Yay!! Winners!!

We have winners!

Flchen1 wins Toni's lovelllly novel and a $15 gift certificate.

Alissa wins an Amazon certificate from me!!

Ladies, please email me at lgreiman@earthlink.net with your addresses.

Congrats!

We're Celebrating ... Our Readers!!

It's hard to believe but Riding with the Top Down is celebrating its two YEAR anniversary this June. AND we've reached the 100,000 visitor point in mid-May.

One of those milestones alone is sufficient reason to kick up the heels or grin up a storm like this little guy, so we're doing some special stuff to thank our readers the first couple weeks of June.

To kick it off, on June 2nd, when Christie blogs, the Riders will be giving away a $100 gift certificate for Barnes & Noble to one lucky visitor. So make sure you stop by and say hello!

And then for the next two weeks, each Rider is going to give away something special of her choosing on her blog day.

All this to say THANK YOU to our wonderful readers.

We love you guys!!

Helen

Kathleen on Obsession

I'm a strong believer in moderation. So I want to talk about obsession today, and not the perfume. The behavior. I'm hoping others have some habits that they've become a bit obsessive about. I want to feel normal. I'm looking for some blogger therapy.

I'm not sure what the differences are among anal retentive behavior, compulsive behavior, and obsessive behavior. We joke about being anal retentive, so that's probably the one that's the least attractive. I know a bit about the theory--the normal development through the stages from oral to anal to genital--genital?--well it's been a while since I studied this stuff--retention. At the end we're supposed to be balance. But being stuck in the anal stage seems funny. We joke about it. Contains the word anal. So I don't think I'm that since I don't know how to be funny.

But I do seem to become obsessive sometimes. Take recycling. It's a good thing, and we do it in the Eagle's nest. Well, I do it, and they go along. But they throw things away that should go into recycling. The city keeps adding to the list of the kind of paper, containers, etc., that can be recycled, and I try to keep up. They don't. So I find myself moving things around all the time. Snatching stuff out of hands that are reaching toward the trash compactor. And don't think I can do this without repeating the list of things that don't go in there. They say I'm obsessing. I know I'm doing the right thing. At least, I have the right idea.


Then there are the soup labels and box tops. I used to save the soup labels when my kids were in school, and then I saved them for a friend who was collecting them for one of the Indian boarding schools, but I was kinda glad when she stopped because I needed to stop pulling the cans out of recycling to make sure I hadn't missed a label.

Then my granddaughter started kindergarten, and I was back at it. Now it's box tops and labels, and they're on so many products! This is a good thing, right? Except that I've begun to remove the labels when I get the stuff home, which leaves a hole in the bread bags, which means I have to add an extra bag, usually a zip-lock, which means I'm adding to my refuse footprint if I don't reuse, which means saving that stuff, which means....I'm obsessing. Plus, I'm shopping for labels and box tops because I'm glad somebody's supporting education these days, but so often they're on processed foods, and I'm now reading ingredients lists obsessively trying to avoid high fructose corn syrup (Thanks a lot, Michele!) and it takes me hours to get through the grocery store. Am I adding paranoia to my problems? Hellllp!

What do you obsess about? Please don't say you don't. I really want to be normal.

Cindy is feathering her nest with Leather

I’m an HVGT fanatic. That’s HGTV to those of you who aren’t dyslectic, or in my case cross-eyed from spending so much time at the computer lately. Not enough time, apparently, was spent taking decorating advice from the experts.

I bought new family room furniture last week. This, after looking for months in any number of retail outlets and on line. You name it, I saw it. I mentioned that I watch HGTV, right? So, I should know all about color and scale and yada yada. So, why is it then that I now have an elephant and his little brother in the room?

I wanted leather mostly because I’ve developed a bad dust mite allergy and my allergist suggested that the next time I get furniture to go leather. I, of course, heard that as: You need to buy new furniture. You can see where I’m coming from.

Anyway, I made a to-scale rendering of the room on paper. I measured furniture in stores, made templates that I moved around on the paper to help me decide on my outside limits and my ideal limits for size. Yes, I recognize that it was anal. I figure, hey, I’m going to live with this stuff for a long time and I want it to be right. So, I finally find the perfect new leather pieces – a sofa and a loveseat. I’m excited. I buy them.

Today, they were delivered. Color – great! Texture – great! Comfort level – fantastic X 10! Scale – how did I go wrong??? It looked so perfect in the showroom and on my template. In my actual room, however, the two pieces look like over stuffed Dumbos. I don’t get it. Oh, it’s not horrible. It's kind of like looking in the mirror at my own rear view and thinking, "I didn't know my butt was that big." But the truth is, it is big. In fact, I think this furniture makes my butt look even bigger and that fries me too :o(

All right, it’ll work, but it feels more like a near miss than a bull’s eye and I'm not in love like I wanted to be. I’m thinking that now, the only thing to do is by a newer bigger house to go with it. So far, DH is not on board with that idea.

I did, however, have one shopping success. And of course, it was by accident which makes a mockery of my careful planning. I wanted a chair for my office. Just a little side chair that would look nice with the loveseat. First chair I saw, I liked and bought on sale, no less, and wow. It’s perfect.

Buddy and Sly think so too as you can see by this photo. Guess that should be a lesson to me. Next time I make a major new furniture buy (which will be oh - twenty years from now), screw the careful, painstaking planning and just buy the first thing that looks good.

So, how about you? Ever make a bad choice you have to live with? Car? Furniture? Husband? Lipstick? And what do you do when that happens? I mean, it’s not like I can shove these two elephants in my trunk and ask for my money back. It wasn’t their fault I was blind….

the tipping point

I first met Toni just a few weeks ago. In fact, we survived the Romantic Times convention together. Which means she's tough. But she's so much more. She's fun, smart, cute as a button, and Cajun, so let's give her a warm Riding welcome.

the tipping point...

by Toni

Eleventy quibillion years ago, when I was in fourth grade, I wanted to be a writer. I wrote terrible poems, which I think only got worse as I got older and the teenage years descended like locusts, leaving only WOE and ANGST. By college, I had brief bouts of sanity, whereupon I attempted architecture (ohmyGod, they do not tell you about the math), business (my first accounting teacher gave me the final exam in advance, with the answers, if I would swear to her I would never, ever, take another accounting class again), and then journalism (where I learned they had the picky little annoying habit of wanting reporters to not make crap up)(this was before Fox News).

And in spite of a fine history of liking to eat and wanting a roof over my head, I still wanted to be a writer. If you asked a question, you would get a story instead of an answer. If I could sidetrack into a couple of tangents? You might as well park a while, because the stories? They would not stop.

All the while, I wrote. Much of it was bad.

