A speech with no naughty words? Better fix that.

I'll admit I was stunned when Making Waves started racking up reviews from publications aimed at libraries. First it was Booklist who wrote, "A zany caper...Fenske's off-the-wall plotting is reminiscent of a tame Carl Hiaasen on Cupid juice."

Library Journal followed with a starred review that called Making Waves, "[An] uproarious romantic caper...great fun from an inventive new writer; highly recommended."

I was thrilled. I was also a little dumbfounded when librarians started contacting me about speaking. At first, I misunderstood and thought I was being scolded for not using my inside voice. Then I realized they wanted me to talk. Out loud. Like, in front of people.

Which is how I ended up scheduled as the keynote speaker for the Lake County Library's annual Endowment Dinner this weekend.

Well, that's not exactly how. The how happened sort of like this:

Library person: We'd really like you to come say intelligent things for people who are paying a lot of money to attend this swanky event, and we'd be happy to put you up at Summer Lake Hot Springs since it's close by, but we're really hoping you'll be worth it.

What I heard: wordswordswordswordswordswords Summer Lake Hot Springs.

And then my brain drifted to this:

An actual photo of Summer Lake Hot Springs by ridiculously talented photographer Tyler Roemer. That shot originally appeared in Outside magazine, and I've been dying to go there ever since. I've also been dying to own printed copies of every photo Tyler Roemer has ever taken, but I digress.

Library person: This is kind of a big deal with a lot of people attending and we'll be selling copies of your book and scheduling you to speak for a full hour, so we want to make sure you have plenty of time to prepare.

What I heard: wordswordswordswordswords...

Another Tyler Roemer pic of Summer Lake Hot Springs. Seriously, are those photos gorgeous or what? How could you NOT be obsessed with going there after looking at those?

It's possible I'm making up the stuff the library person said, but I'm pretty sure the sentiment was there. And the end result is that I've spent a lot of time picturing myself relaxing in the hot springs with a glass of wine, and not a lot of time picturing how I'm likely to make a total ass of myself if I don't prepare a @#$% speech!

So there's that.

I've written it. I've just never spoken the words aloud, which is probably a very bad thing. I've got all day today to sit here reading it to my dog until I've either memorized the words or the dog has run yelping from the room.

The plan is for me to deliver this speech (or something like it) for 10-15 minutes, followed by reading a short scene from Making Waves, followed by a Q&A. That should be about an hour. The latter two things I can handle with ease. The speech? Well, I'm not so sure.

Keeping in mind that I don't have time for a total rewrite at this stage, care to weigh in on what I've got? Any tips for delivery or suggestions that I should consider calling the library association and letting them know I've just lost all four limbs to gangrene and will be unable to attend? Please share your feedback!

Here's a draft of the speech:

Hi! I’m Tawna Fenske, and I’m a romance author. Sounds like an introduction at an AA meeting, huh?

First off, I’d like apologize for forgetting my sequined bustier and feather boa.

I’m also kinda wondering where they’ve stashed the shirtless man with greased abs who’s supposed to be up here turning pages for me, or why I wasn’t brought here from Bend on a private plane with pink plush seats.

OK, the reality is that I drive a 13-year-old car with a smushed bumper, and am a lot more likely to run around in unwashed sweatpants than a feather boa and jeweled stilettos. In fact, I almost killed myself walking up here in these shoes.

There are a lot of stereotypes about romance authors and the romance genre, and I’d like to set the record straight about a few of them.

To the best of my recollection, I’ve never written about ripped bodices, heaving bosoms, or plundering warriors. I’ve never used the phrase “quivering mound of love pudding,” or referred to male body parts using awkward sword metaphors.

I write contemporary romantic comedy, so my books have scenes with people playing Strip Battleship and characters like a former Seattle Seahawks tight end turned corporate customer service rep turned cross-dressing gourmet chef on a dysfunctional pirate ship.

My second romantic comedy comes out in March and it’s being marketed as “your typical ‘reluctant fake psychic’ meets ‘jaded owner of a male strip club’ love story – with a twist.”

