Sex or Dinner

I just discovered a fabulous new blog from a group of wonderful romance authors. I've linked to one of the blogs there by Lori Wilde.

She invited us all to play so I thought I'd bring the game back here and have a go at it.

The game goes like this. Someone brings up a celebrity name and you choose whether you want sex or dinner with them. I'll take a shot at her list. The disclaimer - I wouldn't have sex with any of them, cause I'm married and I adore my husband. But for the sake of the game, if I were available....

1) Tom Cruise - ick. Neither
2) Craig Ferguson - Love to hear the guy talk and he's so funny - Dinner
3) George Clooney - Neither - George isn't my cup o'tea
4) Gerald Butler - Both
5) Brad Pitt - too pretty and knows it - neither
6) John Cusack - Nah.
7) Johnny Depp - Dinner - Fascinating man, the way he stays out of the limelight, I've seen him on a couple shows and he seems to adore his family. Yes, he's HOT, HOT, HOT, but even more attractive because of the person that he is.
8) Russell Crowe - Once I would have said sex, but he's too. . . neither
9) Dennis Quaid - I found it interesting that Dennis is on Lori's list. He's okay, but, if anything, dinner.
10) Matt Damon - Mattie. What a cutie. Dinner.

Lori goes on to name a few others. I'll pick and choose.
Dr. McDreamy - Oh, my. Both.

And I'll add a few favorites:
Richard Dean Anderson. Whew. If I had either with him, I'd want to keep him.
Joe Flannagan. Too cute.
Dean Cain. Yum.

I could go on, but it's abundantly clear that I'm just too settled in where I am. I'm no fun.

Care to play?
C'mon....

jax

Stuff and such like`

Hey,

It's just after three in the afternoon and I feel like it's eleven at night. My eyes are sand-paper-y and I need sleep.

Murtaugh's famous line in the Lethal Weapon movies "I'm too old for this shit," comes to mind. This day after day of getting up at 4-dark-o'clock is for the birds....literally. My friend Michael just told me that he thinks SBux should open earlier.

Are you nuts, Michael?

So, I just finished watching last nights Idol finale. I'm voting for Taylor. Love Katherine, but Taylor, what a doll. Though, I did shed a tear watching Katherine's daddy shed his own. Ahh.... daddies and daughters.....

So, I got busy a day or two ago and jotted down all the scenes in the current book, all the ones that are "written" (that's rough draft written, not written written) and which ones have yet to be created. I was pleasantly surprised that there aren't that many yet to be etched out. So, Friday I have a day off and am hoping to get some writing done.

Yawn. Am I boring you? I'm boring me so I'm sure I'm doing the same to you.

Sorry,

Carry on with what you were doing.....

jax

Idol conversation...

Okay, so I broke down and watched Idol with three remaining contestants. I haven't watched since there were maybe 10.

This is the first year I watched and I started because I was working at Java Joz with a bunch of Idol fanatics and I wanted to be in on the talk. I watched three or four weeks. But now we're down to three, Taylor, Elliott and Katherine. I was a little sad to see Chris go, but c'est le guerre.

But tonight, who the heck do you vote for. Katherine's "Rainbow" made me cry. Love that song. Love it. Elliott has the best voice. But Taylor makes me just smile. I really don't know.

I doubt I'd spend money on Katherine (except for maybe THAT particular song) but the other two. Maybe so.

So, tomorrow we'll see what happens. I won't watch, but I'll check google before going to bed.

jax

Without proper tools

What do you do when you're given a job without being given the proper tools with which to do it? (I digress, but did you see how I maneuvered that sentence so that it would not end a preposition with? Cool, huh?) Anyway....

I guess you do the best you can with what you've got and try, valiantly to keep a sense of humor about it all.

That is what I shall do today at work. I will smile at the piqued customers and shrug and say "how do you like me now?"

This situation is giving me ample opportunity to practice what I say I believe.

I'll let you know how that works.

In the meantime, how about a double tall caramel machiato and a butter croissant?

jax (the writer, damn-it)

Telling stories

I love stories, always have.

I was an only child until my mother remarried a man with children when I was 16. That left me at the mercy, so to speak, of the neighborhood kids. They all had siblings so if they weren't with me, they weren't alone. I, on the other hand, did not have that luxury. So, I became something of a loner. But I digress.

I remember sitting long hours on the steps to my patio, usually with Carolyn and Julie Wentz from across the street.

"What shall we play?" someone would ask.

And for the next hour, or even more (which is a long time for a kid), we'd create the elaborate "what if" scenarios that we would eventually "play." The creating was, inevitably, more fun than the actual playing.

I always went to sleep playing "what if" in my head, using characters from my favorite television shows, plugging myself into the stories.

Television was my sibling, I guess.

My grandfather worked very hard trying to instill in my a love of reading. I guess my short attention span worked in favor of the stories I saw in the screen rather than those on the pages.

Until I read "To Kill a Mockingbird." At least there I discovered how magnificent a book could be. It didn't last long, though, and I continued to ignore reading in favor of tv.

I married young - an Army man who was stationed in Germany. Again I was along for long periods of time. And that is when I discovered reading. It all started with "The Green Darkness" by Anya Seton and moved through Jean Plaidy and on to my love of romance novels. Kathleen Woodiwiss, Rosemary Rogers. . . on through the years. . . Diana Gabaldon, Suzanne Brockmann. The list is unending and the To-Be-Read pile is a TBR Room. So many stories, so little time. . .

