Dignity is Counter-Revolutionary

Defining Romance

2010-09-21T09:01:00.003-05:00

I'm a hormonal mess. I admit it. I shouldn't be reading romance novels in this state, but I can't help it. I'm chugging away at a book right now (and hope to have it finished before Fable3 comes out--YES, my deadline is a video game release, don't judge) and I need to keep the wordbank stocked. But it leads to this sort of scenario.

Husband: Honey, where's the... wait, are you crying?
Me: *lip quivering, tears spilling, but my back is turned to him* Um... no.
Husband: Yes, you are.
Me: *violently shakes head, unable to speak*
Husband: Look, I can tell because you are pregnant, you are sitting on the floor of the bathroom, you have eight thousand Milky Way wrappers strewn around you and there's a paperback romance next to you and it's opened to the end. Now. Are you crying?
Me: ...OMGYES *COPIOUS NOISY SOBBING*
Husband: Well. I'm glad that's cleared up. I'd comfort you, but I really gotta lose some weight, if you know what I mean. If you're still crying by the time I'm done I'll give you a hug.
Me: *bawls*

...Sometimes I have trouble writing romance because my definition of romance is very broad and includes my husband trying to talk me down from a romance novel-inflicted hormonal freak out while he's sitting on the can. If that's not love, I don't know what is, but it honestly doesn't come off very well in prose. Toilets just aren't sexy, I guess.

edit: I was not actually eating Milky Ways in the bathroom, I just took the wrappers in there with me to throw away and forgot in the throes of romantic climax. I was actually eating them on the bed, which is clearly much better. My name is Heather Howard and I am twelve years old.

Blog Launch! PassionateReads launches TODAY

2010-09-19T09:40:00.002-05:00

Click for huge!

Come hang out with 12 AMAZING AUTHORS (and me) on the Ellora's Cave Chat loop today in honor of the launch of our new blog, Passionate Reads. Then it's a week long celebration of erotic romance and erotic giveaways on the blog, with information about more contests coming up, including a pitch contest! Start polishing those manuscripts, get ready to read some sexy prose, and don't miss the party at Passionate Reads!

The brainbox is experiencing difficulties...

2010-09-07T20:52:00.000-05:00

Being pregnant completely pummels the thinkmeats. And the energybank. I made the mistake of thinking I had energy two weeks ago and still feel like I'm recovering. This is bad, since writing takes both energy and brainpower and I have neither. You know it's bad when forcing yourself to sit up straight so you can breathe around the baby belly tires you out after five minutes.

Since it's become abundantly clear that I cannot rely on my brain in its current state, I decided to crib from my past brain, whipped out an old WIP that was done except for some quick revisions, and have been chipping away at that for the time being. I hope I can have it done soon.

So this is a post to say I'm making no progress, and it's just as wearing as making progress. And I just looked at my clock, hoping it was bedtime. Not even 9pm. Sad.

Muumuus Only

2010-08-16T08:13:00.003-05:00

I am still alive and still pregnant. I'm finally out of the Kill Me stage and into the Baby Is Kicking Me stage at slightly over half-way through. Like everything else, we've been procrastinating on setting up the nursery and doing...well, anything. My husband isn't used to taking the initiative on home-improvement projects; usually I'm the one who gets a bee in my bonnet and throws everything out the window to spend a week stripping wallpaper, repairing drywall, and repainting. And now I can't do any of that, due to ~*chemicals*~. Meanwhile my husband prefers to play Quake III. Yes, people still play Quake III.

Him: I should probably start thinking about building the habitat for the proto-human in your guts.
Me: Yeah, that'd be good. We have 19 weeks.
Him: Wow. Guess I'd better get started.
Me: Yup.
Him: ...Next weekend.

In slightly better news, I've been absent from the net in an attempt to concentrate on writing, and though it took a while, it finally seems to be working and I have allowed myself access to precious intarblogs once more. Basically I spend my days making real, measurable progress on my WIP, which was supposed to be done so long ago I can't even think on it for shame, and grabbing my husband's hand and pressing it to my stomach. The kidlet, of course, is just like its mother and is completely uncooperative. The second my husband puts his hand to my stomach, kidlet stops moving. Kidlet has also added serious pounds to my butt. My beautiful size six butt is now a flotation device. Much of my time is spent pantsless. This is not as fun as it sounds.

Husband: Okay, let's go out to dinner!
Me: Ugh. Do I have to? Can I wear whatever I want?
Husband: Of course, you're pregnant!
Me: Okay. Can I wear these? *brandishes bright turquoise and navy blue pajama pants*
Husband: No. You cannot wear those.

Liar.

Jorge, Jorge, how well I love thee!

2010-07-08T09:59:00.003-05:00

It took a while, but I finally have my new computer (again). One that I can actually write on! I won't go into the gory details, but never buy an HP computer unless you want to get third degree burns. Which, I mean... that might be your thing, and that's cool, but I don't like to burn my fingers when all I really want is to write hot hot wingsex.

So behold, the new love of my life, Jorge!

A Dell Latitude E5410. I admit, he's not the sexiest thing in the world, but he IS functional. Or I think he is. The problem that sent him back to Dell - a faulty RAM slot - is not one that I can properly assess at the moment because the screw holding the bottom of the laptop on is screwed in so tight I'm afraid of stripping it so I can't pop my RAM in and IT IS EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING, but I digress. More importantly, he is named after Jorge Luis Borges, my favorite author of the past few years. This makes him the best laptop in the world! I can only hope Borges's corpse is not spinning in its grave.

Astute - or rather ridiculously well-read - readers will have already noted that my Ellora's Cave Quickie, Stairway to Heaven, took vague but essential inspiration from Borges' account of the A Bao A Qu in his Book of Imaginary Beings. I have no regrets. T. S. Eliot said I could.

And now... TO WRITING. AT LAST.

Three month coma and this is what I come back to?

2010-07-03T22:20:00.000-05:00

An unupdated blog? WHO IS IN CHARGE HERE I WISH TO COMPLAIN TO THE MANAGER

I actually have a very good reason for being gone, which is: I am pregnant. And the first trimester was abject misery that no one wants to hear about so just be grateful I didn't want to get vomit on my keyboard and therefore did not inflict my thinky thoughts about it on you. The world does not need to know just how impossible it is to write sexy things when the mere thought of movement (or smells, or intimacy) sends you running to the bathroom. My husband, he suffered muchly.