The fact is, there’s not a lot of “typical” when it comes to romance novels. It’s true the stereotype depicts them all with Fabio on the cover gripping a woman with heaving bosoms and mysteriously huge hair, but these days you’re as likely to see a cover with a woman in combat boots gripping an Uzi.

The romance genre runs the gamut from historical to sci-fi to action/adventure to Christian to young adult to (my favorite) romantic comedy.

Let me throw a few statistics at you just to be a total geek:

In 2010, romance fiction generated $1.358 billion in sales, with 8,240 new romance titles released. In 2008, 74.8 million people read at least one romance novel that year. Romance fiction was the largest share of the U.S. consumer market in 2010 with 13.4 percent.

Know what’s funny? When I tell people I’m a romance author, I’d say about nine out of ten get this funny look on their faces and kinda shrug. “I don’t read those kinds of books.”

So who are all these people reading and writing romance novels? Perverts? Sexual deviants? Lonely, frustrated women with twelve cats and inflatable boyfriends?

Hey, statistically speaking, we’ve probably got a couple in the audience – I’m not judging.

But they’re not the core of romance readers.

It’s true women make up 90.5 percent of romance readership, with men rounding out the other 9.5 percent. Interestingly enough, my own fan mail reflects about a 30/70 split, with a number of men writing me notes like, “I’ve never read a romance novel before, but I took yours on a hunting trip and laughed so hard I scared the deer.”

I should use that as a marketing hook – saving Bambi one naughty joke at a time.

The heart of the U.S. romance novel readership is women ages 31-49 who are currently in a committed romantic relationship. Not quite the “lonely spinster” stereotype, huh?

The makeup of that group represents a huge cross section of political, social, religious, and economic groups.

Romance Writers of America likes to trot out the statistic that one in five people reads romance. I think they’re full of crap. I think the number is a whole lot higher than that.

Part of it comes down to how we define “romance novel.” Probably the number one comment I get in reader fan mail is something along these lines... “I don’t like romance novels and I never read them, but I sure liked your book. Are you sure it’s really romance?”

It’s sort of a backhand compliment. Kinda like me saying, “I hate baseball and don’t know much about it, but I sure enjoy watching the Mariners. Are you sure they’re not a badminton team?”

If you think about it, almost any work of fiction has a romantic element. It might not be the primary focus, but it’s usually there. The Odyssey wouldn’t be the same story without Odysseus and Penelope. What would Don Quixote be without Dulcinea?  The Hunger Games would fall flat without its Katniss/Peeta/Gale love triangle, and how boring would James Bond be without his evolving cache of busty Bond girls?

I see a couple people just woke up out there – Bond girls? What? Is she taking her clothes off now?

My point in all this is that it’s tough to judge a massive genre based on one or two books grabbed from the ten cent bin at the neighbor’s garage sale.

And while it would be nice if romance authors were saucy vixens with pool boys and private planes, most of us are just average folks with mortgage payments and a houseful of flatulent pets.

Oh, and my third point – a story without at least a hint of romance in it isn’t much of a story. I think that pretty much sums it up.

So now is when I step off my soapbox and tell you about my book and then read a little bit of it...

And then, of course, I launch into my elevator pitch about the book and read the Newlywed Game scene and then answer questions like, "are you stoned?" 

Piece of cake.

Oooh, cake. Think they'll let me eat cake in the hot springs?

Huge sticks, peckers, and other spam delights

At least once a week, I like to open up my email spam folder. This isn't so I can clean it out.

It's because my spam folder is a veritable treasure trove of amusement that never ceases to delight me. Sometimes it's the sender's email address that sets me giggling. Other times it's the subject line. Here are a few of my favorites from the last couple days...

I like the way this one clarifies the message with both the sender's email address and the subject. In case I had any question what hornymilf69 might be proposing, it's spelled out right there in nice, bold letters. I also appreciate having the type of date made clear up front. There's nothing more awkward than showing up thinking you're there for a sex date, only to discover your sweetheart has tickets to the opera.

You've gotta love the marketing hook. Indeed, it's true nothing beats a huge stick, though there's a time and a place for being beaten with one.

Um, yeah. The last time I had THAT dream, I woke to discover a Hairy Woodpecker attacking my windowsill (incidentally, Hairy Woodpecker would be a great subject line for some email spam).

