Okay, at the risk of sounding like a squealing fangirl, I find that I cannot resist the opportunity to once again sing the praises of, bow down to, and otherwise extol the virtues of the television show Lost and the sheer glory of he who is Sawyer.

I don’t know who else has had a chance to watch last night’s episode–and if you haven’t yet and don’t want to know any of the details, you might want to stop reading now. But for those of you who have seen it, was anyone besides me blindsided by the way it turned out? Yes, I admit it. Maybe I shouldn’t have been, but I was blown away. Until the moment he tossed that bottle of pain pills to Jack with that cocky, knowing grin, I never suspected for even an instant that Sawyer had been playing everyone. Including the audience.

To me, it is a testament to the brilliance of the writers and Josh Holloway’s acting skills that they had managed to make me forget over the course of the last several weeks just how bad this character can be. His lazy charm and cute interactions with Kate lately had totally pulled the wool over my eyes, and I am all admiration that the powers that be behind the scenes haven’t given in to the temptation to suddenly make him a good guy. After all, as Sawyer likes to say, tigers don’t change their stripes. But despite the fact that he used Kate mercilessly, that what he did was wrong and reprehensible, I can’t help but still love Sawyer. Even at the end of the show, when he was telling Charlie that he had never done a good thing in his life, I wanted to believe that he isn’t completely irredeemable. That somewhere underneath that bad boy facade lurks some goodness.

Which leads me to my question for the day. What is it about a bad boy that makes him so irresistible? That makes you want to believe he can be changed by the love of a good woman? Somehow, the anti-heroes like Sawyer just have a way of drawing you in, whether it be on television, in movies, or in a romance novel. (Even though you know if you were ever involved with someone like that in real life you’d be ready to kill them within 24 hours!) So, what do you all think? What’s their appeal?

I sat down this morning to write this blog and I found I had nothing really to say. It’s not because I’ve run out of words, or God forbid, opinions, it’s simply that I’m so preoccupied with other stuff it’s hard to articulate anything else. I’m in the middle of the scariest deadline in my short career. I’m determined to make it, but we’ll see how the rest of this week plays out.

When I first started writing seriously, I knew I needed to work to deadlines – I needed to practice. I’d heard lots of published authors say that and so I made self-imposed deadlines and I forced myself to work to a schedule. It was challenging, but nothing ever happened to me if I didn’t make those deadlines. I almost always did, but there were no consequences if I did not. And I’m here to tell you that while I don’t think self-imposed deadlines are futile, but they certainly did not prepare me for real, in the flesh, turn-it-in-or-else deadlines. Frankly, I’m not sure anything can.

This business can be wonderful and rewarding and a myriad of many other wonderful things, but it is also extremely stressful. You’ve heard Kim and I mention our high blood pressure. Last year when I turned in A Study in Scandal, it landed me at the cardiologist having tests run for chest pains. Now granted I was also planning my wedding at the time and just a big, ball of stress, but I also knew that it was primarily the book and deadline that was causing all the trauma. Another friend of mine also had some health problems with a deadline of hers last year. She actually ended up in the hospital with stress-induced anemia. These are obviously examples of the extreme. But if writing is this harrowing, why in the world would we ever want to do it?

The easy answer, because we can’t NOT write. I would imagine at some point in our careers, each Quill has thrown up the arms and said, “I quit!” I know I have. Twice. Two times I quit because I just couldn’t take it anymore. Both times lasted for one day each. I can’t walk away from this. I won’t go so far as to say, it’s who I am, because I believe I’m much more than just my career. But writing is a huge part of me, it’s something I’ve always done, and it is something I’ll always do. I simply can’t walk away.

Despite the heavy stress, I love this job. Even in the midst of my deadline-induced delirium, I sat in my favorite revision chair earlier this week while frantically rewriting a scene, and it hit me: I am a writer. That still is so cool to me. It still gives my heart a little flip (and the good kind, not the bad kind – although it has done that too). I love this job. I don’t love everything about it. In fact there are aspects that I down right hate. I spend more time loathing the books I’m working on than I ever do feeling proud of my accomplishments. But I love this job. I’ve always said that a bad writing day is better than a perfect day at any other job.

I won’t say that writing is my biggest dream, that’s reserved for something else. But it has always been in the number 2 slot. And here I am. Published. They even pay me! I get books with my name on them (and the covers are so pretty!) I get to create worlds where wrongs get right and average geeky girls win hunky men who can’t keep their hands off them. I get to meet readers who’ve read my books and loved them. I get to use words like plucky and rippling and gooseflesh. I get to write full-time (which still amazes me and fills me with gratitude daily.) I get to write books full of trials and growth and strengths and weaknesses and passion and happy endings and all the other things that make life so worthwhile. All because I love this job!

