Goin' to the Chapel

I haven't done much writing this week. I have a cold and my brain is totally fried by that stuffy-headed feeling. I haven't even read any romance because it seems much more comfortable just to stare straight ahead, not blinking and willing my nose not to run.

Yeah, TMI. Sorry about that.

Anyway. A week like this would normally have me questioning my status as a romance writer. After all, how can a romance writer NOT be in the mood to write romance? And, usually, cold medicine gives me a bit of a creative buzz [ask any writer, they'll tell you - a good dose of Sudafed and your fingers are flyin' on the keyboard] Maybe it's the weather too - cool, breezy - really good sleeping weather. Who can concentrate on writing when sleeping seems like such a good idea?

Fortunately, I figured out how I know I'm still a romance writer. I'm still a romance writer [who is currently out sick] because I'm totally jazzed to watch the wedding of Pam Beasley and Jim Halpert on THE OFFICE tomorrow night. Pam and Jim are an awesome couple. They're my idea of romance. They were friends first. They had a repertoire of shared language and inside jokes. They always looked out for each other and thought about each other all the time. They had their ups and downs, their dark moment [more than one] and they still ended up together. Tomorrow night is the HEA all the fans have been waiting for. It's like the last chapter in a long, mushy romance novel.

I can't wait.

So, the romance is still in there somewhere. I've got it. It's just taking a break until I can breathe again and hold both my eyelids open at once. Now I just have to try to refrain from throwing rice at the television.

Candy is Evil

So, just in time for Halloween, TIME comes out with this bit of absurdity in which a researcher in the UK posits that there is a link between children who eat candy and adults who commit crimes.

The study in question comes out of Cardiff University and brings what it believes to be incontrovertible evidence that the consumption of candy leads to criminal activity.

Researcher Simon Moore discovered that "kids with the worst problems tend to be impulsive risk takers, and that these kids had terrible diets - breakfast was a Coke and a bag of chips,"

He further discovered that: regardless of other environmental and lifestyle factors, like family-income level, parenting style or children's level of education, the data suggested it was only the frequency of confectionery consumption in childhood that strongly predicted adult violence.

So there you have it, folks. Just as the kid who is still drinking from a bottle at age 2 or sucking on a pacifer until Preschool, the kids who eats candy will grow up to be a criminal. That explains a lot. Especially since crime is such a relatively NEW concept...you know, it's only been around since they invented candy.

I'm glad this study comes out of the UK. If it was an American study I would be on my rant about wasting money on dumbness, but if Cardiff University wants to pay someone to link candy and crime, that's their business. I'm off to buy a big bag of Snickers to hand out to the hooligans on October 31st. I have no doubt at least one of the little rug rats who shows up at my door dressed as a hobo and waving a hollow plastic pumpkin at me will grow up to be a serial killer. But I also believe that one of that serial killer's fondest memories will be of getting high on sugar after a lawless night of Trick or Treating.

Call me an anarchist.

Livin' La Vida...

A few weeks ago I thought I was pretty much done for the year - as in no more releases scheduled. I didn't have anything new coming out until 2010 - BUT as luck would have it, not only did I happen to sell one of the novellas I wrote over the summer, it also managed to fill a slot in Amber Quill's 2009 release schedule!

Coming in November from Amber Heat- La Vida Muerta

Here's the blurb:

Elena Talbot betrayed her sister for a chance at immortality. Now, ensconced in the dark world of Chicago’s undead, she clings to the person who helped her find herself and her sanity after the gut wrenching, soul-stealing transformation from human to vampire.

Vampire investigator Lucas Vitale has gotten used to having Elena in his home and in his bed. She’s always ready for his lusty games, but she’s still afloat in a sea of self-doubt and confusion about her new existence. She wants the one thing he can’t give her, a purpose. When her quest for fulfillment brings her too close to his long-hidden secret, he casts her out. Only after she’s gone does he realize there’s no point in living ‘the dead life’ without her.


If you want a little background on the characters in La Vida Muerta, check out my FREE READ, Fresh Blood. The Talbot sisters, Lucas Vitale and Max Hart were all introduced in that story.

And that's not all - stay tuned for more info about my December re-release of The Soul Jar!

How cool is this?

A fellow Romance Diva just posted this link and I had to come over here and blog about it.