Oooh! Let me take a guess at the three questions so I don't actually have to open the email!

1. Can I get you a glass of wine to enjoy while I fix dinner?
2. You're such a brilliant writer that I was just wondering  – is there any chance you'll let me read and worship every word you've ever written?
3. Have you seen the yardstick so I can measure my wood? (What? He's building you a new computer desk!

Of course, not all email spam is dirty. Some offers excellent career opportunities!

Also in high demand – someone who knows how to use apostrophes correctly! It's apparently a rampant problem.

 Oh, and in case you're wondering how I got so lucky  what I did to trigger such a barrage of horrible, filthy email spam, you should know that whatever profiling system the spammers use isn't terribly accurate:

Does sharing the zest require me to open the Viagra spam directly below that one? Because it seems like the two might go together.

So what's in your spam folder? Anything juicy? Please share!

And feel free to contribute a guess about the "3 questions that get women turned on," while you're at it! We owe it to the men of the world to help out as much as possible

Kissing contest winners and a story from my mom!

On Monday I shared the story of my first kiss and invited readers to offer their own first kiss or awkward kiss stories.

Holy cow, you guys didn’t disappoint!

There were too many great stories to share, and I ended up enlisting my mom’s help to pick a winner. Here are a few of our favorites:

Taymalin wrote:

Well, when I was in kindergarten I had my first boyfriend. He was a younger man, not yet in school. His sister babysat me, so I spent a lot of time in his house.

His sister, who was 14, decided that it would be great fun to marry us, so she dressed me up in her mother's wedding dress, and performed a very unconventional wedding ceremony.

When she told her brother to kiss the bride, we ran screaming to his room. We locked her out, sat on his bed and promptly gave kissing a try. I remember it being very silly, but not gross. Though we both said it was very gross when asked. After that we kissed whenever we were alone, which wasn't very often.

He was a very good husband. He even brought me flowers (apple blossoms).

When his sister married my brother (for real, not pretend) our families teased us mercilessly about being married. Especially since he brought his girlfriend as his date to the wedding, the cheater.

Ahh, nothing like a marriage between two five-year-olds to bring a sentimental tear to my eye.

And speaking of young marriage, gotta love the third grade cycle of love and loss:

ashelynn hetland wrote:

When I was in elementary school we always used to get married behind the trees.

Totally legit.

Dylan, "We're getting married next recess."

"Okay."

Next recess my cousin pronounced us married and said we had to kiss. We leaned forward, touched lips, and ran away.

The next recess and last of the day we got divorced.

Third grade was awesome.

While we’re on the subject of lost love, it sounds like this is one doomed love affair that just wasn’t meant to be:

Anne N Kenny wrote:

My first kiss was with a boy who is now 100% into other boys. So there's that... ;)

Of course, young love isn’t all goofy. Here’s one that worked out for the long-haul (and got me a little choked up for real):

jill wrote:

Put me in the 'late bloomer' category! We were eighteen and had met at a freshman mixer dance before college classes started. There were dances three nights in a row, and by the third night we went for a walk outside and he kissed me.

I'm ashamed to admit I don't remember many of the particulars, but we were happily married for 21 years until he passed away, so the kiss must have been a pretty good one. (I think it was his first kiss as well!)

As soon as I figure out how this whole dating thing works, I'll be looking forward to more first kisses, even the awkward ones.

Then there were the finalists that truly left us laughing. Behold…

Laurie Lamb wrote:

The cute new boy from school was also my new neighbour. I was getting to know him behind my house. We were sitting cross-legged and blowing on blades of grass between our thumbs. It was an intense contest to see who could make the most disgusting noise.

Then he suggested we kiss.

He leaned in and barely brushed my lips when we both started laughing. HARD. A generous dribble of spit stretched out of the corner of his mouth until it reached the ground. The wind bent the spit and it touched his arm. That was when he noticed it. I was silent as he wiped it away.

He gripped my shoulders and stared at me for a long time. His expression was so intense. I forgot all about the spit and thought he was going to really kiss me this time.

“Don’t ever tell anyone I drool,” he said.

Angela Perry wrote:

Ooh, I have one for the most awkward kiss category.

