This is a short one, folks. Every year, like countless other people, I make resolutions for the coming New Year. Some I keep, some I don’t, but I make them with the best of intentions. Maybe if I share them publicly with the rest of you I’ll be more apt to keep them. Or perhaps, that’s just wishful thinking. Regardless, here are my top five:

1. I will get into shape.

2. I will become a healthier person and try to give up meat.

3. I will stop ‘collecting’ makeup.

4. I will think better of myself.

5. I will be more patient with other people.

Pretty standard fare, huh? Well, I’m going in determined to keep and master all 5. We’ll see how far I get. What are your resolutions for 2011?

I’m feeling nostalgic this year as Christmas approaches. Lately I’ve been thinking about all the things we used to do at Mom’s house around this time of year — things that date back many years, into my childhood.  Every family has these traditions. Some of them are fun and sweet, and some are bizarre and laughable, but they’re there, and we do them because they ‘must’ be done every year.

In our house, because my sisters were much older than me and moved out, we would have Christmas breakfast rather than Christmas dinner at Mom’s. This was because the girls all had their own dinners to prepare, or were going to the in-laws later in the day. I swear to God my mother cooked at least two pounds of bacon and probably two dozen eggs for the 15 of us (a few of which were kids). There would  be homemade rolls and jam — sometimes even fried dough! We’d all gather around the table — there was a 2nd one for kids, of course — and eat until we were stuffed. And we’d talk. Usually at this point the rest of the family would have opened their gifts, so we’d hear what they had gotten — and would be thanked for what we gave.

After breakfast we’d file into the livingroom where my parents (pre-divorce) and I would open our gifts. Sometimes we would keep gifts under the tree for the grandchildren to open as well. My oldest sister ‘played Santa’ as she had for as long as I can remember, and doled out the presents. We’d unwrap, exclaim and gush over our gifts, thank everyone, and then when it was over, the family would trickle out to return to their own lives. Mom and I would work on getting the turkey in the oven, and sometimes my grandmother might nap, or buzz around like a raging bee, depending on how much tea she’d had with breakfast.

I remember that I wasn’t allowed to remove gifts from under the tree until the 28th at least. They had to be left there so they could be shown to guests who came to visit. This was big where I came from, going around to visit on Boxing Day and the 27th to partake in cookies, tea and to ‘see what they got.’ When I was a kid this was annoying, boring and sometimes a lesson in envy.

When my husband and I moved in together we started making our own traditions — such as watching Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Christmas, or The Muppets’ Christmas Carol, on Christmas Eve (sometimes The Nightmare Before Christmas as well). To this day whoever wakes up first on Christmas morning has to wake the other up with a shake and a softly gleeful, “It’s Christmas!” We get up — make our usual Christmas breakfast (no bacon or fried dough, sadly), and then enjoy our coffee as we unwrap gifts. I sit on Steve’s side of the tree and hand him his presents, and he does the same for me — that way we can save the ‘big’ gifts til last. Then, the rest of the day passes in a lovely, chocolate haze as we bask in how fortunate we are to be able to give each other so much.

This year we’re shaking things up. Normally we donate toys to charity. This year I’d like to adopt a family if we can. I have a check ready for the local animal shelter as well. Instead of having Christmas dinner here at home (where I make enough turkey to feed my entire family in Canada), we’re going to have it with friends. I’m sure this will be lovely, but part of me doesn’t want to break tradition, so I told Steve we’d get a turkey breast so we can continue to eat turkey for the following days.  And we’ve started a new tradition of getting together with friends on Christmas Eve, which we quite enjoy.

So now that I’ve revealed my traditions to all of you, I want to hear some of yours! What do you and your loved ones do to make the holidays special?

Last night my husband and I went out to dinner to celebrate an anniversary. When I told him we needed to go out, he said, “Why?” To which I replied, “It’s November 17th.” That was all that needed to be said. He chuckled, and pretended not to know what I was talking about, but it was obvious he did.

You see, on November 17th, 1995 we had our first date.