But that is mostly behind me! Knock on wood! Twice a day I stare woozily at my current project and do my best to type a word or change a comma, which, if you believe Oscar Wilde, is half of writing anyway. So it is with the best intentions that I tentatively declare this blog back from hiatus. Look forward to my thoughts on smut with wings on it.

Buy my books and all your fears will be silenced. Taunt me no more, toilet weasels!

2010-04-26T21:11:00.003-05:00

It's almost release day. Tomorrow. And here I am, with my thumb up my butt. At least I'm in the right business.

OUT NOW

At Ellora's Cave

Towers! Ghost sex! My greatest apologies to Jorge Luis Borges!

Work it, diva!

2010-03-29T22:54:00.001-05:00

I have finally come to that point in writing this story (as in all endeavors in which one truly applies oneself) where I cannot rely on my talent alone to pull me through, and have to actually put forth some effort. Pulling things out of one's butt at the last minute is not a long-term strategy for success! In celebration of this milestone, I have changed my desktop wallpaper from a koi pond to RuPaul. She informs me that I had better work. She's probably right.

But first I have to go to Scotland. You guys wait here.

Let's skip the foreplay and get straight to the penetraish.

2010-03-11T12:54:00.002-06:00

Story is giving me blue balls. Is that even possible?

Hero: Hello! I am here to seduce you!
Heroine: Yes please.
Hero: Uh oh, I just wanted to seduce you to get something but now that I'm about to do the deed, I realize I kind of like you and that makes me feel bad about using you.
Heroine: ...Wouldn't fucking me make you feel better? Because I kind of want to!
Hero: I fear not. Look, let's just frot and oral for like 20k words while I struggle with my deep-seated angst.
Heroine: Ugh, boys.

ALWAYS FEELING THINGS, YEESH

Hey baby, ever sixty-nined five hundred feet above LA rush hour?

2010-03-10T17:37:00.001-06:00

I'm in love with writing today. Most days I'm not, but today I have a great hero and a great heroine who want to do nothing more than get into each other's pants, and yet they are conflicted and complicated and one of them has wings and I can't believe I get paid to have this much fun. I seriously can't. My biggest problem is that I keep leaping up from my chair and pacing around while the emotion takes me away and that kind of makes it hard to put fingers on the keyboard, but I don't care. I'm about 1/4th to 1/3rd of the way through a book and I'm dying of love for it. I mean...eventually I'll have to seriously consider the plot beyond what I have (and there IS a plot, I swear), but for now I'm soaking it in and hoping this honeymoon period lasts right through to the end.

Update: I'm on fire, three thousand words today, and over half of them smutty. I'm burning you up, manuscript.

Come cover me...

2010-03-08T15:58:00.000-06:00

Yay, I got the cover for Stairway to Heaven today! It's coming out with Ellora's Cave soon, and is a ghost story. With boinking.

UNF. THOSE CLAVICLES. I have a thing for clavicles. In fact, I think my love of clavicles should show up in my current WIP, which is finally settling down into a fun, rich story. I fear it's going to be longer than I originally planned, but that's okay. I hope.

...

Clavicles...

Not gonna lie, flushing Pol Pot down the loo would be very satisfying.

2010-03-02T18:53:00.002-06:00

All right, just so no one thinks I'm ~~too much of~~ a huge crybaby I'm happy to report that I started a new story and am very much enjoying it. I'm only about eight hundred words in, which is 2% of the final product, but 2% is better than no percent, so, uh, yay! I'm sure I'll be right back to hating life when I actually have to come up with a plot, but for now my heroine and her inappropriately-named goldfish are giving me that giddy flush of authorial joy, and it seems good to record that for posterity.

So. Noted.

Funerary Calls of the North American Reticulated Writer

2010-03-01T22:11:00.000-06:00

Story refuses to be written. Have made up completely new story, hopefully it shall be more compliant. TICK TOCK, CLARICE

...BRB, shooting self.

This is why God made pillows to scream into.

2010-02-24T09:08:00.000-06:00

Started writing my werewolf story, then found out it wasn't a werewolf story at all and have to start all over. Lost a day of writing.

SIGH

Shame. And edits.

2010-02-19T11:03:00.000-06:00

I recently sold a short story to Ellora's Cave *sale!squee* and got my first round of edits from my lovely editor. One of the things that stuck out at me was the fact that she'd highlighted an enormous chunk of text right at the beginning of the story and left a comment to the effect of, "This could be cut. Save what's important and insert it into the rest of the story."

This was it. My first big editing change. Was I going to handle it like a champ, or like the whiny brat I'm always afraid I'm going to be, deep down?

I took a deep breath. I poured some coffee. I dicked around on Twitter. I browsed a couple of forums. Then I took another deep breath and started reading through the highlighted text, trying to decide what was important and what wasn't.

Then something strange happened. I'm a writer, right? Shouldn't every piece of my baby be important to me? And yet, as I read that text, I found myself thinking, "Holy crap, she's right. None of this is important!"

Turns out, I'd vomited at least a thousand extraneous words onto the page, right at the beginning of my story! HOW COULD I HAVE LET THIS HAPPEN? I do not know. I'm just grateful at least two people slogged through the first 1.5k to find the actual story after it. I got lucky. This time. I think I salvaged about three sentences worth of semi-vital information from that chunk of text and threw the rest out. Besides, who needs it when there are some love scenes that could stand to be expanded? I didn't find out whether or not I was a champ, because a champ has to be able to cut stuff she loves and not be a fair-weather author who immediately turns on her text at the first suggestion of imperfection, but I think I learned a few valuable lessons. #1: A good editor is worth her weight in gold. And #2: DON'T BE BORING.

~~Now I just need to apply that second lesson to my blog. OOH, BURN~~

Um, excuse me miss, but perhaps you would see fit to let me dominate you? I mean, if that's okay...

2010-02-17T23:40:00.000-06:00

Well, it's been a while. I sold another story. I have some more in the pipeline. I'm gearing up for a semi-big year, I guess. So I'm going to take this moment to angst. Because I just can't leave it alone. So I'm going to talk about Alpha heroes.