From the How Cool Is This file:

Star Trek Cologne.

It's too bad most perfume gives me a headache, or I might be tempted to put one of these on my Christmas list. At $29.95 a pop they're a bit pricey as far as I'm concerned, but the novelty factor is high.

I'm not sure I'd opt for the Red Shirt fragrance. Seriously - do you want to smell like you're expendable? I would definitely have to go with Pon Farr. You have to figure it must be a sexy scent, and you can't beat the IDIC insignia on the bottle. I used to have an IDIC pendant, not sure what happened to it, but it was mega cool. [For those of you who aren't familiar - IDIC stands for the Vulcan concept of Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combination. Pon Farr is the Vulcan 'blood fever' which precedes the pinnacle of their 7-year mating cycle.]

The important question here, of course is, how soon will this stuff show up on The Big Bang Theory?

Guest Blogging!

I'm over at "Embrace the Shadows" today talking about The Matchmakers and giving away a free copy, so drop by and leave a comment for a chance to win!

Epiphany Schmapiphany

Yeah, so, remember all that crap about clearing the decks? Forget it.

It didn't work. I even had DH pick a genre for me so I wouldn't be influenced by my own insecure desire to stick with what I know. I wrote about four pages on something and realized it was not at all what I wanted or needed to do.

Then I had an idea about a character in my current WIP and worked on that instead. The idea involves possibly rewriting the plot, changing major POVs and introducing a new [and or secondary] hero. Can you say, love triangle? I love those.

I also did actually start a new story as well, based on an idea I had a while ago and I'm working on that too. This breaks a cardinal rule I made not long ago about working on only one story at a time so I can give it my full attention. I realized I don't having something called 'my full attention' anymore. I'm too busy thinking about a million different things.

To combat my creative schizophrenia, I've also thrown myself into a new craft hobby.
Japanese Temari. I made these...they are basically embroidery on handmade balls of yarn and string. The fun part is actually wrapping the ball of yarn in thread. It takes a while but it looks cool when you're done. Then I basically ruin the ball by trying to sew designs on it with embroidery floss. [The larger ones are cheats - they're wrapped in Lion Brand ladder yarn which requires no skill but it looks awesome.]


To keep me extra busy, I also stumbled across an afghan kit at a yard sale on the weekend, so that's on deck [yeah, the deck I just cleared] for as soon as I finish the afghan I'm already working on.

Maybe somewhere in there I'll complete a story, if I can find one with all this commotion on the deck. Speaking of which, I had a dream last night I was on a cruise. The deck of the ship was pretty busy. It had a waterfall on it and a Zen garden. It was a nice place to visit, but I'm not sure I'd want to live there.

Two windows...

No waiting.

The Daily Epiphany

Sounds like a cool name for a newspaper, doesn't it?

Part sarcastic, part inspirational...

The Daily Epiphany pretty much describes my writing life. Every day, almost, I come up with some kernel of an idea that gets caught somewhere in my gray matter. Some days, it's a cool idea for a story. Other days its a bad seed - like the days I think I should give up this life of glamour and excitement and concentrate on a real job.

Either way, there's some new nugget taking shape in my brain all the time. Sometimes helpful and good, other times insidious and self-defeating.

Today, just a few minutes ago in fact, I had one of the shiny epiphanies. It was a small one, nothing earth shattering, but it's one I may decide to run with. It has to do with clearing the decks again.

I've been bogged down with a couple of stories, a couple of ideas that I just can't leave alone. I'm chipping away at them a lot like chipping away at an iceberg with a chopstick. I'm working up a sweat and not making much progress.

It just occurred to me that maybe I need a clean slate for a while. What would happen, if I put all the half-finished stories on hold for a bit and forced myself to write something totally new, totally out of my comfort zone, seat of the pants, no holds barred? What if I got out of my own way and just let myself write?

I know. Right? Radical.

I'm off to trade in my chopsticks for a blow torch.

Why haven't I posted?

I've been meaning too, really.

The problem is I can't find the right picture to post. See, I've been obsessing over finding the right look for a new hero I'm working on and I know just what I think he looks like, but I can't find the right picture and it's driving me nuts.

