Help For Hurricane Victims

Interrupting our day-to-day lives with some sobering reality:

If you can help the hurricane victims in Louisiana and Mississippi in any way, please do so. You can go to www.redcross.org and find out how you can help.

And prayers, lots of them, are needed. The entire region hit by Katrina is facing stupendous challenges to be habitable again, especially the New Orleans area. I don't know how they are going to rebuild that city, what with the levees having been breached and eighty percent of New Orleans under 15 feet of water.

My heart goes out to the people stranded there. There won't be food, electricity, basic necessities like clothes and toilet, for God knows how long. Having lived through four hurricanes in five weeks, with interruptions to electricity for days, I cannot even imagine that kind of misery added with flood waters. It surely makes all of us living by the coast to think hard about our happy and lazy seaside lives.

To my readers and their friends or families who might have been caught in Katrina's path these last few days: my heartfelt hope that everyone is safe and sound. You're all in my thoughts yesterday and today.

ADDENDUM:

I was watching the looters on TV. There was this man trying to push, with all his strength, a 42-inch television out of a store. It was simply amazing. Does the man not know that the streets are flooding? Where is he going to put that thing, assuming he has a vehicle to load it into? On the second storey of his flooded home? I can understand the mentality of looting for food and clothing, but a 42-inch TV? Does he not know there is NO ELECTRICITY? That New Orleans is a city that isn't going to be working for a long, long time? I'm just baffled at what this man was thinking at that moment, while he stood in the middle of the electronic department, surrounded by all the wonderful toys that men love.

Did some kind male gene kick in, the kind that ignored the reality of his situation, to overwhelm his survival instinct? Did he go "Arrgrrrrrowwl" like Tim the Toolman and thought, "I can have one of these! No, two! I'll take two!" I can just see a whole scene when he returns to his waiting wife/girlfriend and instead of giving her the needed food or toilet paper, he boasts, "Look what I got for us, honey, a 42-inch color TV!" And said wife/girlfriend replies, without batting an eyelit, "Oh good, maybe we can hook it up and watch the next episode of Desperate Housewife on our rooftop!"

I apologize. I didn't mean to make fun of the seriousness of the situation, but sometimes the ridiculous emphasizes the plain horror of the chaos surrounding the tragedy.

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A Spy's Killer Recipe

Here, at long last, is one of the recipes spies use to kill ;-). Of course, being a public blog, I'm going to have to asterisk the secret information below with the cautionary "TO BE USED FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY." There. Cook this at your own risk...

Borrowed with permission from a fellow-spy and copied from a copy of a 40-year old cookbook, CULINARY ARTS INSTITUTE ENCYCLOPEDIC COOKBOOK (1964 edition):

LIVER SAUSAGE BOLOGNA LOAF
Basically you make two ground organ meat pastes, one with bologna & mayonnaise and the other with liver sausage & mayonaisse. Sounds real healthy so far, doesn't it?

But wait! You put down a layer of sliced bread on a baking sheet, spread the bologna mixture on it, top with more bread, spread the liver mixture on that, top with another layer of bread, and then... SPREAD THE ENTIRE "LOAF" WITH BUTTER.

But wait, there's still more. On top of the buttered "loaf", you put alternating slices of yet more bologna and liver sausage. Then bake the entire thing for about 30 minutes.

The fat and cholesterol content of this dish ought to be toxic by now. ;-) You can entertain the mental image of entire 1960's families keeling over at the dinner table from cardiac arrest.

Anyway, serve this with a smile. YUM. Your enemy's arteries will surely die a slow death.

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Quietly Watching

If you've been watching the news, you know where my thoughts are. New Orleans. Katrina's impending arrival. And all those people at the SuperDome. I'm sending out a call to prayers for New Orleans, that danger to families--two-legged and four legged--will be kept to the minimal. From my end, it doesn't look possible that there wouldn't be any deaths.

I have to marvel at those people shown on TV drinking and partying on the streets, believing that the levies will hold through this devastating storm. It's strange how a certain mindset can become a mantra among people who have been drinking too much. They TV people tried to get an answer from these people--why are they staying? And their answers are strangely the same--the weathermen had always been wrong and they will be wrong again, and besides, we have the levies.

