Making Someone Love You

The reality is that you can't make someone love you…or can you?

I'm not a psychiatrist, psychologist, sociologist or anything like that. I'm a writer and I'm interested in portraying how people interact. How they fall in love. How a bad guy can manipulate others. Because let's face it, some people seem to be masters of persuasion. You know they are terrible people, but you can't help yourself.

There are a lot of articles about how criminals can essentially brainwash an individual, break them down and make them do what they want, but really…most criminals probably don't do that. They've probably discovered easier ways to get someone to love them. Once you have love, you have the person. You have a measure of control.

Sociopaths and con men do it all the time because they are masters of manipulation. They learn very early several lessons that the rest of us just don't think about. Subconsciously, those of us on leaning toward the more "normal" end of the spectrum may also do it, although perhaps not consciously and deliberately the way a con man might.

So, how do you make someone love you?

Assumptions

I'm writing this for writers, to help them portray attraction (and control) in their fiction. So…take that under advisement.

If your character (or you) is physically repulsive to the target, then this is probably not going to help much. Although…often time itself can be on the character's side. Over time, ugliness can sort of disappear in the eye of the beholder.

So, I'm assuming that the two people (characters) involved are not repulsed by each other. It is even easier if they are physically attracted to one another, meaning: pheromones are good; not physically repulsive; may have one or two physical traits that are a "turn on" for that particular person, e.g. be it good legs, a certain smile, or whatever.

We want an even playing field, in other words. Although, under certain circumstances, if you do this right, even someone who you would never be attracted to in a million years can become attractive if…

Basic, Underlying Theory

Everyone has one or more (usually many) triggers. Just like you can have a hot button that instantly provokes your anger, there are similar triggers that can give you that feeling that the other person loves you (or cares for you). And once you feel the love, all things being equal (see assumptions) it is very, very difficult to resist falling in love. If a person seems to love you and "sees you for what you are," you will feel an inexplicable closeness to them and are one step away from being in love. It's easy enough, then, to just go ahead and fall in love.

If you want to make someone love you, all you have to do is identify the triggers. And then pull them.

Because triggers work in wonderful ways in the human subconscious. If someone is pulling a trigger, the recipient believes s/he understands him and sees him for what he is. And loves him. (I'm going to drop the s/he stuff and just use "he." It's easier.)

Because our triggers develop when we are infants and we associate the trigger with the kind of unconditional love we get from a parent. If the child gets no love, then he will still develop triggers, but they will probably be developed later in childhood and based upon other relationships or activities.

What if someone isn't pulling my triggers? If you are in a relationship and your significant other doesn't seem to understand you. Or you just have this sadness/hollowness feeling that something is missing. Or you love your significant other—you really do—but this other person just really attracts you…

It is because of triggers.

In the case of:

• You are in a relationship and your significant other doesn't seem to understand you. Or you just have this sadness/hollowness feeling that something is missing.
  
  • It is because your significant other is not pulling your triggers.
    
• You love your significant other—you really do—but this other person just really attracts you…
  
  • Your significant other is not pulling your triggers
    
  • The other person is pulling one or more of your triggers
    

What are Triggers?

Whatever triggers that warm, fuzzy feeling for you. They can be almost anything. A gesture, a phrase, an action taken (or not taken), an object, a fragrance, food, clothing, basically anything or any action. They are the "hot button" for affection and love.

There is no such thing as a list of triggers. Triggers are unique to the individual. The only thing I can guarantee is that if you listen or watch someone long enough, you will discover their trigger(s). If you then wish to show your sociopathic side and use this information for evil, well, you're probably already doing so and don't need to read about it here.

With all triggers, if you have to ask about it, the trigger loses about 90% of its effectiveness because you've brought it to the level of awareness.

A few examples of triggers include:

• A wink
  
• A slight grin and shaking the head conspiratorially while someone else is speaking (because you both know that other person is a nutjob)
  
• Liking the same thing (book, movie, song, food, whatever)
  
• Making someone his perfect breakfast in the morning—when you apparently had no way of knowing what that was. (Not your perfect breakfast, his.)
  
• Siding with them in an argument—sticking up for him
  
• Insulting them (but in a good way—like, you idiot, said in that warm, playful tone)
  
• Ironing his shirt with real starch
  
• The scent of real, homemade apple pie baking
  
• Cleaning
  
• Grabbing the back of her neck as you're walking along (loosely—we're not talking strangulation here)
  
• Giving her a rose for no particular reason (note that for some people, gifts can be a negative trigger—and seen as an attempt to buy affection—so you do need to be a little careful)
  

Universal Trigger

Down to business. There is one, universal trigger. Women have used it for ages with men. Perverts are using it on the Internet to scam others—particularly young teens.

Listening.

That's right. That's all it is. Listening to the other person. Keeping your mouth shut and actually hearing what the other person is saying. Because you know what? Among all the detritus, the other person is probably going to tell you what their triggers are. And you can tell when they do because when the other person talks about it, whether it is something their mother did, or a particular object, or a song, or a movie, whatever it may be, their face will be suffused with joy. He'll get all sappy looking. He'll sort of grin sheepishly. You can hear it in his voice. It's one of his best memories. He'll stop and stare at someone doing it (a young mother giving her child an apple—whatever) and get all kind of weird and soft looking. Take note of this—he's revealing a trigger.

And by the way, listening, itself, is a trigger for almost everyone.

The one thing most people want and never get enough of is an audience. Someone to talk to. More specifically, someone to listen when they talk.

It's what all the blogging is about, really.

A Specific Trigger

Recently, there was a show about ghosts and ordinary people who thought they had seen something supernatural. I wasn't so much interested, but it got my attention when one of the men started talking. Because right there, on television, in front of the whole, wide world, he revealed one of his triggers. I doubt he realized it.

He was talking about his mother—he thought he had seen her ghost. He remembered that the house was always spotless, and he never saw her without a rag in her hand. (This ghost looked like it had a rag in her hand—whatever.)

Right after he said that, I could tell you these things about that man:

• He views a clean house as evidence of love.
  
• If he's dating a woman and she comes over and helps him clean his house, or she cleans his house, he will almost certainly view this as evidence that she loves him. He will be well on the way to loving her.
  
• If his significant other keeps the house spotless, he'll feel cherished and loved. If he sees that significant other with a rag in her hand, he will get a rush of warmth.
  
• If his significant other is a slob, he'll always have a part of him that wonders if she really loves him.
  
• If his significant other is a slob and they hire a housekeeper, watch out. Chances are very good he will either fall in love with the housekeeper, or have an affair with her. He's always going to be a little attracted to anyone who will clean up after him.
  
• He may deliberately leave things lying about or create messes, just to test if his significant other really does love him. Obviously, if she does, she will clean up after him with an indulgent smile on her face. (And it should also be clear that he probably won't even realize he is setting this test up.) If she objects, he'll always feel a little resentful, hurt and uncertain if she really loves him. He may even stop making messes, but the act of cleaning up after himself will always make him feel isolated and alone. He may eventually fell punished every time he does it. (I know I do.)
  
  • Scenario: This guy (from the above paragraph) has finally learned to pick up after himself after his wife has worked on him for a while. He's out in the park, eating. When he's done, he balls up his brown paper bag and puts it on the bench next to him, intending to throw it away in a minute. The wind blows it off the bench. A woman about his age bends down, picks it up and puts it in the trash. She smiles at him.
    
  • Trigger. He's going to feel an amazing rush of warmth for her. He'll think: she's not gorgeous and little old (after all, she's his age) but she's got a really nice smile. He'll want to talk to her. Ask her to lunch. He may get up the nerve to do so.
    
  • At lunch he'll think: she's got nice eyes, too. I like her. He's nervous and spills his coke.
    
  • She wipes up the spill and cleans up his jacket.
    
  • He's in love. Okay, maybe not completely in love, but he's going to have a hard time walking away because of that hole in his gut that doesn't get filled when he's at home.
    

So that how this trigger thing works. That probably won't be his only trigger, but from the expression on that guy's face when he talked about it, and the tone of his voice, it's a major one.

By the way, if you're dating someone, it's worthwhile to see if being around them makes you glow (they are pulling your triggers) or if you always have a sort of hollow space that is not getting filled. If you have any hollows, be warned. It is doubtful they will be filled and divorce is probably in your future. And if all your hollows are being filled but you suspect your "loved one" is a sociopathic mass murderer, then consider that he may be quite deliberately manipulating you. He may have identified your triggers from your babble and is very deliberately pulling them when they need to be pulled. Sorry. Bummer.

Triggers can be as simple as a bowl of hominy at night and someone reading to you. It can be as simple as someone calling you "Butch" (one of my triggers—from the days when that didn't mean what it means now—my family used to call me that occasionally as a nickname—and it still gives me warm fuzzies. Although I doubt I would react well, now, if someone used it. Simply because of the connotations. And no, I wasn't masculine nor in any way, masculine looking—in fact, others called me Teeny because I was somewhat delicate…okay, enough.).

Interestingly, a lot of high-powered working women have triggers like their significant other making the decision of what to have for dinner. Because she's freaking tired of making decisions all day long and she'd like someone else to drive for a change. Even better, to have her significant other do something without being asked, simply because it needed to be done.

See? Triggers can be almost anything. A gesture, a nickname, an action…anything that resonates subconsciously with you and brings back that warm feeling that you are cherished and loved. Once you feel cherished and loved, it is but a short step to being in love.

That's it for tonight.

Rather rambling, I know. I just hope it inspires other writers and makes them think about how their characters interact and respond to one another.

