Plot Monkeys

Edited: Today, my editor and I came to an agreement on my title, which you can see in the sidebar. I wanted to wait for the blog, but alas, when a good idea hits, you must run with it. Yes, I titled the book myself. You can thank the TV show, Charmed, for my inspiration.

I didn’t want to rewrite my entire blog, so I’m posting it as if I didn’t have a title…but then I made some revisions, LOL! You’ll see where. There’s a contest in here…so keep reading!

As you can see from the little bar graph on the sidebar (down below the covers) I’m well into the second half of my next Blaze. I’ve sent my editor the first half, which she’s read and given me revisions on. My deadline is June 1, and if all goes well, I’m going to make it with time to spare (ha! Time to edit at the end, I mean!) Anyway, when I spoke to Brenda this week, she asked me to start coming up with titles.

Ugh.

I hate coming up with titles. You see, some books have titles before I write them. In fact, my third book, GOOD GIRLS DO! (and as far as I know, I was the first author to use that title, btw, though it’s been poached many times since) was sold on the title. I didn’t even have a story yet!

When I have a good title, it comes to me early on. Sometimes, they are tweaked (Exposed was actually Maximum Exposure–the hero’s name was Max and Private Lessons was Private Dancer) and other times, Brenda titles them herself. (Looking for Trouble and Up to No Good were entirely hers, though they were absolutely perfect for the books.) I rarely can title a book myself if I’m this far into the story and the title hasn’t come to me. The working title is “ONCE IS NOT ENOUGH” but Brenda doesn’t think it’s sexy enough and she’s probably right. It’s also kind of long.

My new Blaze is a sequel to STRIPPED (my title,) my August 2007 Blaze that won the Reviewer’s Choice for Best Blaze from Romantic Times magazine. I’d like a one-word title to go with its sister-book, but I’m not holding my breath. One-worders are the toughest titles to find. But I’m not going to be picky.

I need a title!

Well, I needed a title…SOMETHING WICKED will be the sequel to STRIPPED. But, since this will be fun anyway, let’s come up with some random Blaze titles! I’m asking the May Blaze authors (and possibly my editor if I can swing it) to come by and determine the winner…who will receive a copy of the May books!

# Indulge Me (Harlequin Blaze, 393) by Isabel Sharpe
# Nightcap (Harlequin Blaze, 394) by Kathleen O’Reilly
# Up Close and Personal (Harlequin Blaze, 395) by Joanne Rock
# A Sexy Time of It (Harlequin Blaze, 396) by Cara Summers
# Fire in the Blood (Harlequin Blaze, 397) by Kelley St. John
# Have Mercy (Harlequin Blaze, 398) by Jo Leigh

To get your creative juices flowing, click here to read all the Blaze titles in 2007 and 2008 (with props to the authors!) to give you an idea of what kind of titles make it in the line.

(more…

I can’t exactly remember when I met Kathleen O’Reilly, though I’m pretty sure the connection was made through Julie Kenner, who is a mutual friend and fellow Blaze/Temptation writer. What I can tell you is that Kathleen is one of the nicest, funniest, most talented writers I know and I’m so thrilled to have her here in the jungle, talking about a topic near and dear to my heart. I love wordsmithing! And there are some lines in here that are just priceless…read carefully, jungle friends. Welcome, Kathleen!

Wordsmithery
By Kathleen O’Reilly

I have a love-affair with words, especially the wild and kinky ones. I like words that surprise me, that whisper in my ear, that crook a finger and say, “follow me…” My favorite authors are the clever ones that know how to use words, how to misuse them for best effect, and how to make me sigh with envy.

As a writer, words are the only tools we have. We must build a world with mere words, we must beget a whole pedigree of humans with our words, we must intrigue the reader using nothing more than the smallest of building blocks — words.