I was dating this guy in high school. I thought we were still at the mostly friends stage. I was friends with his brother and sister and mom, and we hung out more than actually "dated."

Then one day, he leaned over, stuck his lips on mine, and proceeded to go to town. I froze. My mind was totally blank. After a few seconds, he pulled back, reached out, and used his fingers to smush my lips into a kissy-face.

"You have to pucker more," he said.

Needless to say, I was less than thrilled with that insinuation, and we didn't kiss much for a while.

While those had us cracking up, our winner (drumroll please) had us both rolling on the ground clutching our sides. First prize – a signed copy of Making Waves – goes to…

kimmullican.com wrote:

Oh yes! I was 16 and first serious boyfriend... until he kissed me. His idea of a french kiss was to ram his abnormally long tongue down my throat. I started gagging and puked all over the floor of his Cadillac.

Needless to say, we didn't kiss much less anything else as him cleaning my vomit out of his carpet was enough to end our little love affair.

Congrats to Kim for the victory! Send your snail mail address to me at tawnafenske at yahoo dot com and I'll get your signed book in the mail ASAP.

And since I don't want to send any of the finalists away empty-handed, shoot me your snail mail address if you'd like a signed Making Waves bookmark.

Oh, and while I had my mom on the line, I asked her to cough up a kissing story of her own. She shared a couple, but this one is my favorite:

With your father, our first kiss was when we were in high school. We had been friends since 7th grade when my family first moved to Oregon. Your father and I were invited to a New Year's Eve party of a group of freshmen. We were the only “older” kids there, sophomores. I wasn't aware that the person who organized the party had invited your father as her evening's enjoyment. That was not to be though. Your father and I hit it off, danced, talked, and made sure we were together for the first kiss of the New Year. Guess that kiss started something good, since it's now been 41 years, headed for 42. I think I'm glad I didn't have to duke it out with Trudy for your father. I'd have taken her though.

Awww...

With lust covered, I've moved on to murder

I am a pacifist at heart. I can’t squish bugs. I cry when I see roadkill. Though I’m not a vegetarian, I’m only able to justify my meat consumption by making up stories about my hamburger’s history as a sadistic pedophile who deserved to die.

I’m telling you all this so you grasp what a big deal it is when I tell you I’ve been on a fly killing rampage.

We’ve had a warm autumn here in Central Oregon, and the result is a late fly hatch that apparently made a group decision to set up camp in my office.

As you might imagine, it’s tough to be a productive writer when you have to stop every 1.3 seconds to bat flies off your computer screen or your person.

It’s possible this is all a reflection on my personal hygiene,and also possible I could solve the problem by not leaving my front door wide open for the breeze.

No matter, the flies are pissing me off.

I began waging war with the closest weapon at hand – a copy of The Great Gatsby.

When one of my housemates came home to find me desecrating a great work of literature with fly guts, he went to the store and bought me a pair of flyswatters.

The flyswatters have made me a more effective hunter, though my lack of aim occasionally results in damage to household breakables or housemates’ faces.

So now my office is littered with fly corpses, and I have to come to terms with the fact that I’m a serial killer.

Does anyone have any good tips for keeping flies at bay without the need for mass murder? I’d love to hear about it.

I’d also love to kill that little bastard who’s crawling across my keyboard right about….NOW!

First kisses, awkward kisses, and a free signed book!

Last week I was scrambling to come up with a blog post idea, so I put it out to Twitter. What should I blog about?

Kristina Martin of Ten Minute Missive jumped in with a terrific idea:

I actually misread it at first as “your first kiss,” but then realized it’s probably the same story anyway.

I was a bit on the naïve side when I started first grade. I was aware that boys and girls were different, which I demonstrated in kindergarten by standing in the restroom beside a male classmate while he peed and I sang Mr. Rogers’ “Everybody’s Fancy.”

But concepts like relationships and flirting were a little lost on me.

So when a fellow first-grader named Derek approached me on the playground, shuffled his feet in the bark chips, and asked, “wanna go with me?” I replied, “go where?”

Once he’d explained the concept of boyfriend and girlfriend, I agreed that sounded like a pretty good arrangement and he went off to play tetherball while I continued swinging on the monkey bars.