I ran into a former high-school teacher, who'd also been a librarian, who asked me the tough question: why wasn't I submitting for publication? Have you ever run into one of your former teachers? THEY ARE SCARY. It's like they can retroactively fail you or their eyes shoot truth serum rays or something, and I did not want to stand there in front of my two-year-old and explain I hadn't submitted anything because I was a big honking chicken. So I took her advice and started writing and submitting to the local paper. (They were insane enough to buy the very first one. That's like feeding a stray puppy. They did not realize this, I think, until I was around so much, they added me to the regular staff AND the food staff, and this was a fairly prominent paper. One of my relatives realized that I was being assigned to write about how people COOK things. He asked, "Isn't that... fraud? You use the fire alarm as an oven timer." I look back on this as the beginning of my fiction career.)

Over the years, and we are not discussing how many, maybe more than two but less than a hundred, I wrote more articles than I can remember or count for newspapers and magazines. I started querying and submitting (and getting sales) at national magazines, but my real love was fiction. I tried my hand at a novel, but it was a spiraling mess, and my husband could see how frustrated I was. (And EVERY husband out there just substituted the words "complete raving loon" for "frustrated.") So, being a very wise man who liked to wake up breathing in the mornings, he encouraged me to go back to school for some writing classes.

For a while, I was lured to the dark side (screenwriting), and landed an agent, and did a lot of stuff that was almost-but-not-quite what I wanted to do, which was to sell something I made up. Hollywood, by the way, will kill you with encouragement, because when you meet the executives, you will be told you are the most brilliant writer they have read in forever and where the hell have you been all this time and they want to be in the "Toni Causey" business. Swear to God, they will say it and you will believe it because they are that good at sincere. Until you're sitting in the Warner Brothers commissary waiting for the next meeting, furtively looking around to see the FRIENDS stars on their lunch break (yes, I am dating myself, hush), and the same executive walks by with his arm around someone else who is not you, telling them how utterly brilliant they were, the most brilliant person they'd ever read. That's when you look down at the script in your hand that is an action thriller that everyone absolutely loves but could you make the man a woman and the woman a duck and wouldn't it be great if the horse saved the day? and you think, "I'm crazy, but I'm not this crazy." Some writers (our very own Alex and Rob) have the tenacity for that. Me? I kinda wanted to just kick people. (I never claimed to be mature.)

See, I had this idea. An idea for this funny, take-no-prisoners kind of southern woman, who loves deeply and means well, in spite of the chaos she causes, and I wanted to write that story and be true to that story. So I quit screenwriting. (I had had some offers if I'd move out there. I was not going to move the family.) I had a hard time convincing my former agent that yes, I was serious. I was quitting to write a novel. (I think she still thinks I am going to change my mind.) But I quit, and I started writing Bobbie Faye. I wrote a quick draft in script form, because I was used to that format, then a friend showed a friend, the lovely Rosemary Edghill, who said, "Send me some chapters." And I did. She gave me some notes (smart, smart woman), and taught me how to write the kind of synopsis an agent needs ("I did not think you could make this worse," she said of one draft of that synopsis, "but you did." That's because I am an overachiever. It took a lot of tries before I figured out that writing a marketing synopsis is a lot like writing a non-fiction article, and that I could do.) Next thing I know, I'd signed with an agent and Rosemary had pitched it to an editor, who made an offer, and St. Martin's Press bought that book and the next two based on three sample chapters and a synopsis. Almost twenty years from the point where I saw my old high-school English teacher and she'd said, "Why aren't you submitting for publication?"

(Thank you, Mrs. Ross.)

There is a great big huge world of "no" out there. Sometimes, following the dream does not mean hoppity-skipping down the easy path. In fact, a lot of times, it means zig zagging past mortars and incoming and a lot of almosts-not-quites and despair and frustration what-the-hell-were-you-thinking? and ugh-this-sucks and occasionally wow-show-me-more. And in spite of how long it took, and how much hard work, I have been exceptionally lucky--there have been friends and mentors who've said, "keep going," and who've said, "send that in." They changed my life. They were the tipping point for me.

So how about you? Who encouraged you? Or what's something you tried that someone encouraged you to do and now you're glad you did?

~*~

Blog in, folks, Toni is generously giving away a free copy of her first book and a $15 gift certificate to some lucky commenter.

Don't make me release the flying monkeys!

Lois Greiman :)

A few months ago I was talking to a couple of friends. We’ll call them Jeanie and Kate. (Since I’m obviously way too neurotic to have any real friends.) Anyway, Jeanie and I were discussing family and weather and all that mundane stuff when suddenly Kate said, “There’s no such thing as a good witch.” We turned to her in breathless tandem only to find her staring blankly into middle space. Jeanie and I blinked a couple time, waiting for her to continue…or be zapped into another dimension where witches are as common as fruit flies. When neither of those things happened we continued discussing the latest freezing conditions and never found out why Kate felt it necessary to opine on witchcraft at that precise moment. But later, I gotta tell you, I really started wondering…did she know I was writing a witch book and hope to steer me clear of such foolishness or was she hearing voices not necessarily recognized by species other than witch-hunters and small dogs? I’m afraid I’ll never know. But…since Under Your Spell is being released TODAY, I decided to start a discussion about witches.

So, what do you think? Do you love ‘em? Hate ‘em? Don’t believe in ‘em? Live with ‘em?

How about movie witches? I’ve found them intriguing all the way back to Oz. (Although I cried for hours every time the wicked witch of the west popped onto my parents’ black and white TV.) What about Practical Magic? And remember Hocus Pocus (my daughter’s childhood favorite)? Stardust! Yikes. Great movie, but why doesn’t Michelle Pfeiffer ever age? Is she a witch?

And what say you of literary witches? Terry Pratchett writes about some incredibly amusing crones like Nanny Ogg, Granny Weatherwax, and Magrat. Kim Harrison is making a splash with Rachel Morgan, and I really enjoy Tate Hallaway’s Garnet Lacey.


But how about you? Who are your paranormal heros? Come on, fess up. You believe in witches. Maybe you think you are one. Maybe you have suspicions about your sister. Chime in. In honor of my own witch, Elegance St. James, I’ll be giving away an Amazon gift card to some vociferous commenter so she can purchase her own witchy favorites.

www.loisgreiman.com

Memorial Day

It's Memorial Day here in the U.S., a day set aside to honor the men and women who have died serving in our military. Many people also take time today to celebrate their loved ones who have passed away, whether they had served in the armed forces or not. Today, too, seems to officially mark the beginning of summer.

Celebrations are wide spread and varied. Services, in churches or cemeteries, parades and community picnics. Or you could always watch the Indianapolis 500.

