Julie Anne Long

On dreams versus full-bodied reality

         In WAYS TO BE WICKED, the ambitious, hard-working dreamer of a hero, Tom Shaughnessy, reflects: Odd how soft and amorphous sounding the word ‘dream’ was. So many practical things, bits and pieces, tangible things, nails, wood and pound notes and people, went into the making of dreams.

         These words kind of remind me of how my dreams of being a published author—my original, somewhat incomplete, amorphous dreams, that is—were so different from the reality I know now. Let's just say Tom knows more about dreams than I did when I embarked on my career.

         To start kind of at the beginning, I don’t think I ever stopped writing once I could write. My first full-length book was the self-published (construction paper and staples), limited edition (I made exactly one) Crayola-illustrated story, Reddy the Rabbit. Reddy was a talking rabbit, and—but you’ve probably figured this out, because you’re all shockingly smart—he was red!  In school, I studied Journalism and Creative Writing, and on the way to adulthood, I actively pursued other passions (like a fairly lengthy side trip into playing music) while doing time in the corporate world.

         And that time in the corporate world only confirmed something for me: I longed to work independently. I had a wonderful fantasy I retreated to in moments of pure, head-banging, Dilbert-esque corporate absurdity: I was a published novelist; I set my own hours, working at home in the company of my cats, and at night a fascinating, attentive man of some sort who had a job that kept him out of the house all day would return panting for me. It was a very comforting fantasy, and not much more detailed than that, really.  And then…

         Well, you know what a centrifuge is? What it does? It’s this apparatus that spins really fast and separates substances of different densities—for example, milk and cream. Well, when I set out to turn my pleasant fantasy into a reality by selling a book, I kind of turned my entire life into a centrifuge. I’ll explain:

         As you probably know, every author has a different story about how they were published. I finished THE RUNAWAY DUKE at night while I worked full time, over the span of about a year and a half. When I was finished, I knew I needed to look for an agent who would then, so I assumed, sell the manuscript for me. (This was about extent of my publishing knowledge at the time). I found an agent (my first agent) pretty quickly, and to my extreme joy she sold the book as part of a two-book contract a few months after that. It was this agent who suggested I join RWA. I did.

         This was how I discovered that I needed to learn about a million things (what the hell is an ARC? A print run?) and do a million things (like build a website) on the fly, while revising one book and writing another and working a day job and and and…

         Overnight, it seemed, the number of people in my life (there were already quite a few) and the number of daily responsibilities doubled, and for a year or so I never stopped moving from the moment I set my feet on my bedroom carpet at around 7 in the morning until I rolled back into bed after midnight every day. During the week I worked at my day job all day; I arrived home at night at around seven and sort of ate dinner with one hand while I typed revisions or worked on my second book (TO LOVE A THIEF) or paid bills or answered emails or worked on my website with the other. It was exhausting and exhilarating, but quite manageable for the most part. At first.

         What’s that saying? Man plans, God laughs? Well, life happens despite your best-laid plans, and sometimes life happens with, shall we say, unforeseen vigor.

         Did you ever have one of those years? Where every ring of my phone seemed to herald a new drama? Where you start to look at a ringing phone like it’s a rattlesnake, or something? I’d sold my book, which was thrilling, but on top of everything else, it turned out to be one of those years, too:  births and deaths, divorces and breakups, disasters and triumphs, all occurred in a steady stream in my immediate circle of friends and family.  And my writing career, my brass ring, changed the lives of everyone around me, too. Some people were understanding and wonderfully supportive, but others simply could not or would not understand why I was suddenly less available to them, and some threw actual hissy fits. It was difficult to know precisely how to allocate my time and emotion, because every corner of my life seemed to require every bit of me. I learned that being a professional meant trying my damndest to write a funny, entertaining book (To Love a Thief) in a short time span while I grieved losses and disappointed a number of people I cared about. 

         In the middle of all of this was this shining, wonderful thing—my first book, THE RUNAWAY DUKE, was a success—and the miracle that I’d been published at all.