Yet words can be arranged and rearranged to great affectation, or affection, depending on which cunning-linguistical coterie you prefer. There are the classic stylists like Nabakov:

“I pushed her softness back into the room and went in after her. I ripped her shirt off. I unzipped the rest of her. I tore off her sandals. Wildly, I pursued the shadow of her infidelity; but the scent I traveled upon was so slight as to be practically undistinguishable from a madman’s fancy.”

There are the great bawds, like Shakespeare, who had ever so many word-tricks up his sleeve. “Oh, when she had written it (a letter), and was reading it over, she found ‘Benedick’ and ‘Beatrice’between the sheets.” Even the simplistic, “I am stuffed,” can assume a more insatiable meaning, if you mind wanders in those directions, as mine is wont to do.

The list of wordsmiths go on: Dickens, Twain, C. S. Lewis, Douglas Adams, Dorothy Parker, and oh, my, I’m being obtuse, how could I forget the great Dr. Seuss?

One of my favorite form of word-play is taking the expected and twisting it into the novel. We all expect: “Her skin was pale and silken, shimmering in the moonlight.” We do not expect, “Her skin was pearls dipped in moonlight,” or, if this is a paranormal, and the hero is a were-hog: “Her pale skin was pearls before swine.”

Cliches are especially rife for the mistaking. “Looking in the mirror, she examined her butt, and forty acres and a mole sadly stared back at her.” I could go on, ad infinitum, eternally, to infinity and beyond, but I only have a limited number of words handy.

When you choose the words to preen your scene, there are mean words that will lash at you, wrenching you out of your comfort zone, squeezing your mind until it explodes, charging and pummeling, pummeling and charging, thrusting and driving until you cry out for relief.

And if angry-words are not your cuppa, there are pretty words that sing out on the muted page, honeyed words that slowly fall from the writer’s imagination, dripping with a soothing rhythm, floating just beyond the tried and true, leaving the reader breathless, poised with anticipation, awaiting that next….small…set of letters.

I love words, all of them, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I have the Describer’s Dictionary, Descriptive Word Finder, Zounds!, Swearing, the Synonym Finder, Roget’s Thesaurus, sexicon, and the Dictionary of Allusions at my fingertips because my brain can be lazy without the proper stimulus (usually Red Bull). I am a mere lexiconologist in training, but my current favorite sexy, lexiconologist is Stephen Colbert. On that note, I’ll leave you with this:

Julie here again: In case you haven’t noticed, Kathleen has a new Blaze out this month…if you click the cover of Nightcap, you’ll go to Amazon where you can buy your very own copy! Her books consistently get awesome reviews from some of the toughest review sites. And I think she rocks…so go out and buy a copy for yourself, if you haven’t already!

I think it’s pretty common knowledge that scent memory is very powerful. Research shows that while scents and odors don’t conjure memories more effectively than visual or auditory cues, odors tend to be more emotional.

I totally agree.

There are certain Italian restaurants that I love the minute I walk in the door because of the smell. If it smells like my Nana Carolina’s (pronounced Cahr-o-LEE-na) kitchen, that’s a very good thing. My favorite thing about making a big pot of spaghetti sauce on a Sunday is to leave the house and then come home an hour later because my whole house smells like garlic and tomato. Mmmm….

It’s not just food smells that are powerful. I know that for me, the smell of incense at church is powerful, too. I never did like that particular smell, but it certainly transports me back to grade school, where our church and school didn’t have air conditioning and any holiday that called for incense pretty much meant someone was going to pass out.

One of my favorite scenes in one of my favorite romantic comedies was in the Meg Ryan/Kevin Kline movie, FRENCH KISS, when he took her to his childhood bedroom and showed her the project he’d done as a kid about the smells of herbs and flowers in the wine his family produces at their vineyard. She amazed me at how she could take a sniff and identify the scent…but I really loved the sensuality of the scene as she drinks the wine and then tells him what she tastes. The currant! Love that scene. Very powerful and sweet and yet, really sexy. (If you haven’t seen this movie, rent it! It’s really awesome.)