After school, my new boyfriend asked me to come over to his house. I have a dim recollection of my mother checking with young Derek’s parents and verifying in person that the house wasn’t a crack den.

Then we were left to solidify our new relationship by playing Candyland. We were having a fine time until his older sister appeared in the doorway and folded her arms over her chest.

“Is that your girlfriend?” she demanded of Derek.

He looked at me and shrugged. “I guess.”

“Have you been on a date?”

“What’s a date?” I asked.

“It’s where you eat something and drink something together.”

Derek and I looked at each other and realized we had not, in fact, been on a date. We were ashamed.

The sister sighed. “You need to go on a date if you’re boyfriend and girlfriend.”

So a neighbor kid was sent to fetch the necessities. He returned a few minutes later with half a Kit-Kat bar and two glass soda bottles filled with water. Derek and I completed our date under the close supervision of the older sister before returning to our game of Candyland.

But she wasn’t done with us. “Now you need to smooch.”

“What’s smooch?” I asked.

She rolled her eyes. “You have to choose,” she explained. “You either smooch, kiss, or make out.”

I was only familiar with one of those terms, and since kissing didn’t sound so bad, I looked to Derek for confirmation.

Derek frowned at his sister. “Now?”

“Yes, now,” she insisted. “Otherwise, you aren’t boyfriend and girlfriend.”

“Can we go in the closet?” he asked. “I don’t want you watching.”

The sister agreed to afford us some privacy, so we slunk into the closet and closed the door behind us. I stood there someone’s wool coats brushing the top of my head as I listened to Derek breathing in the darkness.

“Do you want to smooch, kiss, or make out?” he asked.

“I only know what kissing is,” I admitted.

“Me too.”

And with that, he leaned forward, gave me the world’s fastest peck on the lips, threw open the closet door, and fled like he was being pursued by a pack of cootie-infected wolverines.

After that, we decided the boyfriend and girlfriend thing might be a little overrated. I don’t recall an actual breakup, but I do know we steadfastly avoided each other the next time a game of kissing tag broke out on the playground.

Got a good first kiss or awkward kiss story? Please share! And hey, let’s make this worth your while. Best story gets a signed copy of Making Waves.

Let’s hear it!

Oh, and for the record, I’m still not sure I understand the difference between kissing, smooching, and making out. Even so, I’m determined to practice as much as possible until I get it right.

Are they perverts, or am I?

I've worked in marketing for most of my adult life, so I know it's common for advertisers to be a little provocative when they're trying to sell a product.

Here are some good examples:

Sent to me by Twitter pal @midnightrem. Don't you just want to devour it?

My mom at a hot dog shop on the island of Kauai.

Then there are the outliers. The advertisers who may or may not have intended to be perverts, but who nevertheless leave me giggling like a hormonal middle schooler. Check these out...

Writer pal Harley May texted that to me yesterday. Apparently it's the sign adorning the front of a shop specializing in painting and coffee. Um, OK.

Regular blog reader Shain Brown tweeted that one to me yesterday. I don't think I want to touch that. (That's what she said)

I snapped that billboard in Tampa last January, and still can't figure out if they meant to be filthy or not. Either way, that guy looks very capable.

Surely Dr. Scholl's has a large enough marketing budget to have people reviewing their packaging materials. Were they trying to be provocative, or did it really not occur to anyone that Rub Relief for Her might have multiple meanings?

So what do you guys think? Who meant to be filthy, and who wasn't perverted enough to grasp the humor in their own ads? Please share!

I'm off to buy some Rub Relief for Her. What? It sounds like a good  product.

I'm not judging . . .Well, I kinda am

At least once a year, I lose consciousness and wake to discover I’ve volunteered to judge a writing contest.

In all seriousness, it’s a good exercise for me. There’s no better way to hone your skills at fine-tuning your own writing than to work hard at identifying tricky spots in other people’s prose.

