Alcohol may have been a factor

I should probably start this post with public service announcement about the dangers of excess drinking and how you should never consume alcohol and drive an automobile or operate heavy machinery or perform major surgery or take your clothes off with strangers (unless, of course, the strangers are really hot).

Now that we have that out of the way, I will confess that I have a bad habit. I enjoy the occasional cocktail or craft beer or glass or twelve of wine.

That's not actually the bad habit. The bad habit is that these alcoholic beverages fill me with the intense desire to shop. At the time these shopping endeavors occur, I sincerely believe I need whatever it is I'm purchasing. It's not until later – sometimes weeks later when an unexpected package arrives on my doorstep – that I find myself wondering why I urgently needed three pounds of nutmeg.

Or a pair of shoes one size too small.

Or lesbian porn on VHS.

Or a painting that cost four times its price to ship from Australia.

Or 16 pairs of underwear.

The latter earned me merciless teasing from a friend who has no room to talk. She once ordered 60 Durex Play Vibrations by mistake from Amazon. Guess what we all got for Christmas that year?

So two days ago, I got a text message from a friend's husband.

You owe me $25 for the guitar. Let me know if you want a soft case for an extra $10.

I stared at the message for a minute, expecting a follow-up apologizing for sending it to the wrong person.

Then, a hazy memory crept in. It involved a particularly strong round of bloody marys and a friend of a friend who works for a guitar factory. I texted back uncertainly.

I bought a guitar?

Indeed, I had. And since said guitar is considered a factory second, I'm not allowed to sell it.

I should note here that I don't play guitar. I don't play any instrument or possess even an ounce of musical talent.

My friend's husband texted back.

At least it's not 16 pairs of underwear.

Good point. Lucky for me, my gentleman friend does play guitar, and was delighted with the new purchase. Of course, it's possible he would have preferred the underwear.

What's the weirdest thing you've ever purchased by mistake? It doesn't have to be a drunk purchase, though it might make me feel better if you can assure me I'm not the only person who does this. Please?

On kissing and the hardest parts

Normally, I like to choose blog contest winners at random. The process usually involves a bewildered housemate or pet, and contains an element of surprise for everyone (particularly if the aforementioned housemate or pet ingests one of the little slips of paper on which I've written contestants' names, and we must wait for it to pass through the digestive tract to determine a winner).

I decided to do things a little differently for this week's contest. Readers were asked to share things that make them feel "fluttery" for a chance to win a signed copy of my soon-to-be-released romantic comedy, Believe it or Not.

I was so touched by Julie Glover's entry, that I'm going to just award the prize to her. Here's what she wrote:

Julie Glover wrote...

I'm not at my fluttierest at the moment, having been diagnosed with mononucleosis (the "kissing disease" which means I can't kiss for a while! Ugh). But here's the list from the sick patient's perspective:
* My adolescent son comes in every day to ask if I'm feeling better and gives me a hug. Flutter.
* My sister sent me a box of chicken soup mixes purchased from Soups Online. Flutter.
* My husband does double duty as hard worker by day and Superdad by night, then crawls into bed to be my much-needed body heater. Double flutter.
* I love my current WIP. When I give others the elevator pitch, it piques interest. Yeah, me. Will flutter when published and opening my own boatload box of books.

Thanks for sharing yours, Tawna. Congrats on the book. Looking forward to reading it!

Besides the fact that her list was touchingly sweet and I feel bad for anyone who's sick, I'm most sympathetic to the fact that she can't kiss for awhile.  

CAN'T KISS FOR AWHILE!

The thought of that makes me cry a little.

You could walk into my house and remove every bottle of wine from my wine rack and every book from my bookshelves and every sex toy from the basket under the bed before rounding up all my pets and taking them to live at a boarding kennel for the week and it STILL wouldn't equal the horror of not being able to to kiss.

Admittedly, I've gotten spoiled by the pleasure of routinely kissing someone who's ridiculously, toe-curlingly good at it, but still. Kissing is one of life's greatest pleasures, hands down. Or hands up, depending on your preference.

