Me, that’s what I saw myself!
Fah, a long, long chain of duns!
So, a needle hurling Fred!
La, the goat that hollars GO!
Tee, a clink of churning dread!
Which brings us back to . . . DOH!

Ok, so maybe those aren’t QUITE the words, but you get the gist. I’m not good with words, but tunes? Once I get one in my head, it burrows in and sets up house.

My daughter calls these songs ‘tune worms.’ It’s an infestation as it were. And I wish they’d make a pill for it already.
The worst thing about a tune worm is that it doesn’t even have to be — and usually isn’t — a song that you like. Sometimes it’s an ad jingle or a snippet of song that is, simply put, annoying and regrettably simple. I never get a tune worm that might impress people like Mozart’s seventh symphony. Nope! I’m the woman in the back singing The Dr. Pepper Jingle slightly off key and completely incorrectly over and over and over and over and over and … you know how it goes and it ain’t pretty.

My top ten most annoying tune worms:

1. She’s a briiiick house! She’s mighty, mighty, just lettin’ it all hang out!
2. Wouldn’t you like to be a Pepper, too?
3. The Double Dutch Bus.
4. I’m Too Sexy For My (fill in blank)
5. Gobble ‘em down and the plate comes back – for Hungry Jack!
6. C is for Cookie
7. Yankee Doodle Dandy
8. And then I saw her face! And now I’m a Believer!
9. Roll Out the Barrel! Roll out the barrel of fun!
10. Should auld acquaintance be forgot aaaaand never lost to mind!

Have you ever had a tune worm? What was the song? How did you get rid of it or is it still humming in your mind right now? And two hours from now, will you be humming “I’M A PEPPER! SHE’S A PEPPER! HE’S A PEPPER! WE’RE A PEPPER! WOULDN’T YOU LIKE TO BE A PEPPER, TOO!

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I’m on my way to San Francisco for the RWA conference. Before I go, I want to leave you with the latest weird news. I read this and it cracked me up.

A man who tried to rob the Café Treo in Salt Lake City in April told the employee to “fill” the bag, but when the employee reached over and earnestly started to “feel” the bag (according to police), the robber said, “You’ve gotta be kidding me” and ran out of the store. [KSL-TV (Salt Lake City), 4-11-08]

Au revior, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye and try not to have too much fun while I’m gone.

Are you all going somewhere fun this summer?

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I’m flying from Costa Mesa, California to San Francisco today. It’s about an hour and forty minute flight – not bad, but plenty of time for me to sit and worry. No, I’m not worrying about flying. I’m worrying because Before the Scandal: The Notorious Gentlemen comes out today.

I don’t have kids to send off to school, but I imagine the emotions are similar: pride, worry, hope, and above all the belief that my baby would be much safer at home where I could keep an eye on her.

My baby’s grades will come out next week – her rankings on the New York Times list, the USA Today list, etc. She’s already been evaluated by several professionals (er, reviewers), who tell me that she’s above average and very witty with a great sense of humor over a deep emotional core. That’s something of a relief, but I still want her to test well.

She’s dressed a little flashily, in bright red and black, but then I do want her to get noticed. There are a lot of new kids hanging out together in the bookstores, and it’ll be disappointing for both of us if she’s the last one picked for sports, or the beach, or a place of honor at the top of someone’s TBR stack.

So what are you doin’ today? Flying? Going to work? Vacationing? Stopping by a bookstore? Lemme know if you see my kid. I try to encourage her to go home with strangers.

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Since this is the week of the crazy, huge, wonderful, neurotic, instructional, frenzied RWA conference in San Francisco, I thought we should talk about something dear to our hearts: Storytelling.

Actually I picked this topic because I just read an article in a chapter newsletter by an agent who also teaches writing. At the end of a class, he was asked a question by a student which he said stumped him. “How do I know if my story is any good?”

Reportedly the agent puzzled over his answer for several days and then came up with a laundry list of basic elements that, in his opinion, all good stories have – Characters, Plot, Setting, Narration, Dialogue. Then he described how to evaluate each element to see if it meets a certain standard of excellence.

I think I disagree. Now, I know that the definition of “good” and “bad” can be extremely subjective. But for me, a good story isn’t a collection of elements that I can check off. Instead, I call a story “good” because of the overall impact it has on me as a reader: If it holds my interest. If it fulfills my expectations for the genre. If it punches all the right emotional buttons. If it gives me a satisfying reading experience.

To be more descriptive…. A thriller thrills. A mystery intrigues. A fiction novel often poses questions and explores answers. A romance makes me laugh and cry and sigh with hope for the lovers’ happy ending.