Yikes.

If it's a mandatory evacuation, doesn't that mean you can forcibly make these people leave? But then, where would you put them, when the city is fifteen to twenty five feet below sea level? Even the undead won't have a place to stay in New Orleans tonight.

I keep thinking...our nation boasts the best fleet of air power and we can't fly a bunch of planes down there a day ago, before it became too dangerous, to evacuate these poor people? Am I being too simplistic in my belief that this can be done?

It is too late now, of course. We can only sit and wait. A part of me is also wondering whether the presence of TV crews cause the citizens of New Orleans to think they are safe. After all, if those darn TV guys are there, that means it's safe enough for them to stay, right? Why would they want to jeopardize their lives by staying in a city that is going to be underwater, no power for weeks, with threats of disease because of stagnant water and floating bodies in the days to come?

We take a deep breath and we pray. Please let the Super Dome withstand that storm. And please let the pets and animals somehow survive.

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Uber-Spies And Uber-Roofers Should Have Equal Pay

Magic furbabee Update: Still not eating, still going to the vet all day. But looking much better! So I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she will eat today and everything will be fine again.

Okay, total exhaustion has set in yesterday. I've been working till 7-8 pm every day on this huge reroof that I kept complaining about. Since there were storms coming, courtesy of Katrina in Miami, we worked extra hard to cover as much exposed area as possible. We were fortunate the winds weren't blowing too hard because that's when the shingles get flipped over and peeled off. Then, of course, the roof leaks and the phone starts ringing about midnight with screaming homeowners ;-). Don't you want my job? ;-)

It always amazes me that during heavy, heavy downpours, some homeowners will call and expect you to drive out to their houses to stop a leak. Especially at 3am, in the dark. And oh, they don't think that means extra $$$ either, since you happened to put the roof on FIVE YEARS AGO. Do you think getting old also means losing your consideration about other people making a living? LOL. I think so.

Sometimes, they gave me $5 for driving out there to help them out. How nice. And oh, I can say this because I AM ASIAN, but there have been two Asian families now who thought giving me rice cakes for dinner was sufficient payment. And they owned homes in gated communities, so I suppose I just looked like all I needed were rice cakes to survive. LOL.

So how much should a spy charge for her service? And why does she gets better pay than a roofer? LOL. After all, both are about reputation and both have something to do with leaks.

You can tell I'm truly exhausted and my mind is wandering today, can't you?!

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Sick Furbaby Comes First

My furbaby mamma, Magic, was at the vet and in the emergency room last night because of her diabetic problem, so my mind hadn't been on writing yesterday. She's fine now, but hopefully, will be home tonight. I will know she's okay when she starts being the alpha bitch again instead of just lying there.

Dogs are so tough to take care of because they can take so much pain and you can't tell they aren't feeling well until they go into hiding or refuse to eat. Magic is one tough old gal and I have to really keep an eye on her to try to gauge whether she's hiding something.

Ah well...now I have to work extra hard on the roof to pay for the vet bills ;-/.

There's a NYT article that's of interest to those who like to read about books and the sales of books. This one is about a book that had a "wrong" cover and so didn't get the right attention:

www.nytimes.com/2005/08/24/books/24cove.html

It's pretty interesting, since romance writers and readers have always argued about this topic. Let me know what you think.

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Sleepless Spies and Tired Roofers

I worked on the steep roof till almost 8.30 pm tonight and thought I would just go home and roll into bed. But it's past midnight and I found myself too tired to sleep! My whole body feels like a dough that's been kneaded to death ;-) and my mind is a complete dollop of gooeyness, and I can't sleep. Frustrating to the max.

I received the nicest compliment in an email today. An editor from another publishing house emailed me and complimented me on my SEAL books! And, after a paragraph or two, she told me that if I ever wanted to change publishing house, please contact her! That was just an awesome email to return home to, especially after a day of baking in the sun. I was stinky, dirty, totally unable to speak in coherent sentences, and there was this great early birthday present waiting for me on my computer!

Needless to say, that email was forwarded to my agent. ;-) You got to open ALL your presents and enjoy them, my dears.