I have issues writing Alpha heroes, the main issue being: I can't. I enjoy them in my fiction (though on a law of diminishing returns basis, meaning I overload quickly and then have to go away from romance for a while before I can read it again), but I find them so ridiculous in my own writing that they tend to be subverted in some way. The last alpha male I wrote was an ice cold killer, totally ruthless, preternaturally beautiful, and insufferably arrogant with a tragic past. Which, yeah, that's pretty attractive, I guess, but I couldn't relate to him just as that. So I made him dumb as a box of rocks, too. Not that many characters ever noticed, being so preoccupied with the beautiful and deadly aspects and fearing for their lives, but I loved how truly slow on the uptake he was. It put a damper on his arrogance and made it comical instead of annoying, and I could relate that to myself. He spent a lot of his time looking cool and menacing, but behind the facade he was terminally confused. Like me. I spend much of my time terminally confused as well, but since I can't decapitate someone with my bare hands, I have to cover it up in different ways.

I recently, however, decided to write a werewolf novella. I love my premise, but my hero... not an Alpha, which I gather is rare for erotic werewolf stories. I mean. Not even a little bit. He's broken and neurotic and while he is totally hot he's just not an Alpha. A Lambda, perhaps, and I find that far more fun to write about. Give me a vulnerable, dithering man who develops into a man who will handle things because the heroine just can't do it all herself. I don't like writing a story where he starts that way. It just doesn't make much sense to me.

I also suspect I fail at Alphas because I don't have an Alpha bone in my body. Sure, I'll take charge, but only if I must. I mean, come on, who wants that kind of responsibility? Not me, and not my heroes, apparently. Ugh. ~*Effort.*~ I suspect my inner college student has a lot to do with this.

Nevertheless, I need to make this novella sellable, so I swear upon my life that I will try to rectify this situation, because I like Alpha heroes. I do! ~~Especially if they are secretly ridiculous.~~ Er. Anyway, I'm going to read every single post in Kate Walker's blog labeled All About Alphas. See, I'm putting it here so I don't forget!

...Ugh. ~*Effort.*~

Joy and nausea feel remarkably similar.

2009-12-07T01:13:00.000-06:00

I'm ever so pleased I hooked up with the incredibly talented Christa McHugh to guest blog today, since it was done well over a month ago and now I don't have to come up with anything intelligent to say now that the big day is here. So. I'm guest blogging over at Christa's blog, Tripping Along the Stumbling Blocks of Writing today. Read it for a chance to win a copy of BARBELLS AT CHRISTMAS.

Or buy a copy of BARBELLS AT CHRISTMAS. Because it is ever so hot and funny. Really.

BUY NOW!

It's a metaphor, you see.

2009-12-03T17:51:00.001-06:00

Oh man, been a while since my last update. Got on Twitter. Won NaNo. Working on a book. Have a hot story still percolating in my brain. And have Thinky Thoughts on writing. Behold.

Writing professionally is like learning to do chin-ups.

Well. Okay. Not learning to do chin-ups, because chin-ups are the easiest exercise there is (not like squats, argh), but growing strong enough to do one. For women, at least. Our shoulders are set slightly different than a man's, and all our strength is in our lower bodies. It takes a lot of struggling to overcome whatever horrible thing estrogen does to our physiques to even do one chin-up. I could do ten chin-ups before I got my period. Afterwards? One. Then none. I'm back up to three now, but it took six months of doing things like deadlifts and bench press and negative chin-ups before I was able to break that barrier. Here's how it happens when you're trying your very best to do a chin-up before throwing your hands in the air and going off to work on the muscles you need to do one:

Day 1: Hang there. Kick your feet a little.
Day 2: Hang there. Kick your feet a little.
Day 3: Hang there. Kick your feet a little.
...
Day 20: Hang there. Squeeze your shoulders. Bend your elbows.
Day 21: Hang there. Squeeze your shoulders. Bend your elbows.
Day 22: Hang there. Squeeze your shoulders. Bend your elbows.
...
Day 30: Hang there. Squeeze your shoulders. Get to ninety degrees.
Day 31: Hang there. Squeeze your shoulders. Get to ninety degrees.
Day 32: Hang there. Squeeze your shoulders. Get to ninety degrees.
...
Day 47: Hang there. Squeeze your shoulders. Get to ninety degrees.
...
Day 54: Hang there. Squeeze your shoulders. See bar in front of your face.
...
Day 57: Hang there. Squeeze your shoulders. Get to ninety degrees.
...
Day 61: Hang there. Squeeze your shoulders. See bar in front of your face again.
Day 62: Chin-up!

Of course, the weird thing is that doing a chin-up and failing to do a chin-up feel exactly the same. You just actually end up doing one instead of failing out. (I literally did not believe I did a chin-up for several weeks until I finally did two chin-ups, because I was like, "well, sure I got over the bar, but it didn't feel like I worked hard enough at it, so it must not have been a real chin-up!")

Finally getting a piece of writing accepted is the same way. You write and you write and you wail and you moan and you get rejected and you cry and you hug your dog and you whine to your husband and you write and you write and you keep doing it until one day you churn out some story you don't even really care about and send it off and all of a sudden you're over the bar. It's good enough. Writing is a persistence sport, like long distance running.

Gotta keep at it.

Teaser Tuesday?

2009-11-17T08:44:00.005-06:00

Lee Bross does this over on her blog. I guess I'll give it a shot on mine, since I'm burned out on NaNo right now (even though it is made of awesome and camels). Here's a little teaser from my upcoming release, Barbells At Christmas. My dear, dear heroine, Lisa, is having issues with concentration during her work out.

Just as she finished wiping away the sweat, there was a movement at the corner of her eye. Still catching her breath, Lisa looked up, beheld the most perfect ass she'd ever seen climbing onto the treadmill in front of her, and forgot all about breathing.

She'd seen good butts before, but this one was…well. It was perfect. Round and juicy, like two peaches cuddling. Back when she'd been in college she'd taken an intro to philosophy class and they'd learnt about Platonic forms, the perfect instances of things and ideas from which all other things were derived. The form of the good. The form of the apple. The form of the chair.

This ass. It was the Form of the Ass. All other asses were but pale copies, mere shadows of Its glory. If Plato had talked about butts instead of virtues, well, maybe she wouldn’t have fallen asleep so often in that class and ended up with a C.

She wanted to bite it.

Oh, Lisa. That's not how you're supposed to feel the burn!

...Okay, back to Nano. My hero is meeting his antagonist whom he actually kind of likes and sympathizes with, oops.

Does this count as guest blogging from beyond the grave?

2009-11-11T09:19:00.002-06:00

I struggle between being a writer for fun and profit, and being a writer for art. It's hard for me to remember that there's not necessarily a difference between the two.