Most particularly, I call a story “good” if it can make me forget that I’m a writer and just sweep me up in the journey. I love it when that happens!

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Suzanne Enoch has a new book coming out entitled BEFORE THE SCANDAL.

I haven’t read it. I want to. I’m dying to. But no one (ahem!) has given me even a GLIMPSE of an advanced reading copy so I’m in the dark.

I don’t like the dark.

But then I found this little tidbit from SE’s website: The hero in BEFORE THE SCANDAL is Lt. Colonel Phineas Bromley, rakehell, warrior, and notorious gentleman.

I like that last part – ‘notorious gentleman.’ Verrry interesting. Makes me wanna know more.

So I wrote to SE and said:
Hey! What can you tell me about this Colonel Phineas Bromley? It’s late July and I’m ready to fall in love.

And this is what she wrote back:
You impatient woman! It’s coming out in TWO days on JULY 29th — can’t you wait that long?

To which I replied:
No.

So she sent me this:
Fine. Here’s an excerpt from the book. Now stop whining.

Phineas Bromley. Phin. The last person Alyse ever would have imagined joining the army. Clearly neither of their lives had turned out as they’d intended. She didn’t know what the insignia on his shoulder meant, but he was clearly an officer.
A moment later he walked into the room, his gaze touching on the rest of the occupants, and then finding her. Alyse blushed again at those clear hazel eyes, wondering what she looked like to him. Other than his eyes, she wasn’t certain she would have recognized him. His dark brown hair was a little long, as though he’d been too busy to seek a barber, and his face leaner than she remembered. And a narrow scar dissected his right eyebrow and touched his cheek, giving his appearance the rakish bent that he’d always seemed to have inside. He’d been pretty as a boy, and he’d become a strikingly handsome man.

And THEN, she sent me these:

Wow. Just . . . wow. I’m now officially ready to read BEFORE THE SCANDAL the very SECOND it hits the bookstores this coming Tuesday, July 29th.

How about you? Are you ready for the devastatingly sexy Colonel Phin Bromley to sweep you off your feet? Do you have an evening marked off to savor this jewel? I plan on buying and reading my copy at the airport on my way to San Fran! Ooooooh, I CAN’T WAIT!

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I�admit it–I like hair on a man. And I don’t mean just head hair, either–I mean, chest hair and facial hair, too. I adore beards and mustaches, and I don’t even mind back hair. I find men with hair everywhere the epitome of macho. It’s a curse, really, this love of the hirsute. Because everywhere I go these days, men are shaving and trying to hide their lovely rugs.

Imagine my shock when I learned that male models WAX their hair off. I was appalled! And THEN I started hearing readers complain about romance writers who describe the hero as having a rug on his chest. Um, I think I might have done that in my early days. Probably because I, gasp, find hairy men sexy (except that I don’t like handlebar mustaches, whether they tilt up OR down).

Alas, I am apparently in a very small and select minority–female lovers of hirsute men. Aficionados of the hair shirt. Connoisseurs of the chest rug. There’s probably, what, five of us? Maybe six? Though I should point out that Tom Selleck always had serious hair, God bless him, and he’s still considered a major hottie in some quarters.

Seriously, am I the only one who likes a hairy man? Who isn’t bothered by the idea of running her fingers through a man’s chest hair, something that gets parodied every other day on some show or another? Does it bother you as a reader to have a hero with a mustache or a beard? How about a chest rug? Would mention of back hair gross you out in a romance? Where do you draw the line hair-wise?

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I’ve begun packing for Nationals, and I realized that there’s one thing I no longer even bother to bring along. Pantyhose. Back in the olden days (say 10 years ago) I wore pantyhose. Probably five days a week, though I did cheat and use knee-hi’s when I wore slacks. At work, hose. At romance conferences, hose. At the theater or out for a nice dinner, hose.

Not anymore. I don’t like pantyhose. I never have. They’re hot, first of all. They run FAR too easily, and I hated when I put nail polish on the beginnings of a tear and then had both the polish and the hose stuck to one part of my leg all day. I hated the wiggling and wriggling and finally getting them up higher than penguin-waddle level before realizing that they had those ugly toe-things and I wanted to wear sandals.

So now I use self-tanning lotion. The look is about the same, and the comfort level automatically raises about 382% (that’s not an exact number). Yes, the lotion probably involves more work overall – reapplying, drying time, etc. – but I don’t care about that. No more itchy legs, no more wanting to wade into the nearest fountain to cool off. And I can curl my toes up without getting that seam pushed up under my foot.

Do you wear pantyhose? Is there something supposedly fashionable that you’ve given up for the sake of comfort? What kind of self-tanning lotion do you like best?

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