Most of you might be too young to catch that reference. If you don’t, Google “Tuesday” and “Belgium” to see. Uhm…when dd Google become a verb? LOL I’m also over at Happy Endings Blog today. There’s a contest going on for a free book to be given to one lucky commenter this month. I’m talking about RWA and getting involved.

For those of you who don’t hang out at the SBTB blog, you probably missed this:

I’m in a “music video”- LOLOLOL! Sarah Wendel is just the best ever! I have pictures but no way to transfer from the camera card to the computer. I forgot my little plug-in reader thingy. *headdesk* I’ll have lots of pictures next week! Tomorrow, though, I’ll give a quick rundown of things seen, heard, and done at RWA10.

In the meantime, don’t forget the party at the Long and Short of It.

What about Friday, folks? Shall we continue our Friday Flash? And I’m still waiting to pick a winner of the Mr. Summer contest from last Saturday, to make sure all the votes are in. If you haven’t voted for Mr. Military, go now and do so! Next Saturday is another semi-final round to see who moves on to the next level to challenge LL Cool J in the finals.

First, Iffy has been hounding me to have a contest for FAERIE FIRE. So… I’m over at Sky Purington’s Blog this week and she’s giving away an ebook copy of FAERIE FATE and a gift certificate to Wild Rose. Since most of you (ALL I hope! LOL) have FATE, I thought I’d do a Just For Penumbra Peeps contest. If you drop by Sky’s this week and leave a comment (not to mention you might learn something about Ciaran you don’t already know… ) I will randomly pick the name of a Penumbra Peep to win a .pdf ARC of FAERIE FIRE. Sound like a deal?

Wow. RWA ’10 starts in two weeks. ACK! I’m soooo not ready! For those going, I’ll be at registration helping out on Wednesday morning, the literacy signing Wednesday night, the AGM on Thursday morning (more about that in a moment), the PRO retreat on Thursday afternoon, where I’ll be the Official Photographer(tm). Thursday night is the OKRWA NRCA reception so I’ll be out of pocket. Friday and Saturday days and Friday night, I hope to have some time to kick back, visit, and enjoy the convention.

I’m also headed back to New Orleans over Labor Day weekend for Heather Graham’s Writers For New Orleans conference. This is such a fun time! Heidi, my stalwart road trip companion and CP extraordinaire, is going with me again. There are costume parties, great panels, great food, and I’ll get to participate in the book signing on Sunday afternoon. Anyone around N’awlins, drop in and say hi!

I’ll need to get posts for the Mr. Summer contest and Friday Flash done in advance. Hotel wifi is iffy at best.

Are you making fun of me?!?

No, Iffy. I’m not. Do you want to tell the readers about tomorrow?

Sure! I’m gonna chase Silver out again tomorrow–with my scissors if she’s not careful! Then I can do more interviews. Sort of. I thought I might share a scene that was cut from FAERIE FIRE so you can get to know Senator Patrick O’Connor and his good friend, Allan Steele. (Yes, that would be Margaret’s husband.) By the way, it’s about time you started giving away ARCs of FIRE! Just sayin’…. You guys be sure to go to Sky’s blog and leave a comment. Trust me! You realllllly want to read FAERIE FIRE. OMG! It’s HAWT!

No pun intended, right, Iffy? Now…as mentioned above, I’ll be attending the Annual General Meeting at RWA. Why? Because I have declared for the Region 5 Board of Director position. I’d appreciate votes from those of you who are members when the time comes this fall. Changes are coming fast and furious to the romance publishing world, and I’d like to help RWA meet the challenges.

On that note, back to work on FOOL. I’ve left Rory in a very dire predicament and he says he’s been dangling long enough. OH! One other thing. Any suggestions for a category for this Saturday’s Mr. Summer contest? Not the contestants themselves, but a category!

Hi. It’s Tuesday. I think I have a brisket hangover. No. I know I have a brisket hangover. How ’bout the rest of you? Have a good weekend? Survive Monday for those of you who didn’t get the day off?

I really have nothing to say. Shocking, I know. I am blogging over at Happy Endings today. Sort of. Drop by and say hi to Iffy. Oh…how ’bout a glimpse at Deke and Alex from FAIRY TALES CAN COME TRUE?

