partner Cynthia Reese has gushed about low country boil in the 6+ years we’ve been working together. It’s something I’ve always wanted to try, so I swooned when we got to order it at The Crab Shack on Tybee Island, Ga. low country boil is a mix of corn, potatoes, shrimp, and sausage, served with a whole lot of Old Bay Seasoning and butter. Ours included the addition of crab legs, mussels, and crawfish. Words can’t adequately describe how much I loved this meal. I would have taken off all my clothes and rolled in it, but didn’t want to miss getting even one morsel in my mouth. Here are the photos:
  

• 

  The aftermath of the low country boil.

  
  
• Not to be outdone, the delightful and hilarious Harley May took me out for Cuban sandwiches upon my arrival in Florida. I’d never heard of Cuban sandwiches before, and they blew me away with their beautiful simplicity. Made with ham, roasted pork, Swiss cheese, pickles, and mustard on Cuban bread, this was a perfectly scrumptious sandwich I might even be able to replicate at home someday if I could figure out how on earth to make that amazing bread.

This little culinary tour has me thinking about when my Italian brother-in-law visited the U.S. several years ago. When he asked us to introduce him to typical American food, we were stumped. Is there such a thing? Or does it vary so widely from region to region that it’s impossible to nail down?

We eventually concentrated our foodie overview on highlights from the Pacific Northwest. We stuffed him with grilled salmon, razor clams, Oregon bay shrimp, and lots of fresh local produce. In the end though, I think his favorite meal was the big lumberjack breakfast at Camp 18.

What sort of cuisine defines your region? Or let’s cut to the chase here – what will you feed me if I come visit you?

The rejection sweater – a must-have fashion

Since we talked about cupcakes on the blog yesterday, I figure I might as well keep the topic going to infect you with the same cupcake lust that hit me last week.

Author Karen Amanda Hooper had a hilarious blog post in which she revealed a clever strategy for making rejections sting less. She and her writing pals decided to substitute the word “cupcake” for “rejection.”

I see the appeal. I just got three cupcakes from agents today has a pleasant ring, doesn’t it?

It reminded me of a habit several writing buddies and I adopted back in our earliest years of the submission game. This was before I sold my first book to Harlqeuin/Silhouette’s Bombshell line (which was canceled one month before my debut was scheduled to hit shelves…er, not that I’m bitter).

I had been waiting nearly a year for a response on a requested full manuscript, and the stress had taken a toll. One night, I had a dream I went to a big party attended by several editors. Since things always happen like this in dreams, I spotted the editor who had my submission.

I mustered the courage to approach her. “Have you made a decision yet?”

“Yes, of course,” she replied. “We’ve decided we aren’t interested in your manuscript, but we do have some lovely gifts for you.”

“Gifts?”

“Yes, here. We'd like you to have this apple and this sweater. Enjoy!”

I accepted the two items without question, since in the dream, it seemed perfectly logical to receive fruit and clothing from an editor.

When I told my writing pals about the dream, they were delighted. For the next year, each time on of us received a particularly heartbreaking rejection, the others rallied around her and bought an inexpensive sweater and an apple. We’d have coffee together and wear our rejection sweaters as badges of honor.

Even now – with countless rejections under my belt and a three-book deal to show for my struggles – I’m warmed by the idea of the rejection sweater. I know people say writing is a solitary pursuit, but I’ve never found that to be true. Everywhere I look, I see writers offering each other pats on the back and clever cupcake humor to cushion the blows.

Do you have any strategies for coping with rejection? Any interesting ways you’ve supported fellow authors in the face of a setback? Please share.

I have to go find my sweater.

Do you lust for your own cupcakes?

Last week, I overheard some people talking about cupcakes.

My brain switched quickly to lust mode. Must have cupcakes, it demanded all afternoon.

I ignored it. Though I love cooking, I’ve never been much of a baker and am indifferent to most baked goods. The craving would pass.

But my lust was persistent.

Must have cupcakes, my brain snarled all evening.

I went to bed, assuming I’d forget the cupcakes overnight and move on to craving frozen peas or tater tots.