I apologize now for any typos or ramblings – it’s just not my fault today. Only 21 more days until you get to meet the Ladies’ Amateur Sleuth Society in the release of A Study in Scandal.

Cindy’s post the other day made me think of this …

When my kids were in junior high, their school district was very committed to ‘conflict resolution’ programs and anti-bullying. I went to one program that discussed a very simple concept about what is considered the norm, and how it changes from generation to generation, or even year to year. The idea is that what might be considered the norm today would have been unheard-of ten or twenty years ago.

For example, when I was a kid, there was no blood (or very little blood) shown in movies. The bad guy was shot in the chest, he fell, but there was no blood. That was considered the norm. Nobody complained, because it was not the usual thing to depict actual bloodshed. And bad language? Did John Wayne ever say damn? Maybe, but not until his later movies, when a bit of swearing became the norm. As the swearing in movies and on TV escalated, we became accustomed to it, and it became The Norm. So now, in everyday speech, we use words our mothers would never have dreamed of using.

We’ve become accustomed to violence, too. So much so that it’s lost its ability to shock us. There’s violence on the news and in TV programs; we hear about casualties in Iraq and feel a moment’s sorrow, but it doesn’t really touch us. Seeing and hearing about violence has become a way of life. We hardly bat an eye any more. It’s become The Norm.

I promise to have a light post up tonight after watching Skating with Celebrities and 24. I need to make up for my spam downer.

Edited to add promised post…

Skating with Celebrities was pretty ho-hum for me tonight. I was glad Tai and Bruce made it though. They were the only couple that “felt” it to me. Yes, I know Bruce is a bit stiff, but at least I feel some emotion from them when they skate. There’s a quiet grace to their programs, even if they can’t do anything tricky. So, we’ll see what next week brings. I’m sure those two are out next week unless one of the other couples really does something crazy. Two more weeks until John and Jillian get their crown.

24 was a little twisty, eh? The calm before the storm surely, but there were a couple of very interesting setups in there. The loser friend of Lyn/Lin/Lynn’s (should I just call him Sam Gamgee and get it over with?) sister took his key card and ID, didn’t he? I’ll be interested to see where that little subplot takes us. Although I would expect CTU to have all of his info and access codes reconfigured in the shakes of ten thu-thumps of the 24 clock, we shall see. On to other subplots, I couldn’t hold the shooting against the kidnapped girl (Inessa, was it? I think I’m getting swimziemers). When the door closed I figured it was either that or she was going to find herself a tie like Walt. Anyone else find the Walt thing a mite too convenient? Not that it wasn’t expected, but suspicion is everywhere in this show.

Anyone else watch?

My contest form was spoofed this weekend using e-mail injection. In high level terms, what that means is that a person wrote a program that uses contact forms to send notes to their spam list. This does not effect anyone that entered my contest or that will enter the contest (so if you have your own form where this is happening, don’t worry about that aspect…well, until the spammers come up with something new). All it means is that some @($#&%^ spam artist used my domain (annemallory.com) to send spam to their closest thousand friends. Spammers = ARGH!!!

The forms have been corrected to block entry, and I wanted to share some information with anyone who may have a contact form on their site — make sure you use validation or limiting features on any header information that you send from your contact form, otherwise you are vulnerable to attack. If you’d like more information on this problem and how you can safeguard your own forms, please check out the links at the bottom.

Merriam-Webster on spam

Etymology: from a skit on the British television series Monty Python’s Flying Circus in which chanting of the word Spam (trademark for a canned meat product) overrides the other dialogue.
: unsolicited usually commercial e-mail sent to a large number of addresses

Full spam etymology on Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spamming#Etymology

A spoofing attack, in computer security terms, refers to a situation in which one person or program is able to masquerade successfully as another.

Links

A good explanation of e-mail injection – how spoof/spammers are infiltrating contact forms:
http://securephp.damonkohler.com/index.php/Email_Injection

Commisserate with others:
http://www.anders.com/cms/75/Crack.Attempt/Spam.Relay

More info:
http://seo.anthonyparsons.com/forum/thread966.html

Yesterday I was part of a panel of four romance authors that spoke to a sorority for educators. Most of the audience were also members of the Red Hat Society, and utterly delightful. Being teachers, they put a different spin on the usual questions. For example, instead of asking, “Where do you get your ideas?” to which I usually respond (with a straight face), “Sears,” they asked how we develop our ideas.