I may eventually clean this up and post it as an article on my website—but I'm not making any promises. J

Good Night!

January is nearly over…

I got my galley for I Bid One American back this evening and I've been working on that, trying to spot any errors. I'm sure some will slip through—my mind is excellent at supplying what should be there and ignoring what is there. But, I have found two more errors and I've got to get back to it, so this blog will be short.

For those of you following the adventures of the poor, abandoned cat I found in a derelict barn near us…well…I've been feeding it and playing with it and letting it sit in my lap. You can see from the picture that this barn is not the best environment for it, so I'm considering how to introduce it to a new home. Actually, I guess I'm getting ready to adopt it, even though we really don't need another cat. And I'm not sure how our current cat, Psycho, is going to feel about this. Or our dog, Honey. She loathes cats and will barely tolerate Psycho. Our lab, Rowdy, on the other hand is fine with everything. The more, the merrier. I also haven't broken the news, yet, to my husband, although I suspect that he suspects, since he knows I've been feeding and playing with the darn thing.

Don't know what I'm going to name it. I'm lousy with names. I've always been very fond of names like: dog 1, dog 2, cat 1 and cat 2. Or big dog, little dog. Orange cat, Tortie cat (the barn cat is a tortoise-shell cat with white paws and a white chest). My husband named Psycho. I named Honey because she's honey colored. We named our lab Rowdy because we expected him to be rowdy, considering our experiences with other labs, but he never really lived up to that, being more of a I'm-going-to-sleep-now kind of dog. I guess being 120+ pounds took the spunk right out of him. He's really laid back.

Anyway, so I'm trying to think of a name. I thought of Annie (as in "little orphan") but when I called the cat that, it didn't much care for the name. It likes words that start with "c". It loves the word "come" so other than just plain "Cat"… Sigh. I know. And the cat isn't nutty enough to be called Crazy (which would go so nicely with Psycho).

If anyone has any good cat names for a sweet (slightly nervous) cat, I'm all ears.

And finally, I've been considering an article on how to make people love you. It's really for writers and character development, but it sort of works with living, breathing humans, too, if you don't mind being a complete sociopath who manipulates the heck out of everyone. I've been sort of putting off writing the article because I'm actually a little paranoid that it might actually be used for evil instead of just good writing. J But what the hey. It's not like the sociopaths out there haven't already probably figured this out. That's why they are so effective at manipulating others and making them fall in love with them, and us nearly-normal folks aren't.

But it has to do with triggers—not the kind found on guns.

And here's a hint: if you actually listen to your significant other, s/he will eventually reveal one or more triggers. And all you have to do is pull that trigger and s/he will be yours. Unfortunately, you do have to listen to her (or him). Sorry.

Strangely enough, the act of listening itself can also be a huge trigger.

Anyway, I may eventually write the silly article as part of my other articles on developing characters and characterization. Or not if I get too engrossed in writing my next book. :0-)

Have a great evening and huge success in the coming months!

Edit, Edit, Edit

I'm about two-thirds of the way through editing The Bricklayer's Helper and having a ball with the manuscript. That is definitely one of the great things about being a writer. Each new story is a fabulous opportunity to try something different and shine. When I'm writing, I feel like a kid making stuff up and rubbing her hands with glee at each twisted turn. What other job lets you make stuff up for a living? (Okay, maybe ad execs also get to lie for a living. And actors. And…)

For years I wanted to be a writer and I even wrote a few things, but I felt sort of intimidated by the whole "writer mystique". And I thought I could never come up with story after story after story. But for my entire life, I've always made up little stories and scenarios in my head. I thought everyone did that, in fact. It never bothered me if we had an hour commute or a three day car trip because that just meant more time when I could dream stuff up and not get in trouble for doing nothing except stare at the scenery.

Strange how the mind works. Or doesn't work. It never occurred to me that my fear that I could not "come up with a storyline" was completely silly. What the heck had I been doing all along but coming up with strange little scenarios and stories? Then I had that epiphany when I realized that I was already creating plots, I just needed to actually write them down.

It was a little difficult at first. It's still difficult. Writing is hard work even if you do it mostly sitting down. The characters get wayward and don't want to cooperate. You build a plot only to realize that your characters and your scenes don't mesh. The heroine would never, ever do that. Stuff like that. But the more you work at it and master the basics, the better you become at creating real people and plots that work for those people. It never gets easier, but it doesn't feel so much like rusty gears trying to turn without oil. And you learn ways to cope with the dead ends and irrational characters.

Tonight, I'm fumbling around blogging instead of getting back to my edits. Mostly because I'm lurching into that nasty final third where you have to bring your characters' to their ultimate moment of painful truth and then somehow get them out of the mess they are in and tie up all the loose ends. And I was distracted by the discovery of a little tortoise-shell cat someone abandoned in a derelict barn near us. I fed the poor thing and was sort of shocked when it ran up to me, rubbed my legs and wanted me to pet it. Cats are supposed to be aloof. The darn thing wasn't even really afraid of our huge, 120lb lab until he started to sniff at it. That's what makes me think it was abandoned, because it sure isn't wild. I'm not such a nut that I think all animals will automatically fall in love with me if I pour a little kibble on the ground.

Anyway, we've already got a cat that showed up one day—also not afraid of the dogs. He's pretty much insane so we called him Psycho. Despite encouraging him to leave, he moved in. The nutjob thinks water is a toy and comes running whenever you turn on a faucet or flush a toilet. If you aren't careful, he'll climb into the sink and try to bite the stream of water. I guess it offends him. And he thinks nothing of having a stream of icy liquid flowing over his head and face as he tries to bite and smack it. Tries to bite and play with the dogs' tails, too, and they aren't all that fond of cats. Like I said: Psycho. Sometimes it's like living in a demilitarized zone around here with the dogs eyeing the cat and just begging for a few, quiet minutes alone with him…

I don't think my husband is up for another cat, although I caught him feeding a stray a couple of weeks ago. Don't think Psycho or the dogs will appreciate a new pal either, so it's a big of a quandary. Guess we will see what happens. Maybe I'll get pictures of the new beast tomorrow and post them.

[You can see I'm still wasting time here instead of editing.]

I've really got to stop fooling around and get back to work.

Have a grand and glorious evening…

Amy

2008 Starts on a High Note

Today my editor at The Wild Rose Press sent me the final edits for my new book, I Bid One American. I'm hoping to get through the manuscript this week and get it back to her, which means they will soon fit it into their publication schedule and give me a release date. I am so incredibly excited about this.

I Bid One American is a romantic mystery set in the Regency period, set in London around 1818. I had such fun writing this story and I was privileged to sign with a wonderful agent on the strength of this manuscript. I literally can't wait until I have a release date. But I'm trying to control my excitement and do due diligence to the editing—I don't want to rush through at this point and botch the job.

One of the things that has stuck in my mind at this point is what I owe my readers. Jen Crusie and Bob Mayer recently went through an entire year of knowledge-transfer to help other writers learn the craft. And one of the points they made during their concluding remarks was how much writers owe their readers. After all, if someone spends money on your work, and then devotes several hours to reading it, you should give them the best product possible. I totally agree with this and don't want to mess up the story now.

Of course it seems virtually impossible to eradicate all errors. No matter how many times I read something, the next time through, I inevitably find something wrong. And that's true of other writer's published material—I'm not sure I've ever read anything that didn't have an error or two. But we do our best and hope the readers will forgive us.

So, hopefully, within a month or two, I will have a release date—and even more incredible, my book will be available in the Amazon Kindle store for all those gadget-lovers who have gone out and bought the latest in e-book readers. This is so exciting! I'm dying to get my hands on a Kindle. I've always loved electronic gizmos and one of the coolest things about e-books and e-book readers in general is that they are green.

E-books don't require paper and therefore, don't cause massive numbers of trees to be pulped for paper. I don't think most folks realize how wasteful the whole print industry is. When bookstores stock books, they only have them on the shelves for a set period of time. Then they have to make room for new books. And when this happens, they strip the covers off the old books they didn't sell, and send them back to the publisher for reimbursement. And the publisher disposes of the stripped books.

Totally not green.

And while I love printed books too and buy dozens, I'm having severe bookshelf overflow problems. So I'm now thinking of seriously developing my e-book library. No shelf space required. No trees cut down. No waste, no fuss, no muss. And with an e-book reader, I can carry around a small library wherever I travel.

The change has been coming for some time. I know that as a computer geek, I've gradually moved away from computer books to online material, because I don't have the shelf-space or time to thumb through dozens of books that get outdated in a year or two. I'd rather search my desktop and the web for the references I need to work. And now, after working this way for a while, I've started buying my historical reference material for my novels in e-book format.

I'm ready to go green. I'm ready to start a green library and invest in an e-book reader.

And don't think I'm an e-book snob only interested in the Kindle. I like that particular product for my very own, specific reasons, but I totally see the value of other readers. I'm not plugging the Kindle over others—I just happen to be interested in it because it fits what I want to do.

I want to be able to download books when my computer is not available. This is sort of critical for me, because when I travel, I have two choices:

1. Have personal devices that don't require a laptop or computer to support their functions
   
2. Or carry TWO laptops with me
   

Because you see, my "day job" will not allow me to use my company laptop for non-work activities. And in fact, they've applied security to it to ensure I can't plug anything into it, like USB devices. And I simply refuse to carry two laptops with me when I travel.

So any personal devices like e-book readers need to operate independently. Hence my interest in the Kindle.

And…TADA! My new book, I Bid One American will be available in the Kindle store, so there is a weird sort of synchronicity to it. And all sorts of other books from The Wild Rose Press are already available through the Kindle store (just search for The Wild Rose Press) so it is extremely exciting.