But there it was, screaming in my brain first thing the next morning – MUST HAVE @#$% CUPCAKES!

Fine.

I had to bring something to a dinner party anyway, so cupcakes were as good as anything. I got out my mixing bowls and cookbooks. I sifted and measured, sampled and adjusted, whisked and tasted.

I produced a dozen chocolate cupcakes – half with a dark chocolate Grand Marnier frosting, and the other half with a light chocolate raspberry concoction I made up as I went along.

And by the time I got to the dinner party, I wasn’t the least bit interested in those cupcakes.

It happens that way a lot, which is probably why I don’t bake much. I taste and sample and tweak and adjust as I go, and by the time I’m done, I’m so sick of what I’m baking that I’d just as soon feed it to the dog.

It’s something I’ve found myself doing with writing, too.

I’m not sure if any of you noticed, but something funny happened early in the summer. I was on track to finish LET IT BREATHE within my normal 3 or 3.5 month time frame. I had about a chapter left to write and was already plotting the wine I’d drink when I typed “the end.”

But guess what? I haven’t. I haven’t typed “the end,” and I haven’t opened the wine.

The closer I got to the end of that story, the more I realized there was some “stuff” I wasn’t sure about. Some emotional baggage that wormed its way in and threatened to choke the comedy. I’m an edit-as-I-go sort of writer, but instead of achieving the desired polish by tweaking and retweaking my scenes, I was starting to wonder if the dog would eat manuscript pages.

Lucky for me, LET IT BREATHE is the third book in my contract and isn’t due on my editor’s desk until February. The way the timing worked, MAKING WAVES and BELIEVE IT OR NOT (which are already written) were due at the end of September, so I gave myself permission to switch gears.

I went back and polished the first two to a high sheen. It was a chance not only to perfect things for my editor, but to remind myself of the tone I set with the first two.

Then it was time for the online revision class I’d signed up to take from New York Times bestselling author Lani Diane Rich. I used those six weeks to absorb all the wisdom and strategy I could to prepare myself to return to LET IT BREATHE.

On one hand, I’ve been kicking myself for the hiatus. How silly to stop with so little left to write.

On the other hand, I know myself as a writer. I needed to take a few steps back to gain perspective and curtail the distaste I could feel building in the back of my throat.

Have you given yourself permission to step away from a story when something isn’t right? Do you ever get sick of your own baking or writing? Please share.

And please give me an easier food to lust for next time. Carrot sticks, maybe?

On phallic squash and rejections

Last year, I had my first garden.

Peppers flourished with wild abandon. Tomatoes ripened faster than I could make salsa. Summer squash grew to gargantuan proportions, prompting many phallic thoughts not only for me, but for everyone who stopped by and received one as a gift.

If you have phallic thoughts looking at this year’s squash crop, I feel very sad for you. This is my most impressive specimen:

Hardly in the same ballpark as the ones that took both arms to carry just 12 months ago.

The funny thing is, I changed nothing in my gardening process. I used the same fertilizer, bought seedlings from the same store, even planted within a couple days of last year’s start date.

But the weather hasn’t been kind this year. Neither have the aphids or those nasty little spiky weeds that make me want to throw a hoe through the fence. I’ve done everything I can, but my garden just isn’t flourishing this year.

I couldn’t help but think of this when I read Victoria Strauss’s excellent blog post at Writer Beware titled Getting published is not a crap shoot.

I agree with her wholeheartedly, and think every author should read it. Here’s an excerpt:

There’s no question that good books fail to find publication –for a whole range of reasons, including what a publisher is already publishing, sales or marketing concerns, poor publisher/agent targeting on the writer's part, or sometimes simply because the writer gave up too soon. But far more often, rejection is based on quality and marketability, or the lack thereof.

Like I said, I agree with her. I really do.

And yet the last line of that paragraph makes me sad. I’ve stood in the shoes of every author who ever stared at a rejection letter and wondered, “is it the writing or is it something else?”

And the problem is, you often can’t know.

