My Dearest Readers,
Yes…Twilight has taken the world by storm. Not since Harry Potter have we seen such a mania. Even my own daughter, who tries to go against the grain of what everyone else is crazy about, has melted beneath the charm of a vampire. Of course, I’m not going to spend my post talking about Twilight (though I could). I’m going to be delving into what I believe created that charm. Taking an understanding of the bad buy (vampire in this case) and turning him into someone we actually like.

As a writer, I am always fascinated how other writers approach “the bad guy.” And in some ways, realize that we all have a thing for bad boys. In trying to create the perfect combination between the bad boy/bad guy/hero that will make not just my audience swoon, but myself (and yes, I’m hard to please) I had to go looking for help. Hence the title of this post.

BULLIES, BASTARD & BITCHES is actually a book written by Jessica Page Morrell on How to Write the Bad Guys of Fiction. I don’t care if you’re a writer or not, buy, buy, BUY this book!!! And no, I’m not being paid to advertise it. The bottom line, it delves into every aspect of the Villain, the anti-hero, the bastard, the monsters, the devil, sociopaths, dark heroes and I can go on and on. I believe too many writers fall into the trap of creating the ULTIMATE villain. They turn what could be a potential creative twist into THE STANDARD. I have to say, I’m morbid. I rather like liking my villains. Not *loving* them, mind you, but liking them. In doing so, a three dimensional character is born. Because everyone, even Mr. Sociopath, has a human side even dog will wag its tail to. That is the struggle. To create a gentleman behind the guise. So…here’s a question to all you ladies (and gents, if you’re out there)…who is the villain who stole your heart either in a movie or book? And why? My villain? None other than Hannibal Lector from Silence of the Lambs. A true gentleman with the most disgusting of tastes who has the ability to romance even the weariest of hearts. Read the book and love your villains even more.
Cheers and much love,
Delilah Marvelle

It’s funny how little things can ruin your day, no matter how hard you try to keep on the sunny side of life. I’m not talking about car accidents or hospitalizations or being left at the altar…I’m thinking more about the little things that we really should be able to rise above and somehow drag us down just the same. And because I am a type A personality who loves lists, here is my list of the top five irritating things that really mess with my mood.

5. The common cold. No, it’s not leprosy or ebola, but you know what? It still sucks. There’s no dignity in a cold. You’re sloppy, you’re uncomfortable, but (at least here in New England, where souls are starchy) you’re really not sick. You really should just buck up. No matter how crappy you feel. It’s just a cold. Excuse me while I dash for the tissues.

4. Computer woes. A full-fledged crash is like breaking your arm, especially if you’re dependent on your computer for work, as are we all here on this blog. But even the smaller things just drive me crazy. I remember having to reset my internet access. It took two hours on the phone with someone in India. The new password didn’t work. I had to call back. Hours of my life, gone through some bit of capricious fluke in programming that no one really could pin down.

3. Bad hair. This doesn’t bother me on a normal day — my hair is whimsical, to put it nicely —  but you know how it is…the day you have to make The Big Presentation, your hair is frizzy on one side, flat on the other, you look like you fell asleep in a puddle of drool the subway, and no amount of miracle product is going to help. You keep trying to fluff your hair during the presentation, knowing you look vaguely unhinged, which distracts you from the actual presentation, which is tremendously important to your career. And then afterward, just when you think it’s safe, you run into your old boyfriend. And speaking of old boyfriends…

2. Running into an old boyfriend. I’ll be honest…I’m not sure I would recognize any of my old boyfriends (been married a while), but being caught off guard by some guy you used to love, someone who maybe broke your heart…it sucks. Sure, sure, you’ve imagined it a hundred times: in your imagination, he’s never forgiven himself for Letting You Go…in reality, he’s got a gorgeous wife, drives a Mercedes and just had dinner with Michelle and Barack. And you have bad hair. And a cold.

1. Those comfy jeans…aren’t. Ah, winter. Ah, Ben & Jerry. Ah, heck, what happened here? These jeans used to be the ones I could pull off without unbuttoning…ergh. Personally, I don’t use a scale; I use the jeans-o-meter. And when this method tells me it’s time for Ben, Jerry and me to have a little distance and reassess our relationship …well, it’s always a bit of a downer. I know, I know, eat healthy, everything in moderation…but I do love Coffee Heath Bar Crunch.

I could go on about those little things in life, but I think I’ve probably indulged enough for one day. How about you? What are some of the little things that can tank your day, even when you’re supposed to rise above them?

Winner of an autographed copy of TANGLED UP IN LOVE — Eap
Winner of an autographed copy of any other title from Heidi’s Backlist (http://www.heidibetts.com/books/index.php#back) – Brandy W.

