Not in my real life, of course. I clearly have enough angst in my real life . . . hence this post being 12 hours late. I'm sorry. My pirate self is really crappy at time management. All those hotties handing out shots make it really easy to procrastinate.

But in my reading life, the more angst the better. My heart aches, my hands tingle, and I cry. I cry a lot. Ironically, these are my favorite books. I generally read near a box of tissues, in private so I'm not humiliated by the snuffling. Then I'll catch sight of myself in the mirror, all puffy-eyed and red-faced, and burst out laughing. It's a BOOK! And yet I can't wait to get back to it and cry even more.

I find the roller-coaster ride of angst-filled book to be exhilarating. I always have more energy when I set down a book then I did when I picked it up and started (which can be a problem when it's four am and I need to get some sleep).

So I'm curious . . . what do you find exhilarating and energizing when it comes to reading. Is it the angst? The sexiness? The humor? Does angst make you cry and humor make you laugh out loud? What's the best combination? Anyone love a perfect laugh-out-loud joke in the middle of a tear-inducing, angsty scene?

Don't worry, it's temporary. I fully expect to have something wonderful to rave about next week, honest. But though I read about three or four books in the last week or so, none of them are so wonderful that I wanted to rush out and brag about them to you.

So instead maybe you can tell me what you've read lately that you want to brag and gush about? Build my TBR pile please!

I'm not sure if I was supposed to blog today, but I think so. Checking in at 11 pm on Sunday night and Bo'sun doesn't have a post is a pretty good sign. I guess now would not be a good time to panic. We've all been on that bender, right, where you're on vacation for like five days, you're still fantasizing about Channing Tatum, your boyfriend's in town, and you're playing catch up on cleaning and laundry. Sure, you have. Some of you do it with kids too--bunch of show offs.

Despite my amazing abilities to create analogies out of the most obscure things, I have yet to find a blog of how watching MAGIC MIKE can improve your writing. I mean, I'm sure there's a blog for that; I'm willing to watch the movie several more times to write that blog; but I haven't found the spark yet. Too busy staring at Channing's abs, I suppose.

Today, though, I took my nieces to see BRAVE, which has a better chance of finding something more meaningful for your writing. I like to watch movies for the Black Moment--to see how it's done and hopefully to incorporate it in my writing. The Black Moment is a fine line, isn't it? EVERYTHING is lost--you've had hope all this time. You're holding your breath that it can still work out, and nope, the very thing the hero or heroine wanted most is denied. Usually through a fault of their own, something like a too little too late and they know it.

In BRAVE, when the heroine tries to change her destiny, she makes a request through a witch for a spell to "change her mother." Only she's not real specific about it--and her mom gets turned into a bear. When I heard this, I had some doubts, but actually it's pretty good. They bonded as daughter and bear, much more than they bonded as mother and daughter. So when it comes to the BLACK MOMENT, which my oldest of the nieces said, "It's that Beauty and the Beast moment", we were all crying because like the heroine, we were all sorry this wasn't turning out despite all her hard work to change things.

Anyway, this all makes me think: what does my character want most? Why is this wrong for them? How can I show them that their "utmost desires" is in actual conflict with what they actually need? How can I make it bittersweet and funny too? What scenes can come of the complications that arise from them not getting exactly what they want--how do they make the best of it, and what do they learn? Then, in the end, how do I show the worst of all possible endings, but still save it in the end?

I think Disney movies especially are great for these sorts of arcs; and I think thinking about them can help you brainstorm in your initial storytelling and later in your revisions when you're thinking about how to strengthen your book with shadowing and deeper storytelling.

What are some of your favorite movies and their Black Moments? Do you think about them or try to figure out how to learn from them? (Or am I the only weirdo there?) Has anyone else seen BRAVE (or MAGIC MIKE)? Do you like Disney's Black-Black Moments?

Anyone know what day it is? Really? I mean, I’ve been out of whack all bloody week. Holidays in the middle of the week should be illegal. Why couldn’t we celebrate the Fourth on the First? Or the Sixth?

Seriously though, it's really dry in most places this year so please be careful if you do use fireworks...any think of the poor dogs...um can I just ask that we replace the use of fireworks with something else?

Is that not very patriotic of me? Sorry, but my poor pups whine and cry for days as people set off loud fireworks, bang on pots and all other manner of craziness. Not to mention, who waits until 11 or 12 at night to set off fireworks? Oh right, drunk people.