My family has usually celebrated the day with bbqs or picnics at parks and beaches. There were many years I used to make it a point to visit my sister's grave. She was thirteen when she was killed in a bike/car accident and I was only six. Bringing flowers to her grave was comforting for some reason, but then life got busy and I'm a few hours drive from her grave site, so it's been a while.

This has always been a day of high of emotion for me, so before I start blubbering all over the page, take a moment with me to remember those who have died protecting this country and our freedom. Men and women, much braver than me, who have given their lives to make sure we can live ours in peace.

Pray our troops come home safe and soon from Iraq.

Do you and your family have a Memorial Day tradition?

Helen

NAME THAT CHARACTER!

Under Your Spell will hit the shelves in four days! To celebrate the ‘birth’ of my latest I’m offering a name contest; anyone who would like to be a character in my next Witches of Mayfair novel can email me at lgreiman@earthlink.net. I’ll choose a winner, list it on the blog next week, and feature you in Spellbound. You can use your own name, a friend’s name, or a fictional name and I’ll incorporate it into the story. It’s a fun way to be ‘immortalized.’

Oh, and Gladys Paradowski of Houston Texas has won a free copy of Under Your Spell. Congratulations Gladys. Hope you enjoy.

www.loisgreiman.com

HOME

Spring has finally, FINALLY, arrived in Minnesota and stuck. I'm not usually one to complain about the weather - I choose to live here, after all - but this winter, after three that were decidedly wimpy, was downright brutal.

So I was walking my dog earlier this week, and it was perfect as it could be. All the flowering trees are blooming, and the violets are up, purple and white peeking out amongst the green. The warblers - can't identify them, but they're fun to watch - are migrating through, and all the baby geese have hatched, hustling frantically for the safety of the water when the dog and I come around the corner. There's a pond on our walk, and we startled all the turtles sunning themselves on the logs into plopping back into the water. A pure white egret stalked the far shoreline, and the swoop of pileated woodpecker made ME jump. (Those are some big birds!)

There weren't even any mosquitos. THIS, I thought, is why I live here. For days like this.

Until I got home and plucked three ticks off my dog (so much for the Frontline commercials) and two off of me.

I guess nothing's perfect. But it occurred to me that I'd have a very difficult time living somewhere there's NOT four seasons.

My dh's job is such that we could live just about anywhere, if we so chose. He'd go in a heartbeat - he misses the ocean. But I'm pretty firmly planted. I could live a lot of places for six months or a year, and I'd love to do that, but not many permanently. And priority #1 for me is proximity to the people I love - the rest is pretty flexible, though the four seasons is high, and I'd have a terrible time in someplace where it was HOT a good part of the year. I like green, and water. In the best of all possible worlds, I'd live in the mountains, but very close to a major airport. I don't think I'm going to manage that one. Beyond that, I wouldn't like traffic that's much worse than what I already deal with. But that's about it for me.

How about you? If you take jobs out of the equation, what's the most important thing about choosing a place to live for you? What do you like, and not like, about where you are? Where would go if you could go anywhere?

Susie

She's Here!

“She” being my mom, that is. That’s her on the left, with my aunt Marlene behind her. Mom usually comes for a visit from the San Francisco Bay Area once a year, but the past couple of years it’s been a bit different because other family has arrived at the same time. This year it’s just Mom and my little family, which boils down to lots of Mom and me time. Yay!

A friend of mine says that if romance novel heroines had great mothers (like mine) they wouldn’t get themselves into such fixes. That may be true, but then we’d have to read through pages of Mom-preparation instead. I’ve been cleaning and cleaning and cleaning for days. Things that rarely get cleaned. The grate at the bottom of the refrigerator. The highest shelf in the family room that’s even too tall for Surfer Guy (at 6’5”) to reach. Waaay back behind…well, you get the idea.

She flew in yesterday morning and by 3 p.m. we’d already done some errands that I’d been putting off, done some clothes shopping (two cute tops and a necklace, Mom doesn’t like one of the tops, but I did), found beads to repair another top that was missing them, gone out to lunch, and purchased a book I’ve been dying to read (Marsha Moyer's Return of the Stardust Cowgirl).

We’re meeting my niece on Saturday for an all-day shopping safari but today and tomorrow’s agenda is pretty open, except for a birthday dinner on Friday night for Son 2. I know how we’ll fill it…talk. And talk. And talk. Nothing like a mom for listening to all your stories with the proper attentiveness and the proper exclamations. Nothing like a mom for nodding her head when you hash over your concerns for your kids, your wardrobe, or your current manuscript.

So, it’s a couple of weeks after Mother’s Day, but I’m having a long mom’s weekend and enjoying the heck out of myself. (As long as she doesn’t see some of the spots I’ve missed on my cleaning binge.)

Does anyone else have a special visitor that you scrub-a-dub-dub for? Friends of ours often have their priest over for dinner and I cannot imagine what that requires when it comes to dusting and vacuuming. What’s the cleaning chore you put off? I didn’t get to hand-washing all the globes that cover the light fixtures. Shh, don’t tell!

The Winner is...

crystalgb wins an autographed book from Rebecca York. Congrats! Please email Michele at toast faery @ gmail.com with your snailmail address.

Guest: Rebecca York

Please welcome Rebecca York to the convertible today! Rebecca will give away an autographed copy of NEW MOON to one lucky commenter, so do stop back tomorrow to check for the winner's name. Now here's Rebecca....

Whose Fantasy Is This Anyway?

Back in the early 20th century, Sigmund Freud asked his famous question, “What do women want?”

Judging from my spam folder, I think guys are still trying to figure that out.

Penis enlargement is the–um–big thing. All you need is a super-sized tool, and the women will fall all over themselves to go to bed with you. Of course, I keep wondering how you’re supposed to reveal this piece of equipment to get her interested. Flash her at the office or on a bus?

Guys are preoccupied with size. And volume, apparently. How about THIS ad?

“Did you know that a recent survey showed that 85% of women actually get aroused by a man who produces ‘above average’ semen amounts? With our pills, she’ll be speechless… and definitely coming back for more…”

Yeah, she’ll be speechless, all right–when he floods her out of the bed.

Okay, I realize I’m getting a little gross here. And I also realize these ads play to male fantasies and vulnerabilities. It’s easy to satisfy your sweetie. You don’t have to be good at conversation, dancing or foreplay. Flowers, candy, and Champagne? A tender show of emotion?