Three of us carpooled to the event, and on the way home, we discussed how pleasant it was, but we weren’t really sure why they’d invited us. None of them seemed to have a burning desire to write a novel of their own. After a bit, we realized their questions had been aimed at how to help their students learn to write. Now it made sense to have us there.

Teachers had a huge impact on me – did you notice that What An Earl Wants is dedicated my high school journalism teacher? – and I have the greatest admiration for their often thankless job.

So for my version of this week’s story-behind-the-story scoop, here’s a bit of how I developed the idea for Tony, hero of Kiss From A Rogue (available now!).

Tony was born out of panic. At least, the idea of him getting his own book was born out of panic. After my editor rejected two proposals, all the usual writer neuroses popped up: one-book-wonder, first book’s success was a fluke, I’d never sell again, etc. I needed an idea I could develop quickly, so I brainstormed with my critique partners and listed all the characters that already existed in my universe. Oh, hey, how ’bout that – readers love connected books, especially connected by male characters, and my first hero conveniently has a younger brother. Since Tony didn’t actually appear on stage in the first book, he was a blank slate – I could do anything I wanted with him. Right?

Not exactly. Consider the effect that the events of the first book would’ve had on him and his psyche: Big brother (the heir) has run off to war in the midst of a huge family scandal, and Mom’s in mourning and becoming a recluse because of said scandal. But somebody still has to be in charge. So Tony (the spare) drops out of college at age 20 or so and takes up the reins. His friends and classmates move on and graduate without him. For five long years he sees to it that the crops are planted, servants are paid, and he doesn’t bring any new scandal to the family. He matures. By birth he’s a plain Mister, but in many ways he’s treated like the earl while he’s fulfilling that role.

Big brother finally comes home from the war, an injured hero. Thanks for helping out, little brother, now run along back to school. Oh, and by the way, you missed the fact that a family retainer was embezzling from us.

Ouch. That’s some serious baggage to contend with. And having acted as the earl for so long, but no longer likely to inherit, he’s neither fish nor fowl. Now what’s he supposed to do with his life?

Here’s where I did have a blank slate – creating the perfect heroine for him, someone to help him figure out those answers. As for creating Sylvia… that’s another topic.

This week it suddenly hit me…. violence surrounds me. For whatever reason, the television shows I watched this week seemed more graphic and violent. The newspaper was filled with stories of man’s inhumanity to man….and on the the news stations it was death, death and more death.

Has the world really become more violent? Or is it just in our face more?

I worry that all this graphic violence will desensitize us to the fact that the victim was someone’s husband, brother, friend. That we’ll forget that this person with the bullet hole in his head had hopes and dreams just like we all do.

If you have children, do you worry about letting them watch such shows? And what about some of those video games that are on the market??

Of course, it could be just me…..I know I have a low tolerance for such things (I have nightmares after watching scary/violent television shows or movies)… but I can’t believe I’m the only one who hates to see someone on the front page of their newspaper, or on their favorite television program, covered in blood…

I have it on good authority (thanks, ladies of the Avon author board) that blog readers like to know about the story behind the story. So, since my book PRIDE AND PETTICOATS is out this week, I thought I’d give a bit more of the story on where that story came from.

But first, where does any story come from? “Where do you get your ideas?”

Every writer has heard that question half a million times, and the answer is not always crystal clear. The creative process seems murky at best and completely unexplainable at worst. I have had ideas for books, and even under torture, I couldn’t tell you where they came from. I started writing, and there the idea was. A scene I had not intended to write just appeared on the page. Really, as I was writing it, I thought, “Where is this coming from?”

Sometimes we writers explain this by saying that our characters took over. And we know to shut up and let them take over. The writing you get out of a moment like that is usually some of your best.

Other ideas are a lot more work. More often than not, I sit in front of my computer, a proposal deadline coming up, and push myself to think of an idea. These times are trying and stressful because that little voice in the back of my head starts piping up with, “What if you have no more ideas? What if you’ve used them all up? What if all the ideas in the whole world are used up?” (Overly-dramatic, I know, but I have that tendency.)

And then I’ll think of something and that shuts the voice up for a little while, at least.

The best times are when I have an idea for a new book as I’m writing another book. What a relief to know that once you finish project A, there’s a project B just waiting.

PRIDE AND PETTICOATS came out of this. I was writing WHEN DASHING MET DANGER (one of the books that came from nowhere), and as I was chugging along, I realized that I had to write Freddie’s story. Freddie is a spy. He’s also a dandy, though he edges his dandyism over-the-top because it’s a good cover for his covert operations. His main goal is to serve his country and protect it from Napoleon’s nefarious plans.