I discovered once before that sometimes stories don't work because one or the other of the main characters is wrong. They may be good looking, smart, clever, and experts in their chosen profession, but they're just not exactly right and that's why the story doesn't seem to gel.

So I have this story all plotted and I know everything that needs to happen, but it's just been sitting around doing nothing because the scenes I wrote with the hero and heroine were just too...nice. The hero was a gentleman. Very wise as well as handsome. Powerful, sophisticated...you'd like him. Really. The heroine, in fact, had no reason not to like him.

Therein lay the problem. When there's no conflict, there's no story. When two people meet and really hit it off...that's not a romance novel. Two people need to meet like oil and water, or preferably oil and a lit match. They need to leave each other scorched and spent, not giddy and grinning [at least not a first].

So, I'm off to find the hero that my heroine doesn't find genteel and admirably heroic. She can't look at him and think, 'Wow, he's got it all together.' She needs to look at him and think, 'Oh, please. This guy?'

I'll let you know when I find him.

Running with the Turtles

Yesterday DH and I took the kids to the zoo. We love zoos, and even though at 11 and 14 ours were the oldest kids there, they still had a good time.

In the reptile house, we came across this little fellow [on the right] who, though he looks stationary in the picture, was actually booking for a turtle. He was moving pretty fast across his habitat, apparently trying to cut off his roommate. He succeeded, since the other turtle wasn't actually moving at all.

This little bit of zoo drama got me thinking about my writing journey. From the outside, it may look like I'm at a bit of a standstill at the moment. I don't have any new releases scheduled until 2010. I'm plugging away on a WIP that, if it does what I want it to do, will end up a full-length novel, so that takes some major time. I'm not racing around trying to do a bunch of promo because I want to concentrate my limited energy on writing. My progress is slow, from a relative standpoint, but like this turtle, I'm moving as fast as I can.

I like to think that from the perspective of another turtle, I'm hauling some major a$$. It's all about viewpoint. No one is eating my dust, but at least I'm moving.

SHIFT High Gear

It always amazes me how September seems to shift instantly into high gear. This week has been full of 'new' and 'different' and it really feels a lot more like a new year has begun than when January 1st rolls around.


DD started high school this week. High School. Egads, I'm old. So far, she's loving it, and in less than 2 and a half days, I'm totally broke from running around buying school supplies. Her long and complicated list required visits not only to Staples, but JoAnn's Fabric and Michaels. Fortunately we had a lot of the needed supplies already on hand, and better yet it was a great sale weekend, but nevertheless we watched the money flow out of both our wallets.


I got through four chapters of the first draft of my new WIP. Yay! It's interesting - I have to keep telling myself not to sweat the things I already know I need to change. I've seen the development of my other full length novels over time and I realize the words I'm putting down now may be drasatically different from the finished product that ends up being submitted, but that's okay. These are the bare bones. The cosmetic surgery will come later.


I've also thrown myself into a new endeavor. I plan to rediscover the joy of cooking.



Don't laugh. I'm serious.

I like food. I love to eat - and I've sworn off dieting forever. [That's another long post] My plan is to work on making healthier meals and try to cut back on our use of packaged, processed food. The Ultra-Metabolism principle is still floating around in my head, so I need to concentrate on better eating for better health, not 'diet' eating for losing weight. I'm in the process of going through all my old cook books, weeding out easy, nutritious recipes that have potential and tossing the rest. [This is also part of my plan to eventually clean all the junk out of my house.] I found a folder with my receipes that had coupons in it that expired in 2003. I think it's time to start letting go, don't you? LOL.

Here's to new endeavors!

The opposite of hangin' on...

Is holdin' up. Ever feel like everything rests on you? Like you alone hold the world together and keep everything on an even keel?

I feel like that a lot. Sort of like a Borg queen, trying to keep all the drones from walking around in circles mumbling 'Resistance is futile, resistance is futile.'

The interesting thing about this 'weight of the world' type feeling, is that it seems to change dramatically when September arrives. It's practically an overnight thing. I go from feeling like I'm trying to hold up a giant dog, to feeling like I can float without treading water. [My ability to create interesting metaphors drops dramatically, but what the heck.]

Is there a time of year when your attitude shifts abruptly and you feel more hopeful and confident?

And they call what I write 'fiction'

While I don't want to turn this into a political blog, I could not let this one little nugget of toxic waste slip by without comment.

