Be-Mused — Karen Templeton

Okay, I’m gonna get all philosophical here for a moment (only a moment, I’m supposed to be, you know, writing this book) about the publishing biz and the challenge of staying sane in same. And no, this isn’t a rant about publishing, so y’all can breathe easy on that score.

What it is, sorta, is a rant about those who, over the years, have worn me down with their constant harping about Everything That’s Wrong With Everything. The kind of people who, when their names pop up on a loop, blog or message board, make you cringe because you just know the message is going to be whiny and defensive.

Not that getting and/or staying published doesn’t engender its fair share of perfectly justified rants. Anything that relies so much on pure luck, dumb or otherwise, is going to cause the odd head explosion now and then. For every bit of good news — making a bestseller list, winning a contest, getting a good review or making a new sale — there are a helluva lot more boulder-sized chunks of not-so-good news. Things are rairly fair in Writing Land. Or even make sense, much of the time. Hey, personally, I think the whole industry could benefit from some major retooling, because more and more some executive decisions seem nothing less than bone-headed to me, too. But hey, I’m just a writer, what do I know?

In any case, tender egos — and even rhino-hided tough ones — get bruised on a regular basis in these here parts. And unfortunately, being in tune with one’s emotions is kinda a prerequisite for writing relationship fiction. Which is a convoluted way of saying that we all have days (weeks, months) when depression sits heavy in our lap, breathing its rancid breath in our face. Blech.

But there’s bitching and there’s bitching. Letting off steam to close friends on a limited basis — good. Constantly whining about the unfairness of it all — not good. Aiming constructive suggestions for improvement, by citing why something isn’t working, to someone who might actually be able to effect a change — good. Attacking the very people who might be in a position to change things, or who would at least be sympathetic to your plight — not good.

Stating your case calmly, with respect for your audience — good.

Getting in everybody’s face about whatever’s got your panties in a wad — not good.

Besides which, chronic negativity wreaks havoc with not only the creative process, but eventually one’s health as well, which obviously royally screws up one’s productivity.

So. That’s it from me, my little muffin tops. And now that that’s off my chest, I promise giggles and guffaws when next we meet.

MARRIAGE, INTERRUPTED made the Walden’s list! Squeaked by at #10, but I’ll take it. Only three Special Editions made the list this month — it’s getting harder and harder to get a toehold on the list amongst all the Desires and Presents, so getting on at all is a huge deal.

Nice way to start a Monday.

Two and a half down, one and a half to go. Carved pumpkins, that is. And I’m here to tell ya, shooting is too good for whoever invented those insanely intricate design kits.

Kid wants to carve four pumpkins, so four pumpkins we get. Only, he can’t scrape out the pumpkin goop. So, fine, Dad and I scrape out the pumpkin goop. Kid chooses the first design, we pin it to the pumpkin, halfway through the transfer process, his hand gives out. Fine, I finish the transfer process, set him to carving.

You know what’s coming, don’t you?

Dad finished off the first one (a wolf face with this eyeball that’s supposed to somehow hang on a quarter inch sliver of uncarved squash — as if), I’m in the middle of carving out a haunted house with itty-bitty bats and gravestones and things. I have no feeling in my right thumb, I’m covered in pumpkin pyuck and right now I’m thinking, what the hell happened to just carving out a face???

The things they don’t tell you when you’re pregnant. . .

On my way from kitchen back to my office, I passed through the living room, where The Youngest was watching, of all things, a rodeo. So naturally, I had to keep him company for a minute. Because, y’know, writing for Silhouette, I never know when one of those cowboys is going to knock on my door and demand to know where his secret baby is, so I’ve gotta be up on my researching and all.

However, I only watched for maybe twenty minutes (I swear!), but got to see calf roping, barrel racing, and bull riding. Oh, and a couple of very funny commercials for Pace salsa, one of which featured an obviously city slicker cowboy who makes a whole mess of knots in his reins in an attempt to tie his horse to the hitching post, only to then aim an automatic lock device at the beast and double beep it. Very cute. Anyway, thanks to reading about any number of out-of-the-game rodeo stars over the years, I always knew it was dangerous. But I’m here to tell you, those people are crazy. I don’t care if they do blunt the bull’s horns, there’s no telling where the dang thing’s hooves are gonna land, you know what I’m saying?

I gotta say, though, those guys (and gals) sure do know how to handle their horses. Mm-mm-mm. And for all everybody says how “real” cowboys are wizened and bandy-legged and so not anything like how they’re depicted in romance novels, most of those guys weren’t exactly ugly, either. In fact, some of ‘em were downright cute. If on the young side. But then, you’ve pretty much gotta be young (and reckless) to get on the back of a bull whose sole mission, during that eight seconds, is to get you off.

And my favorite name? Howdy Cloud. Is that a perfect cowboy name or what?

Every year about this time, I go through the should-I-or-shouldn’t-I? angst about entering my books in contests. On the one hand, historically my stories don’t exactly rock the contest circuit (Because they’re too out of the mainstream? Because they suck? Who knows.), but as my publisher freebies are now threatening to take over my house even more than all those catalogs, I figure I might as well do something more constructive with them than rearrange them every few months. Of course, entering the RITAs is a given, never mind the huge depression I go through every year when I don’t final. And I seriously doubt anyone’s sales figures have ever spiked from winning a regional contest. But still. All those books, so little space. . .