Please send your full name & mailing addies using the form on Heidi’s website (http://heidibetts.com/bio.php#email) & she’ll get your prizes out to you!

Eap is the winner of the drawing from my blog on movies Wednesday. All I need now is your snail mail addy and I can get your book (and a few other goodies) out to you. Congratulations!

Good morning, everyone! Thank you so much to the Jaunty Quills for having me today, especially Cindy for inviting me and Kathy ‘cuz I adore her.

I am here to talk about my humorous contemporary debut, TANGLED UP IN LOVE. Or rather, the funny thing that happened after the release of release in February. Something I definitely wasn’t expecting.

You see, TANGLED UP IN LOVE is the first book of my “Chicks with Sticks” knitting trilogy. (Very sexy, very funny knitting, by the way. My editor and I like to joke that these are not your grandmother’s knitting romances. And it’s a very tightly plotted series, revolving around a group of six close friends—three female and three male. Although, not all of the friends get along at any given time. Two of them despise each other; two are recently divorced, but not necessarily happy about it; and two are sickeningly happy and engaged to be married.

Which is where the trouble begins.

Book #1, TANGLED UP IN LOVE, is about Dylan and Ronnie, who are bitter rivals and make a habit of carrying out a series of anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better challenges. Throughout their story, there are hints about the other characters, and I had many readers remark that they hoped the next book would be about Gage and Jenna, the divorced-but-miserable couple.

Readers are so smart. They’re right—Book #2, LOVES ME, LOVES ME KNOT (August 4, 2009) is most definitely Gage and Jenna’s story.

But what I didn’t expect—and where the trouble began—was how interested readers would be in Zack and Grace. Oh, I thought they would be interested, but in the same way they were interested in Gage and Jenna—as an upcoming book in the trilogy.

Instead, I have been inundated with letters asking me for the title of Zack and Grace’s book and how long ago it came out. Readers are terribly worried that they missed something vital—that they missed the story of how Zack and Grace fell in love and got engaged to begin with.

But I’m sneaky, you see. Zack and Grace’s story, KNOCK ME FOR A LOOP, is actually the third book in the “Chicks with Sticks” series and won’t be out until February 2010.

But how can that be? you might wonder. How can they already be engaged if their story hasn’t even been told yet? He-he. That would be where the sneaky part comes in.

Because even though these characters are a couple in TANGLED UP IN LOVE, things . . . happen in LOVES ME, LOVES ME KNOT, causing Zack and Grace to need a whole new book to find their true happily ever after. Ah, I just get crueler by the minute, don’t I? But trust me, you don’t want to miss any of these stories. Not only are they super-funny and super-sexy, they’re also very intricately woven together. Yes, you can read them separately or out of order, I’m just telling you that I think you’ll enjoy the series more if you read them as they come out. You’ll spend less time scratching your head that way, or kicking yourself later for not seeing how the whole series comes together when you read them one, two, three.

So tell me: Have you read TANGLED UP IN LOVE yet, and if so, did I throw you for a loop with my set-up of this group of friends?

And if you haven’t read TANGLED UP IN LOVE yet, what do you think of this little “tangle” I’ve accidentally created? Would you be excited to discover that a book you thought you’d missed was actually yet-to-be published, or would you be annoyed with the author (eek—that’s me!) for dangling this sort of carrot in front of you when you can’t run out, buy the missing book, and get instant romance gratification?

To make it up to one reader, at least, who’s already read TANGLED UP IN LOVE, I would like to give away an autographed copy of any other book from my backlist for you to enjoy. And for one reader who hasn’t read TANGLED UP IN LOVE, now is your chance. I’ll be giving away an autographed copy of Ronnie and Dylan’s story. These two winners will be drawn from those who comment on this post.

So toss your name into the hat by letting me know what you think of this intricately woven (*snork* I just love knitting puns!) story arc I’ve developed, toss a few questions my way, or simply bring up some fun topic to chat about—I’m happy to discuss just about anything!

Feel free to visit me at my website and blogs, too! I can almost always be found at www.HeidiBetts.com, WIPs and Chains (a.k.a. The Dungeon) www.heidibetts.com/wipsandchains/ and Must Love Yarn www.heidibetts.com/MustLoveYarn/

For Shirley:

more animals

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Congratulations to our own Anne Mallory, a 2009 RITA finalist for her book Three Nights of Sin! For those who may not know what the RITA is, well…it’s the most important award a romance author can receive and very prestigious!

Well done, Anne!