During the (sometimes brutal) two-year stretch leading up to my three-book deal, I had the benefit of an amazing agent who was able to procure detailed explanations from editors rejecting us. It was staggering how often the decision came down to something that had nothing to do with the writing itself – an editor who just bought a book in the same vein, or a marketing team that feared the book might be a tough sell with older readers.

I’m not saying I didn’t learn and grow from those experiences, but I also didn’t take them too personally. I recognized that sometimes it is a crap shoot.

It's important to strike a balance between embracing failures as an opportunity to learn and improve, and recognizing that sometimes there isn’t much to learn. Sometimes you’ve mastered everything within your control – the weeds, the typos, the watering schedule, the plot holes – and your lack of success can’t be traced to anything you have the ability to fix.

But the great thing? There’s always spring. Always. You can look ahead and see sunshine and honeybees and pound your chest and shout, “oh weather gods, you may have beaten me this year, but next year I shall have squash that put porn stars to shame!”

Not that I’ve done that.

Why are the neighbors staring at me?

Psst...don't forget to stop by and visit me at The Debutante Ball today!

I would do anything for love(but I won't do that)

I have two confessions.

The first is that my refrigerator smells like something crawled inside, threw up, contracted a severe foot fungus, developed gangrene, and then died.

The second is that I refuse to do anything about it.

Oh sure, I removed a carton of takeout Thai that’s been in there since March, and I might’ve sniffed a few iffy perishables (and proceeded to eat them).

But the fact is, I hate cleaning the refrigerator. It’s one of the chores – along with mopping floors and mowing the lawn – I will avoid at all costs.

I might feel guilty about this if it weren’t for the fact that Pythagoras has a similar list of chores he refuses to perform. His list includes folding laundry and scrubbing tubs or toilets.

The funny thing is, we’ve never discussed this in 12+ years of marriage. He’s never openly declared, “I will let the clean clothes accumulate in the laundry room until I’m forced to dress myself beside the dryer each morning while standing shoulder-deep in a pile of socks and underwear.”

Nor have I confessed to him that I will wait until one of us actually loses consciousness in front of the refrigerator before I stoop to removing shelves and scrubbing bins to find the source of that god-awful smell.

It’s just an unspoken rule that the spouse who doesn’t abhor the chore will eventually tackle it for the one who does.

This fact – plus a shared love of ‘80s butt-rock – is why we’re a good match.

It’s also the reason I surround myself with writing and publishing professionals who compensate for my weaknesses.

Plotting is not my strength. My idea of plotting a book is declaring that I’d like to write about a heroine who owns a vineyard and then some stuff happens.

Fortunately, critique partner Cynthia Reese is a fabulously talented plotter. She’s always willing to help me brainstorm when I’ve backed my characters into a corner and removing their clothes won’t get them out this time.

Lest you think it’s a one-way relationship, I bring something to the table as well. I amuse her with fart jokes and point out when her scenes might benefit from the inclusion of one.

I will also freely admit I'm incapable of reading instructions and contracts. When I saw the first copy of my three-book contract with Sourcebooks, Inc, I made it through the first twelve words before succumbing to the overwhelming urge to polish my toenails.

Luckily, I have my amazing agent, Michelle Wolfson. She not only read the contract in its entirety, but fought hard for changes that benefited me (well, I assume they benefited me – it’s possible I just signed a contract to sell my liver on the black market).

Do you surround yourself with people who have strengths you don’t? Do you help tackle chores someone else abhors when you don’t mind doing them yourself?

Please share in the comments. I’ll be donning my gas mask in preparation for retrieving the milk from the fridge.

I am the mistress of discipline & moldy toast

Attempting to be a full-time writer requires a fair amount of discipline, and I don’t mean that in the fun handcuffs-and-blackcurrant-jelly way.

I need routine. This is usually how mine goes:

Wake around 6:15, write a blog post, shower, dress, feed pets, prepare and consume a breakfast consisting of two poached eggs, one piece of toast, and one hashbrown patty. Then I spend some time responding to email and making the rounds to other blogs before opening my manuscript and diving in.

You’ll understand then, why my entire day of writing was jeopardized recently when I woke to find no bread.

I knew I still had half a loaf of pumpernickel. Where was it?