I bring this up because I’m currently writing a heroine (Josie Vargas, who appeared in last year’s Blaze, STRIPPED, which btw, won Romantic Times Magazines Best Blaze of 2007 award) who works with scents. She’s not an aromatherapist (though I did write one of those back in PURE CHANCE) but she does know her herbs and will use them to her advantage. That means I’m doing lots of research as I write about scents and such and it’s hard for me to apply that knowledge sometimes because truth be known, I have a horrible sense of smell.

Back when we lived (briefly) in Georgia, we had a gas stove. I would get home early…around 4pm. My husband would get home at 6pm. He’d immediately walk in and smell the rotten eggs that alerted us to the fact that our pilot light went out…me? I didn’t smell a thing. That was very scary.

So a scent has to be really powerful to be familiar to me, but I love smells. I love my neighbor’s gardenias, which are in bloom right now and smell divine. I love certain perfumes and colognes, though I don’t wear them myself. My old favorite was Must de Cartier. It had a strong vanilla scent, which is irresistible to me. I loved Cinnabar and Opium, for obvious reasons! Spicy and exotic and powerful…not to be worn much in the summer here. These were winter scents.

So it really helps me to go out and buy oils or herbs that I can press my nose right up against in order to experience the smells I’m writing about. I’m heading to a spa-type, new age store tomorrow to do some stocking up. Exotic, erotic smells work best when writing a Blaze!

So, what scents do you love? Not just perfumes or colognes, but the every day smells that bring a smile to your face or a memory to your mind?

No guest blogger this week! I do have the fabulous Kathleen O’Reilly coming next week, so be sure to come back next Saturday.

However, I do have topic this week spawned by a conversation had recently by a group of Blaze authors.

If you’re unpublished, do you need to promote?

I got to be honest…my first reaction was, “Promote what?”

The key to good advertising is to be able to tell your potential customer exactly what you want them to do. In other words, your advertisement should imply or straight out say, “Buy my book!” because that’s what promotion/advertising is all about.

I have to say that I’m a little perplexed by the advice that an unpublished author NEEDS a website. Especially a professionally designed and maintained website because people, that costs money. And if you don’t have any money coming in, why on earth would you put any out if it isn’t going to directly result with some measurable return, aka book sales?

Editors and agents, the primary “audience” of an unpublished writer, don’t have a ton of free time to peruse websites of potential authors. If you have one, they might follow a link. But the decision to buy or represent your book is not going to be based on your website. It’s all about the book. Good book, good timing, good luck…those things make a book sale, not a website.

Now, one Blaze author mentioned that developing a website is good practice for when you are published. I won’t argue with that. If you are doing your website yourself and if you can make it look professional. But if you, like me, have no skill and will need to hire someone, then wait until you have an income. It’s a better expenditure of your time and money to devote yourself to writing more books rather than learning html. Trust me, writing more books will get you sold a lot quicker than html!

That said, you should probably already own your url. For your name and if you think you need one, a possible pseudonym or two. Doesn’t cost a lot of money, but it’s good to have now. I own JulieLeto.com and JulieElizabethLeto.com and a few others. Just in case!

Now, about blogging. Obviously, the Plotmonkeys agree that blogging is a great way to promote yourself and your books. We wouldn’t be spending the time and money that it takes for this investment unless we did. But here’s the trick…we don’t blog instead of write. We write. We have books to sell. We share the workload and we devote quite a bit of our promotional dollars to promote the blog site, as well as our books. It’s part of an overall plan. The fact that there is new content each and every day makes the blog attractive to readers…that’s what I look for in a blog that I visit regularly, anyway.

So, my opinion on blogging…blog if you love it. Do not delude yourself with thinking that blogging will lead you to a book sale or agent representation. Those things happen from writing a good book and sending it to a publisher/agent who is looking for that type of book.

Are their exceptions? Of course! But they are exceptions for a reason…they don’t happen often enough to make them a rule.