Actually, my entry for today was supposed to be a recipe that every spy should use to kill with. I'll just have to do that tomorrow instead. This dish, with its top secret ingredients, is a KILLER. And no doubt, delivious too. And yes, that word is all mine--delivious. You will just have to figure it out yourself!

So I'm off to stretch in bed again...and hopefully, sleep will come.

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Writing That Uber-Book

We're having Little League Baseball fever here as our Maitland kids are playing in the Little League World Series. It's fun to hear the excitement in everyone's voices when they're talking about these kids. And they are so good! I love baseball, especially when it's played with enthusiasm and with a sense of fun like these little leaguers are doing. Every game is on the line and they aren't paid a million bucks for it ;-).

And this too comes out in writing, don't you agree? Sometimes you read a book that you can feel the emotions resonating in every page, that special story that seems to sing. I believe that one can't just write for a deadline because the creative process involves a piece of the soul. Yet, how does a writer, earning her living in writing, not think about a deadline? It's always there.

So I think the thrust of the matter is to keep the enthusiasm and sense of fun up through the whole process and try not to just write for the deadline. I find myself seeing through certain stories out there, that it's just a deadline book, because it's missing that special heart. Do you get that feeling sometimes? There's just something overly plotted about the story, with just enough emotion between the characters to warrant a romance, and that's it.

It's just like the team that always breaks my heart, the Braves ;-). When they won their one and only World Series, they were a young team, very excited and fresh, and their enthusiasm and sense of fun just resonated in EVERY game leading into the Worlds. I just knew they were something special. I felt this glow while watching or listening to every game.

Since then, the Braves has won the Division Pennant and gone to the division finals but hasn't won another World Series. Why? They had the same big time players on their team, so...what's missing? I feel, sometimes, that they are so damn professional about their job that they forget the fun in the game. I mean, they are in the division finals, and it's almost like an everyday game to them, from their demeanor.

This year...ah...this year...there is something different. I've IMPATIENTLY waited ten years for the return of that magical feeling. I can sense it when I watch the Braves young players as they make their special plays. They THUMP on their elders' hats in glee at every hit or home run. They whoop. They cheer. And even straightfaced Chipper Jones shows a toothy grin when the youngsters crowd around him after his Oh-so-usual clutch homerun at 3-2.

I don't know. If these youngsters just keep it up...I might be finally realizing my dream of a seat in Turner Field (or whatever it's called now) during a World Series game in Oct/Nov. This is how much I'm loving their enthusiasm this year.

And, this is exactly the same feeling I get when I read that special book, the one with all the layers of plots and emotions that magically tie up in the end, and brilliantly takes me to that magical place from page one to the end.

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Super Soldier Spy

It's Sunday and it's tough to think of cool things to say to the world on a Sunday when it's like heaven to just sit in my air-conditioned house OUT OF the sun and OFF a sizzling hot roof ;-). Might I add that Ranger Buddy, who doesn't know what OFF means, is on a roof somewhere, putting tar paper on? The man is a machine.

So random thoughts today:

Here is an article about sex in teenage chick lit stories:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8962686/ which talks about how your teenagers are being corrupted by these books, subsidized by your money, that deal with teen group oral sex, etc. I showed this article to a couple of my girlfriends and their response? "So where do I order these books?" Hmm. Where is the hysteria?

Read an article about the advances in biotechnology, which is the subject of a lot of science fiction stories--bionic man, Robocop, etc. It always fascinates me that so much science fiction from ten and twenty years ago is becoming reality these days, although not quite in the same way it was fictionalized.

For example, when I first read about virtual reality, the concept of my proposal WIP (work-in-progress), it was in the early eighties and it was in a short science fiction story in which VR was used as a punishment tool to disobedient citizens. The story caught my imagination, the idea of not knowing reality and fantasy was exactly what a philosophy major always love to play with, and this tale has stayed with me all these decades (Eeek, can I take back that last word?).

Yet, virtual reality is a word bandied around in modern vernacular by ordinary folks these days. People know its basic uses--the way we can see a house in 3-D on the computer, games that you can participate in with your friends, even the high concept of mind sex and other odd fantasies, thanks to movies like The Matrix. And virtual reality is used for flight simulation programs to help pilots in training. So something that seems so exotic in science fiction has become so darn normal.