I soon had my answer. The bread was in the garbage can, with several spots of mold revealing the reason Pythagoras had unceremoniously dumped it.

I began to panic.

Without toast, how would I sop up my eggs? And without toast, wouldn’t I be starving right when I hit my stride with the morning writing? Instead of dashing off witty dialogue at 10 a.m., I would be forced to flee to the kitchen and eat pie crust straight from the freezer.

I had no choice.

I carefully pulled the bread from the trash, wiping off a few bits of carrot peel and the nozzle from an empty tube of bike tire glue. I used my fingernail to flick away some of the bigger spots of mold before popping a piece of in the toaster.

When Pythagoras returned from his morning run, he found me in my usual spot on the front porch with a newspaper and a breakfast plate in front of me.

He stared at me a moment. “What are you eating?”

“Same thing I always eat,” I replied.

“Right. Um, where’d you get the bread?”

“Garbage. Hey, did you see this article about the parking fees downtown?”

He stared at me for a few more moments, then shook his head and wandered in the house. “Remind me not to kiss you until you’ve gargled with bleach.”

Personally, I don’t see the big deal. The bread was in a bag, and I did toast it. Generally speaking, I think most Americans are too uptight about expiration dates and food preparation. Pythagoras claims he has a more refined palate while I have the gut of a billy goat, but guess which of us can eat unidentifiable street vendor food in third world countries and never get sick? Hint: it’s not him.

But I digress.

Since the toast incident, I’ve stockpiled my freezer with three loaves of my favorite bread, and I’ll be keeping close tabs on it. This is serious business. My whole day of writing depends on it.

Do you have routines when it comes to your writing? Are you prone to rash behavior if something threatens your routine? Please share in the comments.

I’ll be over here trying to figure out where Pythagoras stashed the blackcurrant jelly. What? It’s for the toast.

The fine art of feeding yourself

My recent posts about my recipe cupboard have generated some interesting emails, tweets, and blog comments about my cookbooks.

In case you’re wondering – yes, my Better Homes & Gardens cookbook is indeed disintegrating from overuse, and yes, the Intercourses aphrodisiac cookbook really will make your spouse lie down naked on the dinner table (so maybe don’t use it when your mom visits).

A couple comments reminded me of a conversation that took place when I first purchased one of the books:

Clerk (eyeing the book, then eyeing me): A Weight Watchers cookbook?

Me: Um, yes. And also this shower brush shaped like a penis.

Clerk (eyeing me some more): That’s not a penis, it’s a leg. And why do you need a Weight Watchers cookbook? You’re thin.

It was one of those moments I wish I were quick with clever retorts. My first instinct was to wonder if the clerk also chided overweight customers purchasing dessert cookbooks. Then I imagined the inappropriate conversation I could spark by returning to the counter with a sex manual.

But I suppose I can’t fault the clerk’s observation. Yes, I’m a relatively thin person who just happens to like healthy cooking. My intense love affair with my Reader’s Digest How To Book of Healthy Cooking doesn’t mean I’m on an anorexic quest to drop 50 pounds, but it does probably mean I’m interested in keeping the figure I have.

It’s funny this subject should come up the same week I’ve been contemplating taking an online course on revisions from author Lani Diane Rich (aka Lucy March).

I mentioned it to an acquaintance the other day, and she looked at me like I’d just announced my intent to try sword swallowing.

“But you’ve already got a book deal,” she said. “Why do you need a writing class?”

I’m intrigued by this idea that an author could reach some I have arrived pinnacle and suddenly kick back with a glass of Sangiovese and the smug certainty she knows everything there is to know about writing.

If there is such a pinnacle, I don’t want to reach it.

Isn’t that the thrill of this business? The fact that no matter what stage you’re at in your career, you can always learn and grow and fine-tune your writing? There are a million ways for an author to refill her bag of tricks, and that’s part of what keeps this process fresh and fun. I don’t care if you’re a brand new author or Stephen King – smart writers are always working to hone their talents and sharpen their skills.

How about you? What do you do to maintain or improve your writing abilities?

Please share in the comments.

