MJ’s Musing: SEP-Natural Born Charmer

Many people I know consider Natural Born Charmer their favorite SEP novel. It’s definitely in my top five, but it didn’t make my top three because I really hated the end.  It has marvelous characters, a great plot, the best secondary love story in a SEP book, humor, pathos, community, texture, art, music…and a really lame ending.  For me, it was almost anticlimactic.

I went back and read the ending again, and it’s not as lame as I remember, but the problem is I remember it as lame. I simply couldn’t believe the heroine’s initial reaction when the hero “returns” to avoid a misunderstanding. And that’s where I get stuck. The heroine eventually returns to “form” and all is well, but it’s that initial bit that I remember.

I guess that’s my problem, not the book’s, but  that is why the book is only in the top five and not the top 3.

MJ Monday: MJ’s Motivation–How Badly Do You Want It?

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How badly do you want it?

That’s the most important question you can ask yourself when you’re going after something. Because if you want something badly enough, you will work your tail off to obtain your goal.

I have written almost all of my life. I always considered myself “the Writer” of my elementary, junior, and senior high school class. Imagine my shock when I went to a class reunion and discovered that not one, but two classmates had published books. My high school class was small–I attended a rural school district. There were maybe 100, 110 of us.

TWO OF MY CLASSMATES PUBLISHED BEFORE I DID.

My entire identity was at risk.

Having my self-definition of who I was threatened made me reconsider what I wanted to do about my dream. Did I want to continue slogging along, trying to get another agent or a  contract with a Big Five publisher or did I want to be a published author regardless of the route? How badly did I want to retain my personal status of class scribe?

How badly did I want to  say, “I am a published author?”

Eight published books later, with contracts for three more, I confess: I wanted my identity bad enough to revise my dream to suit current publishing reality.

What’s your dream? How badly do you want it?

 

 

 

MJ’S Musings: Claustrophobic Feet

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A social media acquaintance, after reading my lament about not being able to wear a pair of fun and funky boots, even though an ad for them beckoned me for months, said I had claustrophobic feet.

What a perfect description!

My reason is that my feet cannot abide being trapped inside boot or sneakers. If I can’t easily kick off my footwear, I don’t wear it.

But I really wanted those boots. So I bought them. I wear them.

They are cute as all get out. I am, however, of an age, where comfort should take precedence over cute. And I can’t wear them a full work day. By mid-afternoon, I am shoeless at my desk.

I live in a part of the US where we have winter. We have snow. We have feet of snow. So yes, I wear snow boots. And if we’re at an event in the winter, and I have to wear boots for any length of time, I go crazy.

But I’ve ruined several pairs of shoes in the spring when it rains because I just can’t abide wearing snow boots. My solution? Rain boots. Gardening boots.

Again, cute as can be. At least my poor feet won’t be stuck in them for hours.

Flipflop weather is around the corner.

MJ Monday: MJ’s Manuscript-Betrayed By Moon Exceprt

I’m pulling pieces of the manuscript before revisions, so these selections may change in the published version.

 

Selena stopped next to a neon cowboy hat advertising roast beef sandwiches and lifted her face to the night sky. Light pollution from the city cloaked most of the stars, although a few planets pierced the haze. The moon, waxing her way to the Milk Moon of May, begged for a song.

Selena sniffed the air as a precaution. No danger mingled in the hint of rancid grease from fast-food franchises, a rotting Dumpster, or the dog droppings someone hadn’t scooped. A smoldering cigarette added to the potpourri. Faintly, indiscernible to most humans, lilies of the valley leant their fragrance to the night. 

Selena resumed her jog. College town, the area around Warwick College, was safe enough. Still, she remained alert, her nose, her ears, and her eyes at the ready. She’d been careless once. Never again.

MJ’s Musings: Book Bingo: Sports Romance

Update on my Book Reading Bingo progress: I filled the “Romance with a Sporting Chance” square by reading Jean C. Joachim’s DAN ALEXANDER, PITCHER.

Baseball romance. YAY! I really enjoyed this book. I loved the whole idea of a woman hiding out in plain sight as “the hot dog girl” at a major league baseball stadium.  Loved the characters.

My only problem with the story had to do with the end. MINOR SPOILER ALERT:  if the government was hiding the heroine from the mob, the seriousness of her situation required…more than it was given in this story. That didn’t sit well with me.

Overall, however, I found this book to be a quick, fun read.