There are plenty of clichés and sayings I understand: “sharp as a tack,” “busy as a bee,” “faster than a speeding bullet” …

It’s the ones I don’t understand that drive me crazy. For example, how did “happy as a clam” come about? Why are clams happier than anyone else? They live in sand, for God’s sake—what’s to be happy about that?

Then there’s “she let the cat out of the bag.” My question is, what was the cat doing in the bag in the first place? Did he get lost? Is he looking for some of those happy clams? And why would someone keep a cat in a bag anyway? I suspect cats don’t like being in bags, and anyone who put one there had better be worried about a visit from the ASPCA.

Or how about “thick as thieves”? Is that a slur against the intelligence of thieves or how fat they are? Because that makes no sense whatsoever. Even if you accept that “thick” could mean “close friends,” why would thieves be any closer friends than anyone else? I’d figure thieves are the LEAST likely to trust others.

And the next time someone says a baby is “cute as a button,” I’m going to make them explain what’s cute about buttons. I sewed for years. I saw pretty buttons, stylish buttons, hard-to-sew buttons, but “cute” wasn’t what generally came to mind when I looked at them. And “cute as a bug’s ear”? Have you ever SEEN a bug’s ear? Do they even have ears? If they did, would they be cute? Seriously?

So what clichés or catch phrases make no sense to you?

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Many of you probably already know that I was the emcee for this year’s RITA Awards Ceremony at the Romance Writers of America conference. What you may not know is that it took place before a room of about 1500 people.

It should have terrified me. I have NEVER been in front of that large an audience. I certainly have never been in front of an audience made up of half the editors who’d ever rejected me, publishing house bigwigs from publishers I left, and authors whom I worship, not to mention, about a thousand aspiring writers. So why wasn’t I nervous?

Well, I owe that to four people. One was Claudia, who said I should just enjoy my moment in the spotlight and have a good time. One was Vicki Lewis Thompson, who chatted and laughed with me during the rehearsal and really made me feel relaxed. One was Laura Hayden, who runs the show and who put her complete trust in me to do a good job. And one was my brother, who cheered me on from the front row. Thanks to them, I made the decision sometime that afternoon during rehearsal that I was just not going to worry about it. I was going to have fun, relax, and enjoy the running gag about my stealing Nora’s RITA (to see where the idea originated, go to Liz Carlyle’s site and see how I once pretended to steal her RITA).

And then I did enjoy it! It probably helped that I’m a ham and a performer from way back (used to sing solos all the time). But still, it could have gone either way. I could have stressed about it and gotten up and flubbed it. I could have taken the time to really think about who was in that audience … and gotten up and flubbed it. Or I could have done a good job, but been a nervous wreck the whole time. Instead, I have a wonderful memory of a fun night in a cool dress. Can’t beat that!

What I found is that if you make a conscious decision to enjoy something no matter what … you often can. Sometimes it’s just giving yourself encouragement or permission that tips the balance.

So have you ever made the decision to enjoy a day, an event, a visit, a trip that you weren’t expecting to enjoy or were nervous about and found that your decision enabled you to enjoy it? Do you get nervous in front of large groups? Has anyone ever said or done anything to you right before a nerve-wracking event that helped you get through it?

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The other day, I was telling Deb Marlowe how surprised I was by how much I’d grown to love my 3 mile-a-day  walk and my lap swimming (I’m up to 54 lengths in an hour–yes, I’m a slow swimmer, but I’m gaining speed every day). I couldn’t understand how I could have hated exercise for so many years, and then suddenly I was loving it.

Deb said she knew why I was loving it. Exercise gave me headspace. She’s right. And you know what? Apparently I need a lot more of it than I used to.

Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot about how multi-tasking isn’t actually that good. People who multi-task rather than focusing on one thing get less work accomplished and it hurts their brains (or something like that). I’m beginning to believe it. When I’m in the pool or walking outside, all I do is think. I think about my book. I think about my family. I think about my plans. Sometimes I think of nothing at all.

That’s why I love playing computer card games, too–all I think about is winning the card game. And for someone who thinks about everything ALL the time, it’s very SOOTHING.  I honestly think it’s an age thing. I just NEED the headspace. And I’ve found that my work is better, and certainly my mood is better with the focus on thinking.

So do you need headspace? What do you do to get it–have a soak in the tub, listen to music, garden, cook, play computer games? Do you find that it helps you in every aspect of life?

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I confess–I don’t really know how quickly Shakespeare wrote his plays. No one does. It was 400 years ago, for heaven’s sake! But I do know that he had 38 plays, 154 sonnets, and some other poems PUBLISHED in his short lifetime of 52 years (that doesn’t count anything he wrote that wasn’t published). That’s a substantial body of work. I’m around his age, and I’ve had only 29 novels, six novellas, and two short stories published. And I’m considered relatively prolific. Plus, none of my works approaches his genius.

As you can tell, despite all my picking on Will, I am a HUGE Shakespeare fan. I’ve read nearly all of the plays (some multiple times), and seen several productions, plus just about all of the movie adaptations. I think he was brilliant.

That said, I know that he’s an acquired taste. I personally think everyone should read him … but not in high school. And they shouldn’t start with the tragedies; they should start with a good rollicking comedy and work up to the hard stuff. I also think that seeing a production will endear you to him, since the 400-year-old language is harder to comprehend when you just read it.

So how do you feel about Shakespeare (it’s okay to hate him–I understand, really I do). If you hate him, why? If you love him, what is your favorite play? Favorite sonnet? What is your favorite production? Do you think that his status as one of the greatest authors ever is justified?