I’m not going to name the contest or give you specifics of any entries, but I will tell you that in multiple years of contest judging, these are some common issues I see over and over…

Oh, how I love THAT word

Every writer has at least one word he or she uses to excess. Sometimes it’s a lazy way of conveying a certain emotion – Lord knows I’ve been known to overdo it with eye rolling or eyebrow raising. Other times, it’s a matter of inserting unnecessary words that clutter sentences and slow the flow. That is one of the most common offenders. “Carol really believed that Lyle liked dressing up in her panties” or “Don’t you think that Lyle wanted to be smeared with peanut butter?” In either example – and in many new writers’ sentences – “that” is unnecessary junk. Try identifying your overused word or words (we all have ‘em!) and do a seek and destroy mission to fine-tune your writing.

The big mis

We’re all familiar with this concept in movies and books, though not everyone knows the precise term. Short for the big misunderstanding, the big mis is when the story’s conflict could easily be cleared up if two people just sat down and had a two-minute conversation. Would your entire plot be wiped out if Felix just called Wanda and said he doesn’t want to marry her because she’s averse to wearing leather chaps, and Wanda got the chance to say she’d be absolutely delighted to wear leather chaps, as long as they’re purple? If so, you have a big mis plot on your hands (and perhaps a slightly misguided notion of what makes a good story).

When crafting your plot, make sure the conflicts you’re throwing at your characters are not too easy to overcome. If they are, look for ways to throw in bigger obstacles and higher stakes. If Felix can’t use his phone because a pack of rabid badgers got loose in his home and chewed through the phone cord, it’s believable he wouldn’t be able to call Wanda to talk about leather chaps. And if Wanda is tied up trying to locate her missing badger collection, it’s understandable she wouldn’t be able to sit down with Felix to shoot the breeze over an espresso.

Sing together now…Show, don’t tell!

I know, I know. This is one of the oldest pieces of advice on the planet, but it’s true for a reason. The number one issue I see in newer writers’ manuscripts is the habit of having the narrator trail off on a lengthy mental monologue of backstory, setting descriptions, or character details. Mavis might sit there for pages and pages thinking about how tumultuous her relationship with Sally has been from the time they were little girls. Average readers can endure that for…oh, about three sentences. After that, most of us are yawning and propping our eyes open with rusty paperclips.

How much more interesting would it be to show the complexities of Mavis and Sally’s friendship? What if Mavis tripped Sally as she walked into the room, but then offered her a hand up and a frosty margarita? What would you think about Mavis if you learned she possessed both a Nobel Prize and a prison tattoo? What would it convey about her friendship with Sally if you switched the scene to quick-paced dialogue about an orgy they once attended and showed Mavis and Sally’s emotion through body language – nail biting, pacing, smiling, uneasy laughter, teeth gritting, sighing, crossed arms, failure to make eye contact, even a well-placed headlock? Small gestures pack infinitely more punch than six paragraphs of narration telling the reader what you want him or her to know.

Do you have a particular writing no-no you’re trying to overcome? How about something you see in other people’s writing that drives you absolutely batty? Please share!

And hey, let me know if you want to go ahead and write those stories about Carol and Lyle or Felix and Wanda or Mavis and Sally. I think there’s something good there.

When being sucked dry isn’t a fun thing

What drains you?

This question was posed in a meeting I attended last week, and you’ll be proud to know I didn’t make a single filthy joke.

OK, I didn’t make a single filthy joke at that moment. I saved it for the headline of this post.

Still, I knew my answer to the question right away: negativity.

Negative people, in particular. You know the glass-is-half empty folks who can spin from “that editorial letter was kinda harsh” to “I hate my life and want to die” in 5.7 seconds? Being around that sort of energy sucks every ounce of joy and creativity out of my brain and spits it out in a dirty napkin.

The funny thing about negative people is that they’re seldom happy to wallow alone. They’re generous enough to want to share their misery with others, and heaven help the person who dares suggest there’s a silver lining to every cloud.

As a negative person will glumly point out, silver is prone to tarnishing.

I’m not suggesting I want to surround myself with people who devote their lives to blowing sunshine and rainbows out of their butts. That gets tiring, not to mention a little creepy.

I’m also not saying people aren’t entitled to the occasional bad day. I’ve certainly had my share.

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned through the highs and lows of a writing career and the drama of a recent divorce, it’s the importance of having friends more likely to share a smile than a tirade about how much their day sucked.

