Getting ready for the RWA national conference, in the House of Mouse, Orlando FL. I will be signing twice. Times and rooms are listed on the Appearances page.

But since I am thinking about writing, here is a short FAQ for new writers. And don’t worry, if you just asked me this question, only to drive me into a blogging fit. I get asked all of these, all the time. Time to gather them up and answer.

How much do you make?

The answer to this is either: “I don’t know” or “Less than you think.”

I never would have believed that, when I was first trying to get published. I figured there was some kind of illuminati handshake involved, before anyone told you the straight dope on how stinkin’ rich they all were.

Turns out, it’s true. A writer’s primary income gets paid in two ways: advances, and royalties. The advance check is the up-front money, and it’s a loan out of the royalty money, which is a percent of every book. Right now, I do at least two books a year, and my advances are 4 figures, not 7.

Since you cannot predict sales, you cannot predict royalties. For me, that check comes twice a year. I can make a guess at its size. But I am wrong about half the time.

I expect my income to go up, if I keep at this. But to give you a vague idea of the yearly total right now? More than minimum wage. But not that much more. That’s before expenses. And there is no health insurance. And no two years have been the same.

Have I mentioned how much I love my working husband, lately?

How long will it take to make enough so I can quit my job?

“I don’t know.” And “How much money do you need to live?”

If your first book is an Oprah best seller, your mileage will vary from mine. But it can still take a year and a half or more from “the call” to the beginnings of regular writing income. If you have savings, a second income, or a low standard of living? That will help.

It has been five years since I sold. I’ve been a full time writer for 3 ½ of them. And that is because I accidentally quit my job. I went in to the boss’s office, thinking I was going to cut my hours to part time.
Strangely enough, he was not thinking that. Given the choice of working full time or throwing myself into writing and hoping for the best, I gave notice on the spot.

How do you manage to stay on task?

There is nothing like “sink or swim” to clarify the mind and give purpose to the career plan. I had books under contract, and had just quit the best job in the area for my skill set.

But the short answer for everyone else is: “Treat writing like a job.” Set regular hours, and stick to them.

How long do you wait before calling your publisher about a missing royalty statement?

The answers again: “I don’t know” or “Maybe a week.”

I don’t know because it’s never happened.

But if it did, I’d be on the phone the next week to find out what the problem was. I do this for a living. I love my job. I feel I’m on friendly terms with my editors. I like them. I want them to be happy. I do not bug them all the time, and am always polite.

But they do not cut my checks. And I am all about the Benjamins. The accounting department is probably full of nice people that I would probably like them if I met them. But as far as I know, it could be run by a machine. It is smooth, regular, and automatic. The fact that they do their jobs so well makes it possible for me to do mine, without worrying that they are going to forget to send me half a year’s wages.
But if they mess up, my personal finances will be screwed. If there is ever a problem, I will call them, politely, ASAP, so they can fix it. And they will. They are really good at their jobs.

But if you complain, won’t you get a bad reputation in the industry?

I hear this a lot about everything from money to edits to contracts. Writers are very worried that they will make their publisher mad, and ruin everything. Hell, I sometimes worry about this. But not about money. I jokingly tell everyone that I work for a soulless corporation. But I mean soulless in the nicest sense of the word. They act like a business, and not someone’s crazy best friend, Betty, who you need to walk past on tiptoe because she really should be on some different meds.

My publisher isn’t going to try and guilt me into silence if I have a money or contract problem. They aren’t going to cry or yell or hang up on me, if I ask a polite question. They aren’t going to talk about me behind my back to other publishers and ruin my career.

Really, why would they care what other publishers think of me? It’s not like they are going to protect their competition from me. If I am too big a pain in the ass to work with, or not making sales, they will kick me to the curb. But they will cannot get me blackballed from the industry.

Crazy BF Betty publisher might be vindictive, but a soulless corporation is not. If I am a huge waste of resources, and a PITA, they might even be happy to inflict me on the competition. But mostly, they just won’t care.