         In other words, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. J

         And it was one of the most important times of my life. It was my centrifuge year: my life wildly spun, throwing everything and everyone I truly valued, everything truly essential to my life, into stark relief, separating it neatly from the less essential things in my life. When I was finally able to come up for air, it was clear whom and what I needed to keep in my life and whom and what needed to go, and I set about “cleaning house” with no regrets. And I went forward into my future as a writer more streamlined, more mature much more confident, because I now knew what I was willing to sacrifice, how hard I could work, what it truly meant to work independently, and just exactly how strong I could be.

         I also learned that I loved my writing career, even the maddening aspects of it, because the maddening aspects only make you appreciate the delicious aspects (I mean— get to make up stories for a living!) all the more.

         Anyway, that’s how my amorphous dream became a full-bodied, very satisfying reality— different from that original fantasy, but somehow much, much better. In fact, I'm nearly as smart as Tom Shaughnessy about dreams, now :) Anybody have a dream vs. reality story to share?

Monks on the run and other dreamlike moments

Sometimes living in San Francisco is like living in a dream—an actual dream, as in those surreal, confusing, beautiful, scary movies that play in your head at night while you sleep. I live in a residential part of the city close to Golden Gate Park and UCSF, which isn't too noisy and isn't too quiet, and the other day as I left my flat to walk to the grocery store a few blocks away, I stopped in my tracks right outside my gate: seven monks—as in Buddhist monks—were running like mad to catch the downtown MUNI train, saffron-and-brown robes either hiked up and gripped in their hands or billowing around their ankles, sunlight bouncing off their bald heads. I stopped and stared, and for a moment seriously half-wondered if I was still asleep. To catch the train they had to run past a gorgeous old Catholic church, which is vivid pink and trimmed with detailed images of the saints, and for some reason this made the sight even more wondrous.

My route to the grocery store in fact takes me around the corner this church sits on (the monks made the train, by the way), and just as I rounded the corner I stopped when I saw an enormous, gleaming …horse. I stopped and blinked to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating, and opened my eyes again and... Yep: a horse. A brown horse. As I’d never seen a horse standing there before in the decade or so I’ve lived in the neighborhood, this was a bit startling, and kind of wonderful, too. At first the horse appeared to be all alone, but then I saw standing next to it a very tall police officer wearing poofy pants tucked into long boots, and he, too, looked unbelievably shiny—his badge was practically shooting laser beams, it was so polished. I assumed it was his dress uniform, and maybe the horse was there for some kind of ceremony—a wedding? A funeral? I didn’t ask for specifics, but I smiled and nodded as I passed him, and he smiled and nodded back (the cop did, not the horse, as this was real life ), looking amused to have startled me.

I walk another half a block until I get to the slightly loopy guy who usually sits at the corner near the grocery store. He's very thin, he's missing a front tooth and he has a beard down to his clavicle. Every time he sees me he asks very earnestly: “Are you a movie star?” I think my sunglasses might prompt this question, as he asks it no matter whether I’m wearing jeans and my sweatshirt with the paint splotch on it or…jeans and something else. (With me, it’s pretty much always jeans and something.) And I suspect he asks all the girls who walk by this very same question, but I always tell him yes, because I hate to disappoint him, and I always keep some spare change handy for him. I figure it’s like paying toll to get into the store.

And when I finally get into the grocery store I can usually count on a brief, disorienting, faintly hilarious conversation with a particular bagger who’s worked there for many years, if he’s assigned to my line. This bagger...well, let’s just say he occupies a slightly different reality than the rest of us, and I usually end up a bit dizzy from the contact with him. On this day, we had a conversation about my leather jacket. Now, just for context, pretty much everyone in San Francisco has a leather jacket, because it’s light enough for the weather and heavy enough for the weather—just right, in other words. I got my latest jacket at the Burlington Coat Factory about three years ago for like, oh, $70? It’s a decent, sturdy, fairly unremarkable black jacket.

So I buy my groceries, and as he’s bagging them he says to me:

Bagger: That’s a nice jacket.

Me (pleased): Thanks!

Bagger: It must be very old.

Me (uncertain now): Um…

Bagger: It has a nice patina.

Me: A...a patina? [Note: my jacket has no patina.]

Bagger (in all seriousness): You must keep it in a temperature controlled environment.

Me (in a confiding hush, trying not to laugh): Oh, I do. I keep it in with my minks.