Forget all that. You’ve got everything you need right in your magic wand. The bigger the better.
Any man who bothered to sit down and read a romance novel would find out very quickly that semen is pretty far down the list of what turns a woman on. Really, how many love scenes have you read where the guy erupts like Mt. Vesuvius? Or love scenes that get around to cleaning up after sex? Not many. Of course, a big tool can be a turn-on. But it’s not the be all and end all of sex. Just pointing that Maypole at her, then stuffing it into “slot B,” isn’t going to do the trick, because a woman needs her partner to turn her on before they get to intercourse. Remember that famous line from SEX AND THE CITY, delivered after a particularly disastrous sexual encounter: “Do you know what a clitoris is?”

Romance novels make it pretty clear what women want. We’re looking for a man who focuses his attention on his woman. Who charms her with his witty dialogue, then slowly and skillfully uses his hands and mouth to bring her to a tingling level of arousal before he . . . .

Well, you get the idea.

I enjoy writing love scenes where a man and a woman give each other pleasure. And when I’m in the middle of one, I’m as focused on the emotions of my hero and heroine as I am on the physical descriptions. The emotions of these two people and the building arousal reinforce each other to give the scene a depth that most male writers can’t achieve.

There are a few men who can do it, though. One guy who “gets it” is Ken Follett. In fact, he was actually one of my role models. When I read THE KEY TO REBECCA, my reaction was, “THAT’S what I want to write–two people falling in love against a background of suspense and danger.”

The hero and heroine may start off lusting after each other. They may jump into bed for the fun of it. But they end up committed to each other–body, mind, and soul.

Since I write romantic thrillers, I know my plot is going to drag my hero and heroine to hell and back. But I also know I’m going to reward them with a long, happy life together. And a fantastic sexual relationship is always part of the package.

To bring us around to the paranormal, that’s one of the reasons I got into werewolves. I love writing about the men in the Marshall family–my strong, sexy alpha male shape-shifters.

They enjoy sex on a very basic, very animal level. But when each of them finds his lifemate, the sex between them is mind-blowing–and a strong part of the bond they forge. In my latest book, GHOST MOON, even when Caleb Marshall is a ghost, he’s using sensuality to reach out to my heroine, Quinn, because he longs for a physical connection with her.

Sex is always integral to my stories. But sex in the context of a relationship where each partner takes pleasure in pleasing the other.

That’s what I’d like guys to take away from my books.

What do you want from your fantasy lover? And from the romances you read?

Rebecca
www.rebeccayork.com

Grown-Up Guys. . . who needs 'em?

Betina here. The list of
18 Things A Grown Man Should Never Have
was published on MSN the other day. It read like this:

1. a black eye (a real man is smart enough to talk himself out of any fight he's going to lose)
2. a witty e-mail signature (quotes and song lyrics, etc)
3. an empty refrigerator
4. PlayStation thumb (calluses or button shaped bruises)
5. a key chain bottle opener
6. a lucky shirt (every shirt is lucky for a man who knows that the harder he works the luckier he'll be)
7. an unstamped passport
8. Olympic dreams (except in curling or archery)
9. less than $20 in his wallet (a real man always carries enough dough to pick up coffee, bagels, and a Sunday paper without whipping out the plastic)
10. a name for his penis (ahem)
11. any beer that costs less than $20 a case
12. the need to quote The Big Lebowsky, Caddyshack, Stripes, or Superbad (reciting someone else's lines reminds people that you don't have the wits to make up your own)
13. a futon for a sofa (Never in the history of sex has a woman cried out: "Take me on your futon!")
14. code words for ugly women
15. a nerf hoop in the living room
16. a secret handshake
17. drinking glasses with logos (especially those with McDonald's characters!)
18. A recent story with the phrase "So I said to the cop. . ."

A fairly entertaining list. Thanks MSN. Did you find yourself taking inventory of the men in your life? And did they have a few of the things on the "forbidden" list?

Personally I felt like there were a few things I could let slide. The black eye thing might indicate a fight in a good cause. . . like the safety of self and female companion. In which case, the black eye would be a badge of honor. Have you ever read a hero who got a black eye? Ever written one? Think of Indiana Jones or John McClain in the Die Hard franchise. I rest my case.

An unstamped passport? Hey, a lot of countries don't regularly stamp passports anymore. I had to stand in a special line and ASK for a stamp on my passport that last time I was overseas. Not a particularly manly thing to do.

And of course, the Olympic dreams thing. Personally I don't think we need to knock a man's dreams, no matter how juvenile or out of reach they seem. They're his own private business. . . unless he's living in his parents' basement at thirty-five, still "training for the bobsled" as a full time job.

But there were a number of things that got left off the list. . . because they feared offending much of their readership. . . because everybody in the office had a different idea of what should be included. . . and because 6732 Things A Grown Man Should Not Have might have sounded a little excessive. I do, however, feel the need to point out a few glaring omissions:

1. toenails on the bathroom floor, bedroom carpet, or (shudder) in front of any TV.
2. posters of women with D cups scotch taped to the walls
3. a wooden paddle hanging on the wall. . . emblazoned with a college crest or Greek letters
4. soda cans or fast good bags filling the foot wells of the rear seat of the car
5. any athletic department t-shirt with more than three holes
6. tighty-whiteys with some parts (a-hem) not quite so tidy or whitey.
7. a beer can collection displayed in any room above ground.
8. visible nose hair (I have it on good authority that this is why God made mirrors.)
9. a name for his wife's or girlfriend's vagina
10. Penthouse, Hustler, or Playboy subscriptions
11. only one set of sheets. . . which have been on the bed since they delivered the mattress (just, ewwww.)
12. an air freshener tree hanging from his rear-view mirror
13. chains attaching his wallet to his pants
14. a subwoofer in his car that rattles fillings out of teeth
15. guns that get cleaned more regularly than his bathtub
16. more than two pizza places on speed dial
17. athletic shoes more than ten years old
18. pictures of old girlfriends in his wallet
19. pink socks and underwear (or bluish ones, as the case may be)
20. more video games than books
21. little black books with ratings or "user comments,"
whether in hard copy or on a computer.
22. a mother who still does his laundry (or other household chores) for him
(yes, Henry David Thoreau, I'm talkin' 'bout you!)

Yeah, it's probably true that my additions reflect my own values and prejudices about what makes a man mature and worthy of respect. I'm sure yours do too.

So let's hear em! What do you think guys need to grow past? What irks you to see or experience in a grown man? And to be fair, we'll have to do this with women someday, too.

Debra- The Art of Rejection

None of us like rejection. One of my favorites was the time my editor rejected something because it just wasn't Debra Dixon enough.

That's enough to make you go bang your head into a wall.

Another head-banger is the ubiquitous "not right for our list at this time."

Writers slave alone in a room for the most part. Feedback is critical to the process. Feedback assures you that you've made contact with the outside world and, if you're lucky, gives you a springboard from which to jump back into the fray with a stronger manuscript.