But what if you’re wrong, and I call, and they get mad and won’t publish my books any more, and I’m never published again?

If your publisher is crazy, or angry, or both, and they gossip about you to other writers and publishers, and won’t answer the phone or e-mails, and you aren’t getting paid, does it really matter so much if you can’t work with them anymore?

You can’t please people like this. You can only avoid them. They aren’t good business people. They aren’t good publishers. Don’t go there. And don’t let your friends go there either.

But my publisher is my friend…

No they aren’t. BFFs don’t screw each other over.

Your publisher is a company. Your editor works for them. It is ok to be friendly with them, of course. And all my advice, direct to you is to be polite in business dealings, even if you have a beef. But do not think that their best interests are always the same as yours.

Also, the “never published again” thing can happen to anybody. Sometimes, a career just dies, and there is nothing to be done, and no one to fault. But normal people lose their jobs too. Try not to worry about it.

As a writer, you can control the quality of your work, and your own personality. Work on craft. Be polite. Meet deadlines. Take your meds (or at least a multivitamin, and maybe some calcium). Being healthy, sane and having a good work ethic increases the chance that you will continue working.

The only other power you have is to recognize a bad deal when you see one, and walk away from it. Do not fool yourself into thinking that any publisher is better than no publisher. It is better to remain unpublished and wait for a better deal than to let some loony ruin your self confidence and get a death grip on the rights to your work.

First, a warning. There will be a small spoiler for the movie Salt near the end of this post.

And now, on to bits and pieces from the last weeks at Casa de Dos Quesos.

From #1 son:

I asked him recently, after reading a blog post somewhere that I felt was a little over the top in the mutual admiration dept, if there was a female equivalent for circle jerk.

He said Tupperware party. He’s never been to one, but I think that kind of sums them up. You have the party to get the hostess gift. Your firends buy because they feel guilty. And a couple of months down the road, you are at their house, eating nachos and locking in freshness.

From #2 son

Has everyone seen the incredibly cute Kia commercial, with the Black Sheep rapping hamsters?

#2 would like to point out that Kia’s chief competition appears to be, not the Cube, Versa or Vibe, but the toaster, the cardboard box, and the washing machine.

Kia: Rides better than a refridgerator box. Big enough for several hamsters.

This is why I do not work in advertising.

And finally:

We are recently back from the movie Salt. Since I am a spy movie junkie, we have also seen Knight and Day, and Killers. And are in mourning for the recent death of the James Bond franchise.
And will keep watching Covert Affairs, even though the heroine seems to be dumb as a bag of hammers and in serious need of rescue.

Anyway. Salt. There is a scene where Angelina Jolie, who is tougher than Aston Kutcher and Tom Cruise put together, is in male drag. And someone spots her and says:

I just saw Evelyn Salt. She’s dressed as a
Nato officer

?????????????????????
What the hell?

You would think that any sane person would say
MAN or maybe GUY or DUDE.

No. Nato officer.

Does it show that this movie was originally developed for Tom Cruise?

Maybe sometimes.

As of today at approx 4:30 central, I finished the first draft of my (stopping to count on fingers and running out of fingers) 11th novel.

That’s a lot of words.

For those of you who aren’t writers and don’t know the drill, this means that I have around 70,000 words that is not publication ready, but is plotted written and proofed to the point that I am not ashamed to show it to my editor. She will send it back in a couple of weeks with a page of revision notes, so that I can fix mistakes, glaring plot holes and parts that are stupid or icky.

There is always something, believe me.

From there it goes back to her for approval, then to a copy editor to English up the language and fix my inept spelling and punctuation. And then back to me, to fix the stuff she missed, and to remove a bucket of conjunctions that always seem to slip in at the beginning of my sentences.

There are other steps as well. And more editing that I don’t get to see. Sometimes I get another pass in there, somewhere. As you can see, it’s complicated. We do this for you, the reader, to make it look effortless.

