The Mighty Quinn

Jim writes about this song today and gives various ideas on what it might be about. An ex told me it was about a drug dealer. That makes sense. I nicknamed a character in a book “the Eskimo” because of that, and yes he was a drug dealer. I didn’t write much about the drugs themselves, since I don’t know anything and research is boring; instead I wrote about two guys having a long funny convo in the drug dealer’s house about which women they’d rather bang, such as Ginger or Mary Ann, etc. My story got way off-track because I began to enjoy writing these conversations more than the lurve scenes between the actual main characters, and I struggled with giving the protagonists enough screen time, so to speak. For some reason, this book isn’t even up for sale in my glob of books. That must be because I couldn’t decide which version to self-publish. Let’s take a vote.

1. The long one with all the off-track scenes left in that don’t even have much to do with the lurve story at all and make the book way too long for a romance novel but are funny?

2. The semi-cleaned up one that is less funny but more focused on the actual lurve story?

3. The super cleaned up version?

Then vote:

A. Prologue, which Elmore Leonard hates, but adds texture.

B. No prologue.

Title:

i. Attractive Nuisance (relevant legal term).

ii. Sweet Nothings (name of her lingerie store).

Thanks for your help!

P.S. Please remember that I still can’t read minds and you actually have to tell me in the comments what you want! 😀

FPQ23: I Burn Whole Cities

Fandango provocatively asks…

“How do you manage or deal with stress? Is there a specific strategy or approach that you’ve found to be particularly effective?”

My post title comes from the HBO show Game of Thrones where dragons have been known to release stress by destroying cities with fire. I am not a dragon, alas, though I have gotten vicarious pleasure especially during stressful times by reading A Song of Ice and Fire and from watching the show.

In general, I find that losing myself in a fantasy world of a novel or movie for a few hours is a great way to deal with stress. I do prefer movies over series, or series that have finished, because I don’t want to have to wait for the next season (and these days, that can be so unpredictable), which ends up leaving me at the mercy of people yapping online about the show and giving their predictions. Annoying!

Depending on what the stressful even was, I may wish to talk about it privately, with a daughter or a friend. I’m careful what I say to whom these days though, so as not to end up with more stress from the convo itself. I may write about the situation in a diary for my own clarification. I find the act of writing words on a page/screen to be therapeutic.

For immediate relief, deep breaths work. For a 24 hour period, repeating the mantra that “this too shall pass” helps a lot. If I can’t sleep, there’s always the Valium or Benadryl last resort. It’s really bad not to sleep because then I’ll feel even worse the next day, which will increase my stress. Cuddling my kitty and spending time alone at home usually helps me feel better.

Here are some stress management techniques that are supposed to help but do nothing for me:

1. Exercise. I know it’s good for me, but it makes everything hurt more and I end up with a (worse) headache.

2. Taking a vacation. Way out of my budget and I would be completely stressed about the money I spent.

3. Glass of wine. This is a migraine trigger about 50% of the time.

4. Music. This is tricky because a lot of songs pull up sad memories for me. I have to be careful about music. Plus, Gatsby doesn’t like it. Mostly I only listen in the car.

5. Sex. With a man? This was generally the cause of almost all my stress and giving it up has reduced my anxiety to nearly zero.

Dracarys! 🔥🔥🔥

Laura’s Music Challenge 13

It’s that time again, peeps! Join us for Laura’s music Monday and share some tunes. 🎶😀🎉

1. Post a video clip from a movie that involves dancing.

2. Post a video of a song that makes you think of medieval times.

3. Post a video of a song about sex.

Denial

Alyssa tweets that we should deny sex to protest strict abortion bans, and while I am Pro-Choice, her idea is wacky. Only women who believe the same will be on board, and most of them are already with like-minded men, so we’re punishing men who agree with us? Not to mention the fact that sex shouldn’t be used as a prize. Plus the fact that the anti-sex people couldn’t be more thrilled. 🙄

~*~

Via Sammi

Anniversary [100]

“Those petit fours look so luscious, Sandy,” Eva said. “They must have five hundred calories each.”

Sandy smiled. “Thank you! I thought we all deserved a special treat for the anniversary of our club.”

Jill shook her head. “My doctor told me to avoid sugar. Honestly Sandy. We’re all too old to splurge like this. You should have made something more suitable.”

“Geez,” Sandy said. “You ladies are–”

“Hey hey!” Norm shouted. “Are we all ready to draw names for our partner swap?”

Sandy, Eva, and Jill rushed toward the front of the room, forgetting all about the petit fours.

~*~

May 2 Prompt ~ The Haunted Wordsmith

FPQ21: Rainbow White House 🌈

Fandango’s back and there’s gonna be provoking, hey la, hey la, Fandango’s back!

“Do you think America is ready for an openly gay person to be elected to the office of President of the United States? Explain your opinion.”

I’m going to be very “Zen” about answering this question: The U.S. will be ready for an openly gay President if and when we elect an openly gay President.