The funny thing is that I struggle a bit when I write kissing scenes. Believe it or Not contains a love scene that spans nearly 20 pages if you count foreplay and smooching (and why wouldn't you count those? They're the best parts!) I love to write scenes that involve breathless groping, frantic tearing of clothing, and all the climactic moments that come next (pun intended, of course).

But if you've read my love scenes, you know that while they're very detailed, I avoid being explicit. You'll never catch me using flowery terms for genitalia or clinical words for bodily functions. Though I go to great lengths to give an elaborate blow-by-blow (snicker), I prefer to leave specifics to the reader's imagination.

Frankly, I think it's hotter that way.

There's something different about writing kissing scenes though. I always struggle with the balance between details (What's he doing with his tongue? How is she tilting her head? Where are his hands?) and the feelings tied to the action. I'm not sure why it's easier for me to find that balance once clothes start flying off. Perhaps it's the line between sweetness and passion, or maybe it's just that kissing can be a lot more intimate than actual penetration when it comes right down to it (snicker).

What do you look for in kissing scenes, whether reading or writing them? Do you have a preference in the level of detail provided? And most importantly, do you share my firm belief that it would be preferable to remove all the skin from your thigh with a carrot peeler and rub the wound with sea salt than go more than a few days without kissing? Please share!

And congratulations to Julie Glover! Send your snail mail address to me at tawnafenske at yahoo dot com, and I'll hook you up with a signed copy of Believe it or Not to read on your sickbed.

Thanks to everyone who played the fluttery game!

Share your flutters, win a signed copy of BELIEVE IT OR NOT

Life's been a little roller-coasterish lately. While it sometimes gives me that fun, fluttery feeling in parts of my body that enjoy feeling fluttery, there are other moments I feel the nauseating urge to call Ralph on the porcelain phone.

I need to be better at focusing on the fun & fluttery.

Here are a few of the good giddy moments from the last few days:

• A big box showed up on my doorstep containing a buttload of copies of my next romantic comedy, Believe it or Not. That made me happy. The book hits shelves March 6 and you can pre-order right now from Amazon or Barnes & Noble or IndieBound. (You can also win a free signed copy if you keep reading and follow instructions, but I want to keep going with the fluttery list for a sec).
• I finished the first draft of the second episode of Getting Dumped for Coliloquy. This is my "interactive fiction" romantic caper (i.e. choose-your-own-adventure), and I was thrilled to bits the instant I hit send and fired the draft off to my agent, editor, and publisher. I was even more giddy to hear back from the publisher less than 24 hours later expressing her delight with the draft. There will still be edits, of course, but just knowing her initial response wasn't, "have you been eating paint chips?" was a big relief. (Incidentally, the first episode of Getting Dumped is on sale at Amazon right now for $1.99 – get it while it's cheap!)
• Believe it or Not received several more toe-curlingly wonderful reviews, including this one from Library Journal, which declared. "Fenske’s sophomore effort (after Making Waves) is another riotous trip down funny bone lane, with a detour to slightly askew goings on and a quick u-ey to out-of-this-world romance. Readers will be enchanted by this bewitching fable from a wickedly wise author." That one had me smiling all day long!
  
• Thursday marks eleven months since I first had dinner with my gentleman friend with the idea of seeking his counsel as my divorce mentor. Suffice it to say, he's turned out to be a whole lot more than that, and I feel ridiculously, deliciously fluttery every time I think of him. Or see him. Or grope him. Or....is it hot in here?
  
• I made a really excellent soup on Monday night. What? You have to celebrate the little flutters, too.

Those are just a few things I'm celebrating in my life right now. How about you? What's making you feel flutters of joy, satisfaction, or delight? Post your list in the comments. I'll review the entries at 5 p.m. PST on Thursday, Feb. 23 and will pick one person to receive a signed copy of Believe it or Not.

So how about it, guys? What's making you feel fluttery?

A plethora of perversion at the video arcade

I'll admit that with many previous installments of my regular feature, Garage Porn, I've deliberately gone looking for the naughty innuendos. It's true they're not hard (I said hard) to find on the aisles of Home Depot, the grocery store, or even my own garage.

But most of the time I'm on the lookout for it.