Derek was editor of the high school paper, Cougar Tales. Tall and skinny, he wore black-framed glasses and had a shock of dark hair that fell over his forehead. Twenty-five years later, he’s a network news superstar, reporting live from all the hot spots in the world – from war zones to disasters, Deke Carpenter is your guy! Yes, this is George Eads. Who is exactly the right age–43. And…a bit of trivia, George and I share the same birthday. Not the year (I wish!) but the month and day.

Dorothy Reagan was the faceless girl behind the camera in high school. She was the photographer for the paper. Unfortunately, she had frizzy red hair and freckles back then. She also thought she was a bit on the chunky side. All grown up, she’s known in the fashion world as Alex London, famed fashion photographer. There’s a long story about her name change. (And you’ll have to read the novella. LOL!) However, after Toby, her assistant, arranges for a makeover, she’s tamed her hair and looks very much like Dana Delaney.

While I’m over at MURDER SHE WRITES guest blogging today, I thought I would copy a comment Justin made last week and post it here to stand on it’s own as a guest blog. Some of you may have missed it. I found it profound enough to warrant a repeat here. Having the male point of view when it comes to sex in literature is interesting, especially when the man is as eloquent as Justin. Here’s what he had to say:

I think I’ve let slip that my secret alter ego’s an erotica author from some years past. As you’re entering my territory here, let me offer a few thoughts on sex in literature.

The key mistake I’ve seen made, time and time again, is to treat sex as a bottle of Tabasco sauce at tableside, as opposed to an airtight bag of dried chile peppers in one’s spice rack. The very question of “how much sex?” leads us down the path of thinking of literary sex in the former sense, as something added to an otherwise fully-fleshed-out story outline to make it “spicy.” Put bluntly, this doesn’t encourage the sex to serve any narrative purpose, and leads the author pondering this question to treat sex as a distraction, a sideshow, to stitch together awkward transitions in a story, or to provide a suitably explosive quality to an otherwise slightly tepid coda. Sex here masks bland narrative, distracts from awkward stitching of scenes, serves as the magician’s colorful silk scarf, distracting the audience from what the other hand might be doing.

It’s little wonder that sex in literature receives little (and grudging) respect, used in this way so often. While the other story elements — the characters, the setting, the plot, the pacing, the specific nuances of the struggle that creates the piece’s literary tension — are carefully weighed and balanced to create a single coherent “flavor” during early sketching of the piece as such, this approach treats sex as a sort of sprayed-on chrome and bolt-on trim package, something added as an afterthought, something there to be flashy and pretty and candy-like to the reader.

Why do we do this? I think, deep down, we’re all uncomfortable with the idea of exposing ourselves as sexual beings, even though the imagined obscuring lens of a fictional third party. I think, truth be told, we feel naked and judged on a deep, perhaps largely subconscious level, to show the outside world even a hint of our — pardon the sudden crass and juvenile word choice, it’s deliberate — “O-face.” When we treat sex like Tabasco sauce, we can pretend it’s not personal, it’s not some facet of ourselves, our feelings, shining through. It’s just something we slather onto an already largely complete story to “make it yummy” for readers who fancy it.

The question we should be asking instead, at the time of early outlining of the story, is how much of a role sex plays in the narrative, and to what narrative purpose it serves. We groom our dialogue, pruning exchanges that add nothing to the story, sometimes removing entire scenes that don’t serve to further the story effectively. We prune characters that aren’t necessary, review any subplots with a critical eye for fear they might muddle the piece’s flow. Likewise, we should approach the question of sex at this time, too, and regard sex as simply one more form of narrative, one more literary tool with which to tell the reader about the characters, the situation, or the world.

