I very belatedly found this discussion on some of the books from the ebook challenge here, including THe Big Gir’s Guide.

Laura sums it up with this very pointed comment which I think is true of most of what I write (and a good reminder as I struggle through writing Nailed):

Whatever the sub-genre, romances seek to make sense of many of life’s most challenging problems, particularly the doubts and fears that stop individuals finding true emotional intimacy.

Doubts and Fears, as you know from Raine’s blog post last Friday, are universal and they play a big role in TBGG for both Jade and Rowdy.

Now on to our story which is 100% true. Once upon a time there was this guy. And this woman. And they met on the internet, on an email list for a country music singer. They were both damaged, they both had huge trust issues, among others. But they got to talking and talking and they opened up to one another and the woman fell in love with the man, she loved him more than any other man she’d ever met and she didn’t even know what he looked like.

Then something terrible happened to the man. He didn’t die but he did run, far away from his life, his friends, the internet but he promised to be back in six weeks. Five days later, the woman lost her mother in a freak accident. Life was very tough but she struggled through. She finally heard from the man six months later. He was sorry about her mother but he wasn’t coming back. She resigned herself to writing him off even though it hurt like hell. She met a real man (real meaning flesh and blood and nothing more), dated, broke up, and 18 months after the guy disappeared, decided that she needed to get her shit together. She started writing. She finished her first manuscript in three months and felt better than she’d felt in years. She quit smoking, she started exercising. And she kept writing. Life was pretty damned good. She was making progress. She was going somewhere.

Then one day she got an email from an old friend, asking if she knew this guy–yes THAT GUY–and she got an email from him. He wanted back on her old friend’s email list and wanted her to vouch for him. She did so, and was vocally reluctant about it to the list owner. She emailed the guy and said, “It’s done.”

He emailed her back and flirted. Deep down inside she knew she couldn’t take herself back to that place again so she told him to shit or get off the pot. He never wrote back, his decission was made. And of course, when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. The woman went to Target. She bought a bra, and some panties and Milano cookies and diet Dr Pepper and she got home and she tried on the bra and the mother fucker didn’t fit.

At that moment she knew she had a story to tell, even if she could never tell the real story, because fact really IS stranger than fiction, she could tell a different one. Something close, but not exactly the same. Something involving a trip to Target and things she wanted every woman to know.

And she never ever bought another George Strait CD again.

The End