That's why it's especially funny when I stumble upon unintentional dirty humor in places I'm not expecting it. You'd think a visit to the local video arcade with my gentleman friend and his young offspring would be an innocent endeavor.

You would be wrong.

Check out some of the things that had me snickering Saturday night (discretely, of course...yes, Mom, I'm being a good influence. Mostly).

The name of this arcade game was bad enough. The fact that playing it required a sort of bizarre pumping motion was enough to force me to walk away, lest I fall to the floor in a fit of hysterical laughter.

With this game, you get a bonus for making it into the center slot. Shouldn't that just be expected?

I had to circle this air hockey table half-a-dozen times before I figured out "Fast Rack" was the unfortunate result of poor typography placement and a missing "T," as opposed to the expected result of playing it enthusiastically without a sports bra.

 

Everyone walking away from this game seemed sweaty and disheveled. I'm a little bummed I'd run out of game tokens by then, as I was forced to seek my raw thrills elsewhere.

It was admittedly funnier when I misread it with an extra "e" in the last word. Even without the typo, it still seems like an inappropriate name for a game marketed to pre-pubescent kids.

Seen any good unintentional dirty humor lately? Please share?

And can someone spot me an extra quarter? I'll pay you back, I swear.

Why word choice matters

My dog, Bindi, is a three-year-old Australian Kelpie. In case you're unfamiliar with the breed, imagine a herding dog on crack.

Then dial it up six notches, add a genius level IQ, and remove the off-switch.

I originally acquired her two years ago to serve as an aid for a deaf elderly dog I owned. It took less than a day to teach her the commands to locate him when he wandered off in the woods and herd him back to me.

These days, her skills are utilized mostly by my housemates, who regard her as a sort of electric blanket to be grabbed while snoozing on the couch watching action flicks.

Feeling guilty about the wasted talent, I decided two weeks ago to teach Bindi a new trick.

"Bindi," I called, grabbing a fistful of dog biscuits. "Sit!"

She sat, of course, and waited for the next command. With my free hand, I made a finger-pistol and pretended to shoot her. "Bang! Bang!"

My plan was to roll her gently into a "play dead" position.

Her plan was to tuck her tail between her legs and flee the room.

"What the hell, Bindi?" I called. "Come back."

She slunk back into the room, looking like I'd just run over her tail with the lawn mower.

"It's not a real gun," I assured her, letting her sniff my hand. "See, it's just my fingers. We're only pretending it's a gun because it seems like kind of a cute way to teach you to play dead."

She listened carefully, cocking her head to the side and perking her ears up. I gave her a biscuit just to show there were no hard feelings. Then we were ready to try again.

"Bindi, sit!"

She sat. I cocked my finger and fired. "Bang! Bang!"

She tucked her tail, slunk across the room, and leaped onto my housemate's lap. From there, she eyed me with deep suspicion.

"I don't think she likes this trick," my housemate said.

Baffled, I retrieved my manual on dog behavior while dialing the number for a local dog trainer.

I'm kidding. That would be the logical move. What I really did was post a joke on Facebook about my dog failing to distinguish a gun from a finger.

After a few silly comments and "likes," a friend piped up as the voice of reason. "She probably thinks you're saying 'bad,' since she doesn't know the word 'bang.'"

Oh.

And duh.

I raced back to the living room and switched tactics. "Bindi sit!" I made the finger-pistol again. "Pow!"

I toppled her over with one hand and held her in the play-dead position. No whimpering. No tail-tucking. I let her back up and tried again.

"Pow!"

And just like that, my dog got the trick.

Considering what I do for a living, you'd think I might be smarter about choosing my words carefully. I'm a slow learner sometimes, I suppose. Thankfully, my dog isn't.

In case you want evidence, here's a ten-second video of Bindi executing her trick. Feel free to applaud and praise, or just share an instance when you realized the value of choosing your words carefully:

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!

4 ways to bounce back when your confidence takes a beating

Whether you're a writer, a botanist, or a lag screwer, one thing is certain – there will be times your confidence in your ability to do the job is so shaken, it could double as a dirty martini.