We were thrown together by mutual friends based on the fact that both Steve and I liked comic books. I suppose it was as good a base as any. The first time we met I thought he sounded like John Lovitz (He does a great impression), and was not terribly impressed. Imagine my disappointment — I had seen a photo of him a year earlier and thought he was cute, only to find out he was married (he married quite young). When I discovered he had gotten a divorce and was coming to visit this friend, I was a little eager to see if he lived up to expectations. Physically he did, but that VOICE! lol.

Needless to say I eventually heard him speak in his own voice, which turned out to be surprisingly pleasing. I asked him out — he was only newly single, after all — and he said yes. He was late and I had decided to engage in experimental cooking, so it’s a miracle we ever made it to date #2. However, when he left later that evening, he gave me a kiss good night. As I watched him walk down the street my heart was in my throat. I knew right then and there that he was him — the guy I was going to end up with. Of course I didn’t tell him that. lol.

You know, later on we discovered that his divorce had been finalized two days before that first date. I’d like to take this occasion to thank his ex for being such a cow that I looked like a princess by comparison.

So, every year we do something to mark the date. Sometimes I think we put more effort into that anniversary than the one that marks our wedding day. And you know what? I think I like the look of him even more now than I did back then. And yes, I still engage in experimental cooking, and his impressions are a hit at parties. I’m extremely lucky to have found not only a great husband, but a best friend as well.

Now I’ll stop bragging and start the conversation. Are there any special milestones or anniversaries that you and your significant other celebrate? Or maybe you have something in your family or with an old friend instead? Spill!

I’ve mentioned on here before how much I enjoy Emilie Autumn’s music. Well, last week I managed to snag VIP tickets for her New York City show in February! I realized that I have been to a concert since I took my sister to see Trans Siberian Orchestra years ago — and that was more her thing than mine. The last concert I went to was Alanis Morissette — and that was several years ago, and I didn’t pay $75 for the ticket. In fact, there are very few artists I would pay any real sort of money to see. I love Bon Jovi. but I can’t bring myself to shill out a couple hundred bucks to get squished in a crowd. Somewhere, my teenage self weeps.

Here’s the kicker — I feel like I’m 18. I’m excited for this show! I’m not at all nervous about the meet and greet included with the ticket, I’m simply genuinely excited to meet an artist whom I admire and have been inspired by. Plus, I hear her shows are very theatrical, so it should be a lot of fun. Illness prevented me from seeing her during her previous NYC engagement, and I thought I would have to wait a lot longer to get another chance, so I’m totally stoked!

So, if you could see anyone in concert, or in a live performance, who would it be? And what would you do if given the chance to meet them?

I haven’t been around much. I wish I could say it was because I was running around Europe having a grand ole time, but it’s not. It’s because I’m on deadline with a book due Nov 1. It’s the second in my YA Steampunk series and it’s giving me a hard time. Plus, I’ve been sick as a dog, which has slowed me down. So, now have to accept that the book won’t be as polished as I like when I turn it in — unless I’m late.

Here’s the thing. I don’t like to be late, even if it means the book will be better. The hubby and I are often late to gatherings because we have to drive almost half an hour to get to most of our friends’ homes. It drives me nuts every time.

Thankfully, writers have the revision process to help ease this feeling of  ‘Oh no, I just turned in a crap book’. I don’t really think the book is garbage, it’s just not going to have the atmosphere I want it to have. I tend to vomit the book onto the page, laying the ground work and plot down fairly thickly and precisely. The stuff that I come back to do once that foundation is laid is mostly setting, ambiance, and making sure I don’t have six characters with spastic eyebrows, gazing at each too often.

Still, even though I know the plot will be strong when I pass this book in (and plot is one of the most important aspects), I wish the rest of of it could be as firm. Meanwhile, my darling hubby is concerned about me pushing myself too hard since I’m still under the weather (I’m one of those people who gets sick in stages, so it can take me a couple of weeks to get over a simple cold). But, the book has to be written. I gave my word that it would be done on time, and I really, really, really hate going back on my word.