But right now, after a couple of 7 day weeks, I am on break.
And I will have time to get in here, update the site, and share a few of the things I’ve come across in the last few weeks, that I haven’t had time to talk about.

Everyone see Inception yet? You should all go. It’s freaky. That would be my whole synopsis.

And since I am living in my own personal dream space lately, that movie was some kind of reflection of my life right now. Especially the concept of having a totem to hook you to the real world. In the movie, the characters had a spinning top, a loaded die, and a hand tooled chess piece. Things that had a familiar weight and could be handled to keep them grounded in reality.

The real world does get to be a sketchy place, for those of us who are busy building fantasy land all the time. And it is nice to have sensory clues to flip you from one the real into the unreal, to let you know that you are going to work.

I am a big fan of play lists, scented candles, set lunch menus, and desk toys. My desk is almost clean enough to photograph. But it is full of toys, and fiddly bits. And I like to have something in my hand.
For a time, on this book, I was playing mumblety peg with my letter opener.

Very slowly.

Last book, it was a pink shell cameo and a pewter handled walking stick.

Yes. A walking stick. The hero was bind. I was rolling his cane around in my hands. And dropping it. Because I am clumsy.

Before that, there was a heart of grey metallic glass that felt good in the palm. And an evil eye bead that I wore during the gypsy books.

A cat does not count as a totem. But Mohawk was just here trying to star in another post.

So, for a change, this post as a question for you all:
Any writers out there with totems? Or for that matter, desk jockeys of any kind with interesting toys and nervous fingers?

When I left you last, Mohawk the cat was under observation. For unusual behavior.

The afternoon passes uneventfully. As soon as he dries off, he forgives and forgets, and spends the afternoon on my lap, purring and rubbing as though nothing has changed between us.

So far, so good. I am off the hook.

We spend a peaceful night with him, inside. Which is surprising. Normally, he waits until my eyes are closed and then stabs me in the arm until I get up and let him out. But it was a stressful day, we were both tired.
In the morning, the DH let his out. I ask how he looks and am assured, “nothing is wrong with that cat.”

Mo stops by in the afternoon for more purring and petting, and then goes out for a nap on the front porch.
The normally aloof Fluffer is unusually affectionate as well, giving me the equivalent of feline high fives for the attempted assassination. She never really liked me, but she hates Mohawk, and thinks that anything I might have done to him is a pretty good idea. We are on the same team now.

By evening, Mo has passed his 24 observation period, and is still alive. So I call him off the porch for his usual evening stint of walking on the livingroom furniture and annoying the dog.

Mo: looking up at me from the rocking chair on the porch: Hey good lookin’. Have we met? Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Oh hell.

I scoop him up, and bring him in.

He rubs against me, grinning, hopped up on the dining room table, and falling over on his side, exposing his belly.

Mo: Come on. Rub it. You know you want to. Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

And then he starts furiously licking his shoulder like he’s been bathed in club drugs instead of dish soap.

Terrific. It is 1:00 AM on a Sunday morning, and my cat is bombed out of his mind. I go to bed, praying to God that he will not die happy before I can get him to a vet.

The next morning, my husband assures me that “there is nothing wrong with that cat.” And then tells me that the cat in question was just downstairs rubbing up against the dog’s legs and purring.

The dog is worried. Fluffer is laughing.

Mohawk, if he gets out, is liable to die horriblytrying to make sweet love to a pack of coyotes.

At 8:00 AM I call the emergency vet, which is 45 minutes away, in Madison. They say bring him immediately. #1 son and I grab the cat and hop in the Toyota.

Mohawk is normally deathly afraid of cars. Today, he is riding in the back window, watching traffic and saying, “Are we there yet?”

According to the vet, normal symptoms of flea med poisoning could include foaming at the mouth and trembling.

These are normal symptoms of Mo, on a vet visit. Today, he lets the tech take a rectal temp, and looks disappointed when she leaves. “Baby? I thought we had something special. Call me.”

The vet comes in and asks me what the problem is.

I tell him that my cat is friendly and even tempered. I am terrified.