We were ready for a black President when we elected President Obama for two terms. Apparently we were not ready for an LDS President, as Obama defeated Romney in 2012. We also weren’t ready for a female President in 2016, but maybe we will be at some point. Sometimes we accept male Presidents who cheat on their wives (Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, et al), but other times we toss them out of the lineup (Gary Hart, Herman Cain, et al). We’re a moody country and you can’t depend upon us to react consistently.

So, you will know when we’re ready for an openly gay POTUS when we in fact elect one and not before. If “Mayor Pete” goes up against Trump (not gonna happen), MP will lose. Nothing personal. If I had to bet on 2020 right now, I would unfortunately have to bet on the incumbent. 🤮

X is for Xenobia [A2Z]

Three Weeks with Lady X by Eloisa James is a perfect Regency romance novel. It has everything a fan of the genre wants. There is a beautiful and headstrong heroine, who is determined to live life on her own terms, even if it is 1799. We also have an arrogant, handsome, bastard son of a duke, focused on marring someone sweet and biddable. Said sweet miss is terrified of the bastard and would much rather hang with the affable country doctor. School friend comes to visit bastard and says hey nice decorator you got there… shame if some other man took her away from you. Bastard doesn’t like that idea!

Very fun book with little Easter eggs (homages) to other pieces of literature buried in the pages. I probably missed some. Explicit sex scenes abound.

Lip Service 💋 [SOCS]

Blips are bad when they appear on your phone, but on an EKG you’d better hope you have some.

Clips of politicians acting like jerks I’d rather not click on whether at home or at work.

Flipping my hair to flirt with a dude is something for which I’ve never been in the mood.

Lipstick is lovely in pink or in red, though it can mess up a collar or a pillow in bed. 💋

Slipping and falling flat on my butt I try to avoid though I don’t have much luck.

Tulips can be tiptoed through, or so Timmy sings, but I wouldn’t want to crush one, since they epitomize Spring!

H is for Heart [A2Z]

Heart of Fire by Linda Howard is one of my all-time favorite romance novels. My copy is so ancient it is literally crumbling! I figured for my review I’d just skim a bit, since I read it a couple times decades ago, and who wants to reread old books when there are so many new ones in the queue, amirite?

Wrong! I avidly reread the entire book at the beginning of April, not skipping a single sentence. It’s so good. From the carefully constructed protagonists with their cross-motivations to the lush descriptions of the Amazon to the exciting plot developments, it really is an interesting book. It reminds me a little of the movie Romancing the Stone, but not a lot, since the heroines are so different. But we do have a U.S. citizen gallivanting down to South America to search for something, and she does end up having to fight for her life against bad guys.

Oh, and she also meets her soul mate of course! 💖

Just a note about Mr. Wonderful. I gave the book 5 stars, but some peeps might find him a bit too aggressive for their tastes and blah blah consent blah blah. Hey, he’s too aggressive for my tastes! But I’m not the one matched with him, so it’s all good. There are explicit sex scenes in this book.

D is for Dangerous [A2Z]

Dangerous Indenture by Kelli A. Wilkins is a very fast-paced romance novel. It takes place back in the American colonial period when indentured servitude was common, and Shauna comes over from Ireland to work for Ashton’s father. This is a different type of romance novel in several ways. First, there’s nothing glamorous about it whatsoever. There are no castles, dukes, princesses, balls, fancy dresses, etc. It’s basically drudgery and discomfort, much like life itself.

Second, both the hero and heroine are… annoying. Ashton is a drunk. Now, there are plenty of romance novels that begin with the hero waking up in a drunken stupor, but he quickly gets his act together and does heroic things. Not Ashton. He keeps getting drunk. What the hell? Shape up, man! You’ve got Shauna to save. What’s wrong with you? He’s also horribly sexist, which of course you expect in the 1700s, but even so, most romance novels have the hero bucking the ways of the day and showing how he can think for himself.

Shauna also gets on my nerves. She’s so damn clumsy. Every time someone startles her, which seems daily, she drops and breaks a thing. I keep waiting for the dad to fire her (sell her indenture) for destroying all his dishes, but he doesn’t. She’s also flawed according to the genre, since she had sex before she meets Ashton and she enjoyed it. WHAT? Now, if you haven’t read romance before, you need to understand that, in the genre, only the hero is supposed to have the magic penis that pleases the heroine.

Third, while many romances have subplots of murders or other drama, the main focus is always the romantic relationship, and the narrative slows to focus on that. We don’t get much slowing of the narrative to focus on Shauna and Ashton’s feelings for each other in this story. They’re too busy working and dealing with the household drama/murder to ponder much over relationship stuff, which in a weird way makes the story seem more realistic than most.

For the first third of the book, I wondered if I would finish it, but I kept getting more hooked into the actual story and forgetting about the little annoyances. Then, after the halfway point, I knew I had to find out who the murderer was. I have to say that I did enjoy it overall, though I gave it 4/5 stars, not 5/5, because of the things I mentioned. There are explicit sex scenes in this novel.