I know a lot of published authors who agonize over how much self-promotion or publicity to do. I decided a long time ago that I would do what I could, but I would never sacrifice my writing time for publicity. Never. The book is what is important, ultimately, to my readers, my editor and my agent. It’s the book that makes the money. Would I make more if I promoted more? Maybe, but maybe not. I’d say it’s a 50/50 proposition. Talk to authors who have been doing this a while and they’ll tell you the same.

So, my advice to unpublished writers…don’t worry about promoting yourself. Worry about writing. A lot.

What you can do is network…but that’s a whole different blog post!

Thanks again to Jill Monroe and Gena Showalter for exposing my crimes to the public at large. I am, admittedly, guilty of writing a crime-riddled book…lies, cheating, stealing…sexual positions that are likely outlawed in parts of the south…dogs and cats, sleeping together…mass hysteria.

S’rsly, these ladies are tre funny. I love them. In fact, I squee’d like a schoolgirl when I got my email stating that Gena’s newest book, THE DARKEST NIGHT, is winging its way to me as we speak. Hot men, Pandora’s Box (I love me some Greek mythology, people)…what’s not to love?

Speaking of crimes, yesterday, I was driving home from picking up my daughter at school when I turned out onto the main thoroughfare that leads to my subdivision. Although I don’t live directly on this main road, I consider this road my neighborhood. I also know that there are very often police officers stationed in front of the private school on this street, ticketing speeders. I’m very careful not to speed there for two reasons. One, it’s my neighborhood and there are kids around and two, I don’t want a ticket. Both good reasons, I think. Well, I pulled out with plenty of space, but lo and behold, ten seconds later, a little white car driven by a blond woman who might have been but a few years younger than me speeds up behind me.

I’m quite a good driver. Very aware of my surroundings (most of the time) and I saw her in my rearview. Not crazy about tailgaters, I took my foot off the gas. I didn’t brake…that would be dangerous, but I slowed down just a little bit, enough to get her to back off. Then I watched and proceeded to drive the block that it takes to get to my subdivision entrance.

She made a gesture that asked, “What are you doing?”

I kept driving. When I passed the speed limit sign, I very politely pointed (with my pointer finger, btw) at the sign. 35 miles per hour.

That’s what I’m doing, moron.

As I turned on my signal and made my turn, I ignored her. I’d made my point.

Then my daughter informed me that the teenage boy in the passenger seat had just put up his middle finger at me.

Nice parenting, lady.

Because of this idiot who doesn’t care about the school she was speeding past or the bus stops she wanted to tear by, I had to explain to my daughter what “no class” means. Not a bad lesson for her to learn of course.

A few weeks ago, there was a woman in an SUV (not dissing SUV’s here…I drive one, too) who was very impatient to get to school. She was coming from the same direction as me and not only did she ride over a curb in order to get into the turn lane, she made a left turn against a red arrow at another intersection. She was speeding, weaving in and out of rush hour traffic…all with her child in the car. A fifth grader, I know, because this child goes to my daughter’s school, though I don’t know the parent.

And guess what? Without breaking a single law, I beat her into the car line. Why?

I didn’t stop for coffee at the 7-11. She, however, did.

And we all sit here and wonder what’s wrong with kids today.

Don’t wonder, people. Just look in a mirror.

Want to vent about bad parenting? Bad driving? Here’s the place!

Congratulations to tricia, comment #3 and Caffey, comment #127 for winning this week’s prizes. Tricia, you win the Amazon order of 4 plotmonkey books and Caffey, you win the box of books! Please send your snail mail address to me (julie at julieleto.com.)

And now for the funny…I don’t know if you guys have read this, but I cried. Just cried. Hope you get the belly exercise I got from this woman’s brilliance!

This is an actual letter from an Austin woman sent to American company Proctor and Gamble regarding their feminine products. She really gets rolling after the first paragraph… PC Magazine’s 2007 editors’ choice for best webmail-award-winning letter….