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Okay, so I’m not the typical mother. I admit that. Autistic children have different issues than other children. Nonetheless, I’m an aunt to several of the little monst– . . . er, darlings . . . and I did come across them frequently while writing in my favorite coffeeshop. And I WAS one, for heaven’s sake—that ought to count for something. I figure I’m not that different from the average person.

So why is it so hard for some writers to create believable children? I’m not a man, yet I write male characters. Paranormal authors aren’t vampires, yet they write blood-sucking heroines. And thank God Karen Rose doesn’t have firsthand experience of the kind of characters she writes or we’d all be in trouble!

We’re fiction writers. We make things up. It’s expected. Still, writing about children is … well, different. The little buggers are hard to pin down. Too many shows have kids spouting clever one-liners. While kids can come out with some real zingers, they’re usually unintentional. Ever heard a six-year-old tell a joke? Was it funny? Really?

That’s why when I come across a real kid in books or on TV, I enjoy it all the more. My favorite these days is Jake Harper from Two and a Half Men. No one is laughing WITH him, they’re laughing at him. He’s not precociously clever, he doesn’t have his stuff together, and like lots of boys his age, his favorite humor is fart jokes and his favorite pastime is food. And now that he’s older, girls. Yet like many kids, he can sometimes be very perceptive about what’s going on in the household. Angus T. Jones plays the role brilliantly, but you can also tell that the writers have SOME experience with real kids. They know their stuff.

My next book (A Hellion in Her Bed, due out September 21st) has a 12-year-old boy as a key secondary character, and I asked my critique partner Deb Marlowe to pay special attention to that part of the book, since she has two sons around that age. I think it’s important to get kids right in fiction.

So who’s your favorite fictional child? Do you enjoy children in fiction (books OR TV/movies)? Do you ever find them unrealistic? What’s the one thing you wish writers would show about kids in fiction that they never do?

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I grew up watching Broadway musical movies. Some of my favorites were The Sound of Music, Oliver!, Song of Norway, Grease, Xanadu … I liked a lot of them. I even developed a theory for why they were popular–my theory was that the musical numbers act as interior monologue does in novels, allowing us to see inside the characters’ heads. They’re like the soliloquies in plays. Only to music.

But I digress. In recent years, I thought my interest in musicals had died. Everybody raved about Moulin Rouge. It barely made an impression on me. Everybody loved Phantom of the Opera. I yawned (I still don’t get why that’s popular, and I ADORE Gerard Butler!). I couldn’t figure out why I’d lost my love of musicals. Did I just not like the convention of characters breaking into song anymore? Were the songs too dull? Had I, gasp, outgrown musicals?

Then last year I saw the Mamma Mia movie, and I loved it! Still, I told myself that it wasn’t a real musical. Being an ABBA fan already, I knew all the numbers going in, so it was just like an ABBA concert. Except that I did like the story. I liked it so much that I bought the DVD (the special edition one, no less).

Last week I went to see Wicked with my bookclub. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it all that much (it was a musical, after all), but I was curious. Plus, I told myself that I needed to get out more.

It turned out to be wonderful. I was enraptured from beginning to end. I liked the songs. I liked the story. I teared up at the end of the musical, which I rarely do. That’s when I figured out that I still like musicals. I just want the story and the songs to resonate with me. A musical I don’t like is irritating as hell. A musical I DO like is rapture. What a relief to find I still like them!

It’s funny, because I’ve done this with performers, too–ones I thought I’d outgrown (Neil Diamond, Judy Collins) and then rediscovered.

So what about you? Do you like musicals? Why or why not? Which are your favorites? Is there anything (art, music, books, hobbies, habits) that you thought you’d outgrown or lost interest in and that you suddenly like again?

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It all started when my chapter loop got into a discussion about passive vs. active voice. No, I’m not going to put you to sleep with a lecture on grammar, but in the end, we decided that to follow any grammar rule, you need to know the rule itself and why the rule is relevant under the circumstances. Yes, grammar is not simple, as any English teacher will tell you.

Anyway, it occurred to me that our conclusion fits for most rules. It also explains why many of them irk me. Because I don’t know why they’re relevant. Which means I don’t see why I should follow them.

Here’s a few examples:

• Why do we have to turn our ipods off when a plane is taking off or landing? I know it isn’t because it bothers the instruments–ipods don’t have signals (unlike the wireless signals on laptops, Iphones, cell phones, etc.–THOSE rules I understand). A pilot once told my brother that it’s because taking off and landing are the times when things are most likely to go wrong, so they want passengers paying attention. Huh. Why aren’t they confiscating the books? Trust me, if I’m deep in a book and the captain is droning on about how we’re about to crash, I’m not going to hear it any better than if I’m listening to music (or sleeping–why don’t they ban sleeping?). Besides, I think the stewardesses dashing madly about would clue me in more than anything. I always want to ignore that rule. It seems stupid to me.
• Why can’t I use a cell phone in a doctor’s office? There must be a reason, yet some doctor’s offices don’t have the rule. I have an autistic son. He has issues. I am NOT going to turn off my cell phone and risk missing the call where his caregiver tells me she can’t meet the bus because she’s been in an accident. I do hope it doesn’t screw up the machines. I don’t see how it can if some offices use the rule and other’s don’t.
• And speaking of doctor’s offices, why can they cancel my appointment and charge me if I show up ten minutes late, but I can’t do the same to them? They can keep me waiting for two hours, and I have no recourse. Is my time not just as valuable?

These are just a few of the rules that I find illogical and irksome. So what about you? Any rules that bug you? Any rules that make no sense? And when are they going to let ME run the world, anyway?

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