And we both laughed at this as I said thanks and went home.

I usually bring my own grocery bag to the store, and for the last year or so I've been using using the tote bag I got at the RWA conference in Dallas because it's big and closes with a zipper, which is great if it's raining. The bag says "Waldenbooks" on one side of it, and on another day, when this bagger was packing my groceries in the bag, he read out loud:

Bagger: Waldenbooks...Do you work there?

Me (very, very tentatively, as I never know where a conversation with this guy will go): No, but... Well, I'm a writer—

Bagger (in all seriousness): Are you J.K. Rowling?

See? He makes me dizzy. But no doubt J.K. Rowling brings her own shopping bag to the grocery store and lugs kitty litter home three blocks, too. (Heck, she might!)

I think life in this city on the whole always keeps my equilibrium just a little bit off, and I've come to appreciate being in a near constant state of bemusement, all of which is a pretty good training for a career in publishing. :) And now, it's bedtime now for me, and officially Monday. Welcome to a new week!!

All about fog and spider eviction

So the fog is back in my neighborhood with a vengeance, and it’s freezing cold and windy as hell, which is as it should be in August in San Francisco. And I suppose I should be delighted, as this might mean that global warming doesn’t completely have us in its talons (the recent crazy heat wave and that bizarre 43-days-in-a-row-of-rain in March/April, notwithstanding), but it is, of course, driving me nuts.

         You can see the sky in the photo there: white. I took that shot (of my backyard) with my camera phone through my office window, and in the foreground is the tree the bluejays really seem to like—they sit in it and squabble—and in the background, there’s a big tree that looks like it’s wearing a hairnet, like a cafeteria lady, but that’s really just a spider web on the outside of my window. Up above is the white, white sky. And that orange thing is the reflection of my lamp, which was on all day, as it was dark all bloody day. A friend of mine came from San Ramon to visit me, and he was all, la la la, wearing shorts, because it was like 80 degrees there, and it’s only an hour and a half away from San Francisco. He was reduced to whimpers in a short time, and not in a good way. In a cold way.

         Ah, well. I’ve decided to work with the fog, the way I tried to work with that bright orange indoor/outdoor carpet that covered the floor of the bedroom of my first San Francisco flat— by surrendering to it. With the carpet, despite the fact that my whole being rebelled at the idea, I decorated with orange (you couldn’t cover the carpet—it was a huge room, a former basement, a bit mildewy, and it lacked a closet). With the fog, I lit candles everywhere in my flat, and listened to Debussy, and considered writing something Gothic, which might still happen. The foghorns are nice, though, and I’m hearing them now.

         Today, however, was the day I was forced to take Jennifer outside. Now, Jennifer is the spider who’s been living in the corner of my office window for some time.  I’m not a big fan of spiders, per se, but I’m very live-and-let-live, and a month or so ago, when a spider set up camp in the corner of the window, I decided what the hey—I’ll let it stay, as it seemed pleased with its sheltered spot (it would retreat down into the hole where the rope pulleys go into the windowframe—these are old windows that you push up), and it wasn’t bothering me or anything. I named it Jennifer, because it amused me to name it Jennifer and because it’s a pretty name, and I thought a spider might not mind having a pretty name. (It was a little benign brown garden spider.)

         So every now and then I’d see Jennifer pop out of her hole and walk around, then pop back in. And for a time the two of us civilly went about our business, and it was kind of a cozy arrangement. Very circle-of-life. But today I noticed that Jennifer had gotten…well, freaking HUGE. When did that happen? Um, sobering. Make that…unnerving. Seriously, any bigger and I would have had to start charging her rent. Upon reflection, I reluctantly decided I had reached my threshold of spider charity, and I needed to be a heroine and take her outside, even though I felt guilty about it. Not to mention squeamish.

         So I got a Tupperware container and gave her a little nudge with the lid…and she like, lifted one arm as if to give me the brush-off.  And beyond that, she didn’t even budge. Wasn’t one bit intimidated by me. It was almost insulting. So I nudged her again. She lifted two legs this time and waved them around a bit, and I swear to God, it was like the spider was indignant about being bothered. She’d gotten so comfortable with our arrangement, she probably just figured I’d finally get bored with annoying her and go away. And so I gave her one more push and she finally went scurrying like mad into the Tupperware container, and I took her out onto the back porch and tipped her out of the container.

