My Baby Grew Up

Today was my son, Matt's, birthday. This picture was taken 20 years ago, on his very first birthday. That's me holding him so he can see his cake, which had a pair of clowns on it. Sentimental me, I still have one of the clowns in a Tupperware container in the freezer. Earlier this evening, we had the traditional cake with candles and we sang happy birthday. Right now, he's out with friends, but when he comes back, I might drag the frozen clown out of the freezer and show it to him. But he--who has a pizza box from his first date tacked up on his bedroom wall--would probably tell me I'm weird for keeping a frozen clown all this time.

Looking at this picture now, it strikes me kinda funny. That old dining room is long gone, along with those horrible dark walls, and this room is now my office. It also strikes me funny that I have the same hair now as I did then. I don't remember having short hair back then.

Here's my little guy after he'd had his fill of cake. He's looking kind of sleepy. That's my dad sitting at the kitchen table behind him. He passed away nearly 17 years ago and Matt doesn't remember him. On that first birthday, Dad got Matt a big yellow dump truck and pushed him all around the house in it. It seems like yesterday and I can still hear his squeals of laughter. Today, we gave Matt accessories for his Toyota. I don't know where the time went. My baby is all grown up.

Devon

Allison Iraheta

This year's American Idol has the best top four ever. But I was so disappointed in the voting results tonight. After the past few weeks, and especially last night, Danny should have been the one to go home. Allison has given a solid, outstanding performance EVERY week and I'm going to miss her. I had hoped she'd make it to the finale. I love this young lady's voice and I hope she has a big career ahead of her. I'm an Idol fanatic but, strangely, I'm not much looking forward to next week after what happened tonight. I can't imagine either of the two guys left going up against Adam in the final. Allison really blew the lid off with her farewell performance. I'm glad it was the Joplin song because it suited her so well.

Devon

The Kickass Heroine

I have three manuscripts in progress that have, what I would consider to be, kickass heroines. I don't mean kickass in the sense of the modern heroine you find in today's paranormals or futuristics. My heroines don't have state of the art weaponry, nor do they know the self-defense techniques of jujitsu, where they're able to turn a man's strength against him with the flick of a wrist. These heroines are all stuck back in the 1800's, when they had only their wits and sometimes skill and brute strength in their survival arsenals.

Skill and wits, I can live with. But what about brute strength? How can a romance heroine possibly stand toe to toe with a man and still retain her femininity? Therein lies my dilemma.

These women all are doing what was considered to be a man's job. Bounty hunter, secret service agent, and rancher. All these occupations require a certain amount of physical activity and strength. Would a woman capable of doing these activities still be considered feminine and desirable by the opposite sex?

Maggie Osborne wrote quite a few of these types of heroines. Not only were they tough as nails, they were downright gritty. Two that immediately come to mind are Jenny from "The Promise of Jenny Jones" and Low Down (yep, that really was her name) in "Silver Lining." I enjoyed both of these books immensely, but these two heroines had an image problem, in my opinion. They were so very tough and gritty, they came across as rather manly and unattractive much of the time. (again, this is this reader's opinion) While this worked for Ms. Osborne, I'd rather not have a Calamity Jane type as my heroine. It just doesn't seem to mesh when you have a hero who's handsome as sin--especially when you toss the two together for the love scenes.

Anyway, I've been giving a lot of thought to these heroines lately. These gals are the types of characters I love to write. But can I pull them off, make them as tough as they need to be, and still retain their feminine believability as a romance heroine?

Which brings me to another example. Remember Sharon Stone's character in "The Quick and the Dead?" She was tough, and she was out for blood and vengeance. Yet there wasn't a manly bone in her body. I think the secret to her characterization was that she was very vulnerable, on the inside and in private. In public, she showed no weakness. But when she was alone and behind closed doors, her fear, her softer emotions and even her physical pain came out of hiding. She was just a regular woman after all, attempting to do something extraordinary in the world of men.