He attempts a physical exam. And succeeds. He even checks the teeth and tongue. Someone should have lost a finger by now. Instead, they are calling motheaten Mo a beautiful kitty, and he’s purring his head off.

The vet recommends an IV and bloodwork.

I say OK and whip out the charge card.

I call back in an hour and am told that kidney and liver function is fine, but there is an elevated count that might indicate something serious. Or parasites.

Parasites in a barn cat? Really?

But he is wheezing. And old. That might be a sign of a worsening respiratory problem, caused by whatever he is high on. The vet is not convinced that it was the flea medicine, since his symtoms are “atypical”. He should be having seizures. But this might just be the beginning of the end. Xrays would tell us if there is anything to be done, other than to make him comfortable.

I put on a brave face, prepare for the worst and give permission for the films.

Which are clear.

I have just spent $600 on a 13 year old feral cat who is in surprisingly good health, and stoned off his ass.
I got my revenge though. While they had him under observation, they trimmed his nails (something I would have thought was physically impossible).

Now, instead of drawing blood every time he hops in my lap, he jumps, digs in with imaginary claws, and falls back to the floor.

Fluffer thinks it’s hysterical.

I’ve been AWOL again. I’m in the midst of another deadline, and suffering from a cross between book brain and the aftermath of the June birthday binge. Three out of four of us have birthdays in the space of ten days. The continual supply of cake had us all a little loopy on frosting.

Of course, that’s no real excuse for what I did a couple of weeks ago. On my to-do list for the day was a note to flea dose the pets. We use the drip on the back of the neck medicine. We changed brands this year, so I am not as familiar with the packaging, but they all work the same.

The dog takes it well, since he generally could care less what happens around him, as long as it involved attention. But the cats are another matter. With our cats, you have to hold on and hope to get lucky. So when I had a very needy Mohawk on my desk, I grabbed a tube and squirted him.

An hour later, #1 Son walked by and said, “You didn’t give this to the cat, did you?”

Apparently, the fact that there was a dog embossed on the plastic, and a picture of a woman holding a puppy, and a cat with a red ex on it, and the words DO NOT GIVE TO CATS, were not enough of a warning for me.

Ok. So I‘m an idiot. I grabbed the wrong bottle, gave him a dose for a 75 pound dog and poisoned my cat.

I call the vet. The vet gives me an emergency number for the flea med company, and says to flush the cat with water for 15 to 10 minutes. They ask if there are any symptoms.

Only if a skeptical glare is a symptom.

Mohawk was feral for a year before we got him, and before he came to us, he lived outside through a Wisconsin winter, probably by eating poisoned mice and drinking anti-freeze. Mo is made of sterner stuff than the average cat. I could probably throw him into the Gulf of Mexico, and he would suck up the spill, knock back some endangered wildlife and be home for breakfast.

But I’m not taking any chances. I scoop up the cat, yell for #2 Son, and we run for the bathroom. Through the door, I yell to #1 to call the emergency number for more info.

Mohawk might be able to shake off the effects of an overdose of flea meds, but Mo does not do baths. While I am trying to stuff the unwilling cat into the bathtub, #1 son shouts through the door that one of the possible symptoms is “unusual vocalization.”

Once he realizes what we are trying to do, Mo begins making noises I have never heard before. Clearly, he is dying. #1 son is asking for updates through the door, and Mohawk is a levitating ball of claws, trying to avoid porcelain and running water.

I am bleeding.

#2 son is standing by looking confused.

Mohawk: Help! Save me! She’s gone insane!

Me: Hold him down! For God’s sake! Get more towels.

Mohawk, is now pinned to the floor. The only thing he hates worse than water is the tub itself, so we’ve surrounded him by a dam of towels and are pouring the water directly over him and onto the floor.

#1 shouting through the door: Did he get any of it in his mouth? I saw him lick his leg. That’s bad. Very bad.

Mohawk: Bad? Drowning is bad. I don’t want to go out like this. Where is the lifeguard?