As much as I enjoy that beverage (and not just for the name), finding myself in a confidence-shaken state is no fun at all. In case you've landed there yourself, here are a few tricks I've found for getting the mojo back:

Lick your...wounds
Whether you're hit with a bad review as an author, or a bad case of chlamydia as an escort, chances are you won't feel like getting back in the saddle right away. Don't. You need time to process, to heal, to formulate a plan, and to drink a few medicinal sips of that dirty martini. It's a vital part of the process to make time for these things, so don't feel guilty about it.

Punch something
You can do this literally (though I suggest choosing your pillow over a steel door) or you can do it figuratively (a good bitch session with a pack of girlfriends is priceless). Either way, give yourself a chance to cycle through the emotions of the setback. While I don't advise calling your boss or editor at 3 a.m. to sob that he ruined your life, it can be therapeutic to vent to a pal with a sympathetic ear. If you'd prefer to keep the harsh words to yourself, there are plenty of physical ways to blow off some steam. Hit the batting cages, buy a voodoo doll, or play Whac-A-Mole at your local video arcade (my personal favorite).

Do something you're great at
It's important to start building your confidence up again, which means you shouldn't go near the project that set you back in the first place. Think of a task you know you perform exceptionally well and do it. For some of you, this may mean finding a willing partner and retreating to the privacy of your home. A recent setback for me in the writing realm had me doing the "I suck" tango (I swear that's not a reference to the previous sentence). Instead of continuing to fling myself at the same wall, I switched gears – and genres – and poured my energy into a different project. Making a deliberate choice to focus on a type of writing I feel more skilled at has been slowly rebuilding my confidence, not to mention making me laugh (which is another crucial part of the process).

Find friends to stroke your...ego
Long before I ever had a book deal, I went through a string of bad rejections. Determined to keep moving forward, I wrote a new manuscript. My critique partners and beta readers were aware of the rejections, and though I never asked any of them to go easy on me, something shifted in that next round of feedback. Instead of focusing their criticisms on things that didn't work for them, every single reader went out of her way to flag elements of the story that did work. Not only did it give me a much-needed confidence boost, it helped me pinpoint what I was doing well so I could keep doing more of it.

What are your favorite strategies for rebuilding your confidence after it's been shaken? Please share!

And feel free to belly up to my imaginary bar for that dirty martini. Extra olives?

The small things that add up to love

I opted not to play to the romance author cliché yesterday when I refrained from posting something romancy for Valentine’s Day.

That move – coupled with my reference to some “challenging stuff” in yesterday’s post – apparently caused some of you to fret that my gentleman friend got smart and fled for the hills chose to end our romantic liaison. The concerned tweets and emails I got from blog readers touched me almost as much as he did yesterday, which is impressive.

For the record, he’s still very much a part of my life because I chained him to my headboard and he can’t escape.

I woke up Valentine’s morning and rolled over to gaze at one of my favorite parts of his body.

Knock it off, perverts – I’m talking about his shoulders.

I could study those shoulders for hours. Hell, I have studied those shoulders for hours, tracing their contours, counting the freckles, tickling them with my eyelashes to see if he’ll wake up.

(For the record, he won’t. I could drive a front-end loader over his head and he wouldn’t wake up. It’s another thing I find charming about him, since I never fret I’ll wake him with my reading lamp at 3 a.m.)

I’ve been working on the next episode of Getting Dumped in recent weeks. For those who haven’t read it yet, it’s an “interactive fiction” title with choice points that allow readers to pick among potential love interests for the heroine.

Sort of a choose-your-own-adventure with dump trucks and steamy groping.

I originally wrote the story four years ago, but rewrote it several times after that based on editorial suggestions and the eventual choose-your-own-adventure twist. 

The upside of working on a novel over a long period of time is that I know the characters intimately. While crafting scenes for two of the love interests on Monday, I didn’t have to pause and mull what Pete might do to comfort JJ in her time of need. 

He’d take her out for cheesecake – duh – because she always cares for others with food, and it's time someone did the same for her.

I didn’t need to spend time considering what gesture Collin might make to completely curl JJ’s toes.

He’d smile – duh – because he does it so rarely that she knows it means something when it happens.

It’s the little gestures, personality quirks, and physical traits that make characters unique and charming and relatable either for readers or in real life.