Well, I've got to stop for the evening and get back to the serious task of editing.

Enjoy and have a wonderful week!

Roscoe, 1995 – 2008, The Best Dog in the World

Our chocolate lab, Roscoe, died at 8:00am this morning. My husband had gone out and when he got home, Roscoe greeted him as usual, ran around the truck, and then collapsed. By the time my husband got out of the truck, Roscoe was gone. We think it might have been a stroke—but whatever it was, at least it was mercifully quick.

There will never be another Roscoe.

I've had dogs before, but I'd never had a lab, and never one like Roscoe. He was the most amazing dog I've ever known. Sure, he was stubborn and could be a royal pain in the ass sometimes, but he was just so darn smart. Heck, he was smarter than some people I've worked with. In fact, thanks to Roscoe, I now think that chocolate labs are the only kind of dog to have.

I don't know what I'm going to do in the garden anymore. Roscoe always guarded me from snakes. If he found one, I had to rush him into the house or he'd just kill it. If the snake was lucky, I got Roscoe away, picked up the snake tongs, and move the snake into the woods. If the snake was unlucky, Roscoe got to him first. I'd find bits of snake for weeks after, all over the garden.

If there was a particularly pernicious weed that I could not pull up, I just had to call Roscoe and give the weed a little yank. Roscoe would then take hold with his teeth and absolutely would not give up until that weed was out of the ground.

If something blew into the pond—say, our picnic umbrella—all I had to do was tell Roscoe to go and get it. Darn if he didn't. I'll never understand where he learned the word "umbrella."

God help you if you were shooting and missed what you aimed at. You were in for a very lively "talking to" by Roscoe, who would have shown you how to do it if he just had opposable thumbs. He despised bad shots. He expressed his opinions so clearly and with such a disgusted tone that it was almost as if you would be able to understand what he was saying if you just listened to his mumbling a little more intently.

He went everywhere. He dove without hesitation into the coldest, frozen-over lakes to fetch. And he wouldn't give up until he brought back whatever he had been sent to find. We might have cursed his stubbornness when we were trying to train him, but that trait is what made him a fabulous hunting companion. He simply would not give up until he had accomplished what he set out to do. He was amazing to watch in the field. He never missed a bird and was relentless in "getting the bird" no matter the weather. It could be a hundred degree day or a minum ten degree day—he just liked being outdoors. He loved gunfire, despised you if you missed, and would go after anything.

He was, without a doubt, the best and smartest dog we will ever know.

We will miss him.

E-Books and E-Book Readers

There has been a lot of news in the press lately about the current crop of e-book readers, such as the Sony Reader and Amazon.com's new Kindle. Since I have a book published (and will soon have two) in both an e-book and traditional print versions, I'm often asked if my book(s) can be read on such devices.

My fans will be relieved to know that the answer is a resounding Yes. At the moment, many smaller publishers like The Wild Rose Press, Ellora's Cave/Cerridwen Press, and others, may not have e-books in the Sony and Amazon Kindle stores, but readers can purchase their e-books as they always have directly from the publishers and sites like FictionWise. I believe many of the smaller presses are working to get their e-books into the Sony and Kindle stores, but that is not necessary for readers to enjoy their favorite e-books or other materials they need to read.

Most e-books purchased outside the Sony/Kindle stores are easily converted and transferred to e-book devices including Amazon.com's new Kindle and Sony's e-book reader.

A few extra steps may be needed to transfer your favorite books, however, you do have an additional benefit you may not be aware of. E-books from most publishers like The Wild Rose Press and Cerridwen Press/Ellora's Cave are not DRM-protected as are e-books purchased directly from the Kindle or Sony store. This means you can transfer books to whichever reading device you chose, and more importantly, you can back them up as needed. You are in complete control. When you acquire a new computer, you can transfer them just like any other file. In the future, if you decided to switch from Sony's device to the Kindle, vice versa, or even get an unknown future e-book device, you could still transfer and read your e-books.

So if you were one of the lucky ones to get a Kindle or Sony e-book Reader, here are a few tips to help you make your favorite e-books available on your new reader.

Kindle

The Kindle uses a proprietary format (.azw) so you will need to convert your e-books. There are two ways to do this: a free way and a cheap way. You can convert e-books that are purchased in either MS Word format (.doc) or HTML. You can get the following types of files (or e-books in these formats) converted by either method listed below:

Microsoft Word, HTML, TXT, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, PRC and MOBI files.

Special Note: .PDF (Adobe Acrobat) files are listed as an "experimental" format. Most readers find it best simply to download the MobiPocket Creator program (a free program) which will convert .PDF e-books to the MobiPocket (.PRC or .mobi) format. Once converted, you can transfer them directly to your Kindle from your computer through the USB cable. You do not need to take any additional steps if you use this method to convert and move e-books to your Kindle.

Free Way

You can e-mail the e-book to yourname@free.kindle.com. Replace yourname with your username, as defined when you got your Kindle and set up your Kindle account.

The file is converted to the Kindle .azw format and is sent back to you, through the e-mail address you registered for your Amazon account. You save the file on your computer. Once there, you transfer the file to your Kindle via the USB cable.

Note: You can transfer .TXT, MobiPocket (.prc or .mobi), .AZW, .AUD, and .MP3 files directly to the Kindle without e-mailing them for conversion. Just copy them from your computer to your Kindle through the USB cable.

When the Kindle is connected to your computer via the USB cable, it shows up as another hard drive in Windows Explorer. Just drag & drop the files into the Book folder of the Kindle.

Cheap Way

The cheap way to convert and move e-books to your Kindle costs $.10 per e-book. The advantage of this method over the free way is that the converted e-book is sent directly to your Kindle library where you can access it without connecting to your computer.

You e-mail the e-book to be converted to yourname@kindle.com. Replace yourname with your username, as defined when you got your Kindle and set up your Kindle account.

Sony Reader

The Reader supports .JPEG, .PNG, .PDF, .TXT, .RTF formatted e-books. It has an application, "CONNECT Reader," that can convert MS Word (.DOC) e-books to .RTF before copying them to the Reader from your computer. In most cases, you should use the "CONNECT Reader" software to transfer supported files to your Reader.

The text size for .PDF e-books transferred to the Reader is considered small by some readers, but if you hold down the <Size> button for five second, it will rotate the screen, which is a tremendous help.

In addition, you can purchase your e-books in HTML format and convert the e-book to .RTF, which would allow you to enlarge the font as you would with any other document on your Reader.

Hope this helps a few of you who were blessed with new electronic toys. As soon as I can save up enough money, I'm going to bless myself. J

May you achieve every success and dream,

Amy

2007 Goals

Happy Holidays!

I got up this morning thinking about what to blog about and realized it is almost time to review my goals from 2007 and begin creating new goals for 2008. I was in a pretty good mood, too. My editor for my new book, I Bid One American, gave me my first edits and they were extremely light (whew). And I managed to get those done, as well as finding a few more errors, this week so I could send it all back to her. I am really excited about this book and can't wait to get a publication date.

So I was really riding high. And I decided to go back to editing the traditional Regency I've been working on since November.

Of course, that was all before I did a google search of my desktop to find my 2007 goals and see how well I did this last year. And wow. Bummer. I had forgotten that I spent the better part of 2007 racking up a bunch more rejections. Publishing is such a strange business. Even published authors get rejected and get rejections from their current editors/publishers.

Here's irony for you:

I had a goal of selling several Regency romance and Regency romance/mysteries to my current publisher. But I ran into a few snags.

The books were too long for the line that published my first book. So I tried to cut them down and learned a very important lesson: some stories can't be cut down without losing their charm and integrity. Of course I didn't learn that until I butchered several of them and sent them to my editor. Who despised them—thereby proving to her that I'm a one-book wonder.

So there went my first four goals, right down the…well, you know where they went. And it was four goals since I actually had four manuscripts which were rejected. I wasted the better part of 2007 trying to cut back manuscripts that were already lean and deserved better treatment. Very sad.

But all was not lost. I took a step back and thought, well, what if I went to a different publisher with different length requirements? I could go back to an earlier version that had not been butchered and try that.

I did and I sold I Bid One American to The Wild Rose Press.

And I wrote a couple of short stories just for fun. I'm trying to sell Malice through Amazon's Connect program (if I didn't just jinx it by mentioning it) and still ruminating over where to sell My First Case. I also wrote a contemporary mystery called: Whacked!

Therefore, what did I get done in 2007?

1. I learned not to butcher books. As a byproduct, I learned I'm already a "lean" writer (meaning I don't have any extra fluff in books—in fact, I probably need more fluff—not less) and cutting back a book is not a good idea unless I'm willing to totally gut it and remove subplots.
2. Sold I Bid One American
3. Finished my first draft of Whacked!
4. Wrote Malice and submitted it to Amazon Connect
5. Wrote My First Case
6. Finished my first draft of a Regency romance (no title yet, though)
7. Racked up six rejections
8. Spent a lot of time learning about promotion and doing my best to promote my first book: Smuggled Rose, which is available in print now from Amazon.

I didn't do everything I wanted to do, but I did do some things I am proud of and I can't wait to see I Bid One American in print.

As 2007 roars to a close, it's time to reflect on our accomplishments and select new goals for the coming year. There are always new opportunities and even when we did not accomplish what we expected, we did manage to survive and learn a few things.

I sincerely hope each and every one of you can find at least one thing in 2007 that you can be proud of and has one more thing left to be done so you can start 2008 with anticipation and energy.

Have a wonderful holiday season and a bright new year!

