We had a record number of posts here at First Offenders, and I am THRILLED so many of you came out to play. I loved reading the comments, you made me smile, you made me laugh, you made me tear up, and always, you reminded me of how much I love what I do, telling stories.
So without further ado...these winners get a choice of ANY signed print copy of my backlist, including WILD RIDE, which comes out on Tuesday - please email me: [email protected] with your choices and to give me your snail mail address:
The labels draw you in. All of the varieties use some sort of prison or gangster cartoon to express what their wine is all about. And this is one time where cool labels and the wine inside match up. For about ten bucks a bottle, you can swill this wonderful, tangy, criminally awesome wine.
The first one I tried is The Lineup, a blend of Syrah, Grenache, and Mouruedre that immediately shot up my personal chart to one of the top wines of the year. Perfect combo, just what I'm looking for in red wine. No reason to spend forty bucks for a bottle (and I have before, maybe once or twice, and quickly decided to not do that anymore...unless sorely tempted) when this ten dollar contender makes me this fucking happy.
Unfortunately, I gave The Slammer away to some friends at a party and haven't tried it yet, but I know it's out there in my future. It's promised to be a strong, punchy Syrah. I love those.
Then I gave the ol' Big House Red itself a shot. Again, about ten bucks. Blends more grapes than The Lineup (like, eleven of them. That's like mixing all the booze leftover after a party into one bottle, except classier), and doesn't have the same thrill, but goddamn, it's still a tasty and cheap sipping wine for the middle of the week when you're exhausted from putting together grant applications and reading student screenplays. And it is the perfect match for...oh, let's say tacos. Of course, pretty much anything I like is the perfect match for tacos.
So, Big House Wines gets an "A+" in my tasting notebook (and no, I don't literally have a tasting notebook).
2. MY OP-ED ON "WALKS FOR THE CURE"
Lots of people walking to cure things lately. Diabetes, breast cancer, restless leg syndrome. And I applaud any money raised for their excursions. For example, there are about 13,000 people at the Mall of America today walking to cure diabetes. But I can't help but wonder how much closer to the cure we would be if just a fraction of those people would have gone into the field of science.
I know, I'm just a crime novelist yapping my jaws, but there are many days now I wish I knew more about science and math, and I'm slowly self-educating myself. So for the future generations, I hope more of them will consider the sciences. They can write novels between cures for things.
3. GREAT PULP WESTERN COVERS FROM MY COLLECTION
4. YOUR WEEKLY HERMAN FIX
Here's Herman with his cousin Heidi:
Yeah, I'll show you who's dominant, you German bitch.
5. PLOTS WITH GUNS UPDATE
Yes, I'm way behind. Yes, I hate myself for it. And yes, the thing that's been keeping me from working on it comes to an end this Monday. Thus, I can jump right in. A double-issue. Promise.
My novella, Strong, Silent Type, will be released next week in the Wild Ride Anthology. This is Rough Riders book 6.5 and the only "short" book in the series.
To celebrate the release, and the 4 1/2 star review I received this week in Romantic Times Magazine for Rough Rider book 6, Branded As Trouble, I'll be giving away a signed copy of any of my print backlist! Winners choice!
And, if we get over 100 comments today, I'll choose TWO lucky winners!! And if we get 200 comments? Do the math...The sky is the limit people!!
Here's a peek at the cover for Wild Ride Anthology:
...Tough. Taciturn. And a fool for letting her go…
Wyoming
rancher Quinn McKay thought he’d only have to bide time until his
levelheaded wife came to her senses and called a halt to this “trial
separation”. He never believed the marital rough patch would drag on
for a coon’s age.
Libby McKay knew when she married the
gruff, laid-back cowboy that he wasn’t prone to blathering about his
feelings. But three months have passed and her stubborn-as-a-mule
husband is still living by himself in the horse trailer. It seems he’d
rather hold onto his pride than hold onto her.
Quinn realizes
Libby is determined to move on if he doesn’t loosen his tongue and
he’ll lose the only woman he’s ever loved. In a last-ditch effort to
keep her in his life, he offers her one weekend of uninterrupted sexual
decadence.
Reigniting the passion is easy. The hard part
comes after the sheets have cooled and they find out if what remains is
strong enough to survive past mistakes.
Warning:Old-fashioned
groveling leads to smokin’ hot sexual encounters—steamin’ up the truck
windows, rockin’ the horse trailer—proving even an old married dog can
learn naughty new tricks.
I've been a bit under the weather the last several days, and I'm trying to get ready for my mini book tour this weekend with Hank Phillippi Ryan and Julie Hyzy down in North Carolina (if you're in the Raleigh/Durham area, check out our schedule here), so I'm a little discombobulated and have only random thought for today:
Why is it that after days of promoting the women's short program figure skating, they didn't show it until 11 p.m. last night? We were even willing to forgo Girl's Night on American Idol to watch the skaters, but all we saw were bobsledders and even more skiers.