I'll be busy enjoying my healthy cookbooks and my online writing class and especially my penis-shaped shower brush.

Just freakin' do it (+special announcment)

First, a special announcement:

Head over to Candyland’s blog to hear how she's raising money for the women of Ghana, West Africa. You can get your mitts on some terrific prizes, including autographed books, agent consultations, and author critiques. The money goes to a great cause, and participants include my amazing agent Michelle Wolfson (who’s offering up a 30-minute phone consultation) as well as my wonderful critique partner Cynthia Reese (who is joining forces with yours truly to offer a tag-team critique of a partial manuscript…something she explains beautifully on her blog today).

Go click the links, and GET INVOLVED!

Now, back to our regularly scheduled blog post…

So you know how I love to cook, right?

And you know how I’ve bragged about the number of cookbooks I own and recipe sites I frequent?

Now I’m going to show you my dirty little secret. You ready?

This is the cupboard that holds it:

Scary, isn’t it?

It’s a mess on many levels, but the worst of it is the mountain of recipes clipped from newspapers or printed from online sites. Each time I open that cupboard, I risk death by avalanche. Sometimes I go hunting for a recipe and get so tired of looking for it that I change my mind and eat tater tots. I’ve got at least a dozen more cookbooks scattered in rooms where no cooking can take place.

I need to get organized.

Funny thing is, I bought all the supplies to do that almost seven months ago. I’ve got a binder for the loose recipes, and little plastic sheets to keep them sorted. I know where most of the missing cookbooks are and could easily round them up.

So why haven’t I done it?

I could come up with a million excuses, some of which might be pretty creative. But the fact is, I’ve been procrastinating because I don’t want to do it.

I’ll admit, I’ve been known to do this in my writing, too. Even though I’m nearing the end of LET IT BREATHE, there’s still some research I need to do to round out one of the subplots. There are still a couple scenes I’m dragging my feet on writing. There’s no compelling reason I haven’t done these things, except I don’t wanna (which isn’t a very compelling reason, not even if I whine it).

Do you do this to? Do you have tasks that really wouldn’t take much effort, but you put them off a ridiculously long time? If so, join me in making a pledge to just freakin’ do it already. Clean that cupboard, organize that junk drawer, or tackle that annoying scene in your manuscript.

Tell me what you’re procrastinating and then pledge to get it done in the coming week. We’ll all report back here next week to brag about what we've accomplished and pat each other on the back for our progress. Deal?

Unless I’m killed by a paper avalanche.

On soufflés, writing challenges, & topless book club

It’s my turn to host book club tonight.

In less than 12 hours, my home will be packed with women guzzling wine, chattering about books, and possibly removing articles of clothing.

(You think I’m joking, but I’ve been with this group for 10 years and once watched our founder rip off her shirt in the throes of a hot flash and spend the rest of the meeting discussing literary symbolism wearing only her bra).

Though I can accuse Pythagoras of being the one to overdo things in almost every other aspect of our lives, book club hosting the one area where I freely admit I make things a lot more complicated than they need to be.

The other day he caught me poring over dessert recipes.

“What do you think?” I asked him. “The dark chocolate Grand Marnier soufflés or a red wine & raspberry sorbet with homemade fudge sauce?”

He stared at me for a few beats, then shook his head. “Can’t you just buy a cheesecake at Costco?”

This suggestion actually borders on helpful, since his real solution would likely involve passing around a box of Pop Tarts after the meal.

But no. I am making the soufflés, because they seem like the best dessert to follow the tilapia fillets broiled in dark cherry vinaigrette and the other carefully chosen side dishes I have planned.

I can mock myself for overcomplicating things, but the truth is, I enjoy it. I love cooking, and it’s not every day I get to feed a houseful of longtime girlfriends with voracious appetites for good food, good wine, and good books.

I also like the challenge.

Long before I started writing, I used to get annoyed when a band I liked would put out a new album that deviated wildly from whatever had made me fall in love with them in the first place. My inner spoiled child would stomp her feet and whine, “but I liked what you did before – why couldn’t you do that again?”

I get it now.