There was a morning not long ago when my new gentleman friend and I were still easing into this budding relationship. I was upstairs primping for my workday when I heard a strange sound from downstairs.

Singing.

He wasn’t just singing, but singing while he made me breakfast.

I stood upstairs and bawled for a good five minutes before fixing my eye makeup and heading downstairs to pretend to be a normal human. I’ve since discovered that not only was it not a fluke thing or the result of events that made him particularly cheerful that morning, but rather a personality trait. An amazing abundance of positive energy.

That’s something I’ll be damn sure I insist on having in my life in one form or another until the day I drop dead.

Cheerfully, of course.

So what drains you? Conversely, is there anything you’ve discovered that you simply must have in your life to keep your mind, heart,soul, and any other throbbing organs functioning properly? Please share!

And if you’ve got any positive energy to pass along, I’ll take that, too!

Feng shui sounds dirty if you say it right

The two-day conference I just attended included a four-hour seminar on maintaining creative momentum.

Suffice it to say, I can use that for both the day job and my life as an author.

One section of the presentation focused on feng shui. In case you’re unfamiliar with it, feng shui is an ancient Chinese practice focused on balancing the energies of a given space to promote the health and well-being of the people occupying it.

In other words, moving your crap around to make your life better.

Though I’ve known more or less what it was, I’ve never bothered to learn specifics. The instructor put up a diagram instructing us to stand at the front entrance to our homes and point to the right. Start walking in a loop around the perimeter of the house. When you hit the far right corner, that’s your love corner. Keep going ‘til you hit the far left corner. That’s wealth. It works that way for different levels of the home, or for individual rooms.

I was fascinated.

I was also disturbed to realize my wealth corner contained a broken clock, while my love corner housed an overflowing trash can.

Probably not good signs, though it might explain a lot.

I scribbled notes about painting the front door red or using a red welcome mat to invite qi into the home. I made lists of things that should go in my love corner – pairs of objects, candles, photographs, items from nature like plants or pretty rocks or a fish bowl. I did a mental tally of things to add to my wealth corner – a jade plant, a frog figurine, anything red, objects from nature, things that represent what I want for my future.

My hand cramped from writing as the instructor regaled us with stories of how her income has doubled each year since she began shoring up her wealth corner with feng shui.

Then she smiled. “I’m not saying that’s the reason,” she added. “But it’s kind of like insurance – why take the chance going without it?”

I’ll admit I can be a skeptic, but I'm also superstitious. A weird balance, to be sure.

I’ve almost been run over several times when stopping to pick up pennies in the street. Back when I was querying agents, I followed a complicated ritual for blessing each query envelope before it went in the mail. The blessing didn’t involve virgin sacrifice, but only because I didn’t know any virgins.

Did it really make a difference? Deep down, the logical part of me admits it's unlikely.

But what’s the harm in hoping it might? If it takes so little effort, why not hedge your bets?

I went home after the seminar and moved the trash can out of my love corner. Then I looked at the clock in my wealth corner – a lovely memento from the Murano glass factory in Venice, but the pendulum hasn’t swung for six years.

There’s no room in my life for impotent pendulums, so I took the clock off the wall and stashed it in a cupboard.

Then I started shuffling existing pictures and objects. After that, I went shopping for a few odds and ends at thrift stores and Home Depot.

So what’s in my love corner now?

• My nightstand holding a pair of red tea light candles
• A pair of maracas I brought back from Venezuela 14 years ago
• A series of five black and white artistic nude photos
• A plant that somehow survived a ten-foot fall after my cat knocked it off a ledge six months ago
• A photo of me with the gentleman friend I mentioned last week.

There’s still a clutter of books and reading glasses and an alarm clock that’s not so sexy, but I can deal.

And in my wealth corner, we have:

• A 35 gallon aquarium that was already there (good thing, since I can’t move it anyway)
• A red vase filled with sand and shells from a recent beach trip
• A pretty metal pitcher holding a bouquet of dried flowers
• A photo that makes me smile
• A painting I bought in Jamaica that reminds me of warm sand and fruity drinks
• A jade plant in a red pot

I’ll probably shuffle things around a little bit, and I’m waiting for the postman to bring me a small clay frog I bought online for my wealth corner.