Dear Mr. Thatcher,

I have been a loyal user of your ‘Always’ maxi pads for over 20
years and I appreciate many of their features. Why, without the
Leak Guard Core or Dri-Weave absorbency, I’d probably never go
horseback riding or salsa dancing, and I’d certainly steer clear
of running up and down the beach in tight, white shorts. But my
favorite feature has to be your revolutionary Flexi-Wings. Kudos
on being the only company smart enough to realize how crucial it
is that maxi pads be aerodynamic. I can’t tell you how safe and
secure I feel each month knowing there’s a little F-16 in my
pants.

Have you ever had a menstrual period, Mr. Thatcher? Ever
suffered from the curse? I’m guessing you haven’t. Well, my time
of the month is starting right now. As I type, I can already feel
hormonal forces violently surging through my body. Just a few
minutes from now, my body will adjust and I’ll be transformed
into what my husband likes to call an inbred hillbilly with knife
skills. Isn’t the human body amazing?

As Brand Manager in the Feminine-Hygiene Division, you’ve no doubt seen quite a bit of research on what exactly happens during your customers monthly visits from ‘Aunt Flo’. Therefore, you must know about the bloating, puffiness, and cramping we endure, and about our intense mood swings, crying jags, and out-of-control behavior. You surely realize it’s a tough time for most women. In fact, only last week, my friend Jennifer fought the violent urge to shove her boyfriend’s testicles into a George oreman Grill just because he told her he thought Grey’s Anatomy as written by drunken chimps. Crazy!

The point is, sir, you of all people must realize that America is
just crawling with homicidal maniacs in Capri pants…Which
brings me to the reason for my letter. Last month, while in the
throes of cramping so painful I wanted to reach inside my body
and yank out my uterus, I opened an Always maxi-pad, and there,
printed on the adhesive backing, were these words:

‘Have a Happy Period.’

Are you fu*ing kidding me? What I mean is, does any part of your tiny middle-manager brain really think happiness — actual smiling, laughing happiness is possible during a menstrual period? Did anything mentioned above sound the least bit pleasurable? Well, did it, James? FYI, unless you’re some kind of sick S&M freak girl, there will never be anything ‘happy’ about a day in which you have to jack yourself up on Motrin and Kahlua and lock yourself in your house just so you don’t march down to the local Walgreen’s armed with a hunting rifle and a sketchy plan to end your life in a blaze of glory.

For the love of God, pull your head out, man! If you just have to slap a moronic message on a maxi pad, wouldn’t it make more sense to say something that’s actually pertinent, like ‘Put down the Hammer’ or ‘Vehicular Manslaughter is Wrong’, or are you just
picking on us?

Sir, please inform your Accounting Department that, effective immediately, there will be an $8 drop in monthly profits, for I have chosen to take my maxi-pad business elsewhere. And though I will certainly miss your Flexi-Wings, I will not for one minute miss your brand of condescending bullsh*t.

And that’s a promise I will keep. Always….

Best,
Wendi Aarons
Austin, TX

Actually, today’s guest blogger is a link to eHarlequin.

If you’re interested in writing for Harlequin Blaze…a line all four of the Plotmonkeys have written for…you should go listen to this podcast with Brenda Chin and Kathryn Lye. It’s chock full of fabulous information about the line, about the editors, what they’re looking for…what they’re NOT looking for, etc.

Then come back and let me know what you think.

Here’s a trivia question for you…which book of mine does Brenda reference without actually saying the title? (Or my name, LOLOL!)

I warn you…this is a VERY hard question!

The winners of Janelle’s WILD FOR HIM contest yesterday are:
#53 Amy Wig
#114 Nicole Price
Congrats to both of you! Please contact me at janelledenison @ sbcglobal.net with your snail mail addresses so I can get out the Advanced Reading Copies of WILD FOR HIM to you!

Wahoo! Contest day! At the end of an entire contest week…the pressure is on to make this REALLY good…so here we go.

First, there will be two winners.