Happy Holidays

The fall and winter seasons are my very favorite times of the year. And I am very pleased with my publisher, The Wild Rose Press (TWRP), who contracted I Bid One American. I love that story and am just thrilled to see it getting published. To my amazement, I no sooner signed the contract than I had a cover! Talk about a quick art department.

It looks like they are pretty quick off the mark in terms of getting books out there, which suits me. I'm hoping for a release date in early 2008. In the meantime, I'm putting the final touches on the first of a triple play of short stories, entitled: Malice, Revenge, and Murder. They are short stories set in the Regency period, in June 1809, August 1809, and September 1809, respectively. I hope to release them through Amazon Connect's Shorts program, although I know TWRP also publishes short stories so… One way or the other, 2008 is looking good to me as a writer.

Those three short stories are very loosely related—in fact the only real relationship between them is a reference to a certain character—but together I'm hoping they will do a nice job as the backstory for the hero in another of my books, The Vital Principle. With luck, I'm hoping to sell that one to TWRP, also. It's a—-yes—a Regency mystery/romance.

And here's the cool thing. As a writer, you're taught not to weigh down a story with a lot of background information (i.e. backstory) for your characters. But sometimes, a character's background includes one or more rather interesting events. Such as a murder or two. So rather than boring your audience, you can write related short stories that are, in essence, the backstory. The advantages of this are numerous.

1. You get to write short stories, which are a lot of fun. J
   
2. You can sell the short stories as a promotional tool for your bigger, bolder, badder (or gooder) novel.
   
3. You can finally tell all those background bits to the readers, without annoying them by taking up pages and pages of reminisces and background as would happen if you did this in your actual novel. Your short stories are "what happened, when it happened" rather than, "oh, way back when, this happened…" memories stuck in your novel.
   
4. You can round out your characters without doing the full-length novel/sequel thing (which I dislike intensely—I loathe sequels—speaking as a reader).
   

It's all good.

So now I have to get going and do just a few more edits on Malice so that I can send that story out this week.

Tense and the Reader

I'm blogging a little early this week since I'm about to go on a business trip and will have limited (i.e. no) opportunity to do so, much to my dismay. I haven't quite wrapped my head around the concept that I am not allowed to use my "work" laptop for any other activities. Since I object to carrying two laptops on the airplane… Well, you get the point.

This week I'm addressing something I ran into last night. It really bothered me. Tenses.

I'm hardly an expert in grammar—heck, I often forget how to spell the word 'grammar'—and I'm sitting here with a grammar book in front of me to make sure my rant is correct. Pathetic, true, but it does not negate this issue. And that issue is: use of simple present tense—or worse—present progressive. Or present perfect progressive.

Ah, you will say—you're writing that way yourself—right now. I know. But this isn't a piece of fiction and I'm not expecting you to get into the head of the main character—i.e. me. In fact, I recommend you stay out of my head, completely.

Now, I'm probably an old fuddy-duddy, so I admit that up front. Nonetheless, I've read a lot of experimental fiction, Science Fiction, and other just plain weird stuff and I've never run into any issue where the writing actually made my head hurt. I've read books I had to reread a few times to understand all the implications, but the writing was fine. It was invisible so that you could concentrate on the story and the concepts and not the author's use of verbs and tenses.

But just when you think it's safe to go in the water, you pick up a romance and/or a mystery and some author takes a hammer to your head.

About two years ago, I picked up this really, truly famous author's most recent book. I had never read her work before, but I'd listen to her speechify about writing and there were a series of movies based upon her books (mostly geared for young ladies). I thought, this ought to be a lot of fun. And wham, I read the first page and got a headache.

There was a bit of dialog followed by this sentence: The girl in the dressing room next to mine has a voice like a chipmunk.

I thought, well, okay, maybe it was just me—the reader. So I continued. There were a few more bits of dialog, and: I hear a sales clerk come over, his key chain clinking musically.

And I freaked out. My head started throbbing. I was like: What the heck tense is this and why is this author doing this to me? STOP IT—THE AGONY IS KILLING ME! However, grimly determined (because this was SUCH a popular author and I wanted to learn) I managed to suck up the pain and finish the book. But I only finished it because it was about 80% dialog and I just skipped all the action/narrative stuff. And I swore never to read another of her books. I've been true to my word.

That author, my friends, used present tense and it was horrible torture for the reader. It really put me off. I kept thinking—I am not there—I am not in the room with this bimbo narrator and I'm not seeing this. Who the heck is she talking to and when is this actually occurring. The writing got in the way of the story.

Writing should be invisible. You should get so absorbed by the story that you don't even notice the writer. In fact, Jenny Crusie has a rule that you shouldn't even use anything other than "said" for dialog tags because anything else makes the reader pause infinitesimally. (That may be going too far into the "make your writing invisible" but it does illuminate that dark corner a bit.) But here was this author that made me pause for every single verb.

Anyway. Maybe, I thought, this one book is just a fluke or weird thing this popular author is doing and no one else on the planet is writing this way. Because if they are, God Help Me, my reading days are numbered.

About two years passed. I went on about my business, reading and writing quite happily. Then I stumbled upon this wonderful mystery series on BBC America and I searched all over for the author of the books the series was based on. I found one book, and although it was not related to the series, it was so exquisitely written that I rushed out again and bought two other books from this author.

Last night I plucked one of the two books from my shelf and curled up in bed, planning on enjoying myself. And I read: London. A stifling early September afternoon, the sun beating down.

A little unsettling, to be sure, but I went with it. Then I got to the following sentence: Overnight bag and briefcase in one hand, handbag over her shoulder, Fran plunges down into the arguably worse hell…

Suddenly, for me, the reader, I start having issues with temporal displacement. I not only can't get into this, but I'm faced with: Who the Hell is she talking to and when is this taking place? Because it sure isn't now. But she says it is NOW. ARGH!

I really struggled through the first page, almost crying. My head throbbed. It only got worse. Because not only is the author using present tense, but the character suffers from flashbacks or memories (whatever you want to call them) where she explains who she works for and her circumstances. And it's all in the present tense which makes it really like some drug-induced hallucination where you can't keep straight what is happening for real, right now in present tense, and what isn't really happening but she's just thinking. Or really—isn't really thinking but it's the author in a God-like way explaining the heroine's job—but she's using present tense as if she's Fran, but not really, because why would Fran be thinking all this background sort of stuff?

I don't even know how to explain how confusing it was. Or how it really made me feel quite ill trying to read it and understand WHEN anything was happening. And to make matters worse, she didn't just have this character walking through the here-and-now in present tense, and sort of not remembering but thinking somehow in present tense about her job, employer and family, but…she also introduces actual memories. And the memories start out with a few sentences of past tense and then drift around between past, present and perhaps even a few progressive forms of past and present tense. Leaving you completely unable to get into the story because you're so busy trying to figure out what is going on, to whom and more importantly, when.

And as you can see from my own casual use of tense, I'm not perfect. But hey… This is a blog. Not a book.

So—here is what I, as a reader, did out of self-defense. I started to skim so that where the author had a phrase such as: Fran makes a run for it, I mentally substituted: Fran made a run for it. It was hard work. However, I got to the end of the first chapter.

Then the author switched point of view to another character and adopted the standard past tense we all know and love. THANK GOD. But by that time, I was shaken and mentally disturbed. Could I trust the author to now STAY in past tense or tenses like: past, past progressive or past perfect/past perfect progressive? Those, I can handle. I can even handle a few future tenses (future, future progressive, future perfect, future perfect progressive—whatever).

Now, this evening, I'm looking at this book and I'm thinking: why was the first chapter written that way? (And why did I just write that in present progressive—the very thing I hate? Ah, human frailty…)

However, back to my question. There was no—absolutely no—reason for it, particularly since in chapter two, the author adopted the more common and easy-to-read past tense. I read the blurb on the back of the book again and it says that first character is the book's heroine. And now I'm scared. I'm really scared that the author only moved to the comforting past tense for other characters and when she moves back to the heroine's point of view, she'll use that brain twisting present tense (and all it's ugly related brethren: present perfect, present progressive, & present perfect progressive).

I've lost my trust and faith in this author and she has scared me enough that I'm thinking I may not read any more for fear of running into another chapter of temporal displacement. And I'm sadly looking at her other book I purchased and haven't read yet. I'm having buyer's remorse. And yet there was that one, magical book she wrote which was so perfect. It's hard to believe she fumbled so badly on this other one.

Or maybe it's just me. Maybe this is the new "thing" and I'm just not getting it.

Finally, before I get back to my packing, I have only this to say: If you're an author, I'm begging you to avoid present tense (& its related forms) for the sake of your reader. Unless you have a really, really good reason—and frankly—I can't think of one.

Oh—that wasn't my final word. For those of you who are grammatically impaired (like me) here is a quick reference:

Present

Present - He walks to the store

Present Perfect – He has walked to the store

Present Progressive – He is walking to the store

Present Perfect Progressive – He has been walking to the store

Past

Past - He walked to the store

Past Perfect – He had walked to the store

Past Progressive – He was walking to the store

Past Perfect Progressive – He had been walking to the store

Future

Future - He will walk to the store

Future Perfect – He will have walked to the store

Future Progressive – He will be walking to the store

Future Perfect Progressive – He will have been walking to the store

Have a good evening!

NaNoWriMo is Over for Another Year

That's it for this year—National Novel Writing Month (November) is over for another year. I sweated through it and finished a brand, spanking-new 50,000 words in 30 days. I wrote a Traditional Regency and now I hope I can edit it, polish it, and send it out into the world to hopefully earn its own living. I haven't decided what to call it yet. I've got a list of titles, none of which really float my boat, but at the moment, I really don't care.