Did I immediately find myself showered with wealth and love the instant I fixed up my new spaces? Depends on how you define it. I felt happy right away, and isn’t that sort of the point?

The jury’s still out on the rest of it, but I can be patient.

What’s in the love and wealth corners of your house? Do you know much about feng shui? Are there any areas of your life where superstition or uncertainty drive you do something just in case?

Please share!

Here are the photos of my new corners. I’ve taken the liberty of fuzzing out faces and nudie bits to protect privacy. What? I know you guys are perverts.

It’s why I love you.

The love corner, which happens to be in my bedroom. Convenient, no?

The wealth corner, which is in my dining room.

Inappropriate public behavior...again

I try very hard to conduct myself in a respectable fashion when representing my employer in public. Most of the time, I’m successful. There are even people who believe I’m a mature professional.

But then the risqué romance author inside me can’t help herself. It happened a few times during the two-day conference I attended last week.

The first sign of trouble occurred during a raffle preceding the keynote speaker. As audience members whipped out their tickets and waited for the numbers to be read, the guy behind me began cheering quietly for himself.

“Come on, me!”

Only he didn’t really pause for the comma. I laughed so hard I dropped my raffle ticket in my tea. A colleague watched as I fished it out and licked it.

“What?” I asked. “I have to see if I win.”

She shook her head. “You’re a winner, all right.”

I managed to stay on my good behavior the rest of the day, and was actually feeling pretty proud of myself when I got to the evening cocktail party at a nearby restaurant. There was a lovely buffet table adorned with gourds and other autumn produce, and I wanted to know if it was real. I was stroking an especially large squash when I noticed the guy next to me wearing an odd expression.

“Sorry,” I said, drawing my hand back. “I shouldn’t fondle phallic-looking vegetables in public.”

The guy looked startled. “I wasn't thinking that at all.”

But since I'd introduced the idea and he was obviously thinking it now, it seemed wise for me to step away from the squash, polish off my drink, and make my escape with only one person believing I'm a raging pervert.

The following morning, I attended a presentation on search engine optimization. The room was packed, and everyone scribbled notes as the instructor paced the front of the room.

“For ten dollars,” he said as he held up a bill, “can anyone tell me the number one keyword people search online?”

I shot out of my chair. “Porn!”

Everyone turned and stared. I sat back down, feeling fifty pairs of eyes on me as all my colleagues speculated how I happened to be allowed out in public.

The instructor laughed. “Um, no. Good guess though.”

By the time afternoon rolled around, fatigue started to set in. The advantage of being able to fall asleep anytime, anywhere is that you seldom grapple with insomnia.

The disadvantage is that you end up doing the Jello-neck head bob whenever you find yourself in a warm room with the drone of someone’s voice lulling you to dreamland. When I snapped awake at one point and discovered a puddle of drool on my lap, it seemed like a good time to excuse myself.

My brain needed fuel and my iPhone needed a charge, so I meandered to a nearby restaurant where a good friend was waiting tables. She set me up at the bar with a steaming plate of flatbread and a good glass of wine and plugged in my iPhone charger behind the counter.

I had to eat fast since another presentation was starting soon, so I gobbled the food, paid the bill, and looked around for someone to retrieve my phone.

No one was in sight.

I could see where the cord snaked to the other side of the counter, so I hitched up my dress and boosted myself onto the bar. I was just yanking the plug out of the outlet when my friend and the bartender reappeared.

I slid back across the bar and planted my butt on my stool, trying to look innocent. The bartender’s expression suggested I may have just flashed my underwear at the cluster of unsuspecting businessmen enjoying happy hour behind me. My friend smiled at him.

“It’s OK, she’s a friend of mine,” she offered.

I tugged down the hem of my dress and shoved my iPhone back in my purse. “There are moments you probably don’t want to advertise that.”

Have you done anything to embarrass yourself or your employer in the last week? Please share so I’m not alone.

Oh, and in case you’re still wondering about the top searched keyword, it’s “quote.” As in “insurance quote,” not “porn quote,” though clearly we can all agree the latter would be more interesting.