Sexual narrative, when used in this way, serves a literary purpose. A sex scene can tell us more about the characters, revealing nuances of their minds and hearts that cannot be explored through dialogue in a natural way, and that might require situations that aren’t convenient to the narrative to explore otherwise. They can introduce the characters to one another in new ways, and can be conversations in themselves — I’ve written sex scenes that were arguments without words, admissions of fear, admissions of need, disconnects, reconnects, new connections, power struggles, power surrenders, queries, answers, hopes fulfilled, hopes dashed, and even ones in which the characters remained in separate “worlds” while their bodies shared personal space. Want to show the reader how the favored dancer is the true power behind the throne? Set her in the Emir’s lap and let the “camera” linger there. Show the old man’s stumpy, graceless fingers tremble as the follow the light gloss of clean perfumed sweat that shimmers on her heaving belly in the flickering amber and umber hues of the lamplight. Show us the way his breath chuffs, short, urgent and canine, in time with the dry porcelain rattle of beaded strands from her shirt across his chest. Allow her smile to blossom, but don’t tip that hand too quickly. Draw it out. He doesn’t get that smile until he’s past shame, past reserve, and fully in her thrall. Is she enjoying his surrender to her, or merely her own masterful artfulness? Is she fond of him, or merely in love with her own prowess in controlling him, or even simply with the beauty of her own dance?

Rather than ask how much sex is necessary, perhaps we should be asking what we wish to say in a given scene, and whether sex is the language best suited to its expression. The difference between literarily relevant sex and gratuitous sex is not the “volume” of the sexual content, but its relationship to the story in which it happens, and its purpose as a part of that story. Story-interrupting sex may serve a literary purpose too — to give hope to a disheartened reader that the HEA is not impossible, to give the reader a rest between strident and draining chapters, or to renew the characters’ interest in one another, for example — but again, in these cases, the scene is set into the piece with purpose beyond reader titillation. The decision of “how much” is a simple one, in all of these cases. Would adding more (intensity, graphic exposition, length) better serve the scene’s purpose, or would it detract from that purpose?

I would argue that entire stories can be told *as* sexual narratives; some of my best short stories spanned a sex scene in their entirety, but told the reader everything he or she needed to know about the characters in the space of that sex scene, and flowed with a clear beginning, middle, and end in a literarily satisfying way. If this is true, then sex, really, is no different from any other literary vehicle, and doesn’t require any special consideration as such a vehicle. How much sex? I don’t know. How much dialogue? How much scenery? How much flirtation? How much plot?

How much does the story demand? That’s the question.

Hi there, it’s me again. That is the question, isn’t it? And people think I love Justin just for his tech savvy!

No words of wisdom. No jokes. No…nuthin’. *sigh* On the other hand, I am writing great sex (I hope) and a lovely murder. Let’s see…WIP…blog…WIP…blog…

Feel free to talk among yourselves. OOH! I have a question…How much sex is too much? Or too little? Yeah. I’m all about the hot vampire lovin’ at the moment. I couldn’t believe I pretty much faded to black in both love scenes in SOTW. Horrors! So…besides sexxoring up those scenes, I think I’ll throw in a gratuitous scene just for the heck of it! Later, gators…

Yes, I’m tooting my own horn again. For those of you who haven’t heard, my “miniature rose” (short novella) was accepted by the Last Rose of Summer imprint at The Wild Rose Press. FAIRY TALES CAN COME TRUE will appear in the Class of ’85 series. w00t! Deke and Alex, with the help of Toby Smythe aka Alex’s “fairy godmother”, will get their happy ever after, right after I torment them.

I’m looking forward to working with Ms. Editor 2.0 on this project. I really like the comments and questions she offered on the MS. I’m head’s down working on it this week–want to get the edits and slight revisions done and back so I can once more get back to work on SOTW. I’ll be around, if slightly slow to respond.

Thanks, y’all, for having faith in Iffy and me!

Gerard Butler. Do I really need to say more? If you haven’t seen this movie, why not?

Kathryn Heigl plays Abby Richter, producer of a ratings-challenged morning news program in Sacramento. Even a local cable access show has more viewers. That show, The Ugly Truth, is hosted by Mike Chadway (Gerard), an arrogant alpha male with a chip on his shoulder and a firm belief that love is an impossible fairy tale and sex is the only thing men want from a relationship. She catches his show one night and discovers the next morning her boss has hired Mike.