         And she sat there for a time, right there at the doorway. I swear, I felt like a traitor. Like I’d evicted her. LOL. Ah, well. Still, I hope she didn't tell her spider buddies that I'm a sucker for nature. Godspeed, Jennifer the Spider. And have a grand weekend, everyone. Be kind to spiders, if you can. :)

Satin sheets and sand wallowing and other forms of hedonism

My two-year-old nephew Sam recently took his first trip to the beach (well, his parents took him—it wasn’t like he hopped a bus there), and like the sensible person he is, the first thing he did when he saw all that silky white sand was throw himself down and have a good, luxurious wallow (that’s what he’s doing in the photo there). Good to know he’s continuing the fine family tradition of hedonism.

On the way to becoming adults we all more or less learn impulse control (we learn not to throw food in a fit of pique, for instance, though there is a festival every year in Bunol Spain—called La Tomatina—which is basically the world’s largest food fight for grownups), but we probably forsake a lot of pure joy for the sake of dignity and social acceptance. I might really want to throw myself down and wallow in the sand, for instance, like a two-year-old or a Labrador, but odds are I would kick my shoes off to feel the cool sand squishing through my toes instead. More dignified. Less likely to lose an earring that way.

But I’ve always been a bit of a hedonist. Textures, lighting, atmosphere, smells have been very important to me for as long as I can remember. Is it my inherent sense of drama? My need to set a scene? Who knows? But some of my forays into sensuousness have been less successful than others. Back when my personal aesthetic was still developing, for instance, shortly after I’d replaced my David Lee Roth poster (he was wearing leather pants, I believe, and chained to a chain link fence) with Gustav Klimt’s ubiquitous “The Kiss” (I felt like such a sophisticate) I decided satin sheets would be sexy as all get out, so I bought a set. And they looked lovely on the bed, but the thing is…they’re slippery.  I learned that if you get into bed too fast you shoot right out the other end. Especially if you’re wearing a satin nightie. In fact, you rocket over them like a puck over ice when you wear a satin nightie. And of course, once I managed to finally get in bed and stay there, I learned that all my other covers would slide right off the satin sheets. I woke up freezing and disoriented any number of times, only to discover all my blankets in a wad on the floor next to the bed. Finally, as I wasn’t about to wear Velcro pajamas in order keep my covers clinging to me, I gave up on the satin sheets. I just go for cotton with a very high thread count these days. I might be a hedonist, but I’m a practical hedonist, with a lust for a bargain.

          These days, some of my favorite sensations: Freshly shaved legs against Egyptian cotton sheets. The aforementioned cool soft sand squished between my toes. My cat’s feathery tail casually wrapped around my bare shins. That moment when you sink into a bathtub, breaking the smooth surface of all that waiting warm water. A new shower gel between my fingers. A clean flannel nightie fresh out of the dryer. My friend Ken says he loves crawling into a feather bed beneath quilts, and the feel of a brand new fleece blanket. And then there’s my cat (cats are the ultimate unabashed hedonists), whose favorite thing is my lavender robe…whenever he encounters it—say, as he’s walking across my bed—a look of sort of stunned pleasure crosses his face, and he goes totally motionless for a time, cross-eyed, savoring it. And then he makes a nest in it and goes right to sleep. Like the robe is quicksand, or something.

         What are some other good sensuous, tactile pleasures (vs. sensual pleasures, the sort you might find on p. 260 in WAYS TO BE WICKED? <--Hee!! A plug!). Do share. I'm all for learning about new kinds of hedonism. :)

Crazy about "Little Miss Sunshine"

So I saw "Little Miss Sunshine" this weekend, and absolutely loved it. It's hysterically funny—seriously, the crowd I was in was gasping for air from laughing so hard—and it's also irreverent, moving and occasionally downright heartbreaking, and often all of those things at once.  And even though the characters at first seem to be painted somewhat broadly, as the movie moves along the nuances of the relationships between all of them unfold perfectly, and everyone becomes real, multi-dimensional, loveable and irritating—you sense the history between all of them without being clubbed over the head with it. And the family is just so recognizable as a...well, typical middle class family, in the rhythms of the way they relate. There were little grace notes in the beginning of the movie that told us who this family was in a way I easily recognized, too...the quick little close-up of the Mayor McCheese drinking glass at dinner, for example. At my house, it was the Jellystone Park plate (Yogi Bear!)—the sibs and I used to squabble over who got to eat off of it.