These days the rejection shoe is on the other foot because of my expanded role into the editorial side of Bell Bridge's horror/fantasy list. I'm the one sending rejections (instead of getting them) and sending the occasional request for more of a writer's work. This is why I'm pondering the art of rejection. Mostly I've concluded that I should apologize to every editor who's used that "not right for us" line. Never was a truer cliche created.

There is rarely enough time to give any rejected unsolicited submission a proper critique. Often the work is so obviously not right for us that saying anything else might send a writer into a rewriting frenzy with no guarantee that the rewrite will make the book any more marketable.

I've noticed writers have a very flexible idea of whether their work is right for a publishing house. "You want demons? Let me slap a demon in this title and send that sucker in!" Uh...no. But in rejecting the writer, I don't have time to point out the obvious (that I'm not stupid and they'll be published sooner if they work smarter). The time I have should be spent on writers who are right for our publishing house, who have had work requested, who might come through with a revision that can work for us. So, my rejections are normally a couple of lines.

"We appreciate the opportunity to look at your work. Unfortunately, your manuscript isn't right for our list at this time."

But the writer in me wants to say more. The common sense portion of my brain is screaming that I only have so much time in the day to give. I compromise and add that third or forth line giving more guidance as to why the project isn't working for us or at all. But only occasionally.

What's your best rejection? Your worst? Do you think it's best to say nothing rather than something brief which can be only the tip of the iceberg and ignore the more serious problems?

WIN!

Lois Greiman

Hey! I have a new book coming out! Scheduled to hit the shelves on May 27th, it's the first in my Witches of Mayfair series, a trilogy about a coven of government witches in Regency England. Weird, yup, I know, but Under Your Spell garnered a Top Pick! from RT and a "spellbinding" from Lifetimetv.com, so I don't think it's a horrible novel. :) Anyway...in honor of Elegance St. James, my new favorite witch, I'm giving away a hot-off-the-presses copy. If you'd like to snag one please email me at lgreiman@earthlink.net. I'll throw your name in a hat and post the winner on this blog next Saturday along with another contest. So stay tuned and thanks for your support.


www.loisgreiman.com

It's Michele's Fault!

Okay. You can blame Michele for this. Her blog yesterday on her ‘green’ things got me all wound up and appreciating the beautiful flowers and birds I’ve been enjoying from my office window this spring. And since I’m in the process of writing the third of three back to back books, I’m spending a lot of time in my office these days.

Now, so you don’t get the idea that because I’m waxing soft and poetic over feathers and blooms, I want you to know that I wrote an abduction scene and edited a bombing extravaganza while watching this Baltimore Oriole sip grape jelly from the jar lid that I duct-taped (Yes, duct taped. I, too, was a McGyver fan) to my shepherd’s hook which stands 6 feet from my west window.

And the red-breasted gross beak on the little cabin feeder? I wrote a really hot love scene the day he showed up. Hey, you take your inspiration where ever you find it, right? And this pretty boy was hot! (Did that sound wrong?)

Anyway, because I'm up to my eyeballs in this @#$#$@$ deadline, I'm making this short and sweet and going 'the picture is worth a thousand words' thingy.
Enjoy the photos of my heirloom African Violets (I raised them from leaves from my mother's and my aunt's plants), our flowering crab, the red bud, and my favorite, the bleeding hearts. Have you ever seen anything so perfect?




























So, aside from the plant discussion yesterday, what are your favorite spring blossoms? Spring birds? And should I be living in fear that I'll become a crazy old flower watering, bird feeding, cat petting woman who will be content to spend my days watering, feeding, petting and blowing up embassies on paper while life goes on outside my window? Seriously, these are questions I ponder...

A little bit green, but mostly brown.

Well, I think it's official. I do believe Spring has finally settled upon Minnesota. The yard is green, yet even though it was in the high sixties today, the air was still chilly. I've been staring out the window like a kid on a rainy day who just got a new bike. I want to start playing with my plants!
I jumped the gun last week. Put out a few plants that I took in last fall. Bad idea. Two didn't make it. I only plant succulents, and those are some touchy plants. Why do I plant them when I live in the chilly North? I know, it's kinda silly. These kinds of plants belong in Arizona or California. But they are so unique and varied and just plain interesting to look at. Oh, how I envy those who live in the desert states and can have yards filled with succulents.
Anyway, I started digging around in the garden today. Did I mention my garden is a foot and a half in diameter? I do miniature gardening. I do have a strip along the south side of the house too, about five feet wide by fifteen feet long.That's as green as my thumb gets. You can see I tugged out all the old dead stuff and it's looking pretty bleak. I even took out the gate (guarded by gargoyles) and think I may have to redirect the shell path (just for something new). Last summer I had a tree in the front yard and a nice little shrub by the house. Not sure what I'll do this year. But certainly I want to please the (faery) residents. :-)  Okay, here's the after pic; but it was really from last year, which makes it before, but—well, you get the idea.

I took in about two dozen plants last fall. Most succulents don't survive in below forty degree weather, though the hardier sempervivum (hens and chicks; cats and kittens) like the cold and come back like crazy every year after a nice blanket of snow. I lost about a third of the rescued plants. Hey, did I mention I'm no green thumb? I don't know how much to water these things, and I think they usually die of overwatering because winter is their dormant time (for most; some tricky ones grow in the winter). But seriously, if they got watered a half dozen times through the winter, that was good.

This little fellow survived, I'm pleased to say. It's some kind of aloe. He stretched out his arms over winter; he'll snap them up tighter during the summer. Don't ask why. I don't know why, but it's cool to watch.

And here's my latest find. Some kind of swirly, curly, twirly thing. It's a kind of grass, and I'm hoping it stays twisty.



So what about you? Got a green thumb? Or slightly brown, like mine? Do you garden a very specific kind of plant (succulents, roses, all greens)? Let's talk plants!

Michele

Trends in Romance

Hello all. I'm Anne Rigoulot. I co-author a blog known as Let's Gab where anything goes and usually does. I also do some reviews over on I Just Finished Reading.
I live in Wisconsin with my husband and two teenage boys, and I'm thrilled that the Cindy Gerard invited me to guest blog! Thanks Cindy! And thanks to all the ladies of RWTTD for having me!

Today I'm going to talk about trends in romance. I ran some polls on my blog last month so I could put more than just my opinion into this article and approximately 100 people contributed their votes. Thanks everyone! And a special thanks to Karen Scott for pointing her readers in my direction.