Hopefully my use of a "darn normal" virtual reality theme in my super soldier spy story will have enough of a twist to catch the interest of my readers. I'm blessed that so many who enjoyed the mind-boggling and quick-tempoed story arcs of TV shows like Alias and Buffy TVS also have bonded with my world. I love the quirkiness and the almost-paranormal feel of Alias (with the Rimbaldi project stuff) and the absolute fearlessness in trying something new of Buffy. So I do think my introducing the super soldier spy, virtual reality, CIA mind control, as well as other dark spy topics will give readers something different than just a spy/military adventure. That's my hope, anyway. ;-)

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Hot Spy Babes!

(Cindy Proctor-King, Christina Arbini, Jamie Sobrato, Shannon McKelden, Serena Robar)

We danced all night and two of the band members are posing here with us!




This is me at the RWA Literacy signing.
I was so happy to meet so many readers! They were really fantastic, and some came from as far as Australia and England. I was really amazed.


I have uploaded a bunch of other photos taken at RWA in Reno at my website:
http://www.gennita-low.com/GEMs.asp
Please scroll down past my RT 2005 photos!

For those with dial-up and so can't wait for so many photos to load up, here are a few wonderful authors I bumped into! They were the hottest dancing babes around ;-).


This is Jacquie D'Alessandro and Theresa Madeiros and they were gorgeously decked out for dancing too! I loved Jacquie's alligator purse!








Julianne MacLean and I were busy shaking our booties when someone called our names ;-).


Anyway, I prefer being a Hot Babe this way than on a Hot Babe On The Roof way!

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My Spies Are A Quiz!

OMG!

Someone sent me this:

here

Scroll down and see that the question about Gennita Low's characters. I can't believe it! Wow! LOL. I'm very flattered that someone loved my characters enough to make them a quiz!

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Uber Roofer Can Frighten People Off In The Morning

Here's a funny morning spew...

I scared the Bug Guy. He came to spray the windows with bug-stuff and I totally forgot about him. I woke up and went to the garage to throw something and was shocked to see my garage door open. Apparently some plant blocked its passage down and it came back up last night when I hit the close button. Apparently, also, I didn't notice this and so the door had remained open all night. And this morning the Bug Guy was standing right in front of it, looking straight in.

Anyway, I was HALF NAKED. I only had this shirt on with one button close (I thought I would be inside a CLOSED garage), so half my boobs were hanging out like some glamor shot from Sports Illustrated. Except that I looked like a wild hag with my hair all tangled, without make up, teeth unbrushed, no coffee in my bloodstream, and with the last few days so HELLISH on the roof, I was a walking zombie carrying, of all things, garbage. And the shirt just covered the top of my beautiful white thighs, which probably blinded Bug Guy.

I went Eeeekkk. Okay, it was a Very Loud Eeeeeeek. The Bug Guy went Argghhhh. A horrified and terrified Argghhhhhhh. I dropped my garbage, then flapped the air like that would make the garage door come down by itself. I probably looked like an insane woman about to attack him. He dropped his Bug Apparatus. I showed off more boobs since I dropped my garbage.

Then, feigning nonchalance, since I wasn't going to RUN BACK INTO THE HOUSE, I said Hi and INVITED him in. I know him, btw, because he's been here before; he's old enough to be my granddad. Okay, not that old. But he's a nice old guy. Anyway, he got quite an eyeful this morning as I walked around the house with him in my one buttoned shirt, pretending that nothing was wrong. I'm sure he went back to the office with a story about that crazy Asian girl.... Too bad he wasn't younger ;-).

No, wait, I don't want a younger man to see me like that!!!

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Overheated Roofer

I'm tearing off a very steep roof at the moment. Of course, we, uber-roofers that we are, have to pick the HOTTEST MONTH in Florida to do this. We just love to fry our brain cells.

And how hot is it?

It's so hot, Ranger Buddy wanted to do a handstand...with his head in the cooler.

It's so hot that I only grunted when someone asked me "Are you hot?" (Usually, I would say, "I stay hot, baby!)

It's so hot the shingles were melting under my shoes and burning the bottom of my feet as I tried to balance myself on an 8-12 pitch.