Devon

Edited to add: I just happened to remember... Since I mentioned "The Quick and the Dead," I can't end this without adding that the plot twist at the end of the movie was a direct rip-off from "Once Upon a Time in the West." Sharon Stone's character was a female version of the harmonica playing Charles Bronson. Same exact goal, motivation, and plot twist.

Monday Blues ~ Not So Much

Well, it's Monday and I'm feeling better all the way around. Don't really have anything new to report today, but I wanted to post something, if for no other reason than to get that Doom and Gloom post down from the top of the list. So here's a little hodgepodge for you.

Magdalena Scott has a very interesting thread of comments about independent bookstores going on over at Magdalenaville.

Angel in the Rain is on sale right now at Fictionwise for 50% off. I don't know if that applies to all their e-books, but it looks like all the Wild Rose Press books have been discounted.

The news out of romanceland is that book sales are on a big upswing. Some people are predicting that happy times are here again, but I'm a little more cautious than that. I have a feeling if/when the economy starts to recover, romance books sales will probably taper back down to their usual levels. In the meantime, though, this is very good news indeed!

Hope you all have a terrific week! I'm off to write now so I can try to get in on this upswing in the romance market. ;o)

Devon

Doom and Gloom ~ Day Three

I wasn't going to post anything about his, but I think I need to get it off my chest. I've been moping for three days and gotten nothing done except a lot of walking the floor and staring out through rain-spattered windows.

My husband's small business was robbed Wednesday night. Yes, just days after I wrote the Brinks Stinks post. I took that down, by the way, because I realized I had given potential thieves too much useful information about the store's security system. And yes, Mags, I also concluded that the false alarm the other night was probably just a dry run for the thieves to see what would happen.

Here's what did happen Wednesday night, without going into minute detail. The thieves disarmed the security system, then went to the back side of the building, where they couldn't be seen from the highway, and cut a hole through the back wall. They built a blind for themselves using discarded metal racks and old signs and they must have worked at the wall for quite a while, using tin snips and a pry bar. They peeled through two layers of metal and the material between and essentially opened the wall like a sardine can.

After all the panic and mess, we ended up lucky--this time. The thieves took only the Marlboros and a small number of other items. It amounted to 68 cartons of cigarettes. But it seems they were mainly interested in the Marlboros because they took those and left all the rest. How strange is that?

In the aftermath, hubby and others have worked feverishly to restore order. The builders came the same day and replaced the damaged sections of wall. The security people have corrected the flaw in the security system (we hope) and are in the process of doing an update with state of the art camera equipment. And let me tell you, this is setting us back a pretty penny. But how can we afford not to do it. Our income is dependent on this little business.

All of this, plus a number of other things, has left me in a state of mind that I can't really describe. I feel restless, insecure. I feel like I need to do something, but I don't know what it would be. I'm seriously considering taking classes and learning a skill I could do from home that would be relevant in today's workforce. This excites and scares me all at the same time. It's been thirty-some years since I was in school. Can an old dog actually learn a new trick and produce a bit of income? My personal circumstances force me to stay at home. I had always hoped I could earn money from writing. But the reality of that is, writing fiction for publication is like buying a lottery ticket and hoping it comes up a winner. And you're only allowed one ticket every few months or even years. So, realistically speaking, what are the odds?

I don't want to give up my writing dream. But at the same time, I feel I must do something more than what I've been doing. My husband carries the entire load. And he's a brave man. When he lost his good, long-time job three and a half years ago, we were forced to live off his retirement. We were essentially down to nothing when he made the decision to start his own business. It was an act of desperation, but he made it work. Now I feel I need to help him. Especially since Wednesday night. We were lucky this time, but the reality is, we could be wiped out financially next time around.

Sorry for the doom and gloom, but that's just reality sometimes and, just now, I'm standing right smack dab in the middle of it.

Devon