The fact that my gentleman friend sings while he works, crinkles his eyes when he smiles, and engulfs me in the biggest, warmest bear hugs I’ve ever known are all the little things that routinely charm the socks off me.

And maybe a few other articles of clothing as well.

What are the little physical features or personality quirks you find most endearing in your favorite book characters or human companions? Please share!

And rest assured, my Valentine’s Day was delightful. Quite.

The best words in the English language

There's been some challenging stuff happening in my life lately. I can't go into details, but I do think we should have a group hug and maybe pat each other's butts a bit in case you're going through some rough stuff, too.

What am I saying? Butt pats feel good even if there's no rough stuff.

And now I've accidentally steered this blog post to the subject of spanking, which is really not where I meant to go. Blame my inner romance author, who is a brazen hussy with no sense of decorum.

What I really wanted to talk about is an email I got the other day from my parents. They were fulfilling their duty as the best parents on the planet by offering kind words of encouragement and support. "Just know," they wrote, "we've got your back."

Something about that phrase dissolved me into a sniveling, sentimental baby. I posted on Facebook declaring those to be the best words in the English language.

I still think that's true, though my less sentimental self might find other phrases equally worthy of admiration. My upcoming romantic comedy, Believe it or Not, has a love scene that spans nearly 20 pages. I had a great time writing it, and I'll admit there are a few groupings of words that make me deliciously happy in a different way. (Drew: I love the way you say my name. Violet: So make me scream it.)

Other phrases that could be contenders for my favorite words in the English language:

• There's free wine and food at the party.
• Why don't you go read a book while I clean the house?
• Here's a check we weren't expecting!
• Want a massage?
• You're so hot you melt the elastic in my underwear.

The jury might still be out on that last one. What are some of your favorite words in the English language? Please share!

And line up over there for the extra hugs and butt pats. This could take awhile.

On being too stupid to live

One of the most common annoyances readers cite about the romance genre is the TSTL heroine.

For those unversed in the (also annoying) acronyms used by romance writers, that's short for Too Stupid to Live.

You've met the TSTL heroine. She's the one who marches unarmed into a dark basement to investigate mysterious chainsaw noises. You'll find her stomping her pretty little foot in a jealous huff after spotting the hero embracing a woman who shares his hair and eye color on the weekend his sister is slated to visit.

I work hard at never writing TSTL heroines, and count on critique partners and beta readers to ensure my heroines remain at an IQ level higher than the average lichen. But I'll admit I've had the occasional To Stupid to Live moments of my own.

When I was younger, I used to skim newspaper classifieds for entertainment. People would lump a variety of items into a single ad, hocking a 1974 Oldsmobile, a litter of kittens, and a 10 pound bag of freeze dried brine shrimp eggs all in the same ad.

I never realized how
phallic the oboe is
until I stuck this pic on
my blog. You'll never
blow one the same way
again

Still, it seemed odd to me that so many people were selling that sonorous, double-reed musical instrument, the oboe. Not only were they selling them, they were repeatedly misspelling the name by omitting the "e" on the end.

When I told a friend I'd like to play the oboe and explained my reason for thinking I could get a good deal on one, she stared at me like I had a ham sandwich protruding from my nostril.

"That's OBO, you idiot," she said sweetly. "It's short for Or Best Offer."

Oh.

I'd like to blame the misunderstanding on youth and inexperience, but that wouldn't explain why I did something similar only a few weeks ago. Since I adore cooking, my brother and his girlfriend recently sent me a subscription to a Rachael Ray magazine packed full of recipes. I began skimming at once, perplexed to see how many of them called for a mysterious ingredient, EVOO.

For weeks, I kept reminding myself to google the word. I assumed it was a brand name for some sort of seasoning Rachael was pitching, and wondered what I could use instead. From context clues, I decided olive oil might be a fair substitution.

It wasn't until I pulled the bottle out of the cupboard that it clicked for me.

EVOO = Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

So those are a few of my TSTL moments. Got any of your own to share? Please do, so I know I'm not alone! And if you're one of those annoying people who never does anything stupid, I'd love to hear about your experiences reading TSTL characters. What are some things that really annoy the snot out of you? Please share!