Me to #2: That’s got to be 15 minutes. Dry him off. He’s not getting any cleaner.

#1: And you used the dish soap, right?

#2: What dishsoap?

Mohawk: Sweet Jesus, noooooooooo!

Me: Wring out the towels, put him back on the floor, and hand me the Dawn.

Since I’m going long, this part of the story will end with Mohawk wet and broken spirited, kind of like Patty Duke in Valley of the Dolls. And under house arrest for 24 hours.

To be continued…

I was on the road last week, in New York City for BEA. For the majority of the world not obsessed with publishing, this is Book Expo America: the major industry trade show here in the states. Every publisher you can name has a booth there, and most of them are giving away free books.

I was in the Harlequin booth for 45 hectic minutes with Terri Brisbin and a bunch of other series authors, furiously scribbling my way through two cases of the Pleasurably Undone! anthology that Terri and I are in. We developed a fairly good rhythm, early on, passing the books back and forth between us, trying to get the correct spellings on the personalizations, and generally puzzling the readers, some of whom had just gotten on the end of the line and were waiting for pot luck.

This was a nice change from RT, a couple of weeks ago, where the readers had to pay for the books, and were being a lot more selective. I spent large portions of that three hours trying to slip my shoes off without offending the public. I settled on sticking my bare feet in an empty book box.

Of course, that sort of behavior puts you at risk of being asked to stand for a picture, and staggering up, with one foot caught in the cardboard, kicking around under the table for your shoes.

Risky.

But when the stock is free, you do not have time to worry about your shoes, because the line is long. While I like to think I that, as far as the writing goes, I put a lot of effort into turning out a quality product, when I am free, I am a literary genius and damn near irresistible.

As is everyone else. When I was not behind the table, I spent the rest of the day trying to find free books of my own to get signed. And I developed a pretty good routine of showing up at the table, just as they were running out of stock.

Timing is everything. And I didn’t have it.

I managed to get a handful of free comic books, to bring back for #’s 1 and 2. Including a copy of Witchblade, which had them looking at me like I’d lost my mind, or at least my parenting skills.

Apparently, when she first transforms, she is undercover as a hooker. It explains a lot about the costume.

In the evening, The DH and I went to the Harlequin cocktail party, which was in the rooftop lounge of the Dream Hotel, on 55th and Broadway. There we sat with Terri Brisbin and Leslie Kelly while Waitresses dressed like Robert Palmer’s backup dancers schlepped up and down the stairs with free Cosmos, Fiji Water and hors d’oeuvres.

Do I want the seared tuna with aioli? Of course I do. And what’s Aioli? (Garlic mayonnaise. Aioli is a word that hasn’t reached the Midwest yet. But judging by the number of times I heard it, it is used in New York restaurants as a password, to separate the locals from the tourists).

I had been telling #1’s girlfriend that New York was a great place, but not really like Sex and the City.

Well, that party kind of was.

Recently, I was grocery shopping, and bought some yogurt.

There is nothing new about this. We usually have yogurt in the house, and I am a big fan of both flavored and plain. But I was at an Aldi store, instead of a regular chain. And Aldi is home of many mysterious store brands, so I knew there would be no Yoplait.

But this was an Aldi’s in a Hispanic neighborhood.

Aldi’s is actually a German chain. Many products have a European flavor to them. In the cookie aisle, I was buying Jaffa cakes for my English themed promotional baskets. But the yogurt was labeled in Spanish.

So. I was in the Germano-Spanic grocery store, buying yogurt. And I saw a six pack of guava and mango flavored yogurt.

Cool. I like guavas and mangos. #1 son’s girlfriend is allergic to mangos, so they are kind of a guilty pleasure here. When she visits, I try to be careful, but have been known to accidentally slip them into menus, without thinking. I am afraid that she thinks I am passively aggressively trying to kill her. But really, I am not. I am just forgetful.

And I like mangos.