The first winner will receive FOUR NEW BOOKS by the Plotmonkeys, delivered by Amazon. Here’s the deal…the winner can pick ANY FOUR Plotmonkey books from Amazon…provided the book is available NEW from Amazon and not a third party seller. The winner can PRE-ORDER any of the books (or all of them, for that matter!) and will receive them from Amazon as available. So, let’s say you want Janelle’s WILD FOR HIM, Leslie’s SLOW HANDS, Carly’s HOT PROPERTY and my PHANTOM TOUCH (which you’d really only need if you’ve already got PHANTOM PLEASURES…I know, I’m shameless) that is okay!

The books will not be signed, because Amazon is shipping them directly. However, I happen to have handy dandy bookplates signed by all the monkeys that I will send to you!

The second winner will receive a box of books. I cleaned out my bookshelf again and I can guarantee you’ll receive at least 15 books, some brand new, some gently used, some signed to me, some by Plotmonkeys (I have a bad habit of buying more than one copy of Plotmonkey books)…it’s a mish-mash. Historical, paranormal, romantic suspense, straight romance. It’ll be a smorgasboard, I promise!

The winners must be US residents and must come back and see if they won on Sunday (or Monday). Just leave a comment!

What a great anniversary week…thank you ALL for sharing this milestone with us!

UPDATED TO ADD: If you would like to hear how I sold my first book, please stop by the blog site, Dear Author today.

Before I get started, Carly and Leslie asked me to post the winners of their Monday & Tuesday contests.

So, without any more delay (drumroll… )

The winners of Carly’s HOT PROPERTY ARCs from Monday are:

# 7, Kim W
# 46, Maureen

Please email carlyphillips @ mac . com (without spaces) and send your full names and mailing addresses.
CONGRATULATIONS And thanks for visiting the jungle!

And the winners of Leslie’s SLOW HANDS and an ARC of HEATED RUSH from Tuesday are:

# 77, ERIN
# 41, COLLEEN

Please email Leslie at author @ lesliekelly . com with your full name and mailing addresses. And CONGRATULATIONS!

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I think it’s pretty obvious, if you’ve been following the blogs, that we Plotmonkeys love a good party. Surprisingly, we’re all introverts (well, maybe not Leslie :smile, who just like getting out every once and a while and having a good time. Truth of the matter is, writing is very solitary. It’s pretty much just you and your keyboard and your make-believe characters for most of the day. Yes, there are children and car lines and garbage men (ha!) and contractors from time to time, but all in all, writing is very lonely.

Enjoy!
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Damon knew he shouldn’t laugh at her, but to survive the excruciating agony of having his shoulder dislodged, he’d take what jollies he could. A thousand colors swirled in his eyes, each more sickeningly bright than the last. His skin burned. The act of breathing scorched the inside of his lungs.

Unfortunately, laughter hurt nearly as much as being thrown fifty feet by a wild bolt of lightning. He remained conscious by focusing on how Alexa had been so sure of herself, issuing threats as if her paper deed to this castle somehow gave her true ownership. She would learn. The rights and title of this structure belonged only to Lord Rogan and his evil magic.

He’d learned that the hard way himself, hadn’t he?

“Shut up,” Alexa ordered, the strange, wide-barreled gun aimed accurately at his midsection.

Perhaps she should shoot him. Maybe with a gaping hole in his belly, he could forget about the torturous separation of his shoulder from its socket.

(more…

As you all know, my book, PHANTOM PLEASURES, is out this month. Signet Eclipse releases two books every month and my shelf partner is none other than author, Karen Kendall, who also writes for Blaze! I’m really excited about sharing shelf space with her and wanted to give the Plotmonkey audience a chance to know this hilariously funny, incredibly talented writer. So please meet Karen Kendall!
—————-
Yesterday my thighs and I had an ugly confrontation. I was doing a book-signing party at my athletic club and I’d planned to wear a cute little sundress, since we live in south Florida. The only issue was that my skin was pale as a catfish belly.

Kate Moss can get away with the heroin-waif-stuffed-in-a-cave-for-six-months look. I cannot.

So I peeled my brand-new $19.99 Costco bathing suit off of its clear plastic dummy, ripped the tags free and went out to get reacquainted with the pool for an hour, not initially noticing that my dogs covered their eyes with their paws as I stepped out the back door.