I still love television, probably spend way too many hours enthralled with the stories there. I love movies - where I can have a story experience in a couple hours rather than the longer time it takes to read a book.

I still have stories playing in my head non-stop. Some of them have made it into my own books and have entertained you. Some are coming in future books. Some just play in my head and will never entertain anyone but me.

Most stories come, entertain, and then flow on into oblivion. Others stay with you longer. Some change your life. Some hang with you like family. I'd love to hear the stories that have grabbed your heart and never let go. Feel free to post. . .

jax

Florida: The Key Lime Pie State

Thank goodness my state legislators are on top of things.


Here's proof.


I'm ecstatic!

I love key lime pie. And what a wonderful excuse to have a piece!

Whew.

Not a big fan of apple, so glad it wasn't even in the running. Sweet potato pie was right up there, though. Sweet potato pie? YUK. In order to qualify as pie, shouldn't it be extra wonderful with equal parts real whipped cream? Sweet potato pie and whipped cream. Not so much, I'm thinkin.

Need I say more?

My favorite blog. . .

I don't have time for this blogging stuff - niether the writing of it nor the reading of it.

When I say stuff like that around my best friends, they tip their heads back and forth and say stuff like "Ooh, look at me. I'm a famous writer and I'm very busy and I don't have time for anything." At which point, I generally feel like a worm and go about trying to defend myself. I really don't have time. But, I have a hunch part of my problem is a time management one.... nah....

Anyway, I do have a few blogs that I read when I'm in my "okay, I'm going to actually keep up on the blogging thing" mode.

My very favorite one belongs to Scottish crime writer Stuart MacBride. It can be found here:


Stuart MacBride


I wish I had half the wit that Stuart has... or even a quarter. Added to that is the humor to be found in his Scottishness. What a treat.

So, I'll stop writing today and just send you there. You won't be sorry. Course you might not come back either. Maybe this was a bad idea. . . click.

Why romance?

"Oh, you're a writer?"
"Yes," I say, smiling.

Here's where the conversation goes in one of several directions. Either they as if I'm published and, when I say yes, they can't believe it (what, exactly do they think a published author looks like?) OR they as what I write.

"I write romance."

Obviously this takes us to another fork in the road. Romance readers will give themselves away (God bless them) by asking what kind of romance. At this point, I answer "military romance at the moment." Other's will look at me as if I've just told them that I eat bugs and as WHY?

Why do I write romance? The obvious answer is that it's my favorite genre to read. Though, in the last few years, I've found that I like other things as well.

I guess I just like the promise of a happy ending.

One of the gals in my dance troupe recently bought A Soft Place to Fall. She came to in to class one day and started grilling me. She was about two-thirds of the way through it.

"Will Nic and Julie end up together?"
"What about Cruz?
"And the Sheriff, what about him?"

She was off to the races. I told her to just hang in there. I promised her that she'd be satisfied in the end.

It's the promise of the genre. It's what irritates me when someone confuses Nicholas Sparks as a romance writer. No disrespect to the man and my disclaimer is that I haven't read anything since Message in a Bottle. But those of us who read romance know that MiaB is not a romance novel. The promise is broken.

So sue me. I love happy endings. I want Rhett and Scarlett to end up together. Heck, I'm still holding out for Luke and Laura.

Enough of my rambling on, though. The best explanation I ever read belongs to Diana Duncan. It can be found here:


Link


Happy Hump Day.

jax

A perfect sentence

Because I love words (hello, I'm a writer), I love reading James Kilpatrick's column in the local Sunday paper. This week's was particularly good. It can be found here:

Link


We writers are always striving to create the perfect turn of phrase. In this column, J.K. gives us an example of a perfect sentence. It brought tears to my eyes:

Good reporters learn in their cradles that every word must count in a good lead. Nancie L. Katz provided an admirable example in the New York Daily News some months ago: "A two-bit burglar wound up a three-time loser yesterday when he drew a sentence of 18 years to life for a bungled break-in that left him a broken man."

Cool, huh?

The UNIT

Have you been watching THE UNIT on ABC? Especially for those of us that love our military romance heroes, it is a fabulous show. It stars Dennis Haysbert, who was the beloved presedent David Palmer on 24. He was wonderful as president and he's wonderful as the Unit's first sergeant.

Anyway, the point here, besides the admonition that, if you love military romance, you might want to watch THE UNIT, is that the latest episode really bothered me. It made me uncomfortable as I watched it, and it left me with questions that keep me uncomfortable.


The episode log line: The Unit enters the SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance Escape) training course and they are lead to believe that they will be guards. The group is soon shocked to discover that they are actually the POWs for an undetermined amount of time.

While we all know that our military personnel must be prepared to withstand being prisoners of war for the sake of national security, the question raised by this eposide was how far do the good guys go to prepare other good guys to fall into the hands of the bad guys.

While it was nearly painful to watch our heroes undergo some extraordinary torture in SERE training, and the viewer was supposed to hate the DOD witch that kept upping the ferocity of the attacks on them, I was left wondering if she wasn't right.

All through the episode, I railed against this woman who was seemingly over the line. That's what the writers wanted. When Kim asked the Colonel "What did you do to him?" the Colonel answered, "Too much." The writers believed that. The viewer believed it, too. And yet. . .

The enemy is far past ruthless as we've seen as they behead innocent civilians on public television. And, of course, we don't want to kill our own men in SERE training.

And how about the guys who run SERE? What effect does it have on a man to torture his fellow soldiers in the name of making them strong?