But she is not likely to be coming around the house to check the yogurt. So I bought them. Even though they were probiotic, I bought them. Because I suspect that most yogurt is probiotic, being full of enzymes and having active culture and all. It is only recently that they have begun to tell us, so they can add to the price tag. But Aldi’s is generally cheap, and these were not much more expensive than Yoplait.

There is nothing wrong with my digestion. I also do not read Spanish.

I just like guavas and mangos.

This morning, #1, who has returned home for summer, looked into the fridge and said, “What’s this?” And the DH said:

“That’s your mother’s yogurt.”

Whoa. Wait a minute. This is not my yogurt. This is community yogurt.

I blame Jamie Lee Curtis, and her stupid commercials, where she is surrounded by other middle aged women, and they are all talking about feeling bloated, and sucking down yogurt and acting like it’s a form of feminine protection.

The flavor is not tropical Midol, people. Just guavas and mangos. It’s not going to make you grow breasts. Shut up and eat your yogurt.

I’d be angrier at the actress shilling the probiotics, but I think Jamie Lee has her own cross to bear. Along with the presence of mangos in #1 girlfriend’s salsa, Jamie Lee’s breasts were one of the things I’d forgotten about. They kind of popped out at us one night, after I’d turned on the movie Trading Places and assured my teenage sons that they would love it. They did love it. It is a very funny movie. But I am sure the boobies were a value added feature.

And now, the owner of those boobies is known as “The Activia yogurt lady.”

Lo! How the mighty have fallen.

Summer movie season has begun and we are averaging one a week.
Recently? Date Night, which was OK.

And The Losers. The projector broke in the middle. Because of the inconvenience, we each got a free movie pass to use on our next visit. Since it was essentially free, I thought it was a damn good movie.

The previews beforehand were for The A Team, and The Expendables, both of which we will probably see, for the same reason we saw The Losers. Because they are all, essentially the same movie.

This week, we saw Iron Man 2, which I loved for all the same reasons I loved the first one.

The movie we did not see, nor are we likely to, is Furry Vengeance. Correct me if I’m wrong, but is this the worst title for a family movie ever? I was under the impression that Furries were adults who dressed up in animal costumes. And that sometimes, there was a fetish aspect to it. Not always, of course. But sometimes.

I prefer my family comedies to be 100 percent fetish porn free. And not to suck. Which is probably the actual problem with this movie.

Although I have a higher tolerance for sucking, when movies have the likeable, and generally attractive Brendon Fraser in them. (Why yes, I saw Dudley DoRight. How did you know?)

But I do not think I want to see Brendon Fraser dressed up like a giant fox. Or worse yet, a giant raccoon.
I once had a difficult bus ride, with a giant raccoon. It was a few years ago, at a science fiction convention where we got stuck in an overflow hotel a few miles from the action. But there was a regular shuttle to take us back and forth.

A similar thing just happened to me at the Romantic Times conference. Only without the giant raccoon, and the regular shuttle service. The shuttle we had last week was decidedly irregular. We hated it, because of the limited stops, and it hated us right back, probably because of the lack of tips. By the end of the conference the driver was threatening us with one way service only, and I was begging for a cab.

And a step stool might have been nice as well, since it was a hell of a jump up into that van, and I am a fat woman with short legs. It was not pretty.

But the shuttle with the raccoon on it ran both ways, every half hour, regular as clockwork. A vermin filled clockwork.

Now, I am probably being unfair, and one large raccoon does not fill even a small bus. But he was sitting near the front, staring at everyone with his big glassy eyes. And the mouth in his big furry head was full of extremely realistic looking teeth.

He looked hungry. And you couldn’t tell what he was thinking. What do giant raccoons think about anyway? It was creeping me out.

Years later, someone told me a story, in passing, about seeing a fresh raccoon in a hotel lobby getting punched so hard that it knocked his head off.

Not by me. But I could see why it might have happened.

The convention in over, but the memories linger. And now that I am back home, I have the time to post some of them.