Short stories can have greatness, short as they have to be. Several knocked my socks off when I was still in high school. Ernest Hemingway's "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" and Saki's "The Open Window" and O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi" and Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" spring to mind. But there is no greatness in this or my other collection, nor was there meant to be.

My own stories may be interesting, nonetheless, as relics from a time, before there was television, when an author might support a family by writing stories that satisfied uncritical readers of magazines, and earning thereby enough free time in which to write serious novels. When I became a full-time free-lance in 1950, I expected to be doing that for the rest of my life.

I was in such good company with prospectus like that. Hemingway had written for Esquire, F. Scott Fitzgerald for The Saturday Evening Post, William Faulkner for Collier's, John Steinbeck for The Woman's Home Companion!

Say what you want about me, I never wrote for a magazine called The Woman's Home Companion, but there was a time when I would have been most happy to. And I add this thought: Just because a woman is stuck alone at home, with her husband at work and her kids at school, that doesn't mean she is an imbecile.

--Kurt Vonnegut, Introduction to Bagombo Snuff Box

So. I love what I'm doing right now, and I'm grateful that the short story, though the genre may be a little more specialized, is once again available to write for decent cash. Not necessarily enough to feed a family on, but enough to pay a bill or two.

As an aside, I miss Vonnegut something fierce, and I hope I always will. Happy birthday, man.

When crazy people get organized.

2009-11-07T08:53:00.001-06:00

I just had a Moment. I recently started doing a personal organization thing. It's called FlyLady and the main gist is that you build up little habits over time and the end result is that you become your mother. I mean, neat, clean, and organized. It works wonders, just in case you wanted to know.

I just sat down at my computer to work, and had a few reminders written out on a post-it. One of them was to do a few revisions on WWTA and send the story to my lovely beta.

Hmm, I thought, now where did I put those notes about WWTA? I looked around.

Oh. There they are. Sitting in a logical spot, all ready to go. I picked them up and put them next to me, where I could see them while I typed.

Then it hit me: my desk was clean and I was organized.

The thought freaked me out so bad I jumped up, ran into the music/dining room, and rolled around on the floor. The dogs thought this was great fun, but I may have to go make a mess of the kitchen just to feel better about things.

(Don't be like me, kids.)

The moment it hits you...

2009-11-06T10:01:00.002-06:00

...Or me, really.

First official cover art. Ever. Pardon, I must swoon.

*writer squee*

"That's it then," Alfons Materna said when he was told of his son's death.

2009-11-04T07:44:00.001-06:00

To all NaNos, Editor Jennifer is having a first line contest through Friday! Get over there and enter!

That line in my header is the first line of one of my favorite novels of all time, The Wolves by Hans Hellmut Kirst. Here are a few other good lines from some favorite novels.

You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler.
Italo Calvino, If on a winter's night a traveler

All this happened, more or less.
Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

"All happy families are more or less dissimilar; all unhappy ones are more or less alike," says a great Russian writer in the beginning of a famous novel (Anna Arkadievitch Karenina, transfigured into English by R. G. Stonelower, Mount Tabor Ltd., 1880).
Vladimir Nabokov, Ada, or Ardor: a family chronicle

The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone.
Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

I was stealing saltshakers again.
Paul Neilan, Apathy and Other Small Victories

There you have it. Great first lines straight from my keeper shelf. That was fun, I'll have to do that again!

What are some of your favorite first lines?

Mania abounds.

2009-11-03T08:27:00.000-06:00

My husband liked WWTA very much, and I'm knee-deep in my NaNo novel, which is a YA fantasy in the vein of Bujold meets Pratchett. Of course, it seems like every novel I write is _______ meets Pratchett, so there's no big surprise there.

Still should send WWTA off to my crit partner, if she has any time this month, and maybe get that synopsis written or something. But NaNo is so distracting and shiny...

Oh yeah, I have a super d33p and philosophical post about prologues (i.e. don't tell me what I can't do, NO YOU SHUT UP, DAD) but it will have to wait.

Didn't I JUST DO THIS?

2009-10-31T09:32:00.001-05:00

SYNOPSIS TIME AGAIN.

Luckily, the amazing divas and divadudes at Romance Divas have scads of great links to help the struggling writer deal with the dreaded Sucknopsis. Here are a few of them:

And here's my Sucknopsis, abridged and in dialogue format. My favorite format!

Heroine: I fret. I am fretful.
Hero: I'll save you!
*doesn't save her*
Heroine: Welp, that went horribly awry. Let's try this again, but this time, I'm not fretful, I'm just psychotic.
Hero: I'll save you!
Heroine: Haha. You seem repressed. Let's bone.
*they do. a lot*
Hero: Okay, not repressed anymore.
Heroine: ...
Hero: So. Are you... you know. Saved yet?
Heroine: ...Maaaaaaaaaaaaaybe.

PSST, SHE TOTALLY IS

The surest path to failure is trying to please everyone.

2009-10-30T09:11:00.002-05:00

My friends, I am a perfectionist. "Writer" and "perfectionist" should not go together, because writing is a Sisyphean task that will never be completed, no matter how many people go over your story or put commas in or take them out. Even worse, taste is subjective. There is literally nothing I can do that will make someone like X in my writing if they have sworn to eradicate X from the earth.

And X can be anything. I recently learned that a lot of people don't like first person POV. This, I must say, blew my tiny little mind. I can't imagine why someone would hate a POV as prevalent as first person. Second, maybe, but I don't think there's any POV or tense or gimmick that will make me put a story down. What if my masterwork was written in first person? What if it brought balm and succor to millions (go with me here) and someone picked it up one day, read the first sentence and was like, "Ugh, first person!" and put it down again and spent the rest of their life miserable because they had not read sentence #2? I'm not saying that will happen (ever), just that this sort of thing is limiting and incredibly discouraging when the writer looks at his or her own chunk of words and thinks: did I use that colon correctly? This sentence could be rearranged like this...What if I took out this word and used this one instead? Presenting it in just the Right Way could be the difference between publication and best seller status, and relegation to the bottom drawer of the desk. Forget bringing balm and succor to millions, just getting out of the slush pile is a Herculean task dependent entirely upon the whims of the one who opens that query letter.

And on that note, I'm going to go to the gym and squat my bodyweight, because that, at least, is doable.

I think the tearstains I added make this MS particularly poignant, but I guess I could bleed on it a little, too.

2009-10-28T10:32:00.000-05:00

"I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again."
--Oscar Wilde

That's me.

I thought I wouldn't have anything to blog about....

2009-10-26T13:22:00.000-05:00

And yet I do.