The acting was fabulous, too: Toni Colette is always amazing, Steve Carell was great, and Greg Kinnear was a revelation. I've seen him in lighter movies, but I didn't know he could really act.  LOL. He was brilliant. And the movie wasn't flawless, but it's probably not like anything you've seen recently, and it's filled with little surprises and wonderful little moments. It'll linger with you when you walk out of the theater, and you'll walk out feeling good.

Also, a little plus: they used quite a few Sufjan Stevens songs in the movie, and I love him.

Anyway, that's my movie recommendation! And I suppose my unadulterated enthusiasm could be a result of the fact that I haven't exactly been getting out much lately, and that I would have been delighted by anything, anything I saw. LOL. But—nah. I did love it. Have you guys seen anything you loved/hated lately, whether in the theater or on DVD or what have you? I have a wee little breather between projects, and after I scrub down my flat and organize it within an inch of its life—everything in the bathroom cupboard is going on those little Lazy Susans, I decided, because I'm tired of lotions, etc. flying out out at me every time I open the cupboard door—I'm going to catch up on my movie watching. (We'll see how long my organizational systems last.)

And in case you guys didn't see it in our comments down below, the winner of the signed book is Courtney Crowely! Woo hoo, Courtney! She chose TO LOVE A THIEF, and I'm popping that in the mail this week to her this week. Happy Monday!

Spam, fresh as the morning dew

          Something I’ve learned this week: When you stay up very, very late (say, until 2 or 3 a.m.) working on your computer, you get to watch the Viagra and Cialis spam actually arrive in your email inbox, fresh as the morning dew. Usually it’s just there waiting for me when I wake up in the morning. Lots and lots and lots of it. Are the men of the world really that worried about impotence? Is the problem graver than I ever dreamed? Is the impotence industry really a huge one (no innuendo intended?)? I’m starting to wonder.

          But one spammer actually kind of fascinates me. The subject lines of the emails are these trippy non-sequiturs, and in the body of the spam, after the inevitable creatively misspelled sales pitch for Cialis, is always a paragraph or two of what appears to be a story excerpt. I have a friend who gets this exact same spam, and she’s become just as fascinated by them as I am. Anyone else get these? (You’re thinking: "Julie, if you’re reading spam, you really don’t have enough to do." And I can hardly fault you for thinking this, but you’d be oh so wrong, my friend. Reading spam is a splendid way to dodge a whole hailstorm of little deadlines and tasks.)

          Re the spam in question, though—some recent subject lines are, “Hi, orange-tailed,” “Better future, wood-sheathed,” and “Life, milk-curdling.” There’s a bizarre sort of poetry to them, and as peculiar as it seems, I have to admit, as a lover of words, that I’ve come to sort of look forward to seeing the latest subject lines. And as an example of the stories embedded in the spam (after the Cialis ads), here’s a paragraph that appeared at the bottom of a recent one:

"I looked up  and felt a catch in my throat. I couldn't utter a sound. I
translator of these short novels. Russian I do not know; fiction I do; and I
wasn't bad. It was a photographic  process--aerial and highly  enlarged. You"

          Just that little bit of a story. Weird, eh? Almost haunting. In every new bit of Cialis spam there’s a snippet of what appears to be a different story, and these particular emails arrive nearly every day. I’m sure the stories and subject lines are meant to disguise the spam and sneak it past our battery of spam filters, but it’s still oddly intriguing.

          And as I had a dozen little deadlines and things to finish, my flat has become very, very clean in very specific places. For instance, I don’t think it’s ever been so spotless under my microwave. Also—that narrow strip between the stove and refrigerator? Pristine. Obsessively micro-cleaning is another splendid way to avoid the things you need to be doing. Or maybe it’s just a way of burning off excess energy before I settle down to work. Or a sort of unconscious attempt to Feng Shui the place.