In the meantime, Colin, her new neighbor, is everything she ever thought she wanted–erudite, suave, a doctor, and he drinks red wine. (As opposed to Mike who has a two-day’s grown of beard, looks like he slept in his clothes, and drinks beer for breakfast.) Abby wants the fairy tale prince. As far as she’s concerned, Mike is the ogre.

The by-play between Mike and Abby is laugh-out-loud funny. The Only came in to see why I was chortling. Yes. Chortling. And gigglesnorting. This romantic comedy had all the best elements of a good romance novel: Hunky hero, spunky heroine, the other guy, innuendo-laden repartee, the black moment, and an HEA. Maybe. Check out the trailer and then decide for yourself.

Click HERE to donate!

Have I mentioned I love my iPhone? Every night at midnight, it *ding dings* to tell me where I will be in the morning. I’m not the most organized person in the world. Did I post the pictures of my office from when it leaked during the ice storm while Lawyer Guy and I were on the cruise? See? I can’t even remember that. Suffice it to say that my office is…cluttered. That’s a nice cozy word. Clutter. On every surface, part of the floor, and on the walls. When I move into my new space, I’m going shopping. All those cute baskets and matching file folders and cute Post-It notes, all color coordinated. I want to be that person! I have three calendars and a date watch. I STILL look at my tool menu on my computer to see what time and day it is.

So…I’m meeting myself coming and going on this blog tour. I wake up in the middle of the night, fire up the computer and make sure I actually sent the blogs I wrote! So far, I’ve done good. So far. I still have a few more stops to make before this cruise is over. Where am I today you ask? One of my favorite blogs in the whole world-wide web! I’m visiting Jennifer Lyon at her place today. There’s always hunky Wingslayers hanging around. Come see us witches.

I’m also back at Long and Short Reviews today. Stop by for today’s mini-essay, answer the question and get into the drawing for FAERIE FATE goodies.

*bwahahaha*

Today, I’m doing my regular blog turn over at Happy Endings. My topic? The fears and excitement that come with a release, and an excerpt/blurb. Drop by and say hi!

Here, in the shadows, I have no clue what we’ll talk about today. I really need to get organized. Anybody have some good tips?

Neptune and Pluto are getting ready to go retrograde. I’m not sure if this is a bad thing or a good thing for us Pisces types.

I’ve sort of detoured with a new project in before finishing SOTW. Yeah, yeah. I know. This is a short though–a Rosette for The Last Rose of Summer imprint for Wild Rose. LROS is doing a series based on the class of 1985′s 25th reunion in a small, semi-fictional town on Lake Ontario in western New York. If my submission is accepted, it’ll be about the high school paper editor and the photographer. She crushed on a star athlete, he crushed on her. Needless to say, they’ll hook up. I’ve got almost 2700 words written and it’s going fast. I hope I’m done really soon. I’m cogitating on SOTW in the back of my mind at the moment, hence the detour. I need a few more twists in it but I have to work out the details before I can forge ahead. I figured this little side project was a nice way to stay busy and productive.

Ashlynn has offered to find escorts for the party. Liza is rounding up bartenders and taking drink orders. Y’all get your preferences stated now. I’m off to work with drop ins here and at Happy Endings.

Starting May 1st, the Brenda Novak Auction for Juvenile Diabetes Research goes live. I’m donating a gift basket this year. You can click on the above link to see some of the goodies already listed. My donation will be added sometime after April 1st. There are some amazing bargains to be found so sign up, keep watching, and bid if you can! In the meantime, what do you think? Is my contribution auction worthy?

From debut author, Silver James, an Irish-themed basket of goodies:
$50.00 gift certificate from the on-line book seller of winner’s choice: Amazon.com, Borders.com, or B&N.com
$30.00 gift certificate from The Wild Rose Press
Faerie Fate goodies: coffee mug, notebook, bookmarks, and tote bag, plus a paperback copy of the book
12 oz. bag of gourmet Irish Coffee (ground or whole bean)
Luck of the Irish ornament
Shamrock candle holder
Claddaugh coin
Magnet to-do list
Hand-made dove ornament from the artisan, Ban Sidhe. Her designs can be found HERE.

Approximate value: $120.00