So, as I crawl back under my rock and attempt to meet my page count — while battling a head cold — I ask that you all forgive my low profile. I promise I’ll be more attentive after Nov 1.  I will also go one step further and ask you to indulge me. Do you hate to be late? Or maybe there’s something else that drives you nuts? Maybe you have a code to which you hold yourself but not necessarily others?

When I was 8 years old, I dressed up like Darth Vader for Halloween. We were poor, so I had a cheap plastic mask and my mother cut about a foot off the legs of an old black polyester jumpsuit. I thought I was pretty hot stuff. When I arrived home from school my father informed that my grandmother had died. Then he got in the truck and drove away, leaving me rather dumbfounded in the drive.

It was October 31st and for some reason, it was decided that I should go out Trick or Treating. My sister and her boyfriend took me. My poor sister sobbed for most of the evening, and I made out like a bandit on sympathy candy. Needless to say, going around telling people Nanny was dead was a hoot — almost as fun as walking into the houses that already knew and felt sorry for me.

That experience turned me off Halloween for awhile. I am happy to say, however, that my lack of Halloween enthusiasm did not last. Over the last few years it has returned with a vengeance and I am counting down the days!

The last few years we’ve hosted a Halloween party at our house. It started out kind of low key, but has been getting progressively more of an event. This year I’ve been combing through Halloween catalogs and websites, shopping up a storm. I’ve even bought a book on spooky cupcakes. I am going to bake! And put up lights and fake webbing. I’ve got Martha-freaking-Stewart Halloween items. Obviously, I mean business. The evites went out last month and I’ve been inviting everyone I see. I hope we have enough chairs.

So, I want to know who else is excited about Halloween. Any traditions? Big plans?

Incidentally, I discovered several years ago that my hubby was also Darth Vader that year. Talk about soul mates!

So, it’s no secret that I love makeup, right? Well, I’m popping my head up from working on the next Kady Cross book to share my excitement over a recent batch of cosmetic making supplies I ordered. I thought to celebrate, I’d share with you all a very easy way to make your own lip gloss! Here are some things you’ll need:

Vaseline (or no name petroleum jelly)

bee’s wax (You can get this at a craft store)

castor oil (optional)

flavoring (dig out your baking supplies — although non clear flavors will darken the gloss)

colorant — micas, dyes (FDA approved!), kool aid, old lipstick…

containers (little pots or tubes, depending on consistency) You can get them, and other supplies HERE.

microwave safe container or double boiler

Before you begin, dampen a Q-tip with rubbing alcohol and use it to clean the inside of the pot you plan to pour your lip gloss into. If you’re using a wand and tube or pen style container, put a couple of drops of alcohol in it and swish around, then empty.

Okay, so the amount of ingredients you use depends on how solid or thin you want the gloss. If you want something that you put in a windup pen or squeeze tube, you’ll want to use more jelly and oil. If you want to put the gloss in tubs, you’ll want more wax.

So, for a nice normal lip gloss with a lot of shine and a little firmness — the kind I’d put in a pot, I want to use probably equal amounts of jelly and wax. I eyeball most of this, so I’ll say we’ll use half a tablespoon of wax and half a tablespoon of petroleum jelly to make the base. Put these in your microwave container or double boiler and melt with/over low heat until blended and liquid. Remove from heat.

As the mixture starts to cool, add your color. I have colorants I purchased from TKB Trading that have a little castor oil in them, so I don’t add oil to this recipe. If you use dry colorant, you might want to add oil, but it’s not necessary. Typically I’ll put in some colorant oil and then mica. BUT if you’re doing this for fun and don’t want to spend a lot of money, you can use an old lipstick. You know when you get to the bottom of a tube, there’s always a good amount left below that rim. Use a toothpick or something to scoop it out. Add it to your mixture when it’s still on the stove, or before you pop it in the microwave.

