A year or so back, I was happily doing a little blog-hopping, when I came across a statement by an author that surprised me.

I’m not sure I even remember who it was, so I’ll paraphrase the comment here:

“If you’re a writer, that means you’re a manipulative sonofabitch.”

Blink.  Slight gasp, followed closely by being taken aback…

Manipulative?  Moi??
Oh no, no, no.  I despise those kind of people.  The users, the players, the drama queens.  The people who try to mold your feelings to suit their own purposes, the controllers who insist you see things their way, the ones who can…can…

Blink.  Slight gasp, followed closely by being taken aback…

I swear, I never thought of it that way—but to some degree, there’s no getting around it.
As authors we pull the strings.  And as readers we hand over the strings of our hearts with eager or trembling fingers (depending on how well or badly we’ve been played in the past).

If you’re an author, how do you feel about having this kind of influence over your readers?

And as a reader, how far are you willing to let an author take you?  Does it depend on their skill, or how great your desire is for escape, or some combination of both?

C’mon.  Leave a comment.  Just between us.
Really.  You can trust me implicitly…

So. Last week I posted my 13 loves and hates and one of them was that I hate being a girl. It’s true. There are times when it totally sucks. I mean, it has GOT to be nice to be a guy every now and then. Never have to worry about getting knocked up. You can have sex without getting totally emotionally involved. You never worry about driving through the seedy part of town. You don’t have to shave if you don’t want to. And you certainly never have to wear a bra or pantyhose (unless, of course, you’re a cross-dresser…).

I mean, really. Guys have it so easy sometimes.

And then there are Us. Yes, I have officially divided it into Us and Them.

We girls have to change our last name when we decide to tie the knot (although these days we don’t have to - take that!). We have to shave our legs and wear the sexy panties when we think we’re going to get laid (and those are the panties that totally ride up our ass but make our butts look fab). We go to a lot of trouble for Them just so we CAN get laid - make-up, high heels, short skirts, perfect hair, smell good, etc. (And I have to say, some of Them are so easy to get into bed it’s sad…LOL)

Anyway. I think I’d still pick being a girl any day of the week and, without futher ado, here are my 13 reasons why. Enjoy!

Thirteen Things about MIK1. I can color my hair anytime I want. 2. I get to wear fabulous shoes. 3. I get to carry fabulous bags (i.e., Coach!) 4. Men let me get on or off the elevator first. 5. I get to go to dinner and/or the movies for free. 6. I can hug someone of the same gender without worry. 7. I get to be a Mom. 8. I can flirt with a youger man and it’s no big deal. 9. One look can turn a man into jelly. 10. Even though I’m super independent, I still like it when a man says he’s protective of me. 11. I can have multiple organsms. LOL 12. I can show cleavage AND legs at work and no one seems to care. 13. I can be turned on and walk through a room without anyone ever noticing. ;)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Don’t forget to leave a comment!

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Denise….getting her Starbucks on for the very first time!  What a way to wake up!

Do we know how to corrupt or what?

Check out the new Wordless Wednesday HQ!!
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I have mentioned the lack of writing on my end. It’s a different problem than you might imagine. The ideas are actually flowing–quite frequently really. It’s just, somewhere from my brain to my fingers there is a partial disconnect. I say partial, because I can mentally plot a couple of stories or sit down with hardcopy edits and work on a few pages at a time, but to open word  . . . it’s like pulling teeth. I think in the last weekor so I have opened Word once–and as I told SJ and Mik, it was to save a shopping cart for Land’s End so I didn’t lose my fall selection. (priorities you know!!)  

Maybe it’s the not-so-fall fall weather. Your mind wants to get in the pre-hibernate mode, but it’s been in the mid 90’s the last few weeks. Maybe it’s all the school activities that keeps my butt in the mini-van trekking this kid or that here and there. Dunno.

Do y’all have disconnects too? Or am I the only one lacking?????????????

Something very strange happened last week.

For the first time in the last four years or so…I had NOTHING OUT THERE.

No submissions.  No proposals.  Nothing sent to contests, critters, nothing for consideration.
It wasn’t planned.  I think it was just that the writing has gone slowly, a couple of rejections reared their ugly heads, and one or two things that had obviously been buried in a time capsule somewhere came back, unloved, in the mail.

It was the eeriest feeling!  Absolutely nothing seeking publication.
And suddenly there was a demonic little voice somewhere in the back of my head whispering, “Pssst!  You’re free and clear!  They can’t touch you now.”
“But I’m an author,” I murmured.  “I want to be read.  Don’t I?”
“Pssst!  No rejections, no worries, no waiting.  You can walk away.  Go back to being a reader.  Remember reading?  Nobody will notice.  Think how much easier your life will be.  Simplify, simplify…”

And for a few days I did nothing.  No writing, no queries, no fretting over a synopsis.  Oh, I’d twitch a bit when a story idea would tease me, or need to sit on my hands every time I approached a keyboard.  But I listened to the little voice.  The voice was good, the voice was wise.  The voice would lead me home.
It was my own subconscious that beat out the little voice.  It was the dream about killing someone who’d been infected by alien invaders and was spreading the infection to innocent people.  Yeah, that dream.  You know the one.
Unfortunately, I managed to become infected in the process, so that a peculiar sort of fungus began to grow on my body.  It wasn’t unlike the little growing things that sprout on a potato when left lying around too long, sort of green and crisp, and it made a nerve-wracking cracking sound when I brushed it off the surface of my skin, but clumps of them would always come back in force, and…
Well, you get the idea.
And ya gotta kind of figure…if you’re dreaming that you’re sprouting fungus, you really need to get your ass moving, huh?