As always, writing this has been an experience in extremes. Extremely exhausting. Extremely exhilarating. Extremely energizing—artistically speaking. I found that my plan did work. I did character sketches before hand so I knew who my characters were supposed to be when I started. And I wrote a series of brief plot points: 3 per chapter. The plot points were basically what I needed to get done in that chapter to bring the characters to their deepest, darkest place and then spring them out into the light again.

I wouldn't say I'm big on planning. Nor am I the best as far as developing an outline with all those nasty goals, motivations, and conflicts listed right out there on a piece of paper, but I do love those plot points. Without them, I could never have kept going at an average rate of 2,500 words per day, every day, for 30 days. Well, almost every day. Of course there was Thanksgiving stuck in the middle there, as well as a business trip.

And, as if finishing this wasn't sweet enough—I got terrific news this week!

At my day job, we hired this guy we've been trying to hire for over a year now! I am so freaking grateful because we desperately needed the help. When my boss called me and told me the new guy starts on December 9^th (well, the 10^th) I was almost crying with relief.

Okay, and then…I heard from this absolutely wonderful lady at The Wild Rose Press that they want to buy my book: I Bid One American! Life is sweet. I love this book and I really wanted to see it published. This is the manuscript that got me an agent so I rather immodestly believe it is quite good.

Yes, The Wild Rose Press is a small press, but I'm very well pleased and I signed the contract immediately. You betcha. My manuscript will come out sometime (I don't have a release date yet) in e-book form and then I'm hoping it will later follow as a trade-size paperback.

And then…http://www.Amazon.Com announced Kindle which is a new e-book reader! Talk about synchronicity! I don't know if my books will be some of the e-books available for Kindle, but I have every hope that my two publishers will pursue this. That would be really sweet.

So to say I'm pretty jazzed at this point is a severe understatement.

I've come a long way over the last few months and I'm slowly making headway in the weird-and-wacky world of publishing. I'm still hungry for that big (or at least 4 figures) contract with a publisher that pays advances, but in the meantime, I'm thrilled to be where I am.

Enjoy and Happy Holidays!

Getting Read for NaNoWriMo

Didn't add an article to my blog last week because I was deep in edits. I wanted to give my Regency mystery: I Bid One American a final "going over" before sending it off to an editor. This is one of my favorite stories so I hope she likes it—at least she requested it.

So I got that submitted and I recently sent the first three chapters and synopsis of a contemporary mystery-romance to my agent and hopefully, she'll let me know what she thinks about that one soon.

The decks are now cleared…sort of. I've been noodling around with a much, much simpler Regency than I've ever written before with the idea that I could try to sell it to one of the remaining publishers of Traditional Regencies. This is a tough one because they make you stay between 50,000 to 70,000 words and my "natural" story length seems to be about 86-90,000 words. Big frownie face. However, this time, I'm deliberating trying not to kill off anyone in the story and removing at least one subplot I already thought of, in order to try to make a story that can be told in 50,000 words.

And interestingly enough, National Novel Writing Month: NaNoWriMo occurs every November AND the goal of NaNoWriMo is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. A novel in one month. Which so fits into my plan to really, deliberately write a shorter novel to fit within the Traditional Regency parameters… And I've polished off my other things so this is perfect timing.

I just have to figure out the plot. You see, I'm not what you'd call a "pantster" which is someone who writes by the seat of her pants. I've tried it and it's generally not worked at all well for me. And I've "won" at NaNoWriMo (written 50,000 words in 30 days) twice now—but only because I had a very brief outline of what I wanted to write. Without that, I would have a heck of a time grinding out that many words.

Let me make it clear, however, that it's not like a real outline. It's more like this: I break the book down into chapters. I figure each chapter is going to have about 3 scenes that accomplish something for the purpose of driving the hero and heroine into their big black moment of despair.

So I start a file that has chapter headers—one for each chapter. Now 50,000 words is about 200 pages (standard manuscript) and a chapter is about 20 pages (or around 8 pages if you are e-publishing) give or take. So you need about ten chapters to start with.

After creating ten Chapter So-and-So headings, I then just put in my 3 plot points. For example:

Chapter One

• Introduce Elizabeth—preparations for a party
  
• Party—she meets Alexander
  
• Alexander inadvertently finds out Elizabeth used to write poems and he lambasted her poems
  

That's usually all I write, although I may elaborate if the points don't give me enough clues about what I had in mind. For example:

• Introduce Elizabeth—preparations for a party—she wants to get married but she's not sure she's desperate enough to marry the man next door, Alexander. The party is to welcome him home and Elizabeth's aunt has been working to arrange a marriage between the two.
  
• Party—she meets Alexander and rather likes him—maybe the arranged marriage won't be so bad and she'll finally live down the humiliation of having published a book of poems. She believes that once she gets married, she'll assume the mantle of wife and once and for all, everyone will forget she ever wrote poetry. She wants to get beyond all of that. Desperately.
  
• Alexander inadvertently finds out Elizabeth used to write poems and he lambasted her poetry because it was so trite and sickeningly sweet. He "does the math" and realizes she was actually only sixteen when the book was published, but while this is uncomfortable because he knows she will probably hate him if she finds out, he is not ashamed of what he did. Because bad poetry is bad poetry and she obviously had talent. He had hoped that his review would challenge her to reach her potential instead of writing pathetic odes to birds and flowers. She could do better and he wants her to do better. He believes all artists should either strive to do best they can do or stop messing around.
  

That's the long version. I generally don't write a long version—I generally just write sketchy points with about three or four words.

However, the long version brings me to another device which is badly misunderstood and unloved. You see, before you write the story (particularly if you want to write 50,000 words in 30 days) now is the time to write the synopsis. Oh, no! The dreaded synopsis! But wait! I exclaim (with improper punctuation). Writing a succinct synopsis does something that not even plot points or an outline will do for you.

Because you see a synopsis has information in it you need to write your story. A synopsis is really just a few pages filled out according to a nice little formula.

1. S/he did this because of X.
   
2. Her/His action resulted in Y.
   
3. S/he felt Z way about the result so they decided to do V.
   
4. [Loop back to item 2 and repeat until done with the story.]
   

If you follow that formula, you should have an escalating series of events/decision/character reactions that lead ultimately to the huge big black moment when everything is almost lost (but isn't—or in the case of some of my more angrily imagined stories—where every character dies horribly) but the characters finally win through and are drawn to the conclusion.

What this synopsis does for you that the outline doesn't is: show you your story holes. I can't tell you how many times I've finished a manuscript and been a little uneasy about it. I then (stupidly) write the synopsis (instead of writing it at the beginning) and I start getting into a predicament where the hero or heroine does V for no good reason whatsoever. Or the hero or heroine had a completely stupid reaction to whatever resulted from their actions. Or the story flow just did not make sense.

'Cause when you go through that formula for your major plot turning points, and include your character's reactions and his/her decisions and resulting actions, you start to see what hangs together and what does not.

I really think writing the synopsis ought to be done first. And interestingly enough, did you know that a lot of published authors write only the synopsis and first three chapters to submit to their editor? There is magic in that. The synopsis fixes the plot up front and the first three chapters are necessary to find out who your characters are and how they interact with one another. I don't care how many character sketches and interviews you do, until you start writing, you don't know your characters. And when you've written about 3 chapters, you'll find out who your characters are, and you'll discover many, many amazing things about them that will have a later impact on the story.

So even though you may have a plot outline and a synopsis, don't expect to actually follow them. They are the aura of your story. Or perhaps the bones. Either way, by the time you finish, your final manuscript will probably not even be close to what you outlined or put in your synopsis.

Does that make the outline and synopsis bad? No. They are just signposts and ideas. Things to keep you going in the right directions. The synopsis in particular keeps you on track with what your characters need to get them to the crisis and back out alive. (If you intend them to come out alive—I'm sorry, but I have a very black heart sometimes.)

Circling back, finally, to NaNoWriMo—writing that minimalist outline may be enough (hey, the chapter headings alone give you 20 words toward your total of 50,000, meaning you just need to write 49,980 more). Or if you're serious about writing a real book, the outline and the synopsis together may give you the signposts you need to write quickly without staring at a blank screen wondering what the heck you should do for the next scene.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

I'm getting ready for NaNoWriMo and by George I'm going to make it to 50,000 words again this year and tell Alexander and Elizabeth's story whether they like it or not.

Book Signing

Sunday, Oct 14, the Durham Library held a Regency Tea for five authors who write novels based on the Regency period (roughly 1800 through 1820—those dates are not precisely accurate, but they are used by most publishers to define this genre). NY Times Bestselling author Sabrina Jeffries, Claudia Dain, Deb Marlowe, Susan Ralph and me—Amy Corwin—attended and it was so much fun! In between munching on fabulous desserts including rich, luscious brownies, tart lemon squares, and lovely warm spinach & feta cheese filled phyllo dough treats, we had a panel discussion about the art of writing. It is interesting to see how many people would like to write. I don't know how many will actually set pen to paper (or fingers to the keyboard) and write a complete novel, but I think it's one of those things a lot of people dream of doing.

I feel very lucky to have been able to both finish a novel and see it published. And tada it is now in print and available from Amazon.com — what a real thrill to finally see my work in print. My publisher shipped me my box of author copies and I took all of them to the Regency Tea. We gave out some as door prizes and I gave a copy to the Durham Library with the hopes that they may like it and buy other books in the Cotillion line from Cerridwen Press.