I saw this on Yahoo News this morning: BS to be found HERE and I could not get it out of my head.

Apparently this load of manure comes from Reuters. You'd think they'd have a modicum of integrity, but I guess they don't. How can this 'story' be for real? Who are they trying to fool?

Oh, right. The American public. I forgot.

Seriously? Do they really think we are dumb enough to believe a statement like this:

Researchers found a steady increase in people's confidence about their ability to pay for healthcare services -- it rose 12 percent between March and July this year.


Who are they polling? Brad and Angelina? Cause it's certainly not middle class Americans. That's for sure. In a time when most personal bankruptcies are cause by exhorbitant medical bills THAT ARE NOT COVERED by insurance, who exactly is more confident that they will be able to pay their medical bills? Perhaps, if an actual healthcare reform bill had been put into action, you might say people's confidence would rise, but considering everything seems to be stacked toward the President eventually getting away with saying: The American people don't want healthcare reform, therefore we're not going to do it. [See if that doesn't happen.] It's just beyond ridiculous that anyone is naive enough to think they're in a better position to pay rising medical care costs.

Now, before I shut my rant off and go back to writing some 'real' fiction, I'd just want to say, the only reason healthcare costs are out of control is BECAUSE HEALTH CARE COSTS ARE OUT OF CONTROL. It has nothing to do with how much healthcare we use, or obesity, or heart disease, or people who don't want to go to the doctor until they're extremely ill. It has to do with the fact that it simply COSTS TOO DAMN MUCH TO UTILIZE HEALTHCARE. An aspirin doesn't cost $7 in a hospital because the average American leads a sedentary lifestyle. An aspirin costs $7 in a hospital BECAUSE THE FREAKIN' HOSPITAL CAN GET AWAY WITH CHARGING THAT MUCH.

Hello! Wake up, Congress. Wake up, Mr. President, and wake up Reuters. It's time to tell the truth and do something about it. The only thing to blame for the mess we're in with healthcare is GREED. That's with a capital G. Now, who's got the balls do actually do something about it?

A productive day...for other people

A lot got done today. I wish I could say it was all done by me...

We had our new bathrub installed and it's gorgeous. The old one was in pretty sad shape. The finish was cracked and rust was showing through. It had a couple of nicks in the porcelain coating. The new one is shiny and very, very white and just lovely.

The phone got fixed. We've been having static on the line and hearing a radio [apparently this is a common problem in the area]. So Verizon stopped by and shielded the line.

The kitchen sink sprouted a leak a few days ago and the plumber came by and replaced all the pipes under the sink for a fairly reasonable price.

I'm glad I could keep so many people busy today.

Oh...I did manage to finish the galley edits for the PRINT version of The Matchmakers[April 2010!] AND I knocked out the first draft of the first chapter of my new WIP. So it wasn't just other people that accomplished today. I did some stuff too. I wish every Friday could be this productive.

New wallpaper - maybe a bad idea

So yesterday I let DS use my computer for a little while. He has his own computer but he wanted to look at a map on mine so I said fine.

Of course, for some reason, when I sat down later to do some work, my wallpaper was gone. I have no idea how the kid could have made my wallpaper disappear, but the picture I had up [the one I took at Disney World of the Materhorn mountain that looks like an Alp] was gone. I must have moved it off my computer, because I did an overhaul of my picture files last week so it's gone from the drive. [I could find it on a CD but I didn't feel like looking] After all, it's going to be September soon and it's time for a change.

So I picked this picture as my new wallpaper...

And now I'm sort of regretting it, because not only does it beckon me to lean closer to the monitor and hope I fall in, it also makes me long to go back to the beach when I should be longing to get some writing done instead.

What's your wallpaper? Does it inspire you or is it just there?

Not a total loss

Nope. Summer was not a total loss.

I say that because my disdain for this season is well known. I'm not into heat. I'm not into humidity. I'm not into the kids hanging around the house whining about how bored they are while the pool filter labors happily away keeping the chlorinated water crystal clear while no one swims in it.

Nope. It's not my season.

So, the fact that I completed and submitted TWO novellas this summer is monumental in my book. I wasn't really going to work too hard between June and September. In fact, when the summer began, I didn't have many plans to write at all. I was just fooling around with some ideas, dabbling, but not interested in sweating to the finish line, and lo and behold, I did.