Anyway, my latest Romance Writers Report came today, and I found seven — seven! — published author contests I could, in theory, enter. I say in theory because a) I don’t have that many copies of my books lying around, and the thought of buying extra books to toss at contests makes my head spin, and b) at $25 bucks a pop, seven contests ain’t gonna happen. However, since I seem to be incapable of making a decision today (whether to order pizza or get Chinese nearly did me in), I thought I’d just download all the entry forms and figure out which books to send where — if at all — later.

Except here’s what happened: Of the seven contests, three entry forms either weren’t up on the chapters’ websites and/or required me to actually send a snail mail for more info/an entry form (as if), or wouldn’t print. And another couple, upon a half-second’s reflection, really weren’t worth the bother. So that left two. Two is doable. For both of my 2005 books, even. And that leaves me money/books for a couple more down the road, should the mood strike.

The rest of my life should fall into place so easily.

. . .when not only do I vacuum the entire house to avoid working on my WIP, but I’m reduced to using the little crevice dealie to suck up ten years’ worth of cat hair from all the nooks and crannies (which means some of that hair is from cats who have long since passed into the Great Beyond. There’s an eerie thought). Heck, I even moved the dining table to get at the places the vacuum wouldn’t fit under (it’s kind of a trestle table with these wonker, low to the ground feet, which make lovely dust-fur-and-dessicated-rice-bits traps). Amazing what the procrastinating mind will find to occupy itself when pressed.

And on a completely different subject. . .is anybody else drowning in catalogs these days? I have piles by “my” chair in the living room, here by the computer, on the floor beside my bed, on the dining table, on the penisula in the kitchen, by my desk in the husband’s studio, on my desk in the husband’s studio. I really do try to toss the ones I know I’ll never order from (uh, no, we don’t really need $400 sweaters, $80 gift packages of nuts and pears, or anything from American Girl), as well as the duplicates. But still, they multiply like Viagra-ized bunnies.

Actually, though, I like catalogs, even when I know I’m not going to buy anything. There’s a lot to be said for armchair window shopping. Anything to avoid the Mall. Which is funny, because like most red-blooded American women, I used to adore shopping — or, more accurately, The Hunt. When I lived and worked in NYC (pre-marriage, pre-kids, pre-having-to-spend-money-on-anyone-but-myself), my fave thing to do at lunch was prowl Macy’s or B. Altman’s or even Saks (when I worked there), keeping an eagle eye out for the markdowns (hey, I was clearing something like eighty-seven bucks a week, if it hadn’t've been for sales racks, I’d've been nekkid). But that was back when shopping was still a hobby, instead of a chore. Now, I walk into a department store — have sales floors always looked like something out of a hallucinigenic nightmare, or was I just more resilient then? — and immediately get palpitations. Not to mention shelf blur. After ten minutes, I’m like, nope, can’t deal with this, get me outta here.

So I love catalogs. Five minutes of flipping through the pretty pictures, and it’s over. No muss, no fuss, no shelf blur. If I see something to actually buy, it’s a thirty second trek to the nearest computer and boom, it’s done. Which of course lands me on five times more catalog lists, and hence drowning in piles of the bloody things.

But at least all the fur from Cats Past (and Present) is gone. . .

And not, unfortunately, the five pounds I put back on over the last couple of weeks. Although it is worth noting that I’ve been up for three hours and have not yet gotten into the M&Ms. . .

But to return to the subject at hand. . .I bought two books yesterday at Sam’s, Pat Gaffney’s THE GOODBYE SUMMER and PLAYING WITH BOYS by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez. I know they were in the cart, ‘cause the lady pre-beeped them before I got up to the cashier. Which meant they had to still be in the cart when we got out to the car. However, when we got home, the Gaffney had gone missing, and the husband said he only ever saw the one book. Weird. So I was mildly bummed, since I’d already read the first page of the Gaffney and was ready for more. Now.

Except. . .somewhere in the middle of the night, I had a vision of the stack of To Be Read books on the shelf by my bed, and I clearly saw the Gaffney book.

Yes, boys and girls, I had already bought it, probably several weeks ago. Neat trick, losing something but still having it.

Oh, but it gets better.

Before we go shopping, I scope out the pantry and fridge to see what we need (I know, a really novel concept). So, since one orange juice was just about gone, I knew we needed two. And I did note that we already had one lurking in the back, patiently waiting its turn. Except, somehow, when I got to the store, all I thought was “Two OJs, check.”

So, yes, now we have enough OJ to last until Thanksgiving. And lemme tell ya, three gallons of OJ take up a lot of space in an 18 cubic foot fridge.

