Guilty Pleasure

 

I have a lot of guilty pleasures, watching exercise infomercials, reading reviews for things I’ve already purchased to confirm said purchases are awesome, wearing pj’s to the McDonald’s drive thru, well you get the picture. My newest guilty pleasure is the website RejectedPrincesses.com. It is all about these crazy, sociopathic, wonderful women in history and lore who could never make it as a Disney Princess. Don’t get me wrong, Tatiana, Elsa and Merida have come a long way from their earlier incarnations (cough Cinderella,cough Sleeping Beauty, cough) but as bad-ass they could be at times, it was definitely in a PG kind of way. After escaping from a convent, this swashbuckler had the strength to chase her dreams: which were apparently to drink, fight, and womanize.

The Rejected Princesses were bad ass in a go to jail kind of way, and I love it. You’d think the mind behind this great site would be a woman, but in fact the author and illustrator is Jason Porath. He has an irreverent writing style that has me giggling every time I read his latest creation. Jason gives us a new princess once a week and it is worth the wait. This week Catalina de Erauso the Liuetenant Nun was featured. Her quick bio states: After escaping from a convent, this swashbuckler had the strength to chase her dreams: which were apparently to drink, fight, and womanize. You want to read more, don’t you J

I write romance and I love a good heroine, both figuratively and literally. I write heroines with kind hearts, who might have to do something nefarious, but always with the best of intentions. My heroines would never kill without good reason, or plot against her children or set fire to a convent so she can run away with a nun (um yeah, one of rejected princess sure did). But good grief, even if I don’t want to write about such ladies, it sure is fun reading about them. If you like to read about women with an edge (and with a side of sly humor) do yourself a favor and check out RejectedPrincesses.com, you definitely won’t regret it.

Another Resolution

I have another New Year’s resolution, for those keeping count, that now makes three. Yeah, I can’t believe I’m adding another one either, especially since I’m already struggling with the first two. Hopefully, resolution #3 will help with the others (who am I kidding).

So my new resolution is to stop buying romances for a year. What you say, stop buying books! I know, cray cray right? But I have more than 30 unread/partially read books on my Kindle, never mind the paperbacks on my bookshelf. I have got to catch up. And it isn’t like I have unread crappy books that I’m just not reading, heck no. I’ve got books about prison inmates (God I love books about prison inmates), a ton of BDSM books (God I love a good BDSM book, the operative word being good), some villains as heroes (God, there is nothing I love more than a villainous hero—I kid you not), some good ole lesbo stories (hmm) and, well you get the picture.

My problem is that I get The Craving. If you love books like I do, you understand. That craving to find something new, different and exciting hits and I HAVETO BUY A BOOK. These cravings typically come with the desire to read about a new villainous hero (told ya I wasn’t kidding). As a matter of fact, I’m fighting The Craving right now and the only thing that has kept me away from Amazon is the Rejected Princesses website (more on that another day).

It has to stop, and I have to finish the books I already own. They are good books, they have just been casualties of The Craving. My friend pointed out that my no more books resolution is everyone’s this year, which made me feel guilty. We’re abandoning authors, oh Lord. So to appease my conscience, I’m allowing myself to buy my author friends’ books (I have a lot of them), but they are going to the bottom of the pile. As usual, wish me luck J

Torn Between Two Lovers

 

 

“I love westerns and the reason I love really good westerns is because they are really classical. Their structure is like a Roman tragedy. Lots of violence, lots of vengeance and occasionally redemption. They are wonderfully brutal.” Paul Bettany

I hate to be overly dramatic, but I do feel as though I am torn between two lovers. For the last two years I’ve worked on a western historical romance. It is all about a minister turned gun for hire and the woman he’s trying to track down. I love the story and it has a lot of potential, but lacks something.  I’ve edited it and edited it again but it still needs a lot more work. Every time I read the above quote from Paul Bettany I get chills because he sums up beautifully not only how I feel about my story, but how I want my readers to feel about my book once they’ve read it. I feel as though I need to keep plugging at Luke and Honey’s story so that it can be as wonderfully brutal as Paul thinks really good westerns can be.

But then there is my other love. If you are a writer you know that for every good story you work on, there is that other story that wants to lure you away so you can bring it to life. My other story is a contemporary romance about a hot butch who only dates lesbians and the bisexual girl that she can’t get out of her head. And when I say Eli is hot, I mean she is burn your panties off hot. She keeps telling me to stop dinking around with that old western and let her come out and play. To be honest, playing with her would be really fun. Plus, I’d feel like I’ve accomplished something by writing something new instead of rehashing the old story.

So instead of writing, I’ve been in limbo, working on neither book, but thinking about both. This has to end, I need to make a decision and get my butt in the chair and my fingers on the keyboard. I’m toying with the idea of working on both. That way I can polish up my western and still get a chance to bring Eli to life. Wish me luck, I only hope Eli doesn’t wind up sounding like a nineteenth century cowboy J

A New Year A New Me?

 

Okay, I have to confess that I’m guilty. Like every other American, my New Year’s resolution is to lose weight. No big surprise, after a challenging year, I let my diet go to hell. I looked in the mirror today and thought “who is that fat chick”? Not that being fat is necessarily bad, but since I can’t fit into my clothes and I’m convinced I’m losing my hair due to what I eat/ am not eating, I think it is time for a change. So off to Weight Watchers I went. This time when I weighed in the secretary didn’t practically yell, “you’ve gained five pounds”. Um, ‘cause that is what happened the last time and I’ve definitely gained more than five pounds this go round.

But losing weight isn’t my only resolution. When I first started my blog oh so long ago, aka back in November, I promised myself that I’d write every week. I knew that wasn’t much since most folks will tell you to gain a following you need to blog a few times a week, but I at least knew myself well enough to know that once a week would be a challenge.  Then life, the holidays and family issues came calling and I fell off the wagon faster than a girl on a diet at a buffet (note to self, avoid buffets).  But Saturday changed all of that. I dreamed about this blog and about you. Yes, you, my followers. At the moment there aren’t (m)any of you but still I dreamed about your disappointment that I had broken my word about keeping this blog up to date. So I’m back, with a renewed sense of purpose. So get ready for a fun, crazy 2015. Toodles for now, I’m off to think about my next post J