When I left you last, I was bemoaning my fear of cover models. And clowns. This weekend, I did manage to meet a female clown, who was out of uniform. But although I did not find her scary, she admitted that she was clowning while pregnant, and that, to this day her son is deathly afraid of clowns.

Fetal Clown Syndrome. Kind of proves my point, doesn’t it?

But as the day progressed, I continued to dodge my photo op with the Misters Romance for the year. I do not like cameras. And I am not always sure about people either. And the idea of wedging myself in the middle of six enormous men, and standing still long enough to focus a camera?

There has to be an easier way for an introvert to donate $15 to charity.

But Becke Martin talked me into going out to lunch with the Ohio Valley Romance Writers and last year’s Mr. Romance winner, Charles Paz.

I was dubious.

But she assured me that he was “A sweetheart” and that it would be “fun”. And that it would be at Schmidt’s restaurant in the German Village. There would be cream puffs and German food.

Now, along with cheese, beer and occasionally brandy, we Wisconsinites know all there is to know about German food. Cream puffs as well, for they are a Wisconsin State Fair delicacy. But when Becke described the vegetarian entrée as being Spaetzle?

Well, let us just say that only Germans would find a way to make vegetarian food that is heavier than meat. And the meat served, along with chicken that I did not try, was bratwurst. Sliced in half. I had never seen that before. Is it possible to eat half a brat? Because I lived for a year in the brat Mecca of Sheboygan, home of the double brat bun, baked to accommodate two.

There is no such thing as a half brat bun in Wisconsin.

But even in halves, Schmidt’s does good sausage. I was in my element.

And I was seated next to Mr. Romance.

My original plan was to hide in a corner, observe, and blog. But I ended up right in the middle of the action, along with Becke, Gabriella Edwards, Keri Stevens, and someone I am forgetting ( but I don’t think it was Gia. Can anyone refresh my memory?)

And Charles.

Having heard horrible stories about previous RTs, and being the cynic that I am, I expected him to be gorgeous but…

Gay.
Creepy.
Unwilling to talk to me unless I stuffed a dollar into his pants.
Or perhaps all of the above.

I WAS WRONG.

Charles was and is, as Becke said, a total sweetheart. He can lift 500 pounds, and make witty conversation. Probably at the same time. He is a gentleman. Smooth without being fake. And he is also, umm, shall we say, easy on the eyes.

My husband has forbidden me to sleep with his picture under my pillow.
Between Charles the bratwurst, and Keri translating the dinner music, which was sort of country and western, but in German, it was a pretty good time.

I have survived my first day at the Romantic Times convention, and learned many things. Which, strangely, did not translate to Twitter last night, when I was furiously text messaging them.

For starters, I have found something that frightens me almost as bad as clowns: waxed, oiled shirtless cover models.

The first one I saw, yesterday afternoon, was selling raffle tickets for “Breakfast in Bed.” Except, he would be bringing it, instead of waiting to be served.

I cannot imagine anything more horrifying than being seen by a stranger, first thing in the morning. Especially not this stranger, who was dark, handsome, and probably tall (he was sitting down), and bulging out of a skin tight black tank top. And to pay good money for the chance? Even if that money is going to charity?

And the poor man was sitting at the registration desk, smiling and intimidating the hell out of me. But the people who were not sitting at the registration desk were the ones who could actually register me. They were all on lunch break, until 2:30. So for a while there, I just wandered in and out of rooms, confident in the knowledge that if someone tried to throw me out, I could probably force them to give me a badge.

More waxed men last night, at the Ellora’s Cave party. And most of these were shirtless, except for one who appeared to be wearing red latex and chains. And no, I do not have pictures. Except for a blurry one of the decorations on the stage, which appeared to be ET’s hand, and maybe a claw hammer (I don’t know) made out of big paper flowers.

Apparently, the big difference between Ellora’s Cave authors and Harlequin/Mills & Boon historical authors, is that they get lap dances from EC Cavemen, and we get tea. But if I am any indication, we can’t handle anything stronger than tea.