Barbells At Christmas is getting released on December 7th! ~~lol pearl harbor day~~

OMG. I am overcome.

Today is a very good day.

...I should probably tell someone about this. Like, you know. My friends or something.

The writing groove.

2009-10-25T09:47:00.001-05:00

How do you know you're in it? How do you get there?

For me, the writing groove is that place where I stop talking to people because I'm thinking about my story. I trail off in mid-sentence and stare off into the distance. I stand in the middle of the living room with dialogue whirling around in my head and can't remember which direction I was going. I leave water running, forget household chores (more than usual) and wouldn't eat if the dogs didn't get antsy at mealtimes. I love the writing groove.

Getting INTO the writing groove is the hard part, and I'm not sure I've found a failsafe way to do it. Sitting down and forcing yourself to pour words on the paper helps. So does reading a lot of new books, like refilling your gas tank of words. Escaping from real life responsibilities is a remarkable help. And yet none of these is guaranteed.

I'm in the groove right now. So if I don't update, that's where I'll be. Gotta enjoy it while it lasts.

MAKE YOUR PEACE, CHAPTER THREE, FOR YOU SHALL FALL BY MY HAND

2009-10-24T10:05:00.000-05:00

The great joy of writing is when you write half a story and then realize that's not the story you want to tell at all. It's just one of those things, those terribly annoying tricks your writerly brain plays on you. You sit down, start banging out words, thinking things are going just peachy, and then all of a sudden you realize: it STINKS.

Why? Why did you lie to me, brain? Perhaps the noodle needs the writing equivalent of pacing for a while, so all that progress I think I'm making is just my brain going around in circles while it figures out what it really wants to say.

Well, at least it's worn a groove in the floor. That's a good foundational start, I guess.

The trouble with writing is...

2009-10-23T11:58:00.002-05:00

...the instant you realize you have to rewrite pretty much all of your current WIP, a whole new book idea suddenly pops up and you're scrambling to get your ideas down for that one while your current WIP taps its foot and looks annoyed.

Look, WIP, if you'd just been perfect the first time, this wouldn't happen!

I can't help it. He looked remarkably like a werewolf. PURGE THIS, FIDO

2009-10-22T09:08:00.008-05:00

*downloads WriteWay*

*starts organizing Whose Woods These Are*

*discovers place on character card for a picture of hero*

*...*

*googles "young Stalin"*

...

Let's just keep this between you and me, blog.

Another first for the scrapbook that I will never show anyone.

2009-10-21T11:16:00.000-05:00

I'm not going to lie. I love looking at my fresh, new Author Page over at total-E-bound.

Those who deny the Oxford comma will be branded heretics and put to the flame!

2009-10-20T09:01:00.002-05:00

I'm always learning. I think what I learned most from the popping of my edit cherry is this: the English language is a jerk, and commas and I have a torrid, on-again, off-again affair and it won't end until one of us is in jail for torching the other's car.

For years, I used commas liberally. I couldn't find my way out of a sentence unless I dropped a little breadcrumb trail of commas behind me. Then one fine day someone pointed this out to me. Oh god! I thought. KILL THEM ALL, and I promptly made a beeline in the opposite direction. No extraneous commas! Sometimes not even where I need them! The net result of this is that my poor editor spent too much of her time inserting commas into my text, none of which I would have put in myself, since commas and I aren't really talking, but most which I would have inserted had I currently been sneaking in and out of commas' house with a scarf over my head and dark glasses on, hoping the neighbors wouldn't recognize my face.

(I think this metaphor got away from me.)

Point is, commas. Maybe I should give them a call once in a while. Catch up. You know. For old time's sake.

WHO, OH, WHO COULD HAVE FORESEEN THIS?

2009-10-19T08:57:00.000-05:00

So you know what I love, apparently?

Edits.

Seriously. Who knew?

I LOVE THEM GIMME GIMME GIMME MORE

"The perfect is the enemy of the good, and the good is the enemy of the finished."

2009-10-18T07:17:00.002-05:00

My senior project adviser in college told me that. And he was sooooo right. I just have to keep reminding myself of it, because this weekend I am awaiting my first official edits.

This is simultaneously exciting and terrifying. Exciting because, hey, I'm a real writer. Now I get to say stuff like "MY EDITOR SAYS" (as in, "OH, WELL, MY EDITOR SAYS ALWAYS UNDERSTATE NECROPHILIA") and learn from someone who does this professionally. I'm terrified because... I'm not really sure why. I don't mind edits. I like edits that other people give me because no good story can be perfectly written all by my lonesome. I have a few that have come close, but when I go back later I'm always, "Jeez, why did I use that word, THIS IS TERRIBLE" and hide under the covers in shame. Maybe that's it. I like to be perfect. I don't like other people seeing my imperfections and pointing them out because then I feel ridiculous that I didn't catch them myself. Also I am the sort of person who likes to make everyone else's life easier, and if my writing isn't just as awesome as can be, I feel like I'm making someone else's life harder. Which is kind of silly because if people could make their writing perfect, editors wouldn't have a job to do.

So... excited that I get help in presenting this story to the world, and terrified because I will have to acknowledge yet again that I am not perfect at this one thing that I love and am good at. I'm always learning. I will always be learning. But I still hope that some day I will have learned enough to make my editor's life easy as pie. And also maybe not have to do more than one rewrite. I can dream...

That time of year again!

2009-10-17T09:19:00.000-05:00

Nanowrimo time! I'm going to use nanowrimo to get Unicorn Hunting and Binding Off written. I'm scheduled to start A Wolf at the Door, um, today? So I suppose I'll see how much I have left to write of it. That's probably 50k words right there. Then I have at least one humorous fantasy/romance thing that I've been meaning to write forever, and my long back-burnered urban fantasy, and then there's that YA book I've been beating myself up with for almost six months, and that stupid magnum opus Great American Novel no really that made me dream about corpses...

Jeez. Maybe I should learn how to use my espresso machine at some point, instead of just letting it sit there in my kitchen giving everyone the false impression that I am urbane and cultured.

Sing to me, O Muse...

2009-10-16T11:39:00.002-05:00

Some days the muse moves you, and some days you move the muse. I prefer to either bait her with martinis, or give her incentives via cattle prod.

I have made a horrible mistake.

2009-10-15T11:50:00.000-05:00

So once I decided I was a Real Writer^TM, I decided that part of my job was to read books. You know, market research and all that, plus I think writers should read. We get our strength and passion for storytelling from other writers. It's important.