And speaking about promotion—I guess I'm hopelessly naïve but I got a note from Arthur C. Clarke, the Science Fiction writer. I really admire his work and have almost every book he has ever written, including my favorite "Childhood's End". I can't see him trolling the Internet for new, relatively unknown writers—particularly Regency romance writers—but hey, it's nice to think I really did get tapped on the shoulder by him. It reminds me of the time I was visiting Historic Williamsburg and walking through the gardens behind the Governor's Palace. I was just walking along thinking about weeds when low-and-behold, I saw Isaac Asimov! I was absolutely stunned. Like a blithering idiot, I stumbled over and shook his hand, mumbling things like, "I've read everything you've ever written!" He must have thought I was a moron, but he was exceptionally polite. And I totally missed the opportunity to take a picture of him—drat! You know, now that I think about it, I wonder if he was really polite because he thought I was some kind of crazed stalker. Of course that was before there were all these crazed stalkers running around and you wouldn't expect to find one rambling through the formal gardens behind the Governor's Palace in Historic Williamsburg, but still…

So—I love Science Fiction and I have a great deal of respect for those who can mesh real science into an interesting and readable story. So it's nice to dream that Arthur C. Clarke really does want to be my friend. J The Internet is really a weird place.

Tonight I have to get back to real work. I've been polishing up the first three chapters and synopsis of a new manuscript with the working title of Whacked! I don't know if I've mentioned it before. I sort of think I might have. This one is a contemporary mystery—on the light side, though. With luck, my agent will like it and ask to see the rest—then, gulp—I'll have to polish the rest of the rough draft and see where that one leads. This writing game is definitely not for sissies or people with easily wounded egos. Although having a truly bad memory helps on that last bit. I get rejections, but I can't remember them. But I know I have gotten them—if I could only find the file I thrust them into—Oh, here it is. Over one hundred and counting…

But that's the point—everyone gets rejections—everyone. The best thing you can do is forget them and write something else.

Which is what I need to do…right now, so good night and sweet dreams!

Going Crazy

So I took a few days off work and got the fabulous news that my book, Smuggled Rose, is out in print. And Amazon is carrying it, although it says it will take a few weeks to get the books in and deliver. I'm hoping they are just exaggerating. And I got my box of five Author's copies that I can put on my bookshelf. I'll probably just end up giving them away, but they are nice to look at for the moment. It's very surreal.

And really interesting because I sent the Amazon link to a relative and they wrote back: "Thanks for the link. Who is this Amy Corwin?" Well, uh, that would be me. Duh. This isn't the first time that I've noticed that most people have no idea what I'm saying to them, 90% of the time. They stand there with smiles on their faces and say, "Oh, that's so cool…" But ask them twenty minutes later what I said and it's like I never existed, much less said anything.

Maybe other people have experienced the same thing. Maybe that's why folks at work who call me all in a tizzy about something are so thrilled when I keep my mouth shut and just listen. By the time they finish talking, more often than not, they've figured out the problem they called me about while they were talking. And then they thank me. Hey—no problem. All I had to do was listen. Although if they don't figure it out, then I actually do have to do some work and resolve the issue which generally stinks (and is why I needed to take a few days off so that my nervous rash would go away).

Anyway—while I was lolling around not working, I went way off track and wrote a short story. A crime story. And started a second crime story. I've found I like to write short stories. I like just writing about that one moment when the world shifts for a character. Of course, I just swooped through the web and found that most publishers of short crime fiction close down during the month of October and don't accept submissions, but that just gives me time to polish and think about where to submit it. And worry about it and decide it's horrible. That's the bad part.

An intelligent author who just had a traditional Regency come out in paperback might also worry about things like: What the heck was she thinking to write a crime story? Well, I do read a lot of them. And I like them. And I'm particularly fond of those Florida Crime stories and funny crime stories like Dave Barry wrote (you know—the one they made a movie out of with Tim Allen). And I just read a great Geezer Noir collection of short stories that were really a riot. So I have a new goal: to one day get a short story included in one of those anthology collections.

I love anthologies.

So onward and upward. In November, I'm going to join National Novel Writing Month again because I'm going back to traditional Regencies. I have a half-baked idea for a novel about a lady Poetess and a Critic. No murder or mayhem, unfortunately, but I'm going to try to crank out 50,000 words in November and see if I can't get another Regency historical published.

Who knows? I may get lucky!

Eight Random Facts

Tonight's blog is just for fun. A wonderful writer friend of mine, Edie Ramer "tagged" me to write eight random habits or facts about myself in my blog (or web site—whichever is appropriate). Then I get to tag eight other people so they can do the same.

You know there's that seven degrees thing, i.e. you're only ever seven people (or whatever) away from some hugely famous person or thing…I keep wondering if that's true and somewhere if you keep following all these various tags, someone is going to tag some outrageously famous and cool person like Sue Grafton, Tess Gerritsen, or the dynamic writing duo of Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer. Although if you really knew such an overworked, completely stressed out person, you wouldn't do such a thing to them.

That's not to say that the authors I'm going to "tag" aren't also outrageously cool and famous. Hmmm, I don't think I'm going to continue down that path because I can see far too many "open mouth, insert foot" opportunities. I'll just say that the folks I'm going to drag into this cauldron are people who either owe me a favor, have done something so egregiously bad to me that I'm now getting my revenge, or I just happen to know they have a blog or website and hope they won't be too upset.

My Eight Thingies

1. This bites: I hate lists. Oh, sure, I do lists for work and make copious notes for myself, but only when I'm losing my mind. Which is pretty much daily. So that's number 1. Grrrh.
   
2. I hate hot weather. It almost can't be too cold for me. Perhaps not entirely true—I'm not terribly fond of temperatures dropping into the minus numbers, but at least with the cold you can put another layer of clothing on. Unfortunately, there are only so many layers of clothing you can take off and once you're down to the skin, that's pretty much it. If you're naked and still hot, there's not much else you can do except get heat rash and a boat-load of chiggers because you're walking around without sufficient protection. So hot weather is out. [This is turning into a "what I hate" list—I need to do a 180.]
   
3. I love autumn. I get a huge burst of energy, both physically and mentally. I write volumes in the fall and early winter because I know come summer, I'm going to be a droopy, miserable little brat who just vegetates in the coldest room of the house and complains about having hot feet. (Which reminds me that I also hate made beds, i.e. beds with the sheets tucked in nicely, because I feel hog-tied when I get into them and spend hours trying to pull the sheets out so that my feet can be free and breathe.)
   
4. My husband thinks I'm an alien. He claims that anyone who thinks her feet need to breathe at night (see #3) and who can't tolerate another person putting their hand on the top of her head because it makes her feel like she's smothering is obviously not a human being from the planet Earth. Apparently, he has concluded that I breathe through my feet at night and through the top of my head during the day (like a whale—and I'm getting pretty much the same proportions, too). And all because I yank the sheets out so my feet aren't covered at night and I go bananas when he lays his hand on the top of my head (and that is not funny even if he does nearly pee in his pants with laughter when he does that). Nonetheless, I do actually breathe through my nose. As far as I can tell. That other stuff is just crazy and it beats me where he came up with those ridiculous ideas.
   
5. My cat has no respect for me. If I turn around to get something out of the fridge while I'm getting my meal together, when I turn back, the cat is either drinking my milk out of my glass or eating my food off my plate. He doesn't do that to my husband, although it could be that he objects to my husband's beer. It's getting to be a challenge to eat before the damn cat tries to shoulder his way in and grab the food right out of my mouth. And he's got really bad halitosis (the cat—not my husband). I'm not sure about the dogs, either. Lately, they've been eyeing my plate and leaning over, hoping to slobber enough onto my food to gross me out and make me give it to them. My husband is definitely the alpha dog, but our pack of dogs treat me more like I'm the zeta dog—cute and sort of nice to have around, but completely irrelevant when the alpha dog strolls in.
   
6. I am constantly amazed by Cops. And I'm amazed that I watch Cops.
   
7. I love technology. I love Wired magazine. Even my husband reads Wired and he's a freakin' biologist who moans that we should forget all this Windows/GUI stuff and go back to MS-DOS (I'm still mad at Xerox/Apple for introducing a GUI OS—when I first saw it, I wanted to sit and weep with frustration in front of the computer—and I loved computers. I don't know what the stupid pictures are, what to do with them, or how anything works and I despise it. I hate just randomly clicking on pictures that mean nothing to me and hoping it will turn out okay. Thank goodness Microsoft will now let you install a server with no GUI interface! Hip-hip-hooray!) Anyway, I wish I was rich enough to buy all the electronics and doo-dads I'd like. And I wish I had enough time to actually learn to use all the electronics I currently have. Wow, sorry, this was really off-topic.
   
8. I grow roses. A lot of roses. And I'm a birder (i.e. I go bird watching). And in college, I almost became a biologist. Weird. Thank goodness I came to my senses and just married one, instead.
   

So those are some bizarre-o factoids about me.

And now here are the eight poor authors who will now have to bare their souls in their blogs or websites:

Jenna Black

Kristina Cook

Caren Crane

Charlotte Featherstone

Lisa Fuller

Deb Marlowe

Susan Ralph

Mai Christy Thao

Great Fiction

This blog is devoted to thinking outside the box. Writing is a complex activity and sometimes we forget that one of the best ways to learn is to read something different. And that's why I mean when I use that horrible phrase: Think Outside The Box. Because some of us forget that the actual framework of the story is also a creative element and can be used in unique ways to deepen the message or illuminate some aspect that is relevant to the characterization. (See "Thug" below.)