          Speaking of snippets of stories, look below—there’s a snippet of WAYS TO BE WICKED below if you haven’t seen it yet, and if you pipe up and say something (you don’t necessarily have to tell me I’m wonderful—LOL—“hello!” will do) in the comments area, you might win a signed copy of BEAUTY AND THE SPY or TO LOVE A THIEF. My sis is going to choose a winner at random from commenters by 9 p.m. EST Friday. J

          Off to bed now! Sweet dreams, all. My goal is to get into bed before midnight tomorrow. Everyone needs a goal, right?

A sneaky little WAYS TO BE WICKED excerpt...

Because I hate for my poor blog to languish while I'm doing a thousand other things, here's a sneaky little excerpt of WAYS TO BE WICKED (October will be here any minute!). This scene takes place shortly after the first excerpt from the book on my website, so start reading there, if you'd like...

          Sylvie could scarcely get through the rest of rehearsal without thoughts of what Tom Shaughnessy might do. Would he… “turn ‘er off?” Was that the English expression Rose had used? Would he “sack her” and leave her to her own devices in London? Would she have the nerve to blame The General?

And so when The General gave them leave to go, she lingered, watching the other girls vanish into the dressing room. She saw Molly cast a glance over her shoulder, toss her head away again, murmur something to Lizzy.

And then her heart thumping as surely as if Tom Shaughnessy were marking time with his walking stick, Sylvie made her decision.

She turned and marched stoically toward Tom’s office.

            He was shaking off his coat when she appeared in the doorway. He froze mid-motion, one arm in a sleeve, one arm out, when he saw her. His cravat had already been tossed over the globe in the corner, as though he’d entered the office and violently ridded himself of a noose at once.

            It occurred to her then, very suddenly: he wears a costume, too. The man she saw leaning over his desk at night, shirtsleeves rolled up, two buttons open to free  his movements, the stripped to essentials Tom: this was the real Tom Shaughnessy.

They stared at each other, frozen in an indecipherable moment, trying in vain to ascertain what the other was thinking.

            “I saw you.”

They both said it at once, in a rush. Both faintly accusatory. Faintly apologetic.

Tom’s face was difficult to read. He turned from her and finished getting out of his coat, draped it over his chair carefully. Absently unbuttoned the cuffs of shirt, then rolled them up. She watched every motion, and watching him reveal his arms seemed somehow as intimate as watching him undress completely. It wasn’t at all what a gentleman would have done in front of her during the day.  She could not for a moment imagine Etienne rolling up his sleeves in front of her, though she had of course seen every inch of Etienne uncovered.

Tom looked down. He fumbled with the papers on his desk, then appeared to realize he was fumbling and stopped. He let his eyes wander over to the window, over to the bookshelves, back to the desk.

In other words, to anywhere she wasn’t.

“Well, then. Did you come to see me for a reason, Sylvie?” Stiffly said, and formally. It sounded like a foreign language coming from him.

She watched him, unfamiliar with whatever this mood happened to be. She sensed he was unfamiliar with it, too.

“Are you…angry?” It was at least a place to begin asking questions.

He looked toward the bookshelf and appeared to consider this. As though he was having difficulty deciding precisely what he was.

“No,” he finally said. To the bookshelves, not to her.

            An awkward silence.

            “All right,” she said softly. “I’ll go.”

            “There’s no money in it.” He said quickly. Abruptly. Almost as though trying to convince himself of something.

She remained where she was.

            Which was when he did finally look at her. He nearly blinked when their eyes met, as though receiving a tiny shock. His expression was oddly…defiant.  Uncertain. As though, for heaven’s sake, he was being required to defend himself and didn’t know quite how to go about it.

In short, Tom Shaughnessy was for some reason decidedly uncomfortable.

Not angry. Not glib. Not amused.

Not even flirting.

Sylvie stared at him, fascinated. She’d watched him gracefully and adeptly field highwaymen and earls and frightened women and incensed husbands with scarcely a ripple in his authority and good humor. And now…

Me, she thought. I did this to him. With her dancing, her own form of brilliance, she’d shifted his balance. She’d made Tom Shaughnessy feel…

Vulnerable. Ah, yes, that was it.