It's so hot I wanted to join Ranger Buddy in his attempt to do the handstand with head in bucket feat. That would make a cool (OUCH, OUCH, wrong word!) pic for my site, though, wouldn't it? Kick-ass roofer with head in bucket while doing handstand....

There is no hotter or nastier job I can think of than taking off a roof in the dead heat of summer. Maybe doing hot tar on the roof or road...that one is pretty nasty too. I hate carrying buckets of that stuff up a roof, knowing that if I sway just a little (and I usually do, with my short legs), splatters of hot tar will spill out and get on me. And tar burns are NO FUN.

Then I come home and the air-conditioned house is Bliss. Paradise. There's no place like home ;-). Of course, I'm too brain-dead to even want to write these last couple of days. I should be doing that, while I wait for SOME COMMUNICATION about my proposal.

So, instead, I've been messing around in cyberspace. I have recently updated my GEM page with photos from the RWA convention. Lots of pics of authors at Reno! Here is the link: http://gennita-low.com/GEMs.asp It was just a grand week--no HOT roofs, just hot babes boogieing and eating too much chocolate! I made a lot of new friends and hot contacts...maybe a collaboration or two coming up in the future, you never know!

Okay, this hot roofer is going to take an ice-cold shower....

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Now That Looks Like a Spy Book!

I'm totally braindead from taxes and it's just the beginning of the week! How do uberspies stay up for days and then logically decide out to dismantle a bomb? ;-P

No news on my proposal yet but here is the cover art for the next book (street date 28 Dec. 05). I'm still mulling over the excerpt for the website.



Cover Art for Sleeping ***

I like this cover--very dark and sexy, the way I had always wanted my covers from the very beginning. When my Avon editor asked me for suggestions in 2002 about Into Danger, I had an image of a silhouette of a female, a bit bigger than these two on the cover, leaning against the wall, twirling a strand of pearls and holding a briefcase while a silhouette of a male is leaning over her. Did that make Marketing salivate? Nope. They didn't want that kind of sexy. Oh. Then, for the SEAL trilogy, which I called Crossfire, I wanted the image of couples in crosshair, but marketing shot me down on that idea too.

Now...look at them above! Heh. Which just shows that if I want something, just suggest the opposite.

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Spies Take Their Time On Revenge

It's my other favorite time of the year...not. August 15, when my extension runs out and yes, it's paperwork time again, folks. And with all the covert operations mileage I took in 2004, I have plenty of deductions, yeeha. I figure if I don't spend it, it's going to the Other Agency That Even Spies Despise.

Doing your own business taxes is very eye-opening. You get to see exactly how much money goes to the government, and if you read every word in fine print there is out every year, you learn how the big corporations go bigger and why the small businesses stay small. I, fortunately or unfortunately, am in the latter category.

You also learn a hell of a lot about the nuances of corporations, S-corporations, LLCs, LPCs, sole proprietorship, etc., and then you begin to look at things A LOT differently. for example, you see a certain neighbor with all his new cars and toys, and you sort of could calculate what is happening, with the help of a good accountant. Heh. Not that I'm that curious, but I like to create worlds, remember? So, I'm always figuring out how certain people live their lives and how they arrive at where they are. It doesn't matter if I were wrong, since it's all in my head anyway! ;-)

I do have a neighbor that I've sworn vengeance at, though, and I don't care if he knows. My first Advanced Readers Copies ever, three years ago, and the UPS messed up the address on the label and delivered it to his house. THIS AWFUL man signed for a package that was labeled to Gennita Low (that's how I traced it to him) on a Friday. I was waiting, excited as a puppy dog, allllll Friday for a package that had been delivered to this AWFUL MAN. I called my editor and she told me it should be there already. By Saturday, nada. On Monday, I called UPS who checked and gave me the name of this AWFUL MAN.

The phone book clued me in on the location. My house was number 28. His house was 20. Mr. UPSman missed the little line in the middle of the 0, I guess. I ran down to the AWFUL MAN's house at noon and asked politely for my package.

His answer: I THREW THE BOOKS AWAY in the trash this morning.

When I gasped out that they were my books, he said, "SO? I didn't know who Gennita Low was."