I really like stories that may not fit in the normal story mold. For some strange reason, I have a particular love of fiction that is a little…well, different. In college, I picked up a copy of The New Yorker and discovered short stories. Often, weird short stories. And for me, the weirder, the better. . I discovered that Woody Allen, for example, didn't just make films. He wrote dozens of fantastic & funny short stories. I got a subscription to the New Yorker for a while, but eventually terminated it because out of 12 issues, I might only find 1 or two stories that were different enough to catch my interest. I'm just not into depressing stories about how miserable and hopeless life really is and unfortunately, the editors drifted in that direction.

So here is a short list of stories ranging in length from very short to very long. There is something different about each one and if I could tempt you to read them, I'll feel that I've done something worthwhile. I won't say they are the best "in their class" or anything like that, but they are works of fiction that I remember and that is saying something. I remember very, very little.

I tried to find my "Portable Dorothy Parker" book to include her short story about a woman asked to dance (when she really doesn't want to dance) but I couldn't find it and I'm darned if I can remember the name of it. Sigh. I'll have to talk about it another time…

Short Stories

"Thug: Signification and the Deconstruction of Self" by Tyler Dilts. You can find it in the collection: "Best American Mystery Stories 2003". I cannot recommend this story enough—it is absolutely brilliant. The story framework supports and illuminates the main character's —well, uh, character, in a unique way. Get it. Read it. Study it and think about it.

"Surface Tension" by James Blish. Things are not as they seem. I don't know why this story has stuck with me so many years, except that the feeling of yearning and striving and striking out to explore new horizons strikes such a chord within me…

"The Unrest Cure" by Saki (aka H.H. Munroe). Not a politically correct story, but damn if this isn't one of the best short stories I've ever read. It rates right up there (if not above) the one we're all forced to read in school by him: "The Open Window". Which I also love, along with "Esmé". If you want to learn how to magically make horrible characters strangely likeable, read any of his short stories. And for the sheer satisfaction of seeing a petty tyrant get her just desserts, "Sredni Vashtar". I guess P.C. people won't like these stories, but I can't seem to help myself.

Poetry

I like so few poems but I wanted to include these—just because.

"The River-Merchant's Wife: a Letter" by Ezra Pound

Poem 986 by Emily Dickinson – which contains the memorable lines which capture so perfectly the emotion when you feel when you come upon a snake gliding through the grass:

But never met this Fellow
Attended, or alone
Without a tighter breathing
And Zero at the bone—

Novel

I hesitated over this and couldn't decide between "The Death of a Duchess" by Elizabeth Eyre for its subtle characterizations that do not hit you all at once in the face but grow gradually, and "The Grail Tree" by Jonathan Gash, who really shows you how to create and stay in character when using first person. Or perhaps I'm just deluded and Gash really does sound, think and talk like Lovejoy.

Long Novels

"Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell" by Susanna Clark. And check out the website: www.jonathanstrange.com . This story is enthralling and weird and different. It's like reading some compelling history book, complete with footnotes (hilarious), except it never happened. And the descriptions and characters are done so brilliantly… I can't even imagine the amount of work and research that went into this book.

"Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. More philosophy than fiction, but interesting because of it.

Like I said – I would hesitate to say any of these are the best & brightest works. They are ones I found memorable and some had writing techniques that were just so amazing I had to include them. This isn't my favorites list (although I guess Thug is my favorite story at the current time) and I actually don't keep such a list because it varies depending upon what I've read recently and my variable memory. I do like Georgette Heyer, particularly "The Masqueraders" and "Faro's Daughter", when I like no other historical romance novels—go figure. So my tastes vary wildly.

I won't promise you'll love these stories, but they really are worth your time.

This and That

Cooler weather has finally arrived after a despicably long, hot summer. I love the fall—I always get such a tremendous burst of energy as the temperatures drop to more livable levels. It's weird, but the older I get, the less tolerant I am of heat.

Anyway, this is good. Yesterday, I submitted a partial manuscript to an editor which is always exciting. Particularly when it results in you lying awake all night thinking about all the things that might be wrong with your submission. It's just like buyer's remorse: you think this manuscript is absolutely perfect until you actually submit it. Then all of a sudden you see a million weaknesses and mistakes, things you should have fixed, things that were badly done, etc. I often wonder if all the big name authors have the same sudden rush of despair after they hand something over to their agent or editor. Some of the published authors I know seem so darn sure of themselves—my mouth hangs open in awe when I hear them say things like, "Oh, I never took classes or anything. I'm a natural writer. I just write and it sells."

Argh!

The longer I work at writing, the more I know I don't know squat about it. In fact, I now know that I have surprisingly little knowledge of anything. Even my day job as a supposed computer expert leaves me feeling that I know less than one of those guys lying in the alley behind the building, drinking $1-a-bottle wine. The more I know, the more I know I don't know.

How, exactly, does one become an expert? You'd think doing something for 30 years (like working with computers) would make you something of an expert—but no. Not really. And I watch those folks on CSI and I'm thinking, Geeze, these people are what? Thirty? And they like know everything about every scientific field you'd care to mention—and even all the cutting edge stuff that just came out in Wired. (I love that magazine—it's so geek-cool.) And then there's Jason at work (in the real world) who is too young to get the rental car when we travel and heck if he doesn't know everything there is to know about just about any computer-related thing you'd care to mention. Although I've done assembly language programming and he hasn't. So there, Jason.

(No one does assembly anymore, though, unless they're some geek writing low-level hardware drivers. And I stopped writing assembly language when we moved away from 8080/8086 Intel CPUs, so I guess that knowledge ranks right up there with some of the more arcane subjects like phrenology.)

Double-argh.

Anyway. I may no longer be the bright young thing in the office, but I can sure as heck keep my eyes open. Unless you decide to just shut your brain down completely, you can always learn. In fact, I learn something new every day. Even if what I learn is that I know less than I thought I knew when I got up that morning.

Today, I go back to working on polishing up the first three chapters of Whacked!. It's a contemporary murder mystery about this guy who gets…whacked. Sorry. I couldn't help myself. The plan is, however, to fix up the first three chapters and synopsis and squirt it off to my agent to see what she thinks about it. If she likes it, then I'll polish the rest of it and we'll see if she can sell that to the guys in New York. The first draft is done, but I'm not going to put any more effort into it unless she decides it has merit.

That's sort of the point I wanted to make with this blog. I'm trying to get smarter. My current plan has several legs to it and they are as follows:

• Keep on writing (so I might actually get better at it). This means: don't spend all my time editing older manuscripts.
  
• Write the first draft and then STOP. Polish up a synopsis and the first 3 chapters and send to my agent to see if she thinks it is worth continuing. Because the first draft only takes a few months. The bulk of my work lies in the revisions. Revise, revise, revise. Since my goal is to sell to a big NY publisher, there is no point in spending a year on revisions if no one is interested in the book.
  
  • Oh, I don't abandon my stories. What this really means is that these unwanted manuscripts get pushed to the back burner where I edit them as time allows. The process may take a couple of years instead of one year, but when it's done, I'll try the manuscript with smaller publishers who tend to me more open to whacko things (sorry again, I just can't help myself tonight). Which brings me to the next leg of the plan.
    
• Submit manuscripts that I really love, and that I think are finally good, to small publishers. It keeps my "hat in the ring" and may eventually lead to a few readers. A thousand readers would be nice. Heck, one reader would be nice.
  
• Try short stories and novellas. I am so intrigued by the idea of selling shorter works and have found several publishers who are selling short stories and novellas over the Internet. This is excellent for honing writing skills and again, it keeps your name out there and may garner a few more readers. The time investment is much, much lower than writing a full novel so it's really a win-win situation.
  
• Use other authors. I've begun not just studying other authors, but using their techniques to overcome my own weaknesses. I always thought this was sort of cheating, but finally conceded that it is a legitimate technique to improve quickly. It's like a painter who copies another artist's masterpiece for practice. Emulating lets you work new muscles and learn much more quickly than just trying to slog through on your own. I've been looking at other writers who I like and have a similar book. And then I see, for example, how they start their book. And then I go to my page 1 and rewrite mine using some of the same techniques. Since my story is different and has other characters and situations, it does not come out at all the same. I'm not copying phrases, sentences or words, I'm emulating the techniques. I've even been making copies of certain pages that show good examples of things I want to learn to do.
  

It would be nice to say I'm such a great writer that I don't have to work on my skills in this way. I'd love to say I have my own successful style and storytelling talent, but failing that, I have patience. Hmmm. Well, maybe not patience, per se. I have very little patience. But I can tolerate rejection if I have a long term goal in mind. And I love to learn.

One day, I'm going to sell more than a couple of copies of a story. I may not be famous but by God before I die, I'm going to be able to walk to my bookcase and find at least one book there with my name on the spine.

 

The Revitalization of the Short Story

There's a lot of bad news out there but there is a new trend emerging from our modern, online, no-time world. Short stories are making a comeback. We've all heard the predictions that the Internet, computers, gaming, and the multi-media extravaganza that is our life now means that no one reads anymore. However, much of the Internet is reading and with online and e-publishing growing, the short story and novella is emerging as the story of choice.

It makes sense.

You're sitting on the commuter train, in your carpool, or waiting for your next class to begin. You're tired of reading the millions of IMs containing the minutiae of all your friends' daily lives. You want to read a story. You already carry around a plethora of mobile devices, any one of which can download and contain any number of stories. But you're constrained for time and it's not that comfortable to read a 500 page tome on a tiny screen. But it's not too bad for twenty minutes, or about as long as it would take to read a short story.