Seems like the Jaunties are in the movie mood. I’m just going to go with the flow and blog about the list Yahoo Movies just posted of the 100 movies you should see before you die. I don’t agree with all of them, partly because I think some of them were products of the time. Take Blazing Saddles, for example. It’s on the list, and when my husband and I tried to watch it recently, it just didn’t hold up. Yet we laughed ourselves sick when it we saw it years ago. Same goes for A Hard Day’s Night (although I didn’t know my husband when that one came out).

I saw a bit of it on cable a few weeks ago and… I hate to say it, but one thumb down. It was vaguely amusing, but that was about it. Another product of the time, when Beatlemania ruled. Maybe if I’d watched more of it, I’d have seen why Yahoo thought it was such a keeper.

How about It Happened One Night with Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable? Still great. It’s clearly a 1940-ish setting – with pay phones, and lots of other long-gone sayings and situations. But it’s a true classic story of a love between two people, growing out of nothing. Definitely rent it if you haven’t seen it.

And then there’s Alien, although after you see it 45 times (like I have) it loses it’s shock value. But it’s still a great portrayal of a strong female lead. I love Ripley! Even if you don’t like sci-fi, monster, horror movies – you have to understand that the Ripley character brought in a whole new dimension to female lead characters.

Disney’s animated Snow White is on the list, and I think it’s a keeper, too. It’s got everything: music, romance, a scary witch, and a bunch of dwarfs. The animation is flawless, and probably was a technology trail-blazer (although I don’t remember if that’s really true).

The Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and The Matrix are all on the list, but so are Nosferatu (huh?) and Raise the Red Lantern (1992, directed by Zhang Yimou). In other words, there were several I’d never heard of. How about you? Check out the list 100 Movies and let me know which ones you loved, which ones you think shouldn’t be on the list, and which ones you’ve never heard of! And if there’s one you think they missed altogether, I’d like to hear about it. I’ll pick one responder and send her a copy of my latest book, WILD.

You ever have one of those moments were you think, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

I did. About six months, sitting in the movie theater (during one of my rare movie nights) when an ad played for the movie Paul Blart: Mall Cop. I’d gone to see City of Ember with a writer friend of mine and I literarly turned to her and said, “Die Hard set at a mall. Why didn’t we think of that?”

I was flabbergasted. It’s such a simple idea, but it’s brilliant and full of comic potential. Die Hard set at a mall. Seriously. Why didn’t I think of that?  

Now, in all fairness, the Kevin James, the guy who stared in Paul Blart: Mall Cop also got a writing credit for the movie. So the guy who collaborated with him, Nick Bakay, is probably a buddy of his. Since I’m not Kevin James’s buddy, even if I had thought of “Die Hard set at a mall,” then chances are good that I could have gotten Kevin James to star in it. So it probably wouldn’t have been made. So I can forgive myself for that lapse.

Flash forward to a week or so ago. As always, when I’m on deadline and therefore–naturally–procrastinating, I go over to the Apple site to watch movie trailers. I love movie trailers. I mentioned, didn’t I, that I don’t get to go to actual movies very often? But man, I love to watch the trailers and pretend that I might make it to the movie theater sometime. So there I am, watching movie previews and I stumble across the preview for Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.

Have you seen this preview? If not, here’s the low down: on the eve of his brother’s wedding, consumate bachelor Mathew McConaughey is visited by … well, you can guess right? The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. Basically, it’s A Christmas Carol done as a romantic comedy. Again, why didn’t I think of that?

I can kind of forgive myself for not thinking of the Die Hard at a mall thing. After all, I don’t write action or comedies. But I do write romantic comedies. So why didn’t I think of A Christmas Carol romantic comedy? And more to the point, what other great ideas have I not thought of?  

Blade Runner, as an animated buddy movie. The Maltese Falcon, set at a zoo. Ben Hur, the romantic comedy. Okay, so maybe none of these are the movie script that’s going to make me famous. But help me out, ladies, surely we’re just one idea way from fame …

No, not a mental breakdown. A mental break. Maybe you call it a mental vacation? This week is spring break in our area. We’re both self-employed and our son is under two so school vacation schedules don’t mean much to us yet. But vacations — especially mental vacations – are critical. A trip to the coast isn’t feasible right now but I can always take a few moments to peruse my humor file when I need a lift.

Since Mondays can be rough, here’s a peek at a few items in my downloaded Humor file. (You have one of these kinds of files too, right? If not, here are a few to get you started.)

For those with small monitors or bad eyes, the text reads:
“Lola, it’s that time of the year. We should start thinking about swimsuits.”
“Yep.”
“I thought about Johnny Depp’s. How ’bout you?”
“Viggo Morntensen’s.”