Alas. I have once again turned into a bookaholic. When I was a wee girl, I would read in the shower. IN THE SHOWER, PEOPLE. Now that I don't necessarily have to take showers or leave the house or eat because no one is telling me to, I just read. All the time. I also write, but only when I don't have a book to read.

I hope there's some sort of twelve step program for this.

The wounded cry of the ASL student echoes o'er the plains this night.

2009-10-14T11:26:00.003-05:00

I am reading Flowers from the Storm, which everyone in the romance world knows about, apparently. As well they should, because it's delicious and I love it. But it's also giving me absolute fits that I'm about a quarter of the way through and Maddy and Christian haven't figured out that pantomime might help. Chris understands gestures just fine, and they've done it before, so I'm aghast that they haven't come up with their own sign language by now. Perhaps they will, later, but for now this keeps happening.

Maddy: By the way, you can't talk or understand the spoken word very well but you have to go to a competency hearing, so good luck with that!
Chris: Hear...ing? I can hear, I'm not deaf.
Maddy: Argh. Wait! Maybe if I say it five more times...
Me: *hopping up and down in chair in frustration* POINT TO YOUR FRIPPIN' HEAD, MADDY, JESUS

So there's that. Other than that, what a wonderful book.

The real question is, "why don't I live in Seattle?"

2009-10-13T09:21:00.000-05:00

Today is the perfect day for reading, and therefore the perfect day for writing. Cool, rainy, and cloudy from Amarillo to Louisiana. I have two perfect weather days for work: sunny between 60 and 78 degrees, and cloudy below 75. If it's raining, all the better. Just so long as I can open a window and not feel like I'm in an oven, I'm good.

Unless it's sunny and cold. I dislike cold, sunny days. It's like the sun decided he'd show up for work and then just goofs off the whole time. Then I'm just like, "well why am I busting my hump if even Sol can't get it together?"

Way to phone it in, Apollo. You're bringing morale down.

There's no place like that place where you do the nasty on a regular basis.

2009-10-12T16:24:00.000-05:00

Finally home. Hiked a little in the Palo Duro, took a ton of pictures, went and saw the Cadillac Ranch, which is like interactive modern art, and took a ton of pictures, and now at last I am in my house with my doggies and my garden. All in all, not a bad trek across the southwestern United States.

No nuclear war again today. Hooray!

2009-10-11T09:10:00.005-05:00

In Albuquerque. Balloon Festival cancelled today thanks to high winds, but I'm kind of grateful for that since it means we can get to beautiful Amarillo sooner. (Actually, it means we can spend an appreciable amount of time at the Palo Duro Canyon, so I guess in my personal values set, holes in the ground > gasbags in the air.)

Still no writing. Have merely been devouring delightful little light reading books. Am on Sophie Kinsella's Remember Me, because I am a sucker for a good amnesia story.

Did I say that out loud?

2009-10-10T12:58:00.001-05:00

In sunny Phoenix. I did not get to write last night because it was dark and I ended up struggling to stay awake during the six hour drive from San Diego to Phoenix. I nodded, I went crosseyed, I sometimes continued aloud conversations that began in my head. So. That was fun! (My husband was driving, so there was no danger of crashing. Ironically I was trying to stay awake so I could help him stay awake.)

Anyway. We're off to the petrified forest, and then on to Albuquerque. With luck, erotica will be done in a national park.

To boldly smut where no man has smutted before.

2009-10-09T06:59:00.002-05:00

This is probably not true. I'm off on a four day roadtrip to retrieve my husband's new car. Since my laptop is an unreliable jerk, while cruising under the hot desert sun I'll be jotting down notes for WWTA into a notebook. A notebook... with paper!

I do believe I have the vapors.

Pardon me for a moment, I have to go sit in the garden and resonate with the music of the spheres.

2009-10-08T11:56:00.000-05:00

It's been a long, long time since I sat up until three in the morning to finish a book. This comes as a surprise to approximately no one, but The Curse of Chalion absolutely owned.

That is all.

No, I don't know where I'm going with this. Now help me plug it into the wall.

2009-10-07T13:16:00.000-05:00

Man, sometimes life just drops on you like a ton of bricks. Then a ton of bricks drops on that ton of bricks, like the first set of bricks didn't have enough to worry about after being dropped from a great height and most of them didn't even get their fall broken by a suitably squishy human. Sucks to be you, bricks! I work out.

Well.

2009-10-06T13:13:00.007-05:00

I signed my first contract yesterday. The official signature was electronic, but I printed the pdf out and sat in my papasan and moved my glasses down my nose so I could peruse it while looking all pretentious and erudite. My husband took pictures. Then I pretend-signed it with his best pen. He got a picture of that, too.

Is this the moment? Am I a real ~~boy~~ ~~girl~~ writer yet?

I AM EVER SO EXCITED

Lord Wiversham took one look at the penguin sculpted from ice, burst into tears, and fled the ballroom.

2009-10-05T10:42:00.000-05:00

I said yesterday that I love Lois McMaster Bujold, and I'm going to expand upon that.

I actually don't know if I love Bujold, but I'm loving The Curse of Chalion, which it seems all my fantasy-loving friends have read. I'm more of a Terry Pratchett girl, to be honest, but Chalion is really sucking me in, and all because I'm half in love with the hero, Cazaril.

A noble in his former life, he is now an ex-soldier at the age of thirty five, but he looks much, much older. His hands are maimed, he's gaunt, his beard is gray, and he walks stiffly. He was captured at a seige and then sold into slavery. He just spent the last nineteen months getting whipped, starved, and humiliated as he rowed a pirate ship around the coast. His back is a mass of scars and for a while he cried at the drop of a hat. He jumps at every noise and his nerves are completely shot, and the only thing he is fit to do now is act as a tutor for the princess. He can't even ride a horse very well any more.

I love him. I adore this kind of character. I want to see him star in some delicious, restrained romance novel. He would be my perfect hero. I am, of course, waiting with bated breath to see what happens to him in this book, but a part of me is going to wonder, for a long time, "yes, yes, but what if..." and craft characters like him and throw them into the most ridiculous plots I can think of.

This is the best type of book; a book that inspires another book! Perhaps it will inspire a bad book, but only time will tell. EXCELSIOR

I AM NOT TENSE

2009-10-04T11:02:00.002-05:00

I love third person present tense. There, I said it.

Edit: I also love Lois McMaster Bujold.