I love romantic comedy, don’t get me wrong – I don’t see myself getting tired of it ever, and I’m settling in for a nice long career writing it. But since there are only so many ways to tell the “boy meets girl” story, it’s fun to twist things up a bit and experiment.

I talked last week about some of the risks involved in writing LET IT BREATHE with a divorced heroine and a reformed bad boy hero recently out of rehab, but there’s another aspect of the story that adds an interesting dimension.

My hero and heroine already know each other, and there are some skeletons in that closet they both have to deal with. I’ve never written a story before where the two love interests are already acquainted, and I like the challenge of exploring that dynamic.

Maybe I’ll even find a way to use that homemade fudge sauce somewhere in the story.

How about you? Are there areas of your writing or everyday life where you overcomplicate things? Is it a good or a bad habit?

Discuss among yourselves. I have to go see if it's too late to have that stripper pole installed in the living room. If shirts are coming off again, I want to be ready.

What writers put in their mouths(please share!)

I’ve always been teased about eating like a bird. It’s basically true if you figure birds eat constantly and consume half their body weight in a day.

I never eat much in one sitting, which is probably where the teasing comes from. But I’m incapable of sitting down to write without stuffing my face while I type.

Here are my favorite staples:

Ice water, tea, and wine. I drink water all day long, probably gallons of it. In the morning, I also sip hot tea. By evening, it’s a glass of whichever wine accompanied dinner. With that much liquid intake, I'm slowly wearing a trail between my office and the bathroom.

Sen Sens. For those who don’t know what these are, here’s a link. They are an acquired taste, and tough to find – I order big boxes of them online. Friends who don’t share my fondness say they taste like a mix of black licorice and soap. I adore them. My consumption escalates under stress, so Pythagoras knows to steer clear if he comes home to find me with a black tongue.

Fruit and veggies. I know the chocoholics among you (hi, Patty!) will gasp in horror, but given the choice between a chocolate bar and a couple carrot sticks, I’d take the carrots any day. It’s not a health-nut thing, that’s just what I prefer. Dried fruit like mangoes and bananas are tasty without being messy, and a little pile of frozen peas makes for great for nibbling when I’m editing.

Nuts & popcorn: I love raw, unsalted almonds and roasted pumpkin seeds, but my true passion is air-popped popcorn. A friend gave me my air popper as a gift 10 years ago, and it is my second favorite appliance in the house. I make a big bowl of popcorn almost every afternoon around 3:00 and devour it with just a little spritz of butter.

So how about you? How do you fuel your mind and body when you’re writing? Please share in the comments, I’m always looking for new snacks!

Oh, and just a heads-up that tomorrow we’ll be playing another round of What the @#$% is that? Want an early start? The first person to correctly identify the book referenced in my T-shirt below will get two extra entries in tomorrow’s game. If you aren't the first commenter, you can still earn one entry by telling me YOUR favorite book from childhood.

Bon appetit!

On lube mishaps and gender roles

When I was 16, I swore I would never learn to cook.

It was a misguided feminist idea about traditional gender roles and cooking as “women’s work,” which meant I needed a husband who would dress in an apron and prepare Coq Au Vin while I sat on the sofa and scratched myself.

That’s not how life unfolded.

As it turns out, I love cooking. I’m damn good at it, and it allows me to eat whatever I want, whenever I want, prepared how I want it.

My 16-year-old self might have bristled at the division of labor in my household now, but my 35-year-old self is happy to forgo changing the oil and mowing the lawn in favor of ogling my husband while he does it (without a shirt, if I’m lucky).

There was a point early in our relationship when Pythagoras indulged my desire to master “men’s work” by teaching me to change the oil in the car. I was eager for the lesson, picturing myself as a badass with a lug wrench in my pocket and a pack of candy cigarettes rolled up in my shirtsleeve.

We purchased the necessary supplies and got down to business.

“See this cap here?” he asked as he crawled under the car. “This is your drain plug.”

I joined him reluctantly, wondering if this was a bizarre new form of foreplay.

“Ick!” I said as he unscrewed the plug and sent the dirty oil trickling into a pan.