Stir the colored mixture until it begins to cool (you’ll see it start to thicken or harden on the sides of melt container), add a couple of drops of flavor of choice — I like cherry or vanilla — then pour it into your pot or alternate container. Pop the pot into the fridge or freezer to harden the gloss.

Wipe out melt container with paper towel while the stuff inside is still warm — it’s easier to clean that way!

This is just one way to make your own lipgloss. A web search will yield all kinds of different recipes, so don’t be afraid to experiment! Lots of places, such as TKB sell premixed bases so all you have to do is melt and add color. Shea butter and beeswax makes a great lip balm, or you can use petroleum jelly all by itself. It really can be as simple as petroleum jelly and Koolaid to as complex as several kinds of oils and waxes blended with specialty colorants and micas. It’s really up to you. Mica will make a much lighter color but give a little shimmer. For deeper hues, a colorant or dye is needed.

If you don’t like to play and see how things turn out, there are plenty of simple lip gloss recipes out there. Just do a web search and see which one works for you!

So that’s my lip gloss post. Anyone have their own recipes to share? Or is there another kind of makeup you’re interesting in trying to make but not sure where to start? Let me know and I’ll see what I can do!

In celebration of M.A.C. Cosmetics Venomous Villains line (makeup based on Disney villains!) which is being released this month, I thought I’d surface from my new book long enough to inquire as to what characters are some of your favorite dark-side dwellers. Movie, TV, song or book, I do not care. I just want to know who and why. Here are a few of mine:

1. Malificent from Sleeping Beauty. Why? Because she can turn into a dragon! And she is rotten to the core. Plus, she looks really cool. (And she’s one of the villains with M.A.C. makeup based on her! Yay!)

2. Pennywise from It by Stephen King. I’m not sure what was creepier, the book version or the TV movie version of this force of evil. I think it must have been TV, because that image of Tim Curry as a clown with razor sharp teeth haunts me to this day!

3. Lucifer from Supernatural. The show painted the fallen angel almost exactly as I see him/it in my head. To me Lucifer isn’t ugly, but beautiful and charming — tempting. And smart. The most terrifying thing in the world is that which can walk amongst us unnoticed!

4. Michelle Pfeifer in Stardust, based on the book by Neil Gaiman. She plays the alpha of a trio of witch sisters, hunting down a star so she might cut out the star’s heart and regain her youth. Beautiful, ruthless and without remorse, she is a terrible foe, defeating everyone who crosses her path — until she comes face to face with true love, of course.

That should get you started. Now, give me yours! I’m heading to the M.A.C. counter for some Malificent eyeshadow!

Fall’s coming and for me that sense of excitement is in the air. Even though it’s been longer than I care to admit since I was in school, I still love shopping for supplies. Ah, the excitement of a new binder or pencil! I also love to shop for new clothes, makeup… And I come up with a plan for reinventing or improving upon myself. Right now my goal is to work on improving my writing, so I thought I’d share with you a few authors who make me want to be better than I currently am, or who push me to pay attention to aspects of the craft I may not have focused on earlier.

As writers, we all have our strengths and weaknesses when it comes to getting the words on paper. I’ve always had trouble tooting my own horn because I figure there are always people willing to tell me I suck, but I will tell you all that I believe my strengths to be character and emotion. For the sake of my own ego I’m not going to delve into the plethora of weaknesses to which I subscribe, and will instead jump into my current list of faves:

Married With Zombies by Jesse Petersen. Can the Zombie Apocalypse save Sarah and David’s marriage? Does a zombie only want you for your mind? I had the privilege of reading an ARC of this fabulous book (Aug 31st) and I wish I could pace like Petersen does. The scenes progress at a clip that adds a level of anxiety to the reading, and you’re totally invested in the characters thanks to Sarah’s first person narrative. My characters tend to think too much, but the characters in this book *act*. Only afterward did I realize that there’s not a lot of description in the book — not of characters at any rate. And you know what? I didn’t miss it, because they’re so well set up and so real in their actions and dialogue, that I already have an idea of what they look like. That’s good writing.