Some of the bestselling stories being downloaded now are short. They range from short stories, through novellas, into the full-length book category. But by far the more popular ones are the short stories and novellas. They have been so successful, in fact, that publishers—both e-publishers and traditional NY publishers alike—are collecting up those stories in anthologies and publishing them as print books.

And this is fantastic. It is such a wonderful opportunity for new writers and old writers alike. I, personally, have been toying with several ideas for novellas. The only thing that scares me is the speed with which the story has to develop. You have to get those characters introduced to the reader and into their conflict within a page or two. Then you've got to bring that conflict to a rapid boil and resolve it, pronto. No time for a lot of setup, which can take me the first 1/3 to 2/3 of a full-length book. It's a daunting prospect.

But it's a great way to learn economy of style and how to get characters in and out of trouble swiftly. It's wonderful discipline. And it's quick. You can write a rough draft in a week instead of three or four months (or however long it takes you to write the first draft of a book). Of course then you're in the editing cycle and that can stretch out for a long time, but it should be quicker.

And for a new writer, you can build both your skills and your audience more quickly. You can build up a body of work. Your stories can be collected into anthologies and if you're really lucky, you can get into an anthology with a really famous author. Readers who pick up the book to read the "big name author" will read your story, too, and you'll build your audience even faster. It's a win-win.

So for once, rejoice in the opportunities offered by our "I want it now" age. It may be easier than ever to get into the fast lane and finally get someone to read all those stories you've been longing to share.

Everyone’s a Critic

Just finished reading two books over the long Labor day weekend. I actually took a vacation, too, which was why I didn't post a blog last week. J

When I initially wrote this, I intended it to be a well-considered, thoughtful review of a few writing techniques that I ran across in my reading. It turned out to be a rant and a very politically incorrect rant, as well. Sigh. Best laid plans and all.

So anyway, I finished 'The Sleeping Doll' by Jeffry Deaver and 'The Shape of Sand' by Majorie Eccles.

***** Out of 5 stars, I give 'The Sleeping Doll' 5.

**********'The Shape of Sand' by Eccles gets 10. I know I said there was a maximum of 5 stars, but Eccles reminds me of the reason I wanted to be a writer in the first place, and why I writhe in despair when I read an author like her. I'll never be that good.

My writing will ever be as exquisite as Eccles' but I keep trying. Eccles reminds me that descriptions done properly are not really descriptions at all: they are the character's emotions and perceptions of the world around her. You cannot remove the descriptions without losing most of the characterization and mood.

If you can remove a description and you only lose the color of the wallpaper, then the description is pointless.

Anyway, regarding the ratings…don't get me wrong. Deaver is a best selling author and totally fabulous. But 'The Sleeping Doll' (for me) just wasn't up to quite the same standards as some of his previous works, or the Eccles book. I really don't like book-bashing and 'The Sleeping Doll' is an excellent book. I seriously doubt anyone else would have any of the issues with it that I had. It's very enjoyable.

Maybe I just wasn't in the mood. Readers' reactions are so subjective. That's why you really can't always read someone else's review and take it as THE TRUTH. It is, generally speaking, only true for that person, at that time. A reader may even find their own reaction changes at a different point in time.

When I was very young, I found P.G. Wodehouse to be unbearably boring. Now, I love him. Perceptions change.

And I feel a little guilty about not liking the Deaver book so much, but I can't help my reaction. But I did learn a few things and identified what to me were mistakes. I hope to avoid these particular ones in my own writing. (I'd prefer to continue making other, more egregious mistakes ;-) as any reader of my book will no doubt confirm.)

The biggest issue for me was that by the end of the book, I really did not like the main character—the heroine. I didn't like her because she was too perfect. Too good to be true. It's the same reason I haven't like any of the Star Trek re-treads. The original Star Trek's characters got angry with each other, bickered, had terrible faults and angst. Even Spock fretted over and fought his human 'half'. They were more like real people with recognizable faults. And I love human frailty because it is our faults that lead to our greatest achievements.

Therefore, for me, the goody-goody characters in the more recent Star Trek re-treads were too nauseatingly polite and kind to each other to be sympathetic. They suffered from the dreaded disease: uber-goodness. Call it Politically Correct (PC) if you want. I call it emotional degeneration. It is a recurring nightmare of mine: that I'll go to sleep and wake up in a world where "we're all friends here, dear" and everyone spends their day smiling and doing good deeds for each other. It gives me the cold chills just thinking about it. It is so intrinsically revolting to think of humans falling into such a sheep-like, mindless state of perfection.

It is our anxiety, our fears, and our compulsive need to be better or have more than the next guy that makes us strive to achieve, makes us invent or discover the next miraculous thing. If Edison was perfect and had the perfect life, he'd have invented nothing. When you reach emotional and social nirvana, there is nothing more to strive for. You are, in essence, emotionally dead. Stasis is death.

I don't like characters who are emotionally dead. Who have nothing more to strive for other than some vague, morally righteous goal to do good.

Wow, that was a rant. Didn't mean to go there, but really, while the beginning of 'The Sleeping Doll' was perfectly fine, by the end, it felt like a lecture—with examples—on 'how we should all be PC'. The sad thing is, at the end, I prefer the character that is supposedly a horrible, vengeful person that the uber-perfect heroine wants to prosecute. (I'm not going to give anything away—read the book.) But Deaver is not alone in this. I've noticed a lot of writers seem to be using their fiction as a platform to show the rest of us low-brows what is PC and what is abhorrent in an enlightened human being.

So…I'm a knuckle-dragging caveman (cavewoman?) who prefers regressive, non-PC characters. Go suck an egg.

That sums up my first reaction. I just didn't like the heroine by the end of the book. I doubt I'll read anything else featuring her. She set my teeth on edge.

But there were a couple of other things that got to me, too. There were two instances where the author told you "such and such" happened. And then a chapter or two later, the author sort of laughs and says, 'Gotcha' and then tells you that "such and such" really didn't happen, something else did. I can't tell you how irritating this is. It's a slap in the face to the reader. First off, it's like the author saying: I'm smarter than you are and knocking you on the back of the head to prove it. Second, it violates that rule that Alfred Hitchcock put so well when he said, "knowledge is tension". If you see two men sitting at a table with a briefcase on the floor next to them, and the briefcase suddenly explodes, it's shocking, but there is no tension. If you see two men sitting at a table with a briefcase on the floor next to them, and you're told the briefcase contains a bomb set to go off in two minutes, you are on the edge of your seat with tension for those two minutes. And if you are introduced to the men and know all about their families, dreams and aspirations, you're screaming at the men to get out of there. There is tension.

By Deaver making you think that a situation was resolved one way and then punching you in the eye with a surprise a few chapters later—there is no suspense—there is nothing except irritation at his deliberate "hiding of the truth". I accepted the first time he did it. The second time, I wanted to throw the book in the ocean. And it's not like he just misdirected the reader the way a mystery writer will. He deliberately misstates the truth and then flips it around later. I suppose it's meant to be a surprise. It fails.

The sad thing is that I've read other books by him and he did not do this—at least I never noticed it before. But then, I've never read his more popular suspense novels like this one or his Lincoln Rhyme books, so maybe this is just his style for these types of stories. I've noticed that I tend not to like suspense, with a few exceptions, because of similar issues.

I'm actually glad to have read this book. I've had problems in the past really understanding what Hitchcock meant about tension. And a lot of my manuscripts lacked tension because I kept information "back" from the reader in order to spring something on them later. I never really understood how this affects the pacing and tension, but I sure do now. If you don't let the reader know what is going on, you may be able to surprise them later, but you also lose about 90% of the tension in favor of a surprise that lasts all of one sentence or two. Not a good trade-off. And you don't want to make your reader feel stupid. Or worse, make your reader feel like you think they are stupid and that you, the author, are so much smarter because you can throw them a curve ball from way out of left field.

Finally, the last thing that drove me absolutely up the wall was his constant use of the word "kinesic". He tells us what it is in the beginning and tells us that the heroine is very good at using this technique during interviews to spot lies, evasions, etc. It's basically body language combined with other language skills. So he gives us a definition and explains the heroine's job. Then a few pages later, he uses the word again, and gives us another definition. Then a few pages later, he uses the word again and in case we didn't understand the previous definitions, he tells us how his heroine is using it and how good she is at using it. And then, just in case we missed that, he tells us again a few pages later how the heroine is using kinesic techniques and how she knows what is going on because she's using them. He keeps on using that word over and over again, right up until the end of the book.

Now, I can understand the first few examples. But after the first 1/3 of the book, I think we've got the freakin' message. We know the heroine uses that technique. We don't need to be reminded of it on almost every page. Let the heroine just do what she does and spot the lies. It is unnecessary to keep defining it for us and reminding us that you, Mr. Author, know a fancy new term. Who cares? Would the heroine really be thinking: hmmm, I'm really good at kinesic techniques which I can use to spot liars and I can see, using my great kinesic skills, that Mr. X is defensive because his arms are crossed over his chest. And my kinesic training tells me he may even be lying when he uses evasive phrasing such as, "I was unaware at the time…". Or is it more likely that she would just think, he's being evasive when he says "I was unaware at the time"—I need to dig deeper…

And I see, now, why I've been drifting toward crime novels instead of suspense. Because in crime novels, pretty much everyone is a rotten, miserable, scheming individual (although one or two may have a few redeeming qualities like a macabre sense of humor). There's nothing like a scoundrel to make for interesting reading.

Hopefully, this blog won't aggravate too many people. If it does, well, it's completely unintentional. But hey, we're all entitled to our opinions and sometimes we need to blow off a little steam. I just hope I don't have that Perfect World nightmare tonight. ARGH!