"Then why the hell did you sign for the package then?" I asked.

He slammed the door on my face. So I lost my first 9 precious ARCs.

I swore vengeance. I will get it ;-).

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Spies Have To Do Things They Don't Like

My current obsession in writing is "world-building," a concept that encompasses the creation and the management of the fantasy world the writer owns in his/her head. World building has always been more associated with big-time fantasy writers whose sci-fi/fantasy projects are chewed and rechewed by their millions of fans (don't forget the Trekkies). Some writers don't seem to have a problem with every nuance and detail of their world, an example of whom was the great Tolkien, who drew maps and created his own languages for his different races.

In romance, world building is also important to draw the readers in as well as to make that particular "fantasy" work. My particular problem is that I don't like to plot or describe my world too much because when I do, I get bogged down with the overkill of details. This was the reason why I couldn't play with dolls when I was a kid. I was so into building their fantasy lives (buying all the teacup sets, the makeup kits, the clothes, ALL the doll things I could find to get their lives RIGHT) that I never got to play with the dolls themselves. I was too tired by the time I've arranged the whole room the way I wanted my dolls to live!

That was the first warning I got that I shouldn't plot. LOL. The more I know, the more I don't feel like doing the writing of the story itself because I already "know" everything.

This is becoming a dilemma as I delve more and more into my GEM and COS worlds. The cheat sheet/info requests made me realize that I need to explain some things to my readers, as well as to myself, in a logical time-line manner. Yet I have this irrational fear that once I've done it, I'd lose interest in making some projected facts come true. For example, if I explained the parts where T and Alex appear on the time-sheet, the reasons and wherefores, would I really care to incorporate these "facts" as "truths" if I ever write their story? What if I don't stick to them? Then they will become similar to Laurell K. Hamilton's infamous YAABIs (Yet Another Anita Blake's Inconsistency).

I also to somehow trick myself into thinking that I'm not really plotting! But how? LOL. Dilemma, dilemma....

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Spies And The Next Thing

What is the best advice you've ever heard and that seems to echo your life? Mine: "Everything happens for a reason and nothing happens before its time."

I've often been told that I'm a very patient soul. Maybe on the outside ;-). I'm actually a muller more than a patient anything. I mull A LOT. What others see as patience is me obsessing something in my head inside and outside and sideways until I can't tell whether I'm just plain weird. I hide it very well behind a veil of silence, and perhaps that's miscontrued as patience!

It's very tough for me to see something I want and not get it, and I don't mean material things. I can wait for those. For example, if I see a rosebud, I want to see it bloom right in front of my eyes because I don't want to miss it when it unfurls its petals. Of course, it never happens there and then, and I miss it, and the next thing I know, there is this beautiful rose all open and beautiful, and yet, I feel a bit frustrated because I missed the event I* wanted to see!

Crazy, huh? But there's a lesson in there for me. I have to learn to trust that the rosebud will open of its own accord. I can't hurry it; it will do it when it's ready. I know* how pretty it will look once it's blooming, so it's the process that I want to enjoy, and sometimes, in life, the process is happening but one just doesn't know it.

Why am I being so profound this early Tuesday morning when I should be getting ready to be uber-roofer? Mainly because I'm without coffee ;-). Also, my proposal for my next project is sitting on my editor's desk and I want to be there in New York to watch her reading it and hear her thoughts ;-). I want to see the rosebud unfurling.

And you thought this whole mulling thing was going nowhere, huh....

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Little Things Spies Like To Know About

Here are ten little quirks you don't know about Gennita Low:

1) I am addicted to orange juice. I can drink a while carton all by myself.

2) I wear three pairs of socks at the same time when I'm on the roof so the bottom of my feet don't get burned by the really hot shingles.

3) I collect 1920s-1950s costume jewelry, like Miriam Haskell signed pieces. I spent a fortune on these about ten-fifteen years ago when I could ill-afford them.

4) I don't know anything about shoes. I collect laptops like some women collect shoes.

5) I can't make myself throw away my dog's headless bunny. It was his first toy and he liked to make love to the poor thing, except at the wrong end. One day, the bunny's head came off from so much loving. It's all sentimental!!!