Excuse me, miss, but I couldn't help noticing how much you look like everyone else...!

2009-10-03T11:08:00.001-05:00

I'm over my bout of angst. The weather is too beautiful to be in a sour mood about markets, and since Texas weather is so rarely beautiful I have to enjoy it while I can. (For the purposes of our discussion, beautiful = temps below 80.) There's literally nothing I would rather do than write a dark erotic feminist sequel to Little Red Riding Hood, even if no one else wants to read it. As long as I tone the literary stuff down a bit, I think I can manage something commercially viable.

On a completely different note, I'm sitting here thumbing through the Martha Stewart magazine Halloween issue. When did I, the most craft-challenged creature on the planet, become the sort of person who reads Martha Stewart? When she showed me how to make the most bitchin' pumpkins ever, that's when. Damn, I love October.

Sometimes you just have to suck it up and whack it with a mallet fifty times.

2009-10-02T10:54:00.002-05:00

I started a new story last night. It's dark, and sinister, and has those literary touches I love so much. And it's probably totally wrong for the market. What does one do in this situation? Do you plow through? Do you nurture it? Do you let it languish on the hard drive until all the joy has been leeched out of it, because no one wants to read it? It takes two people for a story to live. One to want to tell it, and one to want to hear it.

I once watched a documentary about Shakira, whom I love. During one segment she was contracted to write a song. She threw herself into it and wrote something beautiful. Then the contract fell through, and she wondered, "What was the point? Maybe this song was a mistake. Maybe it wasn't meant to be born."

I feel like this often.

Life would be easier if I could do this in script format.

2009-10-01T12:36:00.001-05:00

I hate writing synopses. Mostly because at the synopsis writing point, I'm so damn sick of staring at the story I'm writing that I just want to set it on fire rather than distill its essence into a few pages of 'he does this, she does this, hot sex ensues'. Every story, distilled that way, loses the magic that makes it a tale. This is also why I have problems telling people what my books are about. Whenever someone asks why I have difficulties, I tell them it's like summarizing the Lord of the Rings thusly: "A bunch of people go on a quest to destroy a ring. At the end of the third book, they go home."

This generally suffices. It's kind of worse when it's a romance/erotic story, because the story is, distilled to its purest form, thus: Two people meet. They develop feelings for each other, and then bone. A lot. Also, a plot happens, the end.

In conclusion, I'm going to go eat B&J's Cherry Garcia fro yo and you can't stop me.

help i am not used to happiness i dont know how to react

2009-09-30T12:36:00.001-05:00

Picked up Julia Quinn's The Duke and I and was promptly charmed by page 7. This has been happening a lot lately. I must be in the mood to be charmed by books. It's a fair sight better than catching a case of grouchy rantings, and I hope it continues.

Look at me cultivating my budo spirit, I'm the O-Sensei of porn.

2009-09-29T15:21:00.007-05:00

I got into gardening this spring. The road was long and harried, but I found that I adored gardening, and gardening helps me become a better writer. I'm still formulating my thoughts on this, but rest assured they are stunning.

So. There's a little inchworm on my basil plant. I call him Meester Eenches. I haven't seen him in a few days but I know he's there because he keeps eating my basil leaves and crapping them out again onto other basil leaves. If I hadn't eaten more basil than is probably good for one person this summer, I might be upset. As it is, I am merely wary.

Meester Eenches, how could you??

"But Heather," I imagine you are saying (this is good exercise for writing, by the way, talking to yourself is practically the pliés and relevés of dialogue) (or so I tell myself, usually as a mutter under my breath while I gesticulate wildly), "if he is eating your basil, why don't you stop him?"

Because he is cute, I must reply. He is weenie and cute. And I have a tender nature that I hide beneath swearwords and vague allusions to a rough past. Earlier this season I let my competitive side get the best of me, causing me to kill six beautiful hornworms in my quest to grow a tomato before my mother-in-law did. I killed them, and then Texas was hit with a heatwave so brutal no tomatoes could grow, so they died for nothing, and I feel that karmic debt like whoah.

But when I was very small, I loved butterflies and caterpillars. The transformation process awed me. It still does. I have things to learn from Meester Eenches, so he remains, eating my basil and hiding from birds, and entirely aside from that I don't want to kill him. I hope he becomes a lovely moth. And next year, I will let the hornworms eat my tomato plants. They are welcome to them. I don't even like tomatoes.

Occupational hazards.

2009-09-28T12:15:00.002-05:00

Sometimes writing sex requires a little experimentation.

Me: Hey, I need some help. Come pose with me.
Husband: What are we posing for?
Me: Sex on stairs. Medieval stairs.
Husband: So, steep and narrow, right?
Me: Yeah. Okay, if you're kneeling on the stair below, and I'm like this...
Husband: Hmm, no.
Me: Okay, well how about... yeah. What if I turn over, would that work?
Husband: Yeah. No, wait, angle a little... there you go.
Me: Like this?
Husband: Yes. Just like this.
Me: Awesome! Thanks for the help!
Husband: Wait, where are you going?
Me: DO YOU MIND I AM WORKING HERE
Husband: :( :( :(

I tried explaining that this was a requirement for my job. He then posited that forcing me to walk through bookstores and not buy anything was part of his job. Also sometimes his job required me to pick up a book and read the first page and then put it down again.

Never fear, gentle reader, for things were resolved shortly thereafter. And now, to Amazon!

Wait, knitting is the one with the little hook, right?

2009-09-27T12:05:00.002-05:00

Me: So if you met another man at a knitting circle and fell madly in love with him, what sort of thing would you knit for him as a gift?
Husband: A cockwarmer.
Me: ...
Husband: A cock-sock, if you will.
Me: I was thinking sweater, but this has possibilities!

I am the luckiest smut-peddler in all the known realm.

No, specificamente ho ordinato una pizza a forma di moustache.

2009-09-26T11:50:00.003-05:00

My current erotic short story is set in Italy and is making me nostalgic. I have been there once, and adored it. Which is why I'm a little nervous because I desperately hope I don't accidentally insult anyone when I talk about Italian drivers in the story. I have nothing but love for Italy, but there must be something in the air in the Mediterranean that induces euphoria when behind the wheel of a car, because driving in countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea is a perilous endeavor unless you adopt an attitude of fearlessness. This funny little flash video? So accurate. Texas drivers are jerks of the highest order (and I include myself in this statement) so I am not unfamiliar with the techniques one may use to run other people off the road or get back at someone for cutting you off, but you couldn't pay me to drive in a Mediterranean country. In Lebanon people talk to each other while driving. In separate cars.