Remember when Sherrilyn Kenyon was one of the only romance authors who had paranormal books out there with her Dark Hunter series? I thought it was the cat's meow. I mean, vampires! And not just any vampires either. Huge, hunky vampires. Oh lah lah. Can you believe the first book in that series was released in 2002? Now look at the market. It's been infused with vampires, shape-shifters, fae/fairies, demons, angels, and witches—the favorite of which, according to the polls, are shape-shifters with vampires running a close second.

And at that same time I think most of what I read was contemporary romance and romantic suspense, while now there is so much more of everything to choose from. What I mean is, while you've got the contemporaries and romantic suspense, there's also paranormal, urban fantasy, historicals, and even sci-fi is making a come back. I don't think historicals ever faded into the background, at least not the regencies, and as of late I've seen some western historicals rapidly making their way back on to readers "must buy" lists. Know what I'd like to see as far as historicals? Some medieval Scotsmen who speak in that really sexy brogue. Think Julie Garwood's The Bride.

Speaking of brogue… let's talk a bit about POV (point of view). (Not a very good segue was it? Ah well… LOL) The vast mixture of first person and third person books is phenomenal. Within the past one to two years, first person POV has been on the rise and it's a refreshing change for many. Sixty-six percent of the voters like third person best while 36% said they enjoy reading both equally.

Did you notice the heat level rising in books over the past two or three years? I certainly have. I enjoy romantica only from time to time and with that I find myself in the minority. The hotter the better it would seem! But that philosophy does not carry over to covers. I asked people if they would feel comfortable bringing a book with a revealing cover with them to a doctor's office and the answer to that question was a resounding NO! Myself included in that. So while the covers are getting more and more risqué, readers don't feel comfortable reading them in public—and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. There are a ton of things I like to keep private as well.

But there's a solution…ebooks. Ebooks have become very popular in the past five years and that trend is growing. At the start of it all were a few lonely epublishing houses and now you can find ebooks from NY publishers directly, on eHarlequin, and even on Amazon who made the Kindle for just this purpose. AND ebook reading devices are a convenient way to take books in public without having to worry about the covers. I, personally, have an ebookwise and I love it!

What has all this data told me? The romance market is BOOMING! It's range knows no bounds! Not only is there a diverse assortment of genres but also heat level and POV. Want a contemporary? It's right there. Want a book with a little spice? It's over there too. Want some romantic suspense? How about some SEALs or Special Ops? A story about a Lord and a Lady? A cowboy? Or a vampire? How about a cowboy vampire? Print or ebook? Whatever you want, however you want it, it's right at your fingertips, and it's marvelous!

Anne

Okay guys. Cindy here. We'd love to have you chime in and add your preferences to the mix Anne has given us. What do you see as trends? What do you see as here today, gone tomorrow? What do you think is here to stay? And what is it about a certain sub-genre that really trips your trigger, or pushes your hot buttons? Is there anything you want to see but aren't seeing on the shelves? And Anne would love to field questions about her research and about her very busy and popular blog. Let the games begin....

Crises!

Lois Greiman

I’ve always wondered what I would do in a crisis.

Okay, I’ve had the usual trauma…you know…like when your husband’s horse bites off your son’s ear…that sort of thing. But I’ve been curious what I would be like in one of those split second decisions when I could do something to prevent the trouble-to-come. But recently I found out.

Here’s how it went: I was on a little trip with my 24 year old son, Travis. (Who also happens to be the boy with the torn-off ear--you might see a pattern by the end of this blog.) He had decided to accompany me to the Romantic Times convention because he had made friends there on previous years. In fact he and Heather Graham’s daughter had formed something of a bond and God knows I’m too opportunistic to discourage that.

The convention was in Pittsburgh, so we decided, naturally, to drive. I mean it’s only 100,000 miles or something. And, just as naturally, we decided to camp our way across the United States. It was, after all, April, which is ‘generally’ above freeze-to-death temperatures even here in the northland. So off we went, intending to climb to the highest peak in Wisconsin, Timm’s Hill (I kid you not) as well as to the top of Mt. Arvon, the highest peak in Michigan.. Arvon was supposed to be a half a mile hike, but, with the recent foot of snow the UP had received, the roads were blocked. So what was supposed to be (quite literally) a walk in the park, actually turned into a 14 mile trek through three foot drifts and open streams. We didn’t get back to the car until four in the morning. I think I also remember seeing flesh-eating monsters eying us from the surrounding woods, but that might have just been my hallucinations. Needless to say, we survived the experience, however. In fact, we had learned our lesson. By the time we were back on the road, we had vowed to refrain from doing any more ‘stupid stuff.’

Still, Travis was intent on seeing a particular waterfall and once we arrived in Ohio, I was glad we did. It was a gorgeous spot, a pleasant hike in above-ridiculous temperatures, a spattering of water tumbling gently into an rocky basin. Happy, warm, and content, we trekked to the top, but somehow we lost the beaten trail and found ourselves standing on a nearly level shelf of granite above the falls. There was the tinniest trickle of water running near our feet over the slick rocks. It burbled merrily along, then fell gently down over a 30 foot drop, but suddenly a hear a little patter of sound. I turned to see that Travis has lost his footing. He was down on his stomach six feet from the edge, but in an instant, a heartbeat of time I tell you, he was sliding. And then, as if he were being sucked off the edge, he was gone. For one shattered second I saw him looking up at me from the precipice and then he disappeared from sight.

And what did I do? Did I leap after him and catch him by the arm as any good mother should do? Did I throw myself after him in a vain but heroic attempt to stop his fall? No. I said, and I quote, “Uhhh! Tra! Uhhh!” Then, when that didn’t magically bring him back from the abyss, I carefully picked my way to the edge and looked down.

He was ten feet below me. Somehow he had landed on a tree trunk propped between two rock ledges and was crouching there, one foot on the jagged rock and one on the wood. The water was beating down on his hat and his GPS was hanging from a branch. He looked disoriented and well…wet, but wholly alive. In fact, later, he asked why I hadn’t taken a picture of him.

Taken a picture of him!! I thought the boy was dead and it seemed wrong to snap shots of his broken body. Besides, I had done all I could do to save him. You know… “Uhhh! Tra! Uhhh!”

Crap! I see now that I will never ever, not in a million years, be a star in my own book, not unless all the heroics that are required involve shrieking a few nonsensical syllables.

So, how about you? Crises anyone? What were they? How did you react? And could you, do you think, star in your own action scenes?

www.loisgreiman.com

New Baby in the House

I'm a grandma!

Well, not really. My daughter's moving into her own apartment on June 1st, so what did she have to immediately go and do? Get a kitty, of course.

That means I have a grandkitty. And, my, she is a cutey!

See her head peeking out from the hood of my daughter's sweatshirt?