So I’ve got one proposal out at the moment that I’m hopeful about, and I’m keeping lots of antifungal tea tree oil handy.  Just in case.

What keeps your dream in motion?

I think I must be like Dennie. Totally and utterly blank. My head is blank. My imagination is blank. I’m just blank. So YES… I decided to do a MEME - my very own Thursday Thirteen!

Thirteen Things about MIK1. I hate nuts in my candy and ice cream. 2. I LOVE chunky peanut butter. 3. I hate calling technical support. 4. I love Starbucks Grande Vanilla Latte. 5. I hate dating and sometimes men. 6. I love Sex and the City. 7. I hate when people don’t communicate. 8. I love Manolo Blahnik oxblood red strappy sandals. 9. I hate when people insinuate I did something I didn’t. 10. I love Clive Owen and Rusell Crowe. 11. I hate being a girl. 12. I Love Cosmopolitans. 13. I wonder if any one of our readers will come out of hiding to post their 13 loves and hates…

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Don’t forget to leave a comment!

Hey I’m over at the Samhain blog today! Come by and read How I Became A Writer here. :)

 . . . or worse, the proverbial edit procrastination. We’ve all been there. Lost in la-la land when we were supposed to be writing or editing. It’s almost shooting yourself in the foot as a writer when you stare off into space rather than focus and get your ass in gear.

Why can’t we just get the damn words on the page? Why can’t we sit our asses in the chair and crank out the next novel to pitch to our editor(s)? Not to say that one draft and bam you’re done, but as we all know you can’t edit a blank page and we sure as hell can’t pitch/sell if we don’t finish the freaking book.

I know folks who have deadlines and it may go kicking and screaming, but by golly they get it in by the due-date. I don’t have deadlines yet, maybe that’s my problem. I get things in on time when need be, but if it’s up to me to set the pace, then the dishes get washed, the spices rearranged in the cabinet, my sock drawers is color-coded (not really, I am NOT that bad, but you get the picture) but the edits are in a stand-still on page 102 with pretty flower doodles going up and down the side and every “o” colored in with the pretty pink pen I found.

And if you think I am kidding ask Lynn, she saw it :-)

I have tried many a tool to get motivated and stay motivated, but obviously they don’t work for long. What works for you? What keeps your fingers tapping on the keys and cranking out the characters? ‘Cause I gotta tell ya, the kids bugging the hell out of me to go back to Disney World hasn’t set the fingers in motion yet to sell that next danged book . . . though getting a new wardrobe for fall can be a little persuasive!

I was going to write something sappy about how wonderful my friends are and how they mean so much to me and how much I appreciate them, even if I don’t talk to them all the time…..but I thought I’d just post this instead.

To My Friends

When you are sad,…………. I will get you drunk and help you
plot revenge against the scum sucking bastard who made you sad.

When you are blue………. I’ll try to dislodge whatever’s choking you.

When you smile………… I’ll know you finally got laid.

When you are scared……… I will rag you about it every chance I get.

When you are worried……… I will tell you horrible stories
about how much worse it could be and to quit whining.

When you are confused…….. I will use little words to explain
it to your dumb ass.

When you are sick……. Stay away from me until you’re well again,
I don’t want whatever you have.

When you fall…… I will point and laugh at your clumsy ass.

This is my oath…………… I pledge till the end.

Why you may ask?…….. Because you’re my friend.

So what’s the crazies thing you’ve EVER done with your best friend? Leave a comment and I’ll give away a copy of BUILT next Monday. I’ll post this week’s winners on Wednesday.

This is really funny—I swear I wrote this post before Mik posted hers, lol.

The subject for today is about men I think are HOT—but who really shouldn’t be.

We’ve had discussions about this among some of us ladies at work, and it’s really funny how subjective this is.  Names were tossed around, and the usual Hollywood/hot-bod types were mentioned, of course.

The following are three men that I personally consider VERY sexy, and that most of the ladies disagreed with me about.  Maybe it’s something other than looks, maybe handsome doesn’t always equate to “hot”…but I’m throwing these unlikely gentlemen out there anyway…

PETER FALK in his guise as master detective COLUMBO (yes, in his prime).  One eye.  Gruff voice.  Stumpy legs, and not exactly a spiffy dresser.  But Columbo’s mind does it for me in a BIG way, okay?

MIGUEL FERRAR, particularly in his role as Doctor Macy on tv’s CROSSING JORDAN.  Yes, I know…add a half-inch tuft to those ears, and you’ve got an elf fresh out of Lord Of The Rings.  Nearly bald, rarely smiles.  But this man has one of the sexiest voices in the business.  That, combined with his character’s authoritarian behavior and secret sensitivity, and…BAM!

SEAL, popular singer.  I admit I went slightly ballistic when one of the ladies commented, “He’s not sexy.  He’s ugly.”  Even if the standards for beauty in our society weren’t constantly shifting, I hate the shallow nature of that word.  The man had Lupus as a child, permanently scarring his face, but it doesn’t make him a bit less sexy to me (or to his wife, one of the top models in the world).  I’ll tell ya what—this guy could sing me to sleep ANY time, yup, yup.

What about you?  Are there guys out there, famous or not, that really float your boat, but other people might consider you nuts for thinking so?