6) My first pets were ten little chicks that got eaten one by one by the neighbor's cats. I couldn't understand why my chicks kept disappearing....

7) I'm one of those people who hate to read instructions before assembling anything. In fact, the older I get, the more I hate assembling ANYTHING. ;-)

8) I tell all my men that I can't cook. Shhh. I actually can make a mean curry ;-), among other dishes. Shhh.

9) My dogs can tell time better than I can. I'm always late. They know when it's time to go out in the backyard. They remind me by tapping on the French door with their paws.

10) I am not alive before 10am EST. What everyone sees is a zombie. I once stayed up three days straight while building my house. I was roofing during the day and tiling floors and tubs at night. Till this day, I can't remember how I tiled the last row of my bathtub. I still use that experience as a reminder of mind over matter ;-).

Do you have a few quirks you would like to share?

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Spies Detoxify Differently

I have the best way to detoxify from over-comsumption of chocolate and alcohol at secret summits....I stand on a roof for six to eight hours in Florida August heat and pretend I'm in a sauna. Except that I have a 15 lb tool-belt around my waist and I have to walk on a slope up and down, up and down, all day long. But hey, who said detoxifying is an easy thing?

A busy spy is a busy roofer is a busy author. I came home home satisfied that my contacts are all up to date, but my roof from hell is still here, unfinished. They've now discovered that a whole section of the wall holding up the house has been eaten up by termites. The only thing holding it up is the stucco. Too much information, huh? But writing spies like this kind of stuff--now you will probably read about termites and houses in a future book. ;-)

As for the authorly duties, I'm still waiting for news for my proposal, which my agent and I have dubbed Female Super Soldier Spy, or FS3 for easy reference. I'm really excited about it, now that I've been rewriting my first version. The first version was a bit lighter, with my heroine a little bit more easy-going, but I've been thinking, after two years of training with top elites from different departments, and competing against their offers of best candidate for the program, wouldn't she be a bit more hardened? So there, meet the new and improved Helen Rostova, Hell Child with an attitude!

Meanwhile, I'm dabbling in getting a cheat sheet/time line graph/page for the website. Readers have been asking for. Some people need that extra information to keep everything logically linear in their heads. I can only hope and pray that I can do this because I have a terrible time with TIME. LOL. I can't even go anywhere on time so I'm sure none of my novels/characters are going to fit any strict time line.

Another problem with this exercise is whether to include the stories/references of characters that haven't been introduced in the books. I mean, I started with GRACE HAPPENS, the story of Jed's daughter when she was 22, and then I segued back to BIG BAD WOLF, when she was 17 and the Big Bang happened, i.e. the sabotage on the COS Commandos and the disappearances of key characters. These two manuscripts aren't published. LOL. Wouldn't that confused my readers even more? But without them, how am I going to tell the story of the nine COS Commandos? But why do I need to, since the readers only know about Jed and Alex, anyway, except if they read the ComCen blog, then they hear about Flyboy now and then. Confusing you yet? See my problem?

Too much information can kill a spy. And a good read. That's why warriors have the KISS principle. Keep it simple, stupid, my brain is telling me. Yes, but where do I start to be simple? It is easy with shingle-laying...you start nailing. LOL.

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A Spy Convention

Recovery mode is still on. Wow. This RWA mission was the most tiring evah. I'm not sure whether I'll ever want to do a three-plane thing across the country again. Reno was just 45 minutes from San Francisco, so flying from Daytona to Reno was almost a coast-to-coast excursion.

Anyway, Operation Reno was a success! The luggage, with all its secret documents, arrived without getting lost or damaged....Secret stuff was exchanged; passwords given; secrets shared among all attendees. The only bad thing that happened was the loss of my cell phone on the first day of my travels, so I don't have that picture of me in the nook of hell any more. Other than that, all ten days went by quickly and merrily.

Quick rundown-->

Literacy Signing
I was able to snag an autograph copy of the new book by uber-goddess, Cherry Adair, so now I'm a happy woman. Couldn't stand in line to get La Linda's book, though. Boohoo. I had my own authorly duties to do. It's always so fun to do big signings because of the festive atmosphere. Everyone was so friendly and wonderful. I still can't believe it when people stop by to tell me how much they enjoy my books; I don't think I ever will get used to it!