Which begs the question: Just how many downhill/slalom races can the Olympics have?
And further: Bobsledding should be on during the day. Like the curling. Or better yet, move the curling to nighttime and bobsledding to daytime.
American Idol: They kept saying how strong the girls are this year. Seriously? Not from what I saw. Any other opinions?
And more on American Idol: Every year the judges say they should pick songs that they can "turn into their own." And every year most of them don't do that. Don't they watch the show? It's like someone going on Survivor without knowing how to make fire first, or someone on the Amazing Race who doesn't know how to drive a stick shift. I mean, really. We are the only country that panders to drivers and allows them easy automatic driving.
Jeff's post yesterday got me thinking about three things. 1) Backpain sucks. 2)Jeff will watch any crap movie as long as he's got enough bourbon in him. 3) I sure wish I had a time-machine.
Since the first two things I thought about aren't really the best blog topics, I'm going with the third -- but before you say I'm just copying the words of a some drunk guy who's half out of his mind with physical pain, I will tell you that I want a time machine for one, very specific reason: do-overs. While I've done some good things in my life, I've also made some really stupid mistakes I wish I could take back -- from not telling off people I should have told off, to taking the wrong course pass/fail in college to passing up chances to travel or have adventures or see certain beloved relatives who are long since gone... from not trying hard enough professionally to trying too hard personally (my comment on Jeff's post being just one, albeit perfect example) -- not to mention various other missteps I've made through the ages, big and small, that could have been so easily avoided, hindsight being as maddeningly 20/20 as it is.
So today, I'd like to put the question out to you: If someone put you in that time-machine and gave you the chance for one do-over, would you take it? And, if so, what would you use it on?
So last night amidst a haze of alcohol and back pain medication (totally mixed, totally not supposed to do that and it totally worked, so whatever), I found myself stretched out on the bed, watching The Time Traveler's Wife. I can't recall everything about the movie, but I have a feeling I would've enjoyed it sufficiently less if I'd been sober and clear-headed and that is saying something because I didn't really enjoy it at all. I never read the book, but I'd read enough about the book and the movie to get the basic idea of what the story was about - dude is a time-traveler and he gets married and that causes some issues. Go figure. The set up in the movie was a little confusing and I never really understood where he was in time or what exactly made him travel or why Eric Bana is such a bad actor. But with all that said, I did watch it to the very end and it really made me think about time travel. (Okay - the Flexeril, prescription strength motrin and bourbon might've contributed to my interest in time travel as well.)
But I kept wondering - would I want to time travel? Would I want to be like this guy in the movie or that guy in Quantum Leap? (Quantum Leap - AWESOME show.) I think my answer is yes. Maybe.
I'm pretty sure I'd have no trouble going back in time - fix some mistakes, do some things exactly the same way, pick up some lottery numbers, that kind of thing. (BTW - that was the biggest problem I had in the movie. He does use his time travel to win the lottery - once - and it was only when it was worth five million. What a waste. Never play the lottery unless its up to 8 figures.) But I'm not sure I'd wanna jump ahead in time and see where I was going and what was gonna happen. I'm not sure I wanna look ten years into the future and see what's waiting for me because it might scare the crap out of me.
How about you? You wanna jump ten years ahead and see what's in store for you?
Jeff
BABES IN JOYLAND
Tristan Prettyman. She's from San Diego. She surfs. She's hot. She probably dreams about me because I am obviously her perfect match.
I just downloaded my new diploma. I am officially an accredited Crime Scene Investigator. At least according to CSI: The Experience, an incredibly fun attraction at the MGM in Las Vegas, where I have been enjoying the 70 degree temperatures for the last several days while it snowed at home.
I have been a fan of CSI since its beginning, although I only like the one in Vegas and I have not seen it since Laurence Fishburne joined the show. When we saw the sign for the attraction, I immediately wanted to do it, although my family was not as easily convinced. But finally they decided it could be fun and we went in to study the three crime scenes we had to choose from: a car running into a house, a dead girl in the street, or a skeleton in the desert. We choose the third.
Armed with clipboards, we sat through a few minutes of Gil Grissom welcoming us and then went to our crime scene. We were told to write down everything we saw. They even had maglites for us to see even better. Our skeleton had been there a while, there was a bullet hole in its skull, and there was some sort of hair scattered in the sand. We took a lot of notes.
From there, we went to several interactive stations, where we checked out bullets, comparing one to another, we studied DNA of the hair found at the scene, we discovered there were non-native seeds at the scene and matched them to plants. Putting all the clues together, we managed to discover who the killer was.
While it wasn't incredibly challenging, it was really fun. What's your favorite crime show?