It pleased her inordinately.  Particularly since this was a man who had made the ground beneath her feet feel nearly as wobbly as the deck of that ship that brought her across the channel. From the very moment she’d clapped eyes upon him.

She suspected her eyes began to glow a bit, because that’s when his eyes went dark and something like firm resolve crossed his face. He took two decisive steps toward her.

Which made her suck in an audible breath, and take an almost imperceptible step back.

Which made his mouth twitch just a little.

It took every bit of her courage to hold her ground as he slowly closed the distance that remained between them, until he stood so close that the heat of his body and the singular scent of him wound her in a cocoon. She should have known a man this wicked would smell like paradise: tobacco and soap and some hint of spice. Sweat, just a little. Clean linen.

And the unmistakable, most singular, subtle scent of all: desire. She knew the scent. For she was not, as he had guessed right from the start, an innocent.

It was the first time, however, that she had gloried in this.

Words. I need words. Words to parry with and to build a net of safety with. “Do you see something on my cheek, Mr. Shaughnessy?”

The words were, unfortunately, a nearly breathless rush of sound. Her speeding heartbeat was making her blood ring in her ears.

It didn’t appear as though he’d even heard the question.

“I believe I mentioned that I’m not obliged to play fair, Sylvie.” He said it softly, his voice low and level. It was a warning. An apology.

And a dare.

And it was the last that made her determined to stand her ground.

Even with her speeding heart sending the blood whooshing in her ears and all but freezing her lungs. Even as the intent became very clear in the set of his jaw, in the heat of his eyes. Even as the want in her rose so fiercely that she thought she would simply die if this time he didn’t…if he didn’t…

And now he was so close she could see the facets of silver in his eyes, the fine creases at the corners of them, like the rays of stars.

But when his lips touched hers she saw nothing more:  Her eyes closed as the kiss detonated in her.

So very nearly painful in its sweetness. As though she’d been cracked gently open, only to discover she was full of nothing but brilliant light.

And then it was over. Her eyes fluttered open to discover why.

She saw that Tom had taken a step back from her. His silver eyes had gone pewter-dark, stunned. For an instant, they were motionless together. Assessing. Reassessing.

For with one near-chaste kiss both had been managed to strip themselves of pretense and combat and flirtation and all the other little things they used to defend themselves against each other. They were suddenly equal. And equally uncertain.

A moment later, one of them became certain, and naturally it was Tom.

He stepped swiftly toward her; his hands came up, held her face lightly. A statement of intent.  And like this, for the span of several breaths, he waited. Not obliged to play fair, he’d said to her. And even now, she knew he wasn’t playing fair: for he was forcing her to choose.
(and that's the end of the excerpt, but oh BOY does it get juicy from there...)
By 9 pm. EST, Friday the 18th, I'll choose a winner (at random!) of a signed copy of either BEAUTY AND THE SPY or TO LOVE A THIEF from commenters below!  So go to town, kittens. :)

Possibly the funniest website EVER

You know how my cat is now somewhat nude, at least by cat definitions? I recalled a website a friend shared with me years ago that had me in TEARS I was laughing so hard, so I hunted it down again, and oh, man—it was the same thing all over again. Still  hilarious. Anyway, it's a Japanese site (translated into English), that sells clothes for cats. Or at least...well, more specifically, it seems to sell elaborate costumes for cats, mostly headgear designed to transform them into a frog, or a chicken, or Anne of Green Gables. Seriously.

I don't know what gets to me the most. The concept? The captions ("I am a frog")?? The instructions for enjoying the outfits? (Here's a verbatim quote, spelling and all: " After you are enough with your joy, take a photo! Take some poses and leave her some cute photos! Remove her clothes and give her a hub, say "Thank you!") Or maybe it's the tone that slays me—delighted whimsy devoid of all irony? And And OMG, I love the expression on that cat's (the model for these products) face. It's the exact same in every photo: utter baleful disbelief to be wearing, say, a curly red wig. The whole site is endlessly quotable ("Any cat can be a rabbit!")