As the oil drained, Pythagoras stood up and began explaining oil filters and viscosity. The lesson was mostly lost on me as I giggled over words like “lube” and “nut.”

Finally, he handed me a quart of motor oil. “Here. You do the honors.”

He showed me where to pour the oil, and stood back to watch me do it. I dumped it in, waited a moment, then peered under the car.

“How much do we need to pour through?” I asked.

“What?”

“How much oil do we pour though to clean things out before we put the plug back in?”

My question was met with a colorful string of curse words and an understanding that this was not the way an oil change should work. As Pythagoras scrambled to put the plug back in, I decided my fantasy role as a female grease monkey was not all I’d imagined.

I haven’t changed the oil since. Though I could probably do it if I had to, I’ve ceased caring about “men’s work” and “women’s work” the feminist implications therein.

I’ve been considering this as I write LET IT BREATHE, which features a heroine who is the Vineyard Manager at her family’s winery. Though I’ve had the pleasure of meeting some amazing women in this role over the course of my research, it’s a job traditionally held by men.

I’m curious if my heroine thinks about this as she’s out there with a lug wrench adjusting the sprayer on the vineyard’s tractor. Knowing Reese, I’d say gender roles don’t cross her mind very often. She does the job she needs to do without much thought given to whether a penis is a required tool for the task.

How about you? Are gender roles a factor in your story or your everyday life? Please share in the comments.

I’m going to stare helplessly at the sink drain until Pythagoras shows up to fish out the giant hairball plugging it.

What's in your fridge?

As I’ve mentioned before, I love to cook.

As I’ve also mentioned, I’m lazy.

But since I’m a bit of a food snob, I’m seldom satisfied with a dinner of Pop Tarts and root beer.

Fortunately, my good friend Larie shares these same three admirable traits, which often leads to conversations like this:

Me: Want to do dinner?

Her: Sure, what do you have?

Me: Half-a-pound of leftover taco meat, four tomatoes, and a beet. You?

Her: Leftover roast chicken and some Gorgonzola not too far past the expiration date.

Me: Lettuce?

Her: Uh-huh. You have wine?

Me: Do fish fart bubbles?

Her: Be here at 6:30.

The two of us will spend a few minutes clicking away on our favorite recipe websites, and will soon formulate a plan for homemade gourmet pizzas (one barbecue chicken, one taco) with a nice side salad of fresh greens, beets, Gorgonzola, and candied pecans.

Much better than sitting home alone eating leftover taco meat, plus our husbands enjoy getting together to talk about cars and scratch themselves.

Writing is a lot like that.

I don’t mean the scratching (though I won’t judge if that’s part of your writing routine). I mean the idea of creating something fresh and new out of the hodgepodge in several people’s refrigerators.

I was stumbling the other day trying to get a handle on a couple of the characters in my new manuscript. Right away, critique partner Cynthia Reese threw me the names of several actors she thought might fit the bill, giving me a much better mental picture of who these guys are.

One of the wine industry professionals I met last week told me about holding tastings in a barn, and it gave me a nugget of an idea for this scene I’m working on. Hot Lips (my grandma) said something funny on the phone the other day, and it sparked a thought about another character I’m writing.

Does that mean I’m packing my novel with descriptions of Owen Wilson, the layout of Illahe’s winery, or the joke Hot Lips made?

Nope, not at all. When I’m done chewing on them, the characters, places, and phrases bear little resemblance to their original inspiration.

Kinda like the pizzas. In either case, devouring someone else’s leftovers can be remarkably satisfying.

Do you repurpose things from other people’s kitchens or lives and make them into something deliciously new? Do share!

I’ll be over here nibbling on leftover pizza. Hmm…wonder what this could be tomorrow?

No really, it's just for the articles

I love Playboy magazine.

As a woman, I’m probably not supposed to admit that. I’m probably supposed to complain about the vile exploitation of the female form and the unfortunate glorification of airbrushed bodies and big fake sweater potatoes.

To be honest, I’m only dimly aware that there are, in fact, naked pictures in the magazine. I love it for the written content – the articles, the political commentaries, the jokes, the short fiction, the advisor column, and most importantly, the recipes.