Over at Murder She Writes last week, I posted about my favorite one liners from movies. Not necessarily my favorite movies, but memorable lines from movies. The great thing about the responses, was everyone had a different line that resonated with them, lots of lines I'd never heard of, or lines I'd forgotten, or lines that hadn't jumped out at me when I'd seen the movie.
I admit my entertainment taste is pretty low brow. I like movies that blow shit up, I love vamp and werewolf books, I prefer chicken wings and beer to haute cuisine and wine. I do enjoy some classical music and I've been exposed to plenty of it since my daughters are string players. But my first love is rock. And yeah yeah yeah, I know there is argument about what rock music is these days and it's like the argument about porn -- I know it when I see it, or in the case of music, when I hear it. And yeah, yeah, yeah, skip the bullshit responses about slick record executives and music being written by committee for commercial appeal, and how "real" musicians suffer for their fucking music in some goddamn backwater dive in some obscure town. I. Don't. Buy. It.
Growing up, my parents were a little bit county/a little bit rock 'n roll. My dad listed to country music, my mom always had Top 40 on, you know, back in the day when Top 40 played everything and didn't cater to a specific type of music like alternative, rap, pop, hardcore, or oldies. So I listened to both Conway Twitty and the Eagles.
For the last two years, I've pretty much listened exclusively to country. Mostly because the ability to tell a story in three minutes fascinates me, because it takes me, a different kind of story teller, between 70,000 and 100,000 words to tell my tales of sex and murder. I also find that the themes in country music fit who I am now, regardless if I hear a song that was popular last year or last decade. And I am a sucker for a catchy jingle -- Honky Tonk Badonkadonk anyone?
But I cannot listen to music while I write, so I only listen in my car. Yesterday, as my boy Dierks Bentley blasted "What Was I Thinkin'?" from the speakers, I realized I could write an entire book out of this snippet from the song:
When a mountain of a man With a Born to Kill tattoo Tried to cut in I knocked out his front tooth We ran outside, hood sliding like Bo Duke What was I thinkin'?
So FOFOs, share some snippets from favorite songs that resonate with you for some reason. And yes, I'll even consider Springsteen lyrics music this morning.
This weekend, my town hosted the Woodstock Writers' Festival, aka "3 Days of Peace, Love and Books." I'll say right off that no guitars were set afire, no one took to the speaker system to warn us about the brown acid, and no one got naked. But festivally speaking, it did rank right up there with our town's finest. The focus of the festival was memoir and, as the wife of the guy who'd been asked to shoot it, I got to see some amazing writers -- including Susan Orlean, Ruth Reichl and Abigail Thomas. The last night, though, I saw Julie Powell (Julia and Julia) speak about her new book Cleaving. And, though I've never read her, her talk did get me thinking quite a bit -- mainly about information and how much is too much.
For those of you who don't know, Cleaving is the follow up to Julie and Julia, in which Powell apprentices for a butcher and has an extramarital affair with a man she refers to as ""D.", describing both the meat-cutting and the screwing around in graphic, visceral detail. In her talk, Powell, who is still married to her husband Eric, mentioned the negative reviews and mean-spirited letters she's gotten. Confessing to being an "oversharer" who feels compelled, as a memoirist, to reveal her whole life to the world -- down to (and apparently most especially) the intimate stuff, she went on to say with some amazement that people seemed less offended by her having the affair than by her writing about it.
I'm sorry, but at the risk of possibly offending some of my wonderful, memoir-writing friends... I get that. People make mistakes in their marriages for all sorts of complicated, messy and often deeply painful reasons -- every last one of which is none of my business. Writing books on the other hand, is all about sharing. And consciously choosing to share every last, racy detail of something that no doubt caused your husband considerable hurt with -- in Powell's case -- millions of strangers... I'm sorry, but that's just so damn humiliating, isn't it? I mean, am I missing something here? Powell admitted that her husband hasn't read the book (He's only "skimmed" it.) But Jesus... that doesn't mean the neighbors and his family and his co-workers and college friends and the guy who comes to repair the refrigerator and the skinny college girl working the front desk at the gym and everyone else on the entire freakin' planet doesn't now know all about the various positions assumed by his wife day after day -- just a year or two ago -- during those times she wasn't cutting meat. Does complete honesty come before the feelings of those you love? I'm sure memoirists have this problem all the time, but seriously -- where do you draw the line?
On the other hand, her husband is a grown man who signed off on the project. If she decided not to write it, would that be protecting him too much? Maybe there are great things to be gained from hearing about her affair -- why it started, why it ended, what it has to do with the price of meat. I don't know, as I haven't read Cleaving outside of the excerpts Powell read (which kinda made me cringe, to be honest) -- but all the questions the book raises have stayed with me. And I'd love to hear your feelings on the topic.
Do you write or read memoir? If so, how much truth for you is too much truth?
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