So I'm somewhat pleased with myself. Of course it remains to be seen whether those novellas will sell or not. That's in the hands of my editors, but I accomplished more than I set out to, so I'm pretty jazzed.

Now that September is looming, I'm starting to think about goals again. I picked up a partially finished story from my pile and have decided this is the NEXT BIG ONE. I hesitate to make any specific plans for it, because you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men...but considering I'm neither a man nor a mouse, maybe I have a decent shot.

Wish me luck.

I only hope...

...that someday a reader will be as anxious for the next installment of one of my books as I was for this.

I don't pre-order books very often...mostly because I don't have that much disposable cash lying around, but this one I did. I've been patiently waiting for it and it arrived on Thursday.

I ripped open the box like it was Christmas and I couldn't wait to get started. [The only reason I haven't finished yet is because I've had a lot of editing work to do, AND because I have a perverse desire to savor the book while devouring it at the same time.] I want to have my cake and eat it too. [Let's not talk about the outrageous amount of time I spend over at Cake Wrecks blog - that's a different post].

I won't go into any details about the book, no spoilers. I'll just say, while it's inherently cruel to make readers wait for months and months and months for the next installment of an ongoing story, I completely envy any author who can keep me on the hook this long.

What books/authors are you on the hook for?

Thinking inside the box...

LOLCat with Laser Action Eyes - comes with batteries included.

Something old, something new...

I’m a firm believer that trying new things is the best way to get out of a rut, combat depression and kick start the creative process.

I was in the mood for something new on Friday evening, so off we went to the mall where I indulged in something I’ve been wanting to try for a while now, but haven’t had the courage.

I got myself a bubble tea.

Radical right? I know. I’ve been putting it off since the craze began and I couldn’t hedge any longer.

A little bit of background on bubble tea – it’s a cold milk tea usually sweetened with fruit flavors, shaken vigorously to produce a layer of bubbles on the top. Then tapioca pearls are added which sink to the bottom of the cup and appear as more dark ‘bubbles’ in the bottom. It’s served with a wide straw so you can suck up the tapioca pearls and eat them.

Fascinating concept. Eating your drinks. I’ve never been fond of chewing liquid, but I just had to give this a try.

It tasted good, not very tea-like though. I ordered strawberry which tasted more like strawberry Quick with ice – hyper sweet, very pink. Sort of like ping-pong balls in a lottery machine, the tapioca pearls roll around in the bottom of the cup until one of them decides to make a break for it and travel slowly up the straw. Now, you can’t just go chugging bubble tea willy nilly. You have to be prepared for that pearl when it reaches the top of the straw because you have to chew it. It has the consistency of a gummy bear, and not much actual flavor. Again, not bad...but just not very...you know...drink-like.

My concern with bubble tea is of course the fact that I’m easily distracted. So walking, through the mall [all that visual stimuli], while holding a conversation with my peeps, and drinking at the same time is hard enough, but to have to be aware that at any moment I might be called upon to start chewing a strange little gum drop that popped out of my straw, was just too much for me to process at one time. I got about halfway through the bubble tea before the squick factor overcame my enjoyment of the strawberry coolness.

Hey, it was an experience. Now I know. Bubble tea is too complex for me. It tastes good, but there’s just too much going on in the cup for me to really relax and enjoy it.

How about you? What new thing have you tried lately?

I made a reviewer cry!

The Matchmakers has been nominated for Best Book of the Week over at The Long and the Short Reviews!

You can read the awesome 5-book review here: http://longandshortreviews.blogspot.com/2009/08/matchmakers-by-jennifer-colgan.html

And you can vote for the best book based on the reviews here: http://www.longandshortreviews.com/LASR/recentrev.htm


Voting for the nominated books runs only Saturday and Sunday so please stop by and VOTE!

“By the third page, the enchantment of the story enveloped me. Kudos, to author Jennifer Colgan; I will definitely watch for more of this author's books, and suggest that my friends buy her too. The writing and editing were superb, delivering a story that made me remember why I love romance. Like I said, I don't cry easy, but this one made me wipe the mist from my glasses.” – Zinnia, LASR