Anyway, you have to check it out if you've never seen it, and be sure to scroll down to savor every bit of it. And since the website admonishes you not to reproduce any images from it without permission, I've instead included here as my visual aid a photo of my mohawked cat, Domenic, on the patio watching pigeons. You can kind of see his nekkid sides in this photo. His fanny is also bald.

I'm a bit fried today. Up late (or early? What does one consider 3 a.m.?) working on things, then I had weird dreams about forgetting to call in sick to work, and woke up all relieved and happy that I didn't have that particular job anymore. I suppose it's good to wake up happy, regardless of the source of said happiness. 

A Vicks Day

Well,  I thought at first I thought it was just allergies, because here in the city bright sunny days followed immediately by big, billowing swoops of wet fog (which is what we just had) seems to be a recipe for mold, for some reason, which usually means itching and sneezing for me, and a brain so foggy it feels like I have white noise in there rather than thoughts. That was yesterday. But given the small, hot rock of pain that lodged itself between my eyes all day—a new symptom—I've been forced to entertain the possibility that I might have a cold. A cold. Hmmph. Bloody hell. I never get sick anymore.  Or, seldom, anyway. For which I thank my green tea habit, plus the fact that I hardly ever ride public transportation anymore (MUNI buses are rolling petri dishes).  So I'm drinking Airborne (magical stuff, that) and more tea (the hard stuff—Earl Grey) and inhaling Vicks vapor rub. I actually love the smell of Vicks. I'm way sexy that way.  The headache seems to be abating. And sometimes it's almost pleasant to have a little cold...when you don't really need to think or do anything, that is. At the moment I'm doing three things at once, and none of them well, but I'm feeling pleasantly drifty. LOL. Doubtless I'll survive.

Hope you've all dodged the summer cold phenomenon. What's your favorite thing to do for a cold? Tea, vicks, juice, cartoons, naps?  Theraflu? (Man, I once took that stuff and I had like Samuel Taylor Coleridge-esque visions. Yow. Never again.) Romance novels? :)

Bread Worship and Party-Crashing: a pictorial journey of the conference

As promised (or threatened?) here's a cavalcade of photos from the conference, all courtesy of the marvelous Michelle Rowen.  Shall we begin?

This is me, Liza Palmer, Megan Crane and Susan Crandall camped out at the hotel's Atrium Express, home of the famous Yogurt Parfait (you can see mine melting in a cup on the table there. I ate about a dozen of them while I was there.) From all the paper on the table, you might think we were working. Actually, moments before, I think we were discussing euphemisms for male genitalia. For a romance author, this is tantamount to working. I love the look on Liza's face. Like she's never seen a camera before, and is purely astonished to have one pointed at her.

Here's moi at the Warner signing, poised for the crowd waiting outside, my entire published body of work  in front of me. This photo is noteworthy in that my hair actually looks tidy.

Here's me, Michelle Rowen, Warner 5 Spot Publicist Ellie Weisenberg, and Karen Rose at the Warner dinner at Morton's of Chicago. As you can see, I'm already buckling with laughter, and we are clearly primed to misbehave. It only got worse from there. Next, we'll be worshipping the bread.

  What did I tell you? Bread worship. Well, it was either worship, or we were trying to establish communication with it. I can't recall precisely now. Anyway, the bread at the dinner was glossy and bright orange and big and round, like a brain. A brain on Star Trek, that is. This is Megan Crane and Liza Palmer consulting the bread. I don't know whose fingers those are. They don't quite look like mine, but I did have a pale pink manicure, so I wouldn't rule it out.

More Warner dinner photos, and as you can see, we did manage to tear into the bread, its brainlike appearance notwithstanding. From top left, we have Emily Hixon from Levy Home Entertainment (we love her), Megan Crane, Liza Palmer, and me cheek-to-cheek with Ellie Weisenberg.

Me and Megan Crane outside of Morton's of Chicago, right before we all headed to the Harlequin party, to which we were all invited via engraved invitations. (Ahem.)

At the Ritz, at the piano, at the Harlequin party. That's Toni Blake and Stephanie Rowe in the back, and me and Robin Popp in the front. We took requests from customers all night and jammed into the wee hours of the—well, no, we didn't, but  wouldn't that have made a good story? I like how you can see our reflections in the piano.

I'll add more photos later, if I get some fun ones!