Two yards over, the guy with the weed-whacker clutched his belly and ran inside.

Overhead the blue-jay who nests in our tree (and bullies anything else with wings) flew away in distress.
I settled into a chair and made the mistake of looking down. Holy Mother of God! Were those oblong, quivering, pocked nightmares my THIGHS? The horror! The horror!

Once I’d stopped hyperventilating, I determined–through the scientific process of pinching them and looking again–that the items in question were, indeed, attached to my body and there was no way to cut them off and still be able to walk.

Are you ready for the moral of this story? It’s deep: making a living as a writer is threatening to the thighs. (And backside, but we are just not going to go there. God made women unable to see it without a mirror for a reason! He knew that our thighs would cause trauma enough.)

Now, if only I had not held the book signing party at my athletic club, the blog could end here. But no. I get these really bright ideas sometimes. Which is why five hours later I was standing in the breezeway of the place in what is kindly called a body-shaper under some icky expand-a-pants and a top that did nothing to hide the twin atrocities that have become my arms.

You see, that cute little sundress I’d planned to wear? It didn’t fit.

A friend of mine zoomed in, took one look at me and said, “Is that a rash all over your chest?”

Um. No. That would be the very unattractive sunburn I got, made blotchy by the poorly applied sunscreen.

Then the club’s manager came out to say hi and introduced me to a couple of people. They said, “Are you a member here? We’ve never seen you before.”

Sheepishly I murmured something about multiple book deadlines.

They nodded skeptically.

Suffocating inside the “body shaper,” my thighs defended themselves. “Right, beeyotch! We wouldn’t look this way if you’d just show up to the gym sometimes.”

I poured a hefty glass of wine at this point, because even though, as an author, I do play with my imaginary friends all day long, I get a little concerned when I start holding conversations with body parts and they answer back.

I’d taken one sip when another adorable friend (size four with thighs like rocks) dragged me over to meet one of the instructors who’d stopped by. “Hi, Karen,” the woman (size three with thighs like rocks) said warmly. “I didn’t know you were a member here.”

Sheepishly I mumbled something about having two greyhounds and walking them a lot lately.

Her eagle eyes swiftly noted the ridge that showed underneath my icky expand-a-pants, a good indication that I had on a body-shaper under them. She nodded skeptically. Clearly she was thinking that I walked my greyhounds all the way from the couch to the back door.

I shot her a toothy smile and inhaled half the glass of wine. I couldn’t run away, because I was hoping to sell books to all these nice hard-bodied people.

The body shaper was hot and uncomfortable as I moved around the patio and greeted people. Under my breath I told my thighs that they were a disgrace. “I never used to have to maintain you,” I muttered.

“Yeah,” they said. “That was before you started sitting on us nine hours a day to craft the Great American Romance Novel. You used to stand up and give tours in museums. You used to walk around when you worked retail. You used to–” they snorted, “—have discipline about what you ate.”

And, let’s face it. I used to be eighteen.

We’re coming to the point of this blog entry. The size three instructor didn’t let me get away that easily. She said, “Come to my class on Tuesday.”

I gulped. “Well, but . . . I’m not one of those coordinated people. I can do either arm movements or leg movements, but not both together and definitely not in time to music.”

“That’s okay,” she said. “I’ll help you. You be there Tuesday.”

I’ll be there Tuesday.

Worse, I have been talked into doing the Tennis in No Time program.

Even more horrible than that, I have promised to hit the cardio and weight rooms on a regular basis again, starting on Monday.

Ladies and Gentlemen, if you are happy being a lazy slob who has conversations with your thighs, do not hold a book-signing at your athletic club. You will regret it!

Karen Kendall is the award-winning author of many disasters and seventeen novels. Her latest, TAKE ME IF YOU CAN, is her debut in adventure/suspense. It’s the first in a new series about an agency that recovers stolen art.

Here’s the super hot trailer!

For excerpts, make sure to visit her website!