Ilona Andrews is one of those authors who make it seem effortless. Her plots are smooth and manage to keep you guessing without jumping all over the place. Her characters are incredible, but it’s her world building that really makes me green with envy. She (Actually husband and wife team Gordon and Ilona) really knows her setting. I imagine it must be so incredibly real inside her head. But it’s not just setting, it’s what has happened to the world and how it affects characters as well. Genius.

Stacia Kane’s a relatively new author to me and already she’s inspired me to the place where I love how good she is and hate her for being so good! lol. She builds entirely real characters that are so full of flaws you shouldn’t cheer for them, but you do because they’re so completely and wonderfully human. Her world is strange and yet terribly familiar, her pacing a mix of languid moodiness and frenetic tension. This woman is the complete package, and reading her makes me want to be so much better myself.

These are just a small sampling of authors whom I hold up as examples of real story tellers. They suck you into their work and don’t let go until the end, leaving you with that good feeling of a satisfying ending, and the equally melancholy realization that it’s all over until the next book. They’re part of the yard stick upon which I measure myself. Now, I’m not trying to write like them, or beating myself up for what I perceive to be my own short-comings, but I think it’s healthy for authors to think there are those out there from whom we can learn and improve our own work.

So, who or what inspires you to do better?

The USA Network uses the title of this blog as the channel’s slogan. It’s a truthful one. The shows are generally a simple concept, but filled with interesting characters that keep viewers coming back, because we care what happens to them. I think this is perhaps the most important aspect of writing. The challenge is creating sympathetic characters. USA has a stable of them from shows such as Royal Pains, Covert Affairs, Burn Notice… the list goes on.

Your gratuitous hero -- Timothy Olyphant plays Marshall Raylan Givens on FX's 'Justified.' A less than perfect man and a fabulous character.

In my book When Seducing a Duke, I set out to create less than perfect characters. The hero — Grey — is a man who has done awful things, and if he hadn’t been injured, he probably would have continued on his path. Readers had two reactions to Grey: love and hate. Some thought he was fabulous and others thought I should be burned at the stake for writing such a man. To me, these intense reactions mean I did my job. I made him real. Was he sympathetic? Obviously a few people thought so, but even people who told me they tossed the book on several occasions admitted to coming back, because they had to know what happened with Grey and Rose. So, I won some and I lost some, and I’m okay with that.

I find perfect people very uninteresting. Luke Skywalker didn’t become interesting until the Dark Side started working on him. Han Solo on the other hand, was interesting right from the beginning. Jack Sparrow is interesting. In fact, anyone Johnny Depp has ever played is interesting, because he makes them 3 dimensional people.

Right now I’m working on a project where the heroine is… different than those around her. Because of how I’m setting her up, there needs to be aspects of her that might be unsettling to some readers. I realized I was hesitating to do this because I’m worried readers might not like her.

Here’s the thing — I don’t think readers need to *like* a character, they just need to be able to *understand* the character. My job is to bring them deep enough into the heroine’s head to make that happen. I’ve often thought that to be a writer a person has to be something of a psychologist as well. A great example of this are the writers of the show Dexter. I say the ‘show’ because I haven’t read the books. Clearly they know what they’re doing if they can make a serial killer into a hero, but Dexter’s first person narrative is crucial for getting inside his head and seeing his struggle with his own nature. I find him fascinating.

Another way to make characters more realistic is to give them friends and family — even if it’s only one or two people. Parker on Leverage didn’t have a family growing up, and she’s aware that she’s broken in many ways, but now she has people who care about her and vice versa, and the writers are doing a great job of exploring how that character reacts to these relationships. This is why I watch so many cable shows now. I think the smaller networks take more care in building characters than trying to build platforms for their advertisers. But that’s a different soapbox.

So, as I visit my family (and take notes! lol), I want to know who some of your favorite characters are (TV, movie or book) and why these creations are like real people to you.

Meanwhile, look for new characters from me next June with the release of When Tempting a Rogue.