Okay, now that I've probably driven everyone away with my mini-rant I want to relate what this day is really all about to our writing. July 4th for Americans is about Freedom and I think that's a wonderful word for writers to embrace.

I hope that putting those words on the page makes you feel like you can fly. That your mind is free to create and weave your inspiration into something you can't wait to share with the world.

As much as it sometimes takes everything we can muster to sit down and put words on the page, I'm tasking you to focus on how free you are to put any and all words you want down there. Think about that. You have absolute freedom over your story and characters. You are in control and the choices you have are infinite. 

Embrace that freedom the next time you sit down to write. Let go of stress and expectations and just write with a refreshed sense of anything being possible.

I'm off to the beach for part of the day today, but later I'm going to attempt to make these amazing looking (and low fat/calorie!) no-bake cupcakes from Self Magazine.

What are your July 4th plans? Have any fun summer recipe links you can share with us? What about the feeling of total freedom in your writing - do you love that or is it a foreign idea to you? Again, I challenge you to focus on that the next time you sit down to write.

Happy Independence Day!

I'm not sure where I picked up Elizabeth Hoyt as an author, but I know it was after everyone had been buzzing about her for quite some time. I was one of the last people to hop on the train, much like J.K. Rowling, and you know how much I am still kicking myself for that one.

Ms. Hoyt was unique in that she wrote in an earlier time period than most of her historical contemporaries; however, it is her newest series, set even forty years before her last series that has really shined with her brilliance. She is skilled at blending the dark and the light, the gritty and the glitter, the poor and the rich--and weaving tales so heartbreaking, you want to go back in time and meet the characters in person. You know they're there, in St. Giles and the more habitable parts of London--and you know from reading you would never buy gin or you'd never buy cheap products knowing they're created off the backs of child labor.

Her latest installment of the St. Giles series, THIEF OF SHADOWS, showcases Winter Makepeace, the quiet studious schoolmaster and manager of the orphanage where St. Giles' unfortunates find a safe place to stay. He also happens to be the Ghost of St. Giles, the masked Harlequin who scampers across rooftops at night and rights wrongs and saves those who are unable to save themselves. That is, until, he needs someone to save him, and Lady Isabel Beckinhall just happens to be the lady in the carriage who finds his passed out body in the middle of the road...and saves him.

If you like your heroes more on the reserved and quiet side, you will find Winter Makepeace one of the best heroes you'll read about this year. If you love well-endowed virgin heroes, then this is definitely the book of the year for you. I enjoyed him quite a bit, and though I'm not sure I would say this is my favorite book of the series (I didn't find the heroine as interesting as the previous three), Winter makes up by being pretty darned delightful. There's a scene where he comforts the heroine and she breaks down, and she says she doesn't want him to see her when she's ugly...and he says, well, just exactly the right thing. Move out of the way 50 Shades of Grey, THIS is the fantasy women really want: a man strong enough to hold her when she cries, comfort and caress her and not make it about sex, and then say she is the most beautiful, bravest woman he knows. Brilliant.

I cannot get enough of this series and I know I will be disappointed when Ms. Hoyt finally puts this setting to rest, but I know she will create and enchant us with another new part of London in a time period we don't know as well as we think we do, and win us again. Ms. Hoyt should be on your autobuy list. She's hot; she's emotional; she's historically accurate but not boring about it; her writing is gritty, sexy, and beautiful altogether. She writes the universal female fantasy for strong, caring, loving men who are flawed but beautiful where it counts, for sex that is as much about the mental and emotional as the physical, that isn't pretty but always satisfying, and for love that conquers class, poverty, and the hard realities of the world. And I'm very, very grateful she's usually able to provide two books a year.

Her next one cannot come fast enough.

Do you read Elizabeth Hoyt? Do you have a favorite series or book of hers? What book in a series are you most waiting for this year?  (Does not have to be Ms. Hoyt!)

And now and then…something comes along like Longmire. A new series on TNT, featuring a contemporary western sheriff in Wyoming. A basic crime drama based on books by Craig Johnson. It premiered a few weeks ago, has a nice actor as the lead, Robert Taylor and his sidekick, Lou Diamond Phillips, plus a female city cop as his deputy. I was enticed into reading the first books due to several things.





I started this blog, talking about images from a television series. I end talking about the writer I discovered because of something a bit shallow… I’m a big Lou Diamond Phillips fan. Yup, I tuned into the program because of him. And I discovered a phenomenal wordsmith. A cowboy poet.