Meals
The first one was great--filet mignon! Usually the food tastes like rubber. And there's chocolate dessert everywhere in this town. So I stuffed my face with chocolate tortes and chocolate cheese cake and chocolate martinis and chocolate creamy thousand-coloried things.... You should have seen me at the Death By Chocolate party. Needless to add that I nearly made the theme of the party come true. I sat by some really neat attendees during the meals--agent Ashley Grayson, a very witty gentleman who was passing out a survey-quiz to authors; Kally Surbeck, author and friend who can write 3 genres at the same time; Cindy Dees, who regaled us with a story of her in-law's reaction to her first romance being published; Jade Lee, who also writes as Katherine Greyle.

Speakers
Debbie Macomber was a simply inspirational speaker. She had the women in the audience (and that's 99 percent of us!) in tears. She spoke about passion and perseverance in our quest to be published and her road had been exactly that--full of the passion for writing and perseverance to get that book published. I came away feeling very humbled and fortunate that I didn't have such a hard road.

Susan Elizabeth Philips was adorable. Her anecdotes about her husband had us all in stitches. I really enjoyed her candor about how being a writer meant taking everything in stride, including bad reviews. She pointed out that not many of us could boast of a review from People's magazine (or Time, or something like that) with the word "YUK" to describe her book. Ouch. And all because the book was a romance!

Parties
I went to several publishers' parties. I can't name names, you understand. But there was one with an Elvis impersonator. Oh. My. God. And he had a cheap microphone that didn't work properly. His voice was coming out of a speaker twenty feet away. I turned to my author-friend and said, "Wow, we have an Elvis ventriloquist." Then there was the one with the chocolate fountain. Oh my. You could dip strawberries into this fountain and it recycled the liquified chocolate. I think I gained 20 lbs eating "fruit."

Dancing
The Garage's the name of the club downstairs. They featured a duo from Seattle who had all the naughty romance authors who stayed up all night dancing up a sweat. Our secret signal was a bad limp the next day. On the last night, we were back for more fun. My plane was leaving at 6am. Ummm...it was 3.30am and I still wasn't packed yet. Bad, bad, Jenn.

The RWA Gala
This is the big "Oscar" night when the Golden Heart (unpub) and RITA (pub) are given to the best manuscripts and books. Some of my friends won and there was much celebrating. To get more info on the winners, you will have to go to www.rwanational.org since there's a LONG list. Congratulations to all the winners! This year's Lifetime Achievement Award went to La Linda Howard, the Goddess of all Goddesses ;-).

It was the longest ceremony RWA had ever had and my butt is still hurting from the experience. Part of it was due to the elaborate set up of introducing each presenter out of a limo on stage to coincide with each of the 25 years RWA had been in existence. It started with 1980...and the presenter came out of the car in an outdated dress from that year and after posing for a minute, she gave a quick summary of the important events of that year. Cute idea, but looooooong night. At one point, I was afraid my chocolate RITA was going to fall asleep with me....

OVERALL SECRET STUFF
Well, I heard good things about The Hunter ;-). Publishers are so secretive about numbers and facts, so I'm always in the dark about how I'm doing at the business end. But judging from what I've been told by several important people, I think The Hunter is doing well! So that is good.

I also met with a few groups of readers from other countries and they've invited me to their conventions in Germany, England, and Australia! Wow, talk about really BIG spy missions! I don't know whether I will be able to do that, though, but my mind is already filled with ideas on how to make time ;-).

Some editors are GREAT dancers. Shhh. I can't name names, but I really enjoyed partying with them.

*************
So anyway, the secret luggage is still unpacked. Too damn tired. And I'm back on the roof from hell. Still NOT FINISHED. But my proposal is on the table and there is movement in negotiations. There are things happening beneath the surface. There are whisperings. There are secrets ;-). Gosh, I love being a spy! Will debrief when everything is declassified, my dears!

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Limped Home

Just wanted to report that I'm finally home, all spied-out from RWA. It was a long mission, with the secret luggage weighing more and more at each airport, especially on the return trip.

More to come but I'm so happy to be home. Furbabies and I cuddled on sofa and snored the night away. Now, back on the roof....

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