But make no mistake, Freddie does care about fashion. In fact, he abhors that which is unfashionable. And what could be more unfashionable than an American woman?

Once I had that germ of an idea, I was having fun. Poor Freddie. When he meets Charlotte, he’s smitten, and yet he’s horrified because she’s so unfashionable.

But I wanted a whole amusement park of a book, not one ride. I needed more conflict. So…why not set the story in 1813? Now, not only is Charlotte an unfashionable American, she’s an American in London at a time when England was at war with America.

That was an exciting idea to me. I could hardly wait to start writing the book.

And sometimes that’s how a book comes about — you know one character and think of his or her perfect foil. The conflict falls into place and so does the story.

That’s the fun part of writing. The rest of it, well, it’s writing every day, filling up pages, thinking of the right word, deleting half of those beautiful words. It’s work.

But I keep doing it. In part, because I keep waiting for the day when my character shows up and takes the story for a ride. The adrenaline rush is addictive, and I’m a junkie. As long as there’s a chance one of my characters will show up to wrest control of my keyboard out of my hands, I’ll keep writing.

Yesterday I spent some time procrastinating–er, I mean checking out some online news articles from the past week. (Yes, I really should have been working on the proposal for Book Four, but what can I say? The spirit is willing, but the mind likes to wander, LOL!) In my surfing, I ran across this and had to share.

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20060130083709990022&cid=

Now, perhaps I tend to overly identify with embarrassing and humiliating situations, having made a fool of myself in public on more than one occasion. Or perhaps it’s my own love of history and reverence for artifacts that have survived from past centuries that made me stop and take note. In either case, I can’t help but wince for the poor man at the center of it all. You have to wonder how he felt in the moment after it happened. Not only did he trip over his own shoelace in front of Lord knows how many other museum patrons and employees, but he managed to destroy some exquisite and very valuable pieces of history on the way down. Pieces that had been sitting in that same stairwell for 40 years without incident.

I’d say the museum made a smart move in not identifying the guy. And it only goes to show that my mother was far wiser than I ever believed when she told me to always stop and make sure my shoes were tied. I guess I can add that one to the list of adages that have been proven right, along with always wear clean underwear and never try to talk with your mouth full. Brilliant women, mothers.

It’s come to my attention lately that the more spread out our genre becomes among all the smaller subgenres, the blurrier the romance line becomes. Thirty + years ago romance consisted of historical romances, a la Kathleen Woodiwiss and Johanna Lindsey and the shorter category romances of Harlequin, Silhouette and a handful of others who are no longer with us. The lines were clearly defined. The long books were sweeping historicals set in glittering ballrooms, the dusty old west, a pirates ship, or even a divided house in the Civil War. The short books were charming and consisted of many bosses seducing their secretaries.

But those were our grandmother’s romance novels (and many of our own from our childhood/teen days). Things are different now. The romance novel has drastically changed. Now we have multiple subgenres and even those are broken down into smaller categories. Look at paranormal. When this first started, we mostly had time-travels and a few with paranormal phenomenon. Now we have vampires, fairies, werewolves, shape-shifters, aliens and anything else you can think of. Romantic suspense is huge. Chick lit exploded onto the scene and is still doing well. Contemporaries are no longer confined to the smaller category lines, they are all over the place ranging from hysterically funny to ten-hankey reads. The breadth of our genre grows bigger and bigger every year, but at what price?

Call me old fashioned, but where’s the romance? I wonder sometimes in all our cleverness if we haven’t forgotten the point of our genre. Are we sacrificing that great emotionally satisfying romance for thrills, chills and more sex? Are we spending less time developing great, 3-demensional characters in order to come up with the next brilliant subgenre? What happened to the romance?

I read and write romance because it’s about two people who, despite their own personal foibles, can grow and change and find love. It’s inspiring, and yes, it’s fiction, but it’s not entirely false. I think that’s probably why I’m so drawn to historicals. I think, for the most part, historicals are still true to the original romance. It’s still boils down to boy meets girl, they have a conflict, they fix it, they live happily ever after. There are lots more subplots, the heroines are more intelligent and feisty, and the settings are different, but that’s still what you find at the bottom of an historical.

Maybe this is the new and improved romance genre. Maybe I’m stuck in the 80’s (there might not be a maybe with this as I was actually jamming to my Debbie Gibson CDs yesterday) but I find myself longing for a simpler time when we focused on the couple, when the relationship was king and when the happy ending was deserved. I read outside the genre a bit so it’s not like I always have to have that relationship, but I always come back to romance – it’s where my heart is.

So what do you think? Do you like the more plot-intensive books or do you prefer the relationship driven romances?