Most other things about Italy, though, are just grand and I really want to go back. Here's a picture I took while in Rome in 2007. I am of the opinion that it almost perfectly encapsulates the spirit of Rome, and the only thing keeping it from being a 100% accurate representation is the lack of a ruin or broken sculpture somewhere in it. Also, the motorcycle would be turned the wrong way.

One day I will be that well-dressed.

Haha, just kidding. No, I won't.

An open window, a liter of gatorade, a Harry Potter blanket, and thou.

2009-09-25T11:49:00.005-05:00

Finished my little book of novellas and found them all lovely and enchanting.

Even though this book was published in 2003, I think the publishing house released some leftover copies as companions to one of the authors' new books. So it doesn't smell of fish heads as I speculated in my last entry. Disappointment rains down upon me.

But whatever. What can I say? I loved this book. One True Love by Suzanne Enoch was a charming story about two long-betrothed characters suddenly getting to know (and love) one another, and Thirty-Six Valentines by Julia Quinn was lovely and made me get a bit misty-eyed at the end. (Like the hero of the novella, my own particular hero has no flair for pretty words, but his efforts are always terribly endearing.) I found the middle two stories, Two Hearts by Karen Hawkins and A Dozen Kisses by Mia Ryan, to be the standouts of the collection (for me, at least). I loved Ms. Hawkins' quirky characters and sense of humor so much I immediately went out and bought her two latest books (Sleepless in Scotland and The Laird Who Loved Me, because oh my god Scottish romances are my Achilles heel) and any author who seems to share my perverse amusement with the word "cow" is an author I want to read more of. As for Ms. Ryan's story, it was a quirky little romance between the two most awkward characters ever conceived and I adored them. Her poor hero was a recovering war veteran with a bullet lodged in his brain. This made it very difficult for him to get the words from his head to his mouth, so everything he said came out very rude, direct, and sometimes weird. Yet he was so utterly earnest and vulnerable that I immediately fell in love with him. I get the sense that the author struggled with the story, but I think it succeeded quite well.

Five stars. Great collection.

...This afternoon is for getting good and caffienated as I beeline for the end of my current paranormal erotic short. It's called Stairway to Heaven and features an astrophysicist and a 500-year-old Italian ghost. Because they have so much in common.

Yeah.

At this point I just read the backs of old sugar packets and whine about their poor plot resolution.

2009-09-24T13:13:00.004-05:00

I said yesterday I was reading Regencies, and I totally was. It was a perfect day to read. But I wasn't reading full books; I actually found a little collection of Regency novellas (or, technically, historicals in the Regency period) on the shelf of my local supermarket. The inside of the cover says it was published in 2003, before I even graduated from college, so I'm wondering how long it sat in the back, waiting for someone to give it a good home. I haven't sniffed it yet to see if it smells faintly of old fish heads, but I would not be surprised.

The point is, I've been settling down with novellas, and I've decided I love them. Over the years, as the internet has encroached on my attention span more and more, I find myself unable to sit down and concentrate and really give a good ~~brick~~ book the time it truly deserves. I've been about a hundred pages into The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay for almost a month now, and it's annoying because I know it's a good book, yet I just don't feel like I have the time or attention span to devote to it. Yes, yes, caress me with your lovingly crafted prose, but could you do it while I cook dinner or something? I like to multitask. (Naturally this does not stop me from buying, every few months and in a fit of uncharacteristic optimism, another half-dozen bricks of paper. They just... smell so good, man. One more. Just one...)

Novellas, on the other hand, can be read in an hour or so, and I feel quite pleased with them at the end.
Especially if it's a genre book. I fell in love with Regencies when I was in high school and early college--my very favorite was Miss Maitland's Letters because the heroine was a beekeeper who taught wounded veterans how to keep bees so they could make a living instead of relying on charity and boot-brewed liquor, and in 1815 England that's hardcore, y'all--but by late college I fell out of love. I'm not even sure why, but somewhere along the way the predictability started to get under my skin. Romance writers always have the same little rhetorical tricks they pull out of their sleeves, like short cuts. For example, Character A gazes at Character B, whom he has known for a long time, and suddenly has a lustful thought. Without fail, Character A will ask himself, "Oh my stars and garters, Character B has a kissable mouth? Wherever did that come from??"

From your gonads, Character A. From your gonads.

However, I still want a cute little romance and a happy ending, and short, hundred page stories deliver without belaboring the problems the hero and heroine face or pulling too many of those annoying shorthand flourishes that you start to hate after twenty of the same genre have passed under your nose. When the story is only a hundred pages and you run across Rhetorical Romance Device #137, it's much easier to just briefly roll your eyes and move on, because you know the payoff is just around the corner.

I should note that none of my complaints are really the fault of writers or of the genre; I'm pretty sure I'm just a picky, spoiled jerk of a reader, and the fault lies entirely with me. Unfortunately, being a picky, spoiled jerk of a reader makes being a writer rather difficult as your inner editor is perpetually harshing your buzz, and I'm not sure how to get rid of her. If they find me atop a skyscraper wearing nothing but underwear and a bullet in my cheek as the American financial system trembles and crumbles around me, well. Surely I can't be blamed, right? She just wouldn't shut up about my gerunds.

On my journey of a thousand miles, I'm halfway down the block and wondering if I left the oven on.

2009-09-23T13:59:00.007-05:00

My first erotic short story, a deeply romantic tale about locker-room sex at the local gym, was just accepted for publication at Total-E-Bound. Since this is the first thing I've ever had accepted for publishing (though admittedly I have been stymied by my lackadaisical attitude towards, you know, actually submitting things), you can imagine that this was quite a treat. Here is the list of things I did after receiving that glorious email in my inbox:

Hyperventilated.
Called my husband and hyperventilated at him.
Called my therapist and hyperventilated at her.
Went to the gym for an appropriate cool-down period where I was promptly forced to bail on my final benchpress set (thanks for the humility check, universe).
Replied to said email, then realized I needed to start a blog.

So this is it. I like it. I dig the pink. I'm sure I'll fill these pages with terribly bohemian blog entries about the writing life, because this is apparently the thing writers do now, but for today I'm going to order take out, sit in my papasan in front of an open window, read Regencies, and chew tobacco. You can take the girl out of Texas but you can't take Texas out of the girl, and technically I haven't even done the first part yet so don't judge me.