#5 has his Halloween party and costume parade today, since all the fifth graders were scheduled to go on a day long field trip on Halloween proper. So off he went in his Creepy Skeleton Zombie Thing get-up, which was basically comprised of an old pair of dreck green jeans and coordinating sweatshirt left over from some brother or other, which we gleefully shredded and ripped. And then the kid himself came up with the idea to wear a red T-shirt underneath to look like blood seeping through the gashes in the sweatshirt. Hey, as long as he thinks that’s what it looks like, who am I to disillusion him? We doubt, however, that the glow-in-the-dark Devil Skeleton mask is going to pass muster with The Powers That Be at school, but he’s cool with that.

Oh, and he made a four-foot tall axe out of construction paper to complete the ensemble. With straws taped across the axe part to keep the paper from flopping.

Ingenious, if slightly scary.

Normally, I’m not prone to impulse buys. A store can pile goodies galore on either side of the check-out aisle, and it’s a fairly safe bet that, unless it’s something I was gonna buy anyway, nothing will jump into my cart.

That is, however, until today, when mountains of Dark Chocolate M&Ms lunged at me when I wheeled into Aisle #10. Never mind that they were Darth Vadar colors — black, purple, gray, navy blue, burgundy, none of which have any business being associated with candy, fer godssake. They were Dark Chocolate M&M’s, so they had to be eaten. By me. In great, copious amounts, apparently, since you don’t want to know how many I’ve demolished since I brought them home.

Yes, I’m weak. So sue me.

You may be wondering (or not) how Jury Duty is going. Well, lessee. . .I started last Wednesday, and so far I’ve had to report once, which was today. I got there at 2 p.m., they dismissed us at 3. I came home and ate many M&Ms. Since the new group goes through orientation tomorrow, the rest of us are off then, too. So far I’ve earned roughly fifteen bucks plus 40 miles @ .37 per. Whoop-de-doo.

I’m about halfway through my next book, and it’s a total mess. But you know, if I ever had a book I didn’t hate at this point, I’d worry. More. But seriously, it occurs to me I have no idea what the black moment’s going to be. You know, the “boy loses girl” part of the story? And yes, I have a synopsis. As if that helps.

What helps, is more chocolate. . .

. . .because she’s actually been more interested in working on the book than coming up with pithy, witty blog stuff. Just the way it goes, sometimes.

#5 spent both Friday and Saturday night at a friend’s house clear on the other side of the city. And yes, we enjoyed the quiet. All that’s due to end, however, in about forty-five minutes when he returns, at which time we have to deal with a) homework, b) reading (which he hates), c) Halloween decorating and d) coming up with some sort of costume that says Creepy Zombie Skeleton. . .thing. As the kid himself would say, I have no clue. And all this has to happen before the West Wing/Desperate Housewives/Mystery marathon, which begins at seven. Should be interesting.

Watched THE INTERPRETER and BATMAN BEGINS this weekend. I think I was in a mood or something, because while I appreciated the performances in TI, I doubt I’ll remember it next week, and I think I hated BR. As far as I was concerned, they really should have annihilated Gotham City and been done with it. What a dreary, icky place, blech. Anyway, I have this thing about not reading reviews before I’ve seen the movie (unless we’re about to shell out the bucks to see it in the theatre, in which case it has to average at least a B or fuggedaboutit). Yahoo usually has about a dozen pro reviews on the site, and I like to guess what the average score’s going to be, based on my (naturally) objective reaction to the movie. Actually, I’m usually pretty close — if I rate the movie a B, the average score will be somewhere in that neighborhood. So imagine my shock to discover that everybody apparently loved BATMAN RETURNS but me.

I thought it was slow and overblown, with shallowly portrayed characters I couldn’t even hate, let alone give a damn about. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know it’s based on a comic book, but still. I adored SPIDERMAN and Peter Parker, so it can be done. To give credit where it’s due, I thought Christian Bale did a pretty good job, his overbite notwithstanding, and of course who doesn’t love Michael Caine? But whatshertootsies left me cold (she’s got that whole crooked mouth thing going like Drew Barrymoore, but at least it works for Drew). And movies that take place entirely at night weird me out after a while. Clearly, however, I am completely out of the loop with this one, since virtually everything that bugged me, the critics thought was awesome.

Now I know why I don’t review for a living.

My editor’s ass’t sent me a two-inch stack of coverflats for MARRIAGE, INTERRUPTED yesterday. What I’m supposed to do with them, I do not know.

Oh, and my jury panel has yet to be called, which is why I’ve been writing. Not going in on Monday, either. Not that I’m complaining. . .

Well, just got an emergency call from the husband’s cell phone — #5, calling from the car to make sure I’ve got chicken noodle soup waiting for him when he arrives.

And so it begins. Again.

Seems that the trade paper edition is now a “bargain book” over at bn.com, which is the cyberspace equivalent of those big boxes, or “dumps” of cheap hardbacks you find from time to time in brick-and-mortar stores. I’m not sure whether to be annoyed at the pittance I’ll get from these sales, or oddly flattered that I’ve been remaindered just like the big boys and girls.

Oh, and bn.com released MARRIAGE, INTERRUPTED a couple of days ago, much to my surprise. Although eHarlequin now has a new policy of releasing books a month early, too. So options abound for all you eager beavers!

Must go write.