This mortifies Pythagoras to no end. When he came home one evening to find me with a Playboy spread open beside the stove and a houseful of guests awaiting dinner, I could see he was seriously considering running away from home. He opted to stay when he realized the recipe I was referencing for White Chili was pretty damn good, even if it was printed beside a photo of a woman in a glitter-crusted thong.

For the record, the subscription is mine. Hey, I’ll admit it proudly, though Pythagoras has pleaded with me to quit starting conversations with, “I just read in Playboy. . .”

However, he surprised me last week by showing an unexpected interest in my chosen reference tool. Upon emerging from his favorite reading room, he handed me the newest issue with an expression somewhere between guilt and grudging appreciation. “There’s an article I think you’d like about social advertising and the changing face of marketing.”

And indeed, I did like it! Ben Parr’s piece on "The New Ad Age" discussed the evolution of social media and its role in advertising. To quote, “We’re often scared of new technology at first but embrace it as its usefulness becomes apparent.”

Very true! I’ll admit my brilliant and talented agent Michelle Wolfson had to drag me kicking and screaming to the realm of blogging and Twitter. Now that I’m here, I’m quite pleased to discover a whole new world of opportunity for making friends, learning new things, and building a platform for my future writing career.

In that respect, I suppose I owe a thank you to Michelle, Pythagoras, and Playboy in equal measure for honing my appreciation of social media.

Now why do I suspect none of them would appreciate seeing that acknowledgment in a book someday?

Word soup with a side of crusty sourdough

I’m proud to report that I managed to repulse both my agent and a critique partner with yesterday’s blog post. They’ve refused any future invitations I might extend for them to join me at my house for a glass of milk.

But since we’re discussing the contents of my refrigerator (and since I promised to talk about something writing related) I should confess that I love to cook. I own three-dozen cookbooks and consider allrecipes.com a delightful form of Internet porn. I have a lust for sauces and marinades, and achieve a near-orgasmic thrill from creating my own recipes from scratch.

Though Pythagoras will cheerfully eat anything I set in front of him, I suspect he’d be content to eat Top Ramen every night. Even so, he always makes an effort to compliment my cooking. Unfortunately, he tends to zero in on the item that required the least effort. I could spend a whole day preparing an elaborate German feast of Sauerbraten (marinated for two days, natch), red cabbage, fennel salad, and homemade spatzle, with a loaf of store-bought sourdough bread tossed on the table as an afterthought.

Inevitably, Pythagoras will compliment the bread.

What does this have to do with writing? I’m getting there.

I recently had a conversation with one of my critique partners, the amazing Linda Brundage, who was reviewing feedback she’d just received on her new manuscript.

“It’s funny,” she said, “I’ll spend days slaving over a scene trying to get every word perfect, and no one will comment. Then I’ll have a scene that I totally phoned in, something I dashed off one night when I was too tired to be creative. And all my critique partners will love it.”

This was one of those special bonding moments we writers cling to because they remind us we aren’t totally nuts.

There’s a scene in my recent manuscript, BELIEVE IT OR NOT, where my two main characters are chatting on the sofa. I recall being mildly brain dead while writing it, and I slogged through with no idea what the hell I was hoping to accomplish. I made a mental note to go back and fix or remove it, but like mental notes are wont to do, this one ended up in a crumpled ball in a dark corner of my brain.

The draft made the rounds to my two critique partners and three beta readers, and every single one of them commented on that scene. They loved the dialogue. They enjoyed the character development. One person even laughed at a joke I didn’t realize I’d made.

“Yes,” I told them, sounding writerly and wise. “I meant to do that.”

I’m not suggesting one should never slave over an elaborate scene or a complicated meal. If nothing else, it’s a good way to hone your skills. But I am slowly learning to give myself a little more credit for the less complicated endeavors in life. Just because a scene or a Sauerbraten takes all day doesn’t make it any more fabulous than a grilled cheese sandwich and half-a-page of drivel dashed off when you’re grouchy and hung over.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to find a recipe for Pompano En Papillote with a light buerre blanc.