My daughter picked up the darling on Friday and all weekend, the house has been abuzz with Layla. That's the name she's given the little sweetheart. Although she's not all sugar, this one. Trust me, there's quite a bit of spice oozing out of those tiny, razor sharp claws!

My son's been playing with her every chance he gets. My husband's snapping pictures left and right. My daughter's friends having been coming in and out of the house by the droves. The girls have been oohing and aahing. Even the big, burly guys have been fighting over who gets to hold the six week old ball of fur. I'm not kidding. They're probably the cutest of all with her. But I find myself, too, heading to my daughter's room to see if the kitten is awake.

Our dogs are all curious about this tiny creature that started out hissing and spitting at them. They know she's a baby and are cute as heck around her, so cautious and respectful. She's now, this tiny little thing, in just a couple days, walking fairly comfortably around the dogs. Our full-grown cats are another story. It's a good thing Layla will only be here a few weeks. The house is feeling a bit crowded.

I guess it's another sign spring is in the air, puppies and kittens everywhere. But is really is fun having a kitten in the house again. The best part is, she's not staying. That's the grandma-ish part I like!

Is it just me, or do most people go gaga over babies, human or animal? Could you sit for hours playing, holding, petting?

What is it about a baby that gets the whole house happy and playful and miraculously united?

PS: I'm now wondering if I'll be getting ANY work done today. Guess who's crawling around on my desk and, right now, preparing to attack my fingers as they click across the keyboard, all while my daughter blissfully sleeps?

Helen

The coming of the green . . .

For the first time this year, we signed up for a CSA. (Community supported agriculture . . . you pay a set price for the season and get a box of vegetables every year.)

I've been thinking about it for ages. There are lots of good reasons, including supporting local farmers who raise their crops carefully and sustainably - good for the earth and good for us; and getting a nice box of fresh organic vegetables that had been in the ground the day before. Mostly, I realize that the big hole in our otherwise healthy diet is that none of us eat quite enough vegetables.

We tried. I'd dutifully trundle off to the farmers' market, but either arrive too late for the good stuff or get overwhelmed and simply grab the things I knew what to do with - sweet corn, a random head of broccoli, and a handful of fresh lettuces.

I worried about wasting the food - could we use up a whole box? But that seemed a good prod; guilt would get the vegetables in us, if nothing else.

So I signed up, and the first box came last week. My husband - the true veggie lover in the family - was thrilled. Son #2, who so avoids green vegetables that once, just to spite me, spent an entire year without eating ANYTHING green, and that included green M & M's and mint ice cream, was less certain. As was son #3, who will dutifully nibble on a broccoli floret or asparagus spear but doesn't really understand why anyone would waste stomach space on such things when there's fresh bread and pasta in the world.

There were lots of green things in the box. Bok choi I can handle, and lettuce and carrots and onions. Nothing strange there. Most herbs I can deal with as well, though I have to say the lovage is a new one on me. The beets - the one vegetable the DH can't stand - will go to my parents, who love them. The nettles downright frighten me . . . I'm supposed to EAT something that I'm warned could sting me? Hmm. I might have to work my way up to that.

But the spinach . . . now, that huge bag of spinach is a good thing. My kids will actually eat it, if in only two ways: chopped up very fine and thrown into an adaption of lo mein that they dubbed "popeye noodles" years ago, and in the following salad, which is the otherwise green-phobic son's favorite.

It's easy, and from Cooking Light magazine, so it has to be good for us, right?

The dressing: whisk together 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, 1 tbsp. maple syrup, 1 teaspoon redwine vinegar, a 1/4 tsp. salt and 1/4 tsp Dijon mustard.

Toss with:
A big pile of spinach - 5 or 6 ounces.
1 tart apple, slivered
The bacon crumbles from two strips of bacon, well drained (or, if you're lazy like me, two tbsp. from a bag of pre-made bacon crumbles.)

That's it. And it's pretty darn good.

But you all have to help me get through the summer without the fam running from me every time I come at them bearing a vegetable bowl. What are you very favorite ways to fix veggies?

Susie

NEW Winner for Racing the Moon

The previously posted winner won a copy at another site (yep, I gave away a LOT of copies) so I drew a new name from last Thursday's comments and AMY ADDISON wins! Amy please email me at: toastfaery @ gmail.com

Thanks,
Michele

It's Prom Time...Do You Know Where Your Dress Is?

Since my husband (aka Surfer Guy) is a high school teacher and I have a high schooler, there’s been a lot of prom in the air. Does it bring me back! Short of your wedding, prom night is supposed to be the most romantic night of a girl’s life. My high school actually had both a Junior Prom and a Senior Ball, so we had two opportunities to get it right. One of my friends said that when it came to prom planning for their son this year, they were just “waiting for the girls to tell them who he was taking and where he was supposed to show up.” This is how I got my Junior Prom date. I was just matched up with one of the guys in our group who didn’t have a girlfriend.

For Senior Ball, I went with my boyfriend at the time. I remember having a wonderful evening, except maybe it wasn’t so great for him. As we were leaving his best friend’s house after taking pictures, we rear-ended said best friend's car. It was just a little bump in my mind, but it caused very expensive damage to the grill of my guy's dad’s Cadillac that we’d borrowed for the night. Probably put a bit of a damper on his spirits!

And of course, prom time means prom dresses. A friend told me last night that she figured out her daughter’s technique to getting the perfect prom dress. They shopped all over two cities. Then back to another. By the time they were on the third round, my friend said she was so tired that she agreed to the first one her girl gushed over—a dress that cost over $300!

My Junior Prom dress was white cotton and so, so cute. It had buttons down the side and braided shoulder straps. Very unusual…or so I thought, until another girl showed up in it in yellow! It didn’t matter, though, as she was known as quite the fashionista, so we both felt cool. My dress for Senior Ball was quite another matter. My mom and I could not agree (I’m pretty sure I wanted something slinky and mom was so not having it) and I ended up with this pale blue dress with eyelet at the hem. I thought it was more suitable for an eight-year-old, but somehow my mom wore me out. I did have this really pretty little crown of pink baby roses that I pinned in my hair to make up for it.

The photo above is from the duct tape prom dress contest. I love this one! And how clever that couple is. I bet they got very close in the making of their outfits. Which brings me to this last photo that our own Kathleen Eagle shared with me earlier this week. Can you tell it's made of condoms? This dress makes sure that the wearer on prom night won’t be unprotected.

Okay, spill about your prom! Great night? Great dress? Or was it one that you’d like to do-over?

Christie's going to be along any minute with a blog.

Which means I can sneak in here and send you over to Bell Bridge Books little YouTube video! http://www.youtube.com/user/debbsmith

It's still a work in progress but very cool. --Debra

Hey gang. It's Cindy. We are thrilled to have Brenda Novak as our guest rider in the convertible today. She's here to talk about an amazing event that we can all participate in if we want to. On top of that, for all you fans who have been waiting for it, Brenda's new and thrilling release, TRUST ME will hit the stands on on May 27. What is not to love about that?

Here's Brenda. I know you'll all give her a rousing and warm welcome and make sure you ask her lots of questions about everything from her new release to this super cool event she's going to tell you about right now .....

Spring has arrived, and with it the fundraising season. American Idol Gives back was on a couple weeks ago. Most of the major charities are holding Galas, Walks and Golf Tournaments. And I’m launching my 4^th Annual On-line Auction for Diabetes Research, which runs at http://www.brendanovak.com/ May 1 – May 31st. I know, as much as we all want to help, this “F” word (fundraising) is a little daunting because we have bills and obligations that need to come first.

But the good news is: I’m not asking you to sacrifice! I’m giving you the opportunity to bid on over 1300 items, many of which you can’t find anywhere else. That means you can make a difference to my son and all the other people in the world who suffer from diabetes by SHOPPING. What could be more fun than that?

Think about it. We all buy books. Why not buy an advanced reading copy of your favorite author’s next novel and have the chance to read it before anyone else? Or do your gift shopping for the coming year by purchasing something personal and unique for those on your Christmas list—like the opportunity to have your loved one’s name used as a character in a book? Or the chance to have lunch with such Big Name authors as MaryJanice Davidson, Christine Feehan, Diana Gabaldon, Jayne Ann Krentz, Debbie Macomber, Ridley Pearson, and JR Ward?

There will be items to fit every budget from a drumhead signed by a whole slew of famous music artists (Michael Jackson, Ringo Starr, Bruce Springstein, and far too many others to list) to a treasure trove of miscellaneous items donated by aspiring author Lauren Hawkeye.

And that’s not all. For those who are aspiring to become a novelist or to advance their writing career, there will be AMAZING opportunities. Many of the most powerful agents and editors in the business have donated evaluations—some with the promise of a 24-hour response (which is unheard of in the publishing industry). There will also be mentoring packages from NYTimes Bestselling authors, media training, web designs, publicity packages and lunch with Sue Grimshaw (National buyer for Borders/Waldenbooks).

How does it all work? Just like E-Bay. You register, you bid, you win what you want. When it’s over, you pay with Paypal, credit card or personal check/money order. In most instances the donor even picks up the shipping. Can’t get any better than that, right? Well, it does. The person who places the highest number of bids over all, even if that person doesn’t win a single item, will receive a fabulous prize package including a brand new camcorder (worth over $1,000), Your Name in My Next Book, an autographed copy of my new novel TRUST ME (released May 27^th), and chocolate (lots of chocolate!).

Check out the auction at http://www.brendanovak.com and while you’re at my Web site, enter to win a spectacular trip to Port Orchard and Bainbridge Island (sponsored by Allison Brennan, Debbie Macomber, Susan Wiggs and myself), and receive a $10 gift certificate you can use toward your auction purchases.

What cool items have you won in past charity auctions? Do you prefer on-line shopping to brick & mortar shopping? Do you think this “wave of the future” will eventually overtake traditional fundraising?

Here's to making a difference!

Brenda

Age Before Beauty

UPDATE:

Who ever thought the Sex and the City girls would be accused of being over the hill????
Granted, it's another medium altogether, but have a look at the article that came out this morning: http://movies.msn.com/movies/celebritybuzz?GT1=7701


My sister is always giving me stuff she buys to rejuvenate her skin. Now I'm not sure she's obsessed with looking younger-- personally, I think she just loves all the pretty, shiny little bottles and compacts and brushes. Who doesn't? Those Estee Lauder and Lancome and Clinique gifts don't walk onto millions of bathroom counters by themselves, you know. If I thought about it, I could probably get a complex of some kind. But. . . nah. What's in the mirror is what's in the mirror. And after all, it is just my sister.

Until recently.

It seems like "regeneration" and "looking years younger" are coming at me from every quarter these days. I just picked up one of my favorite sci-fi authors and his book was all about-- regeneration and becoming younger. Then I opened my browser and there was a whole spread of "famies" pictured before and after the "nip/tuck." Then I was walking through the family room-- at NOON, mind you-- and one of the national news shows had a tell-all piece on plastic surgery. Okay, enough's enough. I'll think about it.

As a woman and a writer "of a certain age," I began to wonder just how much my appearance affects what I do. At my age, have I still got the juice to write hot and steamy? At my age, should I be worrying about how I look in a bathing suit? At what age do I quit worrying about my appearance and just live? Ever?

Maybe it's all about attitude. Maybe it's the fact that looking younger in a mirror can make you behave a little differently, take on challenges you were too "tired" or "been there--done that" to consider before. Maybe it's about energy level and getting a boost from the inside out.

So, anyway, I started thinking about the inevitable. . . saggy aging. . . and wondered what I would/should do about it. Can I see myself getting a nip/tuck? Should I consider one of the non-surgical procedures that rejuvenate the skin? They now have acupuncture face lifts that apparently work rather well-- how about one of those? Or just spend more money of fancy creams and dermatology visits? How about the holistic route-- vitamins and wraps and massages?

Okay, a certain person who is very close to me had a face lift about three years ago, and it did her a world of good. She looks younger and feels better than she did staring at the wrinkles in the mirror. But it was something of a pain and she says she won't go through it again. I think she underestimated what it takes to recover from a surgery-- because, baby, it really is SURGERY. Don't let the "plastic" part fool you. So having seen all the ins and outs up close, I know what I'd really face, going that route. Not overly enthused at the prospect.

Plus: The average cost of facelift cosmetic surgery ranges from $6,000 to $15,000. Lots of money to spend on such a dicey effort. And what if something goes wrong? Think of poor Joan Van Ark. . .

But if I look better and seem to be younger and more vital, might that effect the way people-- yes even industry publishing people-- see me? Would they think I was a more "bankable prospect" if I seemed ten years younger? Does physical appearance affect whether they put you out in the public eye? Does it affect whether they're willing to invest in you for a long run?

Yikes. Scaring myself, here.

And would any of this matter to my readers?

I'm not considering plastic surgery, but I think the mini-stuff done on an outpatient basis bears some looking into. However, I think one of the best things a woman can do for herself is lose excess weight and do whatever exercise she can enjoy. I'm trying that first. . . then when I see what's left of me, I'll decide where to go from there.

What do you think? If you have the money, is plastic surgery worth it? How do you plan to age? Does it concern you, or are you happy settling into grannyhood. . . with or without the grandkids? Do you think looking older